Deliver Me from Chaos

by Tes Hilaire

  “That makes ID a bit trickier.”

  Banks sighed, idly tapping his pen. “According to eye witnesses there may have been two other men involved, but it was unapparent at this point in time if they were victims who’d put up a fight, Good Samaritans who simply left, or if they knew the suspect and been trying to talk him down, but either way they took off before the officers could control the scene.”

  Mike tensed, trying not to show too much—or too little—interest. “No hits from the video feed?”

  Banks shook his head. “Camera malfunction. The entire system went down before we could pull it and the feed was lost for the entire night.”

  Mike sat back. And wasn’t that just the type of vigilante crap he’d expect from the men Jessica hung out with? Strangely, he found he didn’t blame them. Turn up at enough crime scenes and whether you were the Good Samaritan or not wouldn’t matter anymore.

  Guess they’ve made a believer out of me, after all.

  “What are you thinking, Mike?”

  Mike looked up at Banks, realized that he must look pretty intense. He couldn’t exactly divulge what he had been thinking, but he could at least try and get some information that might help Jessica and the others determine if there was a true correlation or not. “That Grand Central massacre was another knifing, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it was. Think that’s relevant?”

  “I’m honestly not sure.”

  And there went that pen again. “I have friend down at the precinct who handled that case. Let’s give her a call.”

  ***

  Kat approached the man behind the reception desk, noting how he immediately sat up taller, his gaze traveling over her body. Guess it didn’t matter if she was wearing a boxy jacket and jeans. Or that the jacket wasn’t buttoned up far enough to hide the gauze bandages taped to the base of her throat. Men were still men, and she was still a succubus.

  Get over it. If what you are helps you and you don’t actually hurt anyone…

  “Can I help you?” he asked when he’d finally jerked his gaze back to her face. And points to him for not talking to her boobs.

  “Actually I was wondering if Officer Mike was in.” She knew she was taking a chance that this was the right station house. But she was hoping her assumption that Mike would have been within his precinct when she’d met him in that alley was right. If not, then she wasn’t sure what to do short of going to every precinct house in the city and even then there were no guarantees she’s be able to find him.

  “Two Mikes here. Which one do you want?”

  Her heart sped up, then crashed. Well crap. She didn’t have a last name. Only, what was that he’d said he’d done? Homicide? Narcotics? They both would have the same title, right? “Uh, he’d be a detective, actually.”

  “Detective Ward.” The officer nodded. “Pretty sure he’s talking with the sergeant. I’ll put in a message for him, but I doubt he’ll get it until they’re out of their meeting.”

  “Any idea how long that could be?” Time was not her friend right now. Though, really, what choice did she have? The last twenty-four hours had only driven home the fact that she was hopelessly unqualified to rescue Mia on her own. And yeah, maybe it was unfair—not to mention unrealistic—to ask Mike to help her, but what other options did she have?

  None. She had none, which was pretty bad considering that the chances of him not killing her or turning her over to the Paladin were only slightly better than her chances of ending up on Ganelon’s table if she couldn’t enlist his help. She was really banking on the fact that Mike’s beast was attracted to her. And that he was a cop and seemed to have a thing against killing indiscriminately.

  “Not sure. Could be a few minutes, could be over an hour.”

  She must have looked defeated at this bit of information, because his eyes softened, his tone losing some of the tough-man bravado and becoming tempered with true sympathy.

  “You can wait in the waiting room for him if you like.”

  She looked over at the packed waiting room and cringed. That room was packed full of emotions, a virtual feast for a succubus worthy of their name. Only Kat didn’t want to go in there. Yes, the energy behind those emotions might be what her body needed to remain in peak condition, but she’d never enjoyed feeding off the more negative ones. They always made her feel dirty, and any high she got from the emotional energy was tempered with a type of depression that came after. It just wasn’t worth it.

  “It’s awfully crowded in there. I don’t suppose I could just wait at Mike’s desk…” She put just the slightest bit of push behind the words, letting the suggestion sink deeper into his mind. And okay, maybe she should feel guilty for trying to influence him, but she really, really didn’t want to be stuck in that room indefinitely, nor could she leave. She had nowhere to go. Not the apartment she didn’t dare return to, nor the shelter that she wouldn’t return to.

  The officer looked past her to the crowded waiting room, then over his shoulder into the cubicles.

  “Please? I’m a little claustrophobic and I know Mike wouldn’t mind.”

  His brow furrowed, creating the classic double one crease in his forehead. Katrina was afraid her suggestion wasn’t going to work at all, not without putting a lot more power into it, and she really didn’t want to do that. But then he nodded. “Okay. But you need to sit in the chair for visitors and stay out of his things.”

  “Cross my heart.”

  He grunted, pointing back towards the cubicles. “Third row back, second desk in from the hall side. His name will be on it.”

  She nodded, quickly moving through the door when he buzzed her through.

  She didn’t waste any time making her way to the cubicle the officer had directed her to, sitting in the stiff wooden chair in front of the desk that had a plaque with Detective Mike Ward’s name on it. Even better was the picture pinned to the filing cabinet behind the desk of her Mike dressed up in his blues, being handed some sort of plaque by another police officer decorated in pins.

  Right Precinct. Right Mike.

  Her relief turned to anxiousness as the minutes passed, turning to a quarter of an hour, and then a half. She shifted, trying to ignore the urge to move and do. Her gaze drifted to the desk that she’d been valiantly trying not to stare at. She’d actually meant it when she promised not to go through Mike’s things, but the shear messiness of the papers piled on it kept drawing her gaze. Her fingers itched to straighten those papers, organize them at the very least. There were Post-it notes all over the place, print outs, letters, and stacks and stacks of jam-packed folders—all twisted in opposite directions of one another.

  How can I be attracted to a pack rat?

  She shook her head, automatically reaching out for a bent piece of paper that was hanging off the front of the desk more than on it. Only reason it hadn’t fallen was it was caught between two of those crooked folders. Still, all it would take was a bump.

  Of course once it was in her hands, she wasn’t sure what to do with it. Try and stuff it back between the folders? Put it on top? She glanced down at the paper. It was a paid invoice from a florist. An arrangement of white calla lilies to be delivered to a funeral home. The return address wasn’t the precinct, but an apartment. Mike’s apartment to be exact.

  Her heart skipped a beat. She quickly glanced over her shoulder. Not many could see her here, and of those who could, no one was paying her any attention. She studied the address, memorized it: A basement apartment just a little way further up on Bruckner Ave. Might as well have just lived at the station.

  She looked closer at the invoice. The flowers were for the funeral of a Jessica Waters. She wondered who the woman was. A case he’d been working, perhaps? A friend? A girlfriend who’d died? And why did her gut sink at that thought? All of a sudden the need to know who the woman was became overwhelming.

  Kat gnawed her lip, then checking to ensure no one was looking, grabbed the two files that the invoice had been between.
The one below it had the name Thomas Rhodes on the tab. She put that one back for now, turning her attention to the second file. This one unlabeled and a heck of a lot messier.

  Balancing the file on her lap, she flipped open the cover. There on top was an article titled “Fellow Officers Honor Detective Killed in Line of Duty.” The picture below the title had been taken at the funeral; a sea of formally dressed cops flanking the coffin of their fallen comrade and an elderly couple who Katrina guessed were the grieving parents. Her gaze immediately honed in on the name of the fallen detective, a Jessica Waters. Guess she knew who the flowers had been for now.

  Feeling sad for Mike and his loss, she flipped the article over. Immediately she wished she hadn’t. For the next thing in the file was a picture, the print out edges lovingly worn. In the picture were two people. Mike, his eyes shining with mirth as he winked for the selfie that he took of him and a woman, her lips pursed in friendly annoyance as she tried to block the camera with her hand. He’d caught her, and though the photo was a little blurry from both the motion and being blown up, there was no denying who the woman, with her dark curly hair, high strong check bones, and blue eyes was. It was the woman from the Cloisters.

  Around her the room spun. No, not the room, she was dizzy because she was starting to hyperventilate. She forced herself to calm down, take slow even breaths. Only when the room had finally righted, did she allow herself to look back down at the picture again. Mike smiled up at her, and the woman, well she wasn’t quite as stunning as she was in real life, but she was close.

  And that was the kicker. Because the woman in the picture was supposedly dead. Only she wasn’t.

  Kat didn’t understand how Jessica was here now if she had been gone and buried, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Mike had known her well. Very well. Which meant that Mike would be ecstatic that she was alive now. And much more likely to fall right in with the new group of friends the new Jessica Waters ran with. Including one very special Paladin named Logan Calhoun.

  Feeling stupid and defeated Kat closed the folder, carefully stuffing it back how she found it in the pile on the desk. Then, with ice running through her veins, she stood and walked out of the station. Not even bothering to offer a goodbye or thank you to the confused officer at the front desk.

  ***

  Mike hung up the phone, wondering if he’d just royally screwed up. Sure, the call had been helpful, to him, but he wondered if he’d started a ball rolling that couldn’t be stopped. Sergeant Banks’ friend, Taylor, was a detective from a downtown precinct. Detective Taylor had been one of the first on the scene at Grand Central after the madman had been taken down. She’d confirmed what Mike feared, there were other cases that followed the same MO. It was the randomness of violence, crossing multiple precinct lines, which lent no clues as to where to focus their search. Worse was that the knife had gone missing from evidence. Along with a late night janitor. An internal investigation was being done. Mike closed his eyes, wondering when they’d hear about that janitor’s homicidal streak.

  Mike had told the detective what he suspected about the drug, alluding that the man in Grand Station, given his symptoms, could have been on it. Taylor had asked for more details. Mike had told her the drug was highly toxic, appeared to lead to extreme and instantaneous paranoia, and the end result was the user going homicidal. He’d also told her what he’d told Banks as to how it was being distributed: only to a select few converts of choice.

  Taylor had mulled that over, saying she’d be talking to her narcotics unit. It had taken all Mike’s control not to warn her that getting near that knife amounted to the same thing. Self-preservation had won out, albeit barely, over the guilt he’d felt for keeping the detective in the dark regarding the secondary danger.

  “What do you think?” Banks asked as soon as the phone clicked off.

  Mike shook his head. He thought, no hoped, he hadn’t just fucked up. Damn, he’d wanted to warn them, not send another cop into the frying pan. But it sounded like that was what this Detective Taylor was going to be doing. “I don’t think there is anything she said that is going to get us anywhere.”

  “Don’t feel bad. You’re obviously not the only one hitting dead ends on this one.”

  Mike grunted. One thing was for certain. He would not be doing any more official investigation into this case. Not when any leads he might get could lead another cop into the type of trouble they weren’t prepared to deal with.

  “Hey. I actually need a favor,” he said, shifting the topic of conversation.

  “Shoot.”

  “I know I took a couple weeks off when, well, Jessica died, but I still have some time banked. I’d like to take a few days off to help a friend out with something.”

  Banks frowned, his gaze assessing. “Not something to do with all this, is it?”

  “Nah. Missing kid.”

  “Christ. You talked to the cops working the case yet? They got any leads?”

  Mike’s blood chilled. And, shit, when had he totally lost his mind? He hadn’t even asked Kat if she’d notified the authorities. And damn if he doubted she had, not if his current working theory was correct and her ex had some sort of association with the creatures that went bump in the night.

  Sergeant Banks was looking at him so he grimaced, trying to cover. “No, but I will. I just promised her I’d help and since this isn’t going anywhere, I figured I could at least take a couple days and be there to offer her some emotional support.”

  “No husband?”

  Mike shook his head. Wasn’t going to go into the whole ex-boyfriend, baby daddy bit. Not that he knew enough details to know much himself.

  Banks studied him, his pen tapping out another pattern on the desk.

  “What?”

  Banks stood up, the chair creaking with relief. “Nothing. This might be good for you.” He reached out, offering his hand. “You go take care of your girl and we’ll see you when you get back.”

  Mike almost opened his mouth to say Kat wasn’t his girl, but really, what would have been the point? He knew Banks had been worried about him since Jessica’s death. Knew the sergeant bought into the popular theory that he’d had a thing for her. And okay, maybe at first he was attracted, but that had been overshadowed quickly as he’d gotten to know her as a friend and fellow cop.

  Banks probably saw this as a sign that Mike was moving on and going to let go of the old case. Banks was right about Mike letting go of the case, though not for the right reasons. Banks may have been open minded, but Mike knew telling his boss that he was okay with shoving Jessica’s case into the file cabinet because she wasn’t actually dead anymore would only get him a long session with the precinct shrink and more than a few days off.

  Is this how Jessica felt? Is this why she tried to take herself off the Thomas Rhodes case?

  Didn’t matter now. Over and done.

  Mike stood, taking the offered hand and shaking it. “Thanks, Sergeant. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “No problem. Take care, Mike.”

  Mike took himself from the room, heading down the hall. When he reached the edge of the large room that housed the cubicles, he paused, the familiar sound of clacking keyboards, shuffling papers, ringing phones, and muttered curses like music to his ears.

  This is where the real work took place. Sure the action might happen out on the street, but to close a case it often took hours behind those desks shuffling papers, organizing notes, piecing together evidence, teasing research out of the dark-age computers. He was going to miss this place. Yeah, he’d said a few days. And yes, he wanted to come back, but after the last few nights?

  You don’t belong here anymore. You don’t fit in. Never fit in.

  With a sigh, he started across the floor towards his cubicle. He’d just gather a few of his personals. He couldn’t take a whole box, not without looking suspicious, but there were a few items he wouldn’t leave behind.

  He’d maybe made it halfway across the
floor when the scent hit him. His beast sat up, snarling: She’s here. All but running, he passed the last few cubicles to his desk. Only she wasn’t there. And a quick search of the desk yielded no note.

  “Fuck!”

  “Hey! Mike!”

  Mike spun around, his focus settling on the front reception desk and the officer waving him down. Using huge ground-eating strides, he made his way across the floor to Evan.

  “What’s up?” he asked, proud of how calm his voice came out, even as the beast licked at the edges of his control.

  “You been holding out on us, Mike?”

  Mike rocked back on his heels, wary. “How so?”

  The officer shook his head, whistling. “I hope that was your girlfriend and not a case. Man she was hot.”

  “Who?”

  “The blonde who came in to see you. Only she must have gotten sick of waiting because she just took off.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Two minutes? Maybe three?”

  Mike didn’t let him finish, he was already out the door.

  Chapter Eleven

  Katrina eased the door to Mike’s bathroom shut, moving back into the open living area. She pulled the thin jacket Angelina had given her tighter about her. The basement apartment still held the chill from what had seemed a never-ending winter and Mike obviously didn’t believe in heating it when he wasn’t there.

  This place was a far cry from his country digs. The bathroom claustrophobic, the one remaining room, a multipurpose kitchen, living space and bedroom, worn and dingy despite what appeared to be a couple sad attempts at decoration and organization. Why? He must have come from money, yet this place was barely a step above the dump she lived in.

  Maybe his parents were about as supportive as yours.

  Katrina shook her head at the futility of trying to find common ground. They were worlds apart. Mortal enemies. His good genes to her evil ones. He was a cop who day after day stood strong against corruption, and she? She was…weak.

  Just like my own mother, I gave away my child.