Bone Driven

by Hailey Edwards

  “I can make a bowl of soapy water,” I offered into the quiet. “Miller needs to be cleaned before he rests.”

  Otherwise he might wake glued to the floor.

  “No.” Cole removed the needle from his arm with practiced ease. “I’ll bathe him. Can you turn on the shower?”

  “Sure.” Out of clean towels, I pulled another quilt from the shelves in the laundry room and left it folded on the sink while I turned on the water and adjusted the temperature. Cole was standing in the doorway when I finished, his gaze empty when it fell on me. “It’s ready.”

  “Go wait with the others,” he ordered, shuffling through the doorway with Miller lolling in his arms.

  Numb to my toes, I did as I was told. Santiago and Thom both stopped what they were doing to look at me, but I shook off their stares and mixed soapy water in a mop bucket. I sopped up the mess staining the floor, dumped the pinkish water down the sink, then washed my hands.

  I was fine until I noticed the blood staining my nailbeds, until I really thought about how it had gotten there. Shakes spread from where my hands gripped the edge of the sink through my arms until chills brushed across my shoulders and spread up my nape. The cold place melted as if it had never been, the horror of what I had seen rushed back, and I heaved into the basin I had just scrubbed clean.

  “Thank God,” Santiago muttered.

  Thom appeared at my elbow, a silent comfort, and I smiled weakly at him. “What’s with the face?”

  “You went away.” He leaned across the space and rested his forehead against mine, his need for reassurance that I was me again too great for me to deny him. “Don’t do that again.”

  “I’m sorry” was the best I could manage when some days that numbing cold was all that got me through. “I’m better now.”

  Santiago shouldered Thom out of the way. “Did you leave by choice?”

  “Yes.” I slumped forward, too tired to argue. “I made the call, but it’s instinctive for me to reach for that part of myself when I need to shut down fear or panic. I’ve done it all my life.”

  “You can’t give her an inch,” he snarled, so close his spittle hit my cheek, “or she’ll take a mile.”

  “I’ll work on it,” I promised, because seeing Santiago rattled shook me too. “Hey, I almost forgot. I got you a present.” I patted down my pants until I located the small device I had stolen from Wu. “Merry Christmas.”

  “You’re early,” he said, peering at my palm with avarice, “but I’ll take it.”

  “It’s a signal disrupter of some kind. Wu slapped it on a house we broke into tonight.”

  Santiago cocked his head like he hadn’t heard me right. “You did what?” He wheeled on Thom. “What the hell were you thinking not telling us Wu threw a B&E party and only invited her?”

  Thom held his ground. “I wonder where she got the address.”

  “Wu already had the address,” I chimed in. “His plan was to trick me into calling Miller, so he could get a bead on his location, but Miller hasn’t been in contact with me for days.”

  A vicious edge serrated Santiago’s voice. “What did he want with Miller?”

  “He wanted to know if he had to clean up after Miller when he got done with Ivashov. I told him no.” I rubbed my chapped fingers together, the faint stickiness from using too much soap reminding me of other tacky fluids I had been wrist-deep in tonight. “That was before I found Miller collapsed in my kitchen. I’m not sure how he got here, but it’s not like I’ve had time to go explore the yard for clues. I doubt anyone followed him. The blood in the foyer was congealing. He’d been here for a while. They could have attacked him before we arrived to finish the job.”

  “Unless they used him as bait.”

  I whirled toward Cole’s voice and found him drenched, dripping water onto the newly cleaned floor. I yanked open a drawer and tossed him a ratty dish towel. It was that or paper towels, and neither was going to do him much good considering his surface area. Miller was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t stop me from craning to see past Cole’s shoulder into the living room.

  “He’s on the couch,” he told me before I got a crick in my neck. “The wound is already sealed. He won’t get blood on the fabric.”

  “I don’t care about that.” I had scrubbed out worse. “How’s he doing?”

  “He’s breathing easier.” He rubbed his face and head dry with quick, hard strokes. “We shouldn’t move him again.”

  “I’m staying the night.” Or the next six hours, whichever came first. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  “We can’t leave you both unprotected in case whoever started this tracks Miller to your house.” Cole let his scowl deepen. “I’m staying. Thom, you’re with us. Santiago, head home.”

  Leaving Portia unprotected overnight was unacceptable as well, so I was grateful Santiago had been dispatched.

  “I can rest in your father’s recliner,” Thom declared as he shifted into his boxy kitty persona.

  “You can take Dad’s room.” I rubbed the base of my neck. “I put fresh sheets on the bed a few days ago while I was cleaning the upstairs.” I snapped my fingers. “Don’t leave yet, Santiago. I’ll be right back.”

  I jogged out to the Bronco to retrieve my souvenir and met him in the living room. He stood with his boots planted far apart, annoyance vibrating through every tensed muscle. Taking a page from Wu’s book, I lobbed the ball of fabric at Santiago’s face. He caught it mid-air and shook out the material.

  “What the hell?” Brow furrowed, he scanned the image. The instant its meaning registered, he broke out in a grin so twisted with evil satisfaction he rivaled the Grinch. “Tell me this is real.”

  Pleased with my decision to sell Wu down the river, I smiled back with all the wicked intent I could muster. “Check the tag.”

  Cole and Thom chased our exchange back and forth with their gazes like they were watching the US Open.

  Santiago read “Made in New York” aloud and whooped with unmitigated joy. “That dumb SOB believed me.” He pumped his fist. “I’m damn good at what I do, but I hid you from the NSB. Do you realize how huge that is?”

  “Your happy dance clued me in, yes.”

  “Maybe I was wrong.” Santiago wiped under his eyes with the hem of the shirt. “Maybe it is Christmas.”

  “Mmmrrrrpt.” Unimpressed, Thom swished his stump tail as he leapt onto his perch for the night.

  Shaking his head, Cole started climbing the stairs.

  “Does this mean you figured out the blind spot?” Santiago had mentioned finding a way to conceal us from Wu should we ever need one. “Will you be able to hide yourself and the others too?”

  “Damn skippy.” He tossed the shirt over his shoulder. “I’m in their system now. The chips won’t matter. I can make us invisible.” He patted the wadded fabric. “This proves it.”

  “I thought you were just being an ass,” I admitted, “but you were actually being a useful ass.”

  “Yeah, well, I can multitask.” Santiago sidled past me. “Thanks for the trinket, and for helping me stick it to that prick.”

  “You’re welcome.” I escorted him out, locked up like it mattered when charun weren’t known for knocking, then followed in Cole’s footsteps. He forked left into Dad’s room, and I was smart enough not to follow him in to offer a guided tour. “Night, Cole.”

  When he made no reply, I kept walking until I stood at the foot of my bed. Home. The Trudeau house was nice, and it was filled with love, but there was nothing quite as wonderful as being in your own space with your own things.

  I passed on a shower, though I needed one. I was too tired to trust my legs to prop me upright for fifteen more minutes. As a compromise, I peeled off the vintage quilt covering my bed, a gift to Dad from his mother, and collapsed facedown on the mattress. The sheets would cost me thirty bucks to replace if bleach couldn’t remove the bloodstains. At this point, I was willing to make the sacrifice if it meant I didn’t have to move a
gain.

  Shampoo and fabric softener wafted from my pillow, and I breathed in the comforting scents. I was boarding the sleepy train when heavy footsteps in my open doorway caused the conductor to withhold my ticket. Using maximum effort, I twisted my head to the side and glanced over my shoulder.

  The familiar outline of Mt. Heaton blocked the doorway. “Goodnight, Luce.”

  Brain muzzy, I watched through drooping lids until he vanished around the corner. I considered getting up and closing the door to discourage another such incident, but that would require working legs and motivation, and I was all out of both. Plopping my face back down in my pillow, I closed my eyes and scrambled after the train, praying I caught up before it left the station.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I snapped awake to a symphony of masculine voices raised in heated debate. I rolled out of bed, rolled too far, hit the floor, decided the floor was an okay place to be, crawled on all fours to the bannister, crawled too far and busted my nose on a spindle, finally peered down into the living room and cursed.

  Rixton stood in the foyer dressed in his uniform. His service weapon was trained on Santiago, who had planted his feet apart, barring my partner entrance to the house. Thom blocked off the staircase while Miller watched from his spot on the couch with his lip curled over his teeth.

  “What’s going on down there?” I demanded, hauling myself to my feet. “Rixton? Santiago?”

  “When you didn’t show up for work, I came looking for you.” His aim didn’t falter. “That’s when I discovered your house has been infested. I saw the Bronco and assumed you were home, but this fella refused to answer any of my questions.”

  “Work?” As I plodded down the stairs, my stomach dropped into my toes. “What time is it?”

  “Almost five,” Rixton supplied. “I gave you a few hours in case you were tracking down a lead and forgot to give me a heads up.”

  “Put the gun down,” I sighed. “They aren’t holding me hostage. I fell asleep upstairs last night. I didn’t realize it was so late. I didn’t think I’d sleep so long. I didn’t even set an alarm.”

  Rixton spotted me, and the color drained from his cheeks. “What the hell happened to you?”

  I glanced down at the clothes from last night, which did an admirable job of concealing the bloodstains, but Rixton wasn’t a detective for nothing. “Miller had an accident.” Lucky me, I didn’t know what had happened, so I couldn’t tell him what I didn’t know. “I made sure he didn’t bleed to death while he was getting stitched back together.” On the floor, in my kitchen.

  The weapon hung limp in his hand for a full thirty seconds before he put it away and shoved past Santiago to inspect Miller. His eyes rounded then bounced back to me. “What kind of accident?”

  “The kind that’s none of your business,” Santiago informed him. “If we wanted the cops involved, we would have called them.”

  “Luce is a cop.” Rixton stabbed the air in my direction. “Therefore, cops are involved.”

  “Luce isn’t a cop,” he snarled. “She’s —”

  “She’s a friend,” Thom finished for him. “She didn’t render aid in any official capacity.”

  “I need to speak to my partner.” Rixton started walking toward the porch. “Alone.”

  On my way past, I ruffled Thom’s hair. The bruised skin under his eyes spoke to the long night he’d spent watching over Miller. Briefly I wondered if I’d looked that dead on my feet last night. “I’ll be right back.”

  Rixton’s mood failed to improve when exposed to fresh air. “What’s going on in there?”

  Lord knows I had earned his suspicion, but God it hurt when he directed it at me, considering I had never given him cause to doubt me until now. But what good would an apology do if he offered me one? None. The worst was yet to come.

  I curled my toes under me. “I told you —”

  “You lied to me. Do you think I can’t tell?” He scoffed at the very idea I might fool him. We were too close, knew each other too well. “Why are those men in your house? What is your connection to White Horse?” When I didn’t answer quick enough for him, he kept hammering at me. “You didn’t show up for work. You didn’t call. You screwed up, Luce.” He glared at the bay window where I noticed Santiago watching with quiet menace from the living room. “I thought White Horse left town after the Claremont case ended. I know you had a thing for Cole, but I thought that was over when he ghosted on you. What is this? A family reunion?”

  He had no idea how close his barb had come to hitting the truth. “White Horse is…” think, think, think “… working for me.”

  Comprehension sparked behind his eyes, and he hissed out a curse. “Maggie.”

  “Maggie,” I agreed, and I didn’t have to fake the spike of agony the name conjured.

  “Let her parents foot the bill,” he said gently. “They’ve got the cash to run this type of operation full-tilt. You don’t. I’m sure they’ve already hired someone. Did you ask them first?”

  “They won’t talk to me. They were never big Luce fans, and they see this as proof of my bad influence over their daughter.” I let slip a fact I had refused to dwell on. “They blame me for what happened to Maggie. When I kept calling the house, Lila, one of the maids, gave me an earful about the harm I had caused the family.”

  “A psychopath targeted her.” Again, he was right on the money. “That wasn’t your fault.”

  “I don’t care if they blame me.” They should. I deserved every hateful thought that popped into their heads and some they lacked the imagination to conjure. “All that matters is we bring her home.”

  “It’s been two weeks” was what he said, but what he meant was “she’s dead”.

  An overwhelming majority of abductees were murdered within the first twenty-four hours, and we were well past that narrow window.

  “I made a deal with Cole. I’m helping them work some minor cases, and in exchange he’s cutting their rate for me. I hired them for a month. After that…” I would be gone, and my coterie would be too. “I’ll talk to the Stevenses at that point if White Horse unearths any leads worth following. They can make the call to hire them to complete the job or maybe just pass the information on to their people.”

  “Let me know what the final bill runs you,” he said. “Sherry and I will pay half.”

  “Thanks, but I can’t let you guys do that. You’ve got Nettie to think of.” There was no way I was lying to his face and stealing from his family. “Let me handle this. She’s my best friend. It needs to be me.”

  “If this is what will bring you closure, then I fully support it.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “Just don’t renew after the thirty days, okay? There comes a point where you’re going to have to let her go. You can’t run yourself ragged and spend every penny you’ve got chasing a ghost.”

  A normal person would have hugged him then, but I had never been normal, and a hug would only convince him he was right about me teetering on the brink. There was no good way to explain the coterie was healing my touch aversion, that perhaps the lack of contact with my own kind had been the problem all along, without sounding one bump short of a pickle.

  “I promise you, when the thirty days are up, I’ll let it go.” An easy promise to give considering I had no say in the matter past that point. “I’m sorry about flaking today. You know that’s not me.” Or it didn’t used to be. “Miller was tracking a lead in the swamp and got himself bitten. He came here seeking help. He’s lucky I came out to check on the house, or he would have bled to death before anyone found him.”

  Rixton angled his head toward the doorway. “How did he get in?”

  “I gave him a key.” I rushed to explain myself. “The guys came out to help with the bay window to save me a few bucks on installation. I offered to let Miller leave his tools here since the job ran late, and he was due in a client meeting that afternoon. I gave it to him so he could let himself in if he needed his equipment before we could meet
up again.”

  “Make sure you get that key back,” Rixton warned. “You can’t have an open-door policy with these guys, Luce. They could be ax murderers for all you know.”

  Murderers, yes, but they required no axes. Their teeth worked just fine. “Dad approved of them.”

  “For a job, yes.” Rixton’s glare nailed me in place. “Does he know they crashed in his house last night?”

  I cringed. “Not exactly.”

  “You need to call the shift office.” Rixton backed off a few paces. “Let them know you won’t be in tonight.” He took the steps. “If you need a day or two to get sorted, take them. You’ve got the time.”