For Love or Vengeance

by Caridad Piñeiro

Helene shot a glance at him, but his back was ramrod straight, and he was facing forward, all his attention on the Assistant Director. The push of his anger, however, was red hot and directed at her. Waves of it seared her as his aura grew to a pulsing crimson red.

  “Alexander. Do you agree we should turn Smith loose?” Hernandez asked.

  She drove her mind away from her partner and thought briefly about the conflicting energies in Smith that she’d just barely touched during the interrogation. She needed more time to delve into Andrew’s psyche more deeply. Despite that, and given his limited intelligence, she had no doubt about one thing. “He’s not doing this alone,” she said. “Someone else is calling the shots and directing him.”

  “You mentioned that before,” Miguel said, but his voice was chilly and held none of the camaraderie that had grown between them. “It makes sense, considering the poses of the victims and the dump sites. Andrew doesn’t strike me as the type who’d know enough about the shows to create those scenes.”

  “For sure. That kind of detail comes from someone whose life revolves around Broadway,” Diana added.

  “Or maybe used to revolve,” Helene suggested.

  “Tim Gold,” they all said in unison.

  “Release Smith. Tail him, see where he lands,” ADIC Hernandez instructed Miguel. “Then start turning over some rocks. I don’t care if it’s Smith, or Gold, or some other sociopath doing these killings, but we need evidence. Enough for a conviction. Or at least for a goddamn warrant.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Reyes and Alexander, I want you to dig deeper on Gold and Smith. I want more. A lot more. I want you to tell me what fucking color underwear they wore in the fifth grade,” he barked.

  Helene immediately protested. “Sir, I’d be more useful on the street with—”

  Hernandez glared at her. “Not a fucking chance. You need to cool the hell down. That stunt you pulled in there could have wrecked this case. Hell, it still might, if Smith files a complaint. Next time you even think about doing something like that, I’ll have your badge and gun. Do you hear me?”

  She swallowed down her boiling frustration and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  When they all stood there, expecting more, Hernandez clapped his hands and said, “All of you, keep me informed. Now get out of here. I want this son of a bitch caught.”

  They released Smith once Miguel was in place to follow. Banking her acute irritation, Helene followed Diana to the war room, to fire up the computers and start digging.

  Barely minutes later, however, Miguel called to say that Smith had snagged a cab as soon as he left Federal Plaza, and Miguel hadn’t been able to flag another down in time to follow. In a strictly business voice, he gave Helene the cab’s license plate and ID number, and she was able to call the cab company and confirm that Smith had gone straight to Stage Left.

  When she called Miguel back to let him know, he told her he would head right over there to set up surveillance.

  An odd vibration sifted through her. A warning of impending doom. She shivered. “Please be careful, Miguel,” she said, and the awful memory of her vision flooded through her—Miguel lying dead on the floor in a pool of blood, her lipstick kiss on his shirt morphing into a gaping gunshot wound.

  “Didn’t think you cared, Helene,” he said coldly, and he hung up before she could utter another word.

  Damn him. She should be the one who was angry. He didn’t trust her. He didn’t like her methods. He didn’t want to be her partner anymore. She hadn’t done anything but try to fulfill her mission. Justice…vengeance…who gave a damn? The end result was the same. Punishment for the doer and closure for the victim. That’s what was important.

  Wasn’t it?

  Helene gnawed her lip and went back to the computer. She made herself concentrate on reading the half dozen of articles she had pulled up about Tim Gold’s accident. He had been rehearsing for his first big Broadway role nearly a decade earlier when the catwalk he was standing on had collapsed, sending him plummeting onto the stage. A large section of the twisted metal had landed on his back, shattering his spine. The theater’s negligence in maintaining the structure had been blamed for the collapse.

  The incident had made the news, but there hadn’t been a media hoopla. All the articles had called Gold a rising star, but apparently his star had not risen high enough to rate any more than some second-rate news stories. No sympathy pieces about his paralyzed legs, no exposé on the penny-pinching theater, no outrage that a promising star’s career had been cut short. Just the facts and then he had been forgotten. To someone with an actor’s ego, that would have stung mightily. Combined with the bitterness of his career loss and his paralysis, it might be enough to push someone over the edge.

  She called Miguel, and he answered with a gruff, “What?”

  His attitude reminded her that she was supposed to be mad at him. But her anger had wound down by now, leaving just a sad emptiness in its wake. And a growing unease at the feeling that wouldn’t go away—that danger loomed all around him.

  She cleared her throat and gave him the rundown on the accident. It wasn’t much. “That’s all I’ve got right now.”

  “Not much more than before,” he said, his voice flat.

  At the rebuff, an unfamiliar ache began inside her, right in the area of her heart. The pain was distressing and unexpected. In all her days posing as a mortal, she had never let anyone get close enough to hurt her this much. Or worry her. Her fear for him sat in her gut, tying her insides into a pretzel.

  “Miguel, please,” she said softly, rose from her chair, and walked to the far side of the room for some privacy.

  “No apologies needed, Helene. You were doing what you thought was best,” he said, slamming the door on any kind of discussion. “I just don’t agree with it.” Obviously, forgiveness was not on his agenda.

  There wasn’t anything more to say. She wasn’t about to plead. Especially when she hadn’t done anything wrong. “I wasn’t apologizing,” she snapped, smarting. “Keep us posted on what’s happening.”

  “Will do.” He hung up, the dead air more condemning than angry words.

  Miguel put away his cell phone and squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds. He wasn’t so much furious with Helene as with himself. He’d known what she was like going into their relationship. She told him herself that she was hard and unfeeling. He’d thought she had changed, softened, begun to see things in all shades and colors, not just black and white. But he’d been deluding himself. She’d only changed on the surface, not deep inside. It broke his heart to let her go, but he was not going to give on this issue. He couldn’t. It was a matter of basic values—fairness, empathy, honor.

  He opened his eyes, letting out a long, weary breath. And continued his surveillance from a hidden corner of the building across from Stage Left.

  Smith had entered the shop hours earlier. Gold had greeted his employee as he walked in, and if Gold was angry, there’d been no indication from the look on his face or his actions. If anything, he had seemed genuinely concerned for Smith, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  Of course, they’d already established that Gold was a gifted actor. Certainly gifted enough to fool the likes of a dumbass like Andrew Smith.

  Around dinnertime, Gold waved Smith off the register and handed him some cash. Pocketing the money, Smith nodded and left the shop.

  Miguel followed. The young man’s pace was unhurried, although he did look around every now and then, as if checking to see if he was being tailed. So Miguel was careful to keep a good distance between them, blending into the crowds along the theater district.

  Smith headed to a small hole-in-wall restaurant on Ninth, placed an order, and several minutes later, he emerged with a bag of food. Then Smith made a beeline straight back to Stage Left, where he went through a set of doors in the rear of the shop. Probably a storeroom or office. Gold followed after him, but came out just a few minutes later.

  An ho
ur went by with no sign of Smith.

  As he waited, Miguel thought back to what had happened earlier. To Smith’s bizarre behavior, and Helene’s action.

  Helene. He gave in, no longer able to keep thoughts of her from filling his mind.

  Had he really heard a note of caring in her voice earlier? Or even contrition? Was she even capable of such emotions?

  He tried to harden his heart. His feelings for her were interfering with his impartiality on the case. Damaging his professionalism.

  Sure, he’d been angry at what she had done in the interrogation room. But the repercussions it had on their relationship concerned him a lot more. The big issue wasn’t just about whether they could be partners at work. But whether they could be partners for life.

  He’d really thought he’d fallen in love with her. Or was well on the way to loving her.

  But he didn’t know if he could love someone who had such a fluid perception of right and wrong. That was not something he would compromise on.

  Nor, he suspected, would Helene compromise her twisted sense of justice. Not for anyone. Even for him. Which told him in no uncertain terms what position he held on her list of priorities.

  Not at the top, that was for sure.

  With another sigh, Miguel settled back against the brick wall where he’d found a bit of shade, and glanced at his watch. Two hours had gone by since Smith returned with the food.

  He had been keeping an eye on both doors after checking behind the building to make sure there was no other way out. He hadn’t seen another door, since the shop sat back to back with another business. But it had him wondering if he was wrong.

  Or maybe Smith was still working in the storage room or office. He’d give it a while longer.

  When yet another hour had gone by and it was near closing time for the store, Miguel had no choice but to venture back inside. Before he did, he called Helene to let her know what he was doing.

  “You need to wait for backup,” she said. “I’ll—”

  “No time. The place is closing in a few minutes.”

  She was silent for a moment, then said, “Okay. We’ll have someone there soon. Wait for them and don’t do anything risky. Please, Miguel, be careful.” There was that surprising note of worry in her voice again.

  “If I didn’t know better, Special Agent Alexander, I might think you actually care what happens to me,” he said, still pissed off.

  “I do care.”

  Maybe. But not enough to make a difference.

  “I’ll call if anything comes up,” he said, snapping his cell phone shut before he headed into the shop.

  A bell rang by the door and Gold looked up from his spot behind the register. “Good evening. You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” he said cheerfully.

  “The other day with my wife. She took a real fancy to Broadway—the theaters and stuff—and she loved your shop. I thought I’d get her a gift here before we left for home,” he said, continuing with the cover they’d used the other day with Gold. Although if Smith came out, it would be blown.

  Gold wheeled his chair around the counter. “If I can help you with anything, just let me know.”

  Miguel smiled politely. “Thanks.”

  The store owner wheeled away. Miguel strolled around the shop, carefully watching the open door where Smith had disappeared, hoping he’d get a glimpse of the young man, or at least find out what was back there. He ambled through the café in the rear of the shop, stopping near the door. Pretending to be interested in the wall of framed Broadway memorabilia he remembered Helene liking last time, he glanced at the posters and programs.

  Something about the collection snared his attention. He leaned forward, taking a closer look. There was a program for West Side Story and another for The Little Mermaid, and posters for Stomp and South Pacific.

  And suddenly it hit him.

  The poses and backdrops on the images were eerily similar to those the Butcher had chosen for his victims. Excitement burst through him. Sure enough, Tim Gold was listed as one of the headliners on a poster for a local theater company’s production of Beauty and the Beast.

  Bingo.

  Miguel reached for his cell phone, but before he could grab it, something hard and sharp jabbed into his back, followed by a jolt of searing pain.

  His knees buckled and his body jerked as a shock of electricity burned across his nerve endings. He collapsed to his hands and knees. He heard the squeak of wheels close to his shoulder. He forced his splitting head upward.

  Gold sat in his chair beside him, a twisted look on his face and a Taser in his hand.

  “Figured it out, didn’t you? It’s a shame you won’t be able to tell anyone,” the Butcher said.

  Then he jabbed the Taser into Miguel’s neck and fired again.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Helene’s energies felt scattered. She kept thinking about Miguel—how angry he was at her—for doing her damn job. She put her hands to her head and pressed. This eerie feeling of foreboding wasn’t helping. It was giving her a headache. And keeping that terrible vision of Miguel lying dead running through her mind over and over.

  She really needed to focus on work.

  Taking a deep breath, she gave up on the computer and went over to the photos of the Butcher’s victims on the bulletin board. She studied each of them carefully, then reached up and laid her hand on the photo of Lanie. Using the photo as a conduit, she called up her second sight and retrieved the last bits of memory she’d gotten from Lanie’s body. Disjointed images of darkness and intense light swept through her. And voices. Not one, but two distinct voices this time.

  Diana had looked up from the computer and was watching her with interest, but didn’t question what she was doing.

  “Gold and Smith are in this together,” Helene said, withdrawing her hand. She turned to Diana. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. Gold has to be the mastermind and Smith the muscle.”

  “So how do we prove that?” Diana said. “The boss wants evidence.”

  For the hundredth time, Helene reexamined the poses and locations on the photos and tried to decipher what they meant. Closing her eyes, she reviewed everything she’d learned about Gold in the past few hours from all those articles. Finally, something clicked in her memory. Turning back to Diana, she said, “There was an article about Gold in a local newspaper. I recall a photo of him in Stage Left.”

  Diana nodded. “I know which one you mean.” With a few quick keystrokes, she pulled up the image. It was a photo of Gold posing against the back wall of his shop that was covered with framed posters and playbills. The caption read: STORE OWNER TIM GOLD DISPLAYS MEMORABILIA FROM HIS DAYS ON BROADWAY.

  “Hmm,” Diana murmured, and with a few more taps, enlarged the image.

  Helene pointed to the part of the photo showing some of the wall behind Gold. “Blow up this section here.”

  As the pixelated image of a framed theater program filled the screen, they both leaned in and peered closer at it.

  Diana straightened. “My God.”

  The scene on the poster was nearly identical to one of the crime scene photos.

  Helene exclaimed, “That’s it! He’s recreating the posters from his old shows.”

  “I’ll print them out.” Diana’s fingers flew over the keyboard.

  Helene reached for the phone. “I’ll call Miguel.” But her call went straight to voice mail. “What the hell,” she muttered in irritation—and a spurt of unease crawled down her back. “He’s got his phone turned off.”

  “Try Daly,” Diana said as the printer started to hum. “He should be there by now.”

  “Good idea.” Detective Daly had been sent in as Miguel’s backup. Helene punched in his cell number. When the NYPD detective answered, she greeted him and said, “I need to talk to Sanchez. He’s not answering his cell. It’s important.”

  “If you find him, let me know,” Daly said.

  “What’s that mean?” she demanded, t
hat feeling of foreboding roaring back.

  “When I got here, Stage Left was closed,” Daly said, “and Sanchez was nowhere in sight. He’s gone. We can’t reach him on his cell, either.”

  “And you didn’t call us?” Foreboding morphed into concern.

  “Been a bit busy looking for him,” he said. “I’ve got two uniforms out canvassing. I’ll let you know if we find anything.”

  Helene hung up, the knot of worry in her gut tightening to the point of pain.

  “What’s going on?” Diana asked, concern filling her expression.

  “They can’t find Miguel,” Helene said as she speed-dialed him again, but again it went straight to voice mail.

  “He’s probably on his way back here,” Diana said. “Or maybe followed one of the suspects after the shop closed and forgot to call in.”

  Helene wanted to believe that, but she’d been sensing danger all day. And that vision… She reached out with her powers and tried to feel Miguel’s energy, his life force, but instead sensed a troubling disruption in her connection with him.

  Something was very wrong.

  She called down to the tech specialists and asked them to pinpoint a location on his cell phone.

  Helene waited anxiously. “The bastards have Miguel,” she said to Diana. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Damn. You think?”

  “He said he was going into the shop. Somehow, Gold must have figured out he was a cop.”

  The tech came back on the line. “Sorry. We’re not getting any pings from his phone at any of the cell towers within a hundred-mile radius. His battery’s probably dead.”

  She waited until she thanked him and hung up to curse. “Damn it, I told him to wait for backup.”

  “Smith would have recognized him,” Diana said grimly. “He may have spotted Miguel and told Gold. But why would they grab him?”

  “Miguel must have seen the posters and made the connection,” Helene said as she pulled the screen shots Diana had selected out of the tray. “I need to get down to Stage Left—”

  “No. Daly has the shop under control. If Miguel is there, they’ll find him. But my guess is that’s not where they’re holding him.”