Darker Than Any Shadow

by Tina Whittle

I stayed out of Trey’s way for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, through the meetings with the APD, the emphatic uncompromising lectures, the walk-throughs and checklists and simulations. Marisa did the PR work. I saw her shaking hands with the APD sergeant assigned to the detail, hugging the mayor, making bright womantalk with the director of the Fox. She saw me out of the corner of her eye, but pretended she didn’t.

  When Trey worked with the Fox security team or the APD officers, he was calm and collected. But when he had to confer with the poets, the wrinkle furrowed between his eyes.

  Rico watched the proceedings with me. He seemed especially intrigued with Trey.

  “Have you noticed that when Frankie starts arguing, his hand drifts toward his gun?”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “I swear. Watch next time.” He leaned closer. “Did you tell him what we talked about last night?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s very one-track mind right now, which he has to be to do this job. Plus I was worried he might beat you up for slipping implicating evidence in his pocket.”

  Rico considered. “You should probably tell him.”

  “Why, so he’ll beat me up instead?”

  He made an annoyed noise. “Be serious.”

  “I am. Dealing with Trey is complicated business. He doesn’t do personal dynamics real well.”

  “So you got him put in charge of this whole she-bang?”

  “He does being in charge very well. Look at him down there, this is his element.”

  “Please. This isn’t about his job, it’s about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Haven’t you noticed? No matter what he’s doing—arguing with poets, taking down suspects, drawing diagrams—he’s always got one eye cocked in your direction.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, I think I’m at the top of his loose cannon list.”

  Rico popped me on the shoulder. “That’s not what I mean. That man cares about you. That’s why he’s down there.”

  Rico’s words hit me right in the stomach. Caring? Trey? I mean, he seemed to like me, especially when I was wearing red. But caring?

  I popped Rico back. “Shut up. You’re trying to change the subject, which is that you put a dead man’s phone in my boyfriend’s pocket.”

  “The cops were there. I had to get rid of it.”

  “But the only reason you had it in the first place was because Cricket took it from Lex and then couldn’t figure out what to do with it once he ended up dead in her bathroom. Getting rid of it wasn’t your problem, it was hers.”

  He shrugged. Down below, Frankie argued with Trey, who didn’t exactly go for his gun, but who did keep his shoulders down and hands open. Cricket paced the edges of the stage, much less wishy-washy than I remembered. Vigil said something to her, and her expression softened, her mouth curving in a sudden smile.

  Could I see her in the scene Rico had described, where she and Lex had argued in the parking lot about the ankh necklace, where she’d snatched his cell phone right out of his hand? Where a tussle had then ensued during which Rico, watching from his car, interceded with a punch to Lex’s mouth?

  Yes, I could see it. An entirely plausible scenario all around. Especially the part where Lex slunk off into the shrubbery and Cricket pocketed the phone, intending to erase everything on it, later convincing Rico to get rid of it for her once things got problematic.

  Down on the stage, Trey summoned Vigil over. Alone again, Cricket switched the smile off and paced the edge of the stage. Focused. Icy. Intense.

  “Cricket’s good at working people,” I said. “She worked me on Tuesday, works Jackson like a mean dog on a short leash.”

  “Jackson needs it.”

  “Maybe. But she works everybody, even Frankie, which is no small feat.” I elbowed him. “She works you too.”

  He sighed. “Yeah. I know. But she needed—”

  “She needs to learn how to take care of herself without manipulating other people into doing it for her.”

  Another sigh. I took that as a sign that he agreed with me.

  “I know she’s your teammate, but you’ve got to be smarter than your hero complex, okay?”

  “Okay.” Rico squeezed my fingers. “Look, I know it’s been weird between us ever since Lex died.”

  “You shut me out.”

  “I was trying to protect you.”

  “It didn’t work.”

  “I know. But you didn’t exactly listen when I told you to back off.”

  I put my head back and stared at the pretend clouds. “Possibly not.”

  “So how about we cut it out and start being straight up, like you said last night? You, me, Trey. No more hiding stuff.”

  I looked down to where Trey stood, straight and narrow, all purpose. He looked up toward the balcony and cocked his head. I waved and blew him a kiss. He ducked his head and looked at the wall, then threw one sideways glance back my way.

  I leaned my head on Rico’s shoulder. “Promise me you’ll always be my best friend?”

  “I promise.” He leaned his head on mine. “Talk to Trey. Tell him I said I was sorry and that it won’t happen again, that I appreciate all he’s doing. Just like I appreciate you.”

  My heart swelled all warm and squishy. “I won’t forget. And I will talk to Trey. I promise.”

  ***

  Unfortunately, Marisa stayed at my boyfriend’s side for the rest of the evening. If I came within spitting distance, she gave me a withering look and dragged Trey off into one of the field offices.

  So much for talking.

  I promised myself I’d catch him alone at some point before the show, then drove myself back to Kennesaw to prepare for Friday morning. Trey wasn’t the only one with a busy day on the agenda. He had eighty poets to protect, but I had two infantry units showing up at dawn’s early light to get their hand-sewn circa-1862 underwear. We would both need all the stamina we could muster.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Friday vanished swiftly, passing in a montage of black powder and field loads as my boys prepared for the Second Manasses redux. I’d never seen so many men happy to trek off to imaginary battle, and as my cash register filled up, I got happy too.

  Unfortunately, all that activity meant I was late getting to the Fox, and I had to park five blocks away in a cheapie lot. When I finally arrived backstage and found the team, I saw Cricket and Jackson in a private huddle, Frankie talking to herself in the corner, and Vigil smiling his lupine smile while he signed some sweet young thing’s clavicle. He saw me across the crowd and grinned. I ignored him.

  Trey had corralled every team into separate circles of security personnel and APD officers. The tight quarters had Rico’s nerves on edge. I’d smuggled in a bottle of vodka and cranberry juice by disguising it as a sports drink, but even that couldn’t quell the jitters.

  I patted his back. “Stop worrying. You’re gonna be awesome.”

  “You always say that.”

  “And you always are.”

  I knew the drill—twenty teams, four poets per team, one poem per poet. Poems over three minutes and twenty seconds would receive heavy penalties. Each poem would be judged by three judges, with each assigning a score from zero to ten. When every team had performed, the scores would be tabulated and the winning teams announced, with the top individuals going head-to-head the next night.

  So simple. So nerve-wracking.

  I stayed next to Trey. He said not one word to me, and I knew better than to say anything to him. He was cool and inaccessible, riveted on the job. It was somewhat disconcerting, but every time I thought of Rico on the stage, sixty feet from the edge of the balcony, I was grateful for Trey’s remote singled-mindedness.

  The Atlanta team had the next-to-last slot, finally taking the stage just before ten. Rico opened with a sloe gin fizz of a poem, lazy-sexy at the beginning, downright erotic in the coda. Cricket caught the vibration and let it wash over h
er poem, which was innocent enough by itself, a schoolgirl of a poem, but on the heels of Rico’s performance, every word sizzled. Vigil held the momentum with a summertime ode to an old flame, and then Frankie closed with a poem that sounded like thunderclouds tumbling atop each other, purple and bruised.

  The applause was thick and enthusiastic. I joined in, but Trey didn’t. He was on his cell phone, his expression no longer placid. I knew the look. It was not good.

  “He said what?” Trey closed his eyes and counted to three. “Yes, he’s telling the truth. Of course I’m serious.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. He held up one finger and shook his head.

  “Yes, yes, I heard you. I’ll be there in two minutes. Handcuff him if you have to.”

  He snapped his phone shut and headed for the emergency exit behind the stage. I followed at his heels.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Jackson. The perimeter guard spotted him making a drug deal across from the MARTA station. He’s demanding to see me.” He cocked an eye in my direction. “And you.”

  ***

  Jackson sat on the sidewalk, his back to the building, face in hands. The navy-uniformed security guard stood nearby, Jackson’s duffel bag gripped tightly. When Jackson saw Trey, he started to get up, but the guard shoved him back down.

  Jackson’s voice was desperate. “I didn’t do it! I wasn’t buying drugs!”

  The security guard’s voice was firm. “I saw you—”

  “You saw me talking to somebody, that’s what you saw!”

  “I saw you throw this is the bushes!”

  The guard produced a bundled piece of daffodil-yellow cloth for Trey’s inspection. It was a napkin from the restaurant, gathered to conceal something within.

  Trey opened his hand. “Give me that.”

  The guard handed the bundle over, explaining as he did. He’d noticed Jackson leave the building and head for the alley, where he met a suspicious male wearing an army fatigue jacket and combat boots. Jackson and the stranger exchanged a package. When the guard accosted them, they both ran. The stranger got away, but the guard pulled his gun on Jackson, who surrendered and started yelling for Trey.

  Jackson’s skin looked damp and feverish in the streetlight. “I told him it wasn’t drugs! Tell him I’m telling the truth!” He sent a beseeching look my way. “Explain like you did at the restaurant, about Trey! Tell them!”

  The guard glanced inquisitively at Trey. “Sir?”

  Trey put his hands on his hips and raked his gaze over Jackson’s face. Fifteen seconds passed, thirty seconds. Trey was a daunting interrogator even when he said nothing—the piercing stare, the cocked head. Jackson quivered but didn’t drop his eyes.

  Trey held up the cheerful yellow bundle. “What is this?”

  Jackson swallowed. “If you’ll look, it’ll make sense.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “It’s not drugs. But you’ll understand if you see.”

  Trey considered. I watched the calibration, the tick-tick of his cranial lie detector. Finally he pulled a pen from inside his jacket and delicately pulled back the layers of yellow napkin. Jackson looked sick to his stomach, but he didn’t protest as Trey unfolded the bundle, revealing its contents.

  Lex’s skull and roses necklace.

  It was exactly as I remembered—dark silver, deeply etched, with a grinning skull atop an Egyptian ankh tangled with rose vines. Trey gave Jackson the look, the one that could carve out canyons.

  I leaned forward and caught the scent of garlic and rosemary. “It smells like soup.”

  “That’s because I boiled it.”

  Trey blinked. “You did what?”

  “Dropped it in the stockpot Friday night. To erase the evidence.”

  “What evidence?”

  Jackson swallowed hard. “I thought somebody was framing Cricket for Lex’s murder.”

  Trey shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Pull it apart, and you will.”

  Trey examined the ankh, his expression quizzical. He doubled his hands under the napkin, made a quick tugging motion, and the necklace separated into two parts—the skull still dangled from the chain, but the vine-twined staff lay separate.

  It was a blade. Three inches of steel ending in a sharp point.

  Jackson’s voice was desperate. “When I found Lex, he was on his stomach. I didn’t know he was dead until I flipped him over and saw the athame sticking out of his chest.”

  “The what?”

  “Athame. It’s a Wiccan ritual knife. It’s not supposed to be used for cutting.”

  “How do you know what it is?”

  Jackson dropped his head. He explained. Every word sounded like broken glass in his mouth.

  Trey kept his attention on the knife. “It’s very sharp for something that’s not supposed to cut.”

  “It symbolizes the blade of truth, so it’s supposed to be sharp. That one’s designed to look like jewelry. Even Cricket didn’t recognize what it was.”

  He was right. To the casual observer, it looked like a rather ostentatious pendant. I would never have pegged it as a knife. Which was the point, I supposed.

  I squinted at it. “It’s very small.”

  Trey folded the napkin up again. “It’s enough. The pericardial sac lies inches from the surface. There would need to be force behind the blow, and the entry would have to be precise. But it’s possible.”

  Jackson had been watching this exchange like a hawk. “I didn’t kill him.”

  Trey nodded. “I know.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. Leave it to the innocent to muck things up. After all, Trey and I wouldn’t have been staring at a probable murder weapon if Jackson hadn’t be trying to protect his wife. It would have been really sweet…except for the wreaking ball he’d taken to the evidence chain.

  I sat next to Jackson. “Who was the guy in the park?”

  “A friend from college.”

  “A drug dealer friend?”

  He shook his head violently. “No! I told you, I don’t do that anymore!”

  “Then why—”

  “He was a fence, okay?”

  I started figuring it out. “You were trying to sell the necklace?”

  Jackson stared at his hands. “Don’t blame Cricket. She didn’t know. I thought maybe the diamonds were real, see? My friend said they weren’t. But he said he could probably get money for it anyway. He said it was a collector’s item.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. “There are people who collect murder weapons?”

  Trey’s mouth was set in a firm line. “There are. But this particular weapon won’t be going to a collector.”

  A familiar voice interrupted us. “Indeed it won’t.”

  I turned around and saw Detective Cummings standing in the doorway, the golden interior of the Fox behind him. He was in full arresting officer mode, with a suit and tie and badge shining in the slanted streetlight. He came into the alley flanked by two patrol officers and headed straight for us.

  “I need this area cleared now!” He whipped a finger at Trey and me. “That means you two are out of here. And if I hear one word of this in the paper tomorrow, I’ll have you both behind bars for obstruction of justice. Do you understand?”

  I looked at Trey. He looked at me. We both understood completely.

  Chapter Forty

  Trey and I left Jackson to his fate. As we entered the lobby, I saw two more guards escorting a confused Cricket out the side door. At least she’d gotten to perform, good news for both her and the team. I didn’t envy her the rest of her evening, however.

  Trey took the grand staircase two steps at a time, making a direct heading for the warren of smaller rooms past the concession stand. I hurried to keep up.

  “Trey?”

  “I have to get back to work. We’ll talk later. Remember, say nothing to no one about Jackson.”

  “But won’t people notice that he and Cricket are missi
ng?”

  “I’m sure they will. But for now, we can’t tell anyone anything, not even Rico.”

  He pulled out a swipe card and unlocked the door of what was obviously his field office. I recognized his trademark stacks of paper in military alignment, the neat in-box, the line of pens. He picked up one particularly hefty folder and opened it, eyes on the pages.

  “Trey?”

  “Yes?”

  “About Rico.”

  “What about him?”

  “He didn’t mean for it to happen the way it did.”

  “The way what happened?”

  “The phone in your pocket.”

  Trey looked up. And then I spilled the whole thing—Cricket’s fight with Lex in the parking lot, the scramble for the phone, the punch to the face, the subsequent ditching of said phone in Trey’s pocket when Lex’s death turned it into a hot potato. I watched as the sequence of events knit together in his brain.

  “Rico,” he repeated.

  “I didn’t find out until Wednesday night. And I was going to tell you, but you were asleep when I got home, and gone in the morning. And Thursday Marisa had you in her teeth, and today—”

  “Today would have worked.” He threw his papers down on the table, then turned to face me. “What did Cricket do with the phone the night she took it from Lex?”

  “Hid it under the bar in a jar of peanuts. She gave it to Rico the night of the memorial and begged him to get rid of it, but he had to ditch it fast when Cummings arrived. So he slipped it in your jacket, which I’d left folded up on the table beside him. He said he’s sorry.”

  Trey’s eyes held mine for most of the statement, but eventually they dipped to my mouth.

  I shook my head at him. “Stop reading me, Trey Seaver.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not lying.”

  “I know.”

  “Because you checked, not because you trust me.”

  “And why should I trust you?” He tilted his head, his eyes sharp. “You keep things from me. You tamper with evidence. And you lie.”

  “I told you the truth!”

  “Forty-eight hours after the fact.”

  “But I told you!”

  He started to push past me toward the door. “I have to get back to work.”