by Bush, Nancy
She literally owed Mr. Blue her life as he’d effectively saved it after she’d been brought to his doorstep, burned, feverish, and exhausted. Those weeks of him spoon-feeding her herbs and broths and then applying salves to her back were a misty haze of pain and gratitude.
She wasn’t sure what he would think of her mission to rid the world of abusers and pedophiles who crossed her path. He might applaud her, but he might also think her methods too dangerous and turn her out. Once or twice it had been on the tip of her tongue to tell him about her special ability to sense an abuser, how brushing up against them sent her a message so loud it was almost as if the guy had blurted out his guilt in a scream. But she wasn’t certain he would believe her, and she had no explanation for her “sixth sense,” the same sense that told her time was running out. The hourglass had been turned over and the sands were slipping through. The showdown was coming. She was either going to die soon or be arrested, and if it were a choice, she would take the former.
To that end her mission was everything to her. Before she was through she planned to take out as many perverted bastards as she could.
Which was why she was still mulling over her decision to let the sick fuck who’d tried to nab the girl at the mall live. The weather wasn’t cold enough for him to die. She’d left him with an admission of his guilt hung around his neck, but that was only part of it. The humiliation. There would be lots of questions directed at him, too many for him to come up with answers for.
But she should have killed him. She should have. She’d done it before, and she was undoubtedly going to do it again before her mission was complete. So, why had she left Harmak alive?
The scent.
Climbing out of the truck, the memory made her nose twitch. It wasn’t a true scent exactly. It was more a feeling. She’d had to drag Harmak’s dead weight to the basketball pole outside the school and she’d been glad it was pitch black because it was hard work and took longer than she’d suspected. With Ballonni, she’d just pulled up to the flagpole, dumped him out and tied him up, but with Harmak she’d had to traverse the basketball court and some grounds before she got him where she wanted him.
It was then the scent distracted her. She’d been tired and breathing hard and hurrying back to Harmark’s van when she’d become aware of it. A feeling of . . . well, there was no other word for it: evil. It almost had an odor, something of rot and sickness. She’d turned her nose toward it and realized it wasn’t from Stefan, though he certainly gave off the same vibe. But this one was different. More fully developed? And it was coming from around the school. If she’d had more time, she would have searched it out right then and there, but she couldn’t risk it. And then it had dissipated and she’d had to jump in the van and leave fast, before anyone was about or Harmak woke up.
Now, she unlocked the man-door to the garage and crossed to her room, registering the musky and dry and sometimes pungent scents of the herbs, plants, mushrooms, and various substances inside that comprised the mainstay of Mr. Blue’s stash. The deadlier plants were elsewhere. Mr. Blue didn’t want anyone knowing about them unless there was a particular deal to be made, and then it was at his choosing. He also traded in illegal drugs like Rohypnol—roofies—to the right person and since Rohypnol was sold legally in Mexico, he had his own connections that were outside the traffic of the vicious drug lords of that country. Mr. Blue had his own rules, and he was more of a connoisseur of rare and exotic botanicals than your ordinary dealer who only worked for money could ever hope to be. You had to have a damn good reason to come to Mr. Blue for help, and then he might, or might not, deign to offer you what you sought.
She could smell chicken and herbs and realized Mr. Blue was making soup in the kitchen, so she removed her hand from the locked knob to her room and instead opened the door to the interior of the house, stepping inside.
Mr. Blue, whose real name was Hiram Champs, was stirring a large pot on the stove. He looked over upon hearing her and said, “I’ve made us dinner.”
She looked into his blue face and said, “I’ve got the sourdough loaf.”
“Cut it up and put the butter on the table. It’s already set.”
Lucky put the sack she’d carried from the car onto the counter, grabbed the bread knife and started slicing. At the last moment, Lucky had remembered she’d told him she would get some groceries and she’d pulled into a Safeway on the edge of Laurelton before turning west and heading home.
She glanced over at Mr. Blue, whose hair was a light gray but whose skin was blue. For years he’d drunk a concoction of colloidal silver that he made for himself, believing in its medicinal properties. The silver had settled into his skin and turned him permanently blue. Though he pretended not to mind, he rarely went out in public, preferring not to be stared at. The color added to his overall mysticism and he had followers and minions who attended to all his needs, just wanting to be near him. But the only person he allowed to stay more than a few minutes at a time was Lucky.
They ate in near silence, seated across from each other at the dining room table, which was placed in front of a picture window that faced out the back and onto his herb garden. Beyond that was a forest of Douglas firs, maples, and pine. Lucky’s room could be seen through the window to the south and the eaves were hung with bird feeders. Hummingbirds hovered, even on the coldest day, and when Lucky was outside they sometimes whirred past so fast it felt like a huge insect zooming near her ear.
“Did you finish what you set out to do on this trip?” Hiram asked, ladling up the last of the soup in his bowl.
Lucky hesitated. Normally, he didn’t ask questions that he might not want to know the answer to. “I was just thinking I’ve left some loose ends.”
“Are you winning the battle?”
Lucky froze, her spoon in midair. This was as close as he’d ever come to talking about her mission. Maybe he knew more than she suspected.
She set down the spoon. “There’s no real battle. Well, there is. I just find people that need to be . . . neutralized . . . and then I neutralize them.”
“The police used the term ‘neutralize’ when they killed the gunman who opened fire at Clackamas Town Center.” He looked at her over his own soup spoon as he ladled the broth into his mouth.
“I’m on the front lines of a war that will never really end,” she said, stepping carefully. “I’m just trying to keep ahead of the enemy.”
“Sounds like an arms race.” He put his spoon down and picked up his knife, deliberately buttering a thick slice of bread.
“What?”
“You’re at war, but your enemy is evolving.”
“Do you know what I do?” she asked.
He stared past her and out the window. “There’s a particular type of newt that lives in this area. The Pacific newt. I’ve seen them in the back.” He pointed to the garden outside the window, a garden shaded by the thick stand of Douglas firs that surrounded the property and led back into acres and acres of woods owned by the forest service. “Their skin is poisonous—highly poisonous. So if you pick one up you need to wash your hands. If ingested, the poison will kill most animals. It’s highly toxic.”
Lucky waited. Sometimes Mr. Blue went on about things that seemed to have no rhyme or reason, yet inside was buried sage advice.
“Do you know what a garter snake is?” he asked.
“Just a harmless, everyday snake?”
He nodded. “It’s not poisonous, apart from a venomous quality to its saliva that may help with digestion as it eats its prey live. The garter snake is a predator of the newt and has developed a resistance to the newt’s poison. So, over time, as a natural defense mechanism, the poison in the newts increases, becoming the new normal, as they say, and then the garter snakes die off until they develop a stronger resistance and can once again eat the newts with impunity until the newts’ poison becomes more toxic. It’s an arms race. I believe the garter snakes are currently on top.” His gaze returned to hers. “Are you?�
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“I’m not really in an arms race,” Lucky protested.
“You might be and just don’t know it. Be careful.”
There was something about this conversation—a long one for him—that seemed to be telling her something. Should she tell him something? A little bit about her plans? Was this what he was asking?
“I don’t intend for them to win,” she said, purposely keeping her meaning vague.
“You can’t often predict the outcome of an arms race.”
Her heart beat heavily, almost hurting. She was rarely so honest with anyone. “I don’t think I have much time.”
He returned his attention to his soup, but she thought she sensed a sadness in him. “Is it enough to get done what you need to do?”
She thought of the sensation, the almost odor, at the school. After she took care of Harmak, once and for all, she intended on tracking the source of that feeling. Maybe he would be her last. “I hope so.”
“If you need anything, just ask.”
“I will.”
She helped clean up the remains of the meal, then headed to her room. She needed to take care of Stefan Harmak soon. She should have given him enough to kill him, but she’d pulled back. The thought of those schoolchildren finding his dead body had influenced her. Now, she was going to have to catch him somewhere else, and the problem was, she’d put him on alert. Maybe she was in an arms race.
She shook her head, angry at herself, and gazed at her reflection in the old fly-spotted mirror above the ancient bureau. Once she was through with Harmak, she would figure out who was responsible for the noxious aura left behind at Twin Oaks, an invisible vapor trail.
She tilted her chin up. Could she play the part of a teacher, or a teacher’s aide?
“I would like to apply for a job,” she said aloud, forcing her normally grim face to lighten with an almost smile. “I hear Twin Oaks Elementary is a great school. . . .”
September lay next to Jake in bed, her head tucked onto his chest while they watched a lineup of sitcoms. Jake’s arm rested lightly around her, and she felt content and languid. “Sorry I’ve been such a bad patient,” she mumbled sleepily.
“Nah, you’ve been fine.” He was distracted.
“I’ve been a royal pain. You don’t have to spare my feelings.” She smiled. “Today was fun, though.”
“Mmm.”
Realizing he wasn’t paying attention, she glanced up at him, her gaze traveling down the firm line of his jaw. “I’ll move in this weekend as long as I don’t have to do any heavy lifting.”
“You will?” His attention came back to her with a bang.
“I’ve been delaying, I realize. We haven’t known each other all that long.” When he opened his mouth to protest, she corrected herself, “We’ve known each other, but it hasn’t been that long since you and I got like this.” She lifted a hand, to encompass the fact that they were lying in bed together.
“I spent too much time with Loni.”
“We both were living our lives.”
“I know, but a lot of it was . . . a waste.” He looked down at her. “I can move your stuff myself.”
“I have a queen bed. And your brother’s laid up and making babies. I wish I could promise Auggie’s help, but his schedule’s too unpredictable.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out.” She could hear the smile in his voice.
“You’re a happy camper now?”
“Very happy.”
“We’re not kidding ourselves, are we?” she asked suddenly. “Making all these plans too soon?”
“Nah.”
“Okay. Good.”
There was silence between them for a few minutes, and then the news came on. Jake had the television on channel seven and Pauline Kirby, in all her feral glory, came up, her attractive but sharp features making September’s skin crawl a bit as she remembered how the relentless reporter had drilled her with questions during their interview about Do Unto Others. “Can you—” she started, but Jake had already switched the channel.
“A little of her goes a long way,” he said, and he settled on a station with its reporter outside a post office.
September recognized the flagpole that the male reporter was standing by. “Oh . . . they’ve already made the connection.”
“What?” Jake asked, as September hadn’t filled him in on the case in detail.
She didn’t answer as the reporter launched first into an account of Christopher Ballonni’s death, and then, how the recent crime at the basketball pole mirrored Ballonni’s.
“They don’t have Stefan’s name yet,” she realized.
“Ah . . .” Jake said, as she’d told him over dinner about her earlier trip to the hospital to see Stefan and his story about being tied to the basketball pole. “You didn’t say what happened to Stefan was part of a pattern.”
“I’m not on Stefan’s case. But they’re letting me follow up again on Ballonni. I’ve put a call in to his widow, but I haven’t heard back yet.”
Jake nodded. September couldn’t tell whether or not he was bothered that she hadn’t told him everything. “It’s not the only case we have,” she reminded him, recalling the woman’s body found in Foxglove Park. Wes was following up on that one, hoping to learn her identity.
“No, it’s fine. I was just thinking that if Pauline Kirby realizes Harmak is your stepbrother, she’ll be after another interview,” Jake said.
“Was my stepbrother. She’ll learn it eventually, but it’s not the first thing that’ll crop up.”
“You hope.”
“Yeah, I hope. So, enough about me. Tell me about your work. How’s the office move going?”
“Uh . . . slow.”
“Slow, because . . . ?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m making the right choice.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “Maybe you don’t want to quit.”
“Maybe I don’t,” he agreed, shaking his head.
“What changed your mind?” she asked.
His gray eyes glanced down at her. “You. Maybe. This.” His gaze went to the gauze bandage on her shoulder, so close to her throat. “I thought it was the job that was the problem, but now I’m not so sure.”
“You said you wanted to change your life. Maybe you mean . . . Loni,” September suggested.
“No. That’s been over for almost a year.” He was frowning at the television, which had switched to a commercial.
“What’s wrong?” September asked.
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m just . . . figuring it out.”
“You sure it doesn’t have to do with Loni?” she asked carefully.
“What do you mean? No. That’s over. You know that.”
“Why are you so defensive?”
“I’m not defensive.”
“No?”
“No.” He heard himself and switched off the television with a snap of his thumb on the remote. “She’s . . . not a part of my life. I don’t want to see her anymore. It’s over. And I just don’t want to think about her.”
“Okay.”
He expelled a long breath. “She called me today,” he admitted. “I was cleaning out my desk and she called and I just started feeling . . . bad . . . guilty, I guess. It’s not about the job. You were right on that. It’s about Loni and how I don’t want to deal with her anymore, and that makes me feel like a shit.”
“I know it’s a cliché, but her problems are her problems, not your problems.”
“I know. It’s just that I’m happy, she’s not, and I don’t know that she will be, ever. So . . . yeah. Not good.”
“Sounds like survivor’s guilt,” September said.
“Well, she’s not dead.”
“You know what I mean. So, you’re staying with the job?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Not at all.”
September snuggled back down against him, aware that her pulse had jumped raggedly but was now settling in
to a normal rhythm. She could talk big about Jake with Loni, like she understood everything about their years and years of a long relationship, but secretly it worried her a little. “Maybe I can rustle up Auggie to help with the move this weekend,” she murmured, her voice muffled against the skin of his chest.
He leaned down and looked at her. She glanced up. “What?”
For an answer he kissed her on the lips. The kiss lingered and when he finally pulled back, he asked, “You won’t back out?”
“ No.”
“Cross your heart, hope to die?”
A shiver slid down her bare back and Jake pulled her in closer. “Just cross my heart,” she said.
“Any more interest in the Johnson file?”
“Tomorrow, bucko.”
“Shucks.”
Chapter Five
Stefan was hanging up his coat in the back of Mrs. Runderfeld’s—Mrs. Run, to the kids—classroom where he was in the middle of a six-week training cycle when there was a knock on the open doorway. That bitch from the office, Lazenby’s suck-up gopher, stuck her head inside.
“Mr. Harmak, could you come to the office, please?” she asked.
The second-graders were still coming in off the playground from the first bell, rushing to their seats, talking and bustling their way to their desks.
Stefan’s heart seized up. “What for?” he asked.
“Principal Lazenby wants to see you.” She ducked out and disappeared.
Mrs. Run had been talking to a kid’s mother, a scatterbrained blonde with implants whose son ran in a pack of snotty little shits, entitled monsters with too much money and no discipline. Now, the teacher turned and lifted her brows to Stefan. So damn self-righteous he wanted to smack her.