Black swayed there, a metal stand still gripped in one hand. It was the same metal stand that held his IV bag the last I’d looked, although that bag now lay on the floor next to a dripping tube he must have ripped out of his arm. The chrome stand had blood all over the end, where a sharp-looking, hook-shaped prong stuck out on one side.
Flesh hung on the end of that prong now.
I had a sudden mental flash of Black swinging the metal pole like a baseball bat, impaling the other man’s neck on the end of it.
Looking down at the floor, at the sprawled body of the blond officer who’d called himself Michael Lawson, I realized that, however he’d done it, Black jammed that metal hook into the back of the guy’s neck. He’d done it hard enough to punch that same hook all the way through to the front of Michael Lawson’s throat. Gauging from the size of the hole there, he’d also likely twisted before he yanked that hook back out.
I also realized I was pointing a gun at a corpse.
Black had nearly decapitated him.
With an IV stand.
I still hadn’t lowered the gun. I couldn’t make my brain function well enough to put all of those things together, at least not quickly. Still gripping the gun in both hands, my hands shaking, I stood there a few seconds longer in shock, paralyzed.
I looked at Black again when as he opened his hand, releasing his fingers around the metal IV stand. It hit the floor with a dull thunk, right before he crumpled to the floor after it, his knees buckling under him.
That time, my paralysis broke.
I ran to him.
“Black!” I skidded over the floor to reach him.
Kneeling next to him, I re-engaged the safety on the gun I held and set it carefully on the floor. Gripping his arms in a panic, I raised my voice, fighting to make it work after having my throat half-crushed by Lawson’s hands.
“HELP US!” I yelled. My voice came out craggy, weak. It sounded only a little stronger when I tried again. “HELP! HELP US!”
Standing abruptly when I realized no one would hear me, I fumbled around on top of the bed for the cord with the bed controls. I pressed the nurse call button probably close to a dozen times before I knelt back on the floor beside Black.
“HELP!” I yelled again, half choking on the words as I caught hold of his arms. “WE NEED HELP! WE NEED A DOCTOR! PLEASE!”
I heard the squeak of shoes right outside the door and looked up as those shoes skidded to a stop. The door slammed open, and someone switched on the overhead lights, blinding both of us. I blinked against the onslaught, raising a hand, feeling Black wince, too.
“Gaos!” The voice seemed to explode over me. “Gaos d’jurekil’a! What the fuck has happened here? Sister! Are you all right?”
I looked up to see the two seers I remembered from earlier, the ones my uncle sent to watch over me. The slightly shorter of the two, the one with the red sun tattoo on his neck, was staring down at the corpse of Michael Lawson, disbelief in his eyes. I noticed only then that he held a gun in his hand. So did the taller seer who’d burst into the room behind him.
For a few seconds they just stood there, wide-eyed, looking from me and Black to the corpse and back again.
“Don’t just stand there, damn it!” I snapped. “Get help! He needs help!”
The two seers looked at one another.
Then the one with the sun tattoo nodded, holstering his gun. The taller seer disappeared like a shadow through the open hospital door. Before I fully realized he’d left, I could hear him running as he went to find someone to help us.
“I am so very very sorry, sister,” the one with the sun tattoo said, shaking his head and clicking softly. His hand still rested on the butt of his gun as he walked towards me and Black. “We were outside, watching the building. We did not feel this one when he came in...”
I shook my head, not caring about that right now.
“Just get him help. I don’t want to move him without a doctor or a nurse.” I craned my neck, looking up at the seer with the sun tattoo. “Call your seer tech guys. Tell them to get their asses down here, now. They said they’d leave their phones nearby... get them here.”
The seer’s expression snapped back, turning abruptly businesslike.
He nodded, once, seer fashion, even as he pulled out his phone.
I watched until he’d retreated to the corridor, looking away only after I heard him talking on the line to whoever picked up on the other end.
My eyes returned to Black. He was caressing my fingers where I touched his face. I fought not to react to that as I looked at him, trying to assess how he was. Leaning against the side of his hospital bed, he propped his weight up with one hand, panting, his gold eyes half-lidded where he’d slumped. I could feel that he was in pain.
Probably a lot of pain.
I didn’t really want to think about what he’d done to himself, in getting Lawson off me.
I couldn’t––not yet.
He was looking at me though, and I realized he must have torn the oxygen tubes off his face at some point in all of that, too. A dark stain was spreading slowly on his chest as I watched, shining in the florescent overheads. Staring at him for that fraction of a second, looking at the darkening patch on the pale blue hospital gown, I had the overwhelming urge to yell at him.
He must have seen some hint of that in my face.
When he met my gaze, still breathing hard, gripping the side of the bed and watching me with those cat-like eyes...
He chuckled.
Sixteen
MRS. BLACK
“WE FOUND THE sword,” Nick said, his voice grim as he glanced at Mozar.
Mozar himself stood next to the long bay windows, staring out with a faint air of incredulity at the panoramic view of downtown San Francisco. That view was currently lit and colored by the reflection of sunset skies, shining scarlet and bright orange against the west-facing windows. In the distance, the Bay Bridge hung over the water, broken where it touched down on Yerba Buena Island on its way to Oakland and Berkeley to the East.
From his expression, I honestly couldn’t tell if Mozar was impressed with the view from Black’s penthouse living room windows, or completely disgusted by it.
From what I could gather, it might have been a bit of both.
Nick and I sat on the same segment of Black’s white leather couch.
Angel sat on the white leather chair to my left, where she was drinking a glass of white wine and looking at the same view as Mozar. Unlike Mozar, I could tell she definitely liked that view. Also unlike Mozar, Angel wasn’t here on business.
It was Angel’s day off.
She came over to hang out, and, well... because I’d asked her to.
The apartment looked significantly different from the last time Nick and Angel had been there for a drop-by. The maid or maybe a team of housecleaners Lisbeth hired had scrubbed the place spotless since our cave-like existence following Black’s return from Paris.
You could have eaten off the bathroom floor when I first poked my head in there, and the kitchen and the living room looked like something you’d find in one of those “how rich people live” magazine spreads, down to the plate of grapes and expensive cheeses sitting on the volcanic black stone that made up his kitchen counters.
All of the clothes that had been in the hamper had also mysteriously disappeared.
Well, at least until I opened Black’s closets and drawers and found them all in there, neatly folded and smelling faintly of lavender. The clothes I’d packed for Paris had materialized in there as well, and I couldn’t help noticing that Black’s enormous closet was very distinctly partitioned out into adjacent “his” and “hers” sections now, unlike the last time I’d poked my head in there.
I didn’t ask who’d told Black’s cleaning people to do that, either.
Either way, I was beginning to realize there were things about having money I could definitely get used to.
Watching Angel close her eyes against
the sunset view of the bay and the gold sparkles shimmering like diamonds along the water while she sipped wine from one of Black’s four hundred dollar bottles of Chardonnay, I found myself thinking she probably would have agreed with me right about then.
“Where was it?” I could hear the tiredness in my voice. “The sword?”
Nick leaned back on the couch. I almost got the impression he wanted to prop his feet on the coffee table, like he would have at his own house.
He must have restrained himself though, because he didn’t.
“...He left it in a maintenance closet just down the hall from Black’s hospital room,” Nick said, letting out a sigh of his own. I saw him glance at the wine glass in Angel’s hand and found myself thinking he was wishing he could have one of those, too. “...Along with the two cops I’d stationed to actually watch over you, Miri. Louis Firenza and Devon Gonzales. He’d cut their throats with a hunting knife... probably after knocking at least one of them out.”
Grimacing, I tugged the pale gray, pashmina throw blanket I’d found tighter around my shoulders.
“Lovely,” I muttered. I met Nick’s gaze. “Was he a cop at all?”
Mozar answered that time, turning from the windows, his hands in his pockets. “Yes. In fact, he’d only just moved up here, from L.A.”
Nick’s voice was more apologetic. “We should have looked at transfers, doc. I didn’t even think to look in the department... which was just stupid.”
I shook my head at him, pursing my lips. “That’s a 20-20 hindsight thing, Nick. You had no reason to think the guy was one of yours. None of us did.”
“There are a lot of ex-military on the force,” Nick reminded me.
“There are a lot of ex-military everywhere,” I said, my voice sharper. “Don’t be stupid. I didn’t pick up on it either, and I’m...” Hesitating, I glanced up at Mozar, then back at Nick. “...A trained profiler. I talked to the guy, Nick. Including at the murder scene. I didn’t pick up on a damned thing.”
“I guess your magic powers aren’t totally infallible then,” Nick said, winking.
He didn’t say it in a way that would have set off Mozar’s radar, but I still blinked at him in surprise. Nick only smiled. For some reason, I got the sense that idea comforted him.
Meaning, that me and Black might not be as all-knowing as he’d thought.
Grunting a little, I glanced at Angel, suddenly wanting a glass of wine of my very own. She must have seen it on my face because she smiled, uncurling herself out of the chair and heading towards the kitchen with casual strides.
“Red or white, doc?” she said over her shoulder.
“Whatever you’re having.”
It was after five. Screw it. I glanced towards the bedroom though, wondering suddenly if I was taking a few too many liberties. If so, I heard not a peep about it from the other room.
“Anything else?” I said to Nick, suddenly impatient to get back there. “Does anyone know why he came to San Francisco in the first place? Why he requested the transfer?”
Nick shook his head, but his expression shifted back to grim.
“We went and checked out that apartment Black’s people found,” Nick said. “It was covered with pictures of St. Francis.” He glanced at me. “Like the actual saint... the guy who talked to birds and rabbits and whatever.”
I grinned, I couldn’t help it. “I know who St. Francis is, Nick.”
“Well, we went to his apartment here, too, Miri. In San Francisco. Coincidentally, it also had pictures of St. Francis all over the walls. But it also had a lot of pictures of you.” Nick’s grim look returned as he met my gaze. “He’d taped a lot of those pictures of you right next to pictures of the saint. Mozar’s guy from L.A. says he incorporated you into his religious fantasies in some way... thought you were some kind of embodiment of St. Francis himself.”
I grunted, glancing at the kitchen.
“I think he got the wrong one of us,” I muttered, looking at Angel. “I can think of more likely candidates for that role...”
Angel must have heard me, because she rolled her eyes as she poured my glass of wine. “Not likely, doc, but I appreciate the thought.” She scowled then. “So a guy who worships St. Francis decides it’s okay to kill endangered tigers?” She set the half-full bottle of wine down a little harder than necessary, leaning her palms on Black’s kitchen counter. “I’ve got a few scriptures I’d have liked to teach him.”
I laughed, glancing at Nick. “You see? He definitely had the wrong person.”
Nick smiled, shaking his head a little as he looked at Angel. “The profiler thinks he saw himself as morally ‘expendable’ in some way, Ang,” he explained. “Not as someone saint-like himself, but more like a guardian. Or a protector.”
“But why here?” I said. “And why me and Black?”
Nick shrugged, shaking his head. “The F.B.I. guy thinks he crossed paths with you up here, maybe via Norberg, and just got fixated for some reason. As to why here... who knows? Maybe God told him to come up here. Maybe his neighbor’s dog did.” Nick gave Mozar a faint glance then looked back at me, his eyes more meaningful. “Or maybe he came up here looking for some way to stop killing people, doc. A lot of guys over there... especially the ones who did black ops, in the war, they came out of that mess looking for something. A lot of them became cops, or other types of search and rescue responders. A lot of them would find religion...”
“Whatever,” Angel said, handing me the glass of wine as she returned to the leather chair. “I still say I owe Black a drink.”
“Says the woman who’s guzzling his wine,” I smiled.
Plopping her butt back on the soft leather, Angel grinned at me, shaking her head as she raised her glass. “Touché.”
Nick glanced at me, smiling a little as well. “Saint Miri?” he said teasingly, his grin widening. “Has a nice ring. Maybe we can petition the Vatican?”
I rolled my eyes. “I think that’d be a tough sell, Naoko.”
Mozar cleared his throat.
“I’m going to go,” he said bluntly, speaking to Nick, not to me. Then his eyes shifted to the right, connecting with mine. “I’m going to have questions for him. When he ‘feels’ better.”
I heard the sarcasm, and let out a disbelieving sound.
“You thought that would be today, Mozar?” I said. “Seriously?”
“He managed to kill someone with an IV stand after being in surgery for most of the day,” Mozar said, his voice colder. “It didn’t seem overly optimistic to me, to hope he might be able to answer a few questions for me now, a few weeks later.”
I gave him a disbelieving look, glancing at Nick.
Nick shrugged, but I could tell from his eyes that he’d heard a lot on this subject from Mozar already. I could also tell it was starting to piss him off.
Mozar continued to look only at me. “I hear his recovery has been...” He lifted an eyebrow at me, his gaze flat. “...Surprising. In fact, I’ve heard a number of surprising things about Mr. Black lately.”
“Let it go, Mozar,” Nick said, shaking his head.
Mozar didn’t stop watching my face.
I could see the scrutiny there, but I wasn’t in the mood to try and read what lay behind it. I knew from Angel already that Mozar had been asking questions about Black’s military history again, as well as questions about his security company and the people who worked for him. I knew my uncle’s people would probably shut him down or erase him in some way, if he didn’t lay off that line of inquiry pretty soon.
Smiling faintly, I turned to Nick.
“You staying for dinner, Naoko?” I said.
Nick started a little, then glanced up as Mozar began walking deliberately around the couch and towards Black’s front door. We continued to follow him with our eyes as Mozar shouldered on his heavier coat after retrieving it from the foyer closet, adjusting it across his shoulders before buttoning up the front.
Mozar frowned at all three of us in
turn as he adjusted his collar, then turned away altogether, opening Black’s front door smartly with one hand, his briefcase now in the other. He walked through the opening and into the corridor that led to Black Securities and Investigations and also the lone elevator down to the street. He didn’t look back.
Nick waited for the door to close behind him before looking back at me.
“You serious?” he said. “About dinner?”
“Why not?” I shrugged. “You’re off now, right? This was just a courtesy call?”
Nick nodded, hesitant. “Right.”
“So stay for dinner,” I said stretching a little. “I think Ang said she wanted to order Italian.” I grinned, motioning at the wide screen television that covered most of the far wall over the fireplace. “You’ll shit when you hear his sound system. It’s total guy-gadget-porn. We can watch Apocalypse Now and see if we can get the bullet-proof windows to shake when the helicopters go over the ridge...”
For a long minute, Nick only looked at me blankly.
Then, as if in spite of himself, he burst out in laugh.
His humor faded a few seconds later, and I could see him thinking again as he glanced at Black’s now-closed front door.
“He’s not going to let it go, you know,” Nick said. “Mozar.”
Frowning, I folded my arms, following Nick’s eyes to where Mozar had stood.
“Yeah,” I muttered, some part of my mind still following the Los Angeles detective as he pressed the call button for the elevator. “Yeah, I kinda figured that.”
I WALKED IN quietly, not sure if he would be awake or asleep.
I couldn’t feel him, but he had a tendency to go into stealth mode when he was lying in here alone, even when I found him awake and staring up at the ceiling... like he was now.
He turned his head slightly when he saw me.
“You awake?” I said, more out of politeness.
He nodded, once.
Walking over to him, I sat down on the bed, looking him over. After I’d finished my routine once-over and didn’t find anything wrong, I shifted sideways and stretched out, kicking off my slippers and lying down carefully next to him. Propping my head up on one palm, I looked up at his face, studying his eyes.
Black Is Back (Quentin Black Mystery #4) Page 26
