by L. K. Hill
"I know there's no way this box won't freak you out, Gabe. I know it's important. But maybe you should let it lie."
Gabe's head snapped toward Tyke in astonishment.
"Only for a few days," Tyke said, raising his hands in a calming gesture.
"What do you mean, 'let it lie'?"
"Hear me out. I know we can't not investigate it—"
"No, we can't," Gabe said firmly.
"—But maybe you should let me or Cora handle it for a while."
Gabe stared at him.
"This killer is toying with us, and you're too close to this." Tyke took a deep breath. "If we keep doing what he wants, following where he leads, you know sooner or later it will end in disaster. You may get to the point where you'll wish you'd never followed the clues at all."
Anger rose at Tyke's suggestion. It drained away now. Gabe stared down at his reflection again.
"Gabe—"
"I hear you, Tyke. The thought has crossed my mind before too. But it doesn’t matter." He turned his back to the car and leaned against the door. "It doesn't matter that we've both thought it, or how true it is. This has been an open wound in my life since I was six years old. I can't—" he stopped before his voice broke.
Tyke seemed to sense it. "I know," he said quietly.
"I'm not naïve, Tyke. Wherever this leads, it won't be good. I still have to follow it. Maybe, when I reach the end of this twisted rope, I'll can finally lay my brother to rest." He studied the pavement by his shoes. "I'll need you on this."
"You know I'm here. Always."
Gabe nodded. He registered a rush of affection for Tyke, but barely felt it under the bolder weight in his chest. "Thank you."
*******
Gabe sighed heavily. “You’ve got to be shitting me,” he muttered. Aloud he said, “She checked out?”
“Yes, Detective,” the middle-aged hotel receptionist answered. She hesitated. “There is something else. Perhaps I should get my manager. Do you mind waiting?”
Gabe frowned. “Not at all.” The receptionist disappeared through a door behind the desk and Gabe moved into the lobby, full overstuffed chairs and couches, the kind seen in any hotel. He rubbed the stubble on his jaw, wondering where Kyra had disappeared to now? What “else” there could be from a hotel Kyra no longer lodged at?
The acrid smell of paint filled Gabe's nose. Transparent tarps and construction supplies filled one corner of the lobby.
He'd slept through the night after leaving Tyke in the parking lot, and awakened wanting to see Kyra's face. Gabe left her in the hospital only twelve hours before. Why did she have to be so flighty? He had no way to know where she’d gone unless she contacted him. He’d already tried her cell. Disconnected. Which meant she’d dumped it and gotten a new one. How could she disappear on him like this? Again? He wanted to both kiss and throttle her.
Not only did he feel bad for how he’d left things last night—kissing her and leaving her in tears—but with the box and especially the bandana, he wanted to talk to her. Needed to.
“Detective Nichols.”
A blond, athletic man, a head shorter than Gabe, stood looking down at him.
“Yes.” Gabe stood and shook the man’s outstretched hand.
“Dalton Lee, General Manager,” the man said. “I understand you’re looking for Ms. Richardson?”
Gabe nodded. Kyra used the alias to check into the hotel. “Yes.”
“I’m afraid you’ve missed her by a matter of hours. She checked out this morning.” Lee hesitated. “Is she…in any trouble?”
She’s being tailed by a band of homicidal gangsters plus the Abstreuse mob. What do you think? “I actually spoke to her last night,” Gabe answered. “I didn’t realize she planned to check out today. Need to follow up on a few things. I don’t suppose she gave you any indication of where she went?”
The manager sounded apologetic. “No, I’m sorry.”
Gabe nodded. “The receptionist said there was something else?”
Lee raised an eyebrow. “Actually, if you spoke to her last night, perhaps she already told you.”
Doubtful, Gabe thought. She tells me nothing.
“Perhaps detaining you was unnecessary,” Lee went on. “Did Ms. Richardson already mention the vandalism?”
Gabe raised an eyebrow. Something constricted in his middle. “Vandalism?”
“Ah.” Lee said. “Perhaps it’s best if you follow me, Detective.”
Gabe followed the blond manager through the cookie cutter corridors of his hotel, not bothering to keep track of twists and turns. Finally, Lee pointed to a door ahead and on their left. The wall jutted out in front of it so Gabe couldn’t see what Lee pointed to until he stood directly in front of the door.
Gabe’s jaw dropped. Terror gripped his insides. His heart pounded painfully in his chest and panic gripped his brain.
Spray-painted across the door, four letters glared back at him. G-A-A-P.
Lee glanced at Gabe’s face and did a double take. “Detective Nichols, are you all right?”
“This is her room?”
“Uh,” Lee looked flabbergasted at Gabe’s reaction. “Y-yes. Ms. Richardson’s.”
Gabe whirled on the smaller man, who staggered back two steps. “Did she get hurt?”
Lee held up his hands in a placating manner. Desperation and worry warred on his face. “Of course not. Detective, please. Ms. Richardson wasn’t even here. I showed her when she returned to the hotel last night. She knew nothing about it.”
Gabe took a deep breath and told himself to get a grip. This must have been why Kyra checked out. Why didn’t she come straight to him?
The next moment, he answered his own question. Because Kyra knew nothing of Gaap or what Bronco told them about Chyna. She wouldn't know of the link between this bizarre combination of letters and the killer in the Mire. Or did she? Could she have left the hotel because she encountered the word somewhere in the Mire on her own?
"Did you call the police?" Gabe asked.
"We filed a report immediately, yes."
Gabe nodded. The report would eventually make its way to his desk. It hadn't been long enough yet for whoever took the report to connect it to Gabe's case. “What else did she say?” he asked Lee, barely keeping the edge out of his voice. “Did she know what it meant?”
“No, she said she didn’t. Must have been a random act of vandalism. Only chance that her door—”
“This is not chance,” Gabe burst out. He shouldn't be saying such things to a layman, but his heart pounded faster by the minute with fear for Kyra's safety.
Lee blinked in surprise.
“Has the room been cleaned by your housekeeping staff since this happened?” As he said it, Gabe noticed the same tarps and paint from the lobby sitting six feet away in the corridor. Renovations.
Lee shook his head slowly. “We have to bring an appraiser in first to assess for damage—”
“No!” Gabe moderated his tone. “No appraisers. Don’t clean this up. No one goes into this room until we clear it. This is a crime scene, Mr. Lee.”
Lee’s eyes opened to the size of tennis balls. “A crime—? How so, detective? Other than the obvious vandalism, I mean. Ms. Richardson was not harmed.”
Gabe shook his head. “This is something else. This word,” he pointed to the paint, “is tied to another case I’m working. Ms. Richardson wouldn’t have known what it meant. I’m going to call CSU. They need to sweep the room and this outer area for anything left behind by the person who made this mark. Do you understand?”
Lee appeared terrified, but nodded. “Yes.”
“No one goes in or out other than law enforcement.”
Lee nodded solemnly this time. “Okay.”
“Good.” Gabe spun, punching numbers on his phone as he sprinted for his car.
Chapter 2
The old woman sat on the street corner half a block away. Kyra peered around the corner and studied her. Matted white hair made a
nest above the dark, wrinkle-ridden face. Even from this distance, Kyra identified a hunched back and white cataracts covering both eyes. Results of a lifetime of substance abuse and malnutrition.
She stepped back, resting against the dirty brick wall. This had to go perfectly if she wanted to continue her employment with Josie. Taking a deep breath, she straightened her spine. No, no straight spines in the mire. She dropped her shoulders into a practiced hunch and stepped around the corner.
Walking casually—not too directly but also not loitering—Kyra moved toward the old woman’s corner. Darkness trickled across the dome of the heavens. The western sky remained relatively light. Kyra focused on the old woman her self-consciousness at bay. She wasn’t used to being out in her Supra getup this early. She usually waited until hours after dark to venture forth. Josie insisted upon this time frame, though. The feeling of eyes watching from the shadows didn’t help things, though she knew whom the eyes belonged to. Josie would have sent his goons to watch her every move, searching for any sign of deviation.
Kyra walked past the old woman, paused. Digging into her pocket, she pulled out some lose change. Leaning down toward the old woman, she tilted her hand so the coins slid off her palm and into the dingy felt hat by the woman’s knee. Two quarters and a one-dollar bill already gazed up forlornly from the hat’s depths.
Kyra dropped her voice to a whisper and did her best to enunciate without moving her lips. “The merman will have an adventure in the East bay when the sun is high.”
Kyra straightened her spine and moved away. The old woman made no indication she’d heard.
Kyra moved away with eyes straight ahead, fighting the urge to cut them left and right. On any other day, she'd have secreted herself in the shadows and see what the old woman did with the information. Would she rise and report to someone else? Would another messenger lean toward her to collect Kyra’s words from the old woman’s lips? Kyra didn’t know. She didn’t have the system all worked out yet, and Josie only told her things on a need-to-know basis.
Now his men watched from the shadows—she still felt them—to make sure she did her job and didn’t take any detours on the way back to Josie’s. She'd have to figure out his system in more detail once she’d proved he could trust her to do her job.
She hadn't cracked the code yet. The merman most likely referred to Josie. Being the boss, he let his people know when and where various transactions happened. The “adventure” meant a transaction of some kind. Kyra didn't know if they used the term for every transaction, or if it suggested for a particular type. A certain drug, perhaps? East bay. A coded location, obviously, but no way to decipher its location. It might be anywhere in the city. Josie’s people knew the code. Kyra would learn it in time. For now, Josie hadn’t seen fit to offer the key.
She made her way methodically through the Mire, not bothering to keep to the shadows or shake the eyes that followed her back toward Josie’s place of operations. Let them see her perform her duties with confidence and a steady heartbeat.
Twenty minutes later, Josie’s house came into view. The man himself stood at his front door, the dim light behind him silhouetting his lean, wiry frame. He slouched lazily against the door frame, flanked by two enormous body guards. He caught sight of her and straightened, his waist-length dreadlocks swaying.
She walked directly up to him. His guards made no move to stop her.
Josie's expression held mild surprise. “You did good work for me tonight,” he said. The disbelief seeped through his thick, Caribbean accent.
“Don’t sound so impressed,” she said dryly.
He arched an eyebrow. “You’d be surprised how few people can follow simple instructions.”
“Obviously, I can,” she ventured warily.
“Mm.” He sounded skeptical. “Come back tomorrow. Perhaps there will be more messages for you to deliver.”
“I can do more than deliver messages,” Kyra said quickly.
“Dat remains to be seen. Tomorrow night. Same time. Aleck,” he addressed the bulky man on his right. “Pay de,” he paused, probably for dramatic effect, “woman.” He looked her up and down bawdily then turned and staggered into the house.
Kyra waited until he turned before she rolled her eyes. She quickly schooled her face when Aleck—head and shoulders taller than she with arms like hams and dark clothes that bulged with weaponry in half a dozen places—stepped in front of her. He held out a brown paper bag, wrapped several times around whatever it held.
Kyra took it and tucked it behind her belt without glancing at it. It didn’t feel particularly thick. She pulled her black, bulky shirt down over it anyway. No need to be seen carrying cash through the Mire. She nodded to Aleck. He nodded back.
Trying not to sigh, she turned and strode away. What would she do the rest of the night?
Before getting work with Josie, Kyra would have used the hours to make contacts, trying to find more ways into the gang. Now she’d found one. Perhaps she could check in with other contacts. It wasn't vital, though.
Her hotel wasn't an option either. With Josie's men watching her now, she didn’t dare go back as often. She’d slept on Sadie's couch for a week.
Trudging toward M Street, Kyra kept to the well-lit alleyways, bypassing the darker ones leading into the deeper recesses of the Mire. That’s where the Prowlers lived. Kyra knew better than to go too many alleys deep and risk running into them. She’d learned her lesson there.
Another, particularly dark alley on her left would have been her gateway to the Carmichael District, if she’d wanted to go there. Kyra shuddered and hurried past it. She’d avoided that part of the city for the past week. Most Mirelings had. Not only were the police still cleaning up the mess at the warehouse, but memories of what happened there haunted Kyra. She’d slept precious little in the past five days because of them. Every time she drifted off, gory images, horrific sounds and stomach-churning smells came, unbidden, into her mind, and she awoke in a cold sweat.
Police. Gabe. She needed to go see him. She owed him that much. After what happened between them in the hospital, she’d needed some space. It felt cowardly, but seeing Gabe would have to wait until she wasn’t being tailed. A few more days at least.
Kyra folded her arms against the chilly air. Winter had arrived in the Mire. Due to the desert locale, snow rarely stuck. Night temperatures had become frigid, though, and the Mirelings deserted the streets much earlier than during the summer. In nice weather, the Mire’s streets remained full until one or two A.M. Now she rarely saw many people out past midnight.
Coming to a T-bone intersection of alleys, Kyra glanced to the left, and froze. Down the left alleyway, a silhouette limped slowly away from her. She frowned, stepped back into the shadows, and watched the person staggering away. Something about his walk tugged at a memory. Did she know this person? She wracked her brain but couldn’t think of any contacts with a limp like that. Yet, she’d seen it before. Where? The moving silhouette melded with the natural shadows of the Mire in the distance, until she couldn’t distinguish it anymore.
She leaned back against the brick and shut her eyes, trying to bring the memory up. The walk, like the person had trouble picking up their feet, and…cursing? The memory bloomed. This man walked past her the night she shot Norse to protect Gabe.
A moment later, a tall man, strongly built for this part of the city, stumbled by them. He didn’t seem drunk but it was hard to tell because he dragged his feet, as though he couldn’t make them walk any more quickly. Shaggy hair fell almost to his shoulders and whatever item of clothing he wore from the waist down was short, leaving most of his legs bare. Kyra couldn’t tell anything else about him, though. He passed by their alley, not even glancing in their direction, muttering to himself. She couldn’t understand what he said, other than catching vile curse words every so often.
She and Gabe had hidden from Norse’s gang buddies, trying to get back to where Gabe’s fellow officers still waited. Emerging fro
m one particular alley, they’d nearly run into a Mireling who’d cursed and dragged his feet that way. Kyra completely forgot about him. Now she also remembered having a terrible nightmare about him later.
Kyra blinked, and when she opened her eyes, the man had moved. Now he squatted directly in front of her, his face inches from hers, snarling and baring his teeth. His eyes were red and menacing and a guttural growl emanated from his throat. Kyra tried to scramble backward, but she was paralyzed in the manner of dreams…. “This city. Is. Mine.” With the final word, he slammed his shoulder in Kyra’s chest, knocking her backward. Crying out, Kyra lunged into a sitting position on her bed, chest heaving….
The dream came back full force and she shivered. This must be the same man she’d seen while squatting in the alley with Gabe. They’d hidden from him because a loud altercation with a drunk Mireling might have exposed their location to their pursuers. Kyra’s dream had probably been caused more by what went down with Norse and how much it disturbed her than about the limping Mireling.
Still…. She peered after him down the left alleyway. Her chest twisted and heaved in a strange way, compelling her to follow.
A question occurred to her. If this guy traveled the Mire regularly, why hadn’t she seen him more often? She supposed he might be the type who only ventured out to buy product. Perhaps she hadn't seen enough of him to recognize him. Or perhaps he spent most of his time in another part of the city and only come into the Mire on occasion.
Kyra glanced around. She stood one layer deep here, one alley away from busy M street. Once it became busy, voices, cars, and the murmur of people would fill the air. For now, nothing. It seemed entirely deserted.
“It’s so early," she muttered. Even if she wandered around talking to people for a time, she’d be bored inside of two hours. What then? Go back to Sadie’s as Sadie ventured out to work the Mire’s street corners? Spend the rest of the night staring at the blank walls of Sadie’s apartment?
Pressing her lips together for three more seconds, Kyra made a decision and headed down the left passageway to follow the silhouette. She would keep her distance and observe. Most likely looking for a place to go to ground for the night, this Mireling probably wouldn't prove to be of much interest. Yet, the limp nagged at her. She wanted to know why.
