Got Thrills? A Boxed Set (A McCray Collection)

by Carolyn McCray

  Darc held up a hand and lifted the muzzle of his weapon up so that it pointed at the ceiling. “Stop. You are correct. I do not wish to have him killed.” He began to stoop over, moving the gun down.

  Midway through the motion, Darc repositioned the gun, pointing it at the nexus of the glowing lines. He fired twice in rapid succession, hitting the woman in the middle of the forehead both times.

  The reporter staggered back and crashed into one of the cameras, knocking it over as she fell atop it, dead. Her eyes stared up at the ceiling, blank and lifeless.

  “Dude! Nice shot,” Trey gushed. He moved up to Darc and clapped him on the shoulder. “Now please promise me you’ll never do that again.” His knees suddenly dropped out on him and he grabbed onto Darc’s jacket for support. “Okay. Medical attention might be a good idea.”

  Darc helped him back to standing and walked him out toward the rare Seattle sunset that was glowing on the other side of the studio door.

  EPILOGUE

  Trey’s head throbbed in time with his heartbeat. Thud, thud. Thud, thud. It was annoying, but at least it told him he was going to be okay. At least that’s what he thought it meant.

  “Hey, medic guy,” Trey called out to the paramedic who had bandaged his head wound. “You sure I’m gonna be all right?”

  “You’ll be fine. No concussion that we could find. It was more of a graze. Just a slight bruise—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Trey cut him off. No need to have that information get out there. Not with Captain Merle wandering around. Trey might be a wuss, but he had no desire to look like one.

  “I can get you some more pain meds if you’re hurting, Officer.” The paramedic rustled about in the ambulance for a moment, coming out with a promising-looking syringe.

  “That’s what I’m talking about. Gimme the drugs!”

  “Hm. That seems a tad inappropriate, coming from one of our finest in vice,” a voice rumbled behind Trey. Spinning around, Trey grabbed at his head, which had blossomed into a blaze of pain the moment he moved.

  “Ow.”

  Captain Merle, the owner of the rumbling voice, laughed. Trey wasn’t positive, but it seemed like that might be a first for the guy.

  “Take it easy, son. You’ve got quite the lump there.” He peered at the bandage wrapped around Trey’s head, then refocused on the vice cop’s eyes. “You did good today.”

  “Yeah… I dunno. Darc was the one who figured all the stuff out.” Trey was many things, but he was not someone that would take credit for another man’s collar.

  “Really?” The captain’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s not what he says.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that he credits you for figuring out the clue that led you to that reporter. Said something about the probability being less than one percent. Sometimes I have no idea what he’s talking about.”

  Trey grinned at him. “I know what you mean. I don’t understand half of what comes out of his mouth.”

  The captain chuckled, then sobered. “Seriously, Keane, he’s never said a positive word about any of his other partners.” He held up a finger to forestall Trey’s next statement. “Any of them. You want the spot, it’s yours.”

  “You’re giving me a choice?” Trey asked, his tone wry.

  “I don’t want to. But yeah, it’s your call. I want you on board because you want to be.”

  “I’m not so sure Darc feels the same way. I mean, he seemed totally willing to sacrifice me for the killer.”

  Captain Merle sighed. “That’s just Darc. Would’ve done the same thing if it’d been his mother.” He broke off for a moment, looking over at the bald detective, who was in a heated conversation with the medical examiner. “You need to know, he’ll never be like other partners. Ever.”

  “Yeah. I got that,” Trey replied. “Let me sleep on it?”

  “Sure thing. Just make sure and wake up,” the captain said, pointing at Trey’s head injury. He moved away, his gait heavy and slow.

  Trey watched him go until a body in front of him blocked his view.

  It was Darc.

  “Hey, dude.”

  Darc nodded at him.

  “So.” Trey had to know. “Seriously, no qualms about risking my life back there?”

  Darc stared at Trey’s left eyebrow. “I knew I wouldn’t miss.”

  “Yep. Sounds about right.” Trey groaned and lay back on the stretcher. Darc stayed motionless for a moment, then turned to go. Trey reached out a hand to stop him. “Hey, hold on a sec.”

  Darc turned back around, his face expressionless. Trey looked into that face, wondering if he’d ever get used to seeing so little emotion from the man that he’d be trusting with his life, day in and day out.

  “I made you something.” Trey held up a paper towel he’d begged off the paramedics. “I wrote down some stuff for you. Let’s call them Trey’s Rules. First one we’ve already gone over… pretend to be interested. But I wanted to read the second one to you, make sure you actually got it.”

  Darc folded his arms and held Trey’s gaze, his face impassive. Good enough for Trey. He cleared his throat and continued.

  “Okay, second rule: Never, ever, ever shoot a perp when he or she is holding a gun to your partner’s head.”

  At that, something crazy happened. Darc’s lips quirked upward. It wasn’t much more than a twitch, but Trey would have sworn on his life that he hadn’t imagined it.

  “Anyway, I wrote down twenty of them.” Darc took the scrap of paper from Trey’s hands, his face more thoughtful than Trey had ever seen it before. If he didn’t know better, he’d say Darc was experiencing some kind of emotion. “I don’t want you to think that’s the end of them. I have a feeling there will be more where those came from. Lots more.”

  Darc nodded, then turned on his heel to head back to the crime scene. Trey watched him go, studying the back of his head, the motion of his torso as his arms swung freely at his side.

  He was getting to know his new partner.

  Want more Trey and Darc? Check out 9th Circle and the sequel 7th Sin.

  THE RUSH – The prequel short story to MoonRush

  Chapter 1

  The silver Mercedes taxi came out of nowhere and almost ran Mia over, jolting her out of her thoughts. Literally. As she slammed a hand onto the offending car hood, her hand got zapped. The latest in hover car technology. They could now protect themselves from “abuse.” Right. Just a new way for taxis to be even more obnoxious. The driver just smiled as she shook out the sting. No use in getting upset. By the time she could think of a comeback, the driver was long gone, merging into the second tier of traffic, and even if he wasn’t, he was French. Very little chance he would take anything an American said seriously. Ah, Paris.

  Mia was crossing the Quai des Tuileries, coming from the river Seine on the Pont Royal, headed toward the Musée du Louvre—arguably the most famous museum in the world. Also one of the few that had not kicked Mia out and politely asked her never to return.

  She tossed a glance behind her, feeling as though eyes were on her back. It was a stupid instinct, of course. She was just a Ph.D. student, who the heck would be following her? Well, with what she had in her purse, fellow scientists might want to; however, most of them were more accustomed to white lab coats instead of trench coats. Even so, Mia hurried toward the Porte des Liones entrance situated along the far southwest corner of the museum.

  Clasping her jade scorpion necklace to keep it from bouncing, Mia crossed the remainder of the street with a bit more caution, dancing between mothers with strollers, clearly on a play date missions, and the subdermal tattooed beatsters. She hadn’t had a chance to really use her martial arts training given her hectic schedule, so Mia took time to enjoy the solo sport of crowd dodging. Funny to think she’d originally fought her parents tooth and nail on going to the dojo, but they’d insisted; if she wished to…gasp…live abroad, she needed to know how to protect herself. Now she couldn’t imagine life w
ithout what her sensei called “thoughtful strength.”

  At the entrance to the famed museum, Mia waved her pass across the holographic scanner and was dinged right in. She nodded at the virtual security guard—Selle, she thought his name was—as he looked down and frowned at her well-worn loafers. Even the holograms in France were pretentious. Shaking off his virtual disapproval, Mia walked up the steps to the first floor. From behind, a group of tourists shoved past her with little or no regard for her presence. They were like the Visigoths invading Rome, only without the manners.

  The Mona Lisa will still be there, Mia wanted to shout, but it was the Louvre, after all.

  She put her hand inside her purse to check that the device about to rock the world’s notion of art and man was still inside. The MedScan 4, supposedly a simple device to perform CAT scans out in the field had been modified to do so much more. The changes she had made to the program were working fantastically well. Too well. Like revolutionarily well. Through the grad student grapevine, Mia had heard stories of innovations of this magnitude being targeted by corporations and even hostile governments. It might be 2049, but greed was still alive and well.

  As she dug around inside her purse, a postcard worked its way to the surface. A postcard she had meant to send to her family last week. At this point, it would be easier just to hand it to them. She was going back to the States to visit for Chinese New Year in four days.

  Four days. 96 hours. 5,760 minutes. It was like an old-fashioned time bomb ticking down in her head. Now the tightness in her chest and feelings of absolute doom made sense. It wasn’t some nebulous international conspiracy to steal her scanner. It was plain ole family phobia.

  Now if she were married, pregnant, and could present her Ph.D. degree to her parents, kind of like her two sisters, then Mia would be in the clear. However, there was no gold ring on her finger, and last time she checked her belly was unoccupied, and well, her doctoral thesis had hit a sticky patch.

  “Excusez-moi, mademoiselle,” a kindly voice murmured as the woman tried to move past Mia.

  “Ce n’est pas un problème,” Mia replied, grateful for her undergraduate minor in French. She scooted to the side, the brief encounter bringing her back to her purpose here. Yes, her thesis had basically been blown out of the water, but that was before the modifications to the scanner. Now? She could smell the job offers once she published the results.

  Time to get some baseline scans. Mia felt the familiar rush of adrenaline as she pulled the device out of her purse and passed it across the head of a man trailing along at the back of the pack. She made the pass quickly, pulling the scanner down by her side as soon as she could.

  Mia peered down at the reading. Impatience. Irritation. Exhaustion. Probably dragged along to the museum by his wife. He certainly was no art lover. Mia scanned another, this one an older woman. Excitement. Anticipation. Exhaustion. Well, they certainly had one thing in common. Perhaps it was the tour guide. The buttoned-down young lady at the front of the group did seem to be…determined.

  As Mia studied her device, the group slowed and she almost bumped into her subjects. She stowed her scanner with some trepidation, glancing around to make sure no one had seen. She really didn’t want to get kicked out of the Louvre, too.

  She circumvented the group, giving the tour guide a surreptitious scan as she passed. Aggression. Wait. Could that be right? Mia checked the scanner again. Definitely aggression, with little or nothing else. Mia stared at the guide, taking her in more fully. Tallish, blonde hair that was almost platinum, ice blue eyes, and a lean profile. What an odd thing. But so far the scanner had been precise in not just picking up brain waves, but quantifying them. Giving Mia an insight into not exactly what people were thinking, but how they were feeling. Sometimes a much more valuable measure of a person.

  Leaving the group and its odd readings behind, Mia took the next set of stairs at a brisk pace. The morning would soon be over and she wanted to have at least a little bit of research to show for it.

  As she exited the stairwell, she barely missed running into a large man in an army green coat. So much for her martial art skills keeping her out of trouble. Mia really needed to pay better attention. She turned to apologize to the man, but found his jaw clenched and his fists balled. She took a step back, then as quickly as the fury had risen, it faded away, leaving a look of apparent bewilderment.

  “I to apologize, miss. I was not to know I standing in way.” The man’s heavy accent sounded French, with a hint of something else. Belgian, perhaps? His smile was strained, but at least he was trying to be polite. More evidence that he was Belgian.

  “It was completely my fault,” Mia said, inching away. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.” As soon as she passed the man, she swiped her scanner past his head, then kept moving.

  Not until Mia rounded a corner and headed down the long walkway, passing by the Spanish paintings, did she stop to read the scan. Anger. Worry. Determination. Each one of those results was completely contrary to his words. But she was so new at this. Maybe that’s just how one acted in polite society. You were pissed off on the inside but kind on the outside?

  Shrugging off the inconsistencies and deciding to scan only art patrons from now on—she did not want to explain these anomalous readings to her Ph.D. advisor—Mia continued down the long passageway filled with the Italian paintings, working her way from most recent to oldest. Rounding the next corner, Mia found herself in front of Véronèse’s The Wedding Feast at Cana. As luck would have it, there was a couple standing there holding hands, their backs to her.

  Perfect. These were her kind of subjects.

  Mia glanced around, making sure no one else there could see what she was doing, then pulled out her scanner and approached the happy couple. To get a full read, she had to get close enough for the scanner to pick up the brainwaves, but stay far enough away that she wasn't setting off anyone’s creep alert.

  One advantage was Mia’s years of martial arts training. Moving quietly maybe wasn’t something that was taught to the white belts in most dojos, but if you spent enough time working with masters, you picked up a few skills along the way.

  She scanned the woman first, moving in diagonally behind her, as if Mia were trying to get closer to a detail in the painting. Truth be told, this wasn’t one of Mia’s favorites, but you grabbed the scans where you could. Mia stepped back to read the results.

  They were pretty standard for what Mia had been finding overall with fine art lovers. Increased dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine levels along with increased activity in the cerebral cortex. Peace and pleasure, along with a boost in the overall feeling of intelligence.

  Another exploratory pass left Mia with information on the guy. The results were fascinating, if not outright hysterical. Sex. That was pretty much all the scan showed. Sex, heavy on boredom with a smidgeon of irritation. Apparently, this man was here at the museum only as a ploy to get the young woman into the sack with him. For shame.

  Thinking this through, Mia realized this could be another application of the scanner. Use it as a dating tool. Scan your guy for sex thoughts. Is he there for love or for lust? The commercial copy practically wrote itself.

  Then, finally, perhaps her parents would lay off. Maybe if she were financially successful enough, they’d forget she was single…and apparently, according to her mother, barren. Their feeling was if they were lucky enough to live outside China and its one child rule, you’d better make the best of it. At this point Mia was pretty sure her parents would totally embrace a grandchild out of wedlock.

  Mia only had one thing to say to them. Not. Going. To. Happen.

  Then the couple shifted and murmured, looking as if they were getting ready to move on. Time for Mia to go as well. She had learned this from painful experience. Staying in one area scanning patrons for too long was what contributed to invitations to never return to said institution.

  As she started packing away her scanner, she saw another
patron enter from the opposite side, moving toward de Vinci’s Mona Lisa, where Mia was headed next. The visitor was a man that looked to be in his late forties, dark hair peppered grey at his temples. He was wearing a black mock turtleneck with well-pressed Chinos and ebony loafers, the picture of aging European masculinity. The man was walking slowly, but with precision, his eyes directed straightforward rather than observing the artwork on either side. Maybe Mia had time for one more victim.

  Perfect time for a walk-by scanning. Timing it with precision, Mia transferred the device from the hand on the far side of the patron to her closer hand just as she passed him. She then swiped the scanner up the man’s spine and around the back of his head before flipping it back into her purse. Mia picked up her pace, not slowing until she neared the Mona Lisa.

  Ducking into an alcove, Mia checked the scanner to see what she had picked up. Should be another good baseline model for her to use for her “control group.”

  Aggression.

  This was getting weird. One strange reading like that in a day was not unusual. Even two wasn’t enough to raise Mia’s hackles. But that plus the guy in the green coat? Maybe there was something in the air. Mia had certainly woken up on the wrong side of the bed, but she doubted a scan of her brain would show that she was likely to engage in violence any time soon.

  Shaking off the negative trend, Mia moved on to the Mona Lisa display. As usual, there was a fair-sized crowd surrounding the mystery woman with the provocative smirk. While the crowds would normally make her life more difficult, Mia found she had much most of her success around the more famous paintings. Since everyone there was busy with their vid-discs and camera drones, one more unidentified device amongst them didn’t usually raise anyone’s guard.

  It was also possible to get much closer to someone without looking like a stalker. The only issue in spaces like these was getting a clear scan on one individual. It required some innovation and creative posturing at times.