Afterglow

by Cherry Adair

  Rand frowned. “That was all on the guy’s security clearance. Until his behavior changed … ?” Because he was using again and/or because he’d made new friends. Rand’s educated guess was both.

  Ham cocked a brow in acknowledgment. “A month ago.”

  The men’s eyes met. “Bank account?” Rand asked, knowing there’d be a payment sitting there. The guy hadn’t had time to spend it. Now he never would.

  “Ten thousand euros deposited day before yesterday.”

  “Fingerprinted?”

  “Yeah, and sent to our lab. We should have ID confirmation by the time we get upstairs.”

  “Where’s Perry?”

  “We’re holding him at the airport, but it doesn’t look like he had anything to do with this. Spent the night with some chick he met at a local bar. Went straight to the airport from her place.”

  Rand glanced at a man in nothing but his shorts who peered at them from his cracked-open door as they passed his floor. “Without his luggage?” Rand asked as his door snicked closed and the elevator rose.

  Ham nodded. “Couldn’t pay his tab and skipped. His shit is still in the room.” He shrugged. “Happens all over the world.”

  “Didn’t they hold his passport in the hotel safe?”

  “Perry said he needed it to cash a check yesterday.”

  “So all they have him on is the Monegasque equivalent of defrauding an innkeeper?” Not that Rand cared. If Perry had nothing to do with what happened at the wedding, he was a nonissue.

  But it was an if. Ham shrugged his beefy shoulders. “Pretty much. The locals are dealing with him. Our perp used his room to draw the waiter here. Did the deed and split. Nobody saw anything. No surveillance cameras, no fingerprints, no trace evidence. Nada.”

  “A professional?”

  “Oh, yeah.” The ex-cop was practically rubbing his hands with glee. The murder was right up his alley. Unfortunately, it just presented more questions. At least they had somewhere to start, and Rand knew this piece of the puzzle was in expert hands.

  “Doesn’t explain how the killer knew Perry wouldn’t return.” Rand leaned against the cheap paneling as the small box jerked upward in fits and starts. “That the hotel room was available while he gambled and lost, then went home with some woman to screw instead of returning to pick up his luggage.”

  “My thoughts exactly. I’ll tell our guys to squeeze Perry some more.” The door wheezed open on the third floor. The corridor had garish red-flocked wallpaper from the seventies and closed doors on either side of a black-and-red runner that looked worse for wear. The whole place reeked of strong French cigarettes, garlic, and death.

  He acknowledged Becky Murry, another of his people, who waited directly outside the elevator as the door opened, weapon drawn. On seeing Rand, she relaxed and gave a curt nod, stepping aside.

  Yesterday’s incident affected everyone on the security detail. An unidentified drug had been administered to the clients under their protection. That the drug in question turned out to be an aphrodisiac was immaterial; it could just as easily have been a fast-acting poison. Then instead of embarrassment to deal with, Rand would have had more than a hundred deaths to explain to the authorities and the world at large.

  His people all had a vested interest in apprehending the perpetrator, as quickly as possible. Their asses were on the line just as much as his. The two agents who’d partaken of the tainted champagne at the reception instead of doing their jobs had been fired. Not for fucking but for leaving their posts to drink on the job. Rand had zero tolerance. He had to be able to rely on the professionalism of every one of his employees at all times; no exceptions. Humiliated, they’d been sent home on a commercial flight at dawn.

  “We haven’t moved anything.” Ham shoved the door to the room open. “But we went through it all with a fine-tooth comb.”

  Two more of Rand’s men were inside; on seeing him, they relaxed and holstered their weapons as they stepped aside to give him room. They’d opened the window, and a muggy breeze moved the stink around and fluttered the cheap curtains. The body was on the bed.

  Brun had been stabbed in the back, falling facedown across the tossed mattress, the knife still in him. Blood stained his shirt and saturated the covers and sheets. Not a pretty sight.

  Pinkner took out his handheld computer. “ID confirmed. Denis Brun. We sent Shank and a couple of guys to his home address. See if we can find anything worthwhile there.”

  “Straight into the kidneys,” Rand mused out loud. “Killer knew what he was about. Nice and quiet for the neighbors.”

  The hotel room was trashed. No defensive wounds, at least not at first glance, and most of the blood seemed fairly contained. No splatters, no spray over the scattered objects.

  Deduction of the day: the poor bastard knew his killer.

  “I suppose it’s too much to ask for clues,” he said without any real hope.

  “Nothing, unless we can ID some viable prints we managed to lift from this.” Using latex gloves, Ham offered Rand a second pair, waited while he pulled them on, then handed him a gunmetal-gray aluminum case the size of a paperback book. The outside still had traces of the fingerprint dust.

  The hair on Rand’s nape rose in warning. The box was light on the flat of his hand. Innocuous, really, but he felt a ponderous sense of oncoming doom. Christ. He opened the case.

  Fucking, fucking, fucking hell.

  He’d had his suspicions. The effects of the drug had been chillingly familiar, even before Dakota suggested it. But seeing the dense black polyethylene foam inside the case, with imprints for five vials and a shallow oblong depression, chilled his blood. Only one empty vial remained. The other spaces were conspicuously empty.

  “What?” Ham gave him a piercing look. “Recognize it?”

  Hell, yeah. “Any sign of the other vials?”

  “No.”

  “We have the prints being analyzed?” Ham cocked a brow; of course he did. “Good man. Clear everyone out before the cops get here. I’ll take this and see what the Lodestone agent can do with it.”

  “If anything.” Ham didn’t mask his skepticism. He’d met Zak Stark, liked him well enough, as far as Rand knew, but he made no secret of his conviction that the Lodestone premise was bogus. He believed maybe half of what he saw, and none of what he couldn’t see.

  Ham had told Rand flat-out that he was wasting their time asking for help from some freaky psychic or whatever Zak’s agents were. Rand tended to agree with him, but at midnight last night, it seemed like a good idea.

  “Yeah. If anything.” Rand took the plastic bag Ham offered and zipped the case inside. “And to give you a heads-up, that agent happens to be Dr. Dakota North.”

  Ham’s eyebrows shot up. “Dr. North? You’re shitting me. What’s that bitch doing here? Did she suddenly decide to do the right thing at the eleventh hour and agree to testify on Paul’s behalf?”

  “She claims this is the drug that she and Paul were working on at Rydell.” Rand made a visual sweep of the room. Through the window, he could see the car in the parking lot, Rebik leaning against the hood.

  Ham scowled, shoving his fingers into the front pockets of his pants. “Wasn’t it destroyed?”

  “That was the official report. Dakota swears this is the same crap. They called it Rapture at the lab.”

  “It was that and then some.” Ham looked out the window, frowning as he looked back at Rand. “But Rydell was totaled two years ago. Saw it myself. Your father is in Capanne prison about to serve a life sentence unless there’s a Hail Mary save anytime soon. He’s more worried about bending over to pick up the soap than dispensing drugs at a wedding.”

  “It gets even more convoluted. This appears to be the same drug used to kill my mother.” The thought was even more disturbing, because now Rand knew what must’ve happened preceding her death. He blocked out the very images.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” the eagle-eyed ex-cop asked, quietly coming to stand besi
de him. Ham gave him a speaking, narrow-eyed look and lowered his voice. “Funny how Dr. North is always somewhere in the vicinity of it, isn’t it? You think she did the dosing yesterday?”

  Rand shook his head. “No. Right now she’s the only expert we have. But having her so close to the prison, Paul, and this close to the start of the trial could be problematic.”

  “She might change her mind and speak for him,” Ham offered, clearly not believing that for a second.

  “And admit she gave the drug to my father to administer to my mother? Unlikely. I’ll use her expertise, but that doesn’t mean I like it, and I sure as hell won’t trust her farther than I can throw her. You can bet I’ll be keeping a close eye on her. I don’t want her fucking with Paul again. His position is tenuous as it is. It’s imperative he keep his head.” A thought occurred to him. “Maybe she’s here to speak for the prosecution.”

  “No shit.” Ham scrubbed his hand over the stubble on his head as he gave Rand a frowning look that spoke volumes. “Keep your dick in your pants and your head on straight, pal. Last time, she screwed with you and left you in the dust when you needed her most.”

  Rand crossed the worn carpet to get a closer look at the body. “I’m willing to try anything to get this situation contained.” Even if it means dealing with Dakota. He didn’t believe in coincidences. The Rydell Pharmaceuticals product showing up two weeks before his father’s trial for murder, plus Dakota’s mystical and hitherto unheard-of “sixth sense,” smelled like a setup to him. He just didn’t know by whom or why.

  Ham had assisted Rand with an investigation to unearth any concrete proof of his father’s innocence in both Seattle and Rome. They’d found nothing they could present to the Italian courts, but Rand still had people digging back in Seattle.

  Eager to get out of the bureaucratic red tape of the public sector, Ham had switched to private and joined Rand’s security company. Already an invaluable asset with his experience in homicide, Ham knew killers.

  But subtle wasn’t his gift.

  “I’ll go see my father and ask what he knows.” It would be a waste of time, he was pretty damned sure. Paul had been incarcerated for two years. From day one, he’d professed his innocence.

  His friend clasped his shoulder. “Let me do it.”

  Rand hesitated. He believed his mother’s death had been an unfortunate accident and was doing his best to forgive his father, but there was still a raw place that would never heal. Accident or not, Rand had lost his mother. Probably the only woman in his life who’d genuinely loved him back.

  He wanted his father freed because it was the right thing to do, even though the thought of looking at the man turned his stomach. He could do it, but Ham would do it faster and didn’t have personal history to blur the lines. “Yeah,” he finally agreed. “Thanks. You won’t be tempted to kill him. Last thing I need is a cell right next door to his.”

  “One thing we know for sure, he couldn’t have done the wedding business.” He jerked his chin to indicate the body on the bed. “Or this guy.”

  “Maybe someone who worked in the lab?” Rand looked down at the aluminum case. “One of the other lab rats, or … shit. Someone managed to get their hands on the old formula.”

  “Or it has nothing to do with that shit at all.”

  Rand stared at Ham. “You can say that after you witnessed the guests’ behavior yesterday, coupled with Dakota’s information? Obviously my father’s not involved with the current mess, but he might remember something pertinent from his days at Rydell. Maybe give us a lead.”

  His father had always found a way under, over, around any obstacle, but wouldn’t have any resources in a maximum-security Italian prison. That said, Rand presumed his father had friends in Europe; he and Creed traveled together frequently to see the museums and galleries, which held no interest for their wives. So he wasn’t completely cut off from the outside world.

  “Seth and I went to see him last week. I want to know what other visitors he’s had since he’s been there,” Rand ordered, turning toward the door. He needed out of the smell; the stench of the corpse hung in the thick air like a miasma. “Everything—when he saw his doctor, when he went to the clinic for a headache.”

  Rand received, and ignored, monthly reports. Merely seeing the man’s name in print raised his blood pressure. Just because he was doing everything in his not inconsiderable power to give his father the best defense possible didn’t mean he believed him completely innocent of the charges. No matter how it had come about, his father’s hand had given his mother the drugs that killed her.

  But after the trial, he never wanted to see his father again.

  Ham assured him, “I’ll take care of it myself.”

  “He’s not going anywhere. Give it twenty-four hours. Take the lead on this as a priorit—”

  Footsteps preceded a firm, feminine voice by milliseconds. “What can I—oh, my God!” Dakota stepped into the room, then took a hasty step back as she saw the body sprawled on the bed.

  FOUR

  The color drained from her face, leaving her freckles in stark relief. Rand knew how it worked: the stench, already a wisp of promise in the hallway, tripled in intensity as soon as the brain connected the sight with the smell. She immediately covered her nose and mouth with her palm.

  Rebik, standing right behind her, grabbed her upper arms to steady her. Rand shot him a what-the-fuck-do-you-think-you’re-doing look. The other man winced, released her, and said uneasily, “She’s part of the team now, right? She wanted to—”

  “See what the dead guy looks like?” Rand asked sarcastically. He wasn’t annoyed at the sight of the man’s hands on Dakota’s bare arms. He was pissed that she was in the room at all.

  Her eyes narrowed over the cupped hand covering her mouth, as if she was concentrating. Probably on not throwing up.

  She was once again wearing her shoes, a good thing considering the condition of the carpet. Which put her almost a head taller than most of his men, and a few inches below his own six four.

  “Your first dead body?” he asked.

  Dakota didn’t take her pale eyes off the bed. “It’s more realistic-looking on TV.” She paused. “I guess there’s a reason Smell-O-Vision never took off.” She wrinkled her nose.

  Yeah.

  Removing the small bag and its contents from his back pocket, Rand crossed the room. “See what you can do with this.”

  She didn’t take it, but he could see that she recognized the shape, as he had. He smelled butterscotch as she tilted her head to look up at him. The fact that the scent of her favorite candy managed to underscore the sickening smell of spoiling meat said something about his state of mind. “Can we do it outside?”

  “Sure.” He gestured for her to precede him, then turned back to Stratham and the others. “Keep on this—”

  “Yeah,” Pinkner muttered. “Since it’s the only sodding lead we have.”

  “Better than nothing. Call me when you get anything. I don’t care how small.” He stepped into the hall, bagged case held out to Dakota.

  She waved him off. “I’ll take that when we get to the car, okay? First contact always makes me a little dizzy.”

  Rand shrugged. He didn’t care where she did it, just that she could somehow, any-fucking-how, give them a lead.

  Dakota leaned against the wall of the small elevator as they rode it down. This close, he could see a scattering of pale caramel-colored freckles across her nose and cheeks. Rand found the smell of clean female perspiration, faded butterscotch, and light floral perfume as annoying as it was alluring. Nowhere for him to go. He was a captive audience for three floors.

  She sighed. “That’s a terrible way to die.”

  “It was quick.”

  She raised a russet brow. “I hope that’s true, but you can’t know that.”

  “A knife to the kidneys is always fast and silent.” He didn’t mention that it was the intense, excruciating pain that kept the victim quiet. �
�The killer was a professional.”

  She shivered, rubbing her arms. “Do you think there was a falling-out between thieves?”

  The door opened, and they exited the small elevator and crossed the lobby. Rand waited until they were outside before answering. “The dead guy was paid ten thousand euros. We’re working on the details.” He disengaged the locks as they approached the car, then held the door open for her before he rounded the vehicle. As soon as he got in, he turned the air on full blast.

  Dakota kicked off her shoes, pulled her feet up on the seat, and sat cross-legged. “Okay.” She held out her hand, palm up. “Give it to me.”

  He had things he’d like to give her. Two years’ worth of accumulated words that had never been said. Instead, silently, and with only a moment’s hesitation, Rand slid the container from the plastic covering onto her extended hand. He was putting all his trust in a woman he didn’t trust at all.

  DAKOTA PLACED HER ELBOWS on her knees, trying to ignore the wash of vertigo that hit her the second her fingers brushed the case.

  Beside her, Rand shifted in his seat. He watched her closely, like a skeptic trying to spot the trick. “You look like you’re going to hurl.”

  “I don’t usually.”

  “Do you need to close your eyes?” His voice held a huge dose of mockery. “Chant? Sprinkle it with juju dust?”

  She shot him an unsmiling glance. “You’re a man who likes to take risks.” His expression did a slow spin before settling into an oh-so-serious look.

  “You get that from just holding it?”

  “I get that from sharing a bed with you for a year,” she said dryly. “Are you trying to annoy me? Because it isn’t working. I’ve heard worse, believe me. Now, shut up so I can see where your killer is.”

  After a few seconds, she leaned down and grabbed her large tote from the foot well.

  “Nothing?” He sounded unsurprised.

  She placed the bag in the cradle of her legs and rummaged around in it. “Oh, I know exactly where he, they, are. I want to show you on this.” She held up a small GPS device. Dumping the heavy bag back on the floor, she turned on the handheld. “He’s moving at a pretty fast clip. Hang on… .”