by Fiona Quinn
This told me that this scenario had played out for the friends before.
Lizard was out for the count. I could see the shadows changing on his shirt as his chest rose and fell. Not dead.
They had a strategy. I could see the two telegraphing messages to each other with their eyes.
I had no way to warn the officers and remain in the shadows.
My hands behind my back, I reverted to my childhood power move of crossing my fingers. I sent out a mental warning.
Of all my psychic skills, pushing a message to someone else wasn’t one of them.
This was a crime scene. The police were the professionals. Even if they could see me, anything I did or said would not be received as assistance. I’d be perceived as a criminal, cuffed myself, taken down to the jail, and booked.
Iniquus would have a lawyer there before the fingerprint ink was dried.
I wasn’t worried about that.
I was worried that I was expected at the FBI and the CIA today.
Obviously, I failed at my psychic mind-meld with the officer. He looked a little too relaxed as he stepped up to Blue, another stepped to Lizard to check his vitals, and the woman officer went toward Benji.
As if in trained choreography, the officers reached toward their belts to pull out their cuffs.
Blue sneezed. A big fat sneeze tipped his head backward then rocked him forward. Folding at the waist, blood shot from his broken nose.
The officer jumped away from the spray.
It was a signal.
And a technique.
Blue released his hands from where they’d been posted on top of his head. Grabbing up his shirt, he wiped at his nose. When he did that, Blue dropped his hip to the blacktop, freeing his legs. Already bent from being in a kneeling position, all Blue had to do was extend his leg and clip the officer in the kneecap with his steel-toed work boot.
Eight pounds of pressure was all it takes to break a knee.
For sure, that was exerted exponentially.
The officer was down.
Blue grabbed the Taser from the cop’s left hip and fired it into the injured officer.
I had no idea what to do.
Interference would make me a target—the officers were clueless that I was on their side.
Leaving them to a fight with one man down was antithetical to who I was.
I was frozen by the memory of Tasers and guttural screams.
Gator had been Tased the night I was kidnapped. He was Tased because he was trying to protect me. His tortured body on the ground convulsing with agony had been entirely my fault.
As this officer made the same sounds as Gator had that horrible night, the memories bit into my brain and made it stutter. Right action that night was to do what Gator had told me to do, what I had been trained to do in such a circumstance—run.
But I hadn’t done the right thing. Instead, I ended up being kidnapped.
The memory sizzled my brain. Dragged me away from this life-or-death scene to the one that Gator and I had survived. A PTSD flashback that left me vulnerable.
I forced myself with sheer will to focus on the here and now.
With no weapon, no badge, and no good plan, all I could do was pray for inspiration. In my mind, I was frantically clawing through the files of strategies that I’d been taught—by my friend Dave with the DCPD, my mentors Master Wang and Spyder. I was coming up empty-handed. This wasn’t a scene they’d prepared me for.
Action might get me shot by the cops.
So far, the officers hadn’t been focused my way. Nothing put me onto the police officers’ body cams—yet.
But inaction had its risks, too. Just standing here against the wall could well snag me in a way that blew my op.
Shadow walking used brain trickery to succeed.
I couldn’t hide from a camera lens. The more still I could hold myself here against the wall in the blue-gray shade of the dumpster lid, the more possible it was that I’d be missed by an officer on the scene now, or later by a supervisor reviewing the tapes.
The melee with the police grew fiercer. I was ready to drag my phone from my back pocket and call dispatch to get the officers more help.
Then suddenly, the sizzle of a Taser.
Chapter Eight
The ambulance arrived with backup as the echo of Benji’s screams faded.
He was face down and cuffed. The Taser probes still pierced his skin. The officer’s finger rested on her trigger, ready to light him up if he made a single aggressive move.
Unconscious from the bat to his spinal column, Lizard had already been cuffed when Blue pulled his escape plan.
Blue—
Blue had a gun pointing at his back.
With things seemingly under control and every officer’s body cam focused away from me, I eased along the wall. Rounding the corner, I made my way next door to the gas station, where I could check my appearance in their bathroom mirror and regroup.
I second-guessed myself.
Cameras would be everywhere at the gas station.
Again, I wasn’t quite sure how to play this.
How bad did I look?
Did I have blood in my hair from the head butt that broke the guy’s nose?
No, the gas station was a bad decision. Everyone would be gathered to figure out what the commotion was about. Better to slip into the diner. Hopefully, everyone inside would be caring for the waitress, focused on her. I could slip in, head to the bathroom, and wash the sweat off my face.
Except for the bruise that I could feel swelling, I might just look like someone who was coming in on a foggy morning, with temperatures that made my hair and clothes wilt.
Walking through the front door, the tinkle of bell chimes jangled my nerves. They alerted the staff that someone had come in. They could pull unwanted eyes my way.
I was surprised to find everything looked…normal.
The clanking of silverware against the dishes. The blast of morning news on the television. The conversations. It all continued as if there hadn’t been a battle out back.
I tucked my head down, eased up the aisle toward the restrooms, pressed open the door.
Ah, here she was.
The waitress stood in front of the mirror, glaring at her image.
She didn’t have a scratch.
Her whole body trembled with shock as adrenaline left her system.
When I moved behind her, she flicked her eyes in my direction, but she didn’t seem to recognize me.
Terror does strange things to the brain.
“You okay?” I asked. I caught the name on her name tag, Barb.
Her gaze slid back to her reflection in the mirror without answering me.
She still didn’t seem to be aware that I was at the crime scene or had helped her.
Yanking the elastic from my hair, I bent at my waist, fluffing my fingers through the loose strands, feeling for any moisture that would be Blue’s nose blood.
I didn’t feel any.
When I stood, I pulled the ponytail back into place.
Turning on the cold tap, I stuck my hand under the soap dispenser, careful to avert my eyes from hers. Since Barb didn’t recognize me straight off, I didn’t want to do anything that made her focus on me, place me, and call attention to me.
The soap stung as it hit my knuckles, raw and puffy.
Barb moved to a stall, and I was able to check out my face. Yeah, that punch had left a mark. Some abrasion, some swelling, my skin was discoloring into a bruise. It wouldn’t be too visible for another hour or so—enough time for me to try to get eyes on Modesty and get out of here.
Probably, I could get this covered up with makeup before the CIA.
I pulled out my phone and checked the time.
How was it only 7:10 in the morning?
Awful.
All of it.
It didn’t bode well for the mission. As soon as that thought popped into my head, I pushed it back out again. There was no nee
d to plant those kinds of seeds.
This was a fluke, that’s all.
Monday, I’d take this back to Strike Force, and I’d walk them through every move and thought that I could put together. We’d do a tabletop re-creation of the event, thinking it through in retrospect.
A retired Navy SEAL, Striker as commander of Strike Force, brought this to our team as a strategy to make us more effective. We’d reconsider all of it. They’d critique all of it. Not with blame or shame. Together, we’d find the holes in my thoughts, actions, and reactions. In this way, I could fine-tune how I responded in the field during future events.
That was one of my weaknesses, choosing feelings over training.
Sometimes I just felt obliged to act.
Two years ago, I felt impelled to let the kidnappers truss me up and shove me into their van because there were innocent lives at risk.
And today, I felt compelled to protect that young woman—before I knew if she was the FBI asset, or person of interest, or whatever other way they might characterize her.
If I were wrong about my choices, Strike Force would call me on it.
My team only wanted everyone to succeed and go home safe at the end of the day. I wasn’t concerned about their critique of me.
I was worried that Blue had caught me on the cheek with his slug. I rolled out of it, dispersing the energy, but I could feel my sweat stinging the abrasion.
Striker would have a fit.
The doctor warned me about taking any more blows to the head.
And I would be standing in Christen and Gator’s wedding party in a few days. Banged up me wouldn’t look great in their photos.
All right. Enough distraction. Time to get to work.
I dried my hands, checked my pocket for my phone and cash, and moved into the diner.
An elderly man, with his pants hauled up almost to his armpits and a graying afro, got up from his stool at the counter. He pulled out his wallet, left a ten-dollar bill on top of his check, and shuffled out.
Two police officers, adjusting their duty belts, sidled past him at the door.
Shoot!
Okay, if I had been in the restaurant eating, there’s no way I was outside getting clocked by Blue. I slid into the old man’s seat and lifted the untouched toast to nibble.
The waitress, coffee pot in hand, stalled in front of me, looked down at the bill, the man leaving, then me.
Our gazes held. Destiny was the name pinned to her uniform shirt. She gave me a nod that read of deep understanding. Scooping up the bill and the cash, she slid them into her pocket. She picked up the man’s coffee mug, stuck it in the sink, and placed a fresh mug in front of me, filling it full.
Okay, what was that look of understanding? If she had been on the run without funds and hungry, maybe she too had slid in front of a half-finished meal and gobbled it down. Or maybe she thought that I was in trouble with the police now prowling the restaurant.
Either way, she was protecting me.
I would play the role of starving runaway. I slathered the toast with butter and jelly and gobbled it down, closing my eyes as I relished the taste, then wiping my eyes.
Destiny glanced toward the restrooms as Barb power-walked toward the cash register and the grizzled old man with a dirty apron who stood there, taking people’s money.
“Jim, I quit.” She put her apron on the counter.
Jim didn’t seem perturbed.
A cop pointed at Barb. “Hey,” he said.
Barb looked around for an escape. I turned back to the leftovers on the plate. I could watch the cops and Barb in the mirror behind the condiment shelf. I reached over next to me to gather a set of napkin-wrapped utensils.
With the napkin on my lap, I used the knife to carefully remove the parts of the food that the man had touched. He left plenty for a hungry runaway, potatoes, eggs, he’d eaten all the bacon, only a small piece of fat remained. I was going for it. This was an excellent cover story.
I peeked up to see Destiny’s reaction. Modesty… Destiny. She could have changed her name for protection. Sure enough, she’d blanched. Her hands trembled, sloshing coffee from the pot. She set the pot on the counter. Grabbing up a rag, she crouched to the floor, cleaning up the spill.
I wasn’t convinced that wasn’t done to hide from police eyes.
“I don’t want any trouble,” Barb said. “I just want to go home.”
“Can we go somewhere and talk privately?” the male officer asked.
“No.” Barb’s face was red and angry. “I’m not going anywhere with any man. No way. No.”
“Did you know the men who attacked you?”
I wondered how they knew that she was the focus of the attack. She had no physical signs of the altercation.
I pulled the elastic from my ponytail and let my hair fall across my cheeks as I bent over the plate, scooping up a forkful of potatoes.
“Did you know any of those men?” he asked.
“No. I was taking out the trash.”
Jim crossed his arms over the expanse of his chest, resting their weight on the bulge of his stomach. “Someone attacked you? That’s why you’re quitting?”
“Second time this week. On Tuesday, the man just took my tip money. This time they wanted to shove me into their car and take me for a ride.”
“Same men?” the officer asked.
“Aren’t all men the same?” She looked over at Destiny. “Make the guys take out the trash. Don’t go out back alone. Good luck to you.” Then Barb pushed past the officers and headed out the door.
I bent over my plate, pretending not to care what the heck was going on between Barb and the police.
“Anything I can get you, officers? Coffee? Doughnuts?” Jim asked.
Ding. Ding. Ding. I knew how the police figured out a waitress had been attacked—that was the message I’d sent Iniquus. They would have conveyed that to dispatch. Man, I was slow today. I needed to focus.
Spyder depended on me to do a good job here.
As the police walked back out the door, I stood up to walk over to Jim, picking up Barb’s apron. “Looks like you have a new opening for a server. I need a job.”
“You have experience?”
“Sure.”
He ran a thick index finger up and down the length of his nose while he assessed me. He pointed at his cheek in the same place where I had sustained the hit. “I don’t need no trouble like Barb had.”
“My cheek? That’s not trouble. That was just an accident going in your ladies’ room. That lady who just quit yanked open the stall door into my face. So any trouble I’m having already walked out that door.” I pointed at the front, where a couple of men walked under the tinkling bells.
“Barb did that?” Jim asked, looking for the lie.
“No. Barb didn’t do that. My face was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Barb didn’t mean to hurt me.”
He pulled out a clipboard from under the counter. “You can work Barb’s schedule. I’ll give you a trial week. At the end of the week, I’ll see. I don’t pay you nothin’. You get what you make. I don’t like doin’ no reporting to the IRS. No paperwork for you to fill out that way.”
“When’s my first shift?”
Chapter Nine
At my house, on Silver Lake, I climbed from the Lyft. “I’ve given you a tip and a good review.”
“Hey, thanks, I appreciate it,” the gal said as I closed the passenger door.
My teammate Reaper and his wife Kate were climbing the stairs to the duplex. I owned the building and rented out the left side to them.
Kate was cuddling her infant Little Guy to her chest. “Hey Lexi,” she called out softly.
I raised my hand.
Reaper backed down the step, the diaper bag slung over his shoulder. His gaze hard on my face. “What happened?”
I reached up and touched my cheekbone. Yeah, the swelling had gotten worse. “I stopped a kidnapping.” I gave him a one-shouldered shrug.
He looked at his watch. “A little early to be playing Wonder Woman, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, but whatcha gonna do? The bad guys don’t keep office hours.”
“The blow to your cheek…” He twitched his head this way and that as he ran an assessing look over me. A retired SEAL, there wasn’t going to be much that was missed by his scrutiny. “Did you take any other hits?”
“Just the one. Beefy fist, though. Had I not rolled with the punch, I would have face-planted.”
He frowned. “You called Dr. Carlon?” Dr. Carlon was a traumatic brain injury specialist who treated both of us for our ongoing issues with head traumas—Reaper sustained his from his time with SEAL Team Six. Me, well, I got mine from dodging criminals.
Dr. Carlon was cutting edge with her approach and one of the kindest, most accessible people that I knew.
“I called her first thing after the situation cleared. If it’s an emergency, go to the ER. Other than that, she can work me in on Monday afternoon.”
“Too long.”
“I’m not going to the ER for a swollen cheek.”
“I’m not going to lecture you, Lynx. But I am going to insist you take my appointment with her today.” He pulled his phone from the cargo pocket on his Iniquus camo pants. “I’ll call and tell the receptionist that’s the plan. I can wait until Monday for my checkup. You can’t.”
I touched my throbbing cheek. “Are you sure?”
“I insist.”
“I insist, too,” Kate said. “You know what we’ve been through with Reaper’s brain injuries. You do not want his experience. It’s a terrible way to live, for everyone involved.” She sent a glance toward her husband and swallowed. “You just don’t want that. Take the appointment.”
I nodded. “What time?” I still had the CIA and FBI…
“Four-thirty,” Reaper said. “And I can see you’re mentally checking your to-do list. But this takes precedence.”
“Four-thirty. I can do that. Well, you’re right. No matter what was on my agenda, I would move it for this.” I touched my heart. “Thank you so much.”