Black Is Back (Quentin Black Mystery #4)

by JC Andrijeski

  He’d warned me he would be volatile––that both of us would be. He said it was part of what was going on with us right now, which, in watching his eyes, I found myself thinking we needed to talk about. Like really talk about, and soon.

  I guess I thought it would stop, or at least chill out a little bit, since we were taking a break from the rest of it. Meaning the non-stop sex part of things.

  But Black didn’t look chill. He didn’t look chill at all.

  Moreover, as he held my arm, I felt my own calm starting to dissolve. Part of that was feeling his light start to open, to expand out over me in a heated cloud.

  “What the fuck are we doing here?” Black growled.

  “What are we doing here?” I repeated his question, but I couldn’t make sense of the words. I found myself gripping his arms, unsure how or when I’d caught ahold of him. “Hey.” I made my voice soft, but somehow, I was fighting tears again. “Calm down, okay? Calm down. We can’t do this right now, Black. We can’t...”

  “You want me to slow this down.” He met my gaze. It didn’t sound like a question. “You said that. Before they came to the apartment. You said this is too fast for you. That you want me to slow it down, Miri.”

  I stared up at him again. His gold eyes looked shockingly inhuman to me again, like gold flames. At the same time, a heated coil of desire caught me off-guard. It was mine that time. Definitely mine. I gripped him tighter when he started to pull away from me.

  “Hey,” I said, sharper that time. “Black. We’re good, okay? We’re good.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not. I’m not good right now, doc.”

  “Then we need to talk,” I said, sharper still. “I really think we need to talk about this, Black. About all of it, this time. We can’t wait any more on talking about it... on the important things at least. There’s too much confusion right now... for both of us. We’re not... communicating. We’re missing each other somehow...”

  He wasn’t looking at me.

  As I studied his profile, something in his expression alarmed me.

  “Black.” I shook him a little, trying to get him to look at me. “Black... hey!”

  When he still wouldn’t look at me, I opened myself to him, dropping some of that rigidity I’d forced over my mind––over myself, somehow. The instant I did, I realized he was right. I understood what he was talking about as soon as I started to open––not only because of the what of it, but the when. I’d closed myself off from him right around the time I left his place. I’d done it deliberately, in an effort to regain control, to act normal around the others.

  When I consciously opened to him now, I saw his eyes close, his face tighten.

  He still didn’t look at me, but his hand wrapped around my waist.

  I got the sense he wasn’t fully conscious of that, either.

  I saw him breathing harder, even as more pain plumed off him.

  “Hey,” I said softer, still trying to get him to look over. “...I’m coping, okay? I need to function... normally. I need to act normal here. You get that, right? This isn’t about you. It’s about me not losing my shit around everyone else. Do you understand?”

  He nodded, once.

  For a moment we only stood there.

  I felt him drinking in some part of me, and it struck me that I really had cut him out. He hadn’t done that to me, not even shielded. Even when I couldn’t feel his thoughts, I’d still been able to feel him. As soon as I realized that, that guilt I’d been feeling worsened, along with a helplessness at how little I really understood about him... about seers... about any of it.

  He glanced at me, his eyes studying mine.

  I get it now, I told him, sending him another pulse of heat. I’m sorry.

  For a long moment, his face didn’t move. Then he averted his gaze, nodding again. Giving me his profile a second time, he swallowed, his expression harder.

  I don’t know this stuff, I sent, still watching his face. I don’t always understand. You get that, right? That’s why we need to talk, Black. You need to explain these things to me. I want you to explain it, okay? More than I want you to slow things down.

  He nodded again. He still didn’t look over.

  “You should sleep at Angel’s tonight,” he said. When I tensed, he looked down, his voice flat. “I don’t want you sleeping alone... not like this. Other people will likely react to you, too. Can you stay with her? With Angel?”

  “Other people?” I said.

  “Besides Nick. Other people, Miri.”

  I stared up at him, feeling my heart clench.

  “Just for now,” he clarified. “I can’t do this with you in my bed, Miri. I can’t. So I need you to go somewhere else. If not Angel’s, I’ll find you a place. In one of my other buildings... someplace with security.” His gold eyes grew glass-like, borderline cold. “Not your place, Miri. Please. Not right now. Not unless you want my people watching you from hides in your backyard. I’m not leaving you unprotected right now... I’m not.”

  “Black,” I stammered, at a loss. “Black... I want to talk about this. Talk. You said yourself we needed to talk. We don’t need to stop everything to do that. I don’t need to sleep somewhere else to do that, do I?”

  “Yes.” He gave me a hard look. “You do. You can’t stay with me tonight, Miriam. The things we need to talk about...” He shook his head, his jaw hard. “I can’t do it like this. I need some fucking space first. I need it, Miri.”

  I fought with wanting to argue with him.

  Realizing he was asking me for that space––albeit in his usual, Black-like way of telling more than asking––I forced myself to back off. I could feel myself pulling on him, fighting him on the request. I could also feel my pulling on him affecting him. Once I realized what I was doing, I withdrew into that more rigid part of myself once more. The same part he’d reacted to before––the part that knew how to wall off from the rest of the world.

  I saw Black physically wince when I did it.

  I released him with an effort seconds later, although I still had to make myself do that, even shielded from his light. When that wasn’t enough, I stepped back from him as well, so he was forced to do take his hands off me. I felt him wince again as he did, but he followed my lead, taking a full step to my half-step, moving in the direction of the door.

  When I met his gaze that time, he folded his arms.

  That felt like a message too.

  “I’m going to that meeting,” he blurted. “Nick’s right. I should be there.”

  I bit my lip, just looking at him at first. I still felt at a loss, like I didn’t know what he wanted from me. Did he want me to block him from my light, or not? He’d been angry when I did it before, pretty much on accident, but now he’d just asked me for space.

  A kind of overwhelming vulnerability fell over me as I watched his face.

  I didn’t know how to articulate any of it, not now. Not when he was talking about going to meetings with cops to talk about shadow mercenary groups and serial killers wielding medieval swords and we only had a few minutes alone together.

  So I only nodded. “Okay.”

  “Let me know where you’ll be tonight.”

  I nodded again. “Okay.”

  For what felt like a long time, he just stood there, staring at me, as if trying to read me without reaching out. After a few seconds, I saw him frown.

  I just stood there as he walked out.

  Five

  DUELING DICKS

  I KNOW I must have looked strange when I walked into that conference room––the same conference room I’d already been in once that day, with the crappy chairs and the scratched up U-shaped table and the stained Mr. Coffee next to a haphazard pile of chipped coffee mugs and bent spoons and crumpled cream and sugar containers.

  Angel had joined the group, along with her new partner, a Latino in his early thirties named Estevez who grinned at me, looking me over in the dark blue men’s shirt and jeans like I’d w
alked in wearing a miniskirt and fishnets. Ignoring his grin, I looked cautiously at Angel instead and saw her watching me, even though she pretended not to be.

  Sitting deliberately on her side of the table, if a few seats down, I held a coffee cup from the Royale Blend, the nearby gourmet coffee shop I’d been going to for years, often with Nick and Angel. Since my own professional offices were housed right above it, walking down there served as an additional reminder of just how much of my life I’d put on hold for the past month.

  I ended up being the last one in the room, as a result of my detour to get expensive caffeine. I found I recognized the man sitting across from me from the long line at that same coffee shop where I’d gotten my mocha. Clearly recognizing me from the same place, he smiled, lifting his own cardboard-wrapped cup in salute.

  I guessed he had to be Mozar.

  Which made the guy with the wheat-colored hair sitting next to him Hawking.

  He had a paper bag in front of him from the same deli where I’d gotten my own lunch, but it looked like he hadn’t opened it yet. Something about having that bag sitting in front of him, untouched, made him look like an oversized kid in the school cafeteria.

  Or maybe it was his looks. Unlike Mozar, who had frat-boy handsome features and striking, pale blue eyes, Hawking had the blank look of the first string linebacker at the same school, one who didn’t talk much but who could down a pony keg of beer single-handed. His dark brown eyes didn’t seem to focus long on anyone in the room, and he had that quality of someone whose features you can never quite remember, no matter how many times you’ve seen them.

  So pretty much the opposite of Black.

  I’d only noticed Mozar in the coffee shop because he’d been staring at me in there, too. I admit, I was starting to get paranoid about all of the looks both Black and I were getting––I was also beginning to think he hadn’t been exaggerating when he said we’d affect other people right now. There was definitely something weird going on with me in that respect.

  Hell, even Glen had been giving me once-overs.

  Mozar’s lingering stares seemed harmless––more appraising than sexual, like something about me simply intrigued him, or maybe like he’d picked up on something strange about me and couldn’t figure out what it was. I knew he’d also be sizing up everyone on the team here in San Francisco more generally, in terms of the case. If he was serious about finding this guy––and from everything Nick said, it definitely sounded like he was––Mozar would want to know who he could work with, and for what.

  Now that I knew who he was, I found myself sizing him up, as well.

  He didn’t match the picture I’d had in my mind from his name.

  He was younger for one thing, maybe in his mid-forties, and had dark auburn hair that was slightly curly. He also had some of the clearest, bluest eyes I’d ever seen. I found myself wondering about his ancestry as I scanned his face and hair, figuring him for another American mutt given his name and the mix of Mediterranean and Northern European features. He wore a rumpled tan suit that was probably about right for Los Angeles but would be pretty thin for up here, especially at night.

  I hoped he’d brought an overcoat.

  When I looked away from him, I saw Black staring at me, his expression cold.

  I fought not to roll my eyes at him and he looked away, clenching his jaw before he folded his arms over his chest.

  When I glanced at Angel, she was looking between me and Black, a bemused look on her face. I found myself thinking she’d been oddly reassured by the fact that both me and Black were still being slightly ridiculous about other people. Hopefully, it would also make her realize it wasn’t personal––specifically the part about me doing that to her.

  As I thought it, I found myself pulling the pad of paper I’d brought out of my back jeans pocket. It was the same pad Black used to draw that symbol in black ink in the other room. Flipping to a clean page, I scribbled on an unmarked set of lines.

  Did Nick talk to you? I wrote, sliding it over to her.

  Her eyes grew puzzled. She shook her head.

  I wrote a second note, then slid that over to her too.

  Drinks tonight? I’m buying. And not the cheap stuff.

  Her eyes scanned the print, then she grinned, glancing at me right before she nodded. “I’m in,” she said. “You have a place in mind?”

  “You pick,” I told her. Hesitating, I wrote a third note. I’m sorry about earlier. Really sorry. I was an asshole.

  I watched her eyes puzzle over that, then relax all at once. When she looked up that time, her expression looked relieved. She nodded again.

  “I’ll get dinner,” she said.

  I shook my head. “No way.”

  Angel laughed. Nick glanced over, quirking an eyebrow at both of us. Black glanced between me and Angel too, but his expression was unreadable now.

  That’s right about when Mozar started talking.

  “I’m Andrew Mozar,” he said. “D-IV, out of L.A., Rampart Division, as most of you know, and my department’s been overseeing the Templar case down there. I don’t want to waste a lot of time here, to be honest,” he said, glancing around the table with those sky-blue eyes. “I’m not sure there’s much to talk about until we know for sure if the cases are connected. I’d really like to head to the scene if we can... and maybe talk on the way. I’m assuming the area’s still being protected?”

  Everyone looked at Nick, including me.

  I couldn’t help frowning a little, glancing at Hawking. No one had introduced him. Not even Hawking himself. He also hadn’t spoken.

  I saw Nick glance at him too, frown a little, then let it go. He glanced around at the rest of us before he frowning faintly at Mozar. “Squints are still going over the scene,” he said. “CI was still down there too, last I knew.”

  Mozar nodded, unsmiling. “Great. I’d like to talk to them, too. Maybe we can go over background and the rest of it on the way?” He glanced at his watch, then around the table, again pausing on me for a beat longer than the others. “...Is everyone here who needs to be here?”

  Again, he didn’t even glance at Hawking.

  I saw Hawking glance at me. His expression didn’t move.

  Turning back to Mozar, I found him looking at me too. Seconds later, I found myself reading him, almost without knowing I meant to do it.

  ...definitely not a cop, I heard him thinking. Must be one of the consultants Tanaka mentioned. Something about her... can’t put my finger on it. Why does she keep looking at Hawking? I felt a pulse of jealousy on him. Then desire, unmistakeable. Fuck, snap out of it... she can see you staring at her, for crying out loud...

  I withdrew at once, feeling my face warm.

  That time, when I glanced at Black, he scowled.

  Apparently I wasn’t the only one who’d decided to sample some of Mozar’s thoughts. I admit, I was startled at what I’d found in that brief glimpse. When I looked at Mozar, his face was as calm as an ocean lake. Calm enough that I found myself wondering if I’d been reading the right person. Apart from the slightly lingering stare, I saw zero indication that he had any interest in me whatsoever.

  The only person around the table who looked calmer was Hawking.

  I glanced at him again, trying to decide if I should try reading him too. Seeing that flat-eyed stare trained on me, I decided not to push my luck. He was definitely the beta of the two anyway. Even so, in some ways, Mozar wore more of a mask than Hawking, who suddenly struck me as probably more likely to be ex-military than a jock.

  I’d known military guys who were quiet in that way.

  Whatever the deal was with Mozar and his quiet partner, both of them were good at masking their emotions. A hell of a lot better than most people were.

  It made me think maybe it would be easy to underestimate them.

  “Do we need to go around the room first?” Nick was saying when I was listening again. When I looked at him, I saw annoyance in his expression too, and had t
o fight to keep from rolling my eyes at him as well. “...Or do you want to do that on the way, as well?”

  I heard the bite of sarcasm there. I wondered if anyone else did.

  Nick had his masks, too.

  “On the way,” Mozar said, closing the leather-bound notebook in front of him as he rose to his feet. “...I think better when I’m in motion.”

  Hawking followed him without a word.

  It didn’t occur to me until I got up to follow that Hawking hadn’t spoken a single word the whole time we were in that room.

  HAWKING DIDN’T TALK in the car, either.

  I rode down to the crime scene with Nick, Glen, Mozar and Hawking.

  Nick and Glen rode up front. Mozar and Hawking sat in the back with me, one on either side, which made sense given that I was the smallest of the three of us but still felt weirdly calculated. Angel and Estevez must have taken their own lot car, and Black disappeared, which made me wonder if he was coming with us at all.

  The fact that I couldn’t feel him, for the first time in weeks––maybe since I’d found him in Paris––and that he didn’t say a word to me before he walked out, didn’t exactly help my calm. Having to field stares from Mozar where he sat next to me in the back of Nick’s unmarked city car didn’t help much, either.

  I didn’t reach out with my mind, though. I ignored Hawking with my mind too, although that was less of an issue since he spent the whole drive staring straight ahead, as if trying to bore a hole through the back of Glen’s skull as he drove, using only his eyes.

  Generally speaking, I only used my psychic ability for information I thought might be useful for work or in a personal safety capacity. Given the frequency of Mozar’s looks and what I’d felt on him earlier, I wasn’t thinking most of his glances were work-related.

  Besides, even if I couldn’t feel Black, I didn’t fully trust he couldn’t feel me.

  “You’re a psychiatrist?” Mozar asked finally, still watching my face.

  I took a sip of coffee, not looking over.