Another silence fell.
Glancing around at faces, I had a sudden, wholly inappropriate desire to laugh. I wanted to blame the Vicodin for this sudden flush of humor, but I found myself envisioning a tumbleweed blowing through the middle of the room, like a standoff at the OK Corral.
I looked at Black. That time, I found his eyes fixed on me.
I couldn’t help noticing he looked pretty damned good in a suit, too.
The suit was black, of course, and had to be tailored to fit him that well, given his height and how broad his shoulders were. He wore a dark blue shirt under the mandarin collar jacket and no tie. I found myself looking him over for too long––again, I blamed the Vicodin––before I felt him noticing my stare and looked away.
When I did, I caught Nick’s furious scowl at me and realized he’d watched me look at Black, too.
“When did you last talk to Ian?” I asked him compulsively.
Victoria White touched my arm, gently but insistently. “Please don’t speak right now, Ms. Fox. They are going to do this right... or they’re not doing it at all.”
When I looked back towards Nick, I could already see on his face what was going to happen here. Whatever circumstantial evidence they had on me, they weren’t going to risk holding me for it, not even with Homeland Security breathing down their necks.
“She’s free to go of course,” Nick said, still staring at me as he said it. His eyes glided up, taking in Victoria White. “We’d only hoped for her help at this point... you know, to catch a killer.” He shifted the direction of his glare, aiming it at Black. “...One we know will kill again. Probably soon, unless we stop them. One who targets women like Ms. Fox, as you yourself pointed out. I’m sure you can understand our urgency in this.”
“Of course,” Victoria White said crisply.
She managed to convey pure professionalism and utter disdain in the same breath.
“But our main concern is for the well-being of our client, detective,” she said. “Which I’m sure you can understand as well. So unless you are charging her this morning... .I am taking her out of here. You can arrange times for interviews for her through my office.”
She deliberately placed a pristine white business card on the table. The raised black letters faced Nick as she slid it towards him with two fingers.
Then she laid a hand on my shoulder.
Once more, her touch exuded protectiveness.
I knew it was her job to seem to be on my side, whatever her personal feelings. Even so, I found myself relaxing into the protective shield I felt from her that time. As I did, I realized again how exhausted I was, and then I was fighting a flush of gratitude so intense that it nearly brought tears to my eyes.
“We’re leaving, Ms. Fox,” she murmured to me gently, squeezing my shoulder. She looked at Nick. “Handcuffs, Mr. Tanaka?”
I just sat there, stunned, as Nick leaned over the table.
He didn’t look at me as he used his key to unlock the handcuffs on my wrists.
Once he’d finished and the cuffs disappeared into one of his pockets, I just rubbed my wrists, not moving from the chair.
Then it hit me again that Nick and Angel really weren’t going to try and stop me.
I rose shakily to my feet. Somehow, in all of that back and forth, I’d forgotten about my hurt leg. It crumpled under me as soon as I put weight on it, and I reached out, grabbing hold of the back of my chair and the table to catch my fall. Before my weight rested on either of my hands fully, Black was behind me, gripping my arms in both of his hands.
He held me up easily, pulling my back up against him.
He glared down at Nick.
“She never should have left the hospital,” he growled, his voice furious. “I never thought her friends would let anyone take her out of there in that condition... much less in order to handcuff her and grill her like a common criminal when she’s loaded to the fucking gills on painkillers...” Pausing a beat as he continued to glower at Nick, he added more darkly, “You’re never speaking to her in an official capacity again, if I have any say in it... not without a lawyer. And I will sue this department into the stone ages if you pull anything like this again...”
“Mr. Black,” Farraday spoke up, his voice warning.
I felt Black wanting to say more.
He was breathing harder, even as he fell silent.
His emotions crashed around me as he did, shocking me a little.
It hit me that this wasn’t just an act, or even posturing to get at Nick. Black was furious––so angry he was having trouble controlling himself. Now that he was standing so close, gripping my arms in both of his hands, that anger practically bled through the pads of his fingers and the palms of his hands into my skin. That anger felt aimed almost solely at Nick.
He saw what Nick had done to me, bringing me down here, drugged and in shock and injured, as the worst kind of betrayal imaginable.
When I glanced at Nick himself, I saw a scowl touch his face.
Glancing at me, he leaned back, folding his arms.
Nick’s expression remained closed, stone-faced as he looked away, focusing on the floor. Still, I saw something different there for the first time.
Something that looked a lot like guilt.
Then again, maybe I just wanted to see it.
BLACK CONTINUED TO support me, holding my arms in his hands as they led me out of the police station. He didn’t speak to me again until we reached the street.
“You’re staying with me tonight,” he said, blunt.
I looked up, but I couldn’t really see him from where he stood behind me.
“What?” I said, confused. “No. No... I just want to go home.”
“You can’t go home,” he growled, gripping me tighter in his hands.
I watched a stretch limousine pull up to the curb next to us.
It occurred to me only then that Black and I now stood on the sidewalk alone. Farraday and Victoria White had walked away as soon as we hit the open air outside the station. When I craned my head and neck around, looking for them, I saw them walking and talking as they made their way up McAllister Street, presumably to return to their own cars.
The sky was lightening. When the realization hit me, I looked around with a dull surprise. I couldn’t decide if I was surprised the night was over, or that it hadn’t been over hours ago. It was still pre-dawn, but the sun was definitely on its way up.
I wasn’t sure I had the energy to argue with Black.
“Good,” he said.
“Why can’t I go home?”
“It’s not safe. And I’m not letting you go, Miriam, so drop it. It’s my place or a hotel under armed guard... my people. Take your pick.”
Nodding numbly, I didn’t argue.
My mind started to turn over what Nick told me about Ian. I shoved that from my mind as well. I couldn’t think about that now. I would think about that after I’d slept.
A chauffeur had gotten out of the driver’s side of the limousine by then, and walked around to where we stood. Tipping his cap at the two of us, he gave me a concerned-seeming smile, right after he gave a much more deferential look to Black himself.
Then he was opening the back car door.
“Well?” Black said. “Where am I taking you, doc?”
I only exhaled, shrugging. “Wherever.”
Letting out a relieved-sounding sigh, Black immediately began to steer me towards the open car door. I let him bring me inside, leaning on his proffered arm before I got in and pulled my hurt leg onto the white leather seat behind the rest of me. I found myself strangely relieved that I didn’t have to explain more. I only sat there, my head leaned against the leather headrest, as Black walked around the back end of the car, not waiting for the driver but opening the door himself. He slid onto the back seat next to me.
“Take us home,” he told the driver.
“Very good, sir.”
I fell asleep before we even got there.
I had a vague memory of Black waking me when we arrived.
I had an even vaguer memory of being carried into an elevator... and then, after a blank-feeling pause, through a door I only vaguely recognized.
Not long after that, everything went blissfully dark once more.
That time, it stayed dark for a long time.
Twelve
LOSS OF CONTROL
I WOKE UP confused, my memory dull.
I was still so out of it, I didn’t much care.
I also found myself distracted from trying to remember anything when I realized I wasn’t alone. A body was pressed up against mine.
For a decent stretch of time, I didn’t much care about that either.
Well, other than the fact that it was comfortably warm.
I must have fallen back asleep.
When I woke up the second time, my brain moved a little faster. Fast enough for the reality of that body to fully sink in.
I still didn’t know where I was.
After a pause where I just lay there, thinking about that, I turned carefully, shifting my weight and head just enough to verify what I already knew. Someone was definitely with me, holding me more or less in place. I didn’t want to wake whoever it was, but I did want to know who they were. When I moved, trying to crane my head around to look, the arm around me tightened, pulling me deeper against him.
The tensed arm caused me to look down instead of back at his face.
The arm was entirely bare. Between that and the heat of his skin and feel of his chest against my back, I realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Yet it wasn’t Ian’s arm I found myself looking at, or Ian’s chest I felt against my back.
Tattoos ran down the inside of a more muscular and darker-toned left arm, including a large “S” on his forearm in black ink. I stared at that “S” mark for a long time for some reason, trying to decide what it meant. Next to it someone tattooed what looked almost like a serial number.
He had no scars that I could see, no marks at all except the recent ones from the other night, which consisted of a couple of cuts and bruises on his hand. The rest of his arm was untouched apart from those simple and somehow official-looking tattoos.
Studying the lean musculature, the even color of his skin around the tattoos, I didn’t move for a long moment as my mind processed the fact he was even there. I was pretty sure I recognized the arm by then, from having seen it bare once before.
I at least recognized one of the rings he wore.
It was heavy brushed silver, with a set of rune-like patterns on the outside.
I was still looking at it, touching his fingers tentatively to turn it slightly so I could better examine the markings, when he pressed up against me, tightening his arm a second time.
That time, I felt a curl of heat go through me, catching in my chest.
Whatever it was, it didn’t feel like it originated in me.
Before I could decide how to react to that, he tugged me further into the middle of the bed. I still hadn’t yet made up my mind whether to resist when he pulled his own body out of the way, still tugging on me so that I shifted to my back. I found myself looking up at him, fighting the conflicting emotions running through me when I saw those gold eyes staring down.
I felt that heat on him intensify.
“How do you feel?” he said gruffly.
Closing my eyes, I looked away. I started to get up, but he didn’t move out of my way to accommodate me. Catching hold of my wrists, he held me down instead.
“Relax. You’re injured, doc. Don’t get in a hurry.”
I looked back up at him.
“What are you doing?” I said. “Here, I mean? With me?”
“Sharing light,” he said at once.
“What? What does that mean?”
His jaw tightened. He shook his head perceptibly, but seemingly not in a no, or in frustration really. He didn’t look away, but continued to stare down at my face. I saw his pupils visibly dilate and swallowed, feeling a wash of nerves go through me in spite of myself.
“It’s a seer thing,” he said, his voice still gruff. “It should help you heal faster.”
“From this... sharing light?” I said. I tried lamely to insert humor in my voice and only half-succeeded. “And that required you to be in bed with me? Shirtless?”
His eyes flickered over my face. “Yes,” he said.
The silence between us deepened.
I started to get up again, but he held me there, gripping my wrists.
“Relax.”
“Am I a prisoner here?” I said, exasperated.
I still wasn’t afraid of him for some reason.
“You hurt your leg,” he said.
“I’m aware of that. Does that mean I can’t use the bathroom?”
“That’s not why you want to get up,” he said.
Swallowing, I stared up at his face. He was right. I didn’t really want to think about the implications of his observation, but I knew he was right.
My mind went to Ian. But I didn’t want to think about Ian either, or what Nick had told me the night before, which I now remembered, even if some of the details were still fuzzy.
I remembered the gist.
Ian lied to me.
More than lied, he’d treated me like one of his damned interrogations for his job, like I was a spy behind enemy lines. And yes, I’d been lying to him too, so maybe I deserved it. Maybe he even had a right to do it, if he’d been worried about me like Nick said.
Maybe, like Nick, Ian thought I was being manipulated by a psychopath.
Even so, I couldn’t believe Ian had done what he did... or maybe just that he’d done it the way he did it. I knew we’d been having problems lately, and miscommunications, and yes, honesty issues... but I couldn’t believe he’d resort to running a game on me rather than asking me outright what the hell was going on, at least once he’d brought me outside. Even with Ian’s job, I never would have believed it of him.
Moreover, if he was that worried about me, why had he left me with Black at all? To see if I’d sleep with him? To see if I’d feel guilty and call him, confess my sins like I’d contemplated doing as I stood outside the Cliff House door?
I’d never wanted to believe that we could be that couple. The game-playing, entrapping one another, spying on one another couple.
I never would have done anything like that to him.
Well, I thought to myself. Probably not.
I tried to decide if that would be true if I’d suspected Ian of an affair.
I’d always been the one who struggled with jealousy... not Ian. I was the one who had to fight to be rational, to act like an adult when it came to my feelings. Ian was Mr. Rational. That was part of the reason I told myself Ian was good for me; he helped me to think before I spoke, to put reason before feeling. When I was a kid I’d been so out of control. Outbursts, tantrums, irrational anger and jealousy. I’d gotten in fights. I’d worked most of my adult life to develop a cooler exterior, to be able to present my feelings logically.
Normally Ian helped with that.
Now this rationality of his struck me as a bit cold.
Maybe mine had gotten pretty cold, too.
I found myself remembering Zoe, how dumb she thought it was that I was always trying to control my emotions. Being sixteen, she mocked me for “playing grown-up,” and “acting like mom.” Zoe was more like our dad. Unapologetic. Spontaneous. Quick to anger but also quick to laugh. Affectionate.
Yet dad had always worried about me... not Zoe.
Dad thought I was the one who was too volatile.
Thinking about that now, it struck me as strange.
I knew I was still distracting myself from Black though, whose stare I could still feel. I tried to think about Ian objectively instead, to put myself in Ian’s shoes, but I knew at least some of that was avoidance, too. I tried to decide how I really felt about him, but I couldn’t make up my mind about that either.
&nb
sp; Whatever his reasons for doing what he did, I couldn’t think about it now.
I needed to ask Ian those questions personally.
“I can’t be here,” I told Black, looking up. “I need to go home.”
He shook his head, once. “It’s not safe.”
I let out an incredulous laugh. “From who?”
“The killer,” he said. “Give me more time, Miriam. A few more hours. Stay with me until we ID him for real... then you can go home.”
I gave him an impatient look, meeting his gaze. “Now who’s lying?”
“I can have multiple reasons for saying something without lying,” he said, no apology in his voice. “And I do have people looking for him right now... which is all that matters.”
When I exhaled, half in exasperation, he pressed up against me again.
That time, I closed my eyes. I couldn’t help it, or the flush of reaction that heated my skin.
Glancing up, I felt my jaw tighten as he watched my face. I felt that heat on him intensify more, the longer he stared at me, right before he lowered his mouth.
“Don’t,” I said, turning my head.
He raised his head at once.
I felt more of him though. Enough of him seemed to snake around me that I was having trouble thinking about or feeling anything else. Heat lived in that wash of presence. Heat, but not only that. The feeling there caught in my chest, making it hard to breathe. I felt emotion in that heat, longing, a pain that slid through the very pores of my skin, pulling on me like a physical force. It brought a strange mix of nausea and discomfort, most of that centered in my chest and belly. My hands curled into fists as the feeling worsened.
I realized whatever it was, it was making me more emotional, too.
“What the hell is that?” I said finally. “What are you doing to me?”
I looked up when he didn’t answer right away.
I studied his face, noting the hardness of his features as he looked at me.
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