by J. R. Ward
“Three scrambled. Hard. White toast with butter. Coffee. Thanks.”
The waitress smiled at him, like she approved of the efficiency. “Comin’ up.”
Annnnnd then he was alone again with Reilly. She’d had a shower and changed into a professional skirt-and-button-down combo. The jacket that went with the outfit was folded neatly beside her on top of her coat. Her dark red hair was once again pulled back from her face, and she had just a little lipstick on for makeup.
Matter of fact, as she put down her coffee cup, there was a half-moon of pink where she’d put her mouth. Not that he was looking for details on her lips. Really.
“I have a preliminary report from the field,” she said.
Huh . . . those eyes weren’t just green, as he’d assumed before. They were hazel-ish, made up of a unique combination of colors that merely appeared green from a distance. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I have last night’s prelim.”
“And?”
“No other weapons were found in the area.”
He kept his relief to himself out of habit.
And before he could comment, the waitress put down his coffee and Reilly’s breakfast: a bowl of oatmeal with a side of toast. No butter.
“Is that whole-wheat?” he asked.
“Yes, it is.”
Of course it was. She probably had a light salad for lunch with a protein, and one glass of wine, if that, with a dinner that was all about root vegetables, grilled chicken, and a low-glycemic-index starch of some kind.
He wondered what she thought of the heart attack special he’d ordered.
“Please don’t wait for me,” he said.
She picked up her spoon and added a little brown sugar and cream. “You want to know what I think happened?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“It was a wild animal attack and you got knocked in the head in the process.”
He brushed his face. “No bruises.”
“Could have fallen backward.”
Matter of fact, he thought maybe he had? “But no bumps. And then my coat would have been dirty all over.”
“It is.”
“Only from when I put it on Kroner.”
She lowered her spoon. “Can you verify that? How do you know when it got soiled if you can’t remember anything? Besides, your head was killing you last night, and P.S., you’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Arguing with me about this. As well as rubbing your temple.” As he cursed and relocated his hand to his mug of coffee, she smiled with an edge. “Guess what, Detective? You’re getting yourself checked out at HQ right after our meeting.”
“I’m fine.” Christ, he could hear the bitch in his own voice.
“Remember what I said last night, Detective? That’s an order.”
As he sat back and drank some of his wakey-wakey, he caught himself checking out her ring finger. Nothing there. Not even a circular indent as if something had been there.
He wished she was sporting a solitaire and a band: He didn’t do wives knowingly. Ever. No doubt he’d been with a couple in his long history of anonymous hookups, but it had been only because they hadn’t told him.
He was a man-whore with standards, don’t you know.
“Why aren’t you suspending me?”
“Again with the negative.”
“I don’t want you ruining your career over me,” he muttered.
“And I have no intention of allowing that to happen. But there is no evidence that you were responsible for the attack, Detective, and plenty that says you weren’t—and I really don’t get why you keep pushing me on this.”
As he stared into those eyes of hers, he heard himself say, “You know who my father is, don’t you.”
That put her in pause-mode for a moment, her triangle of unbuttered fiber goodness halfway back down to her plate. She even stopped in midchew.
But then the fine Officer Reilly recovered with a shrug. “Of course I do, but that doesn’t mean you tore up somebody.” She leaned in. “But that’s what you’re afraid of, aren’t you. And that’s why you keep playing devil’s advocate.”
The waitress picked that moment to show up with his steaming plate of cholesterol, and the arrival was a conversational lifesaver if he’d ever seen one.
He salted. Peppered. Forked up and sucked down.
“Would it help if you talked to someone?” Reilly said quietly.
“As in a psychiatrist?”
“Therapist. They can be very helpful.”
“This from personal experience, Officer?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
He laughed in a hard burst. “Somehow I wouldn’t think you’re the type who needed one.”
“Everybody has issues.”
He knew he was being a bit of a shit, but he felt naked, and not in a good way. “So what’s one of yours.”
“We’re not talking about me.”
“Well, I’m getting tired of being up onstage all by my little lonesome.” He polished off half a piece of toast in two bites. “Come on, Officer. Spill something about yourself.”
“I’m an open book.”
“Who needs a therapist?” When she didn’t respond, he leveled his stare at her. “Coward.”
Eyes narrowing, she eased back and pushed her half-full bowl away. He expected some witty retort. Or, even more likely, a smack-down.
Instead, she reached into her pocket, took out a ten-dollar bill, and put it between them. “I’ll see you in the sergeant’s office.”
With subtle grace, she scootched out, taking her coat, purse, and cell phone with her.
Before she took off, Veck snagged her wrist. “I’m sorry. I was out of line.”
She disengaged the hold by putting her phone in her bag. “See you shortly.”
After she left, Veck pushed his own plate away, even though there was a good egg and a half left.
Not even nine in the morning . . . and he’d already won the asshole-of-the-day prize. Fantastic—
A draft passed over the back of his neck, prickling the hairs at his nape and making him crank around toward the door.
A woman had come in, and she was as out of place as a Ming vase in the Target housewares department. As her perfume drifted over, and she swizzled out of her fur jacket, there was an audible pause in the diner’s fifty or so conversations. Then again, she’d just exposed some Pamela Anderson breasts to half the CPD.
As Veck checked her out, he supposed he should have been attracted to her, but instead, that cold shaft tickling down his spine made him want to take out a gun and point it at her in self-defense.
And how fucked up was that.
Leaving a twenty of his own, he bailed on the rest of his breakfast and hit the door. Stepping outside, he stopped. Glanced around.
The back of his neck was still going, his instincts screaming, particularly as he glanced at the round windows of the diner. Someone was watching him. Maybe the chippie with the Hustler body, maybe someone else.
But his instincts never lied.
Good news was, it appeared he’d be getting his weapons back later this morning. So at least he could legally protect himself again.
As Jim pulled into the Riverside Diner’s lot on his Harley, some guy on a sweet BMW bike tooled off with a roar.
Adrian and Eddie were right behind him on their rides, and the three of them parked together in the far corner by the Hudson’s shore. As he dismounted and looked at the place Devina had named for a rendezvous, he thought, Well, isn’t this special. He’d been at this very same dive with his first soul.
Guess Caldwell was a hotbed of activity for the damned.
Then again, maybe she just liked the java here and was going to tell him the soul in question was somewhere else.
Heading over to the entrance, his boys were giving him the silent treatment—not a news flash on Eddie’s part, but a miracle on the other angel’s. No way that was going t
o last with Ad, though
The diner was crowded, noisy, and smelled like coffee and melted butter. Hell of a place for Devina to pick—
And there she was, way to the left, sitting at a booth and facing the door with a shaft of sunlight pouring in through the window next to her. The warm yellow rays illuminated her face perfectly, like she was about to be photographed, and he thought of the first time he’d seen her at that club, standing under a ceiling fixture. She’d been glowing then, too.
Evil had never looked so hot, but unlike the other men, who were staring over the rims of their mugs and all but drooling like dogs, he knew what she really was—and he wasn’t so distracted by the slipcover that he didn’t notice she threw no shadow: As bright as the illumination that struck her was, there was no dark outline on the tabletop or the Naugahyde beside her.
For a split second, he had an image of the two of them together from the night before. He’d tried to fuck her from behind on that table, but she’d insisted on doing it face-to-face. Frankly, he’d been surprised that he could get it up, but anger had a way of making him hard. At least with her.
As he’d departed that sweaty, rough scene, he’d looked around at her walls, imagining Sissy stuck in the tangle of the damned. He prayed his girl couldn’t see out of it. God, to think she might have . . .
But enough of that. Coming up to Devina, he put a block on any thoughts of Sissy or sex with the enemy or even the game itself.
“So who is it?” he said.
The demon peered over the top of her Caldwell Courier Journal, her black eyes doing a quick circuit of his body and making him want to take another shower—this time with a belt sander.
“Well, good morning, Jim. Won’t you sit down with me.”
“No goddamn way.”
The guy in the booth in front of her glared over his shoulder. Like he didn’t approve of Jim’s tone or language around a lady.
She only looks like one, buddy, Jim thought.
Devina put the paper down, and went back to her buttermilk pancakes and her coffee. “Do you have a pen?”
“Do not fuck with me.”
“Little late for that. Pen?”
As some people tried to get past, Jim and the boys had to turn sideways while Eddie outed a Paper Mate something or other and handed it over.
Devina uncapped the thing with her long, manicured hands. And then she folded the paper to the crossword puzzle.
“What’s a five-letter word for—”
“Damn it, Devina, cut—”
“—antagonist.”
“—the shit.”
“Actually, Jim, ‘the shit’ is seven letters. Although I am, aren’t I.” Devina began carefully filling in a word. “I believe ‘enemy’ is the word I’m looking for. And you’re either sitting down with me—alone—or you’re going to stand there until your legs rot off and you fall over in the aisle.”
More with the careful printing. Wonder if she was working on another word for “pain in the ass.”
Jim glanced at his boys. “I’ll be right out.”
“Good-bye, Adrian,” Devina said, with a wave. “I’ll see you soon, though—I’m quite sure.”
The demon didn’t say anything to Eddie. Then again, she liked to get a rise out of people, and Eddie was as unleavened as matzo.
Which Jim supposed put him and Adrian in the hotcross-bun department.
As the two angels took off, Jim slid into the booth. “So.”
“Would you care for some breakfast?”
“Who is it, Devina.”
“I hate to eat alone.”
“You could hold your breath until I join you—how about that.”
Her black eyes became direct. “Must we fight.”
At that, he had to honestly laugh. “It’s the reason we’re here, baby.”
She smiled a little. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you do that.”
Jim cut the sound right off as a waitress came over with a coffeepot. “Nothing for me, thanks.”
“He’ll have coffee and the waffles.”
When the waitress looked at him like, Come on, make up your damn mind, he shrugged and let it go.
After they were alone again, Devina just went back to her puzzle.
“You can’t have a shot with me unless you get talking.”
There was a pause, as if the demon were thinking of some way to prolong the meeting. Eventually, she tapped the newspaper with the tip of Eddie’s pen.
“You read the CCJ?”
“Sometimes.”
“It’s a treasure trove of information.” She made an elaborate show of picking up the first section. “You never know what you might find.”
Flattening the thing and spinning it around to face him, she stared across the table.
Jim looked down. Three big articles. One on a new school districting plan. Another on emerging minority businesses. And a third on . . .
The nib of Eddie’s pen pointed to the last article.
“I believe I have completed my part of the agreement,” she drawled.
The headline read: “DelVecchio Execution Scheduled.”
Jim quickly skimmed the article and thought, Shit, that was the soul?
Just as Devina went to retract the pen, he flashed out a hand and locked a hold on her wrist, keeping it in place.
The nib of the Paper Mate was actually on a name within the article—and it wasn’t the DelVecchio serial killer guy. It was the man’s son . . . Thomas DelVecchio Jr.
A detective on the Caldwell police force.
Jim glanced across the table at his enemy and smiled with his incisors. “Tricky.”
Her lashes lowered demurely. “Always.”
Done with her and the time suck, Jim got up and took the pen with him. “Enjoy my waffles, sweetheart.”
“Hey, how will I finish my crossword puzzle?”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way. See you soon.”
Jim stalked out of the diner and beelined for his wingmen. When he came up to the bikes, he held the Paper Mate up to Eddie.
“Your pen.” As the angel went to take it back, Jim held on to the thing. “Metal casing around the nib. Next time, give the bitch a Sharpie.”
As Jim went to sling a leg over his hog, Adrian asked, “What did she say?”
“Looks like we’re going into the land of cops and robbers.”
“Oh. Good.” Ad mounted his own bike. “At least I speak the language there.”
CHAPTER 6
When Reilly walked into HQ, it was through the back door and down the cinder-block hallway that dumped out into what was supposed to be the newly renovated, inspiring and uplifting lobby. Unfortunately, the bronze statue of Lady Justice with her scales and her sword was a modern interpretation of the classic Greco-Roman prototype, and the blindfolded goddess looked like melted cheese. Old, brown melted cheese.
The circular walk around her and the spotlights shining down from the open loggia above just provided greater visual access to the hot mess. Then again, most of the police personnel, district attorneys, and defense lawyers striding through were too busy to worry about the decor. Headquarters had a lot going on: The secured dropoff and central processing for arrests was to the right, along with the jail itself. Records was to the left. Up at the top of the curving stairs were the offices for Homicide and Internal Affairs, as well as the squad room and locker room. Third floor was the new lab and the evidence lockup.
Reilly hit the stairs two at a time, passing a couple of colleagues who were going slower than her. But as she stepped off on the second-floor landing she lost her momentum. The wide-open area up ahead had a bank of desks where the pool of admin support people worked. Front and center among the young men and women? Brittany spelled Britnae, a.k.a., the Pneumatic Office Hottie.
The blonde had a hand mirror up and was running her fingertip under one heavily MAC’d or Bobbi Brown’d or Sephora’d eye. Next move was to fluff the curls. Last was to smack he
r lips and pout.
All the while, she was bending forward and flashing her double Ds to. . . herself.
Evidently pleased with her paint job and landscaping, Britnae turned her wrist and checked one of those little itty-bitty watches some women wore, the kind that had linked bracelets and tiny mother-of-pearl faces.
She probably had baskets of bangles, and dangly earrings that hung from a little stand, and a closet full of pink stuff.
Reilly’s closet looked like Marilyn Manson’s. Assuming he’d been reborn as an accountant. And she didn’t do jewelry. Her watch? Casio. Black and shockproof.
Three guesses who Britnae was getting ready for. . . and the first two didn’t count: The girl had been panting after Veck since the day he’d come through that door two weeks ago.
Not that it was Reilly’s business.
Before someone booked her for being a creepy-ass stalker, she hurried along to the IA division and went to her cubicle. Pretending to be alert, she signed into her computer, but as she went into her e-mail, everything had been translated into a foreign language. Either that or her brain had forgotten English.
Goddamn DelVecchio.
Calling her a coward? Just because she wanted to keep things professional? He didn’t know half the hell she’d been through. Besides, she’d been trying to help him . . .
Made her want to feed the guy his breakfast with her size nine.
Getting with the program, she called up the report she’d filed via e-mail early this morning and double-checked her work, going through the whole document from beginning to end.
When her phone rang, she reached for the receiver without having to look up. “Reilly.”
“Thomason.” Ah, the lab upstairs. “Just wanted you to know that I think Kroner’s injuries were the result of teeth.”
“As in . . .”
“Fangs, specifically. I met up with the medics last night at the ER and was there as Kroner was intubated, stitched up, and transfused. I had a good look at those neck and facial wounds. When a knife is used in an attack like that, you tend to get very clear boundaries on the lacerations. His flesh had been torn—which was what I saw when that tiger ate that trainer last year.”