But it didn’t completely take Trevor’s attention off Skye.
“You okay, Skye?” Greg Blanding looked over Shavinsky’s shoulder toward the door.
“Absolutely,” she said as she opened it, “but I have to check on Bella. I left her in my car. I’ll let everyone know Trevor’s okay. They’ll all be as glad as me.”
She didn’t look glad. Maybe she was just trying to hide any indication of all they’d shared last night, but he thought it was more than that.
She appeared to have gotten herself together, though. The color was returning to her cheeks, and her beautiful face was as expressionless as if she’d wiped all emotion out of her system.
But he knew better.
“Thanks for coming to check on me, Skye,” he said. “See you at the station.”
Not only there, of course. He still wanted her assistance in finding Marinaro.
And most of all, he’d like to visit her at home. Again.
Soon.
The back patio at Skye’s home wasn’t large, but it easily accommodated four people. Once again, she had contacted her longtime friends for an evening get-together. This time Ron had been delegated the duty of bringing pizza.
They all sat on molded plastic chairs around a glass table with an umbrella in the center, sipping on light beer and nibbling the remnants of the thin-crust pepperoni pizza.
Like the last time they had been together, twilight was just beginning to fall on this warm summer evening.
Beyond the patio, in the small, grassy yard surrounded by a tall wooden fence, Bella romped with Hayley’s dog, a gray midsized terrier mix she had adopted from a shelter two years earlier. His name was Frenzy, since he always seemed full of energy. The dogs were arguing amiably over a large plastic bone, and each barked as the other took it away.
“Okay, spit it out, already,” Kara blurted, looking at Skye. She put her glass down and stood, her hands on her curvy hips. Her long black hair fanned out around her shoulders. “You called us all, said something unnerving happened and you needed to talk about it. But every time we’ve brought it up this evening, you keep saying you need to get your thoughts together before you explain.”
“Right. I say you’ve had plenty of time to get those thoughts together.” Hayley also rose and crossed her arms over her chest. She was casually clad, in denim shorts and a plain pink T-shirt.
Only Ron remained seated with Skye. He’d brought along some beer, although only Skye had taken him up on a bottle. “She’ll tell us when she’s ready.” He took a swig of the amber brew, but his light blue eyes reflected concern. “Ah, hell.” He stood like the others, pulling at the edges of his white Angeles Beach T-shirt. “I’m as curious as they are. What’s up, Rydell?”
“Sit down, please. All of you.” Skye gestured toward the empty seats and strengthened her courage by taking a swig of the cold beer. “When you were being taught about our hereditary abilities, did you ever hear the legend of how some of our powers might be passed along to people we saved?”
“It’s just a story, Skye.” Ron shook his head as he lowered himself obediently onto his seat. “When you were learning how to use these abilities, I spent a lot of time studying up on them, just because I was interested and because my mother had them, too. You know that.”
Skye nodded. In fact, she’d suspected that Ron, like other males among their peers, was a little jealous of their gift, although he was never too obvious about it.
“There were a lot of legends to learn,” he continued, “though most were interesting. I liked the ones about the afterlife, especially the one about how those people you help over the rainbow bridge go to a modern version of Valhalla, where they share a really great eternity with our ancestresses.”
Skye liked that account, too, and really hoped that, of all the legends, it was true. It provided such a wonderful rationale for them to exercise their powers. The three friends had often discussed whom they heard chanting and what the foreign-sounding words meant, but they had no answers, and neither did their mothers. But they knew, of course, that women like them did good. When appropriate, those with their powers made immediate decisions that brought people back from certain death. That was the best part.
“Some legends have apparent bases in truth,” Ron was saying. “Hard to know the difference. Sometimes, Valkyrie powers were said to run amok. A few cases resulted in the rescued person’s accidentally acquiring Valkyrie abilities in reverse—the ability to take, not save, lives. The most unsavory took advantage, killing their adversaries with it.”
“I never heard about it quite that way,” Kara said. “What my mother told me was much more…well, romantic, I guess.”
“If you call gaining an ability to kill people romantic,” Hayley said dryly. And then she stopped. And stared at Skye. “Are you telling us that the cop you saved actually has that power now? We were always told it was strictly an old wives’ tale.”
“An old Valkyrie wives’ tale,” Kara corrected. She, too, seemed to watch Skye’s face for her reaction.
Skye felt herself redden. “Look, I don’t really know what happened. I wasn’t there. But there was an incident early this morning. Do you remember hearing about the murder trial of a guy called Eddy Edinger?”
“The SOB of a killer got off on a technicality,” Ron said, again gulping some beer.
“Exactly.” Skye paused to pat a panting Bella, who’d just run onto the porch. Frenzy followed, stopping at the bowl of water Skye had left near the kitchen door. As Bella, too, went after a drink, Skye described what she had heard about that morning’s incident. “Officer Trevor Owens, the SWAT guy I kept from dying a few weeks ago, was off duty, but he was there. The suspect apparently stabbed him in the side with a knife. Officer Owens pulled a gun and aimed it, while at the same time—or so he said—he told the suspect to die, right then and there. He said he was just yelling the command in the heat of the moment. He didn’t expect it to happen, figured Edinger must have been scared when he drew his weapon. Maybe he had a medical condition. Who knows? But the fact was, he died. Right then and there.”
Her friends stayed silent for a long, unnerving moment. Skye knew where their thoughts were going. Well, heck, let them guess. She couldn’t exactly hide it…could she?
“Okay, honey.” Hayley’s face was solemn but her pale blue eyes were twinkling irritatingly. “How well have you gotten to know Officer Owens?”
Skye stood abruptly, her chair scraping noisily along the patio’s cement. “Cut it out!” she shouted. Then, realizing her neighbors might hear, she quieted down. “Like I told you all before, I don’t understand why I felt I had to save Trevor. But the one thing I do know is that the sexual attraction between us is, well, amazing. And, yeah, don’t you dare give me a hard time, but we made love last night. Then he left, and that thing occurred where Edinger died.”
Ron took a sip of his beer and then smirked. “You’re saying that the version you heard was…what? If one of you saves the life of some guy and then has sex with him, he’s somehow charged with your abilities?”
“Well, Ron, there’s more to it than that,” Hayley said. “At least the way I understand it. It can’t just be any guy, but one who also has some Nordic heritage. But, yes, there has to be some kind of connection with the Valkyrie descendant who saves him. Sexual, at least, and maybe more.”
“Awesome!” Ron exclaimed. “So all I need to do is go back to Minnesota, get my ass saved by one of the ladies with powers like yours—someone I don’t know as well as any of you, of course, or I couldn’t stand it. Then take her to bed, and I’ll be just like you? Well, what do you know!” His grin was huge. “Hey, talk about friends with benefits. A little fun, a little justice—”
“Not funny, Ron,” Skye said glumly, although she suspected he wasn’t entirely joking. “The thing is, if this is true, then I have some responsibility for Edinger’s death.” She held up her hand as the others’ mouths all opened, as if they prepared to protest. “
I know what an awful scumbag he was. If the evidence against him was true, he killed two people for no reason. Maybe more, in other similar incidents. But our legal system, rightly or wrongly, held him not guilty despite the evidence.”
“He also stabbed your buddy Trevor,” Kara reminded her, standing and putting her hands on Skye’s shoulders. “He might have killed him instead. And you said Trevor grabbed his own gun. Whichever way he killed the guy, it was self-defense.”
“That’s true,” Hayley agreed with a nod.
Daylight had been fading without Skye’s noticing it, and now they were nearly sitting in the dark. “You’re all correct,” she conceded. “And it wasn’t as if I chose to kill the guy, whether or not he deserved it. And he did—this time. But our mandate, from the time we realized we had some choices over who would live, was to help people, not kill those who weren’t already dying.”
She rose and walked to her back door, flipping the switch to illuminate the porch with lights attached to her house.
“Good people,” Hayley reminded her. “We’re supposed to sense who deserves our help and either save them, if possible, or see them to a peaceful afterlife.”
Skye turned again to her friends, who were all watching her with obvious concern. “How would you feel if you were in this position?” she asked. “If you might have somehow given another powers that were potentially harmful to people. If that’s what’s happened with Trevor, what if he uses these powers again—maybe even to kill someone who isn’t a creep like Edinger? His standards of who deserves to live, and who doesn’t, could be a lot different from ours. What if he kills someone we wouldn’t want harmed, for whatever reason?”
“Good point.” Kara nodded.
“Looks like you ladies had better watch who you save…and take to bed. In any event, here’s to Owens and his stopping that bastard Edinger. The world needs more good guys like him.” Ron, lifting his beer bottle, took a last swig from it and frowned. “Hey, I’m going in for another one. Or two. Anybody else need something from the kitchen?” As he neared Skye at the doorway, he gave her a hug. “Don’t sweat it, Rydell. You didn’t do anything wrong. And I hope you had a damned good time doing it!” He winked, then pushed open the door. The dogs followed him, obviously hoping for a treat.
“There are times,” Hayley said, watching him from the table, “that I’d love to kick our friend Gollar in his butt—which is apparently the location of his puny brain.”
Skye laughed with her friends, but stopped when Kara asked, “Is there really something between Trevor and you, Skye? I mean more than sex. Something special?”
Skye started to nod, then stopped herself. “I think so, but honestly, I don’t understand it. I’d barely noticed the guy before that day at the warehouse, and yet all of a sudden I felt some weird compulsion to save his life. Are we connected? Is he the love of my life?”
“What are you going to do now?” Hayley asked.
“Hell if I know.” Skye tossed her hands up in a gesture of frustration. “I’ll have to play it by ear, I guess. But if Trevor actually got that power from me, do I have to purposefully do something to retrieve it? If so, what do I have to do?”
Secretly, she wondered what would happen if she got the power back. Would that mean she’d have to stay away from him to ensure that he didn’t get it again?
The very idea seemed to puncture Skye’s soul.
Chapter 15
T revor stood in the corridor on the station’s sixth floor, where the top brass hung out. The door to the favorite conference room of the Force Investigation Division was closed, and he’d been told to wait in the quiet, sterile-looking hall till the captain came out for him.
Too bad he wouldn’t see Skye here, as he had last time. She’d had some involvement in that situation, but not this one.
He wanted to talk to her, though. Really wanted to talk to her. The time they’d spent together before he’d gone to confront Eddy—well, that had occupied his mind every waking minute since. And his dreams during his brief doses of sleep.
But she had avoided him all weekend, and he didn’t know why. He’d find out what was up with her, though. Today. Even if she didn’t return his calls, she would come to work, and he was already here despite the fact that he’d been placed on temporary leave. He’d see her. She’d see him. And he’d get an explanation.
It was Monday morning, and he was in uniform. He had been called in to give a statement and answer questions about the incident with Eddy.
The door opened. “Come in, Officer Owens,” said Captain Boyd Franks.
Trevor left his attitude in the hall, as always. Though he’d done nothing wrong—especially this time—being respectful was the best way to keep his job. And he liked his job. A lot.
The usual suspects sat at the table: the director of the FID, Lieutenant Theresa Agnew; and its civilian representative, John Correy. As with the last time, it was a pared-down group of investigators, since Trevor hadn’t fired his weapon.
Trevor took his regular seat at the head of the table, wishing they’d replace it with something more comfortable than these wooden chairs. Maybe the idea was to ensure that those who sat there got sore butts.
“So, Officer Owens,” Lieutenant Agnew began, “this is becoming a standing appointment, I’m afraid.” She sat directly to his right. At least there was a smile on her pinched face, and Trevor smiled back, briefly.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “After getting shot, and now stabbed, I’m beginning to feel like one of those voodoo dolls that always gets punctured.” He wanted to remind them right off that he’d been injured again.
“But you’re all right, aren’t you?” Correy asked. He wore a gray suit this time and sat beyond Captain Franks on Trevor’s other side. He actually looked concerned. Nice guy. Maybe.
“Yes, sir.”
“But Eddy Edinger isn’t,” Agnew reminded them unnecessarily. “We’re here to get your interpretation of the events that led to his death.”
Trevor nodded, then asked, “Is the coroner’s report out yet?”
“Only a preliminary one.” The captain shook his head slowly. “Cause of death is listed, for now, as cardiac arrest, for reasons unknown. His autopsy isn’t complete yet, though.”
“I see.” But Trevor didn’t—not really. He’d seen no indication that the guy was sick. He’d also read the media reports, and lots of questions were being asked. Apparently, Eddy had seemed entirely healthy during his trial. And he didn’t seem the type to get freaked out if a gun was aimed at him.
Even so, the louse was dead, and Trevor hadn’t used any weapon on him.
At the captain’s urging, Trevor told his version of what had happened. How Eddy had surprised him—sort of—and come at him with a knife. How he’d been wounded, but not seriously, and in self-defense, he’d reached for his weapon while telling the SOB to back off.
Of course what he’d really done was to tell the guy to die, but there weren’t any witnesses, and that would sound weird here, wouldn’t it?
“That’s all you did?” John Correy asked when he was done.
Okay, he had to be honest. “Well, I did sort of tell him that if he didn’t back off, he was liable to die.” Close enough.
“And what were you doing around that particular house at that hour of the morning?” Agnew asked.
Trevor had prepared himself for this one. It was the only thing that could hurt him in this investigation.
“The owner’s Marlon Manfredy.” They all nodded at the name of one of Hollywood’s biggest movers and shakers. “I know his business manager. Mr. Manfredy travels a lot, and he’s really concerned about security. I’ve been conducting an informal surveillance of the place while he’s out of town. I’d awakened that night for no reason and decided I should go take a look there, like a hunch. I saw movement in the bushes, and there was Edinger.”
“Did anything else bring you there?” Agnew asked. “Besides a hunch?”
Hell, Trevo
r would be skeptical, too, if he were in her position. But even if he’d been moonlighting in private security—which he hadn’t—the department fortunately had no policy against it.
The captain came to his rescue, as he had done before in these sessions. “Does the reason really matter? Unless—” He turned to Trevor. “You didn’t call Mr. Edinger and tell him to meet you there, or anything like that, did you?”
“No, sir,” Trevor assured them. “I did call his landscaping company on the owner’s behalf, but I didn’t speak to Eddy.” Which was true. His trap had been sprung indirectly. If Edinger hadn’t heard from his landscaping company about the wealthy home owner being out of town, leaving his house ripe for a nice, lucrative burglary—and, potentially, a bonus murder or two if anyone like the real estate broker happened to show up—he wouldn’t have been there that morning. No one had twisted his arm to go there.
“Okay, then,” Captain Franks said. “I think we’re through for now. The team that did the on-site investigation found nothing to contradict what you’ve said. We know where to find you if there are any further questions. Thank you, Officer Owens.”
“You’re welcome, sir.” Trevor rose to leave, then paused. “You know, I’m really puzzled about Mr. Edinger’s death, too,” he said. “If the coroner’s final report says anything different—”
“We’ll be sure to let you know,” said Franks.
Skye stared at her computer instead of working on her report of the crime scene she’d been at this morning. It would be a good report. Bella had performed perfectly—scenting an item that a victim said the robber had touched, then finding the suspect outside in the crowd of gawkers who were watching from behind the yellow tape. He’d tried to bolt, but Bella pounced, held him down and growled without hurting the guy. Now the suspect was in custody.
“Hey, Rydell,” Manny Igoa called as he entered the room, his dog, Rusty, trotting beside his long legs. “I hear Bella and you are the heroes of the day.” He stopped and patted her on the shoulder.
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