by Nora Roberts
“I’m going to remember that one, Bess.”
“Just don’t tell the mayor where you heard it.”
“I know how to respect a source.” Still smiling, he glanced over at a slack-jawed Alex. “Detective, you take care of Ms. McNee. Make sure she gets what she needs.”
“Sir.” He cut his eyes over to Bess. She merely batted her lashes, managing to look about as innocent as a smoking gun. “I have every intention of making certain Ms. McNee gets exactly what she needs.”
Bess laid her hand in Trilwalter’s. “Thank you again, Donald.”
“My pleasure. Don’t be a stranger.”
“Donald?” Alex said, the moment the captain was out of earshot.
“Yes.” Bess made a production out of brushing dust from her sleeve. “That is his name.”
“We use several other names for him around here. What the hell did you do in there?”
“Why, we chatted. What else?”
Glancing over her shoulder, Alex noticed money changing hands. The odds had been even that Trilwalter would chew her up, then spit her out, within ten minutes. Since he’d lost twenty on the deal himself, Alex wasn’t particularly pleased.
“Sit down and be quiet,” he told her. “I’ve got work.”
“Of course.”
Before she could take her seat, his phone rang. “Stanislaski. Yeah.” He listened a moment, then pulled out his notepad to scribble. “I hear you. You know how it works, Boomer. It depends on what it’s worth.” Nodding to himself, he replaced the pad. “Yeah, we’ll talk. I’ll be there. In ten.”
When Alex hung up the phone and grabbed for his jacket, Bess was right behind him. “What is it?”
“I’ve got someplace to go. Judd, let’s hit it.”
“I’m going with you.”
Alex didn’t even glance back as he started out. He was already working on tucking her in some far corner of his mind. “Forget it.”
“I’m going with you,” she repeated, and snagged his arm. “That’s the deal.”
It surprised him when he tried to shake her off and she wouldn’t shake. The lady had a good grip, he noted. “I didn’t make any deal.”
She could be just as tough and cold-blooded as he, she thought. She planted her feet, angled her chin. “Your captain did. I ride with you, Detective, wherever you may be going. A day in the life, remember?”
“Fine.” Frustration vibrated through him as he stared her down. “You ride—and you stay in the car. No way you’re scaring off my snitch.”
“Want me to drive?” Judd offered as they headed down the steps to the garage.
“No.” Alex’s answer was flat and left no room for argument. Judd sent Bess a good-natured shrug. Then, because Alex made no move to do so, he opened the back door of their nondescript unmarked car for her.
“Where are we going?” Bess asked, determined to be pleasant.
“To talk to the scum of the earth,” Alex shot back as he pulled out of the garage.
“Sounds fascinating,” Bess said, and meant it.
She didn’t think she’d ever been in this part of town before. Many of the shop windows were boarded up. Those still in business were grubbier than usual. People still walked as though they were in a hurry, but it didn’t look as if they had anyplace to go.
Funny, she thought, how Alex seemed to blend with the surroundings. It wasn’t simply the jeans and battered jacket he wore, or the hair he’d deliberately mussed. It was a look in the eyes, a set of the body, a twist of the mouth. No one would look twice at him, she thought. Or if they bothered, they wouldn’t see a cop, they’d see another street tough obviously on the edge of his luck.
Taking her cue from him, she pulled out her bag of cosmetics, darkening her mouth, adding just a little too much eyeliner and shadow. She tried a couple of bored looks in the mirror of her compact and decided to tease up her hair.
Alex glanced back at her and scowled. “What the hell are you doing to your face?”
“Getting into character,” she said blithely. “Just like you. Are we going to bust somebody?”
He only turned away and muttered.
Just his luck, he thought. He wanted to slip into Boomer’s joint unobtrusively, and he was stuck with a redhead who thought they were playing cops and robbers.
Unoffended, Bess put away her mirror and scanned the area. Parking wasn’t a problem here. Bess decided that if anyone left his car unattended in this neighborhood for above ten minutes, he’d come back and be lucky to find a hubcap.
Alex swung over the curb and swore. He couldn’t leave her in the car here, damn it. Any of the hustlers or junkies on the streets would take one look, then eat her alive.
“You listen to me.” He turned, leaning over the seat to make his point. “Stay close to me, and keep your mouth shut. No questions, no comments.”
“All right, but where—”
“No questions.” He slammed out of his door, then waited for her. With his hand firm on her arm, he hauled her to the sidewalk. “If you step out of line, I swear, I’ll slap the cuffs on you.”
“Romantic, isn’t he?” she said to Judd. “Just sends shivers down my spine.”
“Keep a lid on it, McNee,” Alex told her, refusing to be amused. He pulled her through a grimy door into an airless shop.
It took her a minute to get her bearings in the dim light. There were shelves and shelves crowded with dusty merchandise. Radios, picture frames, kitchenware. A tuba. A huge glass display counter with a diagonal crack across it dominated one wall. Security glass ran to the ceiling. Cutting through it was a window, like a bank teller’s, studded with bars.
“A pawnshop,” Bess said, with such obvious delight that Alex snarled at her.
“One word about atmosphere, I’ll clobber you.”
But she was already dragging out her notebook. “Go ahead, do what you have to do. You won’t even know I’m here.”
Sure, he thought. How would anyone know she was there, simply because that sunshine scent of hers cut right through the grime and must? He stepped up to the counter just as a scrawny man in a loose white shirt came through the rear door.
“Stanislaski.”
“Boomer. What have you got for me?”
Grinning, Boomer passed a hand over his heavily greased black hair. “Come on, I got some good stuff, and you know I make a point of cooperating with the law. But a man’s got to make a living.”
“You make one ripping off every poor slob who walks through the door.”
“Aw, now you hurt my feelings.” Boomer’s pale blue eyes glittered. “Rookie?” he asked, nodding at Judd.
“He used to be.”
After an appraising look, Boomer glanced over at Bess. She was busy poking through his merchandise. “Looks like I got me a customer. Hang on.”
“She’s with me.” Alex shot him a knife-edged look that forestalled any questions. “Just forget she’s here.”
Boomer had already appraised the trio of rings on Bess’s right hand, and the blue topaz drops at her ears. He sighed his disappointment. “You’re the boss, Stanislaski. But listen, I like to be discreet.”
Alex leaned on the counter, like a man ready to shoot the bull for hours. His voice was soft, and deadly. “Jerk my chain, Boomer, and I’m going to have to come down here and take a hard look at what you keep in that back room.”
“Stock. Just stock.” But he grinned. He didn’t have any illusions about Alex. Boomer knew when he was detested, but he also knew they had an agreement of sorts. And, thus far, it had been advantageous to both of them. “I got something on those hookers that got sliced up.”
Though his expression didn’t change, though he didn’t move a muscle, Alex went on alert. “What kind of something?”
Boomer merely smiled and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. When Alex drew out a twenty, it disappeared quickly through the bars. “Twenty more, if you like what I have to say.”
“If it’s worth it, you’ll
get it.”
“You know I trust you.” Smelling of hair grease and sweat, Boomer leaned closer. “Word on the street is you’re looking for some high roller. Guy’s name’s Jack.”
“So far I’m not impressed.”
“Just building up to it, pal. The first one that was wasted? She was one of Big Ed’s wives. I recognized her from the newspaper picture. Now, she was fine-looking. Not that I ever used her services.”
“Turn the page, Boomer.”
“Okay, okay.” He shot a grin at Judd. “He don’t like conversation. I heard both those unfortunate ladies were in possession of a certain piece of jewelry.”
“You’ve got good ears.”
“Man in my position hears things. It so happens I had a young lady come in just yesterday. She had a certain piece of jewelry she wanted to exchange.” Opening a drawer, Boomer pulled out a thin gold chain. Dangling from it was a heart, cracked down the center. When Alex held out a hand, Boomer shook his head. “I gave her twenty for it.”
Saying nothing, Alex pulled another bill out of his wallet.
“Seems to me I’m entitled to a certain amount of profit.”
Eyes steady, Alex pulled the twenty back an inch. “You’re entitled to go in and answer a bunch of nasty questions down at the cop shop.”
With a shrug, Boomer exchanged the bill for the heart. He’d only given ten for it, in any case. “She wasn’t much more than a kid,” Boomer added. “Eighteen, maybe twenty at a stretch. Still pretty. Bottle blonde, blue eyes. Little mole right here.” He tapped beside his left eyebrow.
“Got an address?”
“Well, now…”
“Twenty for the address, Boomer.” Alex’s tone told the man to take it. “That’s it.”
Satisfied, Boomer named a hotel a few blocks away. “Signed her name Crystal,” he added, wanting to keep the partnership intact. “Crystal LaRue. Figure she made it up.”
“Let’s check it out,” he said to Judd, then tapped Bess on the shoulder. She was apparently absorbed in an ugly brass lamp in the shape of a rearing horse. “Let’s go.”
“In a minute.” She turned a smile on Boomer. “How much?”
“Oh, for you—”
“Forget it.” Alex was dragging her to the door.
“I want to buy—”
“It’s ugly.”
Annoyed at the loss, but pleased to have recorded the entire conversation, she sighed. “That’s the point.” But she climbed meekly into the car and began to scribble her impressions in her book.
Cramped shop. Very dirty. Mostly junk. Excellent place for props. Proprietor a complete sleaze. Alexi in complete control of exchange—a kind of game-playing. Quietly disgusted but willing to use the tools at hand.
By the time she’d finished scribbling, Alex was pulling to the curb again.
“Same rules,” he said to Bess as they climbed out of the car.
“Absolutely.” Lips pursed, she studied the crumbling hotel. She recognized it as a rent-by-the-hour special. “Is this where she lives?”
“Who?”
“The girl you were talking about.” She lifted a brow. “I have ears, too, Alexi.”
He should have known. “As long as you keep your mouth shut.”
“There’s no need to be rude,” she told him as they started in. “Tell you what, just to show there’s no hard feelings, I’ll buy you both lunch.”
“Great.” Judd gallantly opened the door for her.
“You’re so easy,” Alex muttered to his partner as they entered the filthy lobby.
“Hey, we gotta eat sometime.”
He hated to bring her in here, Alex realized. Into this dirty place that smelled of garbage and moldy dreams. How could she be so unaffected by it? he wondered, then struggled to put thoughts of her aside as he approached the desk clerk.
“You got a Crystal LaRue?”
The clerk peered over his newspaper. There was an unfiltered cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and total disinterest in his eyes. “Don’t ask for names.”
Alex merely pulled out his badge, flashed it. “Blonde, about eighteen. Good-looking. A beauty mark beside her eyebrow. Working girl.”
“Don’t ask what they do for a living, neither.” With a shrug, the clerk went back to his paper. “Two-twelve.”
“She in?”
“Haven’t seen her go out.”
With Bess trailing behind, they started up the steps. To entertain herself, she read the various tenants’ suggestions and statements that were scrawled on the walls.
There was a screaming match in progress behind one of the doors on the first floor. Someone was banging on the wall from a neighboring room and demanding—in colorful terms—that the two opponents quiet down.
A bag of garbage had spilled on the stairs between the second and first floors. It had gone very ripe.
Alex rapped on the door of 212, waited. He rapped again and called out. “Crystal. Need to talk to you.”
With a glance at Judd, Alex tried the door. The knob turned easily. “In a place like this, you’d think she’d lock it,” Judd commented.
“And wire it with explosives,” Alex added. He slipped out his gun, and Judd did the same. “Stay in the hall,” he ordered Bess without looking at her. They went through the door, guns at the ready.
She did exactly what she was told. But that didn’t stop her from seeing. Crystal hadn’t gone out, and she wouldn’t be walking the streets again. As the door hung open, Bess stared at what was sprawled across the sagging mattress inside. The stench of blood—and worse—streamed through the open doorway.
Death. Violent death. She had written about it, discussed it, watched gleefully as it was acted out for the cameras.
But she’d never seen it face-to-face. Had never known how completely a human being could be turned into a thing.
From far away, she heard Alex swear, over and over, but she could only stare, frozen, until his body blocked her view. He had his hands on her shoulders, squeezing. God, she was cold, Bess thought. She’d never been so cold.
“I want you to go downstairs.”
She managed to lift her gaze from his chin to his eyes. The iced fury in them had her shivering. “What?”
He nearly swore again. She was white as a sheet, and her pupils had contracted until they were hardly bigger than the point of a pin. “Go downstairs, Bess.” He tried to rub the chill out of her arms, knowing he couldn’t. “Are you listening to me?” he said, his voice quiet, gentle.
“Yes.” She moistened her lips, pressed them together. “I’m sorry, yes.”
“Go down, stay in the lobby. Don’t say anything, don’t do anything, until Judd or I come down. Okay?” He gave her a little shake, and wondered what he would do if she folded on him. “Okay?”
She took one shaky breath, then nodded. “She’s…so young.” With an effort, she swallowed the sickness that kept threatening to rise in her throat. “I’m all right. Don’t worry about me. I’m all right,” she repeated, then turned away to go downstairs.
“She shouldn’t have seen this,” Judd said. His own stomach was quivering.
“Nobody should see this.” Banking down on every emotion, Alex closed the door at his back.
She stuck it out, refusing to budge when Judd came down to drive her home. After finding an old chair, she settled into a corner while the business of death went on around her. From her vantage point, she watched them come and go—forensics, the police photographer, the morgue.
Detached, she studied the people who crowded in, asking questions, making comments, being shuffled out again by blank-faced cops.
There was grief in her for a girl she hadn’t known, a fury at the waste of a life. But she remained. Not because of the job. Because of Alex.
He was angry with her. She understood it, and didn’t question it. When they were finished at the scene, she rode in silence in the back of the car. Back at the station, she took the same chair she’d had that mornin
g.
Hours went by, endlessly long. At one point she slipped out and bought Alex and Judd sandwiches from a deli. After a time, he went into another room. She followed, still silent, noted a board with pictures tacked to it. Horrible pictures.
She looked away from them, took a chair and listened while Alex and other detectives discussed the latest murder and the ongoing investigation.
Later, she rode with him back to the pawnshop. Waited patiently while he questioned Boomer again. Waited longer while he and Judd returned to the motel to reinterview the clerk, the tenants.
Like them, she learned little about Crystal LaRue. Her name had been Kathy Segal, and she’d once lived in Wisconsin. It had been hard, terribly hard, for Bess to listen when Alex tracked down and notified her parents. Hard, too, to understand from Alex’s end of the conversation that they didn’t care. For them, their daughter had already been dead.
She’d been nobody’s girl. She’d worked the streets on her own. Two months after she moved into the tiny little room with the sagging mattress, she had died there. No one had known her. No one had wanted to know her.
No one had cared.
Alex couldn’t talk to Bess. It was impossible for him. Intolerable. He shared this part of his life with no one who mattered to him. It was true that his sister Rachel saw some of it as a public defender but as far as Alex was concerned that was too much. Perhaps that was why he kept all the pieces he could away from the rest of his family and loved ones.
He hated remembering the look on Bess’s face as she’d stood in that doorway. There should have been a way to protect her from that, to shield her from her own stubbornness.
But he hadn’t protected her, he hadn’t shielded her, though that was precisely what he had sworn to do for people he’d never met from the first day he’d worn a badge. Yet for her, for the woman he was—God, yes, the woman he was in love with—he’d opened the door himself and let her in.
So he didn’t talk to her, not even when it was time to turn it off and go home. And in the silence, his anger built and swelled and clawed at his guts. He found the words when he stepped into her apartment and closed the door.