by Toby Neal
“Yeah, good thing.”
Lei’s voice sounded hollow as she looked down at the still face. She’d had to come here, see this girl, to get the message her gut had been telling her. Something about Jane Doe—her life, her struggle, and her death, was a part of Lei’s life now.
She’d made a decision about Stevens and her future.
Dr. Gregory had turned away, spraying down an adjoining table as Lei stood there, still not ready to zip up the bag.
“Any closer to an ID on her?” he asked over his shoulder.
“No. Nothing. No prints or DNA anywhere on record. None of the other women we interviewed knew her by anything but her stage name, Vixen.”
“That’s nothing to be buried with.” Gregory gave her a kindly glance over his glasses as he rinsed gore off his instruments before dropping them into the kettle of bubbling water on the stove. “Why don’t you give her a name?”
“She deserves one. She died trying to be free, and she set someone else free.”
“Well, it can’t be official, but I don’t see the harm.” Gregory handed her a ballpoint pen and a toe tag. “Put it on her other foot.”
Lei had always liked the story of Amelia Earhart, a woman who defied the odds, and even though Amelia’s story had ended badly, it was unforgotten. She wrote “Amelia Texeira” on the toe tag, and before she could lose her nerve, tied it around the girl’s left toe. She zipped up the plastic shroud and pushed in the shelf, locking the door with a pneumatic sigh.
She turned to Dr. Gregory. “Thanks.”
“Stop by and visit anytime. I get lonely in here when my assistant’s not around. These guys and gals aren’t known for their conversation.”
“Maybe I will.” Doubtful, though. She liked Dr. Gregory, but not his environs. Heading out into the sunshine and fresh air, she felt inexplicably better.
She knew what she had to do.
Chapter Forty-Two
Wind plays with my choppy, short hair. I stand against the rail near the bow; leaning over, I can see a ceaseless bow wave purling off the steel wall far below. Dark, swift shapes of spinner dolphins alternately duck and leap, surfing the wave. I feel well-being rise up from somewhere deep inside, bubbling up from my newly pedicured toes in the gold slippers Dr. Aurora Middleton favors for lunch on a cruise ship.
He’s texted me on the burner phone I’d kept just so he could. Earlier this morning, I’d seen a helicopter land on the VIP deck. He could be here anytime.
I haven’t been this excited since I was a kid. If ever.
“This spot taken?” That gravelly voice.
It’s him. I keep my head turned away, savoring the moment, the anticipation. I know what he’ll see—a shapely athletic woman in a short white denim skirt that showcases great legs, strawberry-blond shag blowing in the wind.
“Only by you.” I turn, look the House in the face for the first time.
A long moment passes as we take each other’s measure.
“I thought you had blue eyes,” he finally says.
“I thought you…were smaller,” I say.
He’s a large man. Not in a good way. A shiny shaved head sits like a bowling ball on huge wrestler’s shoulders; a barrel gut strains at an elegant snakeskin belt. Eyes gray and hard as bullets run over me, and I feel an unfamiliar chill.
“You aren’t who you said you were.”
“Who did I say I was?”
“Magda. Magda Kennedy. Tall, thin, blue eyes, black hair.”
I’m beginning to be pissed. He must have been fantasizing about Magda, not me, when we phone-fucked. A ridiculous oversight on my part. But he isn’t Brad Pitt, either, and my pride’s stung. I’m not exactly ugly.
“I did business in her name. Stupid society bitch took the fall for me.” Something dark and ugly moves behind his eyes, but it’s gone before I can really see if it was there. “Besides, I’m in disguise. Aren’t you?”
“I had hair before. A beard too.” He drops mirrored aviators over his eyes so I can’t see them anymore.
“Men. It’s all so easy for you.” I turn away. Disappointment curdles my stomach. Guess this isn’t what either of us was imagining.
He touches me then, a bold ass grab on my left buttock. “You aren’t her, but you’ll do.”
“And what if you won’t do for me?”
He finally lets go of my ass and gives it a hard smack. I flinch. I like to be the dom. This isn’t turning me on the way the phone sex did.
“Let’s go to your room.”
“I don’t think so,” I say. My voice sounds tiny, reedy and unfamiliar.
“You don’t have a choice, babe.” I look down. He has looped a meaty arm around me and there’s a blade in it, a foldable stiletto almost entirely concealed by his hand—his palms are the size of salad plates.
I find myself walking down the lush hallway to my room, watch my hand being clumsy with the keycard. I can’t figure out how to get the card in. I feel the sting and burn as the blade scratches the skin of my waist. He looms beside me like a wall.
I break out in sweat, and my mind scrabbles like a rat in a cage.
I think of something—a last resort I always keep handy. Ingredients for the drink. An overdose of roofies should do the trick. I fumble with the key and finally get the door open. I twist away from him and switch on some charm.
“Okay, I think we got off on the wrong foot, House. Let’s start over. I’m Karen Walker.”
“That your real name?” He’s let me move away, but now he tosses the knife back and forth, a hypnotic movement. I find my eyes following it and break them away.
“No. It’s not. But you owe me yours, too.”
“Gabriel. Like the angel, if you can believe it.” His bark of laughter, I recognize.
“Well, then. My name is Jasmine. Really. I haven’t said that name out loud in seventeen years.”
“Good. We’re being honest now. So you fooled me. I don’t like being fooled.”
“I’m sorry about that. I never felt safe telling you my endgame. But I did want to meet you. I wasn’t lying about that.”
“I know you weren’t.”
He looks around the room. The bed’s big and takes up most of it. I try not to look at it, gesture to the little side table and chairs.
“I have some champagne chilling for us. Why don’t we have some?”
“I guess.” He wanders over to the glass slider and opens it to the tiny balcony with the ocean rippling by, dressed in sparkling sunshine.
This is my chance. I palm the packet of GHB powder out of the bar area where I’d stashed it and dump the whole thing, surely a lethal dose, into his glass. I slip the empty baggie under the foil of the champagne bottle, unwrapping it, popping the cork.
I throw the foil wrapper into the wastebasket and pour, turning back with the bubbling glasses in my hands, the powder in the bottom of his dissolving almost instantly. Odorless, tasteless, colorless, and wonderfully effective.
“To us,” I say. He nods, clinks his glass against mine and drains it.
“Fill ’er up.” He holds his glass out again, and I refill it.
Bubbles rise up and tickle my nose as I sip. I feel my confidence come back—I can handle him. He’s a man like any other, and I know how to handle men. I smile my best seduction. “To us. To getting away with murder, and a whole lot more.”
He smiles back. It isn’t reassuring—he has the smile of a shark, only his teeth are less clean—but what is reassuring is the way he knocks back the champagne and pours another, then knocks that one back too. Burps.
Charming. My smile feels frozen. But that much of the drug, mixed with alcohol—surely he’ll go down soon.
“You aren’t her. But you’re fuckable, so let’s get to it.” He sets his glass on the table.
“What a way you have with words,” I say. I need to stall, wait for the stuff to take effect. It’s supposed to happen fast, but he’s so big…
“Oh yeah?” He grabs my hair,
hauls me in, works my mouth over with those shark teeth.
I pretend to enjoy it. Any minute now; anytime now, my mind screams as he shoves me onto the bed, peeling off his shirt, fumbling with his belt. I try to roll away, get to my gun in the nightstand, but he backhands me and I fall back, seeing stars.
This sucks, and it’s not sexy, and it gets worse as he gets his pants down, rolls my skirt up, and shoves himself in with all the finesse of a bull. I close my eyes, wait for it to be over, but that isn’t enough for him. He backhands me the other direction.
“I thought you were into this,” he pants, banging me like a pile driver. “All your big talk. Show me some tricks.”
I dig deep, find the rage, find the strength, and sit up, pulling him in closer with my Stairmaster legs, and bite him as hard as I can on the chest. Blood fills my mouth along with the leathery bit of his nipple, and he screams like a stuck pig, rearing back. I feel a moment of triumph and spit out the skin.
I got him good.
Only, I forgot about the blade.
It goes in so easily, I don’t feel it the first time. But I feel it the second time, and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth. His hand is over my mouth, my screams muffled in smothering meat.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit. I still can’t believe this is happening. Darkness squeezes in from the sides.
Suddenly I can suck in some air, though it’s bubbling in my lungs as unimaginable pain swamps me from seemingly everywhere.
I turn my head. Off the side of the bed, I see Gabriel staggering, holding his head. His hard, gray eyes are on mine. “What did you do to me, bitch?” he growls before his eyes roll up and he hits the floor.
It fucking took long enough.
I try to reach the phone on the bedside table. I can see my hand reaching, pulling on the bedspread as if that will bring the phone closer. Blood is spreading around me, a crimson lake I sink into. My breath bubbles wetly.
I don’t think I can reach the phone.
I want to cry, but there’s not enough water left for tears.
I’m so cold.
Chapter Forty-Three
Lei was tossing a newly purchased ball for Keiki in the side yard, trying not to jar her neck, when her cell rang. Marcella’s voice was sharp with suppressed excitement.
“They found them.”
“Who?” Lei threw the ball one more time. Keiki barreled after it, late-evening sun glimmering on her shiny black coat.
“Walker and House. They’re on the Rainbow Duchess.”
“Shit, I can’t believe Stevens called it!” Lei broke into a grin. “I take it you’re on your way.”
“Heading for the helicopter as we speak. It gets better—it looks like they killed each other.”
“Holy crap! What the hell?”
“Yep. Apparently something went badly wrong in the bedroom—according to the ship’s medic, who checked things out after the maid found them. He looks poisoned, and she’s been stabbed.”
“So much for sailing off into the sunset,” Lei said. “Wow, just when it seems like they had it all and were getting away with it.”
“You’d think. But there’s a relationship from hell, if you ask me.”
“Lucky you, get to take a helicopter out there to bring them in.”
“I’d rather they weren’t in body bags, but it saves us a trial.”
“Well, I’ve got something to tell you.”
Lei talked to her friend until the roar of Marcella’s transport helicopter cut them off. She closed the phone and slipped it back into her pocket as Stevens pulled the Bronco into the driveway. He jumped out, and she opened the gate for him.
He grinned at her, lit with suppressed excitement. He’d never looked so good, his rugged face almost handsome, blue eyes twinkling with rich satisfaction. Her heart squeezed.
“You’re never going to believe it. It looks like Walker and Millhouse offed each other.”
“I just heard. Marcella called me.”
“Unbelievable, isn’t it?”
“Justice is what it is.”
“Get over here.” He encircled her wrist with his big hand, pulled her to him. Bent his head to kiss her, his other hand wandering freely, and she sighed as she leaned in to him, sinking into sensation that instantly ignited her senses.
He lifted his head eventually, eyes hazy with passion. “Anchara around?”
“No, thank God. She’s downtown, meeting with a social worker for some program.”
“Good.”
She giggled as they ran into the house and toward the back bedroom, shedding clothes along the way.
It didn’t take them long the first time, but the second time, long and slow in the shower, was when Lei let herself feel something other than hunger…and found tears sliding down her face as her cheek pressed against the cool, wet tile, and she wept with passion and sorrow.
He dried her hair with a towel after they got out, rubbing her neck gently, kneading. She closed her eyes.
“You okay?”
“You make me feel so good.”
“Likewise.”
“Sometimes it’s just too much.”
“I know.”
“I have to tell you something.”
“Please don’t.”
She opened her eyes and looked at her naked self in the mirror. The bruises had faded to yellow. She almost looked back to normal but for big eyes full of shadows. He encircled her waist with corded arms, rested his jaw on her shoulder as blue eyes met brown in the mirror.
“You’re going, aren’t you?” His voice was a husky whisper.
“I have to. I just have to.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Please. This hurts.” She leaned over, opened the bathroom cabinet, and took the ring off the little glass shelf. “This is yours.”
He took the ring, melted and slumped, the diamonds sunken into blackened metal occluded by char. “I can’t believe you went back and found this.”
“It’s the least I could do.”
“Goddamn it.” He stepped back, let go of her. Handed her a towel, wrapped one around himself. “Can’t say I didn’t see it coming. You weren’t exactly enthused about house hunting. Does Marcella know?” he asked, walking away into the bedroom.
“I told her today. I had to see if she was serious about bringing me into the Bureau. It just seems like…something I need to do, like it’s now or never. I’ll come back to Hawaii. That’s always been the plan.” The towel hung from her limp fingers as she gazed at him. He strode over and wrapped the towel around her forcefully without looking at her, as if he couldn’t stand the sight of her a second longer.
Lei felt her heart breaking—an actual pain, like being hit in the chest. She gasped with the stab of it. He turned and tossed his towel over the office chair in the corner, dressed. Brisk, hard movements as he pulled on boxers, jeans, a T-shirt so new it was still in plastic wrap. Watching him, she remembered the very first time she’d watched him dress in Hilo, a fascinating process. She watched him rip the overwrap on the T-shirt savagely with his teeth, shake the shirt out, haul it on.
The pain in her chest hadn’t abated.
“It won’t be right away. I have to go through the application process, interviews, background checks and such.”
“If I know Marcella, she’ll grease those wheels.”
“We’ll see. It’s competitive. I might not make it.”
Stevens snorted, went out. She heard him banging pans in the kitchen.
She dressed. Each item of clothing scraped over skin rendered sensitive by a thousand kisses. Her breath was short around the pain in her chest. She told herself that she could do this. This was what she had to do, what she felt called to do. It was going to be worth it.
She followed him into the kitchen.
Stevens stirred a pot of soup on the stove, his back to her, selkie-dark head bent. His shoulders were wide, wide enough for her to duck under as she put her arms around him from behind, s
liding herself around, tucking her head against his collarbone, wedged in front of the stove.
“I’m so sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”
“I know. Me too.” And he pushed her firmly aside.
Chapter Forty-Four
Lei sat in the seat on the plane, turned to look out the oval window at the long, low Maui Airport building. She knew Stevens was still there, standing against the window, and Keiki waited in the Bronco.
Leis piled around her neck impeded her vision, and she detached the stack, shoveled them into a plastic bag Torufu had given her, redolent with greasy malasadas in a box at the bottom. The sendoff at the station had been over-the-top, so many hugs, leis, and local food items, she needed a small army to eat them. Where she was going—Quantico, Virginia—she’d be on a strict training program with no room for malasadas.
The plane’s engines switched to the high-pitched whine that signaled departure as it trundled to the end of the runway. She looked back, watched the airport building until it was gone, replaced by vivid sugar cane fields and wind-whipped turquoise ocean. Ah, Maui.
She closed her eyes, took a breath in through her nose, out through her mouth. Then another. It was done. For better or worse, she’d chosen her path.
“I can’t wait for you,” Stevens said. “I don’t know if we’ll ever want the same things.”
“I know. It’s okay.”
It wasn’t okay, but she wanted it to be. She’d given him Keiki, not just to dog sit but to keep, and she might as well have handed him her heart on the end of the leash.
She had nothing else.
Her hand stole into her pocket, and she removed a little black velvet box he’d slipped in during the send-off party.
“Don’t look at it until you’re gone,” he’d whispered in her ear.
She took the box out and set it on the plastic fold-down table. Her heart beat with heavy thuds as she opened the lid.
Inside, resting on the plain cotton batting, was a round piece of melted metal. She took it out, held it up. She could see glitters and glimmers in the gray and pitted surface, but it had been flattened and smoothed to around the size of a nickel, if a little thicker, and just the right heft to keep in her pocket.