Crash Morph: Gate Shifter Book Two

by JC Andrijeski

  “She’s pretty hot,” I said, unable to help myself.

  Ravi burst out in a laugh.

  Receiving another death glare from Jo, he shut up pretty quick, covering his smile with a hand, but he grinned at me when Jo wasn’t looking, taking a sip of his mocha.

  “You’re fucking hilarious today, Reyes,” Jo said, turning her glare on me. “Are you seriously going to tell me that’s not you?”

  I sighed, sliding down into the chair and holding the armrests in both hands. “I saw it on t.v. already. Of course I noticed it looked like me. But are you seriously asking me if I bombed the Yesler Building?” I said.

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did someone say you did?”

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s your evidence? Some jerk-off accuses me of terrorism, so automatically that makes it true?”

  “Why would he lie?” she returned angrily.

  I let out a real laugh that time. “Pick a reason. How do you know he’s not an ex-client?”

  “Was he?” she said.

  Realizing they might have a way to check that, too, I shrugged, noncommittal.

  “Do you know him?” Jo pressed, still watching me like a hawk.

  “The hot politician guy who was on t.v.?” I said. “Is that who gave you the specs for this lame sketch?”

  “Of course he is,” Jo snapped. “Why? Is there someone else accusing you of being a terrorist, Reyes? Someone I don’t know about?”

  “He might have looked familiar,” I said, still noncommittal.

  “Familiar,” Jo grunted. “Where were you last night, Reyes?”

  “With Gantry,” I said promptly. “Hey. Do I need a lawyer here?”

  She ignored my question. “Where were you?”

  “At Irene’s.”

  Jo frowned, glancing first at P.J., then at Ravi. P.J. frowned at her a little, but when he glanced at me, I saw sympathy in his eyes. Ravi was watching me, too, but I could already tell from their expressions that they didn’t really think I’d blown up the Yesler Building.

  Which was a relief, I guess. Sort of.

  I knew Jo would check on my story, because she was a good cop, but I also could tell from her expression that she believed me, too. And that it pissed her off.

  “And earlier that day?” she said, looking back at me.

  I sighed, folding my fingers across my solar plexus. “At Madam Culare’s,” I said. “Working the missing girls job.”

  “Can someone there corroborate that?”

  I shook my head, but not in a no. Smiling a little in spite of myself, I nodded. “Yeah,” I said, remembering how many people could do just that. The modeling school was like Grand Central Station, so a lot of people had seen me and Jake there. “They can.”

  “You want to give me the names?” Jo said.

  I shrugged, rearranging my back in the uncomfortable chair.

  “Sure,” I said. “But why not just call up and ask them? Culare’s assistant is named Clarice. She can give you a longer list of names than me, and probably spell them right, too.” I paused, then said it anyway. “Also, Michael Evers saw me there.”

  P.J. and Ravi both stiffened.

  Jo looked up at my words, too, sharply enough that I knew she remembered the name.

  “At the modeling school?” she said, her tone betraying her interest.

  I nodded again, unfolding my hands. “Well. Downstairs. In the lobby. I saw him walking in, then he was waiting for me outside when I left. Or I think he was waiting for me,” I amended, drumming my fingers on the padded armrest. “...One of my friends got into it with him.”

  “Which friend would that be?”

  I shrugged again. “A new one. You don’t know him.”

  “Name?”

  “Nihkil Jamri...Nik,” I added.

  Gantry was supposed to be building an ID for Nik around that name; I only hoped he had something in the system already. In the end, we’d decided to go with Nik’s real name, although Gantry had been on the fence about that for awhile.

  He’d initially proposed giving Nik a dead guy’s name, preferably one as unmemorable as possible. After additional thought, we all decided it probably wouldn’t matter...using his real name, that is...given that the only real danger Nik faced was that someone might discover he wasn’t human. Having an illegal name was pretty trivial, next to that.

  Gantry just had to re-adjust his assumptions a bit to get all the way there. After all, normally when he created a new identity for someone, it was to hide that person from their past, not to disguise their actual species.

  Or the fact that they hadn’t actually been born on Earth.

  Jo gave me a harder stare.

  Still, I could see her thinking, too.

  She knew I wasn’t telling her something, because, like I said, Jo’s a good cop. She had absolutely no idea what I wasn’t telling her, though, which was likely the real reason she was so pissed off at me.

  I only told her about Nik and Evers so she would hear it from me first.

  I knew a good chance existed that they’d find out about that, sooner or later, if they went poking around at Culare’s and the Grim Reaper building. Especially if they started showing people pictures of me and Jake and asking if they’d seen either of us around the building that day. Remembering the old man who’d threatened to call 911, I fidgeted a bit in the chair, but didn’t drop my gaze from Jo’s.

  “Where were you, Reyes?” she said. “Really?”

  “You mean yesterday? I just told you.”

  “No, I don’t mean yesterday,” she snapped, angry for real that time. “I mean for the last nine months or whatever the fuck it was. Where were you?”

  I sighed, but it was more of a real sigh that time. “I can’t tell you, Jo...I really can’t. It’s personal stuff. I’m really sorry you guys got caught up in it. More than I can say, really...and more than I can make up for with any amount of coffee, I know. I just wish Gantry hadn’t overreacted like he did...not that I’m blaming him or anything.”

  “Overreacted.” Again with the death stare.

  I only shrugged, keeping my own expression neutral.

  Before Jo could snap at me again, Ravi spoke up, standing a little behind Jo’s chair.

  “Weren’t there any phones where you were?” he said.

  Stalling a little, and maybe avoiding the hurt I could hear in Ravi’s voice, I glanced around at the bustle of the police station, then back at Ravi himself. Seeing that hurt reflected in his dark eyes, I winced. I didn’t answer him really, though.

  I just shrugged.

  That time, when I glanced at Jo, her dark eyes looked murderous.

  “I should haul you in,” she said, her voice a hiss.

  I let out a surprised laugh, propping my boot on the desk again. She shoved it off angrily a second time, and I ignored her, planting my foot firmly back on the stained linoleum.

  “I came in willingly,” I said, still laughing. “...I brought mochas.”

  “You resemble a terrorist suspect,” she said, pointing at my face. “If we had that surveillance footage, and the person on it looked even half as much as you, I’d have to...”

  I paused on that, but only just.

  “You know that’s b.s.,” I said then, fighting real anger that time. “Are you really going to make me call a lawyer over this, Jo? This is my first real job in since I left. I’m cleaned out as it is...I can’t afford a damned lawyer.”

  “You mean your uncle?” P.J. spoke up from behind Jo’s chair.

  When I glanced up at him, he smiled, and the smile had real humor in it that time.

  The smile faded quickly when Jo glared at him, too. It would have been funny under different circumstances, the hang-dog look of the giant, ex-marine under the withering stare of the wiry, dark-haired, female detective. PJ weighed possibly two, if not three, of Jo, in terms of her physical body. Jo was built more like me, if a bit taller.

  “Yeah
,” I said, trying to lighten things again. “So maybe Uncle Kai doesn’t charge me, per se...but he still makes me take him out to dinner. And he’ll only eat at Sharkey’s, so not only will I be out a meal, I’ll have the runs for a week...”

  Ravi smiled at that, but Jo remained wholly unamused.

  “You’re really not going to tell us shit, are you?” Jo said, gritting her teeth again.

  Looking at her, I felt a flicker of real surprise.

  I’d expected anger from her, sure. I’d expected the grilling, too. I’d even been half-prepared that they might make me stand in a line-up of some kind. But I hadn’t expected the depth of emotion I could see in her dark eyes.

  Still studying her face, it hit me suddenly.

  Jo had thought I was dead. For real.

  “Hey,” I said. Sitting up in the ripped chair, I leaned towards her desk, losing my flippant tone for real that time. “Hey, Jo...I’m sorry. I really am.”

  Her expression closed as I said it.

  She shook her head a few seconds later. When she met my gaze next, the death stare had grown significantly colder than before.

  “Get the fuck out of here, Reyes,” she said, pointing at the door. “Don’t come back unless you’re going to tell me something real.”

  “But those girls––”

  “Are a police matter,” she snapped, leaning on an arm to glare at me from a nearer distance. “We’ve got someone on it.”

  “Who?” I countered.

  “Cops,” she said, her voice even more lethal. “Real-live cops, Reyes. So if you want to play in our kiddie pool, you’re just going to have to pony up and get your own shiny badge. Until then, get out of my fucking face. I mean it.”

  I stared at her, my jaw hanging a little. “Seriously?” I said.

  She leveled that death stare at me yet again. “Don’t leave town.”

  Still staring at her incredulously, I threw up my hands. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’m going to have to haul you in for a line-up on the Yesler thing, and you know it,” she hissed. “If I have to leave city limits to do it, Reyes, I’ll make sure you do time. Real time. Not in our holding cell here...but in a real, live lockup.”

  Looking at her expression, I realized she was serious. Deadly.

  “Now get the fuck out of here,” she said. “I mean it.”

  Muttering under my own breath that time, probably something about mochas and hypersensitive cops with no sense of personal boundaries, I yanked myself up off that chair and headed for the other side of the counter.

  As I left, however, Jo must have had a change of heart.

  Well. Sort of.

  At least in terms of the missing girls, if not in relation to me.

  “Misty’s,” she said, raising her voice above the sound of the station.

  Her voice was blunt, stripped of emotion.

  I turned. “What?”

  “Misty’s,” Jo repeated. Her dark eyes remained as cold as wet stones, but I could see something in them that time, what may have even been a twinge of conflict. “You know the place. You really want to find your missing girls? Take a field trip there. But you didn’t hear it from me. Got it?”

  I frowned, turning over her words, trying to decide why the name sounded so familiar.

  When Jo’s stare grew angrier again, I just nodded, deciding I’d be better off finding out more on my own. For now, anyway.

  “Got it,” I said, nodding in their direction. “...And thanks.”

  When I glanced at P.J., his blue eyes held an apologetic look once more, even what might have been sadness as he leaned on the desk behind Jo’s, folding his thick arms. Ravi looked conflicted for real, maybe even confused, and also upset. Clearly, though, their loyalty to Jo outweighed any sympathy they might have had towards me.

  “Okay,” I said, into that awkward pause.

  I couldn’t say silence, because the station itself was as loud as it always was, with people talking, even shouting in other parts of the building, phones ringing, suspects arguing. Most of them weren’t even watching us anymore.

  Most of them weren’t even watching us while pretending not to.

  “Okay,” I repeated. “...See ya.”

  Ravi raised his hand in a wave goodbye, but when Jo glared at him, he lowered it guiltily.

  None of them said anything more as I left.

  10

  Lock Mate...and Irene’s Bad Timing

  I woke up that night to hands on me.

  Nik hadn’t yet come back when I finally laid down to go to bed.

  I spent most of the rest of that night going through employee files for Madame Culare’s again, looking for connections with the mall and those girls, along with the other information Jake and I grabbed from the modeling agency that first day. I also went over Irene’s progress on checking on the background of the agency’s employees and her search for the guy in the photo I got from Laurie Devereaux’s phone.

  I had Irene looking into Jo’s cryptic last words to me at the police station, too.

  I also asked her if she knew anything about the surveillance footage from the Yesler Building mysteriously disappearing in the wake of the bombing.

  She didn’t.

  Well, other than the fact that they’d mentioned the same thing on the news.

  I sat in front of the television for most of that, a borrowed laptop and assorted files on my lap, the news on in the background. In the quieter areas of my mind, I listened to the various reporters give their near-constant updates of the bombing without really telling us much at all. They mentioned the surveillance on one of those reports, as well, but had nothing but pure speculation in terms of what might have happened to it.

  The bombing itself was still the headline news, twenty-four hours after the fact.

  Which wasn’t all that surprising, really, given that Seattle wasn’t normally a hotbed of international terrorism. The bombing had a lot of people scared, and fearful as to the possible motives and bad guys.

  That sketch that Razmun provided was up on the television that night, too.

  It looked just enough like me to be totally unnerving.

  Even so, I knew if Jo really thought I’d done it, I would have never left that station. Irene assured me it wasn’t enough for any kind of arrest, it was more to give people some reassurance that the perpetrator was in law enforcement’s sights. I knew she was probably right; I mean, her words made sense. Still, I found myself remembering my trip to the police station that day with some trepidation, anyway.

  I knew Jo would pull me in for a line-up...probably as soon as she could schedule it.

  I also know that if she got enough pings in my direction, she’d pick me up, whether she believed me that I was innocent or not. I knew she’d already have Ravi and P.J. looking into my alibi at Madam Culare’s, making sure I was where I said I was. I also knew she wouldn’t believe any alibi provided by Gantry alone, so she might pick up Irene and question her, too.

  She’d look for more surveillance footage, maybe from street cameras.

  Irene waved off my concerns and made me tea.

  Still, she hadn’t been in the station that day, or on the receiving end of Jo’s death stares.

  Irene sat next to me most of the night, her own laptop balanced on an embroidered pillow in her lap. I would hand names off to her when I finished with them, knowing she could find out more with her people-search magic than I could.

  As for me, I was pretty sure I would go back to that agency the next day.

  I’d found a few things I wanted to ask Ms. Constance Culare about in person.

  Given the particular hornet’s nest she had me poking my finger into, I didn’t even want to talk to her on the phone, not with some of this stuff. If these jokers caught on that she’d hired someone, or even that she suspected what had been done in her agency’s name, they might have a tap on her already. I hadn’t been lying to her about the danger...or even trying to freak
her out to test her resolve. Most of the sex-trafficking I’d ever encountered in the field or heard about from Gantry came out of the mob.

  A lot of it was Eastern European mob.

  I didn’t want to mess with those guys, at all...my promises to Mr. Jiāng notwithstanding. Not unless I had a heck of a lot more firepower behind me.

  Even Gantry’s guys wouldn’t want to get involved with that group, not in a head-on conflict. From what Gantry told me, his people had a kind of cold war going on against factions in that part of the world already. Gantry still took a lot of government contracts, I knew, so that probably meant CIA and Homeland Sec were active there, too.

  A lot of the organized crime operating out of there were still ex-KGB.

  Gantry made it sound like they were pretty hardcore. He told me the big groups had ties all over Asia, especially China, which had its own hard-core groups, of course. The Chinese-based mafia also dealt in their own, increasingly large trade in human trafficking.

  Either way, these weren’t the kinds of guys a small-time PI from Seattle wanted to screw with. These were the kind of guys who blowtorched toes for fun on the weekends, when they didn’t have anyone to torture for an actual reason.

  Irene had already gone to bed by the time I gave it up for the night.

  Gantry, for reasons unknown, never showed up. Neither did Nik, even though Gantry said they’d both be back at Irene’s before I returned from the police station.

  I had to assume something came up.

  Even so, that’s the main reason I stayed up so late, I know.

  I think I finally got ready to close my eyes around one a.m. By then, I was practically hallucinating. I fell asleep the instant my head hit the pillow.

  Even so, those hands woke me right up.

  I woke up more when his mouth fell to mine.

  Heat shot into my chest, a sharp enough jolt to shock me a little, and to flip my eyes wide open. When they did, I saw Nik hanging over me in the dim light, illuminated faintly by the fish tanks that glowed from one side of Irene’s living room.