13
Yolanda
I ROLLED THROUGH the door of my apartment, pushed it closed behind me and let out a very long sigh. It was past seven and between Harlem, the morgue and then the FBI, I’d been on the go all day. My brain ached from solving equations, my arms throbbed from wheeling myself around and I was pissed off and grouchy from what had happened at the FBI. It wasn’t Calahan’s fault, but... I could have predicted how they’d treat me. It had been exactly the same at my old job.
There were a few of them at the FBI who were okay. Calahan, of course. And Carrie seemed harsh but fair. They’d treated me like I was a person. But there were other reasons I’d felt uncomfortable. Part of it was being a hacker in a room filled with federal agents. Part of it was feeling like an outsider. They all belonged there, they were so...professional. It hadn’t helped that I’d been in sneakers and jeans.
And then there was Alison. That appraising look she’d given me.
I’d asked Calahan about her on the journey home, trying to sound casual. He’d told me she was one of their best agents, always on some undercover operation or another. He swore he had no idea why she’d seemed cold towards me. But I was pretty sure I knew the reason.
She had a thing for Calahan, and she was worried I was going to steal him. Which was ridiculous. She looked like some FBI recruitment poster, with her shining, sleek hair, and crisp suit. And Calahan had told me how she’d won the FBI’s martial arts tournament three years running, beating guys twice her size. She’s basically a ninja. How could I ever compete with her?
I ordered pizza from my favorite pizza place. When I finished, I found myself gazing across the room at my computer. I could hear the photos of the equations calling me. It was too late to start any real work: by now, it was after eight. But it was too early to go to bed.
Maybe just a quick look.
…
I surfaced, briefly, because my mouth was too dry. I glanced at the clock in the corner of the screen and froze in disbelief. It was after two. What? How had six hours gone by?
I straightened up and the pain that shot down my neck made me want to weep. I’d been hunched over without moving for far too long. And it felt like I’d been deep for a good portion of the time.
It was the equations. They’d drawn me in.
I looked at the numbers on the glowing screen and an involuntary shudder went down my spine. Even now, when they were reduced to just photos, there was a dark power to them, something that ran like cold, glistening oil between the coral-like folds of my brain. Reading it actually made me feel ill, my head pounding and my stomach somersaulting. And yet I couldn’t look away.
I’d assumed that the feeling of wrongness was to do with the apartment in Harlem, that it was about it being a murder scene, about all that blood. But somehow, that wrongness was here, in the writing itself. How was that possible?
At least I’d made a lot of progress during my marathon session. Visiting the crime scene had shaken me up, but Calahan had been right, it had let me understand how all the photos fitted together and now I could follow the equations much more easily. And I’d been busy figuring out what they did. Math textbooks and research papers were piled high on my desk, a rainbow waterfall of sticky notes cascading from them.
I’d been right: some of the math related to wormholes and other really advanced stuff. I was awed, but I’d also found myself getting excited. Ever since I lost my brother, I’d been lonely. It was intoxicating to learn there was someone else out there who was like me.
But now I thought about it, that idea made me go cold inside. Like me? Did that mean I wasn’t so different to the killer? Was it just that his mind had cracked and mine hadn’t... yet?
And I wasn’t convinced by Calahan’s theory that the equations formed a message, that the killer was taunting us. It felt like they had a purpose.
With a last shudder, I closed the photos. Enough for one night. I poured a big glass of water and glugged it down. That solved my dry mouth, but I still felt shaky and unsettled. I was exhausted but if I crashed now, I was going to have nightmares of oily black, twisting tentacles. I’d keep waking up and lie there, scared to go back to sleep and—
Then the pain would break through.
I don’t have feeling in my legs, but the damaged nerves still misfire, sometimes, like a broken wire shorting out. Muscles tense and cramp painfully and there’s no way to stop it. During the day, when I’m thinking, I manage to block it out. But at night, if I’m lying there awake, there’s nothing to distract me.
What I needed was to think about something pleasant before I slept, something that would help me relax and give me good dreams. Something like—
I felt Calahan’s big, warm hands wrapping around mine, squeezing them. And I stopped shaking.
I closed my eyes and remembered him leaning close and looking into my eyes. And I felt a little more settled.
He was a good guy, however much he tried to hide it under all that gruffness. He’d take on all the problems of the world, if he could. But who helped him with his problems? Why was he so closed off?
I knew something had changed, four years ago, to make him like this. I had to know what. So I hacked his smartphone.
His location history showed that he went to bars late at night. I checked his cab booking app. He was calling cabs from the bars to residential addresses: never the same one twice. Then another cab in the early hours of the morning, from that address back to his home address.
So he went to a bar, drank, met a woman and got a cab to her place, but he never stayed the night and he never saw them again. One night stands. I was proud of my detective work. And oddly, irrationally, jealous.
It didn’t occur to me that what I was doing might be wrong: hacking was just how I found stuff out.
I started to go through his messaging history. There was nothing interesting until I got back to four years ago. That’s when I started seeing messages from someone called Becky.
I picked one at random. She was asking what he wanted to do for his birthday. I read his reply and... it was like I was hearing his words, feeling his lips vibrate against the soft skin of my neck as he stood with his arms wrapped around me. He was telling her how all he wanted for his birthday was her, how she was the spirit of the city and she made it come alive for him. It was a totally different Calahan, romantic and open and free. I should have felt jealous again, but I didn’t: the two of them were so obviously in love that I just went mushy.
I went back to when the messages started. They’d both realized, very quickly, that this was something special, something that should be grabbed with both hands. Within days, they were spending every spare moment together, just... doting on each other. It was hard to imagine Calahan doting. But with this woman, I could.
I read about Becky being devastated when her mom suddenly died, after they’d left things on bad terms, and Calahan comforting her. I read about Calahan getting bawled out by his boss, and Becky comforting him. I read about long romantic walks, and movie trips, and that time Calahan burned dinner, and Becky’s bad jokes, and their plans for the future. They weren’t wondering if they’d be together. They already knew.
And then... nothing. They met, they fell in love and then after only three weeks, the messages just stopped.
There was no explanation, no sign of a problem. Why had they suddenly broken up? Is that why Calahan was the way he was, because he’d fallen in love and Becky had broken his heart?
I thought of his big, clumpy footsteps and the way he filled a room when he was pacing. The way his blue eyes pinned me, interrogated me, the way he could get right down into my deepest thoughts and secrets with just a look. I wanted to blurt all my fears and insecurities out to him. I liked him. I trusted him.
And I wanted to help him.
I closed my eyes for a second and was shocked at how hard it was to open them again. I’d been pushing my brain to its limits all day, only the adrenaline keeping me going. Thinki
ng of Calahan had let me relax and now sleep was crashing down on me like a warm tidal wave. I was half-awake as I rolled to my bedroom, stripped off and got into bed. I tugged the comforter over me as darkness descended.
I slept.
And I dreamed.
14
Yolanda
I FELT HIS GAZE. That’s how I knew he was there. I felt those blue eyes tracing every contour of my face as if he was caressing it. Gliding gently over my cheekbones. Brushing over my closed lids, smoothing my eyelashes, lingering on my lips….
I opened my eyes and he was standing just inside the doorway of my bedroom. Calahan is big, but with me lying down, he seemed even bigger. I used my arms to push myself up and back, wriggling up to sitting. I could feel the comforter slithering down my body, but I didn’t have a hand free to catch it. And too late, I remembered that I’d been too tired to pull on a nightshirt—
The comforter fell to my waist. We stared at each other, frozen... and then his eyes fell to my breasts and he just ate me up. A flush rolled down my body and my hands found the edge of the comforter... but I didn’t pull it up. There was something about the way he was feasting his eyes on me: I was still self-conscious, but it was overpowered by a pride that rippled down me in deep, hot waves. When he lifted his eyes to meet mine, I drew in my breath. The sadness was still there, but something even stronger was pushing it aside: molten, animal lust.
He stepped forward, gripped the comforter and then paused for a second. Not in hesitation. So that I had time to consider what he was about to do.
I gulped.
He pulled and the comforter slid down my stomach, down over my panties, down my legs, and onto the floor. I sat there almost naked, every inch of me throbbing, aching, reacting to his gaze.
He climbed onto the bed, still fully dressed. One knee came down between my ankles. The mattress sank with his weight and my legs slid inward to brush the hard muscles of his thigh.
The other knee came down, and he straddled me, and then—
I yelped as he took my ankles, gently but firmly, and pulled. In a half-second, I was lying flat again, staring up at him.
He moved up the bed, each press of his hand and knee making the mattress sink and rock. And then we were face to face.
I started to speak, but he brushed his thumb across my lips. My soft mumblings caressed him and suddenly I couldn’t remember what I wanted to say. He leaned down and—
The first kiss was soft, careful. Not hesitant—he knew exactly what he wanted. Careful like the first footstep on untouched snow, savoring the moment. That gorgeous hard upper lip opening me, spreading me in a way that made me arch my back off the bed, the soft lower one stroking over mine, teasing and toying. But even before it had finished, I could feel the tension building in his body. Inflamed, addicted, just as I was. One kiss wasn’t nearly enough.
He drew back. We looked at each other. And then we lunged, desperate, and met in midair, him leaning down and me reaching up. I moaned as we kissed again, hungry and deep, my hands running over his stubbled jaw and then sweeping through his hair. His tongue touched the tip of mine and then they were dancing together. I grabbed hold of his shoulders to support myself because there was no way, no way I was stopping kissing him. I dangled there from his big, solid form for long minutes as we went at each other, open-mouthed and frantic. Both of us were panting, now, the kisses falling not just on my lips, but on my cheeks, my throat, the lobes of my ears.
At last, I had to reluctantly let go and fall back to the bed. He followed me down, cradled my face in his hands, and kissed me long and deep.
And then he worked his way down. My breasts first, filling his hands, rolling and squeezing them while his tongue flicked and bathed my nipples to aching hardness. Then lower, over my stomach and on down, the heat of his breath soaking through my panties—
His fingers hooked into the top of them and in one quick move, he whipped them down my legs and off. I was totally bared to him. And then, before I could even recover from that, he took one leg in each big, warm hand and—
I drew in my breath as my legs were spread. I was completely exposed to him, my lips parting a little, already slickly moist—
And he knelt there at the foot of the bed and just gazed at me, his eyes like a flame licking across my skin. Any self-consciousness I’d had was burned away in a second. He took in all of me, from the flush of my cheeks to the soft, dark curls between my thighs, and I’ve never felt so completely, ferociously wanted.
Our eyes met. And in one quick move, he was full-length on top of me, his hips between my thighs. We worked together, me pulling off his tie and hurling it aside while he worked at his belt. I unbuttoned his shirt, getting halfway down his chest before I couldn’t resist any longer and plunged my hands into the open neck. I ran my palms over the hard slabs of his pecs and then slid them over the muscles of his back. He shoved his pants and boxers down his thighs and I caught my breath as I felt the first hot touch of him: the shock, the thrill. Oh God, this is actually happening. My eyes closed as he pressed forward, so big, filling me—
There was a bang.
My eyes opened to blackness. What happened? A blackout?
Another bang. I reached for Calahan but he was gone. Had he jumped off the bed to protect me from whatever that was? The comforter was on me again. Had he put it back?
Bang.
And slowly, reality crept in. I’d been dreaming. A dream real enough that I’d woken up panting, real enough that I was stickily wet beneath my panties.
Bang bang bang.
And someone was banging on my door.
I searched around for a nightshirt and pulled it on, then lifted myself into the chair. I wheeled myself down the hall, the taste of him still on my lips, the glorious, heavy stretch of him still aching between my legs.
I opened the door.
And stared at a face I’d seen just moments ago. My face went scalding hot and my pussy throbbed and tightened.
“Get dressed,” said Calahan. “There’s been another killing.”
15
Calahan
SHE SAT THERE staring up at me, her face turning red. Was she pissed, because I’d woken her? Then her eyes flicked to the side, towards the end of the apartment I hadn’t seen, yet. Towards the bedroom, maybe. Does she have someone else here? Was there some guy waiting for her? I was shocked by how that idea affected me. The jealousy rippled through my chest and my breathing went tight with anger.
Yolanda seemed to shake herself and dropped her eyes... and then she wouldn’t look at me. She waved me in and shot off to the kitchen area. I walked slowly after her, watching as she started to brew coffee with quick, precise movements. I was worried I’d annoyed her... but that didn’t stop me drinking in the sight of her.
She wore a faded, dark red nightshirt made of that soft cotton you can’t stop touching. It was too big for her, covering her down to the knees like a dress, but its softness meant that it clung to her breasts and... well, she wasn’t wearing a bra. Every time she twisted to grab something, things swung and bounced in a way that was hypnotic and every time she took a deep breath or stretched her back…. I forced my gaze to the floor. “Sorry to wake you,” I grunted.
“It’s fine,” she said. She didn’t sound pissed off. But then why wouldn’t she look at me? The coffee machine came alive with whirrs and gurgles. “Tell me.”
“It’s over in Norwood,” I began. She shot off down the hall and disappeared into her bedroom. Does she have some guy in there? I strained my ears but I couldn’t hear her talking to anyone. “Definitely our killer,” I continued, taking a quiet step forward. “Equations on the walls.”
I’d nearly reached the bedroom when she shot out, a pile of folded clothes on her knees. I dodged out of the way and she disappeared into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. “That makes no sense,” she called. “We still have two more days!”
I took two stealthy steps across the hallway and put my head r
ight next to the bedroom door, listening. No sound of breathing, no creaking as someone moved in the bed. I peeked around the doorframe. A big cozy-looking wooden bed with a green comforter. No man. I relaxed, ashamed at how relieved I was.
I moved closer to the bathroom door. It was 4am and at that time, even New York goes quiet. Every time I stopped speaking, I could hear her moving inside. “The body’s been there a while,” I told her. There was a whisper of soft cotton as it was drawn over skin. “We think this predates the killing in Harlem.” A soft whump as fabric hit the floor. I imagined her topless, breasts swaying. God, I was hard in my pants. Move away. Just move further away so you can’t hear. But I didn’t. “We haven’t IDed the victim, yet.”
I heard a faint stretch of elastic and the hiss of fabric being pushed along skin. Her panties coming off. I turned my back to the door, but I couldn’t make myself move away. I was drawn to this woman, even though I knew I couldn’t have her. “They’ll take photos again, but I want you to see it,” I told her. The shower came on: a steady sound at first, then changing as she moved around under the spray. I tried not to think about her body shining slickly with water. “From the sound of it, it’s the same as the Grier murder, but... different.”
The shower shut off. There was the sound of toweling off, as quick and efficient as everything else she did. I took a few steps away from the door and turned towards the kitchen as if I wasn’t the slightest bit interested in what had been going on in the bathroom.
Seconds later, she shot past me, head down and eyes forward. She still didn’t want to make eye contact. She was in jeans and an old Princeton sweatshirt, her hair still damp. The coffee was brewed and she slid a cup along the counter towards me, cowboy saloon style, and I had to hurry forward to catch it before it went off the edge. We both drained our cups in three quick gulps because we knew we had to move, but her coffee was so good—dark and rich and smooth as caramel—rushing it felt like a crime. I closed my eyes for a second in appreciation, giving a low groan as the caffeine hit my system. I’d gone to bed at two and only managed an hour’s sleep before the phone call had come in. And I had a feeling this was going to be a long night.
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