by Karen Rose
The last time he’d called her out of the blue, his information had led her to four dead bodies. So, without hesitation, she’d done as he’d asked. But now he wasn’t here.
The only visible signs of life on the street were the two homeless people eyeing her with unabashed interest from their spot on the stoop of the boarded-up building nearest to where she stood. She took two bottles of water from the trunk of her car, conscious of three other people peeking out from the windows of the building across the street. She handed a bottle to each of the two elderly people tucked up against the building for the night, their belongings in a shared shopping cart. Tommy and Edna were regulars on this corner. She’d known them for years.
‘It’s hot,’ Scarlett said quietly.
‘A real scorcher,’ Tommy agreed, his teeth flashing white against his dark skin as he struggled with the bottle’s cap, crowing when he twisted it off. ‘Whatchu doin’ here this time of night, Miss Scarlett?’ he asked, exaggerating his deep drawl as he said her name.
‘Tommy,’ Scarlett chided gently, glancing up and down the street. Still no sign of her caller. ‘Whatchu doin’ out here in this heat? You know it’s not good for your heart.’
Tommy sighed dramatically. ‘My heart’s done for already. It got all trampled on by you, Miss Scarlett, when I asked you to marry me for the very last time.’
Scarlett’s lips curved. Tommy was a rascal, but she genuinely liked him. ‘If I’d said yes, that really would be bad for your heart. You couldn’t handle me.’
Tommy’s laugh was raspy from a lifetime of smoking. ‘You’re right ’bout that.’ He lifted a finger in warning. ‘And don’t be telling me to go to the Meadow. I been there three times this week. That pretty Dr Dani says I’m right as rain.’
The seventy-year-old woman next to him snorted. Edna had lived on the streets of Cincinnati for as long as Scarlett had been a cop. ‘He’s full of shit, that one is, but he’s telling the truth about the Meadow. He did go this week. Once.’
Scarlett lifted her brows. ‘And did Dr Dani say he was right as rain?’
Edna shrugged. ‘Acid rain, maybe.’
The Meadow was the local shelter, and ‘that pretty Dr Dani’ was Danika Novak, ER doc and sister of Scarlett’s partner, Deacon. Dani volunteered most of her free hours to the shelter, and had roped most of their circle of friends into helping her, Scarlett included.
Scarlett shook her head, but didn’t push. It wouldn’t do any good. She’d found permanent housing for both Edna and Tommy a couple of times over the years, but they always came back to the street. Which was bad for their health but, at times, beneficial to Scarlett’s investigations. The two were a reliable source of information about the neighborhood.
She looked around again, but there was still no sign of the man she’d come to meet. ‘Have you two heard any trouble tonight?’
Edna hid her water bottle in the deep pocket of the smock she never seemed to be without, then pointed to her left. ‘You wanna look maybe three alleys down that way, honey. Gunshots. Three of ’em.’
Scarlett’s heart stuttered. ‘Why didn’t you say so before?’ she demanded.
‘Because you didn’t ask,’ Edna said with a shrug.
‘Gunshots happen ’round here,’ Tommy added. ‘We got to the point where we don’t pay them no nevermind unless they’re shootin’ at us.’
Scarlett shoved her temper down. ‘When was this?’
‘A few minutes ago,’ Tommy said, ‘but I don’t know ’xactly when. Don’t got no watch,’ he added in a yell, because Scarlett had already started to run, her dread building.
Her phone had rung thirteen minutes ago. If he’d been shot, he could be dead by now. He couldn’t be dead. Please don’t let him be dead.
She skidded to a stop when she got to the alley, her vision drawn first to the motionless body on the ground. It isn’t him. The victim was far too small to be him.
She drew her weapon with one hand, holding her Maglite in the other as she cautiously approached. She swept the beam of her light over the victim, a female who appeared to be of Asian descent. Who was she? And where was he? Another sweep of her light up and down the alley revealed no one else.
Scarlett crouched next to the body, her heart sinking. The victim, who appeared to be in her late teens, lay on her back, dark brown eyes staring up at the sky, wide and unseeing. So young, she thought. Setting the Maglite on the asphalt so that it illuminated the victim’s face, she pulled a glove on to her left hand, keeping her weapon firmly gripped in her right.
Pressing her fingers to the victim’s throat, Scarlett found no pulse, which was no surprise. But the young woman hadn’t been dead long. Her skin was still warm.
Her lower torso was bare, her white polo shirt cut away to just below her breasts.
A bullet had entered three inches below her sternum, but based on the amount of blood on and around the body, it had probably not been immediately fatal. Cause of death was far more likely to have been the small hole in the victim’s left temple. The exit wound behind her right ear was the size of Scarlett’s fist.
The girl had been pretty before someone had taken out a chunk of her head.
Not him. It couldn’t have been him. Scarlett couldn’t believe it. You just don’t want to believe it. Which was fair enough, she supposed. Where was he?
Picking up the flashlight, she ran the beam over the body. Blood had been wiped from the exposed skin of the victim’s midriff, the balled-up and blood-soaked remnant of her torn shirt lying on the ground next to her hip. Someone had attempted first aid.
‘He tried to save you,’ Scarlett murmured aloud.
‘Tried. Failed.’
Her head jerked up. He was here. The man who’d dominated her thoughts, her dreams. For months. The man who once again had called her out of the blue to the scene of a homicide.
Marcus O’Bannion.
The voice she remembered so well had come from behind her, deep in the shadows. Holding her weapon at her side, she rose, turned and aimed the Maglite at the alley wall, illuminating long legs, a broad torso and wide shoulders, all clad in black. He leaned against the brick, shoulder to the wall, arms crossed over his chest. He was looking down, his face obscured by a dark baseball cap.
He lifted his head and her heart stuttered again. His skin was ashen, his expression grim. He didn’t blink at the bright light.
She hadn’t heard him approach, wouldn’t even have known he was there had he not spoken. He’d been quiet in a way that few men could manage. He’d been army at one time, she knew. Now she also knew that whatever he’d done for Uncle Sam, he’d been very well trained.
‘Where did you come from?’ Scarlett managed to ask calmly, despite the fact that her pulse pounded wildly in her throat.
‘The street,’ he said, indicating the way she’d come with a jerk of his head.
‘Why?’
‘I was chasing the guy who did that,’ he said flatly, nodding at the body with another jerking motion.
He hadn’t moved his arms, not once. Scarlett crossed the alley, stopping a foot from where he stood. Now she could see that his shoulders were hunched, his back curved unnaturally. She could also see the little lines bracketing his mouth. He was in pain. ‘Were you hit too?’ she asked.
‘No. Not like her.’
‘What happened?’
He still didn’t blink. Kept his gaze fixed on the broken young body. ‘You got here fast.’
‘I don’t live far.’
He met her gaze then and she drew a breath, instantly riveted. Just like the first time she’d seen him. He’d been on a stretcher that day, his wounds nearly fatal. Wounds he’d received saving the life of a woman he didn’t even know. But his eyes – and his voice – had made everything inside her wake up and take notice. Tonight it was the same.
‘I know,’ he said quietly.
She blinked, surprised. They’d never discussed anything as personal as her home address during their brief
conversations in his hospital room all those months ago. ‘What happened, Marcus? Who is she?’
‘I don’t know, exactly. Her name is Tala.’
‘Tala what?’
‘I don’t know. We didn’t get that far.’ He tilted his head, listening as the sound of sirens filled the air. ‘Finally,’ he muttered.
‘You called them?’
‘Five minutes ago. She was still alive then.’ Pushing away from the wall, he straightened carefully, and Scarlett was surprised once again. At five-ten in her bare feet, she rarely had to look up to meet a man’s eyes, but she had to lift her chin to meet his.
She realized that she’d never seen him standing. She’d seen him lying down, first on a stretcher and then in a hospital bed – and then sitting in a wheelchair at his brother’s funeral.
The sirens were getting louder. ‘Quickly,’ she said. ‘Tell me what happened.’
‘She asked me to meet her.’
Scarlett’s brows shot up. ‘She asked you to meet her? In the middle of the night? Here?’
His nod was curt. ‘I was surprised too. This isn’t where I’d met her in the past.’
Okay . . . ‘Where had you been meeting her, Marcus?’ she asked softly. Warily.
His eyes narrowed dangerously, his jaw clenching. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
She’d angered him with her insinuation. Too damn bad. He was a grown man meeting a young woman in the dead of night. A young woman who was now dead. ‘Then tell me what it was like.’
‘I’d see her when she walked her dog in the park near my place. She was always crying. I asked her what was wrong – several times – but she never said a single word, even though I could tell she desperately wanted to. Then tonight I got a text, asking me to meet her at the same corner I texted to you. I called you because I thought she might need . . . protection. I knew you would help her.’
She struggled not to let his words affect her. ‘But things obviously went very wrong.’
‘Obviously,’ he said bitterly. ‘She wasn’t at the corner, but I saw her peeking out from this alley, so I followed her here. As soon as she started talking, the first bullet hit her.’
‘The one in her gut.’
‘Yes. I ran to the end of the alley.’ He pointed to the end opposite from where Scarlett had entered. ‘But the shooter was gone. I called 911, then ran back to her and tried to stop the bleeding.’ His jaw clenched harder, a muscle twitching in his cheek. ‘I hoped you’d get here before the cops. I was going to tell you what I knew and then leave her with you.’ He hesitated. ‘I figured everyone would jump to the same conclusion you just did.’
‘Was she a prostitute, Marcus?’ she asked levelly.
He looked her in the eye. ‘I don’t know. I only knew she was in trouble of some kind.’
That was the truth, Scarlett thought. But not the whole truth. He was holding something back. Something important. She wasn’t sure how she knew. She just did. ‘How did she know how to reach you?’
‘I left her my card on the park bench. Stuck it between the wood and the iron frame.’
She frowned. ‘Why did you leave it for her? Why not just give it to her?’
‘Because she never came close enough. Not once. She always stayed at least twenty-five feet away.’ His mouth tightened, his eyes growing dark with fury. ‘And because the last time I saw her, she was limping. She was wearing sunglasses – with big frames. But not big enough to hide the bruise on her cheek.’
Scarlett got the picture. ‘She was being terrorized by someone.’
‘That was my take. The last time I saw her, I didn’t say a word. I just held up my card, then stuck it in the bench and walked away.’
‘When was that?’
‘Yesterday afternoon. Around three.’
‘All right. After she was shot in the stomach, you started first aid. What happened then?’
He looked away. ‘I didn’t hear him. He must have circled around. Came up behind me. I was talking to her, telling her to hold on, not to die. That help was coming. I wasn’t paying attention.’ His throat worked as he swallowed hard. ‘I should have been paying attention. He shot me, then . . . her. In the head.’
Scarlett drew a careful breath. ‘He shot you? Where?’
‘In the back.’ His lower lip curled in disdain that seemed self-targeted. ‘But I’m wearing a vest.’
‘A vest? Why?’ she asked coolly, even as her heart thumped in relief. The size of the exit wound in the victim’s head indicated a very large-caliber weapon fired at close proximity. Had Marcus not been wearing a vest, Scarlett knew she’d have come across a very different scene. ‘Did you expect violence?’
‘No. Not like this. Never like this. But I always wear the vest now.’
‘Why?’ she asked again, watching in wary fascination as twin flags of color stained his cheekbones.
‘My mother made me promise.’
That Scarlett could believe. Marcus’s mother had lost her youngest son nine months before and had very nearly lost Marcus too. Scarlett could understand a mother’s demand for that promise.
Except . . . why would his mother believe that Marcus would be targeted again? Instincts prickling to alertness, Scarlett left the question for later. ‘And then?’
‘The hit knocked me flat. On top of her.’ He touched his finger to his chest, then held the finger up for Scarlett’s inspection. It was dark red. The black fabric of his shirt had hidden the stain. ‘Hers. When I got my breath back, I pushed off her. Then I saw . . . I saw what he’d done. I tried to go after him, but by the time I got out of the alley, he was gone again. I circled the block, but everyone had scattered, including the shooter.’
‘So then you came back to meet me?’
A one-shouldered shrug. ‘To meet someone. Either you or the first responders.’
Who’d now arrived, a cruiser coming to a screeching halt at the far end of the alley.
Scarlett glanced at the cruiser, then looked back at Marcus’s face, needing the answer to one last question before the officers arrived. ‘You said you were going to leave once I got here, when she was still alive. Once she was dead, why did you come back? There was no need to continue first aid, and the shooter might have come back again. Might have realized you were still alive. Might have tried to shoot you again. Why did you come back?’
He looked down at the dead girl, his expression stark. ‘I couldn’t leave her alone in the dark.’
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 2.52 A.M.
Chest heaving, he took a quick look over his shoulder, then slid into the passenger seat of the waiting car and slammed the door. ‘Drive.’ He leaned into the cold air coming out of the AC vent, took in huge lungfuls as he tried to slow his breathing. If he’d run that fast on the track last year, he’d have a roomful of trophies.
Frowning, Stephanie pulled away from the curb. ‘Where is she? And why are you so sweaty?’
They were moving at a damn crawl. ‘Just drive, for God’s sake.’ Gripping Stephanie’s knee, he shoved it down, sending the Mercedes lurching forward in a squeal of tires.
‘Fuck!’ Stephanie slammed on the brakes, taking them back to a crawl. ‘You want to get us arrested? Where is she?’
He focused on the side mirror, watching for flashing blue lights. I should have shot them both when I first saw them. Together. His gut still twisted with fury. ‘Back in the alley.’
‘So I was right,’ Stephanie said with contempt. ‘I knew something was up. The bitch was two-timing us. You shouldn’t have left her there all alone. God only knows what she’s doing with Styx. He’s butt-ugly but he’s got the best shit around. He’s probably got her on her back right now.’
She was on her back all right, he thought grimly. And it served her right. ‘Yeah. Probably.’
Putting on the left blinker, Stephanie shot him a wary glance. ‘I’d have thought you’d be more worried. Styx can’t be clean. I’m betting he has every disease in the book
. If she’s doing him for free party Chex, he’s polluting our pool as we speak.’
‘We’ll just have to find another place to swim,’ he ground out through clenched teeth. He grabbed the wheel when Stephanie started to turn left. ‘Just where the hell do you think you’re going?’
Stephanie blinked. ‘Back to get her. We can’t just leave her here.’
‘I said drive, goddammit.’ He could hear the sirens now. ‘The cops are coming. Get us out of here.’
Stephanie hit the brakes so hard they both pitched forward. ‘The cops? What did you do?’
He met her frightened eyes with a cold, hard stare. ‘She’s dead. So if you don’t want to go to prison, you will drive like a bat outta goddamn hell.’
‘Dead?’ Stephanie’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. ‘You killed her? You killed Tala?’
‘I never said that.’ He had, but he was never admitting it to anyone. ‘But we’ll be blamed. So get us home or so help me God, you’ll end up just like her.’
Hands shaking, Stephanie obeyed, heading out of the city. ‘Why did you kill her?’
‘I didn’t say I did.’
‘So you found her there? Dead?’
‘Yeah,’ he lied tonelessly.
‘Did Styx kill her?’
‘It’s possible, I suppose.’
‘Oh my God. This is terrible. This is just . . . Oh God. Mom and Dad. They’ll know. I’m gonna be . . . Hell. They’re gonna know I took her out.’ Stephanie was breathing hard, nearly hyperventilating. ‘They’re gonna find out. They’re gonna kill me.’
‘They’re not going to kill you, because you are going to pull yourself together. Nobody’s going to find out anything.’
‘Because you say so?’ Stephanie cried. ‘Don’t be a fool. She’ll be on the news. They’ll report a body on the news. My parents watch the news.’
In her current hysterical state, Stephanie was a neon sign screaming GUILTY. Calm her down, he thought. Take a breath. Take the tension down.
‘So?’ he asked, his tone now level. Reassuring. Convincing, even. He shrugged carelessly. ‘She got out. How can they possibly know you took her unless you tell them? She was an addict. She wanted to score some blow. She crossed the wrong dealer and he blew her and her boyfriend away.’