By Her Touch

by Adriana Anders

“Are you currently working with law enforcement?”

  “No,” he said, inflecting his voice with a strain of offended irritation, but he couldn’t stop the sweat from dripping out of his hairline, right over a week-old scab and down his cheek.

  “Where’d you do your training?” Ape broke in. God, the man had always had a hard-on for him.

  “My training?”

  “Your fucking law enforcement training? Where’d you do it?”

  “What are you talking about, man?”

  “You know what I’m fucking saying, you fucking pig. I’ve seen the way you watch us.”

  Clay’s body had gone numb then, tingly at the extremities, his limbs cold and his face hot, constricted, no air. He’d fought for air.

  No sound except breathing. It went on forever, that quiet, Handles and Ape and everybody else just waiting for him to give himself away. It was one of those moments where his skin felt tight, but the persona felt floppy. Surely they could see the real him peeking through the eye holes?

  Another few seconds, and Handles leaned in, a half smile on his face. “We’ve got a deal goin’ on next week. Might have to take care of a couple of people—woman and a kid.” Clay held it together. They wouldn’t kill a kid. He wouldn’t kill a kid. Hold your shit together, Navarro. He breathed deeply and waited for the question. Interviewing 101. Say nothing until you have to. “Would you do that for your club? For your brothers?”

  “Yes,” he said, calm, calm, calm. And on it went, Ape breathing down his neck, Boom-Boom watching, eyes devoid of emotion, and Handles staring him down, cold but fatherly in the weirdest fucking way.

  “Would you die for the Sultans?” Handles asked, and the door opened, and Carly walked in—and like always, the dream exploded everywhere. Blood, gore, loud, loud, the report of a weapon, Boom-Boom’s hands on his sister’s corpse, her dead eyes turned to Clay, accusatory white globes of hate, Ape’s ax through Clay’s head, hurting like hell. He dove to the ground, into the stink and shit of the dungeon floor, where the blood of millions soaked into his clothes, up his nose, and he gagged, fought, kicked, screamed himself awake.

  Awake. Alive. I’m alive.

  But not Carly. Carly was dead. Every time he woke up, his little sister was still dead.

  * * *

  “He’s gone.” Ape ended the call. He was about to lose his shit, which was precisely the reason for his fucking nickname to begin with. When things went wrong, he went apeshit. Sometimes even when things went right.

  “What? He didn’t go into witness protection like Candy Lan—”

  “Don’t call him that,” Ape cut in, needing something to pummel. Somebody’s face would do just fine. Jam’s if he had to. “His name’s Breadthwaite. Special fuckin’ Agent Nikolai fuckin’ Breadthwaite.”

  “Fuck kinda name is that? Fucker ain’t even American.” Jam hated anyone who wasn’t American.

  “Neither’s Navarro.”

  “Shoulda killed him when I had the chance.”

  Ape almost laughed. Jam especially hated spics. And it turned out that was precisely what Special Agent Clay Navarro was. A spic from South America. Christ, how the hell had he ever made it into the club? Into the goddamned ATF for that matter? They just hire any old asshole off the street now?

  “We’ll get him.” Ape was absolutely certain of that. He had yet to miss a mark. It could take him months. Years, even. That ATF bastard had taken down the leadership of the Sultans. But he still had to testify.

  Ape knew he’d stop the cocksucker from taking the stand if it was the last thing he did.

  6

  Monday morning, George met the heating and cooling guys at the office at six thirty—thankful they’d come out so early—and sighed with relief as her first patient arrived to a decent temperature.

  Along with the cool air, her nurse’s return from vacation gave George the sensation of coming back down to earth after a few days spent someplace very, very strange.

  Ah, boring normality—her wheelhouse.

  Some people craved excitement and change, but George needed things to be the same, predictable. She preferred fine to good, nice to wonderful. Nothing to upset her status quo.

  Let her patients be turbulent. George was the calm one. The island in the stream.

  Who’d have thought that dermatology could be anything besides sedate?

  Purnima arrived with that healthy glow she got every time she went home to India. George assumed it was the diet: real food instead of the hormone- and pesticide-filled crap that masqueraded as nourishment around here. But it was more than that, she knew. Purnima’s eyes looked clearer, her smile centered. God, how George admired that in her—how together the woman was. She might be George’s employee, but she’d always thought there was a ton she could learn from her.

  “You’ve been busy, I see,” Purnima said from her spot in front of the computer. “I thought you said you’d take it easy while I was gone? Wasn’t there mention of a mini break or something?”

  George just smiled and hesitated. Should she hug her? She’d been gone for three weeks, after all, and… No. Hugging was inappropriate.

  “And then the A/C…” George said with a sigh. “You have no idea.”

  “Feels good this morning. Did you call Carmichael’s?”

  “Yes,” George said, her face reddening with shame. “I hated to call in a favor, but—”

  “You caught his melanoma, George. He wants to help. People are happy to thank you, however they can.”

  “Yes, but it’s my job.”

  “Sure.” Purnima raised her hands, one on either side, like a scale weighing the difference. “Fixes A/C, cures cancer. I’m sure they come out even in the end.” The woman laughed and clicked a couple of keys before looking up and catching sight of George for the first time.

  “My God, what happened to your face?”

  “Oh, nothing” was all George said, self-consciously touching the bruise on her cheek. Thankfully, Purnima was discreet enough that she wouldn’t pry after being rebuffed. But then guilt won out, of course, because if it wasn’t safe for her, then… “I was attacked. Outside.”

  “No! Who would do that?”

  “It was the Fourth of July, and I think they were on drugs, perhaps? There was a scuffle and I intervened and… They were young.”

  “What did the police say?”

  “I didn’t call the police.”

  “Whyever not?”

  “I…” George thought about it, suddenly unsure. “I…I suppose I didn’t need to. Someone came to my rescue, and they left.”

  Purnima’s brows rose at that, but George didn’t feel like going into it any further. She didn’t quite understand herself why she hadn’t called the police. Maybe something about Andrew Blane made her think he wouldn’t want that. No. He definitely hadn’t seemed to want that.

  Whatever the reason, she felt shaky enough as it was today. She was done talking about it, which wasn’t something she cared to examine, especially after spending all day Sunday hunkered down at home, thinking—or rather not thinking—about him.

  “So, no patients Friday afternoon, then?”

  She debated how to answer but, as usual, gave in to the truth. “There was one.”

  Purnima turned back to the screen and keyed through charts for a few more seconds, until she eventually turned back to her boss. And somehow, for some silly reason, George had to force herself, with difficulty, to look her nurse in the eye.

  “I don’t see it on the books,” said Purnima.

  “No.”

  The woman’s brows rose.

  “Pro bono?”

  “I…” George swallowed, wondering when she’d ever been this conflicted about a patient. Never. Never was the answer. “Yes,” she finally whispered.

  Uma popped into her head. She was the only
other patient she’d had come in like that, off the street, looking like a victim. No, not a victim. A survivor, maybe.

  And not weak at all. Andrew Blane was strong, frightening, compelling.

  So compelling I can’t get him out of my head.

  “Tattoos,” she said, a little ashamed at how curt she must sound but unwilling to feed the obvious curiosity in her employee’s eyes. “He needs them removed.”

  Purnima nodded slowly, twice, before lowering her eyes to the screen. “Interesting” was all she said. As always, a mistress of subtlety.

  As she continued down the hall to close herself in her office, George looked deep down inside and recognized an embarrassing truth: she didn’t want to discuss Andrew Blane with her nurse or with anyone. She wanted to hide her new patient away, to keep him all to herself in a way that felt shameful. There was something else warring with the shame, however: a thread of titillation or excitement or whatever buzzy spark of interest this was, vibrating through her body.

  She had patients to see, but all her wayward brain could think about was that man. This wasn’t healthy, and it wasn’t right, but George couldn’t seem to stop counting the minutes until Andrew Blane walked through her door again. She glanced at the clock.

  Maybe he wouldn’t come back at all.

  * * *

  Too many hours spent hunkered down in the motel room, trying hard not to drink, with only the shitty-ass TV to distract him, was more than Clay could bear. After weeks in the hospital, then months of PT and brain-numbing television, he’d developed a hatred for the device—especially shows that glorified the bad guys. Those were the worst. He’d destroyed his television the first time he’d come across one particular show on bikers.

  That had led to his new rule: no vodka during the day, and no TV ever.

  Breathing hard and still sore from running the past couple nights—that and beating the shit out of those two kids—he grabbed his keys and headed out the door, needing air, space, anything to distract from the new set of memories working through his mind on repeat.

  The doc on the ground, rolled into a protective ball, those fucks kicking her. He’d wanted to kill them, had barely held himself back. Because, yeah, if he killed a couple of tweakers right now, he’d sure screw the hell out of the Sultans case.

  But he was a Sultan, now, wasn’t he? More Sultan than cop, that was for damned sure. He’d seen the way everyone looked at him back at the field office after his discharge from the hospital. Jesus, his colleagues had eyed him like he was scum.

  Course then Tyler’d caught sight of him, and everything had changed. What a shock it had been when they’d eventually stopped typing and set down their phones, and stood up for him. A few of them had even clapped. A huge case. With him at its center.

  Didn’t matter that he didn’t feel like a hero.

  In his truck, he looked both ways before pulling away from the downtown area, where traffic had thickened only slightly during what passed for rush hour in Blackwood.

  Ahead of him stood the first small foothills before the slightly grander line of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He knew, looking at the beauty of their bluish-purple crests, that he should feel something. He’d spent so much time in slums and projects, filthy biker clubhouses and run-down police stations that he hardly recognized the power of beauty anymore. Maybe it was gone forever—that ability to see the good in things.

  He drove on, unsure where this road led, and enjoying the lack of control. Well, not entirely that, maybe, because lack of control was something he’d felt time and again in situations where some psychopath held the reins. That wasn’t what he sought.

  No, what he needed right then was to feel like anything was possible.

  Up he drove, over asphalt, then gravel, then just dual, overgrown tracks in the dirt leading higher and higher.

  Finally, long past the End State Maintenance sign, he parked, truck facing back the way he’d come, and got out. Up a path he walked, ignoring the way his steel-toed boots rubbed his feet with every step, until the trees thinned, the trail grew rockier, and finally, finally, he emerged.

  It was high here—the top of a mountain. The air had lost some of its oppressive humidity and heat, and here…oh, here, he could breathe.

  And the view… Jesus Christ. He turned around 360 degrees, an action that forced him to take it all in until he couldn’t do it anymore and had to bend, drop his hands to his knees, and breathe.

  Just breathe.

  Survive.

  The polygraph had been about survival. Animal instinct and training had gotten him through that. Later, they’d given him his colors, the Sultans patch sewn onto the sleeveless leather cut he and the other guys wore every single day of their lives. He remembered the feel of Handles’s arm around him—fatherly, welcoming, warm. Jesus, that was almost the worst part, how good it had been to have brothers—a family. The only thing that had come close in years had been finishing Special Agent Basic Training with Tyler. They’d been like family back then too.

  Nothing like Handles and the club’s acceptance, though. The cut, the rides, the way he could do no wrong with them, now that he’d beaten the box, survived the hazing, accepted his patch with tears in his fucking eyes, gotten his ink, and been proud—truly proud—of it.

  Jam had hugged him, hard, and Clay had felt it deep in his soul. Brothers. Family.

  He remembered Ape’s scowl when the asshole had taken him in back for his club tat—the big one on his back. But while the dude had always hated him, he sure as fuck had enjoyed tattooing him. Jesus, Ape loved that shit, didn’t he? The light in his eye confirming he was one hundred percent sadist.

  Ape, who’d disappeared the night of the raid—one of a handful of guys they hadn’t managed to pin down. How the hell had he known?

  On a deep sigh, Clay pulled his brain back out, let himself see the mountains instead of memories.

  He wasn’t sure how long he stayed up there, ignoring the majesty of his surroundings and just trying to locate a new well, a new vein of hope he could tap into. It took some time for him to realize he’d just about used it all up. He was all dried out. It would take one hell of a dowsing rod at this point to locate unplumbed depths he was pretty sure he didn’t have.

  No. Focus. Find yourself here.

  Clay drew in a big breath and opened his eyes to the view and… Whoa. As far as the eye could see, a hazy, blue-and-gray landscape, surreal like some kind of painting. Artsy shit you’d see tattooed on the arms of hipster kids who didn’t know better. Lush, yet almost colorless in the cloud-covered morning. The details smudged out, the edges softened like the view after a couple of beers or that first hit of weed.

  Above him, a bird flew—big, dark, huge wingspan. A hawk, he thought for a second and then knew, somehow, that it wasn’t.

  A vulture. The perfect addition to this colorless, gray panorama. It landed on a lone, brittle-looking tree fifty yards away and regarded the world around it with quick, unimpressed moves of its head.

  A hawk or an eagle, he could have gotten behind. A symbol of hope or something.

  But a vulture?

  And then it hit him, with an ironic twinge of humor, how right it was.

  He stood straighter, like that scavenger on the branch, wanting to feel above it all.

  So, fine, Clay Navarro was no eagle. But there were other things he could build on. His strength had always been his ability to see past people’s exteriors and get a line on what it was they really wanted. Not what they showed the world, but the petty things that made them tick. In recent months, he may have lost that ability, seen it drowned out by the constant white noise in his head, the pain in his body. But it was clearer up here; this high, he could even trick himself into thinking he’d get it back one day.

  Like that creature up there, his career had flourished off the flesh of others—on what they’d le
ft behind, untended. So, he’d just have to view himself the same way and live on the bits of rotting meat still clinging to his bones. The shitty bits still left after all the good was torn away—vengeance, hate, anger. Yeah, he had lots of that. Enough to fuel an army, in fact.

  And that thought, that realization, sent Clay back down the mountain, into town, with the strength to keep up this charade of a life. For the time being, at least.

  * * *

  This time, George was ready when he arrived. Sort of.

  It had been a busy day spent trying to catch up on Friday’s missed appointments, which was good, since her mind had spent an uncomfortable amount of time going back to him. All day, she’d fended off questions about the bruises and anticipated his arrival with the most unwelcome combination of excitement and apprehension, building it up so that, by the time his form blocked out the low evening sunlight, she had decided more or less how to proceed. No casual talk and no mention of Saturday night, besides a well-deserved thanks. Professional, strict.

  That, of course, translated to stiff, which probably only made her seem nervous. A complete failure in bedside manner.

  “Evening, Doc.”

  George shivered. That voice. Rougher than she was used to, lower, without any hint of local Virginia twang.

  “Mr. Blane.” He loitered in the doorway. “Come in, come in.” Great, now she sounded like a little old woman, enticing him with tea and cookies. Or something.

  “How you feeling tonight, Doc?”

  “Wonderful.”

  “That’s quite a shiner you got there.”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped, tired of explaining the thing all day and not wanting to relive it with him right now, either.

  The man moved inside, limping—which reminded her that he’d run back to the motel the other night—and finally pulled off his glasses, baring sharp, assessing eyes beneath two bright red, puffy lids, greased up.

  At least he followed directions.

  He stepped forward, hand out, and George hesitated, thinking for a second that he might… What? Kiss her? Hug her? Lord, she was messed up.