“Fucking animals,” I growled under my breath, lowering my gun. Whoever had been here, it was clear they were no longer a threat. I went into the apartment and threw the door shut angrily.
“You young hussy!” Mr. Tanaka shouted from the next apartment. “Some people trying to sleep!”
Well, at least I’d actually slammed it that time.
“Fuck off, Mr. Tanaka!” I shrieked angrily. I was in no mood for that old geezer.
“I call police!” he threatened.
“I am the police, you shriveled old dick!”
I didn’t hear another peep out of him. I’m not sure if it was the insult to his manhood, or if he just wasn’t feeling all that argumentative.
I went into the kitchen and poured myself a stiff drink. I threw it back quick, feeling nervous and tense. Having your apartment broken into increases your Jitter Vibes by about fifty percent, and an immediate drink is essential.
I downed one more, then went to inspect my front door. The lock was complete toast. There were twenty-four-hour locksmiths, sure, but I was dead on my feet. If anyone wanted to come back and try to kill me, a lock wasn’t going to stand in their way, anyway. It sure hadn’t the first time.
I pushed the door shut and propped a chair under the knob. At least that way, if someone tried to come in, I’d hear them. Which would give me time to come out, gun blazing. Just like Dirty Harry.
Speaking of which, don’t you hate the third Dirty Harry? I absolutely loathe the part where Tyne Daly’s character dies. Ruined the whole movie for me.
Anyway. I really needed to get to bed. I checked the chair under the doorknob one more time, then went straight into my bedroom. This was a no-brushing-your-teeth-or-washing-your-face kind of night. This was a pass-the-fuck-out-naked kind of night.
I kicked off my heels and stripped off my dress. My panties were still wet from my brief encounter with Donna Briggs, but she was far from my mind. As I fell into bed, my brain warm and buzzing from the whiskey, I was thinking about absolutely nothing at all.
Until I heard Risa’s voice in my ear. So real, it was as if she were actually in the room with me. “Sleep,” she whispered. “I’ll keep you safe.”
And then I felt a phantom touch, like ethereal fingers trailing lightly down my spine. I shivered as if a cold wind had blown through me, though at the same time my loins began to burn.
Maybe whoever had broken into my apartment had spiked my whiskey with chloral hydrate. If that were the case, I wouldn’t hear them when they came back, and I wouldn’t be able to go for my gun.
“Risa,” I whispered, feeling suddenly terrified. Don’t get me wrong, I’m normally a feral, ballsy bitch – but something about this shitty day, added to the break-in, and finally, the feeling of Risa’s strange, ghostly presence in my bedroom, all conspired to trigger a temporary meltdown.
“Sleep,” she repeated in a soft, tender voice. “You’re safe with me.”
I had no idea if I was drugged or dreaming, but I trusted her implicitly. I swore I could feel her fingers stroking my hair gently.
I grabbed the pillow from the other side of the bed and clutched it tightly, allowing myself to be lulled to sleep by the touch of those inexplicable phantom fingers.
Chapter 4
The next morning, I woke up feeling fine, so I figured that was a nay on the Mickey Finn. And no one had tried to come in overnight, so of course that was a big bonus.
The first thing I thought of was Risa. Her strange presence had vanished, but it still felt so real . . . It was as if I could feel her in the room with me.
“Damn, girl,” I muttered, dragging my ass out of bed. “That was one hell of a dream. You better be careful, before you start going all sappy and shit.”
I glanced at the clock. Almost noon. Well, Captain did say to come in whenever. Considering the way she’d said adios the night before, I was inclined to think I was pretty much in her good graces, anyway.
I got ready quickly, made a coffee and started off to the station. And for some reason, God or Buddha or Vishnu or whoever decided to smile on me by granting me a reprieve from the prickly old Mr. Tanaka. Maybe he’d gone out for the day. Lucky me.
When I was about five minutes from the station, my phone rang. It was Kent.
“Yeah, bro?”
“Are you coming in?” he asked.
“On my way.”
“We’ve got a murder.”
I experienced my usual response to those words. My blood ran cold, and then a jolt of adrenaline shot through me. Whoever had taken this life, I’d find them and dish out the justice that was deserved.
Yeah, maybe sometimes I went all Wonder Woman. But I meant well.
“I’ll be there in five,” I replied, ending the call.
When I walked into the bullpen, I found everyone bustling around, looking chaotic. It was your typical Murder Mayhem.
Kent spotted me and came over to meet me. “We’re rolling out,” he said. “Crime scene’s at Johnson and Redwood.”
“What you got so far?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he answered. “The beat cop who found the scene was a rookie. Apparently, he passed out at the sight of it.”
“What about his partner?”
Kent shook his head with a grave expression. “Someone involved in the murder was still around when they pulled up. The senior officer was shot and killed.”
“Damn shame,” I muttered. “Don’t worry, bro. We’ll get ‘em.”
“I know we will,” he replied with a faint smile. “That’s what we do, girl.”
We did our fist bump, then rolled out. We didn’t play. We were straight up GI Joes. (Or Jane, in my case.)
***
We arrived at the crime scene fifteen minutes later. The area had been cordoned off, and a few curious passers-by were peering in, trying to figure out what was going on.
Just keep on walking, I thought to myself. You don’t want in on this rodeo.
There were a few beat cops hovering around, guarding the scene like weird Gollums protecting the Ring of Power. I half-expected them to shrink and go bald and start saying “My Precious” in a super-creepy voice.
But of course nothing like that happened. An officer who was actually pretty nice came up to me and Kent and filled us in on the situation.
“Sorry you weren’t briefed properly beforehand,” he said, flushing a little and looking embarrassed on account of something he himself hadn’t even done. Not that the kid who’d passed out should have felt ashamed. It must have been awful.
“No need to apologize,” I replied diplomatically. “These things are hard to handle. We all understand.”
Kent nodded in agreement, and the officer looked a little more at ease.
“The victim is a young girl,” he told us. “Very young. She can’t be more than thirteen. Her throat was slashed and she bled out.”
He led us towards the body, his face a mask of solemnity. He came to a stop, and so did we. I looked down, and my heart stalled in my chest.
She was so small. The officer had to be right, she couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. And she was so skinny.
I felt myself start to rage. Not that it made things better, but these guys had been kidnapping grown women up to this point. This was a kid. Last night was a kid, and her sister was even younger.
I wanted to hunt them down and slit their throats, just like they’d done to this little girl. Maybe I’d rip out their beating hearts and eat them with my Wheaties for breakfast.
I forced myself to stop thinking about revenge, focusing my attention back on the crime scene. That was the first step towards finding these bastards. The little dead girl was dressed in pajamas, just like the girl Kent had rescued from that scumbag at Bloody Teeth.
But hell, I definitely should not have been thinking about that club. Because then I’d think about Risa. And then I’d think about her voice in my ear. Her invisible fingertips against my spine.
Tha
t was when I realized the officer and my partner were staring at me. I shook myself, trying to pretend as if I hadn’t been fantasizing about my dream woman when there was a poor little dead girl lying in the middle of the street.
I felt my body fill with liquid rage. I’d just been daydreaming about Risa – but she owned the club where young girls were getting stuffed into vans by ass-wipes like the one we’d picked up the night before. How could she not be involved in all of this?
That thought made my skin break out in a fit of gooseflesh. I simply couldn’t imagine her partaking in anything like that.
Kent took a few steps, reached into his pocket for a pair of tweezers and bent down to pick something up, distracting me from my thoughts. He straightened up and held out a little object. I frowned. A jacket patch? What kind of ghetto ass gang still uses patches?
It was decorated with a skull and crossbones and read “Backstreet Demons.” I really wanted to chide these guys on their choice of gang name. Nobody who knew that the Backstreet Boys existed would ever use that word to describe their super-tough crime syndicate.
“I know where these guys operate,” Kent said. “I think maybe we should pay them a visit.”
“No doubt, bro,” I replied. “Let’s roll.”
I was eager to leave the scene, anyway. The sight of that little girl’s body was making my stomach churn. It was seriously making me want to punch a scumbag in the face. How could this evil exist in the world? I had to find a way to set it right.
Yeah, there I went, going all Wonder Woman again. It’s just who I am.
***
The Backstreet Demons’ hideout was on Metcalf, and it was shady as all get-out. It was the bare bones of an old meat-packing factory. The place was cold and desolate, lonely and isolated. I figured that was why they’d picked it.
We got out of the car and warily approached a side entrance, guns drawn. The door was locked, but it didn’t really seem like the type of situation where you knocked, so Kent kicked it down.
We went into the huge warehouse with our guns raised, looking around for possible signs of threat. But it didn’t look like anyone was around. We crept towards the front of the place, and voices started to become apparent. Up near the main entrance, there was a steel table laid out, covered in drugs. There were a few guys gathered around it, getting completely wasted.
“SCPD,” I announced in my customary tough-guy voice. The one I reserved for scaring homies.
The guys at the table turned with a start, looking at us as if they didn’t know up from down. It was clear they’d already had a lot of drugs. Some of them might have been close to overdosing.
“All right,” I said with an exasperated sigh. “Who’s in charge?”
One of the guys stood up on shaky legs. “That’d be me,” he announced proudly, wiping some white powder from under his nose.
“Jesus Christmas, you fucking guys,” I said in frustration, waving him over. “Come here, you loser.”
“Hey, who you calling a loser?” he asked indignantly, though he obeyed and came over to the place where Kent and I were standing. “I’m top shit around here, babe.”
“If you call me ‘babe’ again,” I warned him, “I’ll shoot you in the foot.”
He held up his hands in defense, laughing nervously. “All right, all right,” he said, sounding a little like Matthew McConaughey. “No offense.”
“What’s your name?” Kent asked.
“Brady,” the guy answered.
“Well, Brady – we need to talk. You know anything about a young girl who was murdered early this morning on Johnson and Redwood?”
The guy’s face blanched like sour milk. It was more than obvious that he knew something – and I definitely wasn’t leaving until I found out what.
“Come on back to my office,” he said quietly, stepping in front of us and gesturing for us to follow him. He walked across the practically empty floor and opened a door on the left-hand wall, leading us into a large room that didn’t even have a desk. He’d called it an office, but personally, I thought it was probably just a room he used to fuck and get privately high in.
He shut the door behind us, breathing shallowly. “All right,” he said slowly, his skinny hands shaking visibly by his sides. “I’m not gonna lie – I know what you’re talking about. I was there.”
“Keep talking,” I said firmly.
His lower lip quivered, and he went on: “I was there doing business with a high-level gang leader. Things went south, and that girl got killed. But I swear – I did not do it. I never laid a finger on her.”
“But what were you doing there, Brady?” I inquired harshly.
“I swear,” he repeated, looking as if he were about to break down crying. “I didn’t hurt her.”
I didn’t know why, but I believed the sonofabitch. He was dumb as a bag of rocks, but that’s not the same thing as being a murderer.
“Let’s say we believe you, Brady,” Kent said. “We’re gonna need the name of the gang leader you were with.”
Brady hung his head. It looked like he’d seen that one coming. No doubt, he was scared to give up the name, but he also didn’t want to be arrested for murder.
“Kristoff,” he admitted in a broken voice. “It was Kristoff. The leader of the SC Vamps.”
“Can you tell us where to find this Kristoff?” Kent asked.
“No,” Brady answered; and again, I believed him. “No one knows where the Vamps hang. I’d tell you if I knew.”
“Thanks, Brady,” I said. “You did the right thing.”
The guy didn’t answer. He was staring down at the floor. Maybe he was thinking about what had happened that morning – or maybe he was thinking about the fact that Kristoff might be coming to pay him a visit for giving up his name. Either way, though, it wasn’t my problem. No one had asked him to put himself in that situation.
I walked out of the room, and Kent followed me. We backtracked to the broken side entrance, then got back into the car and started towards the station.
“The SC Vamps, huh?” Kent said. “I’ve heard of ‘em, though they stay pretty low-key. But I mean, hell – what do they think they are, vampires or something?”
He chuckled and hit the steering wheel, clearly amused. But I wasn’t.
I was thinking of my encounter with the petite redhead from Bloody Teeth. When she attacked me, she had fucking fangs. Just like a vampire. And Risa – she had them, too. Even the name, Bloody Teeth? It was weird.
“Hey, girl,” Kent said, looking over at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said quickly, doing my best to pull myself together. “I’m fine, bro. Just mulling all this over.”
“It’s a strange one, for sure,” he admitted. “Definitely gonna take some digging.”
“But that’s what we do, man,” I said. “That’s what we do.”
He held out his fist, and I bumped it. When in reality, I wasn’t feeling all that victorious.
What in the hell was really going on? What was up with this weird gang name, and why did these women have fangs?
Worse still – why did my heart flutter every time I thought of Risa? I was not the kind of woman whose goddamn heart fluttered. This shit was completely unacceptable.
Chapter 5
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We had absolutely no idea where to find Kristoff or any of the SC Vamps, so that lead would have to wait. Meanwhile, all we could do was keep digging.
There was a load of paperwork to do after last night’s arrest and this morning’s murder, so Kent and I were kept busy all afternoon. By the time I called it quits at around six, my eyes were crossing and my fingers were cramping. I hated paperwork with a burning passion.
Kent rose from his desk alongside me, stretching his arms and yawning. “Well, that sucked,” he said.
“No joke,” I replied. “See you tomorrow, man.”
“See you, Dani.”
I grabbed my purse and walked out of the bu
llpen, setting off down the main corridor of the building. Donna Briggs was making her way back from one of the other offices, and she passed me as I walked, winking at me slyly. I grinned and chuckled, giving her a wave. She was one hell of a woman, that captain of mine.
But for the second day in a row, even immediately after seeing Donna, when I stepped out of the station and into the cool, darkening evening, the first thing I thought of was Risa. I had so many doubts about her, and so many questions, but I couldn’t deny the fact that I was infatuated with her. It would have been pointless to try.
I started on my way home, unsure what I was going to do with myself tonight. Netflix and chill? Well, there was the little fact that someone had ripped a hole in my sofa. I could go clubbing – but it somehow seemed wrong to go in search of female company when I had Risa on my mind.
Whoa. This was so unlike me. I was not this kind of person! I just . . . I couldn’t figure out what the hell was the matter with me.
I frowned when the streetlights around me shorted out. All up and down the block, they sizzled and went dead. What the eff?
Suddenly, I was overcome by an intense feeling of foreboding. It was as if all the joy and happiness had suddenly been sucked out of the world, kind of like a Dementor was around.
(Yeah, yeah. I’ve seen the third Harry Potter movie.)
I didn’t have any more time to think about it, though – because then, without sound or warning, someone or something tackled me to the ground. I went down hard, narrowly avoiding striking my head on the sidewalk.
The moon provided hardly any light, but I could see the outline of a person above me – a very large man. My purse had flown away from me, and I couldn’t reach my gun. This guy was freaking huge. He was almost like the Hulk. I couldn’t tell if he was green, though, there wasn’t enough light.
And then – I kid you not – he flipping hissed at me. Like a snake or something. I tried to knee him in the balls, but I couldn’t gain enough purchase underneath him. He was too heavy to move my body properly. I attempted to elbow him in the face, but he caught my arm and twisted it painfully. I tried to claw at his eyes, but he snapped at my fingers, making me draw back.
Marked (Shadow City Book 1) Page 3