by Karen Rose
Stephanie went still. ‘Her what?’
‘Her boyfriend. She was with someone, there in the alley.’
A shuddered-out breath. ‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. Some old guy.’
‘A cop?’
‘Don’t think so. Doesn’t matter now anyway. They’re both dead. Neither of them is going to say a word.’
‘But what . . . ?’ It was barely a whisper. ‘What if he was a cop? If she was talking to a cop . . . maybe she was telling him everything. Maybe the cop told his partner. Maybe she told them about my family. Maybe the cops will—’
‘Maybe you’d better concentrate on driving,’ he interrupted, his tone still calm. Still smoothly menacing. ‘We wouldn’t want to have an accident.’
‘No,’ Stephanie whispered, and she seemed almost dazed. ‘We wouldn’t want that.’
She was blowing it all out of proportion. It was more likely that Tala was turning tricks in that alley and the guy was a simple john. Or maybe even a pimp. Tala was far too scared to say a word to anyone. But just in case Stephanie was even a little right . . .
Even if the dead guy wasn’t a cop, if he’d told anyone about Tala there could be trouble. He needed to find out who the guy was, how the asshole had met Tala, and who he’d talked to about her.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 3.35 A.M.
Scarlett Bishop was watching him.
Under normal circumstances, Marcus O’Bannion might have welcomed the openly appreciative stare of a beautiful woman as he lounged, shirtless and sweaty. But these were not normal circumstances and Scarlett Bishop was no ordinary beautiful woman. She was a homicide detective.
Sitting in the back of an ambulance having his vitals taken by a paramedic was about as far from lounging as a man could get. And the detective’s stare was not appreciative. It was watchful. Worried. Wary.
Because Scarlett was smart. She should be a lot more than worried, he thought. She should be scared. Because I am. Not of the fact that the bullet could very well have ended him, but because, for just a moment, he wished it had.
I’m tired. Tired of the greed and the violence and the twisted perversion going on all around him. He was tired of seeing the hopelessness in the eyes of the victims. He was tired of being too late. Because even if he could save every victim, he couldn’t erase what had been done to them. Tonight he hadn’t even saved the victim.
Tala was on her way to the ER, where they’d pronounce her DOA. Because she’d reached out to him for help. I should have been paying attention. I should have kept her safe.
He’d known she was being abused. The fear in the young woman’s eyes had been real, tonight and every time he’d seen her in the park. She trusted me. And I let her down.
‘Your pressure is normal,’ the paramedic said, removing the cuff from his bare upper arm. ‘So’s your pulse.’
Marcus had told them that would be the case, but they hadn’t listened to him, insisting on checking him out. He knew his body. Knew what it felt like when its functions weren’t normal. But they were only doing their job, so he mustered a nod and a rusty ‘Thanks.’
‘You really should go in for an X-ray,’ the paramedic continued. ‘Just because the vest kept the bullet from piercing your skin doesn’t mean it didn’t do serious damage. You may have a broken rib or two.’
‘I don’t,’ Marcus replied quietly, his focus on Bishop, who’d finally turned back to the crime scene. Starting where Tala’s body had lain, she was slowly walking an outwardly spiraling circle, taking in every detail with eyes that he knew missed very little.
Abruptly she dropped into a crouch, leaning forward to check out what looked like a pile of trash swept into a crevice along the alley wall – until her black braid slid over her shoulder. Impatiently she stripped off her gloves and coiled the braid into a figure eight, fixing it to the back of her head with some elastic gizmo she pulled from the pocket of her jeans. Her movements were quick and practiced, which came as no surprise. Unpinned, the tip of her braid nearly reached the small of her back. It likely got in her way often.
It would have been more practical – not to mention safer – to have cut it long ago. It would be a major vulnerability in a hand-to-hand fight, giving her opponent an easy way to immobilize her.
It would also give her lover something to hold on to as he . . . No. Not going there. Not today. But his mind already had, just as it had many, many times over the past nine months.
Ruthlessly corralling his thoughts, Marcus watched her motion to the CSU photographer, pointing to the asphalt, then pull on a new pair of gloves as the man snapped a picture.
She reached into the trash and drew out something that glinted in the beam of her Maglite. A bullet casing. A big-ass bullet casing. No wonder my back hurts so much.
She dropped the casing into an evidence bag, then rose fluidly to continue her search of the crime scene. She was, he thought, everything he remembered. Tall and proud. Lithe and graceful. Strong, yet compassionate. Too compassionate for her own good. Her job was eating her alive. There were shadows in her eyes that had nothing to do with lack of sleep. He knew this because he saw the same haunted expression in the mirror.
She was haunted too. Still, she’d come when he called. Just as she’d done before.
And just as before, he’d sensed a . . . connection between them, something more than the physical attraction he hadn’t even tried to deny – not in his waking thoughts or in his dreams. He wasn’t sure exactly what the connection was, but he knew deep down that Scarlett Bishop would understand.
Understand what? he demanded bitterly. Me. She would understand me. The choices he’d made. The secrets he kept. The razor-fine edge that he walked. The darkness that drew him ever closer. She would understand. She might even help him.
Which was why he’d left her alone, and would continue to do so. Because as much as he yearned for the solace she might provide, he refused to drag her down with him.
Her gaze shifted from the crime scene to the man with a shock of bright white hair who’d just joined her in the alley – FBI Special Agent Deacon Novak, Scarlett’s partner on the Major Case task force. Marcus actually knew Deacon better than he knew Scarlett, having met the man at a handful of social gatherings co-engineered by Marcus’s stepfather and his cousin, Faith, most recently the party celebrating Faith and Deacon’s engagement. Marcus had been happy for them. Deacon seemed to be a decent man.
Too decent, he thought. He couldn’t see Novak approving of any of the blood-soaked fantasies of revenge that flooded his mind as a crime-scene tech placed markers on the asphalt, next to the mess that had been Tala’s blood and brains.
She was only seventeen. And she’d been gunned down like an animal.
A sheet of white paper attached to a clipboard appeared in his vision, blocking his view of the carnage. ‘If you’re not going to let us transport you to the ER,’ the paramedic said in a disapproving tone, ‘you need to sign this form.’
‘I’ve had broken ribs before. I’m just bruised,’ Marcus said, glancing at the form long enough to sign it before returning his attention to Bishop. She was now walking toward him, Deacon Novak at her side.
Marcus pushed to his feet, biting back a grimace. His back throbbed like a bitch, but he had his pride. It was bad enough that he was shirtless while Scarlett and her partner were fully clothed – Deacon in a suit and tie, no less. Talking to them from a sitting position was simply not going to happen.
Scarlett met his eyes for a brief moment before turning to the paramedic. ‘Well?’ she asked crisply. ‘What’s the verdict?’
‘Contusions,’ the paramedic said. ‘Possible broken ribs.’
She frowned. ‘So why isn’t he en route to the ER?’
The paramedic shrugged. ‘He’s refused transport.’
‘Because it’s only a bad bruise,’ Marcus muttered. ‘Can I have my shirt back?’
Her glance flicked down to his bare chest, then
shot back up to his face like a rocket. ‘I’m sorry. Your shirt is evidence now, along with the Kevlar vest, but my partner brought you something to wear,’ she said, her tone coolly efficient.
‘Marcus,’ Deacon said pleasantly.
Marcus nodded once. ‘Deacon,’ he said in the same pleasant tone.
Deacon held out a plain black T-shirt. ‘Good to see you’re not dead.’
Marcus clenched his teeth against the memory of the shots fired at close range. ‘Yeah,’ he said bitterly. ‘That would have left an even bigger mess.’ He tugged the shirt over his head, managing to swallow most of a groan as fire streaked across his shoulders and down his back.
‘I heard that. You need to go to the hospital,’ Scarlett said firmly.
‘No. I don’t.’ Marcus took an experimental deep breath, happy when both his lungs inflated properly. ‘I’ve had enough of hospitals to last me a lifetime. Nothing they can do for broken ribs anyway.’ He gave the medic a nod. ‘But thanks for checking me out.’
‘Whatever,’ the paramedic said, shaking his head as he slammed the ambulance doors closed and drove away.
Then it was just the three of them at the end of the alley, standing in a little bubble of silence as CSU processed the scene fifty feet away. Scarlett and Deacon were waiting for his statement, he knew. Suddenly wearier than he’d been in months, Marcus straightened his spine, his gaze arrowing in on the patch of bloodstained asphalt. He had to be careful. He was tired, he was in pain. But most of all, he was filled with cold rage. In this state he could easily reveal more than he should.
Clear your mind. Tell them only what is relevant to catching Tala’s killer. Everything else was not their business.
He cleared his throat. ‘Her name was Tala. She was only seventeen.’
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 3.45 A.M.
‘Tala what?’ Scarlett asked evenly, thanking God that the man had put a shirt on. Not staring at his chest had taken a sizeable portion of her concentration. Now she could focus on his words. Now I can do my damn job. A girl was dead. The victim deserved justice, not the half-assed efforts of a homicide detective who couldn’t keep her hormones in check.
Scarlett was glad Deacon had arrived. In the moments she’d stood in the alley alone with Marcus O’Bannion, she’d lost her professional perspective. Her emotions had taken over – and a few of those emotions hadn’t left her feeling proud of herself. She’d felt jealous of the dead girl, for God’s sake, because he’d been meeting her. Then disappointment that he’d been meeting her. All combined with a nearly obsessive refusal to believe that whatever Marcus was up to could be wrong in any way.
She believed too deeply, too blindly, that he was a good man. That he was a hero.
‘She never said her last name.’ Marcus didn’t look at them as he spoke. He was staring at the crime scene, at the spot where the girl had died. ‘I didn’t get the chance to ask.’
Because the girl had been shot. As had Marcus.
‘What did she get the chance to say?’ Scarlett asked.
Marcus clenched his jaw. ‘That her family was in danger. When I asked from who, she said, “The man and his wife, they own us.”’
Scarlett’s heart sank.
Deacon muttered a curse. ‘Owned exactly how?’ he asked.
‘I started to ask, but that’s when the first shot was fired and she collapsed. The only other words she said were “Help” and “Malaya”. Then she was gone.’
‘Malaya.’ Deacon was already typing on his phone. ‘She could have been talking about a place. A reference to modern-day Malaysia.’
‘Or it could have been a word,’ Marcus added quietly. ‘Tagalog for “freedom”.’
‘Tagalog,’ Scarlett murmured. ‘A dialect of Filipino, right?’ Which would make sense. The girl’s ethnicity was Southeast Asian. That included the Philippines.
Marcus nodded once. ‘Yes.’
Deacon glanced at him with interest. ‘You speak Tagalog?’
‘No. It’s also a newspaper based out of Manila,’ Marcus answered.
‘How do you know that?’ Deacon asked, more curious than suspicious.
Marcus shrugged. ‘My family is in the newspaper business. My grandfather read five papers before breakfast every morning when I was a boy. He collected the front pages of papers with famous headlines. One was from the Malaya, on the day Marcos was exiled. I asked him what it was all about, and he told me that malaya meant freedom.’
‘You remembered that, after all this time?’ Scarlett asked. ‘That was nearly thirty years ago. You couldn’t have been more than four or five years old.’
Another shrug. ‘I remember nearly everything he ever said. This one word was very important to him, though. He’d been in the Philippines during the war, made friends with some of the locals. They were prisoners together. In Bataan.’
As one, Scarlett and Deacon winced. ‘Rough,’ Scarlett murmured.
‘Yeah. Malaya was one of the first words my grandfather learned there.’
‘So what do you think Tala meant?’ Scarlett asked.
‘I think she wanted me to help free her family. Trouble is, I don’t know where she came from. I don’t know where her family is being kept.’
‘Detective Bishop said you met Tala at the park,’ Deacon said.
‘Not exactly. I never actually met her until tonight. I’d only see her at the park. Up until tonight, it’s been me asking her questions and her running away without answering.’
‘Where is this park, and when did you first see her?’ Deacon asked.
‘Near my house. Two weeks ago. About one A.M.’
Scarlett lifted her brows in surprise. ‘You go to the park at one in the morning?’
‘Not normally. Normally I go mid-afternoon, but it’s been so hot lately that I’ve been going after dark, around eleven.’
‘You’re a runner?’ Deacon asked him.
‘I was. Haven’t done any running in the last nine months.’
Not since he’d nearly been killed, Scarlett thought, the events of that day seared into her memory. A bullet had pierced his lung as he’d protected an innocent young woman who’d been targeted by a sociopath. They’d nearly lost Marcus that day.
Marcus returned his attention to the crime scene. ‘I have an older dog with a heavy coat,’ he went on quietly. ‘She has a bad heart and doesn’t do well in the heat, so I walk her after dark. Two weeks ago I got tied up on a project at work and it was after one when I got home, but BB needed to be walked, so we went to the park. It was deserted, so I . . .’ He hesitated, shrugged uncomfortably. ‘I was sitting on a bench letting her sniff the grass when Tala came down the path with a standard poodle, all groomed in that frou-frou show-dog style. The dog’s collar caught my eye before Tala did.’
‘The dog had a reflective collar?’ Deacon asked.
Scarlett was stuck back on ‘It was deserted’. It was deserted, so you what? she wanted to ask. Because he was blushing again, just like he had when he admitted he’d promised his mother he’d wear Kevlar. She tabled the question for later.
Marcus shook his head. ‘No. The collar was diamond-studded.’
Both Scarlett and Deacon blinked. ‘Diamonds?’ she repeated. ‘Are you sure they weren’t rhinestones? Or CZ?’
‘Pretty sure. The collar had a brand tag sewn in to it – one of the exclusive jewelers in Chicago.’ He gave them the name. ‘When I called the store to inquire, the jeweler told me they haven’t sold that model in a while. He suggested that I check eBay.’
Scarlett frowned. ‘Why am I not surprised that you already called?’
Marcus shrugged. ‘I was hoping to identify her later. At first, I was just appalled. I mean, who’d put that kind of collar on a dog? And what was a girl her age doing walking the dog at one A.M.? Alarm bells started ringing in my head, so I stood up and started to walk in the opposite direction, but . . .’ He sighed. ‘She was crying.’
‘So you stayed?’
Deacon asked carefully.
Marcus leveled him a sharp glare. ‘Only long enough to ask her why she was crying and if she needed help. She just turned and ran away. I started to follow her, but BB can’t run anymore. By the time I picked up the dog, the girl was gone.’
‘When did you see her again?’ Scarlett asked, her mind suddenly filled with the image of him cradling an old dog in his arms.
‘The next night, but not as close up. I went back at one in the morning, sat on the bench and waited, but she stayed back so far that I didn’t see her. But I did see her dog. She wore black, but the poodle is white, so he showed up through the trees. I called out to her, but she ran again. Then the third night, she came close enough that I could see she was crying again.’
Scarlett studied Marcus’s face. He was holding something back. ‘What made her come close the third night?’
He hesitated, then rolled his eyes. ‘I’m not sure. Maybe because I was singing.’
Again she and Deacon blinked. ‘You were singing?’ she echoed. ‘As in . . . a song?’
He scowled at her. ‘Yes, as in a song. I was all alone the first night. Or thought I was. I sometimes sing when I’m alone. I thought if I sang again she might come closer.’
Fascinating. His blush had deepened, his shoulders hunching defensively. He thought she was going to laugh at him. Nothing could be further from the truth. She was drawn by his voice too. When he spoke, she heard music. The saddest music she’d ever heard, she’d thought the very first time she’d heard him speak. That he used that voice to make actual music was no surprise.
‘I sing when I’m alone too,’ she said quietly. ‘Mostly because nobody wants to hear me. I take it that Tala wanted to hear you.’
The stiffness in his shoulders melted a bit. ‘Yeah. I guess she did.’
‘What were you singing?’ Deacon asked.
His jaw tightened. ‘Vince Gill. “Go Rest High On That Mountain”.’
Scarlett sucked in a breath, the ache in her chest sudden and sharp. She’d heard that song too many times, at too many funerals. The first funeral at which she’d heard it still haunted her nightmares.