Black On Black (Quentin Black Mystery #3)

by JC Andrijeski

  Black didn’t want to think about what he’d been told had been done to this female seer in particular, for the crime of trying to get her sisters free. His handler, a decent-enough seeming male seer by the name of Fontaine, advised him to stay out of any business between the higher-ups. Apparently this female also tried to kill Lucky in his sleep after they’d been lovers for a number of months, so some of it was personal. She’d stabbed him in the heart with a shard of glass, nearly killing him before Lucky gifted her to this sick fuck.

  I’m sorry, but my body is not my own... Black said, as politely as he could. I’m under agreement, brother. Exclusive agreement.

  That’s non-negotiable? Grigoire queried innocently.

  A faint smile toyed at his lips as he glanced down Black’s body.

  Entirely non-negotiable, Black said, his voice a touch harder.

  They were speaking a different language.

  Not French. Definitely not English.

  It had to be that seer language I’d heard Black speak before. I could understand both of them, in spite of that, presumably because I was seeing and hearing this through Black. I couldn’t help noticing how much more formal the language sounded.

  How much older, somehow.

  She is quite possessive then, your half-breed? Grigoire said. How... unusual.

  Not really. Black kept his affect flat as he shrugged. Human females get pissed off when their boyfriends and husbands get sexually serviced by random strangers, too. Seers don’t hold any kind of exclusive right to jealousy. Or expectations of fidelity.

  But how would she even know, your half-breed? Grigiore asked the question in that same innocent voice, watching Black’s eyes. One advantage of having a worm for a bedmate is that you have some discretion in terms of what they know. Is that not so, brother?

  Black shook his head, clicking softly. He looked away, staring at the long, velvet drapes hanging over the ceiling-to-floor windows. Fighting his expression still, he answered in a lower voice.

  Some of us take our agreements seriously, brother. No matter who we make them with. And not only when we think we might be caught.

  But that is not the only reason. Is it, brother? Grigiore’s eyes remained shrewd. You know if she did find out, she would do the same to you. Is that not so?

  Black shrugged, his expression and tone indifferent. It is part of it, yes. I cannot expect something from her I am not willing to give.

  Would you do it? If not for this fear?

  I felt Black hesitate. He didn’t like where this conversation was going.

  He didn’t want to talk to these fuckers about me at all.

  What is this fascination you have with my girlfriend? Black’s voice turned mocking too. Are you hitting on me, brother? Is that why you’re so anxious to see me unclothed?

  I merely wish to know the boundaries of your loyalty, brother.

  With her? Or with you?

  The alabaster-white seer smiled. With her, of course. I am not foolish enough to think I command any of your loyalty yet. And she is the leverage we have over you. Is she not?

  Black’s jaw clenched.

  He found himself glancing down at the female seer that time, in spite of himself. She was watching him, her orange-ringed eyes holding what might have been curiosity, or might have been some attempt to assess what kind of person he was. Hell, she could have been humming The Star-Spangled Banner behind her eyes, for all he knew.

  Either way, he could feel what the white-haired seer was implying. It could just as easily be Miri down there, with that collar on her neck.

  The thought made him feel sick. It also fucking terrified him.

  Black’s voice grew cold. I thought I was here to give you a progress report... to talk to you about your rogue seer... not sit and listen to this crap. Or to have you threaten my mate...

  Your... mate, brother?

  Black tensed. He waved off his own words with scarcely a hesitation. You know what I mean. There are no good words in our language for this kind of relationship.

  The blond-haired seer smiled. I wonder. That seemed quite an interesting slip of tongue, if you don’t mind me saying. Pausing, he seemed to be waiting for Black to speak. When he didn’t, Grigiore added, I would like to hear you say it, brother. Kindly humor me, for I find confessions of this kind to be quite illuminating...

  Black swallowed, again glancing down at the female seer.

  What kind of confession are you looking for, brother?

  Do you love her? Grigiore asked, smiling sweetly. Your little half-breed? You must love her, yes? If you are here risking your life for her... ?

  Black’s jaw hardened. That’s none of your fucking business.

  Is this guilt then, brother? Is it guilt that keeps you faithful to her, too?

  This fucking psycho really wasn’t going to let it go, Black thought.

  He really wasn’t going to drop it.

  I love her, Black blurted. Can we move on? I’m not going to let you watch me get a blow job, Grigiore, and this mindfuck shit is getting really old. So if you don’t need me here...

  He started to rise to his feet, but the other held up a hand, sharpening his voice.

  Sit, little brother, he commanded. I insist.

  Black lowered himself reluctantly to the high-backed wooden chair.

  I found myself fighting not to react to his words.

  I knew he might be lying, of course. He might be saying it because he didn’t want to abuse that female seer any more than she was already being abused; he at least didn’t want to be directly complicit. I could feel Black thinking in the back of his mind that he might be able to strike a deal for her, to find some way to get her out of here, send her back to San Francisco to work for his own company.

  He more or less thought it was a pipe dream, though.

  Either way, Black and I never made any kind of formal “agreement,” regardless of what he told this seer. I wasn’t even sure what he meant by that exactly––but whatever it was, it sounded a lot more formal than when he’d asked me not to sleep with Nick. I’d never come out and directly asked Black for monogamy either, but it had definitely been implied.

  Anyway, Black knew I got jealous.

  I didn’t need to feed his ego on that front any more than I already had.

  My jealousy had been crystal clear in Bangkok after I found out he’d been sleeping with women over there. Since then, we hadn’t really talked about his own behavior in so many words, but Black definitely dropped things that implied he considered us exclusive. Not only by asking me not to sleep with Nick. He’d also said things about himself.

  In each of those cases, he made it clear he missed me, that he missed sex, and that he hadn’t sought comfort anywhere else, nor did he intend to––

  “––MIRI?”

  The voice jerked me back, turning my head.

  I found myself looking at Roger, my psychiatrist, who had a worried look on his face. I felt my face heat.

  “Miri, where did you go just then?” he said.

  I stared at him, my mind blank. Then, seeing that concern in his gray eyes grow more prominent, I glanced around his office, at the books on his shelf, the stacks of papers, his ancient desktop computer on an even older desk littered with stress toys of various kinds and pictures of his grandkids. I was still trying to think when Roger’s emotions hit out at me in another layered cluster, cloying, nearly overpowering.

  Most of that was concern for me.

  Some of it was memory of his own past, his own nightmares.

  Shaking my head as if to ward it all off, I looked down, staring at my hands in my lap. I wound my fingers together, like I was nervous.

  I knew Roger thought I’d just had a PTSD flashback.

  It seemed like as good of an excuse as any, so when he suggested it the first time I lost time in front of him––meaning during one of our counseling sessions––I just let him think that’s what it was. As far as excuses went, it was more plausible
than most.

  “How long was I gone that time?” I said, my voice holding a low shame.

  “A few minutes.”

  I nodded, still focused on my hands. When I glanced up, his eyes held sympathy.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he said.

  Staring back down at my fingers, then at the patterned rug on the floor of his office, I shook my head. I thought about that woman chained naked to the floor of a dining room all the way across the world. The vacant look in her eyes while that gargoyle patted her like an animal, offering her to Black like she was a bottle of wine to taste.

  When my vision blurred that time, it wasn’t just me doing it for effect.

  “No,” I said, my voice rough. “No, I don’t want to talk about it, Roger.”

  I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, even as my jaw hardened more.

  I really didn’t want to talk.

  As far as I could tell, the time for talking was over.

  I PUSHED ON the copper-colored pipe handle, throwing my weight against the heavy door. I entered Black Securities and Investigations with a rush of air conditioned air hitting my face as I broke the seal to the vault-like space.

  My office was in the back, right next door to Black’s. I didn’t aim my feet there right away, though. Rather, I walked up to the reception desk and smiled at Lizbeth, the office manager.

  “Hey,” I said casually, leaning on the granite-topped counter. “I have a favor to ask.”

  She beamed at me, but I sensed the nerves that flared in her too.

  It didn’t surprise me. I’d been reading them all for weeks by then.

  Like any company, they gossiped.

  “Of course, Ms. Fox,” she said with a too-wide smile. “How can I help you, dear?”

  She thought I was going to ask for information about Black. Where he was. What he was doing. Who he was with. Who his client was. The whole office had been walking on eggshells around me well before I flipped out on Dex and Kiko at that restaurant.

  Strangely, I didn’t think either of them had shared that story with anyone anyway. I had no proof of that, but I hadn’t seen it on any of the others and I trusted my instincts more now, especially when it came to people. I really didn’t get the sense either Kiko or Dex would talk about something like that.

  No, the office was reacting to Black disappearing for months on end and leaving me behind. A few of his people saw us making out on the plane back from Bangkok, so it was no secret we’d been involved. They all knew I’d been sleeping at his apartment for the past month, too.

  And yes, it stung my pride a little, at least when I let myself think about it... but my pride wasn’t really my priority right then. Most of the time, I did my best to ignore the looks and whispers aimed my way.

  I was way past that now.

  Now I wanted to use those rumors to my advantage.

  I beamed at Lizbeth’s smile, fidgeting a little as if embarrassed. “It’s a silly thing, really. I really need to get into Quentin’s computer...”

  She winced when I said his first name.

  I pretended not to notice.

  “...Do you mind terribly if I ask for his password?” I said.

  She blanched. “His... his password?”

  “Yes.” I smiled brightly, as if I’d just made the most normal request in the world inside a security-conscious-bordering-on-paranoid company with a boss no one knew personally or dared to contradict. “I just need to grab a few files. It’s no big thing. And I swear he gave it to me once, I just can’t for the life of me remember what it was...”

  “Ms. Fox.” She looked even more uncomfortable. “I can’t give you Mr. Black’s password. I can’t. Surely you must understand that?”

  “Oh, I’m positive he wouldn’t mind,” I assured her. “I promise he won’t.”

  But she was shaking her head, moving her whole head back and forth compulsively, toying with the gold cross she wore around her neck with her fingers. “No. I’m sorry. I’m very very sorry, Dr. Fox. But that’s absolutely impossible.”

  “Not even the first few letters?” I coaxed. “I could probably guess the rest.”

  “Absolutely not!” she blurted, her voice openly shocked.

  I frowned, furrowing my eyebrows as if her attitude confused me. Letting that puzzlement leak into my voice, I sighed, giving an indifferent kind of shrug.

  “Okay. Sorry. I’ll just ask him. I was trying not to bother him since he’s always busy, but I guess I understand why you wouldn’t want to tell me. Thanks anyway!”

  Lizbeth continued to look faintly horrified, but I pretended not to notice as I smacked the top of the counter in a friendly way, smiling wider before I turned to go. Giving her a brief wave over my shoulder, I began walking briskly away from the reception desk and towards the corridor that housed the back offices.

  Lizbeth had his password memorized of course.

  I knew she would.

  She wasn’t the kind of person who would risk writing anything down.

  I also knew if I got her flustered enough, she’d probably think of what it was, so I wouldn’t have to go looking for it. Using Black’s first name was kind of a cheap trick, but it worked.

  Thank goodness for old school administrators.

  THE OFFICE DIDN’T fully clear out until about eight p.m.

  By the time I actually sat down in front of his computer, I’d already spent a few hours doing other kinds of research, mainly in the company’s databases on trafficking networks in Asia and Eastern Europe. I didn’t learn much that I hadn’t already known.

  I did learn a few things.

  Mainly, I learned I’d been right about Lucky having made a few enemies over the years. Not only trafficking rivals and law enforcement, but also a few governments and at least one off-the-grid militia-type group. I wasn’t sure if I could use any of that, but it was good information to have. Anyway, I already had some thoughts about how I might find out more.

  As the office emptied out, no one seemed to notice that I stayed behind.

  Or if they did notice, it didn’t cause any kind of concern.

  They all knew I had a key to Black’s apartment, so if they thought about it at all, they probably assumed I planned to stay there for the night.

  When I switched from my computer to Black’s, I made sure the network cable was unplugged on his computer before I turned it on.

  I also plunked a wireless signal blocker down on his desk and switched that on as well, after grabbing it from the equipment locker earlier. The last thing I needed was for one of his tech guys to flip out because the firewall had been breached in Black’s office.

  Because of course Black had his own firewall.

  Of course he would have something in place in case anyone logged onto the network from one of his machines, too. I didn’t doubt either thing for a second. Knowing Black, he probably utilized linked virtual proxy networks housed on government satellites that got routed through Uzbekistan before all of his data got military-grade encrypted and reached him via a third or fourth VPN run out of the Pentagon.

  He was ex-intelligence, well-connected and liked gadgets.

  Given all that, I knew there was a good chance I’d set off some kind of alarm no matter what I did. But I had to figure whatever he wanted me to look at sat on his actual hard drive, or he wouldn’t have bothered telling me to look at all.

  Dropping my briefcase next to his chair, I sank into the high-backed leather seat, firing up his desktop computer after only a few seconds of fumbling around on the power strip where he had everything plugged in. His monitor was bigger than the last television I’d had––but then, I’d always been more of a book than a television person anyway.

  Once I got through his password and opened up his file directory, it only took me a few more minutes of clicking around before I saw it.

  He had it on his hard drive all right. It lived inside a larger folder named “Three.”

  Unfortunately, when I clic
ked on that, a box formed on the front of his monitor.

  “Voice recognition...” it intoned.

  I hesitated, then leaned closer to the screen.

  “Miriam Fox,” I said, tentative.

  The image reformed. Seconds later, the file directory lay open in front of me.

  I just stared at it for a moment, sitting back in his chair.

  “Huh,” I said to myself.

  I began scanning names inside the main directory. About halfway through the list, I found myself leaning forward once more. He’d labeled a secondary folder Blackfish.

  One of the folders inside that was labeled M.

  The M folder wore the same image he’d shown me in my mind––the same detailed drawing of a leaping orca and three stars that lived on the pendant I wore around my neck. Fingering the design there etched in silver, I clicked on the folder and started skimming through the names of files. There were a lot of them. Most were labeled with numbers, but I couldn’t make sense of the naming convention, assuming he even had one.

  Whatever those numbers meant, they definitely weren’t dates.

  Picking one at random, I opened it up.

  It took me a few minutes to figure out what I was looking at.

  I finally realized they were blood tests––two of them––with a map comparing the different sets. The names had been blacked out, but squinting between them, I saw an analysis showing differences as well as similarities. Most of that analysis consisted of numbered shorthand.

  I couldn’t make sense of the notes, which were handwritten and scanned.

  Closing that file, I opened another. It was a checklist of some kind, but written in a language I didn’t recognize. I found myself thinking it might be the one I’d seen written on the walls of the Legion of Honor, but I couldn’t be certain, given that those words had been written in blood.

  The third file I opened contained a scanned birth certificate––mine.

  The fourth was a text document written in that same language I didn’t know.

  The next five or six files I tried at random looked like lab results as well, only written in different languages than the first few. Only one of those languages even looked vaguely familiar to me. I suspected it might be the written form of Sanskrit, but I wasn’t exactly up on my Sanskrit, either.