The 2nd Cycle of the Darc Murders Omnibus (the acclaimed series from #1 Police Procedural and Hard Boiled authors Carolyn McCray and Ben Hopkin)

by Carolyn McCray

  Sometimes she wished she were still Caitlyn. Things had been easier then. No bad dreams, lots of hugs and snuggles from Mommy and Daddy. Tons of friends her same age.

  But now she had Mala and Trey and Darc and Maggie. They loved her, and they showed her that all the time in lots of little ways.

  Also, Popeye had just been a stuffed bear back then. He’d never talked to her. Not like now.

  Popeye snorted and said that it was just that Caitlyn had been too stupid to listen. Maybe that was true.

  Carly sighed and sat down next to Janey’s bed. “That was crazy tonight. Does stuff like that happen all the time?”

  Janey shrugged. It didn’t happen all the time, so it wasn’t like she was lying.

  Popeye said that she needed to be careful or her pants would catch on fire like Maggie and Trey’s apartment.

  “It doesn’t seem like it’s safe. For you, I mean,” she clarified, reaching out a hand to stroke Janey’s hair while she whispered to her. It almost felt for a second like it was Mommy doing it. Janey remembered that Mommy would stroke her hair all the time. Daddy would read her a story and snuggle with her for a minute, then Mommy would come in and stroke her hair.

  It was really nice.

  “I looked for you a long time, Janey.”

  Janey had heard Carly say that she had broken into a records office to find out where their mother was. That was really brave of her, and it made Janey feel good to know that her big sister had wanted to find her so bad.

  But there was something else in Carly’s voice that made her feel a little squirmy. Like that Carly maybe didn’t understand everything about how Mala and Darc and Trey all worked together. About how Janey helped sometimes, too.

  Like maybe she thought that their being there last night was a bad thing.

  Janey wanted to tell her that it was okay. That bad things happened even when they weren’t supposed to. And that it was all right.

  It really was.

  But Janey couldn’t say any of that. So she just held onto Carly’s hand as she went to sleep.

  It felt really good.

  * * *

  It felt like it had been one of the longest days in Trey’s life. And it just kept going. After figuring out that the explosion had come from his apartment, it hadn’t taken long for Darc to theorize that the bomb might have been planted after the fact, by someone who was there working the crime scene.

  That option, as tough as it was to swallow, was still preferable to the other one, in which Maggie and he had been sitting on top of a live bomb for who knew how long. That thought gave him the screaming heebie-jeebies.

  Around two or two-thirty in the morning, he’d finally just called it. Darc had been starting to do his sway-from-side-to-side thing that he did when he was about to collapse. The combination of the sugar crash and the lateness of the hour had gotten to him.

  So he’d dropped Darc off at his apartment, with a promise that he’d search everywhere inside for possible bombs and that he would then lie the eff down. The first part, Trey knew his partner would do. The second? Not so much.

  But right now that wasn’t his problem. Right now he was going to spend a few precious hours sleeping before starting the whole thing over again tomorrow morning. There would be awkward questions and loads of red tape and paperwork to do tomorrow, actually later today. Right now, he could go and lie down on one of the Hampton’s nice fluffy beds and dream about the breakfast meats that would be available the next morning in the buffet.

  Ah, unlimited sausage and bacon. Nirvana.

  He swiped the card, watching as it turned from red to green. Sliding inside, he began to creep in, hoping not to disturb Maggie.

  Turned out, he needn’t have bothered. She was wide awake, sitting up on the bed, wearing… nothing but a very revealing nightie. And from the television came the sounds of something not very kid friendly. More than likely Cinemax late-at-night stuff.

  “Maggie?” he called out to her.

  She startled, letting out a tiny scream. Placing her hand over her heart, she glared at him.

  “You scared me! I just about peed myself.”

  Trey just looked at her, then at the TV screen, and then back at her. Maggie didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed.

  “I was bored, and that six-and-a-half minutes you spent with me before you left just wasn’t cutting it.” She grinned up at him. “So the question is, are you going to leave your best girl watching some of the worst-made television on the face of the planet? Or are you going to do your manly duty?”

  Trey sighed. It looked like sleep was not what was going to be happening on top of those fluffy beds after all.

  * * *

  It was past three o’clock in the morning. The night had been mostly passed sorting through charred rubble, the remains of the lives that had been played out in that apartment complex for the past twenty years.

  Darc now sat alone in his apartment, observing the play of a passing car’s headlights as they moved across the living room. The light surged and then retreated, like a strange animal playing hide-and-seek with the walls.

  Light had always held a fascination for Darc. The way the network of lighted colors in his mind reacted with the more tangible illumination of the world around him was a source of constant fascination.

  Right now, he was engaged in tracking down the blind spot.

  Somewhere, in the midst of all of that light, was a dark corner that refused to be discovered. It had eluded Darc on many occasions, despite his being aware of its existence on a conscious level. But the fact that the area was without light led to uncertainty. How many times had he fallen into this trap and not known it? How often had his mental operating system hit its own reboot button, starting the process of integration over.

  He hunted in the nooks and crannies of his own mind, calming and soothing the troubled and trembling fabric of reason that spun itself into contorted shapes as he moved through them, seeking the place where they were not. But searching for negative space was as difficult as trying to prove that something did not exist. It was an exercise in futility.

  Darc stood, moving out toward the door of his apartment. The door that hadn’t been locked since Maggie had walked out of it, carrying most of her possessions in her arms. Much of what had remained had followed over the next few days.

  At no point had Darc contested any of it.

  There was a nervous buzzing coming from somewhere. The unexplored reaches of the grey expanse? Possibly. That dark place that was hiding amidst all of the light of reason? More likely.

  He wanted to go to Maggie’s apartment. Go up to the balcony there, perch and look out over the city. Wait for Trey to come and find him, bring him inside.

  In the past, Darc had thought those episodes were moments of attempted connection with his partner. Times where he had needed Trey’s emotional compass to the confusing landscape Darc had stumbled into unawares.

  But it had never been that.

  Maggie. It had always been about Maggie.

  The apartment complex was no longer an option. The balcony had disintegrated, along with most of the second story. Never again would he be brought in out of the rain and given a hot drink to soothe his body and spirit.

  As he trod close to the borders of the emotional space within, whispers came to him, nudging him to look closer. To see and feel what was truly there.

  And to Darc’s surprise, it was not the balcony he sought. Not Maggie’s. There, in that space, was firmly nestled a woman of darker hue. One who was not repelled by his distance, but challenged by it, attracted to it, even.

  Mala.

  He had been moving through the light rain that was pelting down at just above freezing temperatures. His path had pointed straight to what was now the crime scene. The place he had left less than an hour ago.

  There was nothing there for him.

  He took the next left and readjusted his course. Mala beckoned to him.

  And he
was answering the call.

  * * *

  Mala paced the floor.

  There was no real reason why she should still be awake, but in the end she’d been forced to concede defeat. She’d meditated, taken some melatonin, even resorted to Benadryl in the end, but nothing had helped.

  So, instead of lying in bed, growing more and more frustrated, Mala had decided to get up and figure some stuff out. Turned out there was plenty to think about.

  The first and foremost preoccupation in her mind was what to do with Carly. The girl was a loose cannon, but she was Janey’s sister. And it was clear from their interaction that Carly cared about Janey. Or at least the idea of Janey.

  Mala immediately chastised herself. That wasn’t fair. The poor girl had been lost and alone, trying to figure out her place in the world. To find her mother, only to discover that she’d been brutally murdered. That had to have been a crippling blow.

  But then to find a sister where you weren’t looking for one? A sense of connection in a world that had taught you that no connection was to be found? Mala could only imagine what it must be like.

  There was something here that wasn’t tracking for her. Mala had never met Janey’s mother, of course, but she had met Janey. The woman who had raised that little girl did not seem like someone that would give her child up for adoption and then never check on her again. Marilyn… Janey’s mom… would have wandered the wide world over trying to find her child once she had gotten to an older, more established place.

  There was another concern here. Real world stuff that she was going to have to deal with. On Monday, Mala had an appointment with Richard Templeton, Janey’s social worker over at the Department of Social and Heath Services. And Mala had to decide whether or not to tell Templeton about Carly.

  If it had been anyone else other than Templeton, Mala wouldn’t have worried. Not even a little bit. Janey was stable where she was. Her schooling was now on track, after that nasty incident with the bully had been put behind her. She was making friends.

  And to be blunt, Carly was a hot mess. While there didn’t appear to be any overt delinquent behavior, at least not that Mala had seen up to this point, the girl could hardly be considered a viable alternative to Mala’s plans to adopt Janey.

  But she knew the department’s policy on attempting to keep families together. She also knew Richard. He would grasp at any straw he could to make life difficult for her. Carly could represent a real possibility for him to exploit.

  So… stay silent and risk looking like she was being deceptive? Or be open and honest and risk having an over-anxious bean counter decide that it was in Janey’s best interests to be placed with an unstable older half-sister?

  Decisions, decisions.

  As Mala paced around the living room, she heard a door creak, and caught a glimpse of Carly moving down the hall from Janey’s room back to the guest room where she was staying. Once more, her parental instincts were both troubled and encouraged by the behavior she was seeing.

  Carly should develop a relationship with her sister. That was a good thing.

  But it would have taken a moron not to have seen what Carly’s reaction had been to the events of the evening. The teenager had naturally been shocked to see what had happened there at the crime scene.

  Granted, having a bomb go off while surrounded by law enforcement wasn’t an everyday occurrence, but when Mala thought of all of the other things that had gone wrong while Janey had been present at a crime scene… well, the thought made her shudder a bit. And having an older sibling present that could be viewed by the state as a better alternative? Well, let’s just say that it didn’t make Mala feel all cuddly and warm.

  She was in the middle of trying to plan out her conversation with Templeton to avoid any mention of the girl at all, when there was a soft rapping sound at the door. Mala glanced at the clock. It was nearly four in the morning. Who on earth…?

  But even before she finished the thought, she knew. There was only one person in her life that would come looking for her at this time of night. And only one person that she would open the door for under these circumstances.

  Darc.

  She looked through the peephole anyway, because it was always possible that she was wrong, but no. It was he. He stood there in the hallway, wet and haggard-looking while still somehow retaining that edge that made him so appealing.

  There was a moment of hesitation before she opened the door, however. Carly was more than likely still awake. It might not do to have her aware of some of Darc’s strange behavior at this particular point. Not after seeing the side of an apartment building explode into the night sky.

  But there were two things that pushed her toward her decision to let him in. One, he was steaming. Literally. Steam was flowing off his head, which meant it had to be cold out there. Two, he had probably heard her approach the door anyway. The man had the most freakishly acute hearing Mala’d ever encountered in her life.

  She opened up the door, and Darc walked inside. Neither spoke. They just stared at each other for a long moment before Mala gestured for Darc to follow her.

  Leading the way into the kitchen, she pointed out a chair at the table that Darc could occupy, then set about boiling some water for tea. The tall detective stood swaying in his place for a bit, then folded himself into the chair. He almost appeared to collapse in on himself as he did so, his muscles relaxing to the point that his body looked like a shapeless mass.

  “Go into my bedroom and take off your clothes. There’s a bathrobe in my bathroom there that you can put on,” Mala murmured to him, keeping her voice as low as possible. “But do what you can to be quiet. Carly’s awake and might be listening.”

  Darc made no indication he had heard, other than the fact that he stood and began moving toward her bedroom. Mala realized that most men would have assumed that her statement was an invitation for something else entirely.

  That was something about the detective that Mala adored. There was very little attempt to deceive on Darc’s part. And when he did try, like the disastrous date where Trey and Maggie were feeding him drunken instructions via an earpiece, they were somehow charming in their simplicity.

  Darc would never assume that Mala wanted to sleep with him, even if she were standing naked in front of him and posing provocatively. No matter how feminist the man, Mala was pretty certain there weren’t many who could make that same claim.

  There was never a chance that he would blame his thoughts or actions on someone else. That would have flown in the face of logic.

  Reaching into the cupboard for the tea… she made her own blend of loose tea leaves and herbs… Mala opened up the teapot and sprinkled the mix inside. The aroma of the mint and dried strawberry she liked to use filled the room.

  The thoughts of Darc stripping down in the next room over did bring up some interesting ideas. He was a very attractive man. Tall, lean, with slightly lidded eyes that Mala had to admit were sexy as hell.

  How was that part of their relationship going to work? They’d been very traditional up to this point, with Darc picking her up for dates and then bringing her home at the end of the evening. He’d drop her off, the typical awkward moment at the door not uncomfortable at all, because he would just leave. Like, right away.

  But he had to be thinking about becoming intimate with her. Didn’t he? It had been three months since they started dating. Mala was sure as hell thinking about it, and right now, she wasn’t sure if she was excited or terrified.

  She allowed the tea leaves to steep for a few moments longer and then strained two cups for herself and Darc. Adding a touch of milk to both, she reached for the sugar, and then thought better of it. Seeing what the candy had done to the bald detective, it might be a good idea to keep it simple.

  At that point, Darc entered the room, his arms and legs sticking way out of Mala’s bathrobe that was far too small for him. It served to demonstrate just how much bigger than her he was, since the bathrobe was huge on h
er.

  His upper chest was mostly exposed, as were the tops of his thighs, and he held his dripping clothes in his hands. He looked ridiculous, and Mala had to hold her hand over her mouth and stare deeply into the swirling milk in her tea before she could speak to him with a straight face.

  There was, however, underneath her amusement, something else that was going on. This was the first time she’d glimpsed Darc’s unclothed form. And although he had covered himself as best as he could, the outfit left little to the imagination.

  Darc was hot.

  “I’ll go and get your clothes into the dryer,” she managed. “Your tea is there on the table.”

  She took Darc’s clothes from him and moved through her bedroom into the attached bathroom. Wringing out what water she could into the tub, Mala took some additional time to settle her racing pulse.

  This was a much stronger reaction than she would have expected herself to have. And all of the sudden, the fairly nonessential question of what intimacy would look like in her relationship with Darc had become much more urgent.

  Whoever said that women weren’t visually stimulated was a moron.

  The clothes were about as wrung out as she could make them, and the longer she delayed in getting them into the dryer, the longer Darc would be here half-naked. There was only so much tea they could drink.

  And once that activity was off the table, what… or rather who… would end up getting thrown there in its place? Mala felt skin flush. Time to turn her thoughts to something else.

  She skirted past the kitchen into the laundry room. Well, laundry room might have been a bit of a misnomer. Laundry closet was a bit more descriptive. She tossed the clothes into the dryer and started them tumbling. The sound of the motor was shockingly loud in the narrow hallway.

  Turning around, Mala was shocked to discover that Darc had followed and was standing right behind her. She clamped down on the rather profane outburst that had been her initial instinct, and instead waved her hand to propel Darc back into the kitchen.