Protectors

by Kris Nelscott

She turned the car onto my street, saving me from having to comment on my past. She expertly eased the Mercedes into an empty parking space a few yards from my apartment’s main sidewalk.

  Half of the streetlights were broken, sending uneven pools of light throughout the neighborhood. Most of the buildings were former houses turned into apartments or pre-World War II six-flats which had been allowed to run down.

  I lived in an older building on the second floor, in the apartment first rented by the Grimshaws. Laura had found them a home more suited to their needs, and now Jimmy and I lived in three-bedroom comfort, at least compared with last summer’s crowded conditions.

  Still, the apartment was small and meager, especially when I thought of Laura’s penthouse suite on Lake Shore Drive. Even though Laura claimed the difference didn’t bother her, it bothered me. Every time I brought her here, I kept seeing how mean my circumstances were—and it made me wonder if each of us wasn’t slumming in our own separate ways.

  As she parked, worry must have shown on my face. Laura shoved the gearshift into Park, shut off the ignition, and then smiled at me.

  “It’s all right, Smokey.” There was amusement in her voice. “I’m insured.”

  I never doubted that she was, but insurance wasn’t really the point to me. I was used to taking precautions, and leaving a valuable car on a street filled with poor people didn’t count as one to me. Sure, my rusted Impala wasn’t pretty, but it belonged here.

  I opened the door and got out. She did the same, and I waited for her to come around to my side. As she approached, I held out my hand, and wondered if she would take it.

  She did. Her fingers were surprisingly warm. We walked up the sidewalk, hand in hand.

  The six-flat regained some of its elegance in the darkness. The unkempt lawn was harder to see and the chipped paint covering the brick looked almost clean.

  Still, this building was clearly a multi-family dwelling, with different curtains in each window, and the air of public property outside.

  The door to the building was propped open, something I wished the other tenants wouldn’t do. But as the weather got nicer, people liked to have a breeze fill the hallways, which got stuffy in the afternoons. Once the door was open, no one bothered to close it.

  Laura and I stepped onto the porch. Last summer, I had discovered a body here, and each time I walked up the porch steps I thought of it.

  Tonight was no different. Little ghosts haunted me everywhere.

  We stepped inside. The hallway was wide at the entrance, with a staircase to our right—a wooden staircase with an elegant banister that once had been polished and lovely. Now it was dingy with years of dirt.

  The main floor had two apartments, the first near the metal mailboxes that had been built into the wall. Both apartment doors were closed, and each had extra deadbolts, just like mine did, even though the neighborhood was considered safe by Chicago standards.

  The hall smelled faintly of baked ham and melted chocolate. The remains of a chocolate bunny was mashed against the doorknob of the nearest apartment. Foil Easter egg wrappers glittered on the floor, proving that someone had had a sweet holiday.

  Laura smiled when she saw the mess. Her hair was losing its height, and the change made her seem more like my Laura, instead of the glittery society woman I had taken to the benefit.

  She headed toward the staircase, careful to avoid the foil wrappers.

  “Don’t touch the railing,” I said. “Who knows if sticky little hands were there first.”

  “The chocolate should be hardening by now,” she said, and reached for the banister.

  Above us, something thudded. Something heavy had fallen. I didn’t like the sound. Laura looked at me, a slight frown making a line between her eyebrows.

  I shrugged. This apartment building had its share of odd noises. I had owned my own house in Memphis, and even though I’d been here nearly a year, I still wasn’t used to all the sounds that neighbors could make.

  I turned, closed the front door, and latched it, like all of the tenants had agreed to do after dark. Then I joined Laura on the stairs.

  She slipped her arm through mine. The tension from earlier had fled, and we were heading into that perfect moment I had initially imagined when we had left for the benefit. We took our time climbing up, as if we were heading toward a glorious suite in a fancy hotel instead of my dingy apartment.

  Halfway up, she let go of my arm, and reached into the pocket of my topcoat for my keys.

  Even though she and I had grown closer these last four months, I had not given her keys to my place, nor had I asked for keys to hers. Since I did most of my work out of my apartment, I wanted to be cautious about who came into my apartment and why. Keys to her place wouldn’t have mattered, since I never would have used them. Even though the current building security was used to me, I was worried that some new overzealous employee would see a black man trying to open Miss Hathaway’s door and act before thinking.

  She managed to grab the keys, laughed, and with surprising agility for a woman in high heels, ran up the remaining steps. She thumbed the keys, looking for the square one that unlocked the top deadbolt.

  The thud came again, closer, this time followed by a cry of pain. A door banged softly, as if it had been partially opened and had suddenly slammed closed.

  Laura turned. She had obviously heard the sound, too. “Isn’t that where your neighbor lives?”

  The question wasn’t as inane as it sounded. The only neighbor of mine that Laura had met was Marvella Walker, a stunning woman who had set her sights on me the moment I had moved into the building. Last winter, Marvella did her best to make Laura’s visits hellacious, until I let Marvella know I wouldn’t tolerate her behavior.

  Laura was looking at the thick wooden door across the hall from mine. I took the last few steps two at a time, and reached the top. There I could hear a woman’s voice, making short sharp cries.

  “I think she’s calling for help,” Laura said.

  I didn’t wait. I hurried to the door. The sounds were louder here. In between the cries were moans.

  “Marvella?” I asked, reaching for the knob. “Marvella, it’s me, Bill. Is everything okay?”

  “Help…me…please…” This cry was louder than the rest, but I still wouldn’t have been able to hear it if I hadn’t been nearby.

  I turned the knob and to my surprise, it opened. Marvella was usually as meticulous about using her deadbolts as I was. But the door jammed, as if something were pushed against it.

  Through the crack in the door, I could see a woman’s bare foot on the hardwood floor, a bit of satin robe, and a blood stain that appeared to be growing.

  “Marvella?” I tried not to let the panic I suddenly felt into my voice. “Can you move away from the door? I can’t get in.”

  She grunted. The foot moved, braced itself, revealing some leg. Blood coated the inner thigh, and had run down to the ankle. As she moved, the blood smeared against the hardwood floor, and I realized the stain was really a puddle.

  “What’s going on, Smokey?” Laura had come up behind me.

  I held up a hand to silence her, and pushed on the door. It finally opened far enough for me to slip inside.

  When she saw me, the woman on the floor moaned in relief. But she wasn’t Marvella. She was small, her features delicate and elfin. Her skin had gone gray, and the area around her eyes was almost bluish, indicating a great deal of blood loss.

  “Thank God,” she whispered when she saw me. “I need some help.”

  “Where’s Marvella?” I asked, uncertain what had happened. Most of Marvella’s tidy living room was intact. The wooden sculptures, all of faces in an African style, remained on the surfaces, and the plants still covered the window seat in front of the large bay window. But the add-on kitchen was a mess of glasses and dirty dishes, and Marvella’s normally pristine brown couch was covered with blankets, towels, and even more blood.

  The woman shook her head,
then closed her eyes, and lay back down, as if all that movement had been too much for her. Next to her, a half-melted bag of ice added to water to the blood puddle.

  Laura pushed her way in behind me.

  “Oh, my God.” She crouched beside the woman, and put a hand on her forehead. “She’s burning up. Smokey, we have to get her help. Now.”

  The blood was coming from between the woman’s legs. She wore Marvella’s white satin robe, and it was partially open, revealing a slightly distended stomach.

  “Get towels from the kitchen,” I said. “See if you can stop the bleeding. I have to make sure Marvella’s all right.”

  I had visions of her dead or dying in the bedroom. I hurried toward the narrow hallway, wishing I had my gun. My topcoat flowed behind me, catching on the small table Marvella used to accent the space between the bathroom and bedroom, and knocking it over. The sculptures on top of it scattered.

  Laura moved behind me, making soothing noises to the poor woman as she gathered towels.

  The bathroom light was on. Drops of blood covered the white tile around the toilet, and more blood stained the orange rug in front of the bathtub. The brown and orange shower curtain was open, revealing a mound of wet towels in the tub. No towels hung on the racks, and a bloody handprint stained the white porcelain of the sink.

  But Marvella was not inside.

  I moved quickly to the bedroom, and flicked on the light. I had never seen this room, but it continued the browns and oranges Marvella used to decorate the rest of the place. Instead of sculptures, though, big oil paintings of tribal figures covered the walls.

  One painting was so large and narrow that the figure on it was life-sized. I caught it out of the corner of my eye, and had to do a double-take to make sure it wasn’t a real person.

  My heart was pounding. I made myself take a breath and slow down so that I could scan the room.

  The batik bedspread had been pulled back and someone had removed one of the matching pillows. Women’s clothing pooled near the closet, unusually sloppy in a very tidy room.

  The bedroom smelled of Marvella’s sandalwood perfume, and I realized that it was the only place in the entire apartment that didn’t smell of fresh blood.

  I checked the closet just in case, and saw nothing except rows of brightly colored clothing. Then I lifted the bedspread. Boxes of shoes, neatly labeled, were stored beneath the bed.

  No one was in there either.

  Marvella was missing and a woman was bleeding to death in her living room.

  Something awful had happened here, and I had no real idea what that something was.

  Also by Kris Nelscott

  Smokey Dalton series:

  A Dangerous Road

  Smoke-Filled Rooms

  Thin Walls

  Stone Cribs

  War at Home

  Days of Rage

  Guarding Lacey (story)

  Street Justice

  Family Affair (story)

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  Stories:

  “Sob Sisters”

  “Clinic”

  “Combat Medic”

  “The Monster in Our Midst”

  “Blaming the Arsonist”

  About the Author

  Kris Nelscott is an open pen name used by New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

  The first Smokey Dalton novel, A Dangerous Road, won the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery and was short-listed for the Edgar Award for Best Novel; the second, Smoke-Filled Rooms, was a PNBA Book Award finalist; and the third, Thin Walls, was one of the Chicago Tribune’s best mysteries of the year. Kirkus chose Days of Rage as one of the top ten mysteries of the year and it was also nominated for a Shamus award for The Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel of the Year.

  Entertainment Weekly says her equals are Walter Mosley and Raymond Chandler. Booklist calls the Smokey Dalton books “a high-class crime series” and Salon says “Kris Nelscott can lay claim to the strongest series of detective novels now being written by an American author.”

  For more information about Kris Nelscott, or author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s other works, please go to KrisNelscott.com or KristineKathrynRusch.com. To sign up for the Kris Nelscott newsletter, click here.

  www.kriswrites.com

  Protectors

  Copyright © 2017 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Published by WMG Publishing

  Cover and layout copyright © 2017 by WMG Publishing

  Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing

  Cover art copyright © Srnickhole/Dreamstime, jimfeliciano/Dreamstime

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  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.