A tiny smile emerged from her lips despite herself.
“How are you doing? Are you feeling better?” he said, suddenly serious.
She looked into his blue eyes and decided that, yes, she did feel a little better, as if the sunlight streaming through the windows had bleached away most of the lingering stains from the night before. “I’ll be alright.”
He took a deep breath and came closer, his eyes intently surveying the wreckage of her face. With one finger, he gently traced along her jaw, carefully avoiding the new scabs. “You’re still beautiful regardless.”
She broke their eye contact and turned back to the coffee maker. “That doesn’t matter to me.”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” he said, obviously flustered. “I meant you’re still the same Mei to me.”
She whirled around to face him. “I’m not so sure I am, Alex. I don’t know how I could stay the same person as before.”
All of a sudden, she found herself being pulled into his embrace.
“Then I look forward to getting to know this new woman. The Mei who knows she can handle anything,” he said into her hair, and she smiled against his shirt, believing in his words just a little bit.
She pulled away when the coffee machine beeped. Her eyes flew to a spot on his chest. “I’m sorry, I got blood on your shirt.” She wet a paper towel and tried to blot out the thin crimson line above his heart.
He inspected the stain and shook his head. “It’s just blood. My dry cleaner will take care of it.” He disengaged the paper towel from her fingers and gently touched it to her lip. “Some Neosporin and you’ll be kissing again in no time.”
With a pained grin, she handed Alex a mug of coffee and they sat together at the carved round table that her mother had had delivered from Indonesia. They sipped their coffee, listening to nothing but the sound of their own thoughts. Olivia relished the little slice of silence, knowing that it would be the only time she’d find any peace that day. For now, being in the warm presence of a comforting friend, someone who believed the best of her, was all she could ever want.
But the moment was all too short as someone rapped on the front door a second later.
“I’ll get it,” Alex said and tiptoed to the door. He bent down slightly to peer through the peephole then said in a booming voice, “Who’s there?”
“My name is Smith. I believe the lady of the house knows me.”
Alex turned to Olivia. “It’s the guy from last night. The one who shot the other guys.”
Olivia made her way to the door, took a peek, and nodded. “What do you need, Smith?”
“I need to have a word with you, please.” For the first time, she noticed his accent, a little British but not quite.
She took a deep breath as she began to unlatch all of the locks.
Alex just looked at her with trepidation, his fingers splayed on the door. “You really trust this guy?” he whispered.
“Not really. But I can handle him.” She opened the door and invited the Smith character inside. In the light of day, she was surprised to see that he was older than she originally thought, probably in his early forties, but tanned and in good shape. His face held a boyish quality, but it was the webbed creases around his bright green eyes that revealed his different age bracket.
Smith opened his mouth, frowned, then turned to Alex. “Your Audi seems to have been broken into. The passenger door was not fully latched this morning.”
She could feel Alex stiffening beside her, wanting to run down to check on his baby but not yet willing to abandon his post.
“Go on,” she said, nudging him in the side. “I’ll be okay. Smith works for my Dad.”
“Are you sure?” he said, eyeing Smith as he inched towards the door. To his credit, he stayed until she reassured him once more.
Once Alex was out of earshot, Olivia turned her full attention back to Smith, who was visually sweeping her apartment.
“What are you doing?” she said, trying to hide the alarm in her voice. Was he casing her place?
“I’m assessing the security of your apartment. If I’m to do my job, I need to have a clear sense of your home’s vulnerabilities. May I?” He walked towards the balcony door. “For example, I’ll need to install an extra lock and maybe a motion detector here.”
Olivia followed him, ready to command him to open the door and jump out should he show any signs of foul play. “Wait a minute, if you’re to do your job?”
Smith whipped his head around, his short blond curls bobbing. “You mean your father hasn’t told you?”
“Told me what?” she said, knowing instinctively that she probably would not like the answer.
Smith cursed under his breath then tried to smile at her reassuringly. “Miss King, meet your new bodyguard,” he said with arms outstretched.
“Say what now?” Olivia said with a frown and reached for the phone on the side table.
“I’ll wait outside while you talk to your father,” Smith said and stepped out into the hallway, sure that this was one conversation that would not go well.
“What gives you the right to invade my privacy like this?” he heard Olivia say, hearing the rawness in her voice. “I don’t need a bodyguard. I’m perfectly fine on my own.”
Smith leaned against the doorjamb, appearing casual, as though he was not actually eavesdropping.
All was silent for a while. “Fine,” she said, though her tone was anything but defeated. “But only for a little while, then he’s history, understand? I will not live my life under constant watch.”
He didn’t much like the sound of becoming history, but he stood up, straightened his sports jacket, and assumed his usual air of good humor nevertheless.
The door opened a crack and an irritated face peered through. He saw the violet eyes regarding him, looking him up and down as if trying to determine his guarding abilities.
He smiled, the kind that made his dimples stand out. “I take it your father explained everything?”
She nodded as she opened the door. Her lips were tight as she gave him another once-over. He stood quietly and appeared completely harmless yet protective, a trick he’d learned long ago at the beginning of his career.
“Smith,” Olivia said as she stepped aside. “Tell me the truth: are you really here to keep me safe?”
“I’m really here to keep you safe,” he said so swiftly that his brain took a moment to catch up with his mouth.
Relief washed over her face and, to his mild surprise, she pulled a gun out of the back of her pants and placed it on the side table. Her eyes met his with a sparkling challenge.
“You won’t be needing that while I’m around,” he said and smiled.
27 | DEATH OF A VIGILANTE
Detective Lingle watched as Olivia stood up, not hiding the fact that she was eager to end the interview and exit his office. With its overflowing bookcases, large metal desk that took up half the space, various unmatched chairs, and the curiously large potted fern in the corner, Lingle knew that the room projected exactly the disheveled, suffocating atmosphere that he was aiming for.
“Thank you for coming in.” He extended his hand for a shake.
Olivia smiled thinly and returned the perfunctory sentiments. She was so uncomfortable that, if she wasn’t the victim, he might have thought she was a suspect. Such was the effect of his office.
“You may want to consider staying at a friend’s place while the investigation takes place,” he said in a brassy tone that he often used on his own children.
Olivia furrowed her eyebrows. “With all due respect, but, no.”
“It’s just until after the suspect, John Mathers, is caught.” He stood up with a groan, unable to believe what he was just about to say. “We seem to have an invisible guy on the loose.”
“You don’t believe me,” she said, her voice devoid of warmth.
He held up his hands. “Your story corresponds with the prisoners’ statements, so three people
all saying the same thing is a little hard to discredit. But still, the idea of an invisible man is a little hard to swallow. Especially since you said he was visible the day before, at the ballet. Dane and Felton said he was visible at the beginning of the night, then was just gone when he came down to the van.”
He searched her face for a reaction then realized that she was staring intently at the Ziploc baggy at the corner of his desk. The bag, containing one black knit item, had just been sent to him by an anonymous tipster that very day.
Silently berating himself for being so careless – he blamed it on the late nights – he shoved the bag and the ripped envelope inside a desk drawer.
“Is that…” Olivia said in a high-pitched voice. She cleared her throat and continued in a calmly forced tone. “Was that the Black Hero’s mask?”
“How did you know it was a mask?” he said in surprise.
“Because it looked like a ski mask.”
Lingle cocked his head. “What do you know of the Black Hero?”
She shrugged, trying the nonchalant act. “Just that he wears a black ski mask.”
“A lot of people wear black ski masks. What makes you think of the Black Hero?” He tried to keep his voice light, free of suspicion. The last thing the department needed was to scare off a possible lead on one of New York’s most popular mysteries.
“He was on the news, that’s all.” The way she’d suddenly become animated, a far cry from the monotone of the interview a moment earlier, revealed much to the seasoned cop.
“Do you know the Black Hero?” he said, getting straight to the point. “Or have any information on him?”
She shook her head far too quickly. “No.”
“He’s a wanted man, Miss King. Anyone who is found to be aiding and abetting this criminal will also be considered guilty in the eyes of the law.”
“What about your eyes?” she asked. “Do you really think a man who is helping keep the city safe is truly a criminal?”
He crossed his arms across his chest, facing the question that had nagged at him for months. For truly, he was still torn. Still, he was a man of the word of law and felt the call to defend it. “His intentions are noble, but by definition he is a criminal.”
“But he’s not killing anyone.”
“He doesn’t have to. He can’t take the law into his own hands, deciding what’s right or wrong. We have a legal system for that very reason. Anything else is just asking for anarchy.”
“Anarchy is at your doorstep, Detective,” she said, those hypnotic eyes fixed firmly on him. “And you’re choosing, instead, to hunt for the one man who is warding it off.”
“We can’t afford to have one man out there who thinks that he’s above rules or accountability. If we let this one go, then how many others will follow in his footsteps? How many people are going to get hurt out there because they’re stupid enough to think that they can be superheroes? A considerable number of people, that’s for sure.”
“I wish you knew just how important he is,” she said wistfully.
Lingle’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll ask you one more time, Miss King: do you know the Black Hero?”
She looked him dead straight in the eye. “You will believe me when I say I do not know anything about the Black Hero. You will not ask me any more questions about him.”
Lingle blinked twice, suddenly feeling stupid for questioning the woman in such a manner. Of course she knew nothing about the Black Hero. “I’m sorry. I was out of line.”
She nodded curtly and stood up.
Bewildered, Lingle watched her leave, wondering what in the world had come over him to suddenly become so suspicious. Once more he blamed the late nights.
“Knock, knock,” Lindsey, the wet-behind-the-ears lab technician, said as she rapped on the glass insert on the door.
“What’s up?”
She entered, all spiky brown hair and spunk, and immediately began to talk. “I’ve finished the lab work on the DNA samples found at the office building.”
Still feeling out of sorts, he gave her a look of confusion. “Remind me again what case you’re talking about, Linds?”
“The King kidnapping case,” she said, looking behind her. “Wasn’t that Olivia King you were just talking to?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “What did you find?”
She nodded. “I ran tests on hair found at the building and it matches those on the suit.”
“Mathers.”
“Yup.”
“And the blood on the carpet?”
“It matched that of the droplets found in the men’s bathroom.”
“And? Was it in our system?”
She snickered. “No. That would be too easy.”
Lingle ran his fingers through his buzzcut. “Well, that’s not handy at all. You’ve tried other state’s databases?”
A nod.
“Well, dandy. One more mystery to solve.”
“You’d be out of a job otherwise.” She shrugged and had just turned to go when he remembered something. “Hold on a sec.” He reached into the drawer and pulled out the Ziploc bag and tossed it to Lindsey. “Do me a favor and see if you can find any DNA on that.”
“For the same case?”
He shook his head, running his palm along his forehead. “No, this one’s for the Black Vigilante case. Whoever sent it claims he’s dead.”
Lindsay raised a pierced eyebrow. “And you don’t believe it.”
“No.” Lingle stood up and cracked his knuckles, ready to take another swing at the case that had rankled him for two months now. “I think the Black Vigilante is still out there. And I still intend on finding him.”
* * * * *
“Where is Alex?” Olivia said as she emerged from the police station, finding one less blond head to look at. Both Alex and her brand new bodyguard had brought her to the police station, Smith insisting because it was his job, and Alex insisting because of Smith’s insistence. Apparently, judging from his exit, Alex had finally determined that Smith was trustworthy enough.
“He said he had an important something or another at work but warned I’d better treat you well or he’d sever my balls,” Smith said with a grin. “He’s a real charmer, that one.”
Olivia smiled thinly and turned her attention out the window and away from the newly lodged thorn in her side.
The thorn cleared his throat. “Your father wants me to bring you to King Towers.”
Her nose flared at the thought of the man who’d so grossly invaded her privacy without even consulting with her. Her father might have won the initial battle, but the war was far from over. “No thanks. I have to go to the hospital to get checked out.”
“He wants to talk to you about recent events.”
“Like the fact that I was almost raped and killed because of him? Or the fact that he hired you to shadow me without my consent?”
“I can’t pretend I agree with what he’s done,” Smith said, effortlessly pulling into the heavy flow of traffic. “We both know what kind of man your father is.”
Olivia silently agreed with no small amount of ire. Her father was definitely a pompous jerk who felt like he didn’t have to ask permission, even from his own family. She had witnessed enough of how he’d treated her mother to know that he’d never even think to ask his own daughter for her opinion, let alone permission.
“Regardless, he is your father. And after last night, would you blame the guy for wanting to see you for himself?” Smith looked at her sideways and she came to the sudden realization that she could be like her father, if she so chose. She didn’t need his permission to dismiss Smith.
“We’re not going to King Towers,” she said, a small smile curling the ends of her lips. “You will take me to the hospital right now.”
“Okay–“
“And then you will take me to my boyfriend’s place then leave.”
“Where will I go?”
She shrugged. “I don’t
know. Go to your apartment or hotel and get some sleep.”
Smith blinked at her, and she knew it had worked. “Okay, whatever you say.”
She smiled to herself. Indeed.
28 | SECRETS CONCEALED
At the hospital, Olivia’s face was cleansed with hydrogen peroxide and a salve applied to all wounds.
“What is that?” she asked, trying to read the name underneath the King Industries logo on the label.
The nurse glanced at the tub as she replaced the lid. “Ultrasporin. It’s a first-aid antibiotic treatment,” she said. “We just got it in a few weeks ago.”
The nurse placed the tub in Olivia’s hands, allowing her to inspect the newest miracle ointment from her father’s company.
“It’s similar to ointments already on the market that reduce scarring, but this one allows the wound to heal much faster.”
Olivia looked up. “How much faster?”
The nurse’s small smile was full of excitement. “Well, just last week, this two-year old girl came in with a deep laceration on the underside of her chin. She had fallen forward on one of those ride-on toys. The poor thing had to have three stitches. Had to be held down by four nurses plus her mother.”
Olivia took a deep breath, glancing down once again at the ointment while the nurse continued her anecdote.
“Anyway, we applied the ointment and dressing, and sent them on their way. Three days later, the skin was healed well enough to remove the sutures.”
“How long was it supposed to take?”
“Normally, about five to six days.” She bit her lower lip and retrieved the tub. “This ointment is a huge jump in scientific technology. Can you imagine, in a few years, we might have something that heals almost instantly?”
She nodded absently, her mind already wandering off to the man who was turning out to be the living future of medicine.
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