The Chilling Spree

by LS Sygnet

  His sinewy arms banded around me tightly, shoulders bent over me and shielded me from the pain I finally admitted was tearing me apart. What started with my corrupt ex-husband was complicated by suspicions from my peers at the FBI. Johnny Orion was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Letting go, telling him I loved him, only to suffer under his now vacant gaze and hostile words proved to be the last in a long succession of painful blows.

  Nothing could’ve peeled me out of Devlin’s arms. Not duty. Not obligation. A bond fused between us, one that had been budding in friendship, one that could easily become something else, something deeper. Frantic music and thrashing bodies behind us didn’t disturb the slow gentle sway that erupted. Devlin held me. I let him.

  The music ended. Darkness fell over the growing roar behind us as twenty thousand people chanted for an encore. I felt Devlin’s breath against my cheek, but in the dark, couldn’t see if he was speaking. Hearing him was a futile effort.

  The energy from the crowd grew and pulsated. Stomping feet, screaming voices and a demand for more continued until a single light appeared in front of where we stood. Scott Madden stood in the center of the glow.

  He gestured for silence with a palms down motion of his hands. “Folks, it looks like that problem that prevented us from starting the show on time turned out to be a major fly in the ointment.”

  Our eyes met, locked for a beat longer than I wanted. This case wasn’t mine. It couldn’t be mine. Precognition made my skin crawl. Since when has your life or your career been about your choices, Helen? Better brace yourself now.

  Madden continued. “As you know, we’re giving an encore performance tomorrow night. Like this show, it’s completely sold out, and I’m told that our VIP party tonight has been cancelled.”

  Boos rumbled from those like Dev and me down front with VIP access.

  “So we’re going to make a one time offer for those who won’t be able to party with us tonight. Show up tomorrow night, same time, same place, and we’ll make room for you at the show and honor your VIP access afterward for the biggest fuckin’ party this city has ever seen!”

  Madden paused and stared down at us. “That goes for the two of you as well,” he grinned. “Thankfully, duty isn’t calling you, and I have it on high authority that you’re both off this week.”

  Dev rested his chin on the top of my head. I felt the grin. One arm unwrapped from my waist and threw up the horns. I shook my head and chuckled. “You aren’t dragging me back into this mess for a second time, Dev.”

  His whisker rough cheek nuzzled mine. “Aw, just think of the stuff we could pick up that might help Crevan close his case if we did a little unofficial digging.”

  We waited for the crowd to disperse after a raucous encore. I made no move to leave the arms protecting me. “Dev?”

  “Hmm,” he hummed in my ear.

  “Are you upset with me for giving up the case without a fight?”

  “Hard for me to be objective all things considered.”

  I looked up at him. “Because you hate Underwood so much?”

  “Well, that too.”

  “Too?”

  “Helen, I like these guys. I know they’re a bunch of conceited assholes, but they’ve been like… role models to me since I was a kid. I know they’re not much older than I am, but still. It’s hard to be objective.”

  “That’s why you hung back when we approached them backstage, isn’t it?”

  “Should’ve known you would pick up on the most subtle nuance. Yeah, I guess I did hesitate for a second or two. You know that Madden is from Darkwater Bay, right?”

  “I wasn’t aware of that. He doesn’t live here anymore, does he?”

  “I think he’s got a brother in town still, but that’s it. He lives in Los Angeles. They all do.”

  “You surprise me, Devlin.” I wiggled around in his arms until we were face to face. “I never figured you for such a fan of anything.”

  “Like I said, it’s one of those things left over from my misspent youth.”

  “One that the Marines didn’t brainwash out of you?”

  He grinned. “Never.”

  Our eyes met. “Thank you for tonight,” I said.

  “You ready to talk about it yet?”

  I shrugged.

  “Helen, you’ve gotta know that in a very short time, you’ve become pretty damned important to me. As a friend, as a colleague… someone I’d love to get to know better. You can tell me anything. It goes no further.”

  Dad’s words bounced around in my paranoid mind. A secret is never safe if more than one person knows it. Still, there were things I could unload on Devlin that wouldn’t result in my arrest. Pain over Johnny’s cold words for instance fell into that specific category.

  I nodded curtly. “Wanna get a cup of coffee?”

  His fingers did a spidery dance over the small of my back. “That would probably be a great idea since we’ve been drinking and the place is crawling with cops.”

  “There’s a diner across the street. I doubt it’s suddenly the location of the after party since poor Madden had to cancel tonight’s festivities after the show.” My eyes darted toward the wall of bodies moving off the stage. “They’re not going to let anyone move anything until CSD has the scene processed.”

  “Not our problem, Helen. Remember? Tony and Crevan are on tonight.”

  “Yeah. But I wonder if they found the victim.”

  The security officer who escorted us down front appeared again. “Detectives?”

  “Yeah,” Devlin said.

  “There’s a Dr. Winslow back stage asking if she can speak to you before you leave.”

  “Guess that answers your question,” Devlin murmured. “Shall we?”

  “It would appear we have little choice. Lead the way, sir,” I said. My left arm snaked around Devlin’s waist. Somehow, the idea of going back into Johnny’s vicinity made the stabbing pain in my chest intensify.

  “Are you sure? You can always call Maya if –”

  “I’m all right, Dev. Just stay close, okay?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  Security could only escort us as far as the yellow crime scene tape. We were on our own from there. Of course all of the officers on duty knew both of us on sight, even though Devlin and I hardly looked like we did on the job. It garnered a few grins here and there, and some good natured ribbing directed at Devlin. Apparently, his love of Pan Demon was no secret at Downey Division.

  I saw Maya crouched beside what looked like a trunk one might see loaded on a steamer ship circa 1915. Her blue nitrile gloves matched her pantsuit. Come to think of it, Forsythe was wearing a dark suit with a tie of the same color. I groaned inwardly.

  Dev and I weren’t the only ones who had an interrupted date.

  “She’s over there, Devlin,” I said.

  “Yeah, give me a minute. Ned’s here,” he said.

  “I don’t want to be –”

  “Right,” he interrupted when Johnny’s frame blocked the route between Maya and me. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather talk to Ned first, or maybe duck out of here and give Maya a call from across the street?”

  I’m not sure if it was Orion’s glare that made his arm leave my waist or the idea that our peers suddenly had an awareness that this might be more than two colleagues attending a concert together – like the real date it had suddenly become. What I knew wasn’t cerebral. It was instinctive. I felt alone and naked. My fingers clutched at his hand, tightened in a knot with his fingers.

  “Maybe I should just call her.”

  “Helen!” Maya’s voice bellowed through the concrete space. “Over here.”

  “Too late now,” I muttered. “Please don’t let him pull me off for another private conversation, Devlin. No matter what. Promise me.”

  I caught Briscoe’s glare out of the corner of my eye. My throat felt like dried bark. The direct path to Maya led us straight through the brick wall of Johnny Orion. Much to my relief,
Devlin took the lead in the direction of one of the few people in Darkwater Bay that I knew from my side of the world.

  Maya eyeballed me with a vague grin. “You’re sweating.”

  I rolled my orbs in return. “What do you need, Maya? I’m off duty.”

  Johnny’s eyes judged silently, along with his nostrils. If he detected the beer I drank more than an hour before the crime scene was discovered, I probably reeked like a brewery by now.

  “I wanted to know why you handed this one off so fast. My gut tells me your particular skills are needed.”

  “And I can only assume that since you’re here that somebody found the victim.”

  “Oh yeah,” she gestured toward the body folded into the trunk at her feet. “Hot skinny tall chick. I thought you were the rare breed of that ilk out here, Helen.” She paused and winked at Devlin. “You might want to stick close, Mackenzie, just in case the target happens to be the willowy supermodel types of Darkwater Bay.”

  “Not all murders in this city are part of a series,” I muttered under my breath.

  Orion piped up from over my right shoulder. “Yet since you arrived in town, it seems to be the case more often than not, Doc.”

  Icy plasma shards stabbed through my veins. Maya’s face echoed my shock until we realized he wasn’t talking to me.

  “Me?” she echoed. “Oh, hell no, Orion. You’re not laying the very longstanding corruption in this city on my doorstep.”

  I on the other hand, cringed and retreated into Devlin’s side. “We’re out of here, Maya. Like I said. We’re off duty this week, well deserved if you ask me.”

  “Still basking in the glow of bringing down the city’s most notorious criminal, eh?” she grinned. “All right. Give me a call in the morning. I only wanted to wish you a happy new year anyway, my friend. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  I chuckled. “So I pretty much have your blessing for anything, eh?”

  She winked at Devlin again. “Uh-huh.”

  “I’d suggest you lay off the booze,” Orion growled. “You never know. This case might need a profiler at some point.”

  I felt Devlin tense. “You shouldn’t need her on this one, Commander. It looks pretty cut and dried to me. Talk to Chris. He can explain who the likely culprit is.”

  Johnny muttered a curse and stomped off. Maya had my free hand and jerked me in the opposite direction before I could protest.

  “Wait right there, Devlin,” she said. “Helen and I need a girl moment.”

  We were barely alone when she started speaking. “I don’t know if you were planning to make Johnny insane with jealousy, but that’s exactly what you’re doing.”

  “Maya –”

  “That’s the aside. While I hate to see OSI yanking jurisdiction away from Downey in particular, I suspect that when I get this victim on the table and can strip off the clothes, they’re gonna be beating a path straight to your door, buttercup.”

  “Don’t call me buttercup. Why will they want my input on this case? Johnny already made his preference perfectly clear.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “Oh did he now?”

  “Either I accept him watching me like a hawk and take his orders, or I’m off the case.”

  She laughed softly. “Helen ... you can be so obtuse. I don’t suppose it occurred to you that he wanted you working with him.”

  “Well he sure didn’t make it sound that way. And you still haven’t told me why someone will eventually ask for my opinion on this case.”

  “Our vic in the trunk over there? Tall willowy blond?”

  “Yeah.”

  Maya lowered her voice. “I suspect that I’m gonna find some candy tucked away when the clothes come off. She’s got a prominent Adam’s apple.”

  My eyes widened, and Devlin’s history lesson on Fulk Underwood’s military record echoed in my head. “She’s a he?”

  “If not in the true physical sense, I’d lay odds I’ll that there’s evidence of surgical alteration. The Adam’s apple is something that generally doesn’t change, Helen.”

  My voice dipped low. “Does Crevan know what you suspect?”

  Maya snorted. “I haven’t told these guys anything yet. It’s pointless until I’ve got the facts in front of them. I doubt any of them could conceive of why a man would want to either become a woman or at minimum look like one. That’s the other reason I figured you’d be the perfect investigator to lead the charge. I’m afraid that their fire to close the case will sputter out and die once they realize what we’re dealing with.”

  “You think it could be a hate crime.”

  “I think it would be reckless to dismiss the possibility, Helen. Don’t you agree?”

  Crevan’s secret gnawed at my gut. I didn’t disagree with Maya, even though my heart believed that Crevan would want justice for this type of victim in particular. My fear was that his cretin partner would pressure him into behaving with pack mentality instead of doing the right thing. “Shit,” I muttered.

  “You see the problem here, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” my eyes wandered to Underwood who had joined the fray of onlookers outside the crime scene tape. What did he know about Darkwater Bay? Would someone with a history of bias like his choose a city he knew shared the sentiment to take out someone he found offensive? I wasn’t sure where Johnny would fall on the issue, particularly since he seemed to be sharing a hive mind with Tony Briscoe, all around bigot and troublemaker.

  “Still eager for your time off this week?”

  “I haven’t been cleared for active duty. Technically, at least,” I said. Devlin and Ned separated from the detectives and had their heads together. I wondered what they were talking about, maybe even the same concerns Maya expressed to me.

  “That active duty stuff didn’t stop you from going after Danny Datello with the gusto we all know and love, Helen. If I need you, can I at least call?”

  “I wish it were up to me,” I said softly. “But I have a sinking feeling that even if my insight would help, nobody will ask for it.”

  “I picked up on that too,” she said. “Orion already laid down the law. Everything goes through him first. Like that would stop me from talking to you. He can threaten me all he likes, Helen. I won’t look the other way if I think they’re ignoring where the forensic evidence leads them.”

  “Don’t put yourself in the middle of this. Please, Maya. Orion wields more power out here than you can possibly imagine. I suspect that since he’s over me, I’m as much fair game as anybody else.”

  “He’s not over a damn thing, Helen.”

  I disagreed. Maya didn’t hear our conversation earlier. In fact, Johnny directed that endearment that used to belong to me at her tonight. Doc. Hated nickname. Now it was a knife in the heart, hearing him use it on someone else.

  Devlin tapped my shoulder. “Ned’s gonna drive us home,” he said. “He’ll bring me back to my car after we drop you off. You good with that?”

  I wasn’t. Being alone right now was the last thing I wanted.

  “Or he can pick me up from your place in the morning.”

  “Do you mind?”

  He pressed his lips to my forehead. “You don’t have to ask.”

  Chapter 6

  As it turned out, Devlin’s kiss to my forehead was my one and only kiss at midnight. The new year arrived with more agony from the old than promise for the new. It was my goal to think about the future as little as possible from now on. Too much uncertainty floated out there with those thoughts. Best to leave the past buried as well. With that kind of mindset, the here and now takes on a whole new degree of importance.

  Devlin yanked me out of my silent thoughts. “So, about this reprise tomorrow night…”

  “Yeah,” I nodded slowly. So much for ignoring the future. “I guess you’d like to show up and try again without dead bodies, yes?”

  “We don’t have to, I mean, what happened tonight seems to have left a pall over the whole date experience for yo
u.”

  “No, Dev, that’s not it at all. Were you joking about digging for information at the after party to help Crevan close his case?”

  “Sort of. Not that I’d withhold anything if we did learn something that might help close the case. I seriously doubt that anybody in the band would murder some poor woman,” he said. “Underwood on the other hand…”

  His bias was firmly entrenched. “But what if Underwood really had nothing to do with it? Do you really expect me to believe that this guy is guilty of murder without anything more than our circumstantial case so far? The guy readily admitted to handling the equipment, Dev.”

  “He’s cocky enough to believe he’s so goddamned smart that the cops couldn’t possibly ever amass any real evidence against him too. Remember, Helen, you don’t know this guy. I do. Too well.”

  “But that was a long time ago,” it’s too easy to slide into the role of Devil’s advocate for me sometimes. Now was no different. I felt Devlin’s eyes impale me in the darkness.

  “Please tell me that you weren’t taken by his disgusting charm. God, it makes me sick to think I left you alone with that creep for a second, Helen.”

  “So he’s always fancied himself as suave with women, eh?”

  He grunted. “Suave, that’s a good word for his highly inflated opinion of himself. Underpants attracts a certain type of woman, Helen. She’s usually not particularly bright, though he claims he can’t stand stupid women, good looking, but with serious esteem issues. He hit on you, didn’t he?”

  “Uh, I believe the gist of it was that he could have me on my knees in a matter of minutes if he was really interested in me.”

  “That son of a… I ought to go back over there and knock out a couple more of his teeth.”

  “I don’t think I want to know the back story on that one, Dev. But in case you were curious, I discouraged his interest.”

  “Of course he hit on you,” Dev muttered more to himself than speaking directly to me. “After Madden showed interest, he had no choice.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Huh?” Devlin glanced at me.