“Who are you talking about?” He rose and reached for the day’s pair of boxer briefs that lay in a heap by the bed. “Who would find you?” Concern flooded him; this was a sudden shift in reaction that he hadn’t expected.
Angie shook her head. “Who do you think, stupid,” she groaned. She held her face in her hands. “Who the hell was in those pictures with me?”
Gray froze, his shorts halfway up his legs. She was right – these people were high-octane movers in the corporate world. If one of them knew that she had been involved in taking compromising pictures, they wouldn’t hesitate to get their hands on her. Or, he thought as he looked at her pretty, stricken face, maybe they’d just shoot her. And that would be a grand case for him to see on the blotter, her lying there on the slab like so many other corpses.
No. No fucking way.
He pulled his shorts up and walked out into the living room. Angie stared at him as he left, calling after him, but he did not answer. He had no answer, not yet; there was only the image of her lying cold and bloodless on a mortuary slab that drove him along, the desire that this must not come to pass. He had never thought of himself as a passionate man, at least not one so passionate as to lose himself, but here he was walking to his coat where it hung by the front door, here he was fishing the data wafer Marowitz had given him out of its pocket.
“What is that?” Angie stood in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest, her top clutched against her like a shield. Her eyes were wet, her face still pale.
“They can’t get you if there’s no evidence,” Gray said. His mind burned with a flame of madness, a singular desire to keep her safe. He would not let faceless creatures in the high ether of corporate towers destroy this woman he loved, this woman he had just accused of being a murderer. She was not a murderer, he knew. She was a woman. His woman. She needed his help. Primitive though these thoughts might be, they drove his hand as he took the data wafer to the kitchenette, laid it on the counter, and pulled a gleaming steel tenderizer mallet from out of the chef’s block.
Angie stared at him with wide eyes. “What are you going to do?”
“The right thing.” Gray’s arm came down, time and time again; the ringing of the steel hammer against the resin wafer was the only sound in the apartment, pealing like a bell of ice that cracked and crunched into nothingness with every stroke. Finally there was nothing left but shattered resin fragments and gleaming bits of optical wire. He had done it. He had saved her. Gray stood over the ruins of the thing, staring at it as if it were the corpse of some long-hated enemy, and could say nothing more.
They stood there for a while, nothing but the silence and the cool of conditioned air between them. Finally Angie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, put her shirt on, and padded over to where he stood in the middle of the kitchenette. She laid her head on his shoulder; her hand rested on the forearm that had destroyed the evidence of her past folly. Angie took a deep breath. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you very much.”
He turned and pressed his lips against the top of her head, breathed in a deep draught of her wonderful smell. “Yeah,” he murmured, letting the energy of the moment drain out of him. “You’re welcome, baby. I just wanted to protect you. That’s all I ever wanted to do.”
She nodded into his arm. “I know,” she murmured, so quiet that he barely heard her even in the stillness of the apartment. “I know. I’m sorry that I got angry, I…I just thought…”
“Even if you had done it, I wouldn’t have judged you.” Gray turned and slid his arms around her shoulders; she was a head shorter than he was, so slight and fragile in his arms. His treasure. “Far worse shit has happened for the worst reasons. If he’d had come after you, or something…well, I know how things get. I might not have agreed with it, but I wouldn’t ever have turned you away – or in to Civil Protection, as it happens.”
Angie tilted her head upward to look at him. Seas of blue, scattered with the sparks of her tears, her eyes spoke of something he could neither define nor know. He hoped that it was love. “Thank you, Dan,” she whispered, and she took his face in her slim, dark hands. “I understand now. I’ll never doubt you again.”
Gray smiled at that. He took a deep breath, letting his eyes close as the tension began to flood from him. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “After all, I’m here for your protection.”
She leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss him softly. Gray could almost taste the cloves on her breath, and he smiled. “Come to bed,” Angie said softly. “I think things are going to speed up for us in the near future.”
“I like the sound of that.” Gray grinned after her, his hand in hers as he followed her back toward the bedroom, then he coughed. “But tomorrow, of course. It’s been a long evening.”
Angie laughed at that. “Good boy.”
Chapter Eighteen
They went to bed happier that night, and in the morning shared breakfast before going their separate ways for the day. Angie had work that evening, and she wanted to get something new done with her hair before she took the stage. Besides that, she had some sniffing around she wanted to do concerning this phantom drug ring that Moody was so intent on finding. Though a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders with the destruction of those pictures, she was still anxious about what Moody had planned for her.
Gray assured her that, just as he had last night, he would protect her should things start getting out of control. He stressed that she couldn’t commit any crimes in the process of her quiet investigation, even if it seemed as though it might help things proceed. She wasn’t a Vice officer, after all, and so she must never do anything that might render her easily expendable in the legal sense. Though she was confused as to how Vice got away with committing sometimes fairly serious offenses in the name of policing the public – and frankly, Gray never was able to figure it out himself – Angie had agreed, and promised to be careful. It was as much of an assurance that either of them were going to get in this situation, though the way she smiled at him before leaving that morning made him feel a good deal more hopeful.
Gray drove into work that morning listening to ‘The American Age’ and somehow not hating it at all. He felt as though he’d passed some kind of test last night, something key to their relationship, and things were going to be different now. Better. She was so important to him, after all. After last night he was sure, bone certain, that she hadn’t killed Anderson, and equally sure that he’d protected her by destroying those pictures. It had been the right thing, that much he was certain of, though he did feel a bit strange about destroying evidence. Then again, the cop game was a gray thing, and this sort of thing did happen. It was just his turn for it to happen to him.
Once he made it to Central, he found Megan Cinders waiting for him in his office. “Good morning, Detective,” she called when he entered, smiling at him in what he thought was an unusually collegial way – Megan wasn’t much of a friends type of person, as far as he knew. There was a steaming cup of coffee on the desk, fresh from what he had assumed was the Kaffemeister across the street from the complex. She held one in her hand as well.
“Morning,” he said, brushing at the lapels of his suit as he took his place behind the desk. “Didn’t expect to see you in here.”
“I have a long morning,” she said cheerfully. “Thought I’d haunt your halls for a while.” Megan gestured to the cup on the desk with a sweep of her free hand. “Large black, no cream, one sugar.”
Gray quirked a brow as he reached for it. “On the mark,” he said. “You been spying on me?”
Megan laughed. “Carter told me,” she said. “Before I went out for it.”
“Thanks,” he said with a nod. “So…been talking to Carter, have you?”
“Only in the most professional sense,” Megan said with a chuckle. “He and I have a few cases to go over. Gang shootings, that sort of thing.”
Gray nodded again. “Right.” He tilted the steaming cup to his lips a
nd took a sip – he hadn’t had Kaffemeister in a long time, and he’d forgotten how good it could be. The rich, fragrant scent of the brew curled into his nostrils as the sip turned into an ecstatic swallow. “Man,” he said after that, leaning back in his chair with a smile. “If you’re buttering me up for something, you’re sure going the right way for it.”
Again she chuckled. Gray liked the way Megan’s face light up when she laughed. It was so very different from the all-business expression that she usually used. “Well, good,” she said. “Because I guess you and I do need to talk about something.”
Gray paused in the middle of his second sip. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said, and smiled again – though it was a good bit more forced. She nodded to the door, which he got up and quietly closed. When the door was closed and Gray sat down again, she drew a deep breath. “I’m worried about you, frankly,” she said, though she took a few sheets of folded printout from the pocket of her slacks and pushed it across the desk to him. “I mean, about your not going to see the psych.”
Gray took the papers. Written across the outermost folded sheet were the words ‘PLAY ALONG WHILE YOU READ.’ So he did. “I don’t really need to go,” he said as he went through the collection of papers. It was a laboratory analysis, and the subject was apparently the ‘unknown substance’ that had been found in the nerve tissue of Askew and Cuaron. “…I mean, I’m doing okay.”
“I’m sure you might think that,” said Megan, “But come on, Detective, really. You just experienced something truly horrible, something that many in Homicide Solutions hope never to come across. How do you come back from that so quickly? You didn’t even take time off. All those interviews, the promotion, aren’t they just keeping you buoyed up so you don’t have to face the reality of what you saw?”
“It’s not like that.” Gray was reading through the paperwork now – though his knowledge of chemistry was rather limited, Megan had filled in the margins with helpful explanations. Definitely psychotropic in nature, the substance bound to the Type Four cannabinoid receptors in the nervous system, which had been only been recently discovered. Because of the newness of the discovery, and the lack of findings concerning the receptor, the exact effects created by the substance were unknown – however, computer simulations suggested docility, which fell in line with the nature of the murders. But how did it enter the system? There were just so many different possibilities…
“Detective?” Megan was staring at him.
Gray blinked. “Mmm?”
“You were saying?”
“Oh.” Gray took a deep breath and set the papers down. “Look, Megan,” he said, folding his hands on the desk. “Yes, it was horrible, yes, and it’s hard. I just don’t think that there’s anything that a psych can do that will help me. I mean, yes…I didn’t like seeing another officer go down in front of me, and believe it or not I didn’t get any pleasure from shooting his killer. I’m just not wired that way.”
“And what about Muller?” Her brows arched. “I mean, he’s on the loose.”
Gray nodded. He hadn’t thought about Muller lately. Tried not to. “And he’s not likely to be in town, either. Trust me, the moment there’s the slightest hint that he’s in our jurisdiction, I’ll get his ass on the end of a chain and drag him in. But what can I do now?” He spread his hands. “Look, I promise you, if things get too much for me to deal with I’ll go in for therapy. Thank you very much for talking to me about this; I mean, it means a lot to have people looking out for me. But right now…”
“Right now you’d rather handle it yourself.” Megan nodded. “All right, I understand. Just know, I don’t think the company’s going to let you go out and hit the field in the next few weeks until they’re sure you’re not going to have a breakdown, so you’re going to have to talk to a psych at some point, if only for a clearance.”
He nodded again, and neatly folded up the pages before tucking them into his suit jacket. “Yeah, well. Why don’t we get together for lunch again? I can’t stay in the office forever.”
“Sure.” She smiled at him. “You realize I’m not coming here in any official capacity, right? I’m not a psych, just the coroner.”
“Yeah,” said Gray, leaning back in his chair now. “But I figure you count as a medical reference. Else you wouldn’t be here, right?”
Megan laughed faintly at that. “Maybe so. Maybe I just figured you needed a friend.” She got to her feet. “So, lunch?”
“Definitely. Meet you at the garage? Twelve thirty?”
“It’s a date.”
By twelve forty-five they were in the Cerico, clear of Central, and heading for what he assumed was another circuit around the city. Megan had put the console in diagnostic mode again, and now swept the car with that little device of hers.
“Hey,” Gray said, “What is that thing?”
She said nothing for a moment, staring at the widget’s little display, then put it in her pocket after it emitted a little beep. “Bug detector,” she said. “I got one from Jack a while ago. They bug your office, did you know that?”
“So I gathered from that little performance in my office,” Gray said with a nod. “Don’t they have video surveillance, too?”
“Strangely no,” she replied. “People kept fucking with them, company just gave up on it until they could come up with something better – which they will, by the way, so don’t make any assumptions. Besides, if I just start randomly showing up and taking you to lunch people might start thinking we have a thing on, and you and I don’t need that kind of heat on us.”
“I guess not,” he said with a nod. “Well, good thinking on your part.”
Megan winked. “I am, on occasion, capable of being devious. So anyway, what did you think about the report I gave you?”
“Damned spooky.” Gray steered the Cerico down Fifth Avenue toward the international district, where they’d decided to raid a little noodle stand that Megan liked. “I mean I don’t know chemistry from shit, but it looks like this stuff could definitely make someone do what you wanted them to.”
Megan sighed and looked out the window, watching the crowds pass as they reached a stoplight. “Yeah,” she said. “It definitely fits the criminal profile. I’m wondering how it affects the body, though. I mean, does it just induce passivity? Is this a killing drug, or something else?”
For a moment he had a flash of Lindsay Yin standing over Askew’s lean, dark corpse, whispering softly to him as she split his back open with that bizarre cutter they’d found her with. Then Askew’s body blurred into Angie’s and he had to shake the image out of his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’s a weird method to use.”
“Weird, yeah,” Megan agreed. “But you know, now that we know what it is…this doesn’t seem like a simple question of some psychotic murderer going around stabbing people. The discovery of the Type Four cannabinoid receptor is only what, three years old? I think we’re looking at something bigger than serial killing. I think we’re looking at something far more complex.” She shook her head. “Or maybe I’m wrong, and it’s just some drug that happens to have some random trick of brain chemistry encoded in its makeup. I don’ t know. My money’s on something more, though.”
“I’ve got someone I can talk to, maybe.”
“Who?” Megan looked back at him, her eyes widened a bit. “Surely not Vice. Not Moody.”
“No.” Gray took a deep breath. He didn’t want to go back into White Center again, at least not so soon, but he had an idea that it might not be a wasted trip at all. “I’ve got some First Nations people I can talk to.” The empty sockets of James Black-Eyes swam into view, with his tattooed face and mouth full of fangs. He shivered. “Anyway, let’s get lunch. We can talk about it more there.”
Megan looked at him a moment longer, perhaps trying to read what it was that had made him so disturbed, but in the end she did not press. “…All right,” she said, and turned her gaze back
to the street. “Let’s hit up Golden Palace. They got good lo mein there.”
“Uh, which one would that be? The one on South King? Or South Lane?”
“The one with the foo dogs in the lobby.”
“…You’re really not shaving this down for me, you know.” He grinned at her.
“Fine, fine,” Megan said with a grunt. “You pick, then.”
So they went in search of lunch, and Gray was happy to have a diversion. Yet another problem, another mystery, and he would have to talk to James Black-Eyes once again. At least this time he was sure that the beast of a man would not try and kill him.
Well. Mostly sure.
Gray ended up having lunch with Megan at a streetside ramen stand down in the International District, mostly because they couldn’t find a place where the staff didn’t give them the stink-eye when they came in the door. Apparently Civil Protection wasn’t too welcome those days, not with the way that Pacification had pushed the rioters from Seattle Center down there a few weeks ago. There was still some damage visible – flickering neon signs, promotional display screens still showing the pearly veins of drying patchweb. The white wounds of masonry clipped from live rounds of Pacifiers’ guns when people didn’t get the idea that the rubber bullets were a warning, not the message itself. The leathery old man running the stand was more than happy to have police at his counter, however, so soup it was.
Lunch was mostly eaten in silence, with a few sputterings of unrelated small talk keeping some semblance of the casual meal between co-workers it was supposed to be. Gray was very aware of the weight of their conspiracy, how it killed his desire to talk about anything else – but there were ears everywhere, after all, and it would be senseless to discuss their plans in public. Eventually Megan excused herself again, saying that she’d talk to him later. He imagined that meant as soon as he’d heard something new, or whenever they had to work together again. Given that he wasn’t on field duty that didn’t seem likely anytime soon.
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