by Sonya Clark
Calla turned off the TV and dropped the remote on the floor. An ache she’d been hiding from for months opened up inside her. She squeezed her eyes shut against an onslaught of tears.
Nate rubbed the back of her neck. “Babe, what’s wrong?”
Pulling away from his touch, she snapped, “Not a damn thing! I’m just tired of this.”
“Tired of what?”
“Tired of pretending to play house with you a few hours at a time. Tired of pretending we can have anything more.”
“This again,” he muttered.
She whirled on him. “Yeah, this again. Sorry the truth is getting in the way of your little fantasy.” Grabbing her bag, she headed for the door.
He stood in time to catch her arm, bringing her to a halt. “Don’t leave like this.”
She slapped his hand away. “I can’t do this anymore! I knew it was a mistake to start with.”
“This was no mistake. There’s a lot that’s hard and unfair about this from the outside, but what’s between you and me is not a mistake.”
Calla wanted to believe that. Oh Goddess, did she. But nothing could change reality and it was time to admit that. “There’s no point to this. We both knew that from the start.”
“I don’t accept that.” Nate stood with his hands on his hips, posture rigid, as if ready to fight. And maybe he could handle the perpetual fight being together would be, but she couldn’t.
“I can’t do this anymore.” This time instead of an angry shout, the words came out weak and choked. “I can’t handle what happened last night again. I can’t handle my own people mocking me for being with you. I can’t handle knowing you’d be better off with a Normal like yourself.”
“That’s bullshit! Fear I get, but I never expected you to be a coward.”
“It’s not cowardice, it’s called being a realist! We have no future together! Wishing won’t change that.” She turned on her heel and made for the door.
“Don’t walk out on me! I’m in love with you.” His voice broke on his last words.
Calla stopped at the door, hand on the knob. Hurting him cut deeper than she could have imagined. But better now than later, right? That’s what she told herself. He didn’t mean what he’d just said, or he’d get over it, or forget, or something. Anything. It wasn’t real and it wasn’t something she could have, so it didn’t matter.
“Don’t waste your time on something so pointless.”
Before he could stop her, she slipped out the door.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Nate swiveled back and forth in his chair slowly, tapping a pencil on his knee. A paper map of the city cluttered his desk. He was supposed to be looking at the locations of a string of robberies for a geographic pattern, working with pencil and paper because his computer was down and IT hadn’t made it to him on their list yet. It wasn’t the archaic method that distracted him, but rather the same thing that had for days—missing Calla. He had no intention of giving up on her, but he did want to give her space.
Yawning, he tossed the pencil onto the map and stood to stretch. Coffee, even crappy station coffee, was badly needed. Nodding at a passing officer, he walked to the break room and made a fresh pot. He was staring at the wall behind the coffeemaker when another officer came in calling his name.
“Yeah?”
“This came for you, Detective.” She handed him a padded envelope and left to deliver the rest of the stack in her hand.
Nate examined the envelope. His name, division and station address were scrawled in the center in heavy black marker, with Henry’s name and address in the return spot. Clueless as to why the lab tech would be sending him something, he ripped open the envelope and dumped the contents into his palm. A single storage drive the size of his thumbnail, the expensive kind made of glass with the data etched on it, was the only thing inside. He returned to his desk with the envelope and a cup of coffee, then moved the map out of the way and found his phone.
Somebody in the lab answered on the fourth ring. Nate asked to speak to Henry.
“He didn’t come back from his leave of absence,” said the harried voice on the other end.
“Did he get another job?”
“I have no idea. I just know he was supposed to be back three days ago and didn’t show. If he didn’t get another job, he needs to now.” The clerk rang off, leaving Nate with yet more questions.
He took his tablet from the inside pocket of his jacket and plugged in the drive. A window came up demanding a password. So much for that. The rest of the day passed with excruciating slowness now that he had two things to distract him from work.
With the drive in his pocket, he took the train to Henry’s apartment after work. After getting no answer from Henry’s buzzer, Nate used his badge to enter the building. Maybe the lab tech had been serious about going to ground.
Nate was about to knock when he noticed the smell. Faint but unmistakable, it was the sickly odor of the early stages of decomposition. He called Henry’s name and pounded on the door, hoping for an answer. Nothing. Quickly, he punched in the emergency code on his badge and swiped it through the reader. The door popped open. The stench rolled out, hitting him in the face. He withdrew his sidearm and entered.
“Henry! It’s Perez. Where are you, man?”
The L-shaped hall turned into the main room. Henry hung from the ceiling fan in the middle, with what looked like a strip of cloth torn from a sheet around his neck. Nate lowered the gun and covered his mouth and nose with his forearm. He backed into the hall, wishing he could unsee the moment. After calling it in, he waited outside the apartment for uniforms and a team from the coroner’s office. He had no desire to be the lead on this—didn’t think he could stomach it. The tiny piece of glass took on a heavy weight in his pocket, prodding his conscience. It looked like a suicide. It probably was a suicide.
But.
There was that but that niggled at the edges of his instincts. Bracing himself, he went back inside and began a thorough search of the apartment. He found nothing.
Within twenty-four hours, Henry’s death was declared a suicide by the coroner’s office and his apartment was on its way to being cleared out by a family member. Being demoted seemed a good enough reason for most to accept the idea of Henry committing suicide, but Nate didn’t buy it. In fact, it made him want to return a lot of things he’d been buying.
The password to the storage drive still eluded him. Ignoring the robberies he was supposed to be working on, he spent hours re-examining all the files on the Forbes case and everything he could find on the untimely heart attack of Dr. Walker. Two people who knew about the first DNA test were now dead. There were three more: Chief Decker, Senator Beckwith and himself.
And Calla, though all she knew was that the test had been flubbed. He’d never told her what the erroneous results were.
Paranoia was a nasty thing, like a persistent cough that rattled the body and refused to let one relax. Alone in his apartment on a Friday night, Nate found himself checking the security measures more than once. Thinking of how his own badge could grant him access to other people’s homes, he placed a chair under the doorknob before retiring to the bedroom. The window there had the same vantage point as the bigger one in the living room. He looked out at the low lights of FreakTown, wondering what Calla was doing just then.
The decision to take the drive to her was fraught with all kinds of peril. He needed her help, but he didn’t want to get her involved. He believed she could help him but wasn’t at all sure she would be willing to do it, or even admit that she could. He wanted more than anything to see her again, and for her to want to see him.
That scared him the most—the possibility that she’d really meant it when she’d left him. He had to know, and it didn’t look like she was going to come to him.
He closed the blinds and climbed into bed, making sure his sidearm was under the other pillow and his phone was plugged in to charge.
* * *
Feeding a dozen people shouldn’t have been so complicated, but somehow it was. Calla struggled to make sure no one got anything they were allergic to and that nothing burned. Well, not too badly anyway. They were all dehydrated. The trip between way stations was hard and scary, according to what she’d heard. The safest routes traveled through blighted rural areas with little or no chance of finding more provisions. Even more important than feeding them once they arrived was making sure they got enough water, but not too much too fast. No easy task with small children.
Once Calla and the other volunteers got the group settled, they spent time talking with the sojourner, eager to hear news of other zones and the outside world. It was late afternoon by the time Calla left the tunnels. A shower and something cold to drink topped her priority list at home. After that would come more work. She had an order of glamour charms to fill and she wanted that money.
The sight of Nathan Perez sitting with his back to her door brought her to a halt. He had his eyes closed, legs drawn up and hands on his knees. Her breath caught at memories of the feel of his skin, his lips on the nape of her neck and his hands in her hair. Doesn’t matter, she thought. She climbed the stairs slowly, too tired to fake being angry with him for showing up. It would take all the energy she had not to wrap her arms around him.
He opened his eyes and stood as she reached the landing. Not too keen on the moment being witnessed, Calla stepped around him to unlock the door. He seemed to understand, remaining distant until they were inside her apartment.
Once they had privacy, all bets were off. He gathered her close, kissing her with a slow thoroughness that sent sparks through her bloodstream. She held back as long as she could stand, which wasn’t long, then returned the kiss with an ardor that surprised her. Hands on his shoulders to pull him down to where she could reach easier, she let go of all restraint and the warning voice in the back of her head.
Nate finally had to break the kiss just to breathe. “Miss me?”
Pushing away, she threw her bag onto the couch and made an effort at control. “I miss the sex.” If being a bitch would help her keep her distance, then that’s what she’d do.
“Nice try. You miss me.” He came closer, towering over her, the nearness of him threatening to overrule her good sense. “But if sex is what you’re in the mood for, I wouldn’t say no,” he said, looking far too pleased with himself.
She rolled her eyes. “Down, boy.”
He grinned. “Anything you want.” He pulled her into another slow burn of a kiss, teasing with slow strokes of his tongue against hers. Sparks of desire fanned into a conflagration, her body hungry for him. His fingers tangled in her hair, and then he tugged her head backward, his lips leaving a hot trail down her throat. Scraping her skin lightly with his teeth, he slid one hand under her top.
She squeezed her eyes shut, wanting him to stop, wanting him to never stop. This was not the way to stick to a decision. Disengaging, she put the couch between him and her. “This is a bad idea.”
Shaking his head, he moved her bag out of the way and sat. “Of course it’s a bad idea. It’s always a bad idea.”
“Well it is!” It sounded lame even to her.
“I miss you, Calla.” There was no pleading in his voice, no teasing or cajoling. Just a simple statement that opened up a well of emotion in her.
“We’re over. There’s no point to this.”
“How many times do you think you’ll have to say that before you start believing it?”
She crossed into the kitchen and got a bottle of water from the fridge. “Why did you come here?”
“Because I miss you.” He withdrew his tablet from the inside pocket of his jacket. “And because I need your help with something.”
“Asshole,” she said, twisting the top off the bottle. “You really think I’m going to play informant for you?” She didn’t think she had the energy for a fight, but over this she might find it.
“This is unofficial. A friend of mine is dead.”
That knocked the wind out of her anger. “I’m sorry. But there’s nothing I can do to help you.”
“He sent me this storage drive before he died.” Nate held the tiny piece of glass out on his palm. “It’s password protected and I can’t get into it.”
A cold knot of fear dropped into Calla’s stomach. “So get someone at the police department to do stuff to it. Don’t you guys have computer people for that?”
“I don’t trust anyone at the department.”
The knot got larger, spreading into her lungs and making it hard to breathe. “I don’t know what you expect me to do.”
Nate looked down at the tablet for a long moment, then fished out his cell phone to hold it up. “You programmed an app into my phone with magic. The night you came to me for help, all the neon signs in a five-block radius were blown at the scene of the disturbance. One of the only times you’ve ever lied to me was when you told me living in these urban reservations, cut off from nature, made the Magic Born weaker.” He lowered the phone and held up the tablet. “I saw you with this, that night you came to me. Both you and the tablet were glowing, just like later when you used magic on my phone.”
Panic hit Calla like a gut punch. She gripped the bottle tighter, needing something solid to hold on to as her world caved in under her feet. Water came out the open bottle top, the cold liquid on her hand adding to the shock. She shook her head, unable to form words. It had been so easy to trust him and not think about it, even though that was completely unlike her. She could count on one hand the number of people who knew her secret, and now he was throwing it in her face? Asking for help?
Leaving the tablet on the couch, Nate moved to stand in front of her. She shrank against the wall at her back. He said, “I don’t know enough about magic to understand how this works, but I know it’s different from everything I have been able to find out. It’s not the kind of thing mentioned on the DMS website. It’s not the kind of thing you hear people talking about.”
Calla had never been scared of Nate before, but now the urge to run was nearly overwhelming. Get to the tunnels, disappear with the group being moved through, just leave everything behind. The threat of a DMS lab and what they would do to her there almost made all rational thought stop.
A voice in the back of her head pushed through the panic and told her it wasn’t Nate she needed to be scared of. It was whoever was out there killing people. A killer Nate was getting too close to.
Nate held up the glass drive. “The friend who sent me this—he was the one who ran the first DNA test on the Forbes murder.”
For what seemed like at least a full minute, the only sound she could hear was her heart thudding on overdrive. If that first DNA test had been the real thing and not a mistake, it might have been worth killing for to the right person.
Finally, she found her voice. “The friend that’s dead?”
“It’s been declared a suicide but I don’t believe it.”
She slid down the wall, mind racing.
“The coroner who did the autopsy on Forbes, a woman named Lucille Walker, died of a heart attack right after Santo was charged. Henry—my friend—didn’t believe it was really a heart attack that killed her. I thought he was just being paranoid.”
“She knew about the first test?”
He knelt. “Yes.”
“Who else?” Asking for formality’s sake.
“The chief of police. The senator. Me.”
“Oh, Nate.”
“Somebody’s cleaning up their mess.”
“The Forbes case is closed. You said so yourself. Why would anybody—”
“Maybe because Dr. Walker and Henry a
sked too many questions.”
“Then don’t make the same mistake!”
Grabbing the water bottle from her, Nate took a drink and sat against the wall to her left. “Henry was sure of that first test. Sure of it.”
Calla couldn’t bring herself to ask about it, and not just because she’d already seen that file herself. “This is too much, Nate. You need to keep your head down and stay quiet.”
“Why was Alan Forbes experimenting with nightshade? Why did the DMS lab suddenly finger a dark-haired man as a match for a blond hair found at the scene of the murder, right after I brought him in for questioning?”
From the start she hadn’t trusted Beckwith’s motivations. It had never made sense that he’d sent one cop to investigate his friend’s murder instead of a task force. Unless she’d been right from the start, and that one cop was meant to be a fall guy if one was needed. She watched Nate’s face as he admitted as much to himself. “You’re angry,” she said.
“They used me. They used me to set somebody up, some innocent person, so whatever the hell was really going on could be covered up quickly and quietly.” He turned his head to look at her. “I think I knew it all along.”
Careful to keep accusation out of her voice, she said, “Why’d you go along with it?”
He leaned over and brushed a soft kiss across her lips. Climbing to his feet, he offered her a hand then pulled her up, guiding her to the couch. Quickly he opened a bookmark on his tablet and handed it to her. “Guy look familiar?”
Calla sucked in a breath. Damn straight the man looked familiar. It was the man who’d shot at her the last time she went to the arcade—the man whose face she’d blasted with neon light to escape. “How did you know?”