Dark Warrior Unbroken

by Dark Warrior Unbroken (lit)

  Sean felt the boy hesitate outside the bedroom door long enough to see that he was in bed. When Kenny moved on to join Tara in the kitchen, the kid sounded far more in control than he had earlier. The outing had obviously done him good. Learning to live with their weird need was a bitch, but at least Kenny had the two of them to help him along. Tara especially had a knack for getting the boy to listen to sense.

  Without Tara’s calm, peaceful nature, Sean wasn’t sure if he would’ve managed to hold it together this long himself. There was a gentleness about her that soothed even his roughest nights. One touch of her hand and he could gather up the ragged edges of his control again. He’d never been able to put into words how he really felt about her, but that didn’t matter. He loved her, but wasn’t sure what that meant.

  She was far more than a friend, but they weren’t blood family. She was so damned pretty that she brought out all of his protective instincts, and he occasionally dreamed of holding her in his arms all night long. Maybe someday they’d end up in bed together, but he didn’t want to risk hurting her.

  Pushing for more than friendship would only complicate things. Far better that they made do with the occasional hug than to lose what they already had.

  For now, his family were all inside for the night and safe. He relaxed as he listened to the low murmur of Tara’s and Kenny’s voices, and finally, they lulled him to sleep.

  Chapter 3

  Interesting. Could it be?…Yes! “Hot damn, finally some progress!”

  Sandor had been at the computer for hours, searching for information on Kerry Thorsen’s long-lost family. He’d run into one dead end after another, but it was finally paying off. He sent off a couple more inquiries, crossing his fingers that they’d produce useful information. Once he had something concrete—a name, an address, anything—he’d tell Kerry.

  Now since he didn’t have to start prowling the streets quite yet, he typed Lena Wilson’s name into the search engine. It didn’t take long for pages of possible links to pop up on his screen. He scrolled down a few pages and finally decided to try again, adding the words fire and Cooper.

  Bingo! He clicked on an old article from a Seattle newspaper. It was about an arson case from five years before, and he sat up straighter, intrigued. Although she was only mentioned briefly, it was clear that her involvement in the investigation had been an integral part of the case. Interesting; too bad he had to leave now.

  After logging off, he grabbed his hoodie and the keys to the older sedan that he kept for cold, rainy days.

  He was changing his appearance today in case his tail was back again; he’d also donned a shoulder harness for his favorite Glock. A knife slid nicely into his boot, and he added a small stun gun to his pocket.

  When he reached the downtown area, he chose a different parking lot from the usual one. He pulled up his hood before starting toward the area he’d patrolled the day before. Once he circled the block a time or two, he’d move north.

  Yesterday, the feeling he was being stalked had kept his attention divided. Today everything seemed normal, which allowed him to concentrate on the hunt. At the next corner, he cut east. He’d found out the address where one of the most recent attacks had taken place and wanted to see if he could pick up any residual information.

  His ability to read old sites wasn’t as well de veloped as Ranulf’s. The Viking had had centuries longer to hone his skills, but even time was no guarantee that Sandor would ever have much talent for it. But if he could pinpoint the exact location where the victim had been found, he’d see what he could learn. If the site was too cold for him to read, he’d call Ranulf to come check it out.

  As soon as he reached the alley, he felt the darkness. Closing his eyes, he let the noise of the city fade into the background as he concentrated on the sounds and smells and energy traces in the narrow passageway. Kyth had been here, and recently. That was about all he could detect, though.

  Reluctantly, he flipped open his cell and hit Ranulf’s number on the speed dial. After a couple of rings, it went straight to voice mail. Sandor disconnected, shoved the phone back in his pocket, and decided to move farther north.

  As he turned the second corner, his mental alarms went off again. His stalker was back. Now he really regretted not having Ranulf along. What that man didn’t know about tracking wasn’t worth knowing. At the very least, the Viking hunter could’ve hung back far enough to watch for anyone paying too much attention to Sandor. Once they had the culprit trapped, it wouldn’t have taken them long to find out what was going on.

  For now, all Sandor could do was keep walking and wait for an opportunity to catch the culprit himself.

  It had taken Lena too long to spot him just as he’d stepped out of an alley. She was lucky she hadn’t run right into him. What on earth had he been doing in there?

  She didn’t want to draw any attention to herself, so she watched until he turned a corner before ducking into the alley to check it out for herself. It was empty, with no sign anyone had been there recently. Other than a scattering of trash and some graffiti, there wasn’t anything that distinguished it from any other alley.

  Should she risk a quick check using her other senses? Yes. No. Maybe. The longer she dithered over the decision, the farther away her target got. Closing her eyes, she dropped her guard. She gagged as the pungent smells intensified, as did the noise drifting in from the street behind her. She waited a few seconds for her senses to adjust before opening her eyes. Blinking several times to focus, she studied the alley.

  A few feet farther in, she could see the faint outline of a body on the ground. Oh, Lord, not again. She was reluctant to move closer, not will ing to witness another death so soon after watching the replay of Coop’s. But the man stretched out on the ground slowly rolled to his side before pushing himself off the ground. He winced at the effort but managed to stand up without help. Relieved, she took another few steps toward him.

  The shadow of a figure looked dazed, but not really hurt. There was no sign of blood on his clothing, although it was hard to tell for sure, when she was looking at a memory. As he staggered toward the mouth of the alley, she quickly backed out of his way, even though she knew his body had no real substance. The idea of letting the specter stumble through her held no appeal.

  She followed after him, but his image faded completely out in the bright sunshine, leaving her with more questions than answers. What had happened to him? And when had it happened? For all she knew, he could have been a drunk or even a druggie, but that didn’t feel right. That had been fear in his pale eyes, and his face had lacked the usual ravages wrought by drugs or alcohol. Besides, her abilities seemed particularly attuned to scenes of violence—not a comfortable thought.

  Her cell phone alarm buzzed, reminding her that she only had another few minutes to see what Kerry Thorsen’s friend was up to before she had to leave for an appointment.

  Earlier she’d called an old contact from the fire department, one of Coop’s best friends. She was hoping that he might know more about Coop’s activities the last few days before his death. If she hurried, maybe she could catch up with her target one last time to see if he was checking out other alleys, or wandering in a seemingly aimless pattern, as he had yesterday.

  Running would only draw unwanted attention, so she pulled out her MP3 player and power-walked down the street to the newest Springsteen CD. At the corner, she paced back and forth as she waited for the light to change, using the delay to look in all four directions to catch sight of him. Finally, she saw him in the distance headed north. He was far enough away that she couldn’t chase him down and still get back to her car in time.

  Frustrated, she headed for the parking garage. If traffic permitted, she’d risk a drive-by to see what he was up to, since she had to go in that direction anyway.

  Was she wasting all this time by following him? She had no proof that this guy was involved. It was one thing to go with her gut feeling in her investigation, but there w
as something more driving her interest when it came to this guy.

  Considering the strength of her visceral reac tion to him, she had to work extra hard to bank the heat he stirred in her. That was the last thing she needed—or wanted. Really.

  Lena drove into the Starbucks parking lot and immediately spotted McCabe. When she honked her horn and waved, he stopped and waited for her to catch up with him. It had been years since she’d last seen him, and she wasn’t sure of her welcome. To her relief, he swept her up in a big hug.

  “Damn, girl, why’d you stay away so long? Coop missed you. We all did.”

  They both knew what had driven her away. If he wanted to pretend otherwise, she wasn’t going to bring it up. He looked good, though, and she told him so.

  McCabe patted his stomach. “Don’t kid a kidder. I’ve put on too many pounds, and my forehead is much higher than it used to be. Not to mention that what’s left of my hair has gone gray.”

  She batted her eyelashes at him. “What can I say, McCabe? It’s a good look for you.”

  His booming laughter rang out as they entered the store, drawing all eyes to them. The other customers and employees turned back to their own business, smiling: people just plain felt happy around McCabe. Having him at a fire scene al ways lifted the spirits of his coworkers and the victims, especially children.

  After they placed their orders, they headed for a table in the back corner. As she gathered her thoughts, Lena toyed with the coffee cake he’d insisted on ordering for her.

  “What’s on your mind, Lena?” McCabe looked at her over the top of his coffee, his bright blue eyes seeing entirely too much. “Look, I know finding out about Coop’s death had to have hit you hard, but don’t take this wrong. We all expected to see you at the funeral.”

  Her eyes burned. “I didn’t hear about it until too late.”

  His mouth dropped open, clearly from shock. “The captain promised to contact you.”

  “He probably tried, but I moved to a new apartment a couple of weeks before Coop was…” Her throat got too tight to talk.

  McCabe looked at her with sympathy, giving her the time she needed to pull herself together. She managed to choke out, “I’d sent Coop my new address and number, and asked him to give it to personnel here in case they needed it. It wasn’t until someone cleared out his desk that they found my note.” She looked up from the crumbly mess of her coffee cake. “I came as soon as I could make arrangements to get here.”

  McCabe nodded and set his cup down. “So, while I’m always glad to spend time with a beautiful woman and talk about old times, why don’t you tell me the real reason you wanted to see me?”

  She met his gaze head-on. “It’s killing me to know that Coop’s murderer is still out walking the streets. I mean to change that.”

  He took another long sip of his coffee before responding. His questions were to the point but not accusing. “And how do you plan to do that? What can you do that the police and our department haven’t already done? We’re pretty good at our jobs, you know, especially when it involves one of our own.”

  She nodded. “Believe me, I know that. You were the guys who trained me.”

  “But?” he prompted.

  “No matter what happened in the past, McCabe, I’m a darn good investigator. We both know that a fresh pair of eyes can sometimes make all the difference. I’m here and I have the time. Both the department and the police have too many other cases that need their attention, but I can focus on just this one.” She paused. “Coop deserves justice, McCabe. I want to find it for him if I can.”

  The firefighter leaned back in his chair and crossed his thick arms over his chest. His expres sion gave few clues to what he was thinking, but finally he nodded.

  “What do you want to know?”

  Relief stripped away her tension. “I’ve read the reports. I’ve already interviewed one of the key witnesses, and I plan to follow up with her again. What I need to know is if there was anything different about that fire. You know, the kind of details that stick in your mind but don’t go into the official file.”

  He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, as if the memories hurt. “I was there that night. Total chaos at first; you know how it is. The arsonist managed to block the front door right before the fire started. The people inside panicked when they realized they couldn’t get out that way. But by the time we arrived, someone had found the rear exit. Some woman…what was her name?”

  “Kerry Thorsen,” Lena offered.

  McCabe frowned. “Kerry’ sounds right, but the last name was different. Probably the same woman, though. By all reports, she not only led the charge out of the building, she went back in repeatedly to get others out before the roof caved in.”

  “Unusual behavior for a civilian, don’t you think?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe, but the bottom line was nobody died that night. I’m guessing you’ve already been to the site, and you know as well as I do that the chances of everybody walking away from a fire that big are almost nil.”

  “Anything else strange that you can remember?”

  “Coop seemed to think he had a lead on a person of interest but never said how he got it. His boys took pictures of the crowd, so maybe one of them spotted something. But the bastard who killed Coop also stole his briefcase with his laptop and all of his notes and reports. We tried to piece everything back together but never got anywhere. If he was on to something, it’s probably lost for good.”

  “He had to be, or else why would somebody kill him? It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “Unless it was a random mugging. You know, wrong place, wrong time.”

  She knew better. Her vision had shown her that the attack on Coop had been very deliberate. This killer hadn’t wanted easy money; he’d taken Coop’s briefcase, not his wallet.

  Not that she could tell McCabe what she’d seen. Coop might have suspected that she had a little something extra when it came to her investigative techniques, but they’d never discussed it.

  “So no leads. A possible person of interest, but no hard suspects. No explanation for Coop’s death.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.

  McCabe sat up and leaned forward. “Listen, Lena, I know Coop was like a father to you, but he was my best friend for almost as long as you’ve been alive. No one—NO ONE—wants his killer brought to justice more than I do. But when you’ve got nothing to work with, you get nowhere fast.”

  He started to stand up, but Lena reached out to place her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry about how that sounded. I’m so furious over his death that I can’t sleep nights—but I’m not pointing fingers at anyone except the bastard who killed him. And at myself for not being here when Coop needed me the most.”

  A single tear trickled down her cheek; they both ignored it. McCabe slowly leaned back in his chair.

  “Sorry for blowing up like that. In a perfect world, the bad guy would be the only one who paid for his crimes. In the real world, a lot of good people get hurt.”

  “Were there any other fires I should be looking at? Has he struck again since the club fire?”

  “The only other arson case that happened around the same time was a used bookstore. The owner lived above the store and got up in the middle of the night for the same reason I do.” McCabe winked at her, his good mood back. “When the guy smelled smoke, he ran for the steps and called it in. The place was fully involved by the time the department got there. He was alone, so no one got hurt, but he lost everything.”

  “Who would torch a used bookstore? Where’s the profit in that?”

  “Evidently he did a pretty good business in rare books. First editions, stuff like that. His total loss was a helluva lot more money than any of us expected. The insurance company did their own investigation, and they’re going to pay the claim. The old man was comfortably set financially, and you could tell the business was his whole world. It’s hard to believe he would’ve lit the match to
destroy his life’s work.”

  Lena wrote down the particulars. “Any suspects on this one?”

  “Not really. The man had a stable of regular buyers, but none of them had an axe to grind. There was one customer who’d been angry about the price of some book he wanted, and they couldn’t come to a compromise on it. The guy had bought things at the store before, but he always paid cash. We had nothing to go on.”

  “You’d think if the owner had that much money tied up in merchandise, he’d have had security cameras.”

  McCabe nodded. “He did, but like I said, the place burned down, cameras and all. Even if he’d kept the surveillance tapes, they were just melted plastic.”

  She slapped her forehead. “God, where are my brains? Was the owner able to give you any details about the guy?”

  “Tall, well-dressed. Nothing useful.”

  The phantom she’d watched at the club fire scene fit that description too well for it to be a coincidence. She fought to hide her excitement.

  “Thanks for coming today, McCabe. I appreciate it.”

  “It’s good to see you, kiddo. But maybe you investigating this case alone isn’t such a good idea. I don’t know if the two cases are related or not, but either way, you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t give a damn that people died. If he is the one who killed Coop, it probably meant he was getting close to catching this firebug. If this guy feels cornered, he won’t hesitate to kill again.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “Promise me that if you get anything concrete, you’ll let us take over—or at least let us help out. It’s bad enough I lost my best friend. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

  When was the last time she’d had to fight off tears twice in one day? The reminder of what it felt like to have friends who worried about her stirred emotions she’d done her best to bury.

  “You won’t lose me. I promise I’ll call in the cavalry.”

  They walked out to the parking lot together. “Don’t leave town without seeing me again, little girl. I’d hate to have to come hunt you down.”