“Investigating. How mysterious.”
My hand found its way to my glass, which found its way to my lips for another sip. “I do like to keep a certain mystique about me.” This time it didn’t taste too bad. In fact, it was almost good. “Do you live around here, James?”
“No.” I watched the sweat drip from his glass, leaving little blotches, like inkblots on the napkin as the dark wood of the bar bled through. His hand swirled his glass, slow. “I live in Minneapolis. I’m here for work.”
“I see. What do you do for work?”
He smiled. “Recruiting.”
I laughed, light, and I had no idea why. “That was vague.”
There was a glimmer in his eyes. “I have a mystique to keep up, too, you know.”
“Fair enough.” I put my empty whiskey down and watched as the bartender slid by and snaked it, replacing it with another. I started to protest but he had a wide grin on his fat face and nodded at James as he headed back to the other end of the bar where someone waited with a hand raised in the air. I looked at the new drink and felt a certain pressure in my chest at the realization that this could not end well. “I can’t drink this,” I said to James and watched him half-smile.
“Why not?”
“I’m a lightweight.” I said it with the air of someone making a confession. “And I have to work tomorrow morning, which means I kind of need to call it quits for tonight if I’m going to be at all able to think or drive tomorrow.”
“Acetaminophen and ibuprofen are your friends,” he said. “And lots of water.”
“I think moderation might also be a swell idea.”
“Much less fun.” His hand moved, very casually, across the bar and came to rest on my own. I could feel the gentle weight of it through the glove, the very slight warmth, and it caused me to redden, a heat rising in my cheeks that might not have been noticeable had I not been drinking. He watched my reaction. “Is that too much, too fast?”
“What?” I had been in a little bit of a daze, staring at his hand on mine. “No. Not really.”
“No?” He picked up my hand and cradled it in his, rubbing it. “Not this either?”
It felt strangely good, even through the glove. “No. That’s fine.” His eyes were on mine, staring, with a warmth that I found compelling, drawn to, and I couldn’t quite explain it. I found myself leaning closer to him.
He leaned in and kissed me. It was sudden, and caught me by surprise. My eyes widened when he did it, but it felt so good, the pressure, the warmth of his hand as it touched my cheek, and rested there, his lips on mine. I kissed him back, the haze in my mind so agreeable, and I felt his tongue part my lips and swirl. I let him hold my face in his hands and he kept them there, pressing his lips on mine so firmly—
I opened my eyes in shock and with the realization that I couldn’t, wasn’t able to—
I pulled away, broke from him with sudden violence, standing so abruptly I knocked over both my stool and my drink, trying to get backward, away from him, him who didn’t know what I was—
He looked at me with vague amusement. “So that was the line, huh?”
“What?” I looked around to see everyone in the bar staring at me, and turned back to him, still sitting on his stool, the same little smile crooking his lips. “No, it’s fine, I just...can’t...” I let out a breath in frustration. “Are you okay?”
His eyebrows arched upward. “I’m fine. Are you?”
“Yes. I’m fine. I’m sorry.” I cocked my head and tried to give him my most regretful expression. “Thank you for the drinks, James. You’re a really nice guy – and a fantastic kisser, by the way – but I have to go.”
He stood and tossed some bills on the bar. “Why don’t I walk you out?”
He took a step toward me but I held a gloved hand out and rested it on his chest. I let it linger there; damn, it was firm. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, for a lot of reasons.”
He seemed to be suppressing his grin, but nodded. “Fair enough.” He reached into the pocket of his pants and came back with a business card. “If you’re ever in Minneapolis, give me a call.”
I straightened my blazer and nodded, feeling the holster against my ribs. “I’ll keep that in mind.” I nodded toward his stool. “You might want to sit down for a few minutes.” He gave me a quizzical look. “Just a suggestion. Nice to meet you, James.”
I walked from the bar and tried really, really hard not to look at him as I pushed my way out the door. It didn’t work, and he gave me a sizzling smile that made me want to go back to him, and kiss him until his eyes rolled back in his head and his face melted off. I shook my head in disgust at that thought and walked out into the parking lot. It felt like I was being weak when I thought it, weak and casual and flippant, endangering James’s life so I could feel...something. I was lucky that the eternity that it felt like he kissed me was less than I thought it was, or he would have made a hell of a scene pitching over in the bar.
The parking lot lurched as I was about halfway across it. I stopped, regained my balance, and kept going. Once I reached the elevator after passing through the hotel lobby, I leaned against the wall and felt my head spin. Those Whiskey Sours weren’t so bad.
When the elevator door dinged I opened my eyes to find the doors still closed. I heard another ding and stared, waiting for them to open. On the third ring I realized it wasn’t the elevator: it was my phone, and I scrambled to grab it out of my pocket. I thrust it up to my ear after hitting the talk button, not even looking at the caller ID. “Hello?”
The elevator dinged, the door opened, and I heard Kat’s voice on the other end of the line as well as in person. She stood in the hall and turned her head in surprise when she saw me stagger out of the elevator. “Get packed.” She pulled her phone away from her ear and I got a good look at her face, which was still drawn, but now more serious, her blond locks twisted and mussed around her. “Ariadne called. There was another robbery.”
I dropped the cell phone back in my pocket and my hand went out to the wall automatically to support me. “Where?”
“Red Wing, Minnesota.” She started to hold out a hand to help me but I waved her off. “It’s north of here, a little over an hour, on the Wisconsin state line. We need to move now.” A little hint of a smile peeked at me, understated, on her tanned and pretty face. “If we hurry, we might be able to catch up with them.”
Chapter 8
A few minutes later our SUV was back on the highway, doing about a hundred miles an hour, barreling north on the interstate with the siren blazing. Kat was at the wheel and I was in the passenger seat. Scott was passed out in the back seat, his head against the window. We hit a bump and he didn’t stir. I rolled my window down and let the warm night air blow in my face.
“How are you holding up?” Kat didn’t take her eyes off the road. I could tell she was tense, white-knuckling the wheel. I would have been too. Scott had learned to drive years ago. Kat and I had learned in the last six months, with Parks as our instructor, in an intensive driving course that the Directorate gave us to teach us how to drive both offensively and defensively. Now I could run a car off the road at eighty miles an hour easier than I could parallel park.
“My world is in motion,” I said, as I swallowed heavily. I didn’t quite feel sick, but I certainly felt the first strains of it. “I could do with a little less of that.”
A tight smile made its way onto her face and a few of her teeth peeked out from between her lips. “At least I didn’t take the back roads route the GPS suggested. All those twists and turns...”
“Bleh.” I shook my head. “Drinking is bad for you. Also, I think I came close to kissing a guy to death in the bar.”
“What?” Her head snapped over to look at me.
“He’s fine.” My eyes pointed straight ahead, and I was trying to watch the road in order to avoid getting motion sickness. “I mean, he seemed fine, so we must not have kissed for very long.”
“Um
, wow.” Her eyes were not on the road, which became obvious a moment later when she had to swerve after the tires started bumping on the strips at the edge of the highway. “Sorry. Wait, so what happened? I mean, aren’t you and Zack...”
“I don’t know.” I pulled out my phone and pushed the button again. The screen flared to life, giving me a perfect view of the background, but there were no missed calls or waiting text messages. “We kind of had a fight.”
“Oh.” She turned to look at me, then swiveled her gaze back to the road. “What about?”
“Pretty much about what you and Scott were doing just before we left.”
“Sleeping?” She turned to me and then reddened. “Oh. Before that.”
“Yeah.”
She let the silence hang for a minute. “Because you guys can’t...?”
“Yeah.”
I think the edge in my response put her off, because she got quiet before she spoke again. “Not even a little? Like maybe being really careful, with some clothes on, and—”
“No.” I tried to end her inquiries, but I felt my frustration bleed over. “I don’t have much margin for error, Kat. A little unnoticed skin contact in the throes of passion and a few seconds later he’s dead.” I felt the breeze run through my hair. “That’s not really how I would want it to go. It’s not a turn-on, having impending death hanging over you during sex. Especially...” I swallowed heavily again, this time unrelated to that slightly sick feeling that was growing in me. “...you know. The first time. Or hell, any time.”
“I guess it sort of kills the romance, huh?” She looked at me again, and her face turned sympathetic, her eyebrows arched in concern. I found it annoying, especially since I knew she and Scott were having plenty of sex; scads of it, loads of it, probably every single night of the week, and I couldn’t even get a kiss in without worrying about hurting someone. “So, did you and Zack break up?”
“I don’t know.” I frowned. “We didn’t really resolve anything, and he hasn’t tried to talk to me since we fought, so maybe.” I looked over at her. “Why?”
She didn’t look at me, just shook her head, and when she answered, her tone was completely casual. “No reason. Just wondering.” She chanced a glance at me, then half-shrugged. “Well...you were kissing some other guy in a bar...”
“Oh.” I felt a dull pain in my head, and then I slapped myself right on the forehead. “Oh, damn.” How could I have been so stupid? “I didn’t even...it didn’t even occur to me about Zack. Damn, I have a boyfriend. Damn damn damn.”
“Well, maybe.” Kat wasn’t exactly reassuring, even though I knew she meant well, so I spared her the glare.
The trip passed uneventfully, though by the time we reached the sign indicating Red Wing’s city limits, I was feeling a little more ill and had the beginnings of a headache. We pulled up in front of a gas station that had a police car parked outside, lights still flaring. My feet hit the pavement and I steadied myself, my FBI ID already in my hand as I crossed the pavement to talk to the two cops that were standing behind the yellow tape that cordoned off the door.
“I’m Agent Clark and this is Agent Ahern,” I said, my ID wallet unfolded as I ducked under the tape and joined the officers behind the line. “What can you tell us about what happened here, Officer...” I let my eyes find the silver nameplate of one of them. “...Olmstead?”
The one I had spoken to was a bald guy, dark skinned. “We responded to a 911 call a couple hours ago from a customer that came into the station and found the clerk unconscious behind the counter. The guy had been smacked around pretty hard. We sent him to the hospital and started looking over the scene, but we didn’t find much of anything.”
“No forensics?” Kat chimed in, catching the attention of both officers, drawing it away from me. I hated how she could do that, but it was the least of my problems now.
“Nah,” Olmstead answered. “The store serves a couple thousand people a day during the summer, more on a weekend like this. There’s enough hair and fingerprints in this place to start a new civilization in a petri dish, but nothing we can tie to anybody.”
I looked over his shoulder and saw a camera hanging from the awning above the gas pumps. I pointed at it. “What about that?”
“Nothing,” he said with a shake of his head. “Perp took the recording and smashed the system. Most of these smaller stations don’t bother with off-site data backup because they use the cameras more for people who drive off without paying for their gas.”
“Thanks for your help, Officer Olmstead.” I smiled at him and he nodded back, slightly tense from what I presumed was being questioned by the FBI. “We’ll need the name of the victim and which hospital you sent him to.”
“Sure.” He pointed to the road we had just been on. “Hospital is that way. We only have one. Follow the signs and you can’t miss it. Victim’s name is Roger Julian. He was pretty messed up when they carted him away. Couldn’t remember a damned thing.”
I exchanged a look with Kat. “Nothing?” When I turned back to the officer, he shook his head. “How bad was he hurt?”
“Not bad,” Olmstead said. “Scrapes and bruises, lost consciousness for a while. Paramedics said he looked like he’d be just fine, but they wanted to get him an MRI because of the disorientation, the loss of consciousness and the head wound. Thought he might be concussed.”
“Uh huh. Thanks for your help, Officer.” I nodded at him, and Kat and I walked back to the car. I heard him say something under his breath to the cop that was with him about the FBI recruiting toddlers, but I pretended not to hear it. Once we were in the car, I turned to Kat. “Sounds like this one might have the same issue.”
“Yeah.” Kat started the car and put it in gear. “I’m not healing this guy unless he’s got major problems, but I’ll take a look and see how hurt he is. I’m guessing if he can’t remember anything about the attack, he’s suffering from the same kind of memory loss as the last guy.”
“You sure you can’t heal him, just to be safe?”
She let out a slow breath. “I don’t think so. I don’t want to push it. After we get to the hospital, we seriously need to find a place to crash for the night or else you need to take over driving.”
I did a little head shake of my own. I couldn’t tell if I was sober yet, but I doubted it. “We should just find a hotel. I’m not in any condition to drive yet.”
We went a little further down the road, turning when we saw a blue sign with a white H on it. After another mile, the hospital came into view and we parked. It was a predominantly brick building with white trim and an enormous, multi-story octagonal entry. I felt the warmth of the air as I stepped out onto the pavement. I looked into the car before I closed the door; Scott was still passed out in the back, snoring.
I shook my head to clear the cobwebs as I followed Kat across the parking lot and through the sliding doors. The hiss they made as they moved, coupled with the cool air conditioning hitting me in the face, gave me a half-second of disorientation. I’d started sweating, just a little, on the walk from the car. I wished this damned state would come to some sort of happy equilibrium in regards to the weather; but no, she bitterly clung to her extremes.
After inquiring at the check-in desk we were routed up a couple stories to the critical care unit. The tile floor clicked under Kat’s heels and I heard the squeak from the soles of my flats as we walked along. She had slowed her pace so that I would trail behind her. The air bore the familiar smell of disinfectants and I heard raised voices ahead of us. We came around a corner and found a nurse’s station with three security guards surrounding someone.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to—” One of the security guards stepped forward, blocking my view of the person that the three of them had surrounded. A couple nurses were behind the desk in the station, backing away.
“I don’t think you realize the depth of your mistake here.” The voice was familiar, but I still couldn’t see the speaker.
&
nbsp; “Sir, we’re going to have to call the police.” The lead guard’s hand rested on his holster, and I could see that he was tensing on the grip.
“That’s a shame.” Cold, bitterly ironic, the speaker didn’t sound at all regretful. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew that voice and I adjusted my position, crossing in front of Kat. I caught a glimpse of him over the security guard’s shoulder.
He was in profile to me, looking at the guard closest to him, and didn’t see me. His hair was long, brown and hung almost to his shoulder blades. I saw that his face was red, though it was hard to tell through his swarthy skin. I knew his eyes were brown, though I couldn’t see them from this distance. I quickened my pace and drew my FBI ID.
“Gentlemen,” I said, holding it open. “Sienna Clarke, FBI. This is Agent Ahern.” I nodded to Kat. “What’s going on here?”
“Ma’am.” The lead security guard peered hard at my ID while the other two watched their subject with undistilled suspicion. “This man was trying to access patient rooms long past the end of visiting hours.”
I turned to the man they held captive. “Is this true?”
He folded his arms and stared at me with barely disguised disbelief. “I just came here to talk to the guy who got robbed.” He nodded at the lead guard. “This clown gave me the party line and I was about to give him the party platter.”
Kat squinted. “What...what that does even mean? Is that a threat?”
“Absolutely not,” he said. “A party platter filled with meats and cheeses is a generous gift, and he should be damned happy to get it.”
“Ma’am?” The head guard got my attention turned back to him. “What is the FBI doing here in the middle of the night, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“The same thing your troublemaker is doing,” I said. “We need to have a conversation with the patient. He’s a witness in a series of robberies that have crossed state lines.” I nodded to Kat. “If you could show Agent Ahern to his room while I deal with your interloper...” I gestured with my hand toward the man standing between them all and he rolled his eyes and nodded back, with the greatest reluctance. I locked eyes with Kat. “We’ll be outside when you’re done.”
The Girl in the Box 03 - Soulless Page 7