by Nancy Holder
“Be careful,” Tess said.
“I’ll be discreet,” he promised her.
“Is Child Services with Aliyah now?” Catherine asked.
“Yes. Another social worker, this one named Miranda Kuhl. There was a child psychologist in earlier, too, a Ginger Gill, but she couldn’t get anywhere and she had to go on another call.” She glanced at Vincent. “Maybe you can take a look at Aliyah before you leave?”
“I’m not a pediatrician,” he demurred.
“But you were an ER doc,” Catherine pointed out. “You have experience with trauma.”
Tess nodded at him. “I don’t mean that you should interview her face to face. If you’d be willing to stand by, observe…”
“Of course,” he said. There was very little he wouldn’t do for Tess Vargas. She’d put it all on the line for Catherine and him more than once.
Their battle strategy worked out, they walked briskly into the building. He deferred to Tess and Catherine, walking slightly behind them—this was their place of business, their territory. The precinct was buzzing with activity but Vincent immediately detected the piston-like heartbeat of a young person, swathed in the scent of fear.
“Speaking of trauma, Catherine, I have something I need to tell—” Tess began, but just then a uni hustled up to her with a clipboard and asked her to sign off on a form. Next the desk sergeant informed her that two squad cars were overdue for maintenance and if anything happened while they were on the street, some ambulance-chaser of a lawyer could bust their balls for it.
“Cap,” one of the other detectives called from the coffee station, “we got our warrant. Can we go?”
“Yeah. Just don’t take car eight or eleven,” she replied.
“Got it,” he said. He saluted her with his coffee cup. “Thanks.”
At a head bob from Tess, Vincent went into the observation room to view the proceedings through a one-way mirror. There was another person in the room, a young guy Vincent didn’t recognize. He was a few inches shorter than Vincent, with unnaturally blue eyes, white-blond hair, and a deep tan all the more startling given the fact that it was January. His charcoal-gray suit was impeccable, had to have cost thousands. Vincent had learned about things like that from his days squiring heiress (and beast) Tori Windsor around town. Not a hair was out of place. The guy looked like a fashion model. Or a Ken doll.
“Hey.” The guy extended his hand. Were his fingernails buffed? “Sky Wilson. Just got here from Malibu.”
Sky? This man’s name is Sky?
“Here?” Vincent echoed, shaking hands with him.
“To the one-twenty-fifth. I’m NYPD now.” He grinned. “Like in that Eddie Murphy movie, only backwards.”
Vincent wasn’t tracking. The guy—Sky—said, “Beverly Hills Cop. He goes from Detroit to Beverly Hills. I’m the opposite.” He gestured through the glass. “There she is.”
An African-American woman was seated beside the girl Vincent had seen in the Post article. Aliyah Patel. Catatonic was the correct word: She stared sightlessly down at the table, registering no response as Catherine and Tess walked into the room. A winsome stuffed teddy bear perched in front of her. The precinct had a collection of them to give to kids in upsetting situations. Usually the kids hugged the bears, squeezing tight for comfort. Aliyah appeared to be totally disinterested in hers.
“Has she said anything?” Vince asked Wilson.
“She…? Oh. The little girl. No. Nothing. I’m not sure she’s even blinked.”
Vincent arched a brow. Apparently Wilson’s “she” was not Aliyah Patel.
“Hello, Aliyah. My name is Cat,” Catherine said gently, as Tess pulled out a chair and sat down. “We have some donuts. Would you like one? Mrs. Kuhl, how about you?”
“That would be nice,” the woman said. “How about a frosted with sprinkles?”
“I’ll bring the whole box.”
Catherine left the room and Wilson whistled under his breath. “All that sugar and gluten. She sure hasn’t been hitting the donuts, know what I mean?”
Vincent blinked. Cat was his “she.” What the hell?
“What business do you have with Detective Chandler?” he asked.
The man grinned. “I’m her new partner.”
Vincent’s mouth dropped open. Cat hadn’t said a word about that. Maybe she didn’t know. But Tess would have had to assign him to her. Without checking? That was impossible. Tess wouldn’t do such a thing to her best friend.
To my girlfriend, he thought heatedly.
“Are you a detective, too?” Sky—Vincent couldn’t call him Sky—Wilson asked.
“No,” Vincent bit off. He was done talking to Malibu Ken. He focused on the interview room.
Wilson’s phone went off. He took the call. “Well, hello there,” he said silkily. “It’s Joan, right? Hi, Joan. How’s your day going? Did you try out that breathing exercise I told you about? Yes, turmeric. Ginger works too. Yes, we’re in the city and… wow, a broken pipe? Mom sure didn’t see that on today’s chart.”
He slowly moved his neck in a slow circle, then made a circle with his thumb and forefinger and closed his eyes. “Well, we did perform that feng shui sweep and I thought the bathroom might be an issue. The qi flows naturally to water. We did a cleansing and my tantra partner suggested a white sage smudge but we’re not pagans. All belief systems are valid, of course. The path is the journey.”
What the hell is he talking about?
Vincent gave him a look, and Wilson held up a hand, begging his indulgence. He was wearing a bracelet of wooden prayer beads. “It’s true that we were hoping for a good night’s sleep in our beds. Our melatonin is off and yes, exactly. Thank you.” He smiled. “…salutes the Buddha in you. Namaste.”
He hung up, closed his eyes and slowly exhaled. Vincent cast a sidelong glance at him. “You live with your mother?” he asked mildly.
Wilson touched the wooden beads on his wrist. “That’s just for the rent control. Mom’s actually staying out in Malibu, she’s renewing her aura-reading certification. We have a spiritual leader, Sri Shapur. She lives in the Malibu Colony.”
Colony of what?
Catherine returned to the interview room with a pink box of donuts and a container of milk from the vending machine in the hall. She set them down in front of Aliyah. The girl did not move. The social worker reached over and selected a chocolate donut covered with chocolate sprinkles. She took a bite. Aliyah still didn’t so much as blink.
“This tastes so good,” the woman announced.
Wilson sighed. “Milk is poison. And all that processed junk. So much imbalance. That’s what crime is, you know, karmic imbalance. We’re all spokes on the wheel…” His voice became a whisper. “We must do everything we can to restore balance.”
Tess leaned forward with her hands folded on the table. “Aliyah, my name is Tess. We know things have been very scary for you, but we were wondering if you might be able to tell us what happened this morning at your apartment.”
“Does she know her aunt’s been murdered?” Vincent asked Wilson.
“We don’t know if her aunt’s been murdered,” Sky said with exaggerated patience, as if he was dealing with someone on the outside looking in—a naïve civilian. “We have a team at the alleged crime scene that’s gathering up evidence.”
“Alleged,” Vincent echoed, but Wilson was staring through the interview window with his right hand slightly upraised as if he were blessing them.
“We know something scary happened,” Tess continued, “but we’re not sure what it was.”
The girl said nothing. She was truly catatonic. The best thing for her would be to let out the terror that had locked her up inside. But if she told them that she had seen a beast and went on to describe it, it would make it that much harder to keep Vincent’s own truth hidden.
The social worker would probably figure she was using the image of a metaphorical monster to process what she had seen. It bothered him that a vulne
rable little girl would be disbelieved, as so often happened to children in horrific circumstances. That was one way that human monsters like murderers were created—through childhood abuse and neglect, with no one to turn to. Mr. Riley had already indicated that Aliyah’s home life was bad… and that no one had come to her aid.
Mrs. Kuhl took a napkin from the pink box and set down her donut, then bent over to her right. When she sat back up, she was holding some paper and a box of crayons. She kept a piece of paper, then distributed a sheet each to Catherine and Tess, and one for Aliyah. Then she opened the crayons.
“What’s your favorite color, Detective?” the woman asked, holding out the box.
“Red,” Tess and Catherine said in unison.
“I also like blue,” Catherine offered.
“Not me. Sticking with red,” Tess declared, reaching into the box. Catherine took a blue crayon and Mrs. Kuhl pulled out brown.
Aliyah did not take a crayon. She didn’t even look at the box.
“Let’s draw a picture of our mornings,” the woman suggested.
Catherine and Tess bent over their papers. The social worker mostly doodled, watching Aliyah, who remained inert. Vincent cocked his head, trying to make out what Cat was drawing. After about thirty seconds, she held up her picture so that Vincent could see it. A lovely blue rose.
Vincent smiled faintly.
“This morning I went to talk to Mr. Riley,” Catherine said. “He’s so nice.”
Aliyah’s heart skipped a beat. Vincent honed in on her.
“Yeah, hi, Mom,” Wilson said into his phone. “Listen, there’s a burst pipe in the apartment. See? That’s what I thought, too. It’s the qi issue. What do you think about a white sage smudge?”
Vincent glared at him and Wilson held up his “sorry sorry” hand again. This time Vincent didn’t back down, and Wilson grinned at him and shrugged.
“Mom, I’ll have to call you back. Police business.” He put the phone in his pants pocket.
Tess held up a picture of a stick figure standing in front of a tall building and showed it to Aliyah. “I went to your apartment, because something happened there.”
Although Aliyah sat frozen in position, her heartbeat picked up and she began to sweat. He braced himself for her to bust loose.
Her little heart pumped harder. Bumpbump bumpbump bumpbump.
Faster.
Sweat beaded on her forehead. Her fingers twitched. It looked as if she was trying to cross them. Her lower lip quivered.
Then her pulse rate skyrocketed off the charts. An adult with a heartbeat that fast might go into defib.
Here it comes, he thought.
All the color drained from Aliyah’s face and her mouth dropped open. But instead of screaming, as Vincent had anticipated, she went limp. She would have fallen out of her chair except that Catherine grabbed her and supported her weight while Tess and the social worker lent an assist.
Vincent burst out of the observation room and rushed into the interview room. He bent over Aliyah and gently pulled back each lid. Her pupils were negative. Her pulse was racing, her skin clammy to the touch, and her breathing was shallow. The musky combination of animal and human pheromones filled his nostrils. Beast odor. He didn’t think it was her scent, but that it had been left on her. His head swam and he concentrated his apex predator senses, using the clues at hand to piece together the beast’s home invasion: window glass, carpet fibers, wood splinters.
The murder itself: blood, tissue, bone.
Rage. Such incredible fury. This was not a random beast attack. This was payback.
For what? And by whom?
“Vincent?” Catherine asked softly, and he locked gazes with her, gave her a little nod. Yes, he had something to tell her. He couldn’t wait to get to the crime scene. It contained a story with a beginning, a middle, and a gruesome end; one that, this time, he might be able to read. He’d come up empty at the other crime scenes. But this time he might even glean enough to learn the beast’s identity.
“She’s in shock,” Vincent declared. “We should get her to the hospital.”
Tess nodded and whipped out her phone. Catherine and the social worker flanked Vincent as he scooped Aliyah up and carried her out of the room. Wilson met them at the door and trailed after them.
“Let me experience her energy,” Wilson said.
“What are you doing here?” Tess blurted. “You’re a week early!”
Wilson frowned. “Cap said I was all set.”
Tess shook her head and spoke into her phone. “Emergency, the one-hundred-twenty-fifth NYPD precinct headquarters. That is precinct one-two-five. Minor needs immediate medical transport.” She repeated the pertinent medical details, with Vincent nodding at her to let her know she was getting it right.
“She’s blocking out what happened,” Vincent said. He wondered if Catherine and Tess knew that there were flecks of blood on her arms, possibly her aunt’s. His mind jumped to DNA. Beast DNA. Something was different this time. Would the lab results be different too?
That would be a dangerous game changer, he thought.
“The ambulance is arriving out front,” Tess told them.
Unis, detectives, and staff swiveled their heads at Vincent and the others as they dashed through the busy precinct bullpen. A paramedic in navy uniform approached and Vincent reeled off the medical details of Aliyah’s collapse. A stretcher appeared seconds later and Vincent gently placed Aliyah on it. Her fingers stretched as if she were reaching for something. She had cuts on her hands.
He turned and saw that Catherine had grabbed up the bear from the interview room table and was cradling it under her chin. She held it out and he knew to put it on Aliyah’s chest. It bobbed there as the paramedics loaded the stretcher into the ambulance. Mrs. Kuhl climbed in and sat across from her. Her face was grim but otherwise, she was composed. Vincent figured a woman in her position had seen just about everything—except a beast.
“I’ll keep you posted,” she said to Catherine and Tess. Then one of the paramedics shut the ambulance door, and the vehicle screamed away.
Tess turned to Vincent. “Beast?” Tess asked quietly.
“Definitely,” he said under his breath. “I could tell this time. There’s not a doubt in my mind on this one.”
“But not the other six,” Catherine elaborated. “Well, we all know that human beings are capable of monstrous brutality. Sad to say.”
“So it’s possible that the first six murders are unrelated to this one. The crime scene’s still crawling with CSU,” Tess recapitulated. “But I agree that you need to get inside as soon as you can. It’ll take the lab a while to process all of the evidence, even if it’s designated highest priority, which it will be. But we don’t have any insiders in the medical examiner’s department the way we used to.” She meant Evan Marks, who had gotten entangled with Muirfield, and died at their hands. “So whatever you can get for just us, that would be awesome.”
Second strategy session completed. Vincent nodded.
“Okay, then I’ll—”
“Shouldn’t one of us have gone in the ambo with the witness?” Wilson queried, interposing himself between Vincent and Tess. “What if she snaps out of it and starts talking?”
Wow, he sounds like a real police officer now, Vincent thought dryly.
“Then we’ll rely on Mrs. Kuhl’s statement,” Tess informed him.
“But the prosecution could argue that that’s hearsay.”
“Mrs. Kuhl is a mandated reporter,” Tess riposted with a hint of irritation. “I don’t want to harass our witness. That could taint her statement, too. She’s got enough going on, don’t you think?”
“You’re absolutely right, of course,” he said, smiling at her. His teeth were so white and even that they looked artificial. And his eyes were preternaturally blue—contacts, Vincent realized. Maybe his tan was the spray-on kind. “If we all send out our energy, maybe we can reopen her channels of inner peace.”
“Yes, go do that,” Tess said quickly. “Go do it now.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met,” Catherine said to Wilson. She was smiling her little mush-mouth smile, the one that signified that she was feeling a little prickly. Vincent translated: She didn’t much care for Detective Swami, either.
“Sky Wilson,” he said expectantly, extending his hand. When it was clear that his name wasn’t registering, he added, “Your new partner.”
She blinked at him. Tess grimaced, then put on her boss face and said, “Wilson’s transferring in. I thought assigning him to our most seasoned detective—”
“What?” Cat said shrilly.
“—on a temporary basis—” Tess added. She appraised Wilson. “Very temporary—”
“I promise not to get in your hair,” Wilson said easily. “Smooth and shiny though it is—”
“Hey, watch it, no sexual harassment,” Tess blurted, then she wiped her hand over her face, dropped her arm to her side, and said, “Wilson and I’ll be in my office. I’ll brief you and show you around,” she told the new guy.
“Yeah, you’d better run,” Catherine muttered in a voice so low Vincent knew only he would hear it.
“Captain Vargas?” A uni approached. “May I speak to you a moment?”
Tess huffed and walked away with the foot soldier. Wilson trailed after Catherine. “So can you fill me in, partner?” he asked Catherine sotto voce as she began to stomp toward her desk. “I get the vibe that you and Captain Vargas and you…” He paused a moment as he looked at Vincent. “I didn’t catch your name, actually.”
Over her shoulder, Catherine said, “That’s Dr. Vincent Keller. He’s my boyfriend.” She picked up a stack of “while you were out” notes and paged through them.
“Darn the luck.” Wilson clucked his big white teeth and gave his head a shake.
Catherine slammed the stack of messages back onto her desk blotter. “Excuse me. I have to go speak to the captain for a moment.” She whipped out her phone and thumbed a text. To Tess, Vincent assumed.
Catherine blasted past Wilson and him and headed for the office that had housed the precinct captain, Joe Bishop; then Assistant District Attorney Gabriel Lowan, a beast and multiple murderer; then Captain Ward, who had been Lowan’s stooge until near the end of his tenure at the one-twenty-fifth; and now Tess. A revolving door, indicative of the ripples that Catherine’s discovery of Vincent’s existence had caused on so many levels in so many lives.