Midnight Lullaby

by Jen Blood

  When she pulled back, she wiped her eyes with the back of her arm and looked embarrassed. I nodded toward the chairs in the waiting room.

  “You want to sit?”

  “Yeah. Sitting’s good. I want to hit the bathroom first, though.” She sniffled. “I think I may have peed a little when I first saw Buzz.”

  I laughed. I think the sound surprised both of us. “Okay, go clean up. I’ll be right here.”

  While she was in the restroom, Thibodeau showed up. He looked more haggard than the dead who kept popping up everywhere.

  “We really need to stop meeting this way,” I said.

  “Tell me about it. How’s Buzz?” He looked genuinely concerned.

  “I’m not sure. Hopefully we got there in time—we’ll see.”

  He shook his head and sank into the chair beside me. “Do you have any idea—”

  “Eugene Elias,” I said before he could get the question out. “You know the pictures that had been taken of Solomon and me? The guy who’d been hanging around? He threatened Buzz, too. He’s a PI out of Weymouth.”

  “What’s his beef with you?” Thibodeau asked.

  “Not sure—he won’t tell us who hired him.”

  “You think he was the one who did Charlene Dsengani?”

  “I don’t know. It feels like two different M.O.s to me, but maybe this Elias is just trying to protect his boss, and that’s the killer.”

  Thibodeau didn’t comment on that. Solomon came out then, and the detective took us to an empty exam room for a surreal interrogation that lasted over an hour. Solomon and I sat on an exam table while Thibodeau sat on the doctor’s stool; Solomon kept fiddling with the instruments, and I spent most of the time stealing glances out the door in the hope that someone would come to let us know how Buzz was doing. No one did. Meanwhile, Solomon and I presented everything we had on the investigation, from start to finish—including the photos Mary had given us.

  Thibodeau looked genuinely shocked when he saw Davies and Foster in the shot.

  “You haven’t told anyone else about this?” he asked us. We shook our heads.

  “There hasn’t been time,” Solomon said. “We went straight to Buzz with the pictures, and then...well...” She trailed off.

  “Right,” Thibodeau said. “You think you can do me a favor and keep this quiet a while longer?”

  “Whatever you need,” I said without a second’s thought. “But people will want a statement about Buzz, and the doctors have already called his wife.”

  “My office will handle the statement,” Thibodeau said. “I’ll see that someone stays with Buzz’s wife, and I’ll follow up on this Elias guy personally. And as for you two...”

  “We have somewhere to stay,” I said. Solomon looked at me, surprised. “You have our cell numbers if you need to reach us. We won’t be far.”

  “Be careful,” he said grimly. “I don’t like the direction this thing is heading.”

  “We’re not crazy about it ourselves,” Solomon said.

  After he’d gone, Solomon turned to me with a question in her eyes. I was already calling Wolf Cole, though.

  ◊◊◊◊◊

  “You’re sure this isn’t a problem?” I said to Wolf when we pulled up at Johnny’s Portland brownstone three hours later. “Johnny—”

  “He’s out of town,” Wolf said. “There’s no reason he needs to know anything about this. But if whoever killed Charlene is the same guy who tried to take out your boss, and maybe they have Lizzie and Maisie...” He shifted. “You’re gonna need more than a deadbolt, if that’s what you’ve stumbled into.”

  This time, I agreed. Solomon and I had spent the past few hours in the waiting room at the hospital, barely speaking to one another for most of that time. It was only when the surgeon came out to tell us that Buzz was out of surgery and stable that we decided it might be time to go. I had to admit, I was genuinely touched at how readily Wolf offered up both his time and his brother’s place.

  Inside, Johnny’s brownstone was tastefully decorated in surprisingly quiet earth tones, nothing like what I’d seen at the beach house.

  “Lizzie picked out everything here,” Wolf said—sadly, I thought. I wondered if he believed she was dead. “Johnny hates it, but the place was featured in a couple of design magazines, so that’s good enough for him.”

  It was two in the morning, the house eerily still. Solomon looked dead on her feet, her eyes glazed.

  “You need anything to eat?” Wolf asked. “The kitchen’s through there.” He pointed toward an arched doorway in the back.

  “I think just sleep, for now,” I said. Solomon nodded, mute.

  Wolf didn’t give us the option of separate rooms and I didn’t ask. The guest room he led us to was on the second floor, with an en suite and a king-sized bed and walls painted an oddly comforting mossy green.

  Solomon shucked her jeans and her bra without apology and got under the sheets in her t-shirt and underwear. I followed her lead, stripping to my boxers before I crawled in next to her. She didn’t wait for an invitation this time before she slipped into my arms.

  “You okay?” I asked. She wrapped her arms around me more tightly and didn’t speak. I kissed the top of her head, my hand in her hair. “The surgeon said he’ll be all right.”

  “I know,” she said, her voice muffled in my chest. She loosened her grip on me, but didn’t move. I didn’t mind. “What about you. Are you okay?” she asked.

  It took me at least a minute, possibly two, before I answered. “My brother keeps appearing to me,” I finally said, instead of telling the lie I’d expected. I felt her shift, but kept my arms locked tight around her so she couldn’t go far.

  “Are you serious?” she asked.

  “And Doug Philbrick. Mostly Josh, though.”

  She struggled in my arms until I let her go, then reached for the bedside lamp and turned it on low. Her hair was down, mussed and tumbling around her shoulders, and her eyes were bright with fatigue when she looked at me.

  “Does he talk to you?” she asked. “Your brother, I mean.”

  “Sometimes,” I said. I sat up in bed and leaned back against the wooden headboard. “Do you think I’m going crazy?”

  She didn’t answer right away, as though considering the question. “I talk to people from the Payson fire sometimes.” She lowered her eyes and twisted her hands in the blanket. “And I had this friend who was in the church with me... I see her, sometimes.”

  I looked at her in surprise. Four years working together, running together, and she’d never mentioned it. “For how long?”

  She shrugged. “Since the fire, I think. Or not long after. It doesn’t happen very often anymore... When I was younger, though, I saw her a lot. What did he say to you?”

  “He asked me what I want.”

  “Oh.” She tilted her head and studied me. “What did you tell him?”

  I looked at her, rumpled and deceptively delicate. You’d never expect the kind of strength she has in such a small package. I thought of the world I’d left in Baja; the exhaustion that inevitably comes from a life of not-so-quiet desperation.

  I reached out with a hand that seemed to have a will of its own, and brushed the hair away from her face.

  “What do you want?” I asked her.

  There was a beat of silence. Then another. Instead of answering, she moved closer. The vulnerability in her gaze was unlike anything I’d ever seen before, the sheer honesty there almost overwhelming. Her lips were sweet when she kissed me, the lightest brush stroke; when I didn’t pull away, she continued. I tangled my hand in her hair and held her there, moved my lips against hers, felt myself respond when she pressed her body to mine. When I felt her tongue at the seam of my lips, I opened willingly, without a fight, and pulled her closer.

  The kiss deepened. I lay down and pulled her on top of me, her heart beating hard against mine. When I shifted my focus to her ear and took the lobe into my mouth, she whimpered in a way I’d ne
ver heard from Solomon before. Her breath caught; her hips arched into mine. I slid my hand up and palmed her small, firm breast through the fabric of her t-shirt.

  She was the one who pulled back. Her pupils were blown wide and her lips were swollen. “We...” She sat up, still straddling me. I tried to pretend I wasn’t harder than I could remember being since I was a teenager. “Um—we should probably stop. I mean...” She hesitated. “Right? I’m tired, and you’re tired, and people are missing and Buzz is in the hospital. So, I’m not having sex with you. Definitely.”

  “Okay,” I said. I didn’t move. Just watched her while she struggled with a decision I wasn’t sure I was ready to make anyway. Finally, when I’d managed to restore at least part of my normal brain function, I reached up and ran my hand through her hair, guiding her face so she would look at me.

  “You’re right,” I said. “It’s your decision—but you’re right, I don’t want our first time to be like this. You deserve a little better than a drug dealer’s guest bedroom on one of the worst nights of our lives.”

  “Just a little better?”

  “Fair enough. A lot better.” I shifted. “But if you don’t want me to try something more, you have to get off me. Soon.”

  She grinned, eyebrows up. “Yeah? Why’s that?” She moved above me, twitching her hips just enough to make me completely nuts. I growled when she kissed me again, wrapped my arms around her, and flipped us so that I was back on top.

  The kiss was slower then, more sensual than just plain sex, and I nipped her bottom lip and felt the length of her body against mine. And pulled back. I let out a long, slow, even exhale, then moved off her and flopped onto my back. “Just give me a minute?” I said.

  “Sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry—she sounded downright triumphant.

  “Sure you are.”

  Things were quiet for a few seconds, nothing but the sound of the occasional car on the street outside to break the stillness. Solomon shifted beside me. I reached down, found her hand, and twined my fingers with hers.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. She hesitated. “Are we? I mean, are you and I okay? Because if we’re not... That was a lot of fun, what we just did. A lot of fun.” She let out a sexy little exhale. “Seriously. More fun than the county fair, just without the fried dough. But I don’t want to screw things up, you know? You’re a pain in the ass, but I kind of like having you around.”

  I rolled to my side so I could face her. The vulnerability had returned to her gaze—the kind of openness I knew she wouldn’t show anyone else.

  “We’re okay. I like having you around, too... I’m not gonna do anything to mess that up, if I can help it.”

  “Okay. Me too.”

  I stretched my arm out and she snuggled in with her head on my shoulder, her hand on my stomach. “Do you think you can sleep?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Strangely enough, I think so. You?”

  “Yeah. I think so.” Her eyes were already closed. I shut out the light, wrapped my arms around her, and waited for morning.

  Chapter 17

  I woke before Solomon the next day and claimed the bathroom at just past eight o’clock. When I went downstairs, there was a note on the kitchen table and a fully stocked fridge.

  Call when you’re up and me or Hector will come for you. Don’t go out alone. Signed simply, W.

  I called the hospital first, and was told Buzz was still listed in critical condition; they wouldn’t tell me anything more. I called Alice—Buzz’s wife—and got her voicemail, so settled for calling Wolf.

  “It’s about time you dragged your lazy ass out of bed. What’s first on the schedule?” he asked. I could hear a car’s engine, and figured I’d gotten him while he was driving.

  “Solomon and I need to go to the hospital to check on Buzz and talk to his wife. Thibodeau wants to see us today, too.” I hesitated. “And I want to have a chat with Bobby Davies at some point.”

  “He’s one of the dirty pols in the pictures you showed me?” Though right now Thibodeau had most of the pictures Mary had given me, I’d held a copy of them back for safekeeping. Not that I didn’t trust the detective, but...well, at the moment I didn’t trust anyone. The night before, I’d shown Wolf the remaining photos in the hope that he might have a theory I hadn’t thought of yet. He hadn’t, but he sure as hell had fixed his attention on Foster and Davies fast.

  “Yeah,” I said. “He’s one of the dirty pols.”

  He grunted. “The same prick who spooked Lizzie not too long ago.” Again, I agreed. There was silence on the line. Then, finally: “I’m going with you.”

  I shifted. I was standing in front of a picture window in Johnny’s state-of-the-art kitchen, looking out on a fenced yard Charlene had most likely landscaped personally. “You understand that we don’t really know anything. And we can’t kill this guy.”

  “I don’t want to kill him,” Wolf said. “Dead men don’t talk. And I want some answers.”

  ◊◊◊◊◊

  Buzz was still out when Solomon and I got to the hospital later that morning, accompanied by Wolf’s second-in-command, Hector. Alice was in the waiting room with her cell phone and laptop, her hair pulled back and her eyes dead tired. She got up and hugged both of us while she was still on the phone. Meanwhile, Hector stood in the doorway with his feet hip-width apart and his arms folded over his chest, watching.

  Alice was five years older than Buzz, and had been in the newspaper business most of her life. She was tall and striking, with long gray hair she kept pulled back in a dancer’s bun. Today, I assumed she’d come straight from the airport, considering the rumpled business suit she wore. Two suitcases had been stashed in the corner of the room.

  “What do you know?” I asked her when she hung up the phone.

  “He’s stable,” she said. “He had a transfusion last night, but right now they’re worried about organ failure.” She was strangely calm, professional. The pain in her eyes was unmistakable, but she kept it locked up tight. “It’s hyper...” She consulted a notebook she had beside her laptop.

  “Hypovolemic shock,” Solomon supplied for her. “With the blood loss, his organs may have gone too long without oxygen or nutrients. Did the doctor say what they’re doing for him?”

  “There’s not much they can do, according to them,” Alice said. “I was just on the phone with a friend of mine who knows someone who specializes in this kind of trauma. She’s going to see if we can get him to fly out.”

  “Has Buzz woken up?” I asked.

  “No, they’re keeping him under for now. It gives his body a better shot at healing.”

  “Was he able to talk to you at all?”

  For the first time, her eyes welled. She took a second to get herself in hand before she continued. “He was unconscious when I got here. I haven’t spoken with him since yesterday afternoon.”

  “What about damage to the vocal chords or trachea?” Solomon asked.

  “Nothing was severed,” Alice answered. “They said the damage there isn’t permanent.”

  Solomon looked as surprised as I was by the news. Considering the damage done to Charlene, I wasn’t sure why the killer would show this kind of restraint with Buzz.

  “Listen, I hate to bring this up right now,” I said, “but we’re supposed to be ready to go to print Wednesday night. Obviously Buzz won’t be in any condition—”

  “You stay on this story,” Alice interrupted. Her eyes were sharp and hard as steel, a testament to the strength it took for a woman to make it this long in a business dominated by men. “Buzz always keeps a couple of stories in the hopper in case he runs short for an issue—I’ll pull those, and I’ll handle the rest. I want you on this.”

  “What angle are we taking?” Solomon asked.

  “Profile Charlene Dsengani,” Alice said after a second. “Five hundred words max there, I’ve got no more than a couple of inches to spare. If Foster and Davies are involved in th
is, I want the proof we need—three sources, no mistakes.” She looked at me. I nodded. “Do what you need to do over the next four days, but I want this story.”

  She looked down the corridor toward Buzz’s room. “Whoever did this to him? Those bastards are going to pay. Big.”

  “I know things have been nuts,” I said. “But did you ever get in touch with anyone over at the Tribune?”

  “I did,” Alice said. “I talked to Ted last night—the owner over there. Unfortunately, he wasn’t all that supportive. He passed the buck, said if you can get Rafferty to sign off on the two of you collaborating, he’s fine with it. But it’s up to Rafferty.”

  “So it’s a good thing you didn’t do something stupid and piss him off yesterday,” Solomon said to me with a grimace.

  A doctor came in then, and work was officially off the table. We talked to Alice for a few minutes more before we told her to lay low and give us a call if there were any changes. Then, we headed out to get to work.

  ◊◊◊◊◊

  Hector took us back to Johnny’s from there, Solomon and I crammed into the front of Hector’s pickup with him. Solomon had been awkward all morning, and I knew I wasn’t helping anything by trying to pretend nothing had changed after what had happened the night before.

  Finally, when we were back at Johnny’s, I snagged Solomon by the arm and dragged her out to the backyard. There was a small garden thick with tomato plants and zucchini, cucumbers and carrots, and beans climbing a pretty wooden trellis. Flowering daylilies lined the perimeter of the yard, their orange blossoms vibrant against the backdrop of a cedar privacy fence. I took a seat on a stone bench beside a small pond where flashes of silver and orange caught the sun from the goldfish who swam in the murky water. It smelled clean and earthy, a world apart from the city outside.