He'd known he was dead. He could see himself. He'd looked down and had seen his body sprawled on the bloody dock. Cops were working on him, packing his wound, swearing and scrambling around like ants. He had watched it all passionlessly, painlessly.
Then the paramedics had come, somehow pulling him back into the pain. He had lacked the strength to fight them and go where he wanted to go.
The operating room. Pale blue walls, harsh lights, the glint of steel instruments. The beep, beep, beep of monitors. The labored hiss and release of the respirator. Twice he had slipped easily out of his body—like breath, quiet and invisible—to watch the surgical team fight for his life. He'd wanted to tell them to stop, that he didn't want to come back where he could hurt again. Feel again.
But they had been skillful and determined and had dragged him back into that poor damaged body. And for a while, he'd returned to the blackness.
That had changed. He remembered floating in some gray liquid world that had brought back primordial memories of the womb. Safe there. Quiet there. Occasionally he could hear someone speak. Someone would say his name loudly, insistently. But he chose to ignore them. A woman weeping—his aunt. The shaken, pleading sound of his uncle's voice.
There would be light, an intrusion really, and though he couldn't feel, he sensed that someone was lifting his eyelids and shining a bead into his pupils.
It was a fascinating world. He could hear his own heartbeat. A gentle, insistent thud and swish. He could smell flowers. Only once in a while, then they would be overpowered by the slick, antiseptic smell of hospital. And he would hear music, soft, quiet music. Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin.
Later he learned that one of the nurses had been moved enough to bring a small tape player into his room. She often brought in discarded flower arrangements and sat and talked with him in a quiet, motherly voice.
Sometimes he mistook her for his own mother and felt unbearably sad.
When the mists in that gray world began to part, he struggled against it. He wanted to stay. But no matter how deep he dived, he kept floating closer to the surface.
Until at last, he opened his eyes to the light.
That was the worst part of the nightmare, Gage thought now. When he'd opened his eyes and realized he was alive.
Wearily Gage climbed out of bed. He had gotten past the death wish that had haunted him those first few weeks. But on the mornings he suffered from the nightmare, he was tempted to curse the skill and dedication of the medical team that had brought him back.
They hadn't brought Jack back. They hadn't saved his parents who had died before he'd even known them. They hadn't had enough skill to save his aunt and uncle, who had raised him with unstinting love and who had died only weeks before he had come out of the coma.
Yet they had saved him. Gage understood why.
It was because of the gift, the curse of a gift he'd been given during those nine months his soul had gestated in that gray, liquid world. And because they had saved him, he had no choice but to do what he was meant to do.
With a dull kind of acceptance, he placed his right hand against the pale green wall of his bedroom. He concentrated. He heard the hum inside his brain, the hum no one else could hear. Then, quickly and completely, his hand vanished.
Oh, it still existed. He could feel it. But even he couldn't see it. There was no outline, no silhouette of knuckles. From the wrist up, the hand was gone. He had only to focus his mind, and his whole body would do the same.
He could still remember the first time it had happened. How it had terrified him. And fascinated him. He made his hand reappear and studied it. It was the same. Wide palmed, long fingered, a bit rough with callus. The ordinary hand of a man who was no longer ordinary.
A clever trick, he thought, for someone who walks the streets at night, searching for answers.
He closed the hand into a fist, then moved off into the adjoining bathroom to shower.
At 11:45 a.m., Deborah was cooling her heels at the twenty-fifth precinct. She wasn't particularly surprised to have been summoned there. The four gang members who had gunned down Rico Mendez were being held in separate cells. That way they would sweat out the charges of murder one, accessory to murder, illegal possession of firearms, possession of controlled substances, and all the other charges on the arrest sheet. And they could sweat them out individually, with no opportunity to corroborate each other's stories.
She'd gotten the call from Sly Parino's public defense attorney at nine sharp. This would make the third meeting between them. At each previous encounter, she had held firm against a deal. Parino's public defender was asking for the world, and Parino himself was crude, nasty and arrogant. But she had noted that each time they sat in the conference room together, Parino sweated more freely.
Instinct told her he did indeed have something to trade but was afraid.
Using her own strategy, Deborah had agreed to the meeting, but had put it off for a couple of hours. It sounded like Parino was ready to deal, and since she had him cold, with possession of the murder weapon and two eye witnesses, he'd better have gold chips to ante up.
She used her time waiting for Parino to be brought in from lockup by reviewing her notes on the case. Because she could have recited them by rote, her mind wandered back to the previous evening.
Just what kind of man was Gage Guthrie? she wondered. The type who bundled a reluctant woman into his limo after a five-minute acquaintance. Then left that limo at her disposal for two and a half hours. She remembered her baffled amusement when she had come out of the Justice Building at one o'clock in the morning only to find the long black limo with its taciturn hulk of a driver patiently waiting to take her home.
Mr. Guthrie's orders.
Though Mr. Guthrie had been nowhere to be seen, she had felt his presence all during the drive from midtown to her apartment in the lower West End.
A powerful man, she mused now. In looks, in personality, and in basic masculine appeal. She looked around the station house, trying to imagine the elegant, just slightly rough-around-the-edges man in the tuxedo working here.
The twenty-fifth was one of the toughest precincts in the city. And where, Deborah had discovered when she'd been driven to satisfy her curiosity, Detective Gage Guthrie had worked during most of his six years with UPD.
It was difficult to connect the two, she mused. The smooth, obstinately charming man, with the grimy linoleum, harsh fluorescent lights, and odors of sweat and stale coffee underlaid with the gummy aroma of pine cleaner.
He liked classical music, for it had been Mozart drifting through the limo's speakers. Yet he had worked for years amid the shouts, curses and shrilling phones of the twenty-fifth.
From the information she'd read once she'd accessed his file, she knew he'd been a good cop—sometimes a reckless one, but one who had never crossed the line. At least not on record. Instead, his record had been fat with commendations.
He and his partner had broken up a prostitution ring which had preyed on young runaways, were given credit for the arrest of three prominent businessmen who had run an underground gambling operation that had chastised its unlucky clients with unspeakable torture, had tracked down drug dealers, small and large, and had ferreted out a crooked cop who had used his badge to extort protection money from small shop owners in Urbana's Little Asia.
Then they had gone undercover to break the back of one of the largest drug cartels on the eastern seaboard. And had ended up broken themselves.
Was that what was so fascinating about him? Deborah wondered. That it seemed the sophisticated, wealthy businessman was only an illusion thinly covering the tough cop he had been? Or had he simply returned to his privileged background, his years as a policeman the aberration? Who was the real Gage Guthrie?
She shook her head and sighed. She'd been thinking a lot about illusions lately. Since the night in the alley when she'd been faced with the terrifying reality of her own mortality. And had been saved—though she firmly b
elieved she would have saved herself—by what many people thought was no more than a phantom.
Nemesis was real enough, she mused. She had seen him, heard him, even been annoyed by him. And yet, when he came into her mind, he was like smoke. If she had reached out to touch him, would her hand have passed right through?
What nonsense. She was going to have to get more sleep if overwork caused her mind to take fantasy flights in the middle of the day.
But somehow, she was going to find that phantom again and pin him down.
"Miss O'Roarke."
"Yes." She rose and offered her hand to the young, harried-looking public defender. "Hello again, Mr. Simmons."
"Yes, well…" He pushed tortoiseshell glasses up on his hooked nose. "I appreciate you agreeing to this meeting."
"Cut the bull." Behind Simmons, Parino was flanked by two uniformed cops. He had a sneer on his face and his hands in cuffs. "We're here to deal, so let's cut to the chase."
With a nod, Deborah led the way into the small conference room. She settled her briefcase on the table and sat behind it. She folded her hands. In her trim navy suit and white blouse she looked every inch the Southern belle. She'd been taught her manners well. But her eyes, as dark as the linen of her suit, burned as they swept over Parino. She had studied the police photos of Mendez and had seen what hate and an automatic weapon could do to a sixteen-year-old body.
"Mr. Simmons, you're aware that of the four suspects facing indictment for the murder of Rico Mendez, your client holds the prize for the most serious charges?"
"Can we lose these things?" Parino held out his cuffed hands. Deborah glanced at him.
"No."
"Come on, babe." He gave her what she imagined he thought was a sexy leer. "You're not afraid of me, are you?"
"Of you, Mr. Parino?" Her lips curved, but her tone was frigidly sarcastic. "Why, no. I squash nasty little bugs every day. You, however, should be afraid of me. I'm the one who's going to put you away." She flicked her gaze back to Simmons. "Let's not waste time, again. All three of us know the score. Mr. Parino is nineteen and will be tried as an adult. It is still to be determined whether the others will be tried as adults or juveniles." She took out her notes, though she didn't need them as more than a prop. "The murder weapon was found in Mr. Parino's apartment, with Mr. Parino's fingerprints all over it."
"It was planted," Parino insisted. "I never saw it before in my life."
"Save it for the judge," Deborah suggested. "Two witnesses place him in the car that drove by the corner of Third and Market at 11:45, June 2. Those same witnesses have identified Mr. Parino, in a lineup, as the man who leaned out of that car and fired ten shots into Rico Mendez."
Parino began to swear and shout about squealers, about what he would do to them when he got out. About what he would do to her. Not bothering to raise her voice, Deborah continued, her eyes on Simmons.
"We have your client, cold, murder one. And the state will ask for the death penalty." She folded her hands on her notes and nodded at Simmons. "Now, what do you want to talk about?"
Simmons tugged at his tie. The smoke from the cigarette Parino was puffing was drifting in his direction and burning his eyes. "My client has information that he would be willing to turn over to the D.A.'s office." He cleared his throat. "In return for immunity, and a reduction of the current charges against him. From murder one, to illegal possession of a firearm."
Deborah lifted a brow, let the silence take a beat. "I'm waiting for the punch line."
"This is no joke, sister." Parino leaned over the table. "I got something to deal, and you'd better play."
With deliberate motions, Deborah put her notes back into her briefcase, snapped the lock then rose. "You're slime, Parino. Nothing, nothing you've got to deal is going to put you back on the street again. If you think you can walk over me, or the D.A.'s office, then think again."
Simmons bobbed up as she headed for the door. "Miss O'Roarke, please, if we could simply discuss this."
She whirled back to him. "Sure, we'll discuss it. As soon as you make me a realistic offer."
Parino said something short and obscene that caused Simmons to lose his color and Deborah to turn a cold, dispassionate eye on him.
"The state is going for murder one and the death penalty," she said calmly. "And believe me when I say I'm going to see to it that your client is ripped out of society just like a leech."
"I'll get off," Parino shouted at her. His eyes were wild as he lunged to his feet. "And when I do, I'm coming looking for you, bitch."
"You won't get off." She faced him across the table. Her eyes were cold as ice and never wavered. "I'm very good at what I do, Parino, which is putting rabid little animals like you away in cages. In your case, I'm going to pull out all the stops. You won't get off," she repeated. "And when you're sweating in death row, I want you to think of me."
"Murder two," Simmons said quickly, and was echoed by a savage howl from his client.
"You're going to sell me out, you sonofabitch." Deborah ignored Parino and studied Simmons's nervous eyes. There was something here, she could smell it. "Murder one," she repeated, "with a recommendation for life imprisonment rather than the death penalty—if you've got something that holds my interest."
"Let me talk to my client, please. If you could give us a minute."
"Of course." She left the sweaty public defender with his screaming client.
Twenty minutes later, she faced Parino again across the scarred table. He was paler, calmer, as he smoked a cigarette down to the filter.
"Deal your cards, Parino," she suggested.
"I want immunity."
"From whatever charges might be brought from the information you give me. Agreed." She already had him where she wanted him.
"And protection." He'd begun to sweat.
"If it's warranted."
He hesitated, fiddling with the cigarette, the scorched plastic ashtray. But he was cornered, and knew it. Twenty years. The public defender had said he'd probably cop a parole in twenty years.
Twenty years in the hole was better than the chair. Anything was. And a smart guy could do pretty well for himself in the joint. He figured he was a pretty smart guy.
"I've been doing some deliveries for some guys. Heavy hitters. Trucking stuff from the docks to this fancy antique shop downtown. They paid good, too good, so I knew something was in those crates besides old vases." Awkward in the cuffs, he lit one cigarette from the smoldering filter of another. "So I figured I'd take a look myself. I opened one of the crates. It was packed with coke. Man, I've never seen so much snow. A hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty pounds. And it was pure."
"How do you know?"
He licked his lips, then grinned. "I took one of the packs, put it under my shirt. I'm telling you, there was enough there to fill up every nose in the state for the next twenty years."
"What's the name of the shop?"
He licked his lips again. "I want to know if we got a deal?"
"If the information can be verified, yes. If you're pulling my chain, no."
"Timeless. That's the name. It's over on Seventh. We delivered once, maybe twice a week. I don't know how often we were taking in coke or just fancy tables."
"Give me some names."
"The guy I worked with at the docks was Mouse. Just Mouse, that's all I know."
"Who hired you?"
"Just some guy. He came into Loredo's, the bar in the West End where the Demons hang out. He said he had some work if I had a strong back and knew how to keep my mouth shut. So me and Ray, we took him up on it."
"Ray?"
"Ray Santiago. He's one of us, the Demons."
"What did he look like, the man who hired you?"
"Little guy, kinda spooky. Big mustache, couple of gold teeth. Walked into Loredo's in a fancy suit, but nobody thought to mess with him."
She took notes, nodded, prompted until she was certain Parino was wrung dry. "All right, I'll check it out.
If you've been straight with me, you'll find I'll be straight with you." She rose, glancing at Simmons. "I'll be in touch."
When she left the conference room, her head was pounding. There was a tight, sick feeling in her gut that always plagued her when she dealt with Parino's type.
He was nineteen, for God's sake, she thought as she tossed her visitor's badge to the desk sergeant. Barely even old enough to vote, yet he'd viciously gunned down another human being. She knew he felt no remorse. The Demons considered drive-bys a kind of tribal ritual. And she, as a representative of the law, had bargained with him.
That was the way the system worked, she reminded herself as she stepped out of the stuffy station house into the steamy afternoon. She would trade Parino like a poker chip and hope to finesse bigger game. In the end, Parino would pay by spending the rest of his youth and most of his adult life in a cage.
She hoped Rico Mendez's family would feel justice had been served.
"Bad day?"
Still frowning, she turned, shaded her eyes and focused on Gage Guthrie. "Oh. Hello. What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you."
She lifted a brow, cautiously debating the proper response. Today he wore a gray suit, very trim and quietly expensive. Though the humidity was intense, his white shirt appeared crisp. His gray silk tie was neatly knotted.
He looked precisely like what he was. A successful, wealthy businessman. Until you looked at his eyes, Deborah thought. When you did, you could see that women were drawn to him for a much more basic reason than money and position.
She responded with the only question that seemed apt. "Why?"
He smiled at that. He had seen her caution and her evaluation clearly and was as amused as he was impressed by it. ' To invite you to lunch."
"Oh. Well, that's very nice, but—"
"You do eat, don't you?"
He was laughing at her. There was no mistaking it. "Yes, almost every day. But at the moment, I'm working."
"You're a dedicated public servant, aren't you, Deborah?"
"I like to think so." There was just enough sarcasm in his tone to put her back up. She stepped to the curb and lifted an arm to hail a cab. A bus chugged by, streaming exhaust. "It was kind of you to leave your limo for me last night." She turned and looked at him. "But it wasn't necessary."
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