Weakest Lynx

by Fiona Quinn

  “Not by a long shot.” Striker paused while he looked at the cuff link and put it in his jacket pocket. “While you were flirting with criminal elements, Command called. I have information on Wilson.”

  I didn’t like the tense muscles under his eyes; this wasn’t good information. I raised a questioning brow.

  “Wilson’s stable. In police custody at Suburban. He’s being charged with breaking and entering with intent to harm, and possession.”

  I waited for the rest of the charges.

  Striker pursed his lips.

  “What about six murders and an attempted murder?” My voice squeaked.

  “The DA is having trouble putting together a case. The original six link to you by the MO. We have no evidence. None. Though they’ve been working on developing the case since your attack.”

  “But what about me? I can testify. And the neighbors saw him, too. We confirmed the police sketch. Surely …”

  “Subsequent to seeing him, you sustained a traumatic brain injury. The defense can shred your eyewitness report on the witness stand. Same with the neighbors. They were running in the dark. Could be a look-alike. With no prints, no DNA, no motive connecting you two, the prosecutors need something more, or they can’t make the case.”

  “Dave?”

  “Has nothing. Not his fault. Wilson may be juiced, but he’s highly trained, very smart, and obviously effective.” Striker waited.

  I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me by way of response, so I offered up a curt nod.

  “Is there anything more from your ‘knowings’? Anything more we can work with?”

  I shook my head and looked down at my lap, where I twisted Angel’s rings. Beyond words. Too deflated for anger. Too depressed to feel regret that Striker didn’t let me just kill him and be done with this mess. I turned and looked, unseeing, out the side window. I was glad Gater and Randy didn’t kill him, though—with their military background and size, they definitely would end up with legal problems. Even with Iniquus’s lawyers and get-out-of-jail-free cards.

  I stepped out of the car and walked like a zombie toward my front door. Striker’s boots sounded behind me. Without looking around at him, I waved, signaling him to go home.

  I moved up the steps with my keys in hand. It wasn’t over. It was far from over.

  Thirty-Two

  The next morning I walked into the Iniquus lobby, swishing my full skirts with what I hoped was a bright smile lighting my face. Wilson thrived on fear. He’d realize somewhere in his cells—even broken and crushed and lying in a hospital bed—that he was winning. He’d take a stab at beating his court charges. Then he’d take another stab at me—literally and figuratively. Well, today anyway, I wasn’t going to play his sicko game. And I wasn’t going to freak out over last night’s nightmare about Angel. Instead, I’d play my fluffy-bunny role. Sunny, happy, and calm. I’d focus on my fabulous new job.

  Command didn’t require me to wear the Iniquus gray camos like everyone else. So the ultrafeminine, ultrachic, fifties-style dress from Celia in rose and coral got me a lot of attention when I walked through the lobby at Headquarters. Iniquus is modern, streamlined, and monochromatic, and I bloomed like a garden flower.

  Striker met me at the door with a smile.

  “What’s on the agenda today?” I asked.

  “Two things. First, Nancy Drew, your prize from the ‘Grave in the Woods Caper.’”

  “Already?”

  Striker placed his hand on the small of my back and steered me to the elevator. When we reached the top floor, he pointed toward an office with a sign that read “PUZZLE ROOM.”

  “Ta-da.” He pushed the door wide with a grand sweep of his arm. “This is yours.”

  “Wow.” Surprised would be a gross understatement. My hand brushed over the stainless steel, rectangular tabletop. One of three big tables standing in the center of the large square room ready for spreading out clues.

  “All this for me?” I asked, taking in the white board with various pens, and an enormous corkboard with pushpins. A bin with colored yarns sat against the wall. I guessed these were for constructing more webs, like I had for the Sylanos case. I fiddled with the light switch in the full bath and peeked into the closet across from it in the little hallway at the back of the room …

  “Your home away from home.” Striker watched me intently.

  I nodded. Huh. This was a huge office, right next to Striker’s. The Team Commander floor—the hot shots. Could I live up to this clear sign of confidence from Command? Suddenly, I felt a deep level of pressure, anxiety, and self-doubt. I eased past Striker. Releasing my breath in a long exhale, I reached out, clicked on the light of the cosmetologist’s magnifier, and peered through the lens at my coral-colored nails. Then bit at a hangnail.

  Plopping down in the leather chair, I spun back and forth like a kid, taking everything in. Plenty of room for people to come in and mill around while we went over things. The two dog beds beside my chair and two sets of food and water dishes made me smile. Someone put a lot of thought into this room. Mixed emotions. Pride. Yes. Stress. Yes. Overwhelmed. Double yes.

  “This is pretty awesome. I take it you found what you needed in the woods?” I asked.

  “In spades. We collected enough evidence to put a bunch of bad people behind bars for a long time. Apparently, our boy thought he had a safety net out there.” Striker sat on the edge of a table, stretching out his muscular legs, crossing them at the ankle, his weight resting casually back on his arms. “We got dirt on anyone and everyone he ever did business with. He had plenty of information to blackmail them into the next century. Kudos.”

  “Kudos accepted.” I gestured widely to take in the room. “This didn’t happen overnight, though.”

  “Command started putting it together after I brought them the Sylanos file, and mentioned you’d had a hand in the Tandesco coup.”

  “That seems confident on their part.” I scowled. “Presumptuous” was probably a better word.

  “Command can be persuasive. I left SEAL Team Six to work here.”

  “I’ve often wondered why.” Striker’s face went incommunicado. His choice was obviously not up for discussion. So I changed the subject. “What’s the second thing on the table for today?” I eyed Striker. He wore jeans and a button-down shirt he’d left untucked to hide his weapon. He looked relaxed and casual. “You’re undercover?” I asked.

  “Yeah—don’t want to call any attention to myself by wearing a uniform. But then you’re dressed like that.” His openhanded gesture swept over me from head to toe. “So being inconspicuous is going to be a stretch.”

  “Should I change?”

  He smiled, dimples and all. “No, thank you.”

  We locked the door and headed back to the elevator bank. “I want to take you by a crime scene and see what you pick up.”

  “A test?” I asked.

  “Why’s everything a test with you?” Striker glanced out of the corner of his eye at me as we walked.

  “Spyder.”

  “Ah, well, school’s over. You’re in the big bad world now. Everything’s the real deal.” Striker punched the button for the garage level. As we stepped out of the elevator, Striker fobbed his way into a charcoal-gray Lexus RX 400 and opened the passenger-side door for me.

  “This is beautiful. Do you think I could give it a test drive?”

  Striker’s stance tightened.

  “I’ve been trained by the best: Stan Gillespie and Spyder McGraw. I really don’t think I’ll hurt your baby.” I sent him a pouty face. “Pretty please?”

  Amusement shined in Striker’s eyes as he held out the key.

  “So where are we headed?” I asked as I slid under the steering wheel.

  “Get on the highway heading north. I’ll direct you from there.” We were driving along, each with our own thoughts, when Striker broke into mine. “What’s going through your head?”

  “I was remembering my dream last night. It was pretty
vivid.”

  Strangely, Striker tensed beside me. “Yeah? Tell me,” he said.

  I shot him a curious glance before I refocused on the road. “I dreamed about a huge rat. When I caught the rat, I called animal control. I hoped they’d kill it—it was ginormous. But they didn’t. They decided to put a tracking collar on the rat and release it to find out where he would go, instead.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing, I woke up.”

  “Hmm. Okay. Good.”

  I turned my gaze toward him. The tight muscles at his jawline had relaxed. “Good?” I frowned then signaled a lane change.

  “I thought you were going to tell me about one of your nightmares. Turn here into the park.” He gestured at an entrance on my right.

  “You know about my nightmares?”

  “Lexi, we’ve slept in the same bed. How could I not know?” His words touched a tender spot in my psyche, like a toothache my tongue prodded. And I couldn’t leave it alone. No matter how painful. Parking under a patch of towering pine trees, I swiveled to face him. “Did I wake you often?”

  “At least once a night. On bad nights, two or three times.” His eyes were so soft. Gold flecks. Moss green. “At first I thought you were reliving Wilson,” he said. “Then I realized you were dreaming about Angel. The nightmares were pretty intense. I couldn’t pull you out of them.”

  “So what did you do?” I leaned my head back against the glass.

  Striker released his seatbelt and said, “I chanted.”

  Of all the answers I might have expected, this certainly wasn’t one of them. “Chanted?” I laughed nervously. “Chanted what, exactly?”

  Striker paused for longer than was comfortable then he said, “You are not alone.”

  My hands came up to stopper my mouth. One time, when I fought in a match at the Dojang, my attention went to the door as someone peered through the little window, and my partner roundhouse kicked me just below my ribs. Full force. He knocked every molecule of oxygen from my body. As my diaphragm pushed and pulled, sucking at the atmosphere to start my lungs back in motion, I made a horrible sound. It was that inhuman vibration that crawled out of my throat as I wrenched open the door and tumbled out. Unstable. I was thrown completely off kilter. Striker’s words were viciously painful.

  When someone knows your weakness, they hold the power. A Master Wang truism.

  I felt exposed. Defenseless. Just four little words. Somehow Striker had not only seen me—touched me—physically naked. Now he had seen me—touched me—soul naked. I scowled at my rings. Angel—my husband—hadn’t. Neither. The dynamic spun my head.

  Striker was by my side, reaching out for me. I raised protective arms. Warded him off. I skittered into the copse of trees like a wild animal. He stopped moving.

  Tipping my head to look up to the sky, shaking, I vividly remembered last night’s nightmare. The bombs seemed closer than before. A shimmer framed the scene, the kind of atmospheric oscillation that danced around the words of a “knowing.” Troubled, I had clamped down tightly on those thoughts last night, trying not to give them room to grow.

  Striker sat down, leaning back against the rough bark of the pine. “There is no case for us to work on. I brought you out here because I have information.”

  I nodded and slipped to the ground, resting against a tree, too. The solidity pressed against my back.

  “Since I realized why you were having nightmares, I’ve been contacting my government and military friends, trying to find out more about Angel’s mission.”

  I stopped breathing.

  “A call came in this morning. Angel’s squad was pinned in an ambush last night. Four wounded, two KIA. Angel is not one of them. I thought if you were picking up something with your ESP, you might be pretty frantic. I saw it in your eyes this morning when you walked in—despite your smile.”

  I shook to the point my teeth rattled. Wanted to launch myself into Striker’s arms where I knew it felt safe—but that would be the wrong thing to do. Especially knowing how close it had been for Angel last night. I needed to put distance between Striker and me before I showed him another weakness. I owed him a thank-you. A big one. But instead, I stood up and walked away.

  I popped two sleeping pills at nine o’clock, ready for the day to be over, already. The respite they offered me didn’t last. I woke in the middle of the night. Couldn’t go back to sleep. Beetle and Bella whined beside my bed and stuck their noses over the mattress, trying to see me, see what was wrong. Finally, I decided to get up and give my mind something to do other than search for the reason I felt isolated from reality. I disentangled myself from the bed sheets, damp with the perspiration of my Angel nightmare. No one to chant, “You are not alone.” I was alone.

  I showered, then dressed myself in black bra and panties, black stockings and garter belt, black heels, black raw silk suit. No jewelry. No makeup. No perfume. I brushed my hair back into a ponytail, pulling it only halfway through on the last turn of the elastic band to make a bun of sorts. I looked in the mirror; huge pupils in enormous eyes in an austere face stared back at me. Pale. I didn’t really recognize the reflection as my own, some vague portrait hanging on a blank wall.

  Grasping my big leather bag from beneath the side table in my foyer, I scooped my keys from the bowl. The metal on glass as I lifted the fob seemed to echo through my house. The sound had a hollow feel. I activated the alarm system, and twisted to call my dogs, only to find they were already beside me. We went out the door.

  When I turned to lock up, I registered the cold, damp air on my skin. I should get my coat. The thought didn’t produce the desired action.

  I took a step out onto the porch. The neighborhood was at rest; my neighbors all snuggled warm in their beds, each with their own dreams. Every clack of my high heels on the sidewalk echoed large against the stillness. I opened the back door of my car, my dogs climbed in, and I found my place behind the wheel.

  Now where?

  I decided to head to Iniquus—the only place I knew where I could be both alone and surrounded by warm bodies at this time of night. I needed warm bodies right now. I had disconnected; it was like floating to the left of where I should actually be. It felt eerie.

  At Iniquus, I headed straight to the Puzzle Room not wanting to talk to anyone. Shut the door. Sat down. My dogs found their places under the table. After a minute, I jumped up. Panic and claustrophobia had tightened over my chest with the door closed. I jerked it back open so I could stave off the loneliness swelling each of my cells.

  I thought maybe work would help ground me—help me shake off whatever was holding me in its grip. I laid out the puzzle pieces for the newest case—clues Gater had gathered from a suspect’s house. The team wanted me to find the bad guy’s location. I sat in my black leather chair and stared at the wall in front of me.

  At some point, one of the men coaxed Beetle and Bella out from under my feet, whispering, “Eat.” Good. My dogs weren’t suffering. Someone would feed and walk them. Water was poured into their bowls after they returned, moping under my table, warming my legs with their bodies. No one spoke to me. My cheeks were wet from intermittent tears dripping down past my chin and plopping on the blank piece of paper in front of me.

  Striker stuck his head in, then left. Murmuring hummed outside my door—concerned voices discussing me.

  “She’s been like that since three this morning—the dogs, too,” someone said.

  “She didn’t say anything at all, to anyone, when she came in?” Striker asked.

  “Not a word, sir. She hasn’t moved,” came the reply.

  I guessed Striker wasn’t sure if he was welcome, since I walked away from him yesterday. He didn’t get in my face. He let me be. I just sat, muffled by my body, buffered from the pedestrian comings and goings—the human motions of Iniquus.

  A cup of tea was set beside me, and grew cold.

  By two in the afternoon, my tears flowed in earnest. Striker came back in and rifled thro
ugh the puzzle pieces of the case laid out before me. They didn’t seem to answer his questions. He looked at my still-blank, damp paper and the untouched pen. He stood solid and calm. His concern was tangible, and I knew he struggled to do the right thing here; to find the right words for whatever was happening. I was sure I looked like I was in the middle of a mental collapse. Maybe I was.

  Striker’s cell phone vibrated. He stepped out of my room into the hall. He answered, “Striker.” Silence stretched like a rubber band while he listened to the caller, then snapped back as he said, “Send them up.” He disconnected.

  Striker came silently back into the room, pulled out a side chair, and placed it near mine. Sitting down, he swiveled me to face him. He took my hands from my lap and enfolded them in his. He looked me in the eyes and waited for me to focus on him. This took a minute—I cowered deep within myself.

  When I finally met his gaze, he spoke slowly and gently. “Two military officers are on their way up to speak to you.” I nodded comprehension. Reality still seemed pretty far away. I felt nothing but numbness. I wanted to stay numb. Deaf, dumb, blind, and numb. I wanted to cast a spell that would relieve me of my senses. Dread’s bony claws had clutched at my throat from the moment I woke up this morning. And now, everything I feared since Angel deployed was riding up the elevator to confront me.

  As the two uniformed men came into my room, my body rose like a marionette’s, manipulated by unseen strings. I observed, as if an optical illusion, a right hand extend from my body and clasp the men’s hands in handshakes. My fingers were stiff from the ice in my veins. My disembodied voice said, “I am Mrs. Angel Miguel Sobado. Thank you gentlemen for your service. This must be a hard task.”

  Their hats twisted back and forth between nervous fingers, contradicting their calm countenance. Someone suggested we sit. Striker reached out and guided my body back down into the chair. Striker pulled his seat even closer. His body pressed to my side, giving me stability and sharing his warmth.

  I watched their mouths move. I knew they were giving me information about Angel’s death—my Angel’s …