by Tami Dane
“Sure.”
He lifted his phone. “This thing can do pretty much anything. And I might have”—he coughed—“access to certain databases that might come in handy, thanks to my father.”
I almost kissed him. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“You didn’t give me the chance. And you didn’t tell me her last name.”
“Do it! Her name’s Jia Wu. And I know she lives around here somewhere.”
Gabe’s fingers poked at his phone’s touch screen. He gnawed on his lip as he waited for the results to come up. I gnawed on mine too, and did a little foot shuffle as well. My gaze kept sweeping the coffee shop. I was hoping Jia would come wandering in any moment now.
Any moment.
Please.
“Got it!” Wagner grabbed my hand. Our fingers wove together, and I couldn’t help but glance down. Why did it feel so natural, to be holding his hand like this?
Immediately I shook myself out of that little moment and together we sprinted out of the store, piled in his car—he insisted I wasn’t in any condition to drive—and drove east on Frederick. It took us less than five minutes to locate her house. I noticed it was dark, but there was a Toyota parked in the driveway.
I didn’t wait for Wagner to cut off the engine. I bailed out, ran up the front walk, and knocked on the door.
No answer.
I knocked again.
And again.
Wagner was at my side when I knocked a fourth time.
“There’s nobody home,” I said, wringing my hands. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know, Sloan. I called Fischer and told him not to bother coming. I have a feeling we’ve been had. It’s some kind of practical joke. A prank.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“She’s a teenager. Teens do that sort of thing. I did.”
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t surprise me about you, but I know this girl, and there’s no way she’d pull this kind of prank. No. It was real. She screamed.” I clomped down the front porch steps, hesitating at the bottom.
What now?
I started toward the side of the house, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to peek in a few windows. I also wanted to check the grass for signs of a lightning strike.
“Where are you going?” Wagner asked, following me.
“I want to take a look around, see if there’s anything that looks suspicious.” I stopped. Looked down. Looked up.
My heart literally stopped beating.
“Look.” I pointed at the ground. There, under the window, was a brown patch. And branching from it, in all directions, were bent, jig-jaggy lines, with smaller branches going off those. “There’s the lightning strike.”
“I see that.”
“Just like Emma Walker’s house. It was here. The lightning bird.” I hopped up and down, trying to look in the window, but I was too freaking short to see in. I dashed toward the fence walling in the backyard. “We need to get back there.”
“Sloan . . .”
I turned a one-eighty and headed back toward the front of the house, thinking there might be a gate on the other side, where the driveway cut along the opposite side of the house and angled into the attached garage. Sure enough, there was.
I hit the latch. Locked.
“Damn it.”
“Sloan,” Wagner repeated as he ran up behind me. He grabbed my elbow. “Stop for a minute.”
“I need to make sure she isn’t in there, hurt. If he . . . If she’s been attacked, her heart may have stopped.”
“Why don’t we try calling the BPD? They can send a car out?”
“Do you really think the dispatcher is going to believe me when I tell her I think a man-sized lightning bird has attacked Jia?”
“Well . . . what if you didn’t give any details?”
“Then we could be sending innocent police officers into a dangerous situation. They should know what they’re dealing with. I already tried Forrester. I left a message. If we wait for him to call back, it could be too late. Do you know what happens to someone when they’ve been struck by lightning?”
“Um . . . no.”
“In fifteen cases out of a hundred, their heart goes into arrhythmia. That’s what kills them. Not the heat. The charge skims over the outside of their body, which is why so many people live. And why they aren’t burned to ashes.”
“That’s all fine and good, but you’re this close to breaking into someone’s house. I’m calling 9-1-1.”
“Fine. You do that. I’m going to see if I can find her. She called me.” I tried the door leading into the garage. Unlocked. “Yes!” I pushed in, blinking in the semidarkness. There were no cars parked in the garage. But there were oil stains on the floor, as if someone parked there frequently. One stain was still wet. “She’s home alone.”
“You don’t know that,” Wagner shouted from outside.
“I’m just going to check this door,” I said, stepping up to the door leading into the house. Unlocked. “Look at that, it’s open.”
“Don’t do it.”
I turned the knob and pushed.
“Sloan, if something has happened to Jia, you could be considered a suspect if you go inside.”
“No way. I have you as my witness.” I stuck my head inside. I heard no sounds. No TVs. No people talking. Nothing. “Jia? Are you in there?”
No answer.
“Jia! If you’re in there, please say something. Do you need help?”
I held my breath and listened.
One second passed.
Another.
Then, a sound. Was that . . . a cry for help?
“I think she’s in here.” I ignored Wagner’s barked no and dove through the door. I was standing in a mudroom. “Jia? I’m here to help. Where are you?” I listened; but my heart was pounding so freaking loudly, I couldn’t hear. I stepped around shoes and headed toward the doorway, which opened into a narrow hall. That hall opened into an open kitchen and family room. “Jia?”
Thump. Upstairs.
I took a left, running through a dining room and past a home office, turned left again, and took the steps two at a time.
“Jia?” I called.
Thump.
I followed the sound to a closed door. I pushed it open. Looked around. Nobody.
“Jia?”
A softer sound drew me toward the far side of the bed. She was there, lying on the floor, curled into a fetal position.
“Jia!” I dropped on one knee and rolled her onto her back. My hand went to her throat, to check for a pulse. But she blinked; her mouth opened.
“Help.” Her hand shook as she pointed at the window, then at herself. She dragged in a deep breath.
I screamed for Wagner, hoping he was standing close enough to hear. “I found her! She’s alive. But she needs help!”
She wasn’t looking good. Pale. Very shaky. I went ahead and put my finger to her artery and tried to count the beats. I was too shaken to count—and maybe it was me, but the beats didn’t feel normal, strong. “Help’s on the way. Can you speak? Tell me what happened.”
“A man,” she said, her voice barely audible.
“Did you know him? Who was he?”
Her head rolled from side to side. She swallowed. “Don’t know.”
“What did he do?”
“Kissed me.” Her hand went to her neck. “So good.” She blinked once, twice. “But then he said . . . He said . . .”
“What?”
Her head rolled to the side and her eyes shut.
Checking again for a pulse, and finding none, I prayed Jia hadn’t just become the lightning bird’s fourth victim.
All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.
—Edgar Allan Poe
20
Not long afterward, we were at the hospital being told we couldn’t speak to Jia. She was in serious condition, but her doctors were expecting her to make a full recovery. That was good news. What wasn’t good news wa
s what came next.
Detective Forrester came over to me and, wearing his mean-cop expression, asked if he could speak with me . . . alone.
I had nothing to hide—not really—so I went with him. Gabe didn’t look particularly thrilled to watch me being escorted away for questioning. But what was he going to do about it?
Expecting to be taken to a private room somewhere, I followed the detective’s lead down the hall. But at the end, he pushed through a doorway, leading outside. His car was angled up to the building, along with a marked Baltimore Police Department car.
“Um . . .” I hesitated. “Am I in trouble?”
“No, not at all,” Forrester said, his bad-cop expression fading slightly. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”
“All right.” Not 100 percent sure I believed him, I climbed into the back of his car, trying not to think about the fact that nine times out of ten the seat was inhabited by criminals.
The ride to Baltimore’s Southwest District police station was marked by my concentrating on breathing slowly so that I wouldn’t get too nervous. Funny, but I’d paid a visit to this building before and hadn’t felt this way. My nerves were really jittery.
After Forrester parked, he opened my door for me—the door was locked so I couldn’t open it from the inside. He motioned for me to precede him into the building, leading me down a corridor to a room I’d visited before. It was an interview—aka interrogation—room.
I sat.
“Can I get you something to drink? Coffee?” he asked.
“No thanks.”
An hour later, I was glad I’d declined.
An hour and a multitude of questions after that, I was pretty sure I was being arrested. Maybe it was for breaking and entering, or maybe for something far worse.
And an hour after that, I was tired; I needed to pee bad—when I’m nervous, my bladder spasms; I’d answered the same questions a dozen times, at least, and the beginning of a migraine was throbbing in my temples.
“When am I free to go?” I finally asked, after telling him, yet again, why I’d let myself into the Wu home without permission. “Am I being charged with a crime?”
“At this time, no charges have been entered,” the detective told me.
“At this time” echoed in my head.
“Then I can leave?” I asked.
“Yes. But—”
I stood, walked to the door, and tried to open it. Locked. I turned, brows raised.
“It’s standard procedure.” He waved at the big mirror hanging on the wall, the one that was really a one-way-window.
The lock went click.
I opened the door and oriented myself. Then I turned, asking over my shoulder, “Ladies’ room?”
“Down the hall, make a left.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you. And Miss Skye?”
“Yes?” I answered.
“We need to ask you to stay in state, please. That is, until these issues can be sorted out.”
“Of course.”
“In state” reverberated in my mind.
Baltimore was in Maryland.
Mom and Dad’s house was in Virginia.
So was Quantico.
I went into the ladies’ room, took care of the most pressing matter first. As I was washing my hands, I took a look at my reflection. Not pretty. At all.
I went back to the front desk and reclaimed my purse. After hauling ass out of the building, I checked my cell. Five messages. The first was Mom, telling me she and Dad had gone swimming with dolphins. The second was Chief Peyton. So was the third. And the fourth. The fifth was Gabe, checking to make sure I was okay.
I wasn’t okay.
I was standing outside the police station, having been questioned for hours. I suspected I was this close to being arrested. For all I knew, that was still a distinct possibility.
I had no way to get home.
I couldn’t go home, anyway, because home was in another freaking state.
And it was possible the real killer wanted me dead. Gah!
How had this happened? How had things gotten so out of control?
I knew the answer to those questions. It was painful to admit the truth.
It was all my fault.
I was pretty sure the chief was going to chew me up and spit me out for what I’d done. And it was, no doubt, deserved. I wasn’t generally the type to avoid the unpleasant; but tonight I wasn’t in the frame of mind to listen to what was going to be a lecture.
I called Katie. No answer.
My next call was to Gabe.
Again, no answer.
I was running out of options.
In fact, I was down to two. The chief. Or JT.
I dialed JT’s number. After three rings, the phone was answered. He said, “Hello? Skye?”
“It’s me. I need a favor.”
“Um . . . sure.”
“Can you pick me up? I’m at the BPD. Southwest Precinct.”
“Okay. What are you doing there?” he asked.
“Long story.”
“I’ll be there in thirty.”
“I’m going to walk down to the restaurant down the street, grab something to drink.”
“All right. I’ll see you soon.”
“JT?”
“Yes, Sloan.”
“I’m sorry for calling you so late.” The dam burst and the tears started flowing. I tried to hold them back, but I couldn’t. I ended the call, not wanting JT to hear me cry. I walked down the street slowly, hiding my face from passing cars. I didn’t enter the restaurant until I’d quit sobbing. Once I was inside, I ducked into the restaurant’s bathroom and tried to tidy myself up a little before facing the hostess.
She gave me a wary look; then she led me to a table.
I hid behind the menu for a while, until the waitress bounced over to take my drink order. Even after she left, and I’d placed an order for a cola and some fries, I kept that menu up in front of my face. I was in the frame of mind to find a cave, crawl into it, and curl into a ball. I had a feeling I was about to lose my job. I was on the verge of being arrested. And I hadn’t heard from Damen in four nights.
About three hours later, or so it seemed, the waitress brought my drink and fries. I forced them down my throat while distracting myself with a game of Angry Birds on my phone. JT arrived after I’d lost my tenth game.
He slid into the seat across from me. “Skye, you look like . . . Er, what’s going on?”
“I was questioned. I think I might be spending some time in jail in the near future.”
His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “What?”
“I know. Can you believe it?”
“No, I can’t. What the hell happened?”
“I let myself into someone’s home. Without permission. But I didn’t break in. The door was unlocked. And I had a solid reason for not waiting for the police.”
“Hmm. You realize, there are procedures we generally follow—”
“Damn it, the door was unlocked, and I had a good reason to believe an innocent girl was in danger. And, as it turned out, I was right. If I hadn’t . . . er . . . let myself in, she might have died.”
JT’s forehead arched. He said nothing.
“I think the chief is going to fire me,” I added, figuring I might as well lay all my cards on the table. “I sneaked out of her house after Jia called me.”
“Why didn’t you tell her where you were going?”
“I tried, but she was in the shower, and I didn’t want to wait for her to finish. If it sounds any better, I called her after I left. She can check her messages. There is one there.”
JT helped himself to a handful of fries. He shook one of them at me. “You didn’t tell her because you knew she’d stop you.”
“Maybe.”
“Sloan.” He shook his head. “This goes beyond what even an agent should do. An agent can’t run off on his own and chase down an unsub. That’s the job of the local polic
e.” He shoved the fry he’d been shaking at me in his mouth and chewed. “This is the problem here, Sloan. You’re not following procedure.”
“But I wasn’t chasing the unsub. I was saving a friend. A young woman . . . a girl.” I pushed my nearly full plate toward him.
He dunked another fry in ketchup. “Did you call it in?”
“No.”
“You weren’t saving a friend. You were playing the hero.”
“Heroine.”
“Whatever.” JT’s sigh was loud enough to be heard outside. “You’re a brilliant woman. I’ve never met anyone so intelligent. And yet, when it comes to some things, you’re incredibly—”
“Stupid?” I finished for him, feeling the stab of his words.
“No. Not ‘stupid.’” He visibly searched for more appropriate words. “Maybe it’s your age. You’re young, only twenty, and maybe it isn’t fair to expect you to act older.”
“What are you saying? Am I a flighty twit?”
“I’d rather not put a label on you.”
“I am a flighty twit?” Once again, my eyes burned. I was on the verge of another pity party/sob attack. I was so not going to let that happen.
Oh, hell.
The first sob slipped from between my lips, even though I’d clamped them tightly shut.
I grabbed a handful of napkins and smothered myself in them.
“Sloan, I’m not trying to be cruel.”
Sure, I knew he wasn’t.
“I think we’ve all dumped too much on you, thinking you were so intelligent you could handle it. We made a mistake.”
Another sob slipped out. I tried to swallow it back down, but it came out sounding like a hiccup.
“I’ll call the chief and talk to her. I don’t think it’s fair to fire you for our mistakes.”
At this point, I didn’t give a damn about the stupid job. I was feeling abandoned and pitied, and I hated both of those feelings.
After forcing down a few more sobs, I was confident I could speak without another one sneaking out. I said, “Don’t bother. I quit.”
“But, Skye. Sloan—”
“No, JT. I’ve had second thoughts about the FBI all week. This is it. I’ve had enough. I can’t sit in an office and pretend to be useful, drafting profiles of criminals, while leaving the real work to the police. That’s not good enough. No. But thank you for helping me realize I don’t belong in the FBI. At least I figured it out sooner rather than later.”
