One-Eyed Royals

by Cordelia Kingsbridge

  “You’re welcome.” Dominic unwrapped his sandwich and separated the halves. Nudging one half in Levi’s direction, he raised an inquiring eyebrow.

  Levi hesitated. Unlike most people in his life, Dominic never pressured him to eat. If he turned down the offer, Dominic would let it go at that. But it had been a while since he’d last eaten, and though he wasn’t hungry, it was a good idea to get some fuel in his system that wasn’t caffeine.

  Nodding his thanks, he sat across the table and accepted half the sandwich. When he bit into it, he was surprised to find it was roast beef, his favorite.

  Dominic didn’t even like roast beef.

  Levi swallowed his mouthful and looked up. Dominic was chewing in silence, watching the infomercial on the TV across the room like it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. Levi fiddled with the crust of the sandwich for a moment, then took another bite.

  They ate without talking for a few minutes. Levi was almost finished with his half, gazing blankly through the window that overlooked the hallway, when he caught sight of Perrot’s mother approaching the waiting room.

  He sprang to his feet so suddenly that Dominic startled, one hand hovering over his gun beneath his jacket. Levi made a face at him and gestured toward the opening door. Dominic swiveled around in his chair, then hurried to get to his feet as well.

  “Ms. Durand,” Levi said. “How is she?”

  “Alive,” Durand said in her thick French accent. She’d met both Levi and Dominic earlier that day, so introductions weren’t necessary, but she didn’t look happy to see them. “The doctor told me you’ve been waiting here to speak to her all night.”

  “I know it’s not ideal, but it’s urgent. If Christelle is conscious, I need to talk to her as soon as possible. The people who did this to her are still out there, and the more time that passes, the harder they’ll be to catch.”

  “Well, come on, then.” Durand jerked her chin toward the doorway.

  Levi and Dominic followed her into the hall.

  “I thought Christelle should wait until morning to see you,” Durand said as they walked. “She’s been through enough already. She was wandering in that desert for almost twenty-four hours; she has dehydration, heatstroke, a second-degree sunburn . . . But she insisted that she needed to talk to you now.”

  The officer at the door nodded to Levi when their group entered Perrot’s private room. She lay half-upright in the hospital bed, hooked up to IV fluids. Her hands were bandaged, and her burnt neck and face were gleaming with a thick, shiny substance. Though she appeared to be sleeping, she opened her eyes when her mother said her name.

  “Ms. Perrot, I’m Detective Levi Abrams.” Levi showed her his badge, ignoring the flash of shocked recognition that crossed her face. “This is Dominic Russo; he’s a private investigator looking into the same case. Are you well enough to talk?”

  “Yes,” she rasped. “Please, sit.”

  Levi pulled one of the little plastic chairs up to the bed. Dominic did the same on the other side, though Levi caught him casting the flimsy thing a dubious look before he gingerly settled his considerable weight onto it.

  Durand made to join them, but Perrot held out a hand. “Maman, I’d actually like to speak to them alone. S’il vous plaît.”

  Durand frowned but didn’t argue. “I’ll go get something to eat.”

  Perrot waited until the door had shut behind her to say, “Aren’t you a homicide detective?”

  “Yes.”

  “So the men who took me are the same ones who took that man who was murdered last weekend? The one whose eye was cut out?”

  “That’s correct.”

  She shuddered. “I thought they probably were. Mon Dieu.”

  “Can you please tell me the whole story from the beginning?” Levi asked, readying a notepad and pen.

  “I was driving home from work. I thought the detour was odd, but I didn’t understand what was happening until it was too late. I was ambushed and trapped by two black SUVs. Masked men pulled me from my car and put me to sleep with some sort of injection.”

  That was exactly how it’d gone for the other four living victims. “What happened next?” Levi said. Each of the others had reported waking blindfolded and tied to a bed.

  “Ah . . .” Perrot dropped her gaze, studying her bandaged hands. “You must understand, the past few years have been very difficult for me. My husband passed away soon after our second child was born. My mother is an angel, but it is not the same without him. And my job, it is very stressful.” She paused as if searching for the right words. “I gave birth to Ludovic via caesarean section. The doctors gave me a prescription.”

  “For opiate painkillers?” said Dominic.

  “Yes. After my husband died, I began to take more and more.” Her lips twitched with a joyless smile. “Then antianxiety medicines, then sedatives and tranquilizers. Anything that would dull the pain for a while.”

  Levi didn’t have time to beat around the bush. “You’ve been abusing prescription medications? For how long?”

  She lifted her head. “Years. But I—I’m not a drug addict. I know I take more than I should, but I’m always careful. I have everything under control.”

  Dominic cleared his throat, his chair creaking as he shifted his weight. Levi didn’t dare look in his direction.

  There was only one reason Perrot would admit this to them. “You’ve built a tolerance to certain substances in a way the kidnappers didn’t expect.”

  “Yes. I woke in the car.”

  Levi straightened up. Now he looked at Dominic, who was just as intrigued.

  “I pretended I was still unconscious. My wrists and ankles had been zip-tied, and there were at least three men in the car with me, so I didn’t want to risk letting them know I was awake. We drove for about forty minutes. Then they carried me out of the car, into a house, and laid me on a bed. They were getting ready to bind me to it, but to do that, they had to remove the zip-ties.”

  Perrot stopped there and coughed, a terrible dry hacking noise. Levi got up to fetch her some water, then helped her drink it through a straw.

  “Merci,” she said as Levi set the water aside. “This is . . . harder to talk about than I expected.”

  “I understand. Take your time.”

  “I knew that was my only chance. When my hands and feet were free, I opened my eyes a bit, just enough to get a quick look. They were still wearing masks, but one of the men was leaning over me. There was a gun in a holster on his hip. I . . .” She bowed her head. “I grabbed the gun and shot him in the stomach.”

  Levi’s eyes widened. Dominic made a soft, commiserating noise.

  “Everything went mad,” she continued. “The men were panicking; they had no idea what was happening. I took my chances and just ran. Sprinted out of the house and kept running as fast as I could. They chased me, but their shots missed, and—I don’t know, maybe it was because I was so afraid, or because they were more worried about their friend, but I got away.”

  If she’d escaped their initial pursuit and hadn’t seen their faces, the kidnappers had probably prioritized evacuating the safe house and getting help for their injured colleague. “Do you know where you were?” Levi asked.

  “The foothills of a mountain, right on the edge of the desert. The problem is that I was so frightened when I escaped that I didn’t pay attention to where I was going. By the time I was back in my right mind, I was completely lost. I’d dropped the gun somewhere, and I had no idea where I was or where to go. So I just kept walking.” Her breath stuttered. “It was so hot. There was nothing but sand everywhere I looked. I thought I was going to die out there, but I knew I couldn’t stop moving. When it got dark, I saw lights in the distance, but by then I thought it was a hallucination. I don’t really remember anything after that.”

  She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the pillow, her chest jumping with the uneven breathing of someone trying not to cry. Neither Levi nor Domini
c spoke while she got herself together.

  “I might have killed that man,” she said to Levi when she opened her eyes.

  “There won’t be any charges.” Levi knew that was poor comfort. He’d killed to save lives before; it was still devastating.

  Nodding, Perrot took one big sniff and then coughed again.

  “Is it okay if we ask you some questions?” Levi said.

  He led Perrot through her story again, gently probing for more detail. Dominic chimed in with questions of his own here and there.

  Perrot was able to provide a general description of the kidnappers’ base: a rustic two-room cabin in the middle of nowhere, far from any legitimate roads. Though the mercenaries hadn’t talked much during the drive, she’d overheard enough to be sure they were unhappy with the current state of affairs, a conclusion that had been confirmed when one of the men checked in with their boss by phone.

  “I have to admit, I was surprised to find out it was a woman,” Perrot said.

  “How do you know that?” Dominic asked. “Did you hear them use a name?”

  “No. But when the man on the phone hung up, he called her a—a crazy bitch.”

  Based on Perrot’s account, Levi gathered that the mercenaries had wanted to lay low while the heat was on, maybe abandon the kidnapping ring altogether—but the client had insisted otherwise. Either she was paying the men good money to overcome their reservations, or she had some kind of leverage on them to force their compliance.

  Once Levi and Dominic had wrapped everything up and were preparing to leave, Perrot said, “Are those men going to come looking for me?”

  “I doubt it,” said Levi. “It would be the stupidest possible thing they could do, and they’re professionals. They should know better. But we’ll keep a police detail on you until we find them.”

  They wished Perrot a speedy recovery, left their respective business cards, and headed for the elevator side by side, both lost in their own thoughts. Only when they were stepping into the elevator did Dominic say, “We should work together on this one.”

  Levi scoffed and hit the button for the ground floor.

  “I’m serious. If we don’t cooperate, we’ll just keep getting in each other’s way.”

  “I don’t have to worry about getting in your way,” Levi said. “When you get in my way, it’s called obstruction of justice.”

  Dominic was unfazed. “We’ve joined forces before—tracking down Keith Chapman, infiltrating Sergei Volkov’s compound. Give me one good reason we shouldn’t do the same now.”

  “I don’t want to be around you.”

  Dominic drew back like he’d been slapped, his face draining of color. Levi hadn’t meant that the way it sounded, but so what? Let Dominic feel hurt. Rejected. He’d made Levi feel that way often enough.

  The elevator doors slid open on the hallway to the emergency room, which at this time of night was the only way in and out of the hospital. Levi stalked out and was halfway down the hall before his resolve broke. He couldn’t leave things like this.

  Spinning around, he returned to Dominic—who was walking much more slowly—and said, “It’s too hard, Dominic. It hurts too much to be around you and not . . .” He swallowed and made a helpless gesture.

  A spark of hope lit Dominic’s face, and he moved closer. “Levi, you know I still—”

  “I know.” Levi couldn’t bear to hear Dominic say the words aloud, not now. “So do I. That’s why it’s so awful.”

  “If you could just—”

  “I don’t need you to be in recovery.” Levi watched Dominic’s face shut down and go blank. “But I need you to admit you have a problem and accept help. If you’re not going to do that, there’s nothing more to say.”

  They stared at each other beneath sickly fluorescent lights, the clamor of the nearby ER filling up the silence.

  The root of the dilemma was that Dominic didn’t consider his gambling an illness. He saw it as a weakness, a personal failing. In a man who prided himself on being a strong, competent protector, weakness was particularly unforgivable, so he had to convince himself that the gambling wasn’t a problem at all.

  The last time Dominic’s addiction had spiraled out of control, Rebel’s life-threatening health emergency was the only thing that had pushed him to seek help. Would it take something equally dramatic this time around?

  “Coordinating our efforts on this case is in the best interests of the investigation, and you know it,” Dominic said, as if the last couple of minutes had never happened. “Or are you comfortable taking the risk that the men Christelle Perrot spent a day slowly dying in the desert to escape will slip through your fingers? Do you want to end up telling Rose Nguyen the people who cut out her eye will never be found?”

  Dominic had always known how best to manipulate him.

  “All right, fine,” Levi snapped when he could see Dominic was gearing up to say more. “You don’t have to lay it on so thick.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, mulling things over. “If the man Perrot shot survived, his friends would have taken him somewhere for medical care. I’ll handle that end of things and start looking for properties matching the description she gave us of their safe house. In the meantime, you can get the name Ephron told you out to your contacts and do that background check on Juliette.”

  “If Royce finds out I’m investigating his mistress, I’ll be in deep shit.”

  “So hide it from him. You’re good at that.”

  A muscle jumped in Dominic’s jaw.

  Levi sighed. “Sorry. I’m really tired.”

  “Tell me about it,” Dominic said, cracking his neck from side to side. He did look exhausted, his unshaven face haggard and hollow-eyed.

  “Are you okay to drive home?” Levi asked.

  “Just about. You?”

  No. Let’s get a hotel room and just sleep in the same bed and pretend everything’s the way it was six months ago. I miss you.

  “Yeah,” Levi said. “I’m good.”

  “Hey, you can’t go back there!” the receptionist said, springing out of her chair as Levi and a uniformed officer strode past the front desk at Desert Road Animal Hospital.

  Levi flashed his badge and a sheaf of paper without slowing down. “We have a warrant.”

  “But—but—” She snatched up her phone, but Levi didn’t try to stop her. The warning would work in his favor.

  He and the officer pushed through a swinging door into the building’s back area. This was no small, independently owned practice like the ones the Seven of Spades had paid Los Avispones to knock over in their attempt to frame Keith Chapman. It was a bustling twenty-four-hour hospital with a large staff and enough space to house kennels, fully equipped laboratory and pharmacy facilities—and several operating theaters.

  His informant had only known the hospital was being used for backroom medical care, not which of the vets were participating. That was where the receptionist came in handy. Within seconds of Levi entering the hallway, a panicked vet darted out of the lab, squeaked in fear as she saw him, and took off running.

  Levi chased her toward the rear exit, the officer hot on his heels, though neither of them ran at full speed. They didn’t have to. The vet wrenched the door open and skidded to a halt, yelping at the sight of Martine standing in the back alley with another uniform.

  “What’s up?” Martine said.

  The vet spun around, her head swinging from side to side as she searched for another escape route, but they had her surrounded.

  “Two nights ago, a man came in here with a gunshot wound to the abdomen,” Levi said. “Where is he?”

  She shook her head, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly.

  He took a menacing step forward. “That man was involved in multiple kidnappings, two mutilations, and a homicide. Where is he?”

  The vet’s shoulders sagged. “Over here.”

  She led them to an office in the far rear corner of the building. Inside, what appeared to be a closet doo
r opened into a windowless, makeshift clinic.

  Levi cursed when he saw the shirtless guy on the cot against the far wall. The man was gray and glazed with sweat, tossing and turning, his breathing shallow. Telltale red streaks radiated from his bandaged abdomen.

  “It’s infected,” said the vet. “He needs a hospital—a human hospital. But he’s been refusing to go.”

  “So you were just going to let him die here?” Levi hurried to the man’s side and felt for his pulse; it was dangerously thready.

  “Of course not!” Scowling, the vet put her hands on her hips. “We— I mean, I was going to figure something out.”

  Levi didn’t have time for her self-righteous indignation. He looked to Martine.

  “I’ll call for a bus,” Martine said, pulling out her phone. “Why don’t you slap the cuffs on Dr. Hack Job here?”

  “I—I had to help him!” the vet said as Levi advanced on her. “What was I supposed to do, turn him away with a bullet to the guts?”

  “I can tell you what you weren’t supposed to do, and that’s perform surgery without a license and harbor a criminal.” Levi snapped the cuffs around her wrists. “You’ll be lucky if all you get charged with is the unauthorized practice of medicine.”

  While he led the still-protesting vet out of the room, he glanced back once more at the erstwhile kidnapper. That guy wasn’t sitting for an interrogation anytime soon.

  Dominic leaned back in his chair and rubbed his neck, staring morosely at his computer screen. He’d managed to grab a few hours of sleep in between leaving the hospital and coming into his office at McBride, but he was still exhausted, and the glare of the monitor wasn’t helping his headache.

  Neither was the information on it. He’d spent the day digging up everything he could find on Juliette Monique Dubois, age twenty-four, executive assistant at Kensington Insurance Group. Though her credit wasn’t bad, the rest of the background check had thrown up every red flag in the book.

  Juliette had a few criminal charges for shoplifting and writing bad checks, although each had been resolved without jail time. Her work history was spotty and disjointed, and she had a pattern of changing residences every year or so, hopping from city to city across the state. Judging by her current apartment, car, and credit card statements, her lifestyle far exceeded her income—yet she had a total lack of debt.