by Nancy Holder
“Asking for my help. Begging me to get her out of there. And I didn’t listen. I sentenced her to death myself.”
“Hel-lo, Vincent, do not go there. You didn’t know.”
“She was Delta Company. One of mine.”
“Exactly. She was a soldier.” Suddenly J.T. realized something: Vincent had never left square one, when they had lived in hiding in the old warehouse and he had oozed guilt. They were both still half-in, half-out of their cocoons. Why didn’t that make him feel better?
“I need to go,” J.T. said, more gently. “I have to do my thing here.”
“Yeah, me too. Thanks, J.T.”
“Don’t mention it.” He hesitated. “Wait. Thanks for what, specifically?”
“Everything.”
Vincent disconnected, leaving J.T. feeling warm and fuzzy, if a bit confused. He set up a protocol to dial various combinations of the phone number after accounting for known scam numbers. Once that was up and running, he started applying various decryption algorithms to attempt to break the encoded message, if such existed. He was tempted to start a Karl Tiptree investigation of his own, but he was up to his ass in variables as it was. So on that ass, he sat in his chair and listened to the phone calls his computer attempted. No service, no service, out of order…
“Logan’s Pizzeria,” a voice said.
“May I speak to Private X?” J.T. asked calmly.
“Say what? We’re a pizzeria.” The man sounded genuinely puzzled.
“Sorry, wrong number.” J.T. ended the call.
The computer dialed another number. A phone rang.
“Fix-You-Fast Mufflers.”
J.T. cleared his throat. “May I speak to Private X?”
“What?”
“Sorry. Wrong number.”
It was going to be a long day.
* * *
“Look, Cat, I’m really sorry,” Tess said, handing Cat a coffee laden with sugar and cream. “I was going to tell you about partnering with Wilson but he wasn’t supposed to be here until next week.”
“But why is he here ever?” Cat demanded. “I thought we had a hiring freeze. Why are we hiring Surfer Joe from California and why did you assign me to be his partner without even asking me?”
“Because I’m your captain now, okay?” Tess flared, but Cat didn’t back down. They’d blown past the chain of command two years ago. Tess and Cat had both thought in black-and-white terms before Vincent had arrived on the scene, but that was then and this was now. The world was complex and gray and in the current case with Cat, bright red.
“Okay.” Tess deflated. She picked up her coffee stirrer and tapped it randomly on her open palm. Cat gave her the moment she so obviously needed.
“Joe,” she blurted out. She wrinkled her nose. “And it’s corny and underhanded and I’m sorry, but he was… important to me. And I still care about him.” She peered up through her lashes at Catherine, awaiting her reaction.
Cat didn’t follow. Tess made a face and shut her eyes.
“You and I know the captain at the Malibu Police Department. Janice McAllister? She went to the police academy with us. She went out there and tore it up, zoomed right up the ladder with a ton of cleared cases. She heard about my promotion. We got to talking, trading emails, you know, work stuff. And then she said she’d heard Joe was interviewing around, trying to get back into police work. She said she would give him a job if we would take Sky in trade.”
Cat’s mouth dropped open. “Tess. Why didn’t you talk to me about this?”
Tess shook her head. “The deal was sealed and then at the last minute he asked if you two could partner until he settled in. I was going to ask you, I swear. He got here early.”
“Why do we have him?” Meaning why don’t they want him?
“A female officer was about to file a big sexual harassment suit that bore no merit. Janice swore to me that it was going to be messy and expensive and would lead nowhere. The officer in question is the daughter of a film producer and her father has come in every week to see how his baby is doing.”
“So no due process if he was charged and it moved forward,” Cat said.
“You know I believe that sisterhood is powerful but this would not end in justice for anyone. And, Cat, it was for Joe.”
Cat humphed. Tess tapped her stirrer against the plastic lid of her coffee cup. “Wilson said you were the best detective in the precinct. I told him it would only be temporary, maybe a month at most. And I was going—”
“You’re my pimp,” Cat cut in, furious. “My cop pimp. I don’t even know you!”
“Temp-o-rary,” Tess pleaded. “Hey, I put my job on the line a million times for you when you were covering for Vincent. You know I did.”
“So now what? I owe you?” Cat asked indignantly. And then she calmed down a little. Because she did owe Tess.
“Argh, Tess. Now I’ve got him glued to my hip while we try to investigate a rash of beast killings?”
“Timing sucks,” Tess agreed remorsefully.
“The timing on this would suck if the one-twenty-fifth never had another case, ever. Not even shoplifting.”
“Don’t hate me,” Tess said.
“Does Joe know? Does this mean you’re getting back together?” J.T. will be heartbroken, she thought.
“No, oh, god, no.” Tess buried her face in her hands. “In fact, I made that a condition of the deal. That Joe would never know.”
“How can you even make this happen?” Cat asked. “There’s human resources and all kinds of hoops, right? I mean, I had to fill out three dozen forms to requisition a dictionary.”
Tess shrugged. “It’s different when you’re a captain. And what do you want a dictionary for? Just go online.”
“That’s what every single person in every single department told me.” Cat rolled her eyes. “There’s nothing like a good, decent dictionary at your elbow…” She trailed off. “It became a thing. I was typing up a report and I went to the online dictionary and it stalled. And I got frustrated and decided to get a regular dictionary and when everyone started acting like I wanted the Crown Jewels I got stubborn… and this is not the point.”
“Two weeks. Then Tofu Man is on his own. I swear it.” Tess held up two fingers, Boy Scout style. “And not a word to J.T., okay? If he found out about Joe…” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “J.T.,” she said softly.
“Things are still weird?” Cat asked, allowing her best friend to change the subject. She wanted it to work out between Tess and J.T., but more importantly, she wanted Tess to be happy.
“He’s so distant. He’s pulling away a little more every day. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s because I don’t understand what he’s talking about half the time. Three-quarters of the time. He’s a brainy science guy.”
“We’re brainy. We’re detectives,” Cat reminded her. “And hey, look at all the amazingly complicated schemes we put together to protect Vincent and J.T.” She tapped her temple. “Brainy.”
“Yeah. But I can’t even keep Star Trek straight.” Suddenly Tess looked young and scared. Gone was the streetwise tough chick and in her place sat Cat’s best friend in all the world, struggling under a very heavy load. Cat’s protective instincts washed over her indignation like the Pacific Ocean on the sultry sands of Malibu Beach.
“It’s not too late to sell hot dogs at Coney Island,” Cat said, and Tess cracked a smile. That had been their backup plan when they’d been in the police academy, watching cadets drop like flies until only New York’s Finest were left. “Or we could open a private detective agency. We’re two-thirds of Charlie’s Angels. We could recruit Heather.”
“Your sister with a gun? She wouldn’t pick her sparkly bullet casings up after herself. I’m going with the hot dogs.”
There was a knock on the door. Tess exhaled slowly. “That will be my press conference with the mayor. Remember when it was some other poor schmuck who had to do this?”
“You’l
l do great,” Cat said. “And J.T. loves you with all his heart.”
“Yeah.” Tess pushed away from her desk and stood. “Okay.” She didn’t sound convinced on either score. “Officially, you’re working on the financial forensics for Indira Patel and Julia Hogan. Give Hogan to your very, very, very temporary partner so we can keep as close control as possible of beast-related activities ourselves.” She broke her stirrer in half. “Talk about the way suckiness of timing.”
“I’ll be nice to Sky,” Cat said, and then she mentally kicked herself. Why make a promise she didn’t want to keep?
CHAPTER FIVE
THE BRONX
At last the CSUs left the crime scene at the Patel apartment. Yards of yellow caution tape choked the perimeters of both their building and the abandoned warehouse across the alley. Inside the apartment building, more tape ran down the length of the common hall on their floor and looped a stairwell that glowed bright green with bloodstains beneath a black light after the Luminol had been applied. Vincent had eavesdropped on the evidence techs, who kept telling each other over and over that they’d never seen anything like this in their entire careers and hoped never to again.
It was seven-thirty in the evening. The sun had set, and the moon was a thin slice of bone. Large drifts on the ground would reveal his trespassing unless it snowed tonight or tomorrow’s temperatures rose high enough to melt away the evidence. The surest solution would be to take the time to cover his tracks. Meantime, he would do his best not to leave trace evidence of his own, if indeed someone was looking for a beast that had escaped Muirfield’s extermination plan. For that reason, he wore shoe covers over his boots.
He went into the warehouse first. The CSUs had stated their opinions that the perp had loitered there for some time, evidenced by a large quantity of fresh shoe prints—men’s size eight. A bit on the small side, which indicated that the owner of the shoes would probably be on the shorter side—five-eight, perhaps. Each time he acquired a new piece of data, Vincent focused and tried to move into tracking mode. So far, he was drawing a blank.
A side door hung cockeyed like a drunk drooping from a lamppost. Since he could see in the dark, he had no need of a flashlight, and he slipped in with the studied silence of a Special Forces operative. He had been a good solider, strong and relentless, and now his body responded to his military bearing with seasoned reflexes. It felt easy and right, like stepping into a favorite old pair of shoes, or coming back home after a long time away.
Rats were blobs of red thermal flare in his enhanced vision. He smelled dead animals and, sadly, evidence that human beings had lived there since the warehouse closure. Homeless people, seeking shelter from the elements, though none recently, thank goodness.
He made his way toward the back of the warehouse, where the footprints had been individually flagged for photographs. Impressions had been taken, ostensibly of the best prints. He studied them and drew in deep breaths. An image clicked into sharp focus: shorter man, mid-forties, light brown hair with a military buzz cut. Steely gray eyes in a rectangular face. Wearing army fatigues and lace-up boots with soles that matched the impressions on the floor. A smoker who preferred cigars. He had been carrying an Uzi—an Israeli-style submachine gun.
The man smelled like gun oil, diesel fuel, Kevlar, fiberglass, styrene, and rubber, and Vincent got the distinct impression that he’d been on a covert mission.
This guy is still military, Vincent realized. If this is Private X, he stayed in. And he’s sure as hell not a private. Was he here with the beast creature? Deploying it against a female civilian?
He heard his thoughts switching to military-speak. He hadn’t even been in that long, but his indoctrination had been deep and thorough. One could even argue that the army was in his DNA.
After a minute or so with no additional input, he moved toward the stove-in back wall, where the docking bay was located. Ducking beneath a banner of caution tape, he proceeded onto the concrete apron of the dock. He saw the destroyed window in the building across the alley, a huge, ragged blast hole. Was it possible that the soldier had fired a rocket launcher at it? Surely that would have been apparent to Tess and her CSU team. She hadn’t mentioned anything like that, however.
He took a few steps forward. And then a terror so intense, so all-encompassing hit him, and he gasped and contracted as if he’d been gut-punched. He was bolted to the concrete, shaking from head to toe. Hyperventilating. His mind beginning to shut down into catatonia, as Aliyah’s had. His rational mind retreating, leaving his reptilian brain to deal with the crisis.
Correction: leaving his beast brain to deal with it.
“No,” he whispered. This was bad, really bad. He had to get out of there. Now. Fast.
Too late. The change was coming. A tsunami of hormones flooded his nervous system, his blood, his muscles, every cell of his body. The world shimmered and shifted. Danger, everywhere. Sight, sound, touch, taste, smell: imminent peril. Life-threatening.
Must kill.
Must destroy.
A tiny part of him fought back: I am Vincent Keller. Reflexes and instincts braided together, tugging at him to attack the danger. What was the war zone mantra? Kill anything that moves.
But nothing was moving on the loading deck.
The search field must be expanded then. Fan out.
That was not his beast brain, but the programming he had undergone; first as a recruit, and later, as Agent Reynolds’ private assassin. Soldier and monster were united; that was what the supersoldier program had been designed to create. Not mindless killing machines, but thinking men housed inside enhanced warrior bodies.
But he could not fan out. He was paralyzed. Then an ice-cold certainty yanked a roar from his throat.
Enemy approaching.
The interior of his brain was a blaring siren; it was exploding bombs; it was the imperative to kill kill kill.
But beast-Vincent still could not move. Something wafted around him, something in the air, which rendered him inert. The messages that were screaming in his brain to act were simply not being received.
Kill kill kill
No part of him acknowledged the order even though the threat was advancing. Blurring toward him. Almost on him.
Digging deep, fighting for survival, beast-Vincent’s primal instincts sizzled and snapped, arcing in an effort to make connections, to get his body moving. To save his life.
Kill kill kill
His heart was rocketing toward a heart attack. Sweat washed down his face. He was shaking so hard he was beginning to seize.
The enemy was here.
Kill kill kill
But beast-Vincent did not kill.
Like Aliyah Patel in interview room A, he collapsed, limp and helpless, to the floor.
* * *
“Walker?”
Bleary eyed from sleep and wrapped in a sheet from her bed, Heather peered into the hall. She’d figured maybe Walker was taking a shower, but she didn’t hear the water. She shuffled into the living room, taking pains to be modest because Vincent might be there. She was glad Cat had a sweetie and all, but it certainly did make life more… complicated.
Wow, had they left a mess. She grimaced and checked the digital clock on the microwave. It was past eight. No wonder she was starving. And where was Cat?
More to the point, where was Walker? Had he at least left her a note?
“Hey?”
Nothing.
She shuffled back into her room and put on an oversized T-shirt and a pair of flannel pajama bottoms. It was chilly in the apartment so she added socks and her bathrobe. A quick search of the rumpled bedclothes revealed no note. She did find one of Walker’s business cards on the floor, though—WALKER CHASTAIN, VISUAL ARTS AND PHOTOGRAPHY—with the letter L written in ink on the back, and then a local phone number. Who was L? She felt a pang of jealousy as she set it on her dresser. She checked her phone for a message. Nothing.
She started to call him, decided that could b
ecome just too embarrassing, and concentrated on cleaning up the living room before Cat got home. Heather knew that Cat was keeping track of the messes and resenting them, which wasn’t fair. Cat knew full well that surrounding yourself with the stuff you needed was part of the creative process. Look at how she had set up Mom’s murder board and gotten out all those clippings when Vincent had appeared in her life.
Yeah, and it was enough to make me move out, Heather thought. All I’ve got is fabric. And wine bottles. And a few cracker crumbs. And some cheese under the couch.
She was finished cleaning at a little before nine, and her sister still hadn’t returned home. She was just about to call her when her own phone rang. For a second she couldn’t locate it, but then she realized it was on the nightstand under her dress and corset. As she moved them, something registered about the garments—that something about them was different than when she’d set them down—but she didn’t know what it was. Probably her imagination, and anyway, she’d just been, um, very active on her bed and of course they’d been a little disheveled.
“Hel—”
“Is Vincent there?” Cat whispered on the other end of the line.
“No.” Massively disappointed that it wasn’t Walker, Heather carried the phone as she scooted down the hall in her socks and opened Cat’s bedroom door. “No,” she repeated, more firmly. “Why are you whispering?”
“Has he called you?” Cat kept whispering.
Why would he call me? Heather thought, but Cat was freaking out so she said, “No. Is everything okay?”
“No,” Cat said. “I mean, I’m fine, Heather. I just don’t know where he is. He went to investigate a crime scene two hours ago and we haven’t heard from him. I’m there now and I…” Her voice trailed off. “I just found his phone.”
Heather swallowed. This was not good. “What can I do?”
Then she heard a man’s voice on Cat’s end saying, “The vibrations here are off the charts. This was an abnormal homicide.”