Bloodstone

by Gwen Hunter

“Tyler, where are you?” Evan said.

  “I’m trying to get home through a blinding snowstorm while you play cops and robbers.”

  “Cute. We’re on the way back, too, via a different route Lopez says is faster. We’ll see. Yeah, yeah, just drive,” he said to someone else. Mouth back at the phone, he said, “Just thought you might want to know, we got Eloise to talk. She claims she saw someone running through the hallway and out through an employee door. She thinks she can identify him. We’re betting she saw Rakes and just won’t say so until her lawyer gets here.” I could sense the repressed glee in Evan’s voice. “And she says she knows where David is.”

  Electric heat ricocheted through me. My heart sped up and I blew out a breath that went from the top of my head to the bottoms of my feet. Tears prickled in my eyes and my throat spasmed. I couldn’t reply to Evan.

  “You there?”

  “Yes,” I managed. “I’m here.”

  “She’s using him as a bargaining chip to get a deal. Of course, Rakes says he doesn’t know where David is. He’s insulted that we think he would do anything so stupid as kidnap anyone. Not so illegal or immoral, mind you, just not so stupid. We have him in an interview room cooling his heels while a crew tears apart his offices and his lawyers call on state senators and judges he knows to pull strings for him. So far, no one is being too helpful. Julian Rakes is suddenly persona non grata. He’s not a happy man.”

  “He’s a sociopath,” I said, as I steered the Geo around a tree lying across the road. “Be careful. He’ll lie and you’ll never know it.”

  “And you know that, how?”

  “Aunt Matilda.”

  “Ah.”

  A second tree lay just beyond the first. The snow thickened for a moment, creating instant whiteout. “On that enigmatic statement, I’m hanging up. The visibility and the road are awful.”

  “I’d have driven you home if you had waited around for me.”

  “Come to supper. Bring Davie with you, if you can.”

  Evan laughed, true delight in the tone. “I’ll do my best. If I bring him tonight, let’s see if we can put Aunt Matilda up in a hotel. I can personally attest to the merits of one just around the corner from Bloodstone.”

  I smiled into the driving snow. “And Jane?”

  “She goes home with her dad.”

  “And you?” I asked, knowing what was coming, and ready for it. Wanting it.

  His voice lowered. “I take down that mass of red-gold hair and check out those green silk sheets on your bed.”

  The heat that had kindled with his first words spread through me, moving like honey across my flesh. “Oh.”

  He laughed again, the tone entirely masculine and sensual. My hands started to perspire inside my gloves on the steering wheel. “Drive safe,” he said, and hung up.

  The feeling of warmth radiated out through me. Davie would be home soon. I knew it.

  The light was starting to fail as I crunched my way into Connersville, the Tracker sliding and digging its way up the last hill. My shoulders were so tight they ached, and my hands had been gripping the steering wheel so long they were paralyzed in a circle and flexing them hurt. When I pulled into the alley and parked, my relief was so strong I dropped back my head and shuddered.

  A one-and-a-half-hour trip had taken all afternoon, and required a detour devised by the devil himself when I came upon a huge boulder blocking the road and road crews working to clear the way. The directions given me by the flag man had been specific but, in the blinding snow, had proved useless. If you can’t see the road you’re supposed to take, you can’t get where you’re going. I was hungry, cold, and on the dregs of my energy. Everything I wanted was inside my loft: food, an update on Davie and a hot bath. And the back of the alley was blocked with fresh snow and a five-foot pile made by a city snowplow, so I’d have to go around.

  Crawling from the Tracker, I smelled smoke, food and home. I made my way around front to the shoveled walk and stopped at the Chinese place just down from Bloodstone. They were closing early, and I got a good deal on cashew chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, teriyaki steak with vegetarian fried rice and a dozen spring rolls, two of which I devoured as I waited. Packages in hand, I made my way to the shop, opened the door and went inside.

  Bloodstone Inc. was empty. I stopped just inside the door, reaching out with my mind, aware once again that I was using St. Claire gifts with impunity. And without a headache. We routinely closed the shop during bad storms. There didn’t need to be anyone here at all. But the room felt wrong.

  I eased the take-out boxes to the floor. “Noe?” I called softly.

  Again I smelled smoke. I looked up. Black haze drifted around the tin ceiling in lazy swirls, coming through the vent in the back of the room that tied it to the workshop.

  I wanted to rush upstairs and check on Jane, but I knew instantly that she and Aunt Matilda were not up there. Fear raced along my nerves with a sizzling flash. Aunt Matilda?

  We’re stuck in the snow, waiting for a pickup to pull us free.

  The words were solace easing my fear. Where?

  Just down the hill from you. We needed milk and supper fixin’s. Oh! What’s happening? Jane smells smoke.

  I didn’t need to ask how Jane smelled smoke. Stay away. Don’t come home just yet. Take her to get a movie or something.

  What—?

  Not now, Aunt Matilda. I shut her away from me, my wall slamming with an almost audible clank. The smoke at the ceiling thickened. Where the heck was my gun when I needed it? Quietly I moved toward the back of the shop and through the door, down the short hallway. The smoke was thicker here and a cold breeze blew through, fanning the smoke.

  Movement ahead, the sound of a torch blowing, flame turned up too high to cone. The room came clear as I rounded the doorjamb. I took in the entire room in a single instant. Our three acetylene torches were lit, their flames billowing, each in a corner of the room, each aimed at a pile of rags. The rags were burning. I smelled kerosene.

  Isaac was prone on the floor, blood running from his temple. Evan was beside him, shackled to the heavy workbench with handcuffs. He covered his lips with an index finger and pointed to the storeroom. The light in the room was on and I heard the sound of boxes moving. Silent, I ran across the room, turning torches away from the rags as I moved, dumping one set of burning rags into the nearby sink and flinging on the water. Grabbing the fire extinguisher, I turned it to the second pile of rags, then the remaining pile, burying them beneath the stream of white. The flames went out. Smoke left an acrid taste in the back of my throat. Running back to each torch, I turned the knobs, the flames popping to silence. I was shaking, more with anger than fear.

  Glancing toward the storeroom, I knelt beside Evan. The handcuff chain was wrapped around the table leg, holding Evan close to the floor. “So much for romance and sex,” I said.

  Evan laughed silently, as if my comment made him feel better somehow. “I thought Isaac had fallen or had a heart attack or something. I bent over him and found a gun in my ear. I can’t get turned so I can lift the table and get the cuffs off the leg. Can you…?”

  I swiveled underneath, my back against the underside of the table. Bending my legs like a power lifter, I straightened my knees. The table was heavy as heck, built to withstand hammer and anvil, brazier and metalworking tools. I strained. Nothing happened. The table didn’t budge. I released the load and stepped over Evan, straddling him, and braced my back against the table near the corner for greater leverage. I shoved up with my body. The table leg wobbled, grated once and lifted. Evan was laughing as he slid the handcuffs out and rolled to his knees. He was free, but his wrists were still cuffed together in front of him. “Promise me you’ll do that again when all this is over,” he whispered.

  “Ha-ha,” I said, half crawling out to stand beside him. I glanced once at the storeroom door, hearing loud bumps and thumps. Somebody was a busy little beaver.

  “Your gun is beside the cash register. G
et it. Have you called 911?”

  I shook my head as I ran to the front. I hadn’t even thought about it. I wasn’t sure how the gun got to be in the shop, but it was wedged under the counter, beside a roll of paper towels and a bottle of Windex.

  I ran back, handing the little .38 to Evan. He took it in his cuffed hands, broke open the cylinder and checked the bullets. Snapping the chamber back in place, he jogged toward the storeroom, gun slightly to the side and pointed down to the floor. Just as Evan moved, a man walked in from the storeroom, loaded down with boxes. Davie’s boxes. I had seen the man. Somewhere. He saw Evan just as he raised the gun.

  “Stop. Police. Put down the boxes.”

  The man’s eyes whipped around the room, taking in the torches. He dropped the boxes with a huge crash and whirled toward the back door and the alley. Evan shouted and followed, now at a dead run. I grabbed the nearest thing as a weapon and followed. Only after I was out in the alley did I hear what Evan had shouted. “Call 911!”

  Evan was ahead about twenty feet, moving fast, gun in front of him. The other man pulled a gun and fired. Evan ducked behind the Dumpster. I ducked back into the shop.

  Floyd Feaster. That was his name. He had worked for Colin Hornsburn, who was now dead. Floyd Feaster was a geologist. More shots were fired in the alley. And somehow I knew there was a third person there. Raising a gun. “Look out!” I screamed, and fell into Evan’s mind.

  I felt the thump as the bullet hit me. Knew I was hit. Heard the sound of the shot after. I turned and saw a woman, moving from the snow-blocked alley end. She had a gun. I heard Feaster get away, footsteps sliding and crunching on the ice and snow. She was crying. I tried to raise the gun and fire. Pain shot through my chest. I slid down the Dumpster, letting my knees take the .38 up into position.

  I jerked my awareness back to me, blasted my wall tight against Evan. Fury whipped through me, a roaring fire. The woman walked past the doorway, the gun in front of her. I knew she was going to fire the gun. My rage flamed. I lifted my weapon over my head and raced at her. Hit her hard with the fire extinguisher. The gun went off, flying from her hands. She went down. I hit her again. Again. Pounding the heavy extinguisher into her neck, her shoulder, her back.

  Suddenly Evan was there, jerking the extinguisher from me, setting it in the snow at my feet. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Tyler.”

  My hands formed claws. The woman was splayed on the snow, bleeding. Drops of crimson on a layer of pure white. No. The blood was Evan’s. I took a single step back, watching as he found her gun against the alley wall, checked it and tucked it into his pocket.

  I looked back at Gail Speeler, lying in the snow, crying. It’s all ruined. All of it. Unless… She looked up at me, and I knew. She had Davie.

  Evan checked the end of the alley. Feaster had gotten away. I wiped my face. I didn’t know when I had started crying, but my nose was leaking in the icy air. Snow was falling still, a heavy swirl in the gusting wind. Flakes landed in Gail’s black hair, like snowflake obsidian. Hatred flared in her eyes, and victory.

  How could she feel victorious? Evan appeared beside me, his hiking boots at the edge of my field of vision. “Did you call 911?” His voice was strangely breathless, but I didn’t look up.

  “No. And I’m not going to.” I could feel his eyes on me. “She knows where Davie is. And she’s going to tell me.”

  Gail laughed, derision in the tone.

  My rage, a fire banked beneath the ashes of fear and worry and confusion, leaped free at the sound. I reached down and lifted her to her feet, my fists in her lapels. Something in my face must have warned her because the laughter stuttered into silence and her mouth opened as if to speak. Fury gave me strength not normally mine, the energy of wrath exploding.

  I threw her toward the shop door. She actually left the ground, stumbling when her feet touched the snow. Falling against the door, she hit her head. Her eyes rolled.

  “Tyler—” Evan’s tone held warning and something else.

  “Shut up.” I reached Gail and twisted my hands in her jacket again, hauling her to the shop, and I threw her inside the short hallway toward the workroom. This time, she fell when she landed. Blood welled up on her knees beneath torn stockings. Her hands were bleeding. I was on her before she could move. I lifted her and half carried her into the shop, past the ruined storeroom. Isaac was on the floor, a hand to his head. He looked up, blinking, his eyes unfocused. The sight of the blood at his temple brought the anger to a peak in me, a coned flame of fury, bright, blue-hot.

  I slammed Gail into a chair and picked up Jubal’s duct tape. With hard, jerky motions, I ripped away a length of tape and bound her body to the chair back. Another strip bound her wrists to the chair arms. With a third I lashed her legs together and then to the chair leg. Then I started over, taping her again to hold her in place. Only when she was secured did I look at Evan. He was slumped on the floor, hands still cuffed in front of him, blood-smeared khakis bunched at one knee, wrinkled at hips and waist. Some of the blood was dried brown. Eloise’s blood. Some was fresh. His own. His shirt was open, exposing the gunshot wound. It looked like a long scrape. Evan was more angry than injured. Isaac had crawled to him and was holding a clean rag over a wound high on Evan’s chest.

  I looked at Evan. His eyes roved over Gail, as if surprised at the tape that bound her to the chair. They lifted to mine. Something swam in the green deeps, something dark and malevolent. “As a cop,” he said, his voice strained and gasping, “I have to tell you this is illegal.”

  I laughed, the sound brusque. Brutal. Not me. It wasn’t. I picked up a pointed pick, one with a fine, delicate tip I used to clean the grooves of shaped stone. It was a nicely balanced tool. Solid steel, with a hatch-work handle to keep a user’s grip steady. “Has Lopez found Davie yet?”

  Almost unwillingly, as if the words were dragged from him, he said, “Eloise lawyered up. They want complete immunity. No one’s going for it. They’re at a stalemate.”

  “And meanwhile, Davie is still suffering.” I laughed again, breathing hard, the sound a rasp in the quiet room. “You can arrest me after I find my brother.” I looked from Evan to Isaac.

  His dark eyes met mine, still slightly unfocused. “While you’re at it,” he said, his Texan drawl slightly slurred, “see if you can find out who shot Jubal.”

  I nodded. I turned to Gail. Her eyes had cleared while we talked. Anger churned in them. She jerked away from me, the chair legs skidding in the suddenly silent room. I studied her, sitting there, her jacket and blouse open where they had come unbuttoned in our skirmish. I remembered the muddled wash of emotions when I had touched her last, the shame and guilt that clung to me afterward like hot tar.

  I leaned into her and delicately pushed back the silk blouse lapel. I met her eyes, saw her anger falter at whatever she saw in mine. Her pupils widened in the beginnings of fear. I smiled softly and placed the pick against her collarbone, poised. Gently I pressed. She jerked away, a high-pitched squeal coming from her throat, followed by words that spewed hatred and begging, like her mind spewed lies, dark images of hate. I gripped a handful of her hair and straddled her legs with mine. Repositioned the pick just so. Gave a single sharp stab that pierced her flesh. She gasped hard. I opened myself to her. And fell inside.

  The wash of emotions rose over me in a dark, roaring wave. This time I let them come, let them spill over me, even as I held myself aloof from them. I spiraled down through the depths of her, a precipitous, sheer drop, a dizzying whirl of images like flashes of light. I fell into her darkness. Her hidden place.

  I saw the man who stood in the heart of her secrets, a redheaded, blue-eyed man. A beautiful man. I want. I hate. Images swelled over me and passed on, a tsunami of childhood misery and shame. I understood the horrible abuse. Felt it, knew it. A child in the dark, with no one to help.

  Above that darkness, floating over the place of secrets like an oily film, was the woman grown and her determination to never be used ag
ain. Never be a pawn, never a thing with value only as a body. Never.

  A desire to strike back rested in a jumbled layer above the determination, its roots sinking into the deeps like tendrils of scarlet into a black ooze. So much misery.

  I realized I had sunk to her darkest heart and was rising through, toward her conscious mind. I had no idea how I was doing this or how she would react, but I pushed on, letting the images flow through me now. Images of people who had hurt her and had been hurt back. Insult on insult, pain on pain. Visions of men she had slept with, hating them. Hating them, yet wanting. Always wanting. Her heart beat above the pain, a fast, uneven rhythm of lifelong anguish.

  Davie, I said into the images. Davie.

  I saw my brother, a gentle man, short but muscular, wiry and athletic, blond. Dark eyes. Not blue. Thank God, not blue. Davie was smiling as if he understood the pain. As if he could take it all away. I want him, but he won’t touch me. Why won’t he touch me? I’m not good enough…He knows! How did he find out? Eloise told him! She told him everything!

  I saw Davie, bound and gagged. Handcuffed to the bed. In the memory, I saw Eloise kneeling over him, naked. She touched him! No!

  I held on to that image. It was in the small closet where they had kept him last. Where? I asked. Where is he?

  In her mind, she turned and saw me. How had she seen me? How did she know I was there? I started, wanting to pull away. Instead I forced into the vision of Davie in the small room. Where is he?

  “No! No!” She shouted, spittle landing on me, both in our minds and on my face. I ground the pick into her flesh. She screamed. Dimly I heard Isaac calling to me. His dark-skinned hand was over mine, pulling at the pick.

  Savage, I bit the wrist. It moved away, jarring my teeth. I gripped the back of her neck in my left hand, bruising, and ground down with the right, twisting the pick deep. I glared into her eyes, filled with pain and terror. And saw images of myself, of Jubal and Isaac, a glimpse of Noe. I bypassed them all, all the images except the one I wanted. She screamed. I closed my eyes again. “Where? Where is my brother?”