The Girl In the Morgue

by D. D. VanDyke

Cal closed her eyes, feeling the drugs start taking effect, even though she knew it was too soon to be more than psychological. “Incident.” She scoffed. “Ha.”

  “No need for euphemism?”

  “It was a bomb. Domestic terrorism.”

  “Does it really matter whether it’s domestic or foreign?”

  “It didn’t to me, but the public always wants a simple reason, and someone to blame. As if we can ever know the root causes of all the crazy in the world.” She held up her hands and waved them by her ears in mock fright. “Muslims! Nazis! Hate groups! Anarchists! They’ll always be around.”

  “Yet we’re both still fighting.”

  Cal dropped her hands into her lap, picked at a broken nail. “It’s what we do.”

  “Glad to know you include me in that.” Thomas took her by the hand. His was warm and remarkably comforting.

  “What made you decide to come today?” Cal asked.

  “I saw you on TV. Well, not you; they didn’t show your face. But I recognized your car.”

  “They nearly wrecked her. Who cuts brake lines, anyway? That’s so unreliable, so melodramatic. If someone wanted me dead, they should just come after me with automatic weapons. I’m in no shape to fight.”

  “You’re more outraged about Madge than your own life?”

  “Well, if they killed me, I wouldn’t be here to complain about it.” Unless, like her father, she stuck around to haunt Starlight. Or maybe Thomas. Popping up beside him at inopportune moments might be compensation for whatever unpleasantness the afterlife brought. “Wrecking a classic like that, though. It’s criminal.”

  “Yes, criminal,” Thomas agreed dryly. “Tell me about the case you’re investigating.”

  “It’s a murder. On the face of it, a lover’s quarrel ending in death. The boyfriend confessed. But she was wearing a chainmail shirt, and took eight rounds to the chest.”

  “Eight. That seems extreme. Unprofessional and angry. Sloppy, even.”

  “The scene doesn’t support the boyfriend’s story. He has to be covering for someone, but I can’t figure out why. I’ve checked out his side-boyfriend.” She paused to gauge Thomas’s reaction to this, but he didn’t turn a hair. “That one has an alibi, though he seems perfect for it otherwise. Checked out Jenna’s ex; there was a custody fight going on. But he has an alibi too. Good ones, both of them. So…”

  Thomas waited. “So…?”

  “So I was tipped off that maybe it wasn’t personal. Maybe it wasn’t a jealous ex or a love triangle.”

  “Revenge? Money? What was she into?”

  “Those were the questions.” Cal took a minute to collect her thoughts. “She had extra money all of a sudden. I’ve been trying to figure out where she got it. I thought it was drugs, and Pete and Sergei were fighting over territory…” Cal shook her head. “Honestly. Getting hit in the head isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I keep going from one thing to another. Cole and I thought it must be Potoczek and his Society front, but then he got killed—”

  Thomas’s eyes widened and riveted. “Potoczek?”

  “Peter Potoczek. He’s this big medieval reenactment guy, the Prince over all of San Francisco. But he’s also connected, I think. Mobbed up, maybe, or one of the big gangs, like Aryan Brotherhood.” Cal trailed off. Despite Thomas’s exterior calm, she sensed something in him. In another man she’d have expected barely suppressed excitement. With Thomas, he became icy calm, shut down completely, also a sure tell. “What is it?”

  “I know Potoczek.”

  “How would you—oh, of course you do. I don’t need another lecture on staying away from him.”

  Thomas raised one eyebrow. “That would be pointless, seeing as he’s dead.”

  “There’s that. I didn’t just mean him personally, I meant his whole network. Obviously, his business doesn’t die just because he did.”

  Thomas rubbed his upper lip, thinking. “How was Potoczek killed? I didn’t hear about that.”

  “You weren’t in town?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Well…because you’re here now. Because you saw Madge on the news. Which seems like quite a coincidence, even if you were in the area.”

  “I have access to certain resources that cue me to things of interest to me.”

  “What, like…intelligence? Computers? Am I being watched?”

  “No comment.” He waved as if to dispel her line of inquiry. “Potoczek?”

  “He was stabbed. In the same battle I was injured in. You knew about that. Why not the rest?”

  “The vagaries of technology. Obviously, my sources need to be trained in providing full details. Potoczek’s death is significant.”

  Cal eased her body into a new position. “If you knew about me getting hurt, why didn’t you come see me in the hospital? Like I did with you. Tried to, anyway, if you hadn’t bolted.”

  “You aren’t any better at staying where you’re supposed to be, Cal. The answer is, I wasn’t able to get away from my obligations as soon as I heard about your…injuries. I came as quickly as I could, but not soon enough to stop you from trying to kill yourself. Do you have a death wish?”

  “You’re one to talk.” Cal recalled chasing his stolen Audi before they had officially met and tried to repress a smile.

  “Shall we concede that we are alike?”

  “Or opposites. I’m not sure.” She hated to admit the parallels between their actions, because despite her feelings for him, she remained angry. Thomas’s personal ethics were nothing like hers. He’d abandoned her for weeks without even a phone call or an email. She would never have done that to him. No matter what the job, in this day and age he could have found some way to make contact.

  “What made you go to this battle?” he asked. “I take it this was before you found out about Potoczek’s connections?”

  “No, after, but I didn’t think there was any great danger in participating in a game. A public event. Lots of witnesses. And I brought the M&Ms, just in case.”

  “You could have been killed. You very nearly were. Potoczek was. I’d say you misjudged the situation.”

  “Or it was an accident that I got hurt. It was a lot more violent and physical than I expected. It could be a coincidence that Potoczek happened to be killed that day. Murdered, I should say.”

  Thomas considered it. He shook his head. “With two goons there to protect you? A head injury and a chest injury?”

  “But why would someone want to kill me and Potoczek? If he were somehow responsible for Jenna’s death, why would someone try to kill me?”

  “Obviously because you could point the finger at him, and he’d somehow become a liability. Higher-ups in these organizations don’t get their positions because they’re impulsive, and they don’t go around murdering people willy-nilly, not if they want to keep their businesses running smoothly. This isn’t Central America.”

  “What do you know about Central America?”

  “More than I’d like, I assure you.”

  “I would have thought you’d be a poor undercover down there, with your Nordic looks.”

  “Indeed.”

  “In fact…” She shook her finger at him. “You’d fit right in with these Aryan types.”

  “You’re just now noticing this?”

  Cal furrowed her brow in thought. “But killing him and missing me only raised the stakes. More connections, more cops, more chance for me to stitch things together.”

  “Clearly, there’s a third party.”

  “Third, fourth…I wondered about Uncle Sergei at Vyazma…you know, Russians versus Poles in the drug market or something like that. But…”

  Thomas was already shaking his head. “Sergei Volkov is not involved in the drug market.”

  “You know Sergei?”

  Thomas tapped his fingertips against each other. “I’ve done my best to familiarize myself with the people in your life. Especially those who could be dangerous.”

  “Uncl
e Sergei is no danger to me.”

  “No. I don’t think he is.”

  Cal studied Thomas, searching his face. “There’s a lot about Sergei that I don’t know. What did you find out about him?”

  “Would it really be to your benefit to know these things?”

  “I…I’d like to. Who he was when he was younger. What he’s been involved in. My mother’s taken up with him, and I suggested it, so I’m responsible. I think I should know more about him.”

  “You already do. You know that he wouldn’t hurt you. Would he hurt your mother?”

  “No…not knowingly. Not intentionally.”

  “Do you think he hurt Jenna Duncan? Or put her in danger?”

  Cal thought back to the way Sergei reacted to the news that Jenna wore mail at Vyazma. “No. I think if he’d known she was afraid for her life, he would have done something to help. Or at least tried.”

  “She knew she was in danger?”

  “Yes. According to Rostislav, one of the Vyazma bouncers.” Cal closed her eyes, resting her pounding head, and found it difficult to open them again.

  “You’re tired, and that Percocet’s starting to hit you. I’ll let you go back to sleep.”

  “No.” Cal closed her fingers around his hand. “Don’t leave me again. Stay with me. For a while, at least.”

  “This isn’t exactly comfortable.” He pointed out. “How about we find somewhere more…accommodating.”

  “You want to go up to my room?”

  “That would be much more sensible.”

  Cal forced herself to sit up, and waited for her head to stop spinning. “I guess the flower petals were not you.”

  “What?”

  “Mm. Nothing. I’m half-asleep.”

  With assistance from Thomas, Cal got to her feet. She moved slowly across the living room and to the stairs, and then lifted her foot, nearly toppling. Thomas caught her and steadied her in his arms. “Let me help you.”

  She put her arm around his neck and expected him to simply supply some stability and support as she made her way up the stairs. But instead, Thomas bent down and scooped her up in his arms like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold. Cal gasped and held on. He wasn’t that much bigger than she was. She wouldn’t have been worried if Rostislav was carrying her; she’d be nothing more than a sack of potatoes to him. But for Thomas…

  “No, I’m too heavy for you.”

  “You’re as light as a feather, and I’m stronger than I look,” he said, taking the first couple of steps. It was obvious from the effort in his voice that it was not as easy as he made it out to be. “Okay, maybe not quite as light as a feather,” he admitted. A couple more steps, each one slower and with more effort than the last. “Have you been putting on weight?”

  “Thomas!”

  “Well, you have been lying around in bed. Maybe you’ve gained a few pounds…”

  “Not lately. I’m sure I dropped a few, actually, with all the missed meals.”

  He chuckled. He was breathing heavily by the time he got to the top of the first flight.

  “Put me down now. I can walk the rest of the way.”

  “As her majesty pleases…” He put her back on her feet and she began to climb.

  When she reached the top floor, Cal held onto him for a minute, making sure that she had her balance back. She put her face close to his, smelling the clean scent of his cologne, aroma de Thomas. She leaned in and nuzzled him, and was surprised at how quickly he responded, tightening his grip on her so that it hurt her chest, fitting his lips to hers and kissing her hungrily. Cal pulled back, her heart pounding wildly.

  “You left me,” she reminded him. “You disappeared and left me all alone.”

  “You were never alone.” He kissed her again, and then guided her to her bedroom door. Cal wasn’t sure whether he carried her to the bed or if she got there under her own power. The queen-sized pillow-top was considerably roomier than the couch, and he made himself comfortable there next to her. “I thought you were tired.”

  “Not so much at the moment,” Cal whispered, pulling him closer by his shirt and starting to unbutton it. He returned the favor by helping her to unbutton hers. Then he stopped. No more kissing. No more heat. Cal met his eyes, then followed his gaze to her chest, bruised black and yellow and purple.

  “Good Lord,” he said. “I thought you were playing it up, not down.”

  “Yeah. I got a little banged up.”

  “A little banged up? Dear, the Titanic was a little banged up. You look like a train had its way with you.” He kept his hands back, surveying the damage. “Nothing broken?”

  “Bruised.”

  “California…”

  “I swear. The only thing broken is my hand.”

  “How exactly does someone get an injury like this?” He reached a fingertip toward her chest.

  “I’m not entirely sure. It must have been when I fell, got stomped on. There was a guy, three or four hundred pounds…even armor can’t stop that.”

  “If you hadn’t been wearing armor…can you imagine the force? If you were bare-chested, he would have killed you instantly.”

  With the words “bare-chested” echoing in Cal’s brain, she undid the last button on Thomas’s shirt and spread the halves apart, enjoying the view of his well-muscled body and the way his skin quivered beneath her touch.

  “No more swordfights for you,” Thomas said softly.

  “No? Not even with you?” She tried to pull him closer, but Thomas resisted.

  “You’re injured. I’m not risking doing anything that might hurt you.”

  “The painkillers are kicking in. Now would be the best time…”

  “The worst time, sorry. The best time is when you’re healed. I can’t possibly.”

  Cal resisted begging. She stared into his eyes, looking for a crack in his armor, trying to recapture that desire she’d felt him radiate. “You owe me, Sir Thomas.” Only half joking.

  “If I’m Sir Thomas, I owe you chivalry, and that means I don’t take advantage when you’re sick and drugged up.”

  “You won’t. You’ll be careful. We’ll both be careful.”

  “No.” He pulled the two sides of his shirt together, and then lay on his side as he re-buttoned it one-handed.

  The more he refused, the more Cal wanted him. It was only making her frustrated and angry. “Thomas. Come on! Don’t be such a…a…”

  “Gentleman? Adult? Sensible?”

  “Prick!”

  “I think that’s actually the opposite of what you mean.”

  Cal growled and struck the bed beside her. “Why did you even come here? Why didn’t you just stay away?”

  “I wanted to see you. I wanted to make sure you were okay. There’s more to our relationship than just a…physical connection, isn’t there?”

  “Lately, neither.”

  “Cal.”

  “Why do you do this to me?”

  “What?”

  She rolled to stare at the ceiling. “Winding me up and then disappearing. Or appearing and winding me up. I thought you’d be the last one to fail to finish your job.”

  “My job?”

  Her mouth quirked. “Making me happy, right? That’s the man’s responsibility.”

  “I’m glad you can laugh about it.”

  “What choice do I have?”

  “I can’t be here and available all the time. With my job, my actual job, I can’t settle down here and be on call whenever you want me.”

  “I’m not asking for that. I just want a little more.”

  “Love and money.”

  “What?”

  “How much do you need? Just a little more. That is, if we depend on others to make us happy.”

  Cal sighed. “You just can’t let me be childish in my hour of pain and need.”

  “Should I?” He slid up close and put his arms around her, nestling her into his body. He kissed the back of her neck.

  “Guess not. Boo.
”

  “Rest now. Your body needs it. Everything else will wait for another time.”

  “That’s the problem. If I go to sleep, I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone, leaving me with no ‘another time’ unless you oh-so-kindly grant it to me. How should I feel about that?”

  He was silent for a time. “Fair point. Tell you what. I’ll work out some arrangement.”

  “Arrangement?”

  “To contact me.”

  “That’ll be nice.”

  He stroked her hair. “It will.”

  Cal started to relax under his touch. As her tension faded, she knew he was right. Her body still ached. Everyone said she should still be in the hospital. It felt good just to lie there with his warmth against her.

  He shifted and pulled a blanket over them both. “Go back to sleep.”

  “I’m not tired,” Cal lied before she faded.

  Cal woke slowly, warm and comfortable as if she’d had her first restful sleep in weeks. She rolled over, feeling for Thomas, finding only Snowflake, who raised his head to gaze at her solemnly.

  “Of course,” she muttered. “Unless you’re him?” She rubbed the feline’s head. “Instead of a frog, the prince is a cat? God, I’m losing it.”

  She vaguely remembered waking and Thomas giving her more painkillers. She thought they had had a conversation, but she couldn’t remember any details. Had he told her he would be coming back? Had he said anything about the future? Was there a future for them?

  Expired or not, the Percocet was still doing its job. Cal felt creaky getting out of bed, but she managed to get to her bathroom and back without falling down or using the wall for support.

  Cal heard a noise downstairs. She pictured Thomas with a frilly apron on, bustling about making coffee and pancakes. Or a proper English breakfast, whatever that was. Beans and sausages and mushrooms?

  Descending the stairs wasn’t as difficult as climbing them. With the help of the handrail, she was able to get down without assistance. As expected. the noises were coming from the kitchen.

  She walked in with a smile and a joke on her lips, but it wasn’t Thomas. It was a healthy-looking, happy Starlight, who turned around and saw Cal standing there.

  “Good morning, California Gale,” she chirped. “Ready for something to eat?”