by Mary Hughes
If it weren’t so weird, it would have been totally sexy.
As I slipped my thong and jeans on, I watched him closely. He put his pants on one leg at a time, perfectly normal. Of course, even normal looked sexy on Bo. And the way he shrugged into his shirt, muscles working smoothly…uh. I adjusted my jeans. “I’m sorry. I’m really disappointed.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “I guess I’ll have to work harder next time.”
Harder? As in, I’d have a bigger orgasm? Would I even survive? “No!” I flushed. “I didn’t mean…I meant I’m disappointed I have to go.”
“I know that, Detective.” Bo glided over and touched me gently on the cheek. “I’m disappointed too.” Holding my chin in thumb and forefinger, he pressed a soft kiss onto my lips. “Later? After you get off work?”
Five years, three months and nearly six days. It would have to do.
–—
Captain Titus was hopping mad when I got to the station. His round face was as red as his hair. Well, orange. All the shift personnel had vanished, except for Blatzky, and even he only snuck in to nab a donut before retreating to the men’s room.
I slid behind my desk. It was a shield between us, although I would have preferred bulletproof armor. Tight-ass paced the floor like a caged tiger. A pumpkiny, scrotty sort of tiger, but still scary.
“You’re taking way too long, O’Rourke.” If his red face hadn’t said riled, his voice, headed into the ionosphere, would have clued me in. Or the frantic pumping of his Armani. “Almost a whole week since this gruesome murder occurred and still nothing. Our department’s reputation is in shambles. I’m removing you from the case!”
Shit. This was my punishment for ignoring the rules. Think fast, O’Rourke, and talk faster. “Captain Titus, I object. It’s only been three nights since Mr. Schrimpf died. Besides, who else would take it?”
“Blatzky,” he began.
“Sir, you know Detective Blatzky is swamped.” By beer and the toilet, but hey.
“Dillon on first shift—”
“Captain. With all due respect, the murder happened at night. Most of the witnesses are night people. A third-shift detective is best.”
Titus rubbed his semi-orange pate. “That’s true. I don’t want to lose control…I mean lose the case. It is a third-shift matter.” His voice lowered as he calmed.
“Absolutely, sir. And I’m the best third-shift detective available to head the case.” Actually, the only third-shift detective available to head the case. Blatzky was still in the men’s room, and Ruffles…was Ruffles.
Tight-ass grabbed a donut. Parked one butt cheek on a nearby desk and chomped. “All right, O’Rourke. You’ll keep it for now. But tell me what you’ve got. And I want to know everything.”
I spieled off the basics—leaving out the whole biting/sucking thing. I mean, I wanted to convince him I was responsible and sane. Vampires-in-Meiers-Corners wasn’t anywhere near the rational starting line.
Tight-ass nodded. “Keep an eye on that widow, Detective O’Rourke. She sounds like a suspicious character to me.”
“But what about the blood, captain? Or rather the lack of it? Don’t you think that’s important?”
“Lack of blood? That’s not a clue,” he scoffed. “Blood is a clue. But no blood? Shows your inexperience.”
Flames rose in my cheeks. “I’m sorry, sir.”
Tight-ass smiled, a creepy jigsaw in his pumpkin head. “That’s all right, Elena, my dear.” Hearing my name in that smarmy, over-familiar tone tossed ten chips into the creepy pot.
Then he patted me heavily on the shoulder. “Keep me apprized of the case. Everything that happens.” He started rubbing. “I want to know everything you do, everything you find.” He rubbed lower. Brushed the tops of my breasts. “Even the blood. I’ll help you through this, rookie.” The hand circled down to my nipple.
Make that just plain creep. I jumped out of my chair. “Gee thanks. Sir.” I spoke through gritted teeth. “I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop. Captain.”
His eyes narrowed. “See that you do. Detective.” He chomped the last piece of donut, and walked away.
–—
Bo was expecting me after my shift was over but neither of us knew how quick my meeting with Tight-ass would be. So I headed back to the apartment, to finish what we started. True, we’d be starting from a dead stop, but Bo’s motor was top of the line. Zero to sixty in three seconds. I figured it’d be a piece of cake to get back in the race.
And it was still my lunch hour, right?
When I got to the apartment, though, Bo was nowhere to be found.
My sister found me instead. She grabbed me by the shoulder and hustled me into her apartment. “You took Dru in for questioning!”
In the morass of job anxiety, guilt and sheer horniness that made up my current psyche, sisterly charity was hard to find. “Drusilla? You call her Dru? Gretchen O’Rourke Johnson, how the hell do you know a hooker?”
Gretch scowled and jerked a nod at little Stella sitting on the couch. I clapped a hand over my foul mouth. Fortunately Stella was engrossed in smearing yellow fingers on butcher paper. She was singing “A Hundred Bottles of Root Beer” and didn’t hear us.
Then I realized it was nearly two in the morning. “What the hel—heck is Stella doing still up?”
“She was having trouble sleeping.” Gretchen dragged me into her tiny kitchen.
“But—”
“No, Elena. This isn’t about Stella.” Gretch confronted me, hands on hips, back rigid. “I’m talking to you about Dru. Leave her alone.”
“What?” I blinked my disbelief. “Why do you care?”
“Dru used to live here. Before Ste—” Gretch’s cheeks flushed. “Before Stella and I came. In fact, she moved out just to make room for us.”
“This was Drusilla’s apartment?” I wondered about Gretch’s flush. Had the Double-D bimbo akimbo “entertained” here? Left a used Rough Rider for Gretch to find? “And your good friend Dru gave it up for you?”
“Um…sort of.” Her eyes flashed sideways.
Gretchen was lying, but I couldn’t place how. I took a stab in the dark. “She had one of the basement rooms?”
My sister’s eyes widened so far they nearly fell out of her skull. “How do you know about the basement rooms?”
If information were the cards in a game of sheepshead, I had two trump. The basement rooms was one. The rest of my hand was fail, but Gretch didn’t know that.
I played the other trump. “The basement is where Bo sleeps.” My throat tightened. Slept, as opposed to where he made love.
Other things tightened on that.
My sister’s face went white. “Elena…no one can know. I don’t know how you found out, but you can’t tell anyone.”
“Oh? And why not?”
“Elena, please! It’s our lives. Stella’s and Steve’s and mine.”
“Steve’s dead,” I said automatically, and thereby lost the pot.
Gretchen’s color came back, tipped over into red as her expression hardened. “You don’t really know, do you?”
I planted fists on hips, mirroring her. “I know enough. I know you’ve been acting crazy since the attack that killed Steve.”
She turned away with a shrug. “So I’m scared, so what? It’s not unusual after an attack as brutal as that.”
“Not just scared. You act like monsters are after you.”
She spun back, eyes flaring. “Because there are monstrous people out there!”
“Oh, for the love of—not monstrous, Gretch. You’re acting like they’re real monsters.” I barely choked my anger back. My fear. My sister was desperately in need of help yet she was blocking me—no, more. She was lying to me. Her own flesh and blood, and for what? For the sake of a sexy apartment manager and a hooker? “And why the hell do you bow to a maintenance man like he’s some sort of royalty?”
Gretchen blanched. “I feel safe here, and I’m grateful, that’s al
l.”
“Right. Grateful enough to sleep with Strongwell six months after you buried your husband? Grateful enough to pass him off as ‘Daddy’ to your daughter?”
“What?” She braced one hand on the counter.
“Come on, Gretch, talk to me. Pretty please with pus? It’s eating you, this lying about Strongwell. I know it can’t be good for you—or Stella.”
“Leave my daughter out of it. You know nothing.” Gretchen slapped the counter to underline her words. “You think the world can be conquered if only you’re smart enough. Strong enough.” She grabbed my arms. Her fingers bit painfully into me, and fear iced her eyes. “But there are things out there, Elena, awful things. Inhuman things.”
I twisted free from her punishing grip. “Inhuman? Why does it have to be monsters, Gretch? What’s gotten you so spooked you’re lying to your own sister?”
“Oh, let’s not fight, Elena.” An angry tear ran down Gretchen’s cheek. She swiped it away and started rummaging in a high cabinet. Very carefully, she took down a pink-and-gold china teapot. Two matching cups and saucers joined the pot on the counter.
The pretty little set had been her mother’s. Many a scraped knee and bruised heart had been comforted by Brita’s tea set. Gretchen waved to the small kitchen table. “Sit. I’ll make us some tea.”
She turned from me and busied herself with kettle and cups, humming as if the last few minutes hadn’t happened at all.
“Gretch…” I sank into a chair, at a loss for words. The avoidance, the sheer denial was not my sister. “How did this happen? Why are you so scared? Did Bo do this to you?”
She turned from the counter, delicate cup in one hand, her face a study in shock. “Master Bo has been nothing but…supportive and…and kind…”
“Master? Do you hear yourself? He’s a fucking building supervisor, not a king.”
She slammed her other hand, balled into a fist, on the counter. “Don’t you talk about him that way, Elena, don’t you dare. Stella and I owe him our lives. Bo Strongwell is the most generous, the most noble…he’s worth two of any of us. Even you, Elena. Don’t you dare badmouth him.”
I stared at her, stunned. My sister, the only person I cared about, was deserting me for a fucking maintenance man. This was worse than being alone.
Dad would have known what to do, but I had no idea how to handle her. I never felt his loss more. “You’ve gone off the deep end, Gretch. Ever since you came to live here…it’s got to be Bo’s fault.” I stood. “If you won’t listen, I’ll just confront him.”
She only laughed at that, waving the tea cup recklessly. “You don’t mean that. He’s far more powerful than you can imagine, Elena. Bigger and stronger and faster. You’re nothing in comparison.”
I patted my gun. “Is he stronger and faster that this? I’m sick of the lies, Gretchen. I’m marching right down to that mysterious dirt-floor den and I’m going to have the truth—if I have to shoot Strongwell to do it.”
“Don’t you dare go near him!” Gretchen screamed, throwing her cup into the wall. It shattered instantly.
There was sudden, awful silence in the kitchen, punctuated only by Stella’s piping voice. Sixty-seven bottles of root beer remained.
A small sound escaped Gretchen’s mouth, like a sob. “Oh, no…what have I done? My cup, my beautiful cup.” She knelt, swept the tiny shards together in her hands. As I wavered to my feet she jerked, as if she had cut herself. But she didn’t stop. Didn’t stop sweeping the tiny sharp bits of ceramic into her bare hands. Tears dripped down her cheeks.
My retort died in my throat. I knelt next to her, gathered her in my arms. “There, there, honey.” I caressed her head. “It’s okay. I’ll make it okay.”
That’s when I smelled metal. Copper…or iron.
I held her away from me. “Gretchen. Let me see your hands.”
She wouldn’t meet my eyes. Her fingers were clasped tightly against her stomach. I put my palm over them, used the calm, soothing tone I’d perfected babysitting her. “Gretchen, come on. Let me see. Let Big Sis see. Pretty please with puke?”
It still worked. Slowly, Gretch opened her hands.
The first thing I saw was the red gloss. A thin sheen, covering her palms like strawberry jam.
Blood.
Ceramic shards glittered in the blood. Welling from numerous tiny cuts, it began dripping through her fingers onto the floor.
“Your poor hands.” I raised her to her feet and led her to the sink, turning on the water to rinse her cuts.
A loud bang made me whirl. The kitchenette’s saloon doors blew open. A man filled the doorway, chest heaving.
“What the fuck did you do to my wife?” Steve Johnson yelled.
Chapter Sixteen
An hour later I trudged along the night-shadowed sidewalk, hands in my jeans pockets. What the hell did I do now? I still felt like I’d been sideswiped by a truck.
My cell phone rang. Caller ID showed the cop shop.
Who now, I thought, fearing Dirkenstein, or worse, Tight-ass. “O’Rourke.”
“Hi, Elena. It’s Charlie.”
Our CSI, Charles Samuel Ignatek. Yeah, I know. And physically, he could have been William Petersen’s twin. Meiers Corners was ground zero for weird. We had a lawyer named Denny Crane and a Taekwondo instructor called Miyagi. Charlie’s initials and his Gil Grissom face was sitch normal for us.
“Interesting sample you sent me, Elena. Where did you say you found it?”
The small baggy of charred dust was from the alley where Bo and I had been attacked. “I didn’t say. But it was on the paperwork with the sample.”
“There was nothing with the sample. No ID, no forms, nothing.”
Not good. Even one slip could lose me the detective race. “I swear I didn’t forget—”
Ignatek chuckled. He had a nice, masculine chuckle. “I know you didn’t. You’re precise and careful with evidence. Which makes the absence of the paperwork quite intriguing, yes?”
I wondered what he was driving at. Hopefully nothing freaky. I’d had enough freakiness in the past few to file a Schedule C as my own circus sideshow. “But you got the sample. You were able to analyze it?”
“Oh, yes.”
Analyzable, therefore not supernatural. My tension eased. “What is it?”
Instead of answering, he asked, “Does it have anything to do with your current case?”
“Nothing that I know of.” Anxiety notched back up. I didn’t get what was with all the questions. Was Ignatek pumping me for Titus?
“Can you at least tell me where it came from? How long ago you got it?”
“In town. Not long ago,” I hedged. “Why?”
“Because I recovered amplifiable DNA, Elena.”
I remembered the muggers’ unnatural strength. The red eyes. The flashing teeth. “What kind of DNA? Animal?” Animal—or monster?
“Human DNA.”
“Human? You’re absolutely sure?” The instant it was out of my mouth I could have smacked myself. Of course he was sure.
But there was a strange hesitation before Charlie answered. “Well, that’s why I asked where it came from. I sent the sample through CODIS. And got a match.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Usually. In this case, Elena, I’m not sure.”
“Why? Does the DNA match the spit from Schrimpf’s balls? Is it our murderer?”
“No, unfortunately. It’s for one John Smith, age thirty-six.”
“Smith?” I swore. “How many thousands of people does that name match in the US alone?”
“With the DNA? Exactly one.”
I stopped walking. “But…well, then, what’s the problem?”
“It’s only a very small one, Elena. John Smith had AIDS. He died a year ago.”
“Died?” To say that was a problem was an understatement. A long-dead man had attacked me yesterday. Impossible.
But a lot of impossible had been slopping over the reality dam lately. Af
ter thanking Ignatek (and promising I’d forward any information as soon as I had it) I flipped the phone shut. Stuck my hands in my pockets and thought hard.
How could this have happened? The evidence wasn’t contaminated. I had collected it myself, and Ignatek was thorough and exacting. A prank, maybe? John Smith’s cremated remains, smeared in the alley? But for what purpose?
One thing I knew for sure. There had to be a natural, logical explanation. The dead did not come back to life.
Despite what I’d learned at Gretchen’s just an hour ago.
“What the fuck did you do to my wife?” Steve Johnson had yelled.
“I’m okay, I’m okay.” Gretchen had held up her hands, two bloody-red stop signs. “I did it to myself, Steve. Calm down.”
He took a deep breath, turned his head away. “Sorry. I’m sorry, honey. I just…the blood scared me.”
I caught Gretchen’s wrists, gently brought her hands back under the running water. It scared me too. Everything about this scared me. My sister’s secrets, my going after them out of loyalty and love, my only alienating her more because of it…and my brother-in-law, surprisingly active for being six months dead.
I urged Gretchen into a chair, found a clean dish towel and wrapped her hands before escaping to the bathroom for bandages and disinfectant. At that point if I could have left her to bandage her own hands, I might have. But I sucked up my sanity and returned.
While I dressed Gretchen’s hands, Steve paced in the background. Keeping my voice low, I said, “What’s going on here, Gretch?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Elena. But I wasn’t quite sure what to say.”
“The truth would be good.”
“Yes.” She paused. “Steve, honey, why don’t you put the kettle on?” And then her eyes started tracking. Like she was thinking.
This was going to be a whopper.
She smiled directly at me, blue eyes wide and guileless. “It’s really quite simple. We thought Steve was dead. But he wasn’t. And while we weren’t looking, well, he woke up and wandered off.”