“What’s important is you know these people aren’t joking,” Carol said.
“What piece?” she whispered.
Carol glanced at her father, who nodded, so she looked across the coffee table and told her.
Naomi threw up.
~*~
Tom Bradford kept his bearing in the waiting room and on the short walk into the hallway, where he shut the door, leaving Carol and Naomi inside. Crumpling against the door, he sagged, the universe turning too fast as he tried like hell to catch his breath. Feels like someone’s been sitting on my chest for six days. He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing them through his eyelids, and desperately tried not to think—to avoid the white-hot anger or cold panic that washed through his blood whenever his thoughts strayed.
God damn it, I hate this hospital. He glanced at the ceiling, knowing his wife had left him one floor up. Was Klara’s shadow staring at him now? She’d tap her jaw in that thoughtful way that meant she was dissecting him. Keep frowning like that, Mishka, and people will think we are both economists. Where is that belligerent optimism I married you for?
“Fresh out,” he told the shadow.
His phone chirped. It was Detective O’Rourke, the one who’d interviewed him last week. O’Rourke hadn’t seemed like much—irritable, immensely fat, hairy like a Tolkien dwarf, and a slob. That was why Tom had liked him. He’d met his share of people on the Hill who skated on charisma or looks, but this detective who’d garnered so much praise would have had to come by it honestly. “Hello?” he answered.
“Bill called. Told me you were at the hospital.” O’Rourke slurped something, probably coffee. “There’s a uniform driving down to visit those pushers who attacked your daughter’s friend. A bouncer can testify he saw them slinging dope—club threw the bouncer under the bus after finding out he let them in. They’re afraid you’ll lean on the city to shut them down. He’s trying to cooperate his way out of charges.”
Tom grimaced. “I should shut them down.” He wanted to. It had been advertised as under-twenty-one, and one of their employees had let foxes into the henhouse. He was within his rights to push it as a parent, but using senatorial clout was a gray area for him. “You think Denise will need to testify?”
“Maybe. Maybe they plead out. Not my department.”
Tom should have been more concerned, but this wasn’t the problem he needed solved. “Anything else?” He tried not to sound desperate.
“I could give you the canned ‘pursuing all our leads’ answer, but I bet you’ve given the senator version of that a hundred times.”
“Hundred and one.”
“Sit tight. I’ve got half a dozen little threads I’m pulling at, but it’s a hell of a knot. I’ll need some time.”
Tom changed ears. “I’m just trying to keep my daughter safe. Can you tell me anything—anything at all—that’ll help me do that?”
The pause on the other end lasted too long. “Who’s your daughter’s friend?”
“Denise?”
“The short one.”
“I think her name’s Ryn. Why?”
“Sending you some footage. Only video that came out of tonight, and it only exists in two places right now—my phone and yours. Keep it that way.”
Tom frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Look, this city is weird, and I can’t—” He muttered under his breath, starting over. “It’s evidence. I’m not supposed to share it. Breaking the rules some. Wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think you needed to see this.”
“What are you—”
“Watch the video. You’ll understand. Oh, and this ‘Ryn’ girl? She was at the mall last week with your daughter. Can’t say anything more, but you’re a smart guy. You’ll connect the dots.”
“Thanks. I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me a goddamn thing. This is my job and I’m paid on the public dime. Just keep it in mind, next time you slash taxes.”
“I only slash the federal ones. But sure.”
The detective grunted and the line went dead.
There’s a man who loves what he does. Tom had never felt comfortable around cops, but he liked O’Rourke. The detective seemed interested in the work and not the club-y camaraderie—cops tended to be cliquish, defensive, and they despised most of Tom’s stances on criminal rights and unions. The only reason Bill was still his friend was because they’d spent a short term in the military together getting shot at in Haiti.
Mark padded silently up the hallway. “News?”
Tom nodded. His phone chirped again. “Just got video from the club. Guess there really was a fight.”
He shared the screen with Mark, tapping the file open. It played bouncy footage and he wasn’t surprised at all to see two boys barricading off Naomi and Ryn, though the size of their assailants was breathtaking. Those are not teenagers.
“See the tattoo on that guy’s forearm?” Mark said. “That’s a Ukrainian gang tattoo. Been in the Docks two generations, guns and drugs mostly. Surprised they made it all the way out to Whitechurch.”
The teenagers filming whispered about it “going down,” the camera giving one more annoying jounce, and then it happened. The skinny boy took a punch, the narrator singing “Daaa-amn!” and Ryn caught the boy. She slipped to the front and Tom suppressed the spectator urge to yell, “Get back, you idiot!”
Ryn removed her glasses and the rest came too fast. The skinniest gangster, who seemed their leader, panicked and flailed away like she was a rabid dog. The slight, raven-haired teenager caught Denise. Kid’s strong for her size. She passed Denise to Naomi.
The biggest gangbanger came at her and Ryn did something to his arm. It bent wrong. He fell and she flew off his back like a demon, clobbering the last thug. That one dropped too and she turned to deliver the big one a parting knee to his jaw.
“What the hell,” Mark said. “Play it again.”
It had been terrifying in its speed and brutality, its unexpectedness, and something in Mark’s voice prickled Tom’s skin. “Why?”
“What she did there— Just play it again.”
Again, he watched. He saw more this time—saw details concealed by speed. The girl had done too much in too short a time for him to understand before, but it looked like she’d caught the big one’s wrist, broke it with a jerk, and knocked him down with a backhand before launching into the last punk. It wasn’t just a clobbering, either. It was at least six blows, shots like cobra strikes that blurred together. The knee to the big guy’s jaw looked like an afterthought. She didn’t even look down at him.
“Shit,” Mark breathed. “From the top.”
“You going to tell me—”
“Just play it.”
They watched a third time and now Tom just noted her expression: a twisted, animal look of hatred, and through pixelated footage her bared teeth seemed somehow wolfish.
“Jesus,” Mark whispered. “Never even touched the first guy. Just looked at him. Whatever those sunglasses are covering, it’s got to be disturbing. Scars maybe. Whatever it was, it must have told him the truth.”
“What truth?”
“Everything was smoothly executed, right down to the way she caught Denise and transferred her to your daughter. There’s economy in every step. She’s a veteran.”
“You mean a soldier?”
“She’s fought. Who for, and why? Hard to say. But she knows how to hurt people in ways you don’t learn in a studio. Her backhand nailed a nerve in the big one’s jaw—broke it, too, I’d say. Maneuvered his body in the other guy’s way, blocked his advance. And then her leap—it’s fast. I wouldn’t have seen it coming; it’s an ambush maneuver. She pinned his shoulders, seized his hair in one fist, and delivered ten, twelve full-impact blows in less than a second. No one I’ve met can do that—not with that speed and force—and I’ve met guys I wouldn’t take on without a SWAT team. That knee at the end? She’s got either near-perfect peripheral vision or a spatial awareness most fighters would ki
ll for.”
“What was your first impression of Ryn?”
“Thought she was full of shit. Teenagers, right? Thinking back now, though, she was hands-free and moved to intercept me. She was protecting Naomi. Same deal on the video, until she attacks. Her stances are on the aggressive side, but she’s always mindful of your daughter.”
“Could she have put down Banich?” It seemed insane, given the extent of injuries dealt to the parking-garage attacker, but O’Rourke had hinted at it.
“If I hadn’t seen this video, I’d say it was impossible.”
Tom shook his head. “Still seems impossible to me.”
“Because you’re not a fighter.” Mark tapped the phone. “She didn’t do as much damage to those men, but the skills on display—it’s all there.”
“You think she’s serious about being able to protect my daughter?”
“Let me see it again.” Mark took the phone, replaying it four more times before passing it back. “That’s not luck. It’s uncanny. You can’t do that unless you fight like a motherfucker on fire.”
“And your gut?” Tom asked. “What’s it say about her?”
“She’s dangerous.”
“To Naomi?”
Mark frowned. “To anyone who fucks with her, I’d say.”
~*~
After staying long enough to see Denise, it was nearly morning when Naomi left the hospital with her dad, Mark tailing them in his car. Emotionally winded and raw, she was blindsided by her dad’s question.
“Where’d your tiny bodyguard go?”
“The one stricken from the book of my companions?” Naomi smirked at her dad’s faux-innocent expression. “She… disappeared.”
“Going out on a limb: I don’t think I scared her off.”
“She’s just not well-versed on finer points of etiquette.” Naomi settled tiredly back into her seat. “Someone feels guilty for yelling, huh?”
“She’s not stricken from any books yet. Consider it a suspended sentence, eventually lifted for good behavior. She’s actually got no parents, though?”
“I didn’t know that about her.” Suspected it, though.
“Not a Madison girl?”
“Does she look like one?”
He laughed. “Sadly, no. Your school’s got a stick up its butt.”
She rolled her eyes. “I thought you loved all things private, Daddy.”
“I love that my yelling at Madison feels more effective, what with all the money I give to the people I’m yelling at.”
“She’s Parker-Freemont.”
“So she’s from the Docks. Maybe from abroad, like your mother.”
“Maybe. English isn’t her first language—she speaks it fine, but she’s got no idea how to use most idioms.” Or currency. “She’s not talkative. But the things she says—I don’t know, they’re blunt and insightful.” Talking about her made Naomi smile. “She’s just… interesting, I guess.”
“Like how?”
She hadn’t gotten farther than “interesting” and struggled with why. “Did you know she dances better than anyone I’ve ever seen? That includes all those ballets you and Mom took me to when I went through that phase. It’s in every step she takes. And she knows things about the world—I don’t know, like she really sees it. In ways I can’t. But other times, she’s got no clue, and whenever she’s not teaching me something new, I’m teaching her.” Naomi clicked her mouth shut when she realized she was rambling. Then: “Is that weird?”
“Reminds me of your mother.” Dad smiled. “Smartest woman I ever met—but God, that dark sense of humor got her into trouble. We were at a faculty Christmas party at Graystone when we first dated, and she brought me along—just a lunkhead undergraduate she was scandalously dating. I’m ex-military and there on an Army scholarship, so she introduces me to her very-Marxist dean with, ‘Here is Tom Bradford. He shoots Communists, but don’t worry, only Soviet ones sent to Haiti and paid by the Kremlin to fight. You are not paid to support Communists, you do it for free, so Tom probably won’t shoot you.’ ”
Naomi chortled, but her mom had told it slightly differently one New Year’s after drinking too much wine. Instead of introducing her dad by name, she’d called him “a handsome student I am sleeping with.” Glancing at Dad, she asked, “Was this the same dean whose kids she complimented?”
He laughed. “Yeah. First time she met him, she looked at the pictures on his desk and said, ‘Your children are beautiful in America. Not like our children in the Soviet Empire, because they are starving.’ ”
Mom’s droll cynicism was the source of many a family legend, particularly when her parents had first gotten to know each other. Naomi wondered if those bumpy misunderstandings were part of what she liked about Ryn.
“Will I see Ryn again?” Dad asked.
“I hope so.” She felt a tug at her heart. “Oh no—I still don’t know how to get a hold of her.”
“Can’t call her?”
“She’s completely off the grid. No phone, no parents—I don’t even know her last name!”
“Relax. The same thing happened the first time I met your mom. Remember, she wasn’t entirely legal then, so she didn’t exactly pass out her information.”
“What did you do?”
“Just kept going back to the café where I saw her working on her dissertation. Told myself, ‘If I run into her again, it’s meant to be.’ Have a feeling you’ll meet Ryn again.”
~*~
Kessler woke from a dead sleep and answered the ringing phone.
“It’s me,” O’Rourke said. “Got a break in the case.”
“What time is it?”
“About five in the morning.”
“God Almighty.” Can we go back to him being one of those kinds of cop? Those kind sleep.
“Don’t worry. There’s a Denny’s nearby. It’ll be open.”
“Because that’s what I was worried about.”
“Meet me at the one on Eighth and Lincoln.”
O’Rourke had coffee waiting when he arrived, but the world’s unhealthiest detective didn’t appear the least bit run down. He had a tower of books, including one on child soldiers, and that pinched Kessler’s stomach. O’Rourke’s tablet was open to a martial-arts webpage and he was looking at video of various moves.
“That a library book?” Kessler asked.
“City librarian gave me keys. I come and go; leave them notes on what I took. Comes in handy if you need a textbook at midnight. Be surprised how much that happens to me.”
“Less and less surprised every day.” Kessler drained half his mug in one long pull.
“Take a look at this.” O’Rourke slid the tablet over and Kessler watched Ryn beat down two gangbangers and scare the piss out of a third. She used the moves he’d always suspected she knew. The vise on his gut tightened.
“Those guys are Black Sea mafia?” he asked.
“The punks are. The girl, though—the one rolling them like they owed her lunch money. What do you make of her?”
Damn it. “What do you mean?”
“Her name is Ryn and she fits my theory of a crazed stalker who turned on Banich. She’s latched onto the Bradford girl, and she broke those two guys—not as bad as Banich, but it proves she could. Right body type for the images you pulled, too.”
“Except she’s got no internet access and her only contact with Banich was of the hand-to-hand variety,” Kessler said.
“Wait. You had this lead?” O’Rourke’s shaggy eyebrows lowered in anger.
“I ran it down.” Kessler sighed. “I know Ryn, her M.O., and her caseworker—professionally and, uh, personally. We suspect she was following Banich and happened on Naomi Bradford as a result—she’s too antisocial to conspire, too easily set off by abusers to fraternize with one.
“I was on the fence about telling you. My concern is that the media’s already on a witch hunt against the mentally ill, thanks to Banich. The same trust-fund implosion that put him on the str
eet put Ryn there too. The narrative right now is, ‘Crazy people are everywhere, lock them up.’ We throw Ryn into that meat grinder, she’ll get kicked back into the system. For good.”
“Christ. Fine, whatever, but you keep me in the fucking loop.”
“Yeah, I get it. You’re the lead.”
“Bullshit. I’m your partner.”
Kessler narrowed his eyes. Didn’t you assume I was an incompetent meathead last week?
“Look, you might not be as dumb as I thought.” O’Rourke frowned. “Most guys who say, ‘I’m not book smart, I’m street smart,’ might be smart as the bricks they paved the street with. You? You’re bright, you actually get people, you do good legwork, and you’ll meet me at ungodly hours to go over casework. So, sure: partner.”
“You don’t have a lot of friends, do you?” Kessler asked, folding his arms.
“I got a bad track record with hero cops. I’m judgmental—but that’s what cops do. We judge. The good ones, though, know when to eat crow.”
“You going to give me hell for holding back the info on Ryn?”
“Not if you’re sure this girl’s safe. You vouching for her?”
“She’s not safe. But she’s not dangerous to the Bradford girl. I know her because my unit pulled her out of a wilderness people aren’t supposed to survive in, and let’s just say nothing on that video surprises me. I’m sure she’s got blood on her hands, but when we found her she’d been beaten and tortured almost to the point of death. She hates abusers. Hunting down Banich is exactly like her.”
“So, a vigilante?”
“Sure.”
“Not exactly legal to hunt people down,” O’Rourke grumped.
“But she pounced on him after he went for the girl. If Ryn were anyone else, we’d be giving her a medal. With her mental-health record, and the public scared, she’d get kicked back into the system and buried.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me what she did was wrong.”
“Why’s she with the Bradford girl if she’s antisocial?”
“Seems to agree about Banich having accomplices. Wants to keep the girl safe; might be hunting the accomplices too.”
The One Who Eats Monsters (Wind and Shadow Book 1) Page 17
