Velvet Ropes

by Patricia Rosemoor

  At least, that’s what she told herself.

  As they ate, they went over the details of what they knew yet again. But Stella was left with no new ideas of how to proceed.

  Not wanting Dermot to lose hope, she smiled and prayed she wasn’t lying when she said, “Something will break soon. We just have to keep chipping away.”

  Once they finished their meals, with nothing left to accomplish in the neighborhood, they decided to go back to Dermot’s place for showers and a change of clothing before heading for the club. Knowing how crowded it would be around the museum, they’d left the car parked in front of the Santos’ apartment, which was a few blocks south.

  Stella was enjoying the fine autumn weather and the relaxed stroll with Dermot until they got within sight of his vehicle. Detectives Mike Norelli and Jamal Walker had beaten them there and were leaning on the car.

  Dermot cursed under his breath and said, “This can’t be good.”

  While Stella agreed, she didn’t say anything until they were within yards of the two men. Norelli’s smug expression put her more on edge. And Walker was outright grinning at them as if he was the cat who’d swallowed the canary.

  “Detectives,” she said, her voice stiff.

  “What now?” Dermot asked, unable to hide his exasperation.

  Norelli waved a paper in front of his nose. “It’s called a search warrant.”

  Dermot grabbed it, looked it over and passed it to Stella, asking, “What haven’t you searched?”

  “Your vehicle,” Walker said. “So unlock the doors and open the trunk.”

  A quick glance at the paperwork told Stella every thing was in order. Dermot beeped open the car doors, and Norelli started with the glove compartment, while Walker slid a hand under the driver’s seat.

  “Guys, what’s going on here?” Stella asked. She had a really bad feeling about this.

  “We’re doing our job nailing a murderer,” Norelli informed her, closing the glove compartment and sticking a hand under the passenger seat.

  “You have the wrong man.”

  Walker grinned harder. “So you say.”

  “Just open the damn trunk!” Norelli groused.

  Knowing there was more going on here than they’d admitted, Stella felt her stomach knot. “Why the car, why now?”

  “We got a tip, okay?”

  “Who tipped you?” Dermot asked as he unlocked the trunk.

  “A reliable source,” Walker said.

  Which meant some scumbag off the streets who could be bought, Stella thought. She didn’t know what they expected to find inside the trunk—a body, perhaps? As the trunk lid slid open, she caught her breath…then let it out in relief when nothing obvious jumped out at them.

  Norelli cursed and Walker practically climbed into the trunk to search it. He pulled and pushed at every item, until at last a sound of triumph escaped him.

  “What?” Stella demanded.

  Walker’s dark face was split in a grin as he turned, the object he’d been searching for in his hand. “Dermot O’Rourke, you’re under arrest for the murder of Tony Vargas. Norelli, read him his rights.”

  Stella noted Dermot looked as dumbstruck as she felt.

  From Walker’s hand hung a purple velvet rope.

  “SOMEONE SET DERMOT UP,” Stella said several hours later, as she finished telling the members of Team Undercover what had happened.

  Gathered in Gideon’s office, the others sat while Stella paced, as if she could work off the stress that threatened to consume her. She’d already given the note from the message board to Logan, who’d promised to ask the lab to run fingerprints first thing in the morning.

  “How in the heck did someone plant the velvet rope in Dermot’s trunk without his knowing?” Cass asked. “I mean, it’s a new car with an antitheft system, right?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Logan said. “An experienced car thief can get into any vehicle.”

  “And there’s been auto theft and chop shop operations in that area since we were kids,” Blade added. “While we were working on Lynn’s case, guess who offered to get me the car of my dreams…cheap.”

  “Not Johnny,” Stella said.

  “Yes, Johnny.”

  “But I don’t understand how Dermot could have missed a purple velvet rope in his trunk,” Cass said. “Unless it happened earlier today during the Day of the Dead festivities. Of course, that was broad daylight with thousands of people around.”

  “Not necessarily,” Stella said. “It could have been planted the other night, when Dermot was followed. Or the night Tony died, for that matter. Maybe even while Dermot was still working in Heartland House.”

  Gideon arched his eyebrows. “Now, that would have been a bold move.”

  “What do you call murdering Tony where his roommate could walk in at any moment?”

  Stella hadn’t taken an easy breath since the arrest. She’d gone over every possible scenario in her mind. Not that it was doing Dermot any good. She wasn’t doing Dermot any good. She’d failed him miserably.

  Blade asked, “You called Stark?”

  Thinking of the criminal lawyer, she nodded. “I gotta thank Lynn again for hooking Dermot up with Stark. He said he’d get on it right away. Now I just gotta figure out how to find the money to bail Dermot out. Assuming the judge sets bail, this being a murder case.”

  She thought Dermot would get bail, but you never knew. And while the victim had been a criminal himself, he’d also been related to someone with clout.

  “Stark will convince the judge,” Blade assured her.

  “And I’ve got the bail money,” Gideon added.

  Stella gasped. “What?” The generous offer left her speechless.

  Gideon waved his hand as if it were nothing. “It’s only ten percent of whatever the judge sets.”

  “We’re talking about murder. Ten per cent could be a hundred grand.”

  “I know that.”

  “Gideon, I can’t ask you—”

  “You haven’t. I volunteered.”

  “Thank you.” Tears stung Stella’s eyes at his gen erosity. They were all generous, giving of their time to someone they didn’t even know. “I’ll owe you, all of you, I really will.”

  “You already owe me,” Gideon said, smiling, “so what’s a little money? Not that I’m counting. I’m going to do this because I want to. It’s probably too late in the day for an arraignment. Undoubtedly Dermot will have to wait until morning to get sprung.”

  “Which means he’ll be stuck at Area 4 for the night.”

  The idea of Dermot spending even a single night behind bars crushed Stella. Her fault. Her failure. He was innocent—why couldn’t everyone see that?—and she hadn’t been able to find the real murderer. What kind of detective did that make her? she wondered, as Gideon picked up the phone and hit a number on his speed dial.

  Of course not everyone knew Dermot the way she did. Not everyone loved him. Stella’s heart pounded at the thought she’d been trying to put to the back of her mind while she worked with the man to clear him.

  “Stark? Gideon here.”

  Stella stopped to listen, but apparently Gideon was talking to Stark’s voice mail. As he left a message about the bail money, Stella’s thoughts drifted back to Dermot and how much she still loved him. Or perhaps how she really loved him for the first time.

  Twelve years ago, she hadn’t known the real Dermot O’Rourke. She’d heard about his troubled past, but she hadn’t seen that side of his personality. Now she had—she knew everything there was to know about him and it didn’t make any difference to her. She loved Dermot for who he was at the time he’d saved her. For who he had been before that. For the decisions he’d made in his life that had led him to where he was now. For the person he’d become.

  “No luck in catching Stark,” Gideon said, setting the cell phone down on his desk.

  Gabe added, “You might as well go home and get a few Zs.”

  “Yeah, maybe th
at’s best,” she agreed.

  If she could sleep. And whose home? Hers or Dermot’s? He’d given her a set of keys, so she had her choice.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Cass said.

  Stella waited until they’d gotten away from the office door and down the hall before stopping. “Okay, what’s on your mind?”

  Cass shook her head. “It’s what’s on yours.”

  “I got a lot on mine.”

  “He’ll get through it. I’ve been there. Not that there was anyone to help me,” Cass said bitterly. “Not even Max Street.”

  “Max Street?” Stella echoed. “As in Maxwell Street, the magician?”

  Cass nodded. “My boss and…friend. At least I thought he was.”

  Stella had a gut feeling that Max had been more to Cass than boss and friend. From the fleeting pain she glimpsed in the other woman’s expression, the connection had gone way deeper.

  Before Stella could tactfully figure a way to ask, Cass said, “We won’t let Dermot go to prison for something he didn’t do.”

  “I’m sorry it happened to you, Cass.”

  “Yeah, well…it’s in the past. I survived, and I guess that’s what matters.”

  But Cass had been incarcerated for jewel theft, not murder. Two years wasn’t the same as potentially being sentenced to life. Or death.

  Stella wanted to believe that Cass was right, that her gift allowed her to see Dermot free, his name cleared. But she knew it didn’t work that way. Cass merely got impressions—and was a pretty positive person most of the time—while all Stella had to go on was faith and her own determination.

  They turned the corner and walked toward the stairs jammed with people waiting to get seated in the club. Music blasted them from the open doorway of the lower entrance. Stella was about to say her goodbyes when she stopped short and backed up away from the stairs and around the corner, pulling Cass with her.

  “What?” Cass asked, her voice low.

  “The woman in red two steps up?” Stella said, indicating Cass should take a peek. “That’s Alderman Marta Ortiz.” Red, a real expression of mourning, Stella thought. Maybe for gypsies, but not for a Latina… “And her escort is one of the politicians who was at the Day of the Dead festivities.”

  “How interesting,” Cass said, her grin wide.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “That Mags looks like she could use some help with her hostess duties. Stay put, out of sight, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Glancing around the corner, Stella surreptitiously watched Cass swoop down on the hostess stand, bend over and say something to Mags.

  Then, menus in hand, Cass turned and beamed a hundred-watt smile at Marta Ortiz and company. She guided them past a few irate customers in line ahead of them. And while guiding the alderman and escort through the club doors, Cass managed to brush shoulders with her.

  Instantly Cass seemed to jump away as if bitten. Her spine lengthened visibly.

  “What’s up?” came a voice from behind her.

  Stella glanced back to see both Blade and Gabe behind her. “Apparently Cass just read Marta Ortiz. Whatever she got off her, it didn’t look too pleasant.”

  “I’ll be interested to hear what,” Gabe said. “So far, I’ve got nothing on the alderman. Not that I’ve given up searching.”

  Blade cupped Stella’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. He didn’t say anything, didn’t have to. They were on the same wavelength and always had been. She knew he would wait here with her until Cass came back.

  Which took only a few minutes.

  Cass’s wild red hair seemed as charged as the rest of her as she whipped back to where Stella and Blade and Gabe waited. Whatever she’d sensed, it was bound to be a doozer.

  “So spill,” Stella urged. “What in the world did you get off her?”

  Cass said, “Not a lot…”

  “But something significant?” Gabe asked.

  “I saw red.”

  “Red?” Blade echoed.

  “Can you be more specific?” Stella asked.

  “Blood…on her hands.”

  The three looked at each other in silence for a moment. Stella knew there’d been no blood associated with Tony’s death, but Cass always said you couldn’t take her visions at face value. She got impressions rather than specifics.

  Or the blood could be someone’s other than Tony’s.

  A death Tony found out about…the source for his blackmail?

  Or a death in the immediate future?

  THE IMAGE OF MARTA ORTIZ with blood on her hands stayed with Stella all the way to the South Loop. She’d decided to stay the night in Dermot’s apartment, after all. She would feel closer to him there.

  And, yes, safer.

  Or she did until she left the garage.

  The deserted street felt suffocating. As sometimes happened in this area, fog spilled over from the nearby lake—not a thick fog just yet, but a damp, cottony layer that blanketed everything in its path.

  A shiver swept through Stella and she automatically felt for her weapon—for security—unsnapping the holster “just in case.” Trying not to feel spooked was impossible considering her world had gone cock-eyed.

  Noise was muffled by the pale overlay, and lights glowed through the eerie cover with a halo-like sheen. Over on the next block, a bar with a late-night license was still open, its neon sign a smear of blue. A single car sat at the intersection, its driver waiting for the red light to change, the vehicle’s beams thickly outlined by the white haze.

  Other than that, she was alone.

  The fog thickening before her eyes, Stella nearly jogged the quarter block to the entrance of Dermot’s building. About to punch in the code to open the outer door, she almost stepped on the dark bulk laying across the stoop—some homeless guy who’d taken refuge for the night in the doorway. He was huddled against the chill and damp, his whole head ducked under a protective arm.

  Great. She just had to deal with one more unpleasant situation before she could go inside and collapse.

  “Hey, buddy, get up and move on,” she said in her best cop voice.

  “What’s it to you, bitch?” the man mumbled, refusing to turn to look at her.

  “You don’t belong here.”

  He just grunted at her, and she had to decide whether or not she wanted to pursue the issue. Normally she would, but it had been a long, exhausting day. Too tired to hassle him or to physically remove him, she reached out to the communication box that provided security and an intercom. She punched in Dermot’s code, heard the lock on the door give and opened it.

  “The Garden Mission is a block over on State Street,” she told the man, while trying to avoid touching him as she stepped over his inert form.

  A hand clamped around her ankle and held her fast, and Stella’s heart swept right up into her throat.

  Then her adrenaline kicked in and so did her anger. “You don’t know who you’re messing with!”

  As she started to turn, he jerked her foot, and though she fought it, Stella went down hard, backward, straight through the now-open doorway, where she landed flat on her back. The fall knocked the breath out of her. Even so, she rolled to the side and snaked a hand around her back toward the open holster.

  But before she could pull the gun, a knife was in her face.

  And behind that, a skull mask wreathed in wisps of fog.

  “Hey, bitch, you never learn, do you?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Panic froze Stella, and she stared at the gloved hand holding the knife with a fancy handle carved into what looked like a skeleton. The blade gleaming wickedly under the foyer light was long, and the edge looked as sharp as the other time….

  Only, this wasn’t the other time and she wasn’t the same Stella.

  Sucking in air, she punctuated the breath by slashing her knee up through his legs, the contact not enough to incapacitate the bastard, but enough to make him rear back, cursing. She scooted backwa
rd and kicked out, smacking him with both feet and with enough strength that he fell off the stoop and let the knife go flying.

  He was upright in a flash, but so was she. Before she could get her hand on her gun, he was on her. Strength came from somewhere—an adrenaline rush like no other, and Stella tried putting the heel of her hand straight through that damn skull mask, thinking to then grab it and reveal her attacker’s identity. Even as his head snapped back, he grabbed her wrist and thwarted her. Twisting her arm behind her back, he threw her facefirst into the building. The side of her head smacking into brick stunned her.

  His laugh was low and evil, his breath hot on her neck for a second before he suddenly let go. As the already hazy world spun around her, Stella was aware of him going after the knife. But stunned as she was, she was doing well to keep upright, no less doing something about stopping him.

  His words gravelly and low, barely more than a whisper, the skull-face said, “This time, you die.”

  “I don’t think so,” came another male voice.

  Stella forced herself to focus and pushed herself away from the building, thinking it couldn’t be. But a glimpse of the man stepping out of the fog convinced her it was, indeed, Dermot.

  The two men circled each other, testing each other with jabs. Then Dermot delivered a solid punch to her attacker’s middle.

  Skull-face came back fighting, knife swinging. He clipped Dermot’s arm with the tip, but not seeming to notice, Dermot grabbed the man’s knife hand and struggled for the weapon. Maybe it had just cut his jacket, Stella thought, watching them dance in circles along the sidewalk.

  When they broke free of each other, the knife was in Dermot’s hand.

  Her attacker backed up, then charged and placed a roundhouse kick to Dermot’s side that made him buckle. Stella gasped at the violent contact. Dermot dropped the knife, and it clattered against the sidewalk and spun away to disappear in the fog. Thankfully, he recovered quickly enough to repel another attack.

  For a moment Stella was unable to do anything but watch Dermot in action.