Darker Than Any Shadow

by Tina Whittle

  “Oh no, you don’t.” I grabbed his elbow. “You—”

  He knocked my hand away so fast it snatched the breath right out of me. A Krav Maga front block, one quick sideways smack with the forearm. I stared at my hand, stared at him.

  He stared back in equal bewilderment. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…I shouldn’t have…”

  I was momentarily speechless. But then the haze of astonishment cleared, and I saw Trey clearly. He looked positively shell-shocked, broken right in two.

  “No, Trey, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that.”

  “That still shouldn’t…it’s not…except that we’ve been practicing—”

  “It’s okay.”

  But he wasn’t listening. He was confused and disoriented. Suddenly all the anger evaporated, and something else took its place, something like panic.

  “Trey? What’s going on?”

  He frowned, thinking hard. “Increased pulse rate, irregular respiration, probably from the adrenal cascade—”

  “I mean, what are you feeling?”

  I tried to take his hand, but he jerked away.

  “Trey?”

  He was cornered, the table right behind him, me in front. I reached for him—slowly, very slowly—and lay one hand flat against his chest. His breathing quickened at my touch, but he didn’t move.

  “Don’t,” he whispered.

  “It’s okay. I’m not afraid.”

  “But I am. I think.” He closed his eyes. “I can’t breathe.”

  “Yes, you can. You are. Deep in and deep out, you know this part.”

  He took a deep breath, shaky but deliberate. Beneath my palm, I felt the gallop of his heart, the one muscle he couldn’t train into submission.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Anger? Pain? Nervousness?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Keep trying.”

  “I am.”

  “I know.” My voice surprised me. Husky, ragged, whispery. “Trey?”

  He finally met my eyes. “Yes?”

  “It’s happening again.”

  He swallowed hard. “I know.”

  “Is this a kink in your programming or in mine?”

  “It’s not a kink. It’s just adrenalin.”

  “Not just adrenalin.”

  I moved my fingers to the hollow of his throat, a delicate butterfly touch. Before I’d known him, I’d never known how much the body revealed. Despite our words, our careful composure, the truth slopped over the edge of whatever bucket we hid it in.

  I ran a finger down his breastbone, and his breath caught. I felt it too, the anxiety and anticipation mixing together in a heady hormonal cocktail. I moved closer, stomach to stomach. He closed his eyes…and then the door flew open behind us.

  I jerked around to see Rico standing there. He swore in a particularly colorful manner.

  “Not that you two care, but the team took second place. And I’m moving on to the individuals.”

  “Rico! That’s—”

  “So I gotta get back, and you two gotta find a different room. This one here is freshly tricked out with video…right up there.”

  He pointed. Sure enough, a camera’s red hot light glared at us. “Come out front when you’re decent. Or dressed, let’s shoot for dressed.”

  He shut the door, and I turned back to Trey. Our bodies still touched, but the rest of him was once again separate, the breach plugged, the whitewater tamed.

  I put my hands on my hips. “You’re premises liability and you didn’t know there was a camera in here?”

  “I knew. But I didn’t remember.”

  “I thought you were the guy who didn’t forget.”

  He straightened his tie and stepped around me. “There’s a difference between forgetting and not remembering.”

  He was calm again, surface-wise anyway. But I knew the underneath, could still feel it singing in my own veins. I smoothed my shirt nice and tidy, and still it sang.

  “Just adrenalin, huh?”

  “No. Adrenalin followed by dopamine and acetylcholine in the secondary cascade. A completely different scenario, one I don’t fully understand.” He went to the door and opened it, once again a vision of tidiness and precision. “Let’s go. I really do have to get back to work.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  The after-party was a Bacchic blur of hugs and champagne, first at the Fox and later at a draft house down the street. Rico stayed tangled in the knot of his supporters, flushed and sweating but positively glowing.

  I joined the revels, but Trey stayed at the Fox to doublecheck his protocol for Saturday. I didn’t try to convince him otherwise. He was still calm and precise on the surface, but something trembled in his depths, like one of the continental plates of his psyche had shifted.

  Cricket and Jackson’s absence muted the exuberance as the rumors flew. Surprisingly, the rumors weren’t nearly as colorful as the truth. As warned, I kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t shake the memory of Jackson slumped against the wall, a well-meaning monkey wrench in the wheels of justice. I knew Rico and I were wrenches too, even Trey in his own way. We each had a moral blueprint we followed come hell or high water, for good or ill.

  The Atlanta poets snagged a corner table with a window that overlooked Peachtree. I sat thigh to thigh with Rico. He was jazzed and mellow, almost back to his own self. I hadn’t told him that Trey now knew about the cell phone fiasco. I figured that particular chicken would come home to roost soon enough.

  I was halfway through my second beer when a text interrupted my pondering. I read it twice to make sure it said what I thought it said. Then I leaned over and pulled at Rico’s elbow. “Come outside a second. We have to talk.”

  He followed me onto the sidewalk, shutting the heavy doors on the din of the bar. Peachtree was almost as noisy, the sidewalks flowing with sparkling club-goers, the streets a blur of headlights and shiny cars. Everybody on perpetual cruise.

  I pulled Rico into a huddle behind a blowsy magnolia. “Can I borrow your car? It’s a sorta emergency.”

  “You have your own car.”

  “It’s five blocks away. You’re right across the street.”

  “Get Trey to take you. He’s right across the street too.”

  “It’s almost midnight, he’s gone home already.”

  Rico folded his arms, bear-like. “Tell me what you’re up to, and I’ll consider it.”

  “I don’t have time!”

  But Rico wasn’t budging. I spilled the story as quickly as I could.

  “I got a text from Sloane, my reporter contact. She just finished an interview with Amber Hocking, and Amber wants to talk to me, like, right now!”

  “Who’s Amber Hocking?”

  “Lex’s lovely assistant.”

  “The spangled one in the videos?”

  “Bingo. Apparently she’s in town to claim the body and take it back to Iowa or Ohio, one of the vowel states.”

  “That’s the best Lex had for family, his assistant?”

  “I don’t know, Rico, and I’m very unlikely to find out unless you give me your keys right now.”

  He made a noise and looked gruff. “You should call Trey.”

  “And you should have told Trey about Lex’s cell phone. So don’t lecture me.”

  Rico leaned against the wall. Under the streetlight, his skin glowed warm like mahogany.

  “You’re pissed at me.”

  “Yeah. And I’m pissed at myself. And I’m totally confused. Keep Trey in the loop, leave Trey alone. I have no idea what’s best. But I do know this. Sloane called with this amazing opportunity, and if I don’t get to the Marriot Marquis quick, I’ll miss it.” I held out my hand, palm-up. “So what do you say?”

  He fished his keys from his pocket. “You keep 911 on speed dial, you hear? No dark alleys. And get your ass back here ASAP.”

  ***

  I took the sidewalk at a trot, passing th
e Fox on the way, its Broadway bright entrance still gleaming like a carnival. The private parking area was mostly empty, which I hoped would make Rico’s Chevy Tahoe an easy spot.

  I saw the Ferrari first, however, parked in the far back corner. So Trey was still around. Garrity’s warnings growled in the back of my head. You’re a couple now, not a crime-fighting duo. And for Trey’s sake, that’s how it’s got to be. But I remembered the look on Trey’s face too, when I’d spilled about the cell phone. Angry, yes, but betrayed and hurt that I’d kept something so important from him.

  I sighed and pulled out my phone. And I had my finger on speed dial when I rounded the corner and saw Rico’s car…with Trey standing beside the passenger door.

  I put my phone away. “I was two seconds from calling you.”

  “Rico called first.”

  “He’s feeling guilty.”

  “He should be.”

  I popped the locks. “I can handle this by myself. I only wanted to tell you where I was and what I was doing.”

  “Nonetheless.”

  He opened his door and climbed in. I followed suit.

  “Go home, Trey. You’re exhausted.”

  “I think I need to get used to being exhausted.”

  “You need to get used to letting me do things by myself.”

  He exhaled. “Probably. But for now, I’m here. Drive.”

  His voice crackled with authority, and I felt the first zing of annoyance. I slammed the door behind me and fastened my seatbelt.

  “Fine. But you get to explain to Garrity.”

  “Explain what?”

  “That I didn’t drag you into this.” I jammed the key in the ignition. “He made me promise I’d keep you out of my investigating.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s worried about you. He thinks you might be…decompensating.”

  Trey’s head snapped in my direction. “Garrity doesn’t know nearly as much as he thinks he does. About a lot of things.” Trey fastened his seatbelt with a determined thrust. “Now drive.”

  I yanked the car into reverse and backed out, then hit the gas and cut a tight right onto Peachtree. Decompensating or not, Trey was dancing on my last nerve.

  “Just because I let you come along doesn’t mean you get to start bossing me around.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re all cop-like again. You keep saying we’re not cops.”

  “We’re not.”

  “Then why—”

  The car exploded in noise and smoke, a hissing whine followed by an ear-splitting detonation, then nothing but clotted gray fumes—choking, acrid, blinding. I stamped the brake and the car bucked hard, then skidded.

  “Shitshitshit, I can’t see!”

  “Slow down, don’t—”

  A screech of metal on metal, and then a sickening lurch. I slammed forward as the airbag exploded with an excruciating blow to my face and another ear-cuffing boom. I heard Trey’s voice from far away, muffled, as my head splintered in a violent current of agony.

  I screamed and yanked at the car door. Every move was pain, the world was pain, and Trey was yelling in my ear, but I couldn’t understand. There was noise and sickening spinning pressure and smoke, and Trey pulling at me, insistent.

  I snatched free. A crescendo of pain. And then nothing.

  Chapter Forty-two

  When I woke up, I was sick. Hangover sick. I saw Trey sitting in the chair beside my hospital bed, his upper half sprawled on the edge of the mattress. He was asleep, his head tucked into one curled-up arm. The second I turned my head, he stirred and sat up.

  “You’re awake.”

  “What happened?”

  I started coughing, and he reached for a glass of water and held it to my lips. He looked bleary, still like a page from GQ, only one that had been wadded up and then spread flat again.

  “There was an accident,” he said.

  “I know that much. What happened?”

  “That’s a complicated question.”

  I lifted the sheet and looked down to see a swath of compression bandages around my ankle. Details lurched in my memory—the smoke, the crunch of impact, the pain, the ambulance, more pain, and then a needle-pricked slide into nothing.

  “I broke my leg, didn’t I?”

  “No, you sprained your ankle. You also have a mild concussion, some contusions, and several contact burns from the airbag. A black eye too. The nosebleed has stopped, however.”

  I reached up. A bandage the size of a waffle covered my right temple. I gingerly traced the puffy swollen tissue beneath my right eye.

  “It feels squishy.”

  “It’s the other eye.”

  I decided not to touch that one. “What happened?”

  “Someone broke into Rico’s car and rigged a timed explosive device in the glove compartment. It malfunctioned, however, so there was no explosion, only smoke.”

  I got lightheaded. “Somebody tried to blow me up?”

  “Not you. Rico. Detective Cummings says it was wired to go off five minutes after the driver’s side door opened.”

  I slumped back against the pillow. A freaking bomb. Not personal, not a knife in the chest or hands around the neck. Something that could have taken out a city block.

  Trey returned the water glass to the table. “You jumped the curb and hit a concrete barrier. If you’d made it to the interstate, there could have been serious complications, but nothing as potentially lethal as what would have happened had it functioned properly.”

  “Is Rico okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He went home to rest. He told me to call if you woke up.”

  “When did you get here?”

  Trey blinked at me. “I haven’t left.”

  I looked closer at his clothes. Not wrinkled from being slumped on the bed. Wrinkled from sleeping in a chair. I also caught the barely visible sheen of dried blood on the French cuffs.

  “Omigod, are you okay?”

  “Typical impact damage, nothing serious.”

  I wanted to see all the way into his skull, to know what might have been shaken loose, what fresh weirdness awaited when the neurons finally settled. But all I could see was the afterburn of worry and exhaustion.

  I coughed, and the pain made me wince. Plus I started tearing up with a vengeance, which was exactly what I didn’t need at the moment.

  “Would you get a nurse, please?”

  Trey headed for the door, leaving the water where I couldn’t reach it.

  ***

  Sloane Sykes arrived right after breakfast, her reporter’s bag on her shoulder. She came in wearing jeans and carrying a single polyester rose. Pink. She slapped it on my tray next to a slice of ham. “Brought you flowers.”

  “Flower,” I corrected. “Singular.”

  “Whatever. It got me past your security.” She appraised me with curious admiration. “So that’s the fabled Trey Seaver, huh? I was expecting someone bulkier.”

  She craned for another look at him. He was on his cell phone, and from that angle, I could see the bruises on his jaw. He cut a look my way, raised an eyebrow. I made an okay sign, and he returned to his call.

  “He’s bulky enough.” I sipped at my pale lukewarm coffee and dumped three packs of sugar in it. “And he let you in because I vouched for your good character. He’s not terribly thrilled about it, but I told him I owed you one.”

  “You owe me several.” She sat in the square chair and scooted up beside me. “So tell me how it feels to be the victim of attempted murder?”

  “It wasn’t me they were after, it was Rico. It was his car, not mine.”

  “But you were in it.”

  I stirred the coffee. “That was a fluke.”

  “Surely somebody knew that you’d be in that car?”

  “Not unless they were psychic.”

  She made note
s. “So the Dead Poet Killer strikes again.”

  “That whole thing is a piece of nonsense dreamed up by Frankie Styles and people like you.”

  She wasn’t insulted. “A serial killer targeting poets goes above the fold, that’s for sure.”

  “But even if this is the work of some poet-obsessed serial killer, this wasn’t a part of his plan. I’m not a poet.”

  Sloane cast a glance into the hall. “What about your bodyguard boyfriend? Anybody have a bone to pick with him?”

  “He used to be a cop, so I imagine there’s tons of people who’d be happy to see him DOA. But he wasn’t supposed to be in the car either.”

  She scratched a flurry of shorthand into a reporter’s notebook, but I noticed the tiny MP3 recorder whirring along simultaneously. We were on the record. I also noticed the edge of a police report peeking from the bag.

  “Is that from last night?”

  She nodded and handed it over. “You’ll especially like the photograph of the bomb.”

  The colors in the shot were saturated and lurid, but the device seemed ridiculously amateurish. An ashy red brick with wires and a squat battery-ish thing duct-taped to a plastic sandwich bag.

  Sloane tapped the photo. “It’s a model rocket motor fueled with kerosene. Some powdered creamer and confectioner’s sugar for accelerants. An exploding squib hooked to a kitchen timer. All of it wrapped around a hunk of fertilizer for maximum firepower.”

  “So why didn’t it explode?”

  “Wrong kind of fertilizer.”

  “That’s all that stood between me and a violent flaming death, a purchasing error?”

  “Seems so. But this does put paid to the mafia assassin theory.”

  “Why?”

  “Mafia assassins don’t screw up. This was badly done, like somebody pulled it straight off the Internet and didn’t know enough about nitrogen oxide to make it work. They put a chunk of Miracle-Grow on there and assumed it would go boom. Amateur night DIY.”

  I sat there and stared at the pictures. It looked innocent and grubby, like a middle-school science project. Not an instrument of death.

  I handed the folder back. “So what did Amber have to say?”

  Sloane crossed her legs and dangled her shoe. “Why don’t you ask her yourself? She’s right down the hall, dying to talk to you.”