Working Stiff tr-1

by Rachel Caine

  “No,” he whispered. His lips were starting to turn blue where they weren’t dark with blood, and his breathing was hitchy and painful. “Drain it. Use it as a needle tube.”

  “Is that safe?”

  “Safer than dying—ah, God—” His back arched a little, and when his next breath came, she heard nothing from his right side. The lung had collapsed. Fideli’s breathing was shallow and fast.

  She ripped the tube open, slid the syringe out, squirted the contents onto the ground in a silvery stream. Well, there goes a few thousand, she thought, stupidly, and filled it with air to push out again, just in case. A drop of liquid hissed out, and then the syringe was clean, or as clean as she could get it. She ripped the handle out to leave a jagged opening for air. She checked his other pockets and came up with a rubber glove; she pricked a hole in one finger and jammed it down over the syringe.

  Bryn held the penlight in her teeth and counted off ribs, hoping her years-old emergency field medicine still held true. She pressed on the area, took a deep breath, and pushed the needle home. There was a pop as she went through connective tissue, and then a sudden hiss as air pushed out, inflating the finger of the glove as it escaped. Fideli took in a sudden gasping breath, and the glove deflated, preventing air from flowing in to compress the lung from outside. She couldn’t do anything about the blood in the lung, but that seemed to be less of an urgent issue.

  About thirty seconds later, she heard the advancing wail of a siren, and took Joe’s hand. “Hey,” she said. “Looks like I won’t have to get beaten up by your wife. Much.”

  He smiled with those pale lips and gave her a thumbs-up, but didn’t try to speak.

  One minute later, she heard shouting, and left him to lead them back inside. The police came first to secure the scene, and then let the paramedics in. They immediately threw out her makeshift needle arrangement and inserted a catheter, scooped Fideli onto a gurney, and ran off with him, leaving her in the position of explaining … everything.

  Bryn was, of course, promptly arrested. After all, two people with guns, one shot … it looked bad. McCallister didn’t show up to make it better, either. She presented the police with a somewhat ridiculous story about checking out the building for a possible investment, along with her bodyguard, and being fired on by an unknown assailant. The facts would actually support that, as it happened, and her gun hadn’t been fired. The detectives hated the story, of course, but couldn’t argue too much with the evidence that mounted in her support. After six hours in the interrogation room, and another four in very boring custody, she was finally released to her lawyer—someone she’d never seen before, a brusque, harried woman who handed her paperwork and hustled her out to a waiting yellow cab at the curbside.

  Patrick McCallister, unshaven and almost unrecognizable in a cap and sunglasses, was driving. He nodded to the lawyer, who tossed an envelope in the window. “There’s my bill,” she said. “Don’t call me again.”

  McCallister said nothing, just pulled out into traffic. Bryn was monumentally unsurprised to see him, but she was mildly curious about the disguise. “Who was that?”

  “Old girlfriend,” he said. “Best I could do without ringing someone’s bells.”

  She let that pass. “How’s Joe?”

  “Out of surgery. You saved his life. The bullet bounced and did some damage in his chest wall; he’d have suffocated before help got there if you hadn’t acted. He won’t be able to come back to duty for a few weeks, though.”

  “Not my biggest concern.”

  “It should be,” McCallister said. His face looked exhausted and pale beneath the thick growth of dark stubble. “Round one went to our friend, and he’s proved he’s dangerous. Very dangerous. Not some rogue accountant with a side business; he’s way too good for that. We’re rerunning every single employee, but he’s hidden this long, and he’s going to stay hidden unless we get very lucky. You’re still our very best option to uncover him.”

  “You really think he’ll get back in touch. After this.”

  “This didn’t go badly for him. He made off cleanly with a hundred thousand in cash, and took out your protection. You’re alone now, and vulnerable. He’ll like that.” McCallister’s mouth was very tight, and his eyes very dark. “I have to leave you in place, alone. He’s watching us. Closely.”

  That was, Bryn assumed, why she was in the back of a cab. Maximum cover for their meeting. Things were getting too hot for him to risk being linked to her directly.

  “Do you think you’d recognize him if you saw him again?”

  “I doubt it, but I can try. He was good. If it hadn’t been for his contacts, I wouldn’t have suspected a thing, and that was only a trick of the light and the angle.”

  “He can’t disguise his height that much.”

  “That’s not a lot to work with.”

  “I know, but it’s what we have to work with, until he gives you something else.” McCallister hesitated. “Bryn, we’re running close to Harte’s deadline. So far, I have nothing to show for it but two hundred thousand lost and a man down. She’s not going to be happy. I’ll do what I can, but we’re almost out of time.”

  What he meant was she was almost out of time. And Bryn knew that. She felt it in every aching muscle. “I’ll keep trying,” she said. “You know that. I want to live.”

  He pulled the car over and parked, then reached in his coat pocket and took out a silver tube. As he unshipped the syringe, he said, “Shoulder.” She leaned forward and bared skin for him, hardly even wincing at the needle and afterburn this time. You could, indeed, get used to anything. “Tomorrow, you leave the office for lunch and head to a place called La Scala Ristorante. Be there at one o’clock. There’s parking in the back. Inside the back entrance there’s a men’s bathroom. Go in. I’ll be in the last stall to give you the shot before you sit down to eat.”

  “The men’s bathroom.”

  “It’s less obvious than my going into the women’s room. You can always say you made a mistake. Act embarrassed enough and anyone watching will buy it. Oh, it helps if you’re on the phone as you walk in. The restrooms aren’t clearly labeled, so it’s a simple mistake.”

  “You think of everything.” She sighed, and closed her eyes. She felt deathly tired. “I need to go to the mortuary.” Riley’s words came back to her. People never stop dying. There were no days off, no breaks from death. Every day was someone’s most emotional moment.

  “Make it an early day,” he said. “Conserve your strength.”

  The car was making turns, and she recognized the neighborhood. They were close to her apartment. Her phone, in silent mode, vibrated again. Annie was trying to get hold of her, probably frantic with worry.

  “I wish I could have a normal life,” she said. “Just pretend to have one, anyway.”

  McCallister thought for a moment, then said, “Liam did mention he’d like you to come to dinner on Thursday night. He’s making beef Wellington.” Somehow, he managed to make it sound as though it were the butler’s idea, and not his own.

  “I see. And will I be dining with Liam?”

  “Of course, if I can get him to sit down long enough. Otherwise, you’re stuck with me.” He was looking away as he said it, checking over his shoulder for any sign of trouble. “I’ll tell him you said yes.”

  “You may have noticed I didn’t actually say that.”

  He turned and looked at her, and all the pretense just … stopped. “Come to dinner,” he said. “You just said you’d like to pretend to have a normal life.”

  “Did you phrase it that way to see if the protocol inhibitor is still working?”

  That woke a very faint smile. “Partly.”

  “All right. Can I bring anything?”

  “Anything but your sister,” he said. It sounded heartfelt, and she found herself smiling.

  “Wow. You sound as if you’d actually met her.”

  “I wouldn’t mind meeting her, except that you already have enough to
explain. It would take a lot more to produce a boyfriend with a Bruce Wayne mansion that she’s never heard of before. I’m using hypotheticals, of course.”

  “The mansion is hardly hypothetical.”

  “I was speaking of the boyfriend part. About our relationship.”

  “I wasn’t aware you thought we actually had one.”

  That cued him to look away again. “Of course we do. I’m your handler.”

  “That doesn’t sound as sexy as it ought to.”

  He let out a snort that was remarkably like her dog’s, and the brakes eased the taxi to a stop. “You’re home.”

  Bryn made no real effort to get out, other than putting her hand on the handle. She said, “You could have come in to save Joe. You didn’t. I know you had your reasons, but it makes me wonder: what if it’s me next time? You said you wouldn’t let me suffer. I need to count on that.”

  “You can,” he said. “Always.”

  Bryn stepped out and watched the taxi glide away. Her phone vibrated again, and she let out a tired sigh, jammed her fists in the pockets of her hoodie, and went upstairs to explain things to Annalie.

  It didn’t go well.

  Chapter 10

  She just didn’t have the energy, after the awful night, to deal with Annalie’s questions—valid though they might have been. Bryn abandoned the field, showered, dressed, and stormed off to work with new (if adrenaline-fueled) energy. That lasted through the first consultation with a newly bereaved husband; his wife had celebrated her seventy-fifth birthday and passed away two weeks later of a stroke. He was stoic, but fragile, and Bryn guided him through it with the sad knowledge that he’d probably be a client soon; she could see the resignation in his eyes. He’d lost everything, and he was giving up. Maybe he’d come out of it, but at his age, she doubted it.

  After he was gone, and she had time to think, she realized that her head was throbbing and her throat was dry. A visit to the coffee machine helped. Lucy tried to tell her about Joe’s shooting, but Bryn was too tired to keep up a pretense of surprise. Besides, with Lucy’s connections, she’d find out soon enough that Bryn had been there on the scene.

  “I was with him,” Bryn said, sipping her coffee. Lucy stopped typing on her computer keyboard and looked up with widened eyes. “He was helping me out, and he got shot for his trouble. I need to go see his wife and kids.”

  “I think they’re all at the hospital,” Lucy said. “I was told so, anyway. The nurses say he’s not in any danger, thank the Lord. Shot. My God. And you were right there?”

  “Yes,” Bryn said. “I was right there.”

  “But what were you—” Lucy checked herself and firmly closed her mouth. “You know what? That’s none of my business, none at all. I’m just happy you’re all right.”

  She wasn’t all right, on so many levels, but Bryn just nodded and went back to her office. She could feel Lucy’s curious stare on her back. By the end of the day, everybody—including Riley Block, in her prep room inner sanctum—was going to have the unshakable opinion that she’d been screwing Joe Fideli.

  God.

  When her phone rang, it was almost a relief. It wasn’t her private line, just the main switchboard, so she answered with the standard greeting—or tried to.

  Annalie interrupted her. “We need to talk about what happened, Bryn!”

  “No, trust me. We really don’t.”

  “You were arrested! You don’t think Mom’s going to hear about that?”

  “Only if you tell her.”

  “I wouldn’t!” Annie sounded less than convincing, though. “Look, clearly this is not a good time for you to have me hanging around whatever … stuff … you’re into….”

  “God, Annie, do you think I’m a drug dealer?” Because that would be gruesomely ironic, all things considered.

  Annie chose her words carefully. “I think you may have some kind of a problem you don’t want to acknowledge,” she said. “I mean, damn, you’re working with dead people; it’s no wonder you’d want … some kind of—”

  “Oh, so I’m not a drug dealer, just a junkie.”

  “I’m not saying that!” Annie took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m taking the next flight back home,” she said. “I’ll leave your key with the apartment manager. And I shredded and flushed your apartment codes. Anything else you want me to do?”

  “Walk Mr. French before you go running home to tell Mom what a loser I am,” Bryn said.

  “Bryn, c‘mon, you were arrested. Many people would consider that a wake-up call!”

  “I was innocent.”

  “You were off skulking around in the dark with a married man and you almost got shot. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Bryn, but whatever it is, it’s nuts. You’re nuts. I always said you were when you went running off to join the army, but now—”

  “Says the girl who can’t add well enough to avoid overdrafts,” Bryn snapped. “Don’t hit me up for money anymore. Go crying to Mom; tell her I’m not her golden girl anymore. Maybe you’ll get the job.”

  “Maybe I will!”

  “Do it!” Bryn slammed the phone down and concentrated on controlling her breathing. Damn, no one could push buttons like family, especially bratty little sisters. How dared Annie get holier-than-thou with her, especially when the holier-than had to be bailed out of trouble six months out of twelve?

  The downside is that I have to make my own dinner, Bryn thought, and almost laughed, but she was afraid it would sound too much like a sob. She felt sick and feverish, and was deathly afraid there was something wrong with her. Nanite wrong. You have another shot coming up, she reminded herself. Don’t get panicky.

  She drank three glasses of water, signed papers, wrote checks, and finally it was twelve thirty. She told Lucy where she was going, and headed for La Scala Ristorante.

  “You know,” Bryn said as the needle pushed into her arm, “my sister thinks I’m a junkie, and she’d really think it if she could see me now. Shooting up in a bathroom. A men’s bathroom, at that.” She closed her eyes and focused on the warm strength of McCallister’s fingers where his left hand gripped her, holding her shoulder still. The hot surge of the shot almost took her focus away, but she held on and didn’t flinch.

  McCallister put the used syringe back in the tube and pocketed it. “You’re done,” he said, as she pulled her shirtsleeve down. “Have a nice lunch.”

  “Wait—”

  “I can‘t, Bryn.” But he hesitated, with one hand on the latch of the cramped bathroom stall. There was barely room for the two of them and the discolored curve of the toilet seat. “What?”

  “I just wanted to ask …” She fell silent as the hinges on the bathroom door creaked. They stared at each other, pressed intimately close, as the unknown man outside unzipped his pants, grunted, and started splashing the urinal cake. Bryn covered her mouth with her hand, afraid that for some insane reason she was about to laugh. Even McCallister couldn’t suppress a smile.

  Especially when the man started to sing off-key along with the Italian music piped in over the bathroom speakers. Dear God, he was awful.

  McCallister put his lips very close to her ear and whispered, “I think he’s got a future on American Idol. The wrong kind.”

  She shook with the silent force of her laughter, and bit her lip until tears threatened. Part of it was the sheer craziness of being so tired and emotionally stretched. The man finally flushed, washed, and the door thumped shut behind him.

  Bryn found herself leaning against McCallister, eyes closed. She’d relaxed sometime in the last few seconds. I trust him, she thought, and hated herself for it.

  “What did you want?” he asked, still in that very soft whisper.

  “He’s gone. You don’t have to whisper now.”

  “I know.” There were volumes of meaning in that, too much for her tired brain to decipher. “You’re wondering about Joe. He’s fine. Kylie’s at the hospital with him. He’ll be home in a few days to recuperate.”<
br />
  “She probably hates me.”

  “She hates me a whole lot more. I’m the one who’s responsible for all this.” McCallister’s slightly beard-rough cheek rubbed along hers, waking all kinds of shivers down her skin. “I have to go. You’ll be all right, Bryn. I’ll see you for dinner on Thursday.”

  Thursday was after Irene Harte’s deadline, and he knew that. He was trying to give her some kind of hope for a future.

  She appreciated it, but she no longer really believed it.

  Bryn stepped back, and he unlocked the stall door and stepped out, then gestured for her to go ahead. She moved fast, and heard him locking the stall back again as she reached for the door handle.

  A man pushed it open, and she scrambled away, feeling a surge of panic that heated her face. “Oh, God,” she said. “Wrong room. Sorry.” She hurried past him and directly into the women’s room, opposite, where she lingered for a few minutes checking her hair, makeup, washing her hands, and wishing she’d put on more concealer to blot out the dark circles under her eyes. Sleep. I need sleep.

  First, she needed food.

  As lunches went, it was unremarkable right up until the front entrance bell jingled, and two men in business suits walked up to her table to loom over her. She looked up, frowning, and one of them produced a Pharmadene ID in a fancy flip wallet, like a police detective would carry. “You’ve got an appointment,” he said. “We’re your drivers.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. It was a busy restaurant—waiters everywhere, diners, cooks, and a maître d’ who was currently smiling at a large group of women who’d entered together. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Ma’am, Ms. Harte wants to see you. Right now. Let’s not make this a scene.”

  “If I scream—”

  “If you scream,” he interrupted her, and bent closer, “we will turn around and walk away, and you will be cut off, do you understand? Completely cut off. No one will be able to help you. It’ll take a long time before you stop feeling what you’ll be feeling, Bryn.”