What You Can’t See

by Allison Brennan

  “Has she worked for Lucy a long time?”

  “She used to be an investigative reporter in Boston, but gave it up to move here and learn the business as Lucy’s right hand. She lives with Johnny Christiano, who, if we’re really lucky, is in the kitchen cooking. Although he might be on an assignment; I’m not sure.”

  He curled around the last big bend to the circle in front of the mansion. It was even more impressive up close, a stunning blend of old-world Tudor and sleek, modern design.

  “Dan’s here,” Chase said, indicating a late-model sedan as he parked close to the house. “That’s no surprise; he’s the closest thing Lucy has to a partner, although she’d never admit it.”

  Arianna quelled a little shiver of anticipation and, yes, nerves. “I thought I was going to be alone.”

  “You’re never alone.” He leaned across the console and kissed her cheek. “You may be the Bullet Catcher’s official crime psychic, but you travel with me. That’s the deal.”

  “I love that deal.” She slid her hand around his neck and pulled him closer. “And I love you.”

  This kiss was long, deep, and wonderfully familiar. “I love you back,” he murmured against her lips.

  A hard knock on the window startled them both, and her door was pulled open before they broke the kiss.

  Arianna turned to the intruder, who crouched by the car, grinning. A mane of honey hair brushed wide shoulders, and golden-brown eyes twinkled above the slant of chiseled cheekbones and two outrageous dimples.

  “G’day, mate.” He stroked the tuft of golden hair that grew under his full lower lip, the move revealing a glimmer of gold in his earlobe. “Guess nobody told you that window right there”—he nodded toward a second-story gable—“is Lucy’s library. She’s watching, and I happen to know she frowns on her employees pashing around in the drive.”

  Chase laughed, leaning forward to reach out his hand. “Hey, Fletch. This is Arianna Killian, our newest recruit. Arianna, meet Adrien Fletcher, the wild and reckless Tasmanian devil.”

  Fletch winked at her and stood to an impressive height, opening the door wider for her. “None of that is true, except the geography. Welcome aboard, Arianna. I heard you’re bringing a completely new capability to our arsenal. You’ll love us all.”

  Chase climbed out and sent a meaningful look over the roof of the car. “She’ll love some more than others.”

  “Dan, probably,” Fletch said. “He’s the heartbreaker.”

  Arianna smiled. “I imagine you’ve shattered a few.”

  “But they’ve enjoyed every minute of it. C’mon, now.” He cocked his head toward the house. “Mustn’t keep the mistress waiting.”

  Flanked by the charming Tasmanian flirt and her very own Rocket Man, Arianna headed toward the house. As they reached the entrance the door opened, and Arianna actually had to stop.

  She’d forgotten that Lucy Sharpe was flat-out breathtaking.

  She stood almost six feet tall, probably more in her signature mile-high heels, with thick, straight black hair draping over her shoulders, nearly to her waist. With the hint of an Asian tilt, her eyes nearly took over her exotic features, but it was the snow-white streak in the front of her hair that made Lucy not only beautiful, but distinctive.

  “Arianna,” she said, reaching both hands out. “We are so happy to have you join the Bullet Catchers.”

  Arianna touched the precious metal around her neck, glanced at the man she loved, then accepted Lucy’s warm embrace. On her back, she felt Chase’s solid, comforting hand as he guided her forward, into her whole new life.

  “Thank you, Lucy. I’m going to be very happy here.”

  Some things, she just knew.

  Redemption

  Karin Tabke

  To Josie Brown, Tawny Weber, and Poppy Reiffin. You ladies showed me the true meaning of friendship.

  Thank you.

  Thank you, Kim, for putting this anthology together, and to Allison and Rocki for agreeing to have me along for the ride!

  Lauren? You rock, girl!

  And always,

  to my husband, Gary, my rock.

  East Oakland, California,

  sometime after noon

  Z ACH WALKED IN on the bloodbath that was Sanjeet Kamal’s rat-infested apartment. Every shred of patience, every fiber that was his conscience, and every cell in his body screamed injustice. The combination of the three shook him to the core. He’d never experienced a single one of them before.

  The minute he entered the dank putrid room he smelled the copper stink of blood so thick in the heavy air it was like breathing lead. Zach should have smelled trouble the instant he let his partner go up first.

  He looked hard at Mark Santos. “I’m not taking the fall for you, Santos,” Zach told his soon-to-be-ex partner.

  He’d never liked the way the guy had an excuse for every wrong turn, pointed the finger away from himself, or the way bodies popped up behind him. And that was saying a lot considering Zach had done his fair share of skating under the Internal Affairs radar. He’d made his own very conscious choices throughout his personal and professional life. And the consequences that came with them were his alone to live with, but no fucking way was he going to be a consort to unadulterated murder.

  Mark looked up from the body, blood on his hands. Fresh blood. Warm blood. “The guy came at me.” Santos grinned, shrugged his shoulders, and slowly stood. “I was in fear for my life.”

  “Bullshit. He’s unarmed,” Zach said, looking down at the bloody body. There was nothing threatening about Sanjeet. For all that he was, he was a gentle man. He had a wife and two girls back in India he sent money to. The neat slice across his throat gaped open, the blood saturating his beige shirt and pooling on the linoleum floor beneath him. Zach felt like a piece of shit.

  His quest to save the world from rapists, pedophiles, and murderers had backfired. He glared at his partner. He was no better than Santos. He was a hypocrite. Only he’d justified it by killing only the bad guys. His anger swelled. Not only at Santos but at himself. It had to stop. Here. Now.

  It was past time Zach maneuvered his partner into an ironclad IA. The guy was lethal to citizens on both sides of the law, and Zach was tired of dodging his haphazard bullets.

  “Zach, the guy was nailing babies. I slit his throat. He deserved worse.”

  “Oh, really?” Zach sneered. He’d used the same lines to justify his own misdeeds to himself. He stepped up close to Santos. They were nose to nose, less than a foot separated them. “You stupid asshole, this guy was my CI, not the perp!”

  Santos shrugged, backed away, then squatted down next to the body again and casually wiped his bloody hands, then the six-inch knife in his hand on the white turban of the man who lay dead at his feet. “I guess next time you need to clarify.”

  “Don’t lay that shit on me. I told you we were looking for a two-hundred-pound five-foot-two Latino male. Not a seven-foot-tall Sikh with a damn turban!” Zach turned in disgust, wondering how the hell he would clean this mess up without getting dirty himself. He’d run his minor streak of luck with IA into the ground. They had his badge number on their target, smack-dab in the middle of it, a bull’s eye. And everyone in the PD was taking their best shot.

  Before Zach could formulate more thoughts a shout outside the window caught his attention. “Let’s get the hell out of here before someone sees us.”

  He gave Santos a quick contemptuous glance over his shoulder to make sure the bone dick was following, then headed out of the suffocating heat of the apartment and down the infested carpet of the narrow stairwell. As crack houses went, this one was a five-star deal.

  Mark followed close on Zach’s heels. “So what? I made a mistake. That guy was a piece of shit like the rest of the addicts. I just saved the taxpayers of Oaktown a pretty penny by taking that guy out, and you know it. I should get a medal of valor for it.”

  Zach stopped and turned around; Mark’s shoulder hit him hard in the ches
t. Zach didn’t budge against the impact. His hands fisted and it took every bit of self-restraint he possessed not to send Santos to hell where he belonged.

  Where they both belonged.

  Instead he pushed back. His hands open, palms forward, he shoved Santos hard away from him. He could forgive a lot of things in a lot of people, including killing a dirt-bag piece of shit child molester by accident or on purpose. But he could not forgive sport killing. “I’m not going down for you.”

  Zach’s radio beeped three times in alert, then dispatch announced, “All units, four Charles thirty-two in pursuit southbound Bancroft, last cross Ninety-second Avenue, following black late-model Ford Taurus. Suspect vehicle wanted in Wells Fargo two-eleven. Shots fired at scene. Suspect is armed and dangerous.”

  “They’re headed our way,” Zach said, hurrying toward the unmarked car, and for the moment dismissing the fact his partner just slit a guy’s throat for sport and let him bleed to death.

  “All units available please switch to channel six.”

  “Let them know we’re around the corner!” Santos shouted to Zach over the roof of the Crown Vic. Zach hesitated only a moment before he pulled the radio off his belt and turned to channel six.

  “Detective seventeen, copy.”

  “Go ahead, seventeen.”

  “Detective seventeen in pursuit of suspect vehicle.” The minute the words left Zach’s mouth the wailing sound of the sirens crescendoed and a black Ford Taurus sped by.

  “What’s your Twenty, seventeen?”

  “Westbound on Ninety-sixth at Olive, directly behind suspect vehicle.”

  Santos hit the gas as Zach slammed the door shut. The cruiser sped up behind the Taurus. Zach tried to untangle the radio from the strap of his seat belt and put it on at the same time. He looked up just as the Taurus took a hard right into oncoming traffic. Santos made the cut behind the getaway car, the impact of the maneuver sending Zach slamming into the side of the door.

  “You son of a bitch!” Santos yelled at the getaway car. “You’re gonna wish you hadn’t done that.” He pushed his foot to the pedal and roared up behind the Taurus.

  Zach grabbed for the seat belt.

  Santos rammed the bumper of the suspect vehicle and whooped loudly as the Taurus fishtailed before quickly righting.

  Zach’s head hit the dashboard with a hard thud, pain speared to his temples. “Jesus, Santos, not on a crowded street.”

  Santos flashed him a malevolent smile. Shaking his head, Zach reached for his seat belt again, just as the premonition of what Santos’s intentions were hit him.

  His partner laughed, the sound demonic. He gunned the gas pedal again and slammed into the bumper of the Taurus just as it slammed on its brakes.

  Zach put his arms out to break the inevitable impact. Pain shot up his arms, he felt his elbows buckle and his body rush forward to meet the windshield, and the world went dark.

  As Zach’s body bounced back from the shattered windshield with a hard thump from the impact of the hit, Santos stopped smiling. His brows crashed together and his jaw set. He turned the car sharply to the right and gunned it again, snagging the corner of the Taurus before hitting a parked car on the street. The Crown Vic shot into the air, and turned 180 degrees in the air, landing on its roof before sliding dozens of yards down the street to a hard stop against another parked car.

  Long seconds passed. Santos hung upside down in his seat belt. He shook his head and laughed, the triumphant sound reverberating against the damaged interior of the car. He resisted the urge to yell out a loud Whoop! His pain was minimal and lasted only a fraction of the time it had when in his mortal state. He laughed again. The sound deeper, richer, full of victory. Never once since his decision four years ago to give up his soul for immortality had he regretted it. On the contrary. He thrived. His strength and his senses heightened the moment his adrenaline quickened.

  He glanced at his partner, and his body surged with energy. He smiled at Zach’s crumpled form up against the shattered passenger window. Small shards of glass punctured his brow. Thin lines of blood dripped, giving him a bloody halo. Santos smiled. He would be rewarded handsomely for this kill. His stock continued to rise among the cell of Immortals assembling in the Bay Area, and his time for ascension was near.

  He reached to Zach’s neck and felt for a pulse. Despite the obvious injuries, it beat strong beneath his fingertips. Zach Garett had more lives than a damn cat.

  Easily fixed.

  In a quick chop, Santos struck Zach in the throat, the sound of crunching cartilage indicating his aim was dead-on. Zach moaned and coughed. Santos grinned in satisfaction when his soon-to-be-dead partner began to struggle for breath. His grin widened as he watched, transfixed as Zach’s unconscious body gasped for air that could not pass through his smashed larynx.

  The face women swooned over lost color, turning ashen. Zach’s chest heaved in a mighty effort for breath. Failing, it trembled, the wheezing echo of his laboring gasps turning to mere whispers of sound.

  Adrenaline surged through Mark’s veins with the knowledge Zach was on his way to hell. With each kill he became stronger. Possessing his victim’s life force. Soon there would be few who matched his strength. There certainly were no others like him who possessed his cunning.

  The overwhelming sound of booted feet stomping on asphalt mingled with the shrill sirens infiltrated the perfect moment of silence that was Zachary Garett’s death. Santos grunted in annoyance. His brothers in blue to the rescue. But too late for the one they called the Grave Digger.

  “Help! Garett’s crashing!” Santos screamed.

  Chapter One

  H E WAS FALLING —hard, fast, and headfirst. Heat scorched Zach’s skin, oppressive air clogged his lungs. He tried to spread his arms to slow his descent, but his limbs didn’t respond. He fought to open his eyes. They wouldn’t open. He wanted to call out to someone, anyone, but his throat was constricted, his body felt like stone. The heat intensified to unbearable. He couldn’t scream his agony.

  His spine snapped when a force took hold of his feet, halting the velocity of his wild descent. His body hung suspended, the heat suffocating, pain searing his lungs with each breath. Then by an unknown force his body turned upright and shot up. The heat cooled to warm as his body continued to rocket away from the incinerator below.

  To hurry his ascent his feet moved in a jerky scissor-kick motion. Just as suddenly as the pull began, all motion stopped. His eyes opened—to darkness.

  And silence.

  No, deeper than silence. Utter nothingness with just the distant roar of rumbling air engulfed him. He hung suspended, like a puppet floating in a pool without strings.

  A sharp force tugged at his foot, jerking him downward. A greater force from above yanked him free. A screech like a wild animal caught in a trap echoed through the dark, searing straight into his heart. Fear flashed into his consciousness. His body shuddered

  Then—nothing. His body grew heavy. His breaths slowed. He drifted…

  A sharp pull from below jerked him back into awareness. An equal pull from above pulled back. He felt like a bone in a tug of war between two pit bulls. He was powerless to stop it. He tried to blink his eyes but in his suspended state he could do nothing. Except listen. And feel the dark and light forces of energy swirl around him, battling for possession.

  In a forceful jerk, his body catapulted upward. The screech below resonated in his ears before it abruptly ended.

  He must be dreaming…

  Time stood still.

  Oddly, while conscious of his surroundings, he felt no emotion, no pain, just a sense of being. It occurred to him at that moment, he could not even feel the dull rhythmic thud of his heartbeat.

  The distant ring of a telephone shattered the moment.

  Where the hell am I?

  The phone continued to ring. Louder now. High, shrill rings. He envisioned an old-fashioned black dial phone, the same kind in the Perry Mason shows.

&n
bsp; His body lurched, an invisible force guiding it. He felt like a side of beef on a conveyer hook being led to the butcher.

  The ring increased in pitch.

  Far ahead the glow of light in the form of a rectangle illuminated the darkness. The ringing came from somewhere beyond it.

  Zach tried to move his head to look around, to get a sense of place. His sharp instincts failed him. He had no feeling of good or evil, safe or dangerous.

  How did he get here? Where was here?

  He swallowed.

  No pain from the collision.

  Collision!

  His recent memory flashed. Anger flared when he remembered Santos’s reckless driving and the last malevolent smile before he tried to kill him! Son of a bitch. He was going to let that fool have it when he got back. Zach’s skin flashed hot. He welcomed the sensation. The light became brighter and as he approached he saw that it came from behind a door. The shrill ring of the phone continued, demanding attention.

  A dull throb knocked on his temples.

  His feet touched a floor.

  He reached a hand to the handle illuminated by the bright light.

  Miraculously it obeyed his command. Sensation filled his limbs, the rush overloading his nerves. He shook it off.

  Slowly he turned the knob. It gave easily under the pressure of his fingers. He pushed slowly, and as it opened, bright light rained down on him. The warmth of it penetrated to his bones. Instantly he raised his face to it, like he had raised his face to the sun as a child. Sharp pain stabbed at his head as he remembered his childhood days. Memories he had pushed far and deep into his consciousness, too ugly to bear. Yet, here, they raged out of control like the screeching goblins from his childhood nightmares.

  Zach closed his eyes and shook his head. Demons from his past swirled and dove at him, snapping at him with sharp fangs. Their crazed laughter rising to a fevered pitch.

  He put his hands over his ears to drown out the sound, but the gesture only brought them closer. Just as quickly as the demons appeared, a sweet rose-scented breeze swept them away. Warmth filled his heart. He lowered his hands and smiled. She came for him?