The Sinner

by J. R. Ward

  Instead of calling him, she went into Safari and did a Google search on the lawyer her parents had used—and found the man’s obituary. He had died ten years ago.

  Naturally.

  To pass the time before the train started moving and she could fall asleep against the window, she played the voice mail that had been left by the unknown number, expecting it to be a scam offer for health insurance or maybe a fake program to help her with student loans she didn’t have.

  Hi, Ms. Early. This is St. Francis Urgent Care. You were here about seventy-two hours ago? You left us a blood sample? Well, it turns out that it was contaminated in the lab somehow. We hate to ask you to do this, but could you come in and let us take some more? Again, we’re really sorry. We’ve never had this happen before. It must have been a screwup on their part, but they’re saying they couldn’t read what they had. Thanks. Oh, our telephone number is—

  Jo cut the message off. All of that was so not on her list of things to worry about. Besides, she’d essentially been cleared by the doctor and—

  Frowning, she rubbed at her nose, a terrible smell invading her nostrils. When there seemed to be no escape from the stench, she leaned out into the aisle. Two men had entered the car at the far end, and it had to be them.

  Assuming the pair had strung dead skunks around their necks under their coats.

  Jo blinked her eyes and rubbed her nose again. God, she’d never smelled anything so awful. It was like baby powder and roadkill—

  All at once, her headache came on with a vengeance, her skull pounding with pain. Clearly, the stink was the trigger.

  Nope. Not gonna do this for two hours, she decided. No matter how rude it is to move.

  Grabbing her backpack, she got to her feet and shuffled up to the next car in line—and thank God that whatever the smell was didn’t carry into the other space.

  Just as the train bumped and started forward, she sat down at a new window seat and massaged her temples. As the agony continued to build, she refused to submit to it. For some reason, she had the feeling it was trying to distract her. Get her off some kind of thought trail.

  Even though that was crazy talk. Anthropomorphizing a migraine? Really?

  Still… that stench. What about the stench—

  Even as the vise cranked down harder on her skull, she probed further the conviction that she had smelled that horrible stink before. Sometime recently. Very recently…

  Going into her phone, she went to her call log. Without knowing what she was looking for, she checked what had come in on, and gone out of, her phone over the last couple of days. Lot of calls back and forth with McCordle. Then there was Dougie looking for money. Telemarketing bullcrap—

  Jo sat up.

  What the hell had she been doing, talking to Bill at ten p.m. A number of times?

  She’d been home at the time. Or should have been. And yet she had no memory of speaking to him then. Sure, they regularly chatted about their little extracurricular hobby with the supernatural—but not after ten o’clock on a proverbial school night. And not over and over again within such a short period of time…

  No, wait, she thought. She’d been out somewhere. She had gone in search of… something.

  Yes, in her car. It had been raining—

  Moaning, Jo shut her phone down and had to let her head fall back against the seat rest. As she breathed in a shallow way, she vowed to find out where the hell she had gone and why she had called her friend.

  She was done with the knowledge holes in her life.

  At least a simple mystery like where she had been when she had spoken with Bill had to be solvable.

  It just had to be.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Thirty minutes after nightfall, Butch parked the R8 in the downtown garage—and this time, he did not expect to meet with anyone. Not Mel. Not his roommate. Not his roommate’s estranged mother.

  Yup, he wasn’t interested in crossing paths with anybody.

  And FFS, it sure would be handy to dematerialize.

  Instead, he hoofed it. Stepping out of the garage, he popped the collar on his leather jacket, ducked his head, and started making time. The rest of the Brotherhood were still back at the mansion, doing a weapons check—something he technically should have been involved with. But whatever. He needed a little personal time before—

  As his phone started going off, he took it out and killed the vibration without bothering to check to see who was calling. This wasn’t going to take long, and as soon as he was finished, he’d hit the home team up, pull a mea culpa, and proceed with the regularly scheduled program.

  It took him six minutes to get to his destination, and as he stared up at the twenty-story office building, it occurred to him that he had no memory of how he and Mel had gotten inside the night before. She must have had a key. Had it been through the front entrance? That seemed unlikely given that there were revolving doors that had been locked in place because it was after hours.

  Around back?

  Unease prickled up the nape of his neck, and he palmed one of his guns as he went down the side of the building. In the middle of the block, he found an unmarked entrance, but it was bolted closed with no wiggle room whatsoever.

  Hell, the damn thing didn’t have a lock to pick or even a card reader. Had to be an emergency exit.

  Rounding the far corner and facing off at the back of the property, he hoped for a receiving dock in the shallow parking area—and had his prayers answered. But that was as far as the good news went. He couldn’t get into anything. Not the bay doors that were all rolled down tight, and not the three regular doors with their electronic key readers for which—duh—he had no pass card.

  He went around the footprint of the building. Twice.

  Before he caved.

  Taking out his phone, he was cursing as he hit send on the call. No reason to go into his contacts to find the number. The fucker in question had been the last person who had called him. Three times in a row. In the last three and a half minutes—

  “Where the fuck are you?” V snapped.

  “That’s not important. I need a favor—”

  “Oh, it’s not important. I’m on lockdown here—with Lassiter, P.S., who’s going to make me watch The Munsters all night long—”

  “—I need to get into a locked facility—”

  “—when I’m an Addams Family kind of male—”

  “—and it’s got these card reader thingies—”

  “—and more to the point, you’ve clearly skipped weapons inspection—”

  All at once, they both stopped and barked, “Will you listen to what the fuck I’m saying!”

  Then, also at the same time:

  “You’re watching TV with Lassiter?”

  “You’re trying to break into a building?”

  Butch fought a wave of exhaustion. “Look, it’s not for business. I just need to get into this place, and you’re the only person who can help.”

  “Where are you? And if you say not important again I’m going to punch this angel because he’s the closest thing to me.”

  “Not important—”

  Over the connection, there was a muffled OW! What the FUCK, V!

  “God, that was satisfying,” V murmured. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Butch looked over the loading dock, locating the security cameras that were mounted on the corners of the bays and above each of the three doors. There was also a refuse bin the size of a railcar and an Iron Mountain records storage unit. Neither of which were going to be helpful.

  He cursed. “Don’t you have a universal card or something? I don’t want to set off any alarms.”

  There was a rustle, like the brother was getting off a sofa. Then, in a softer voice, V said, “What are you up to, cop?”

  “It’s not about the war or anything.”

  “Okay, hold on.”

  Butch exhaled in relief—then jumped back as V materialized right in
front of him. The brother was in leathers and shitkickers—great—except without a single weapon on him. Unless you counted his acid tongue, which was only material in an argument.

  Then again…

  Plus that hand of his. But still.

  “What the hell are you doing out here?” Butch snapped into his phone.

  “Oh, sure,” V said bitterly into his own, “it’s fine for you to be in danger—”

  “Get back home!”

  “I thought you needed help, asshole—” V paused. Took his phone from his ear. Ended the call. “So, yeah, we’re face-to-face now. How ’bout we scream and yell at each other in person.”

  Butch dropped his phone from his ear as well. “You’re not armed.”

  “And your weapons haven’t been checked.”

  “Touché. And at least you’re not in Little Mermaid PJs.”

  “You’d be surprised at how sexy I look in them.” V assessed the back of the building. “So this is our target, huh.”

  “There’s no ‘our’ in this.” When V started striding forward, Butch grabbed the guy’s bare arm. “This is too dangerous out here for you. Remember our little agreement?”

  “You’d sense if there were slayers around. Are there?”

  “Well, no. But there could be at any—”

  “So this is our target.” V went over to one of the loading bays and jumped up onto the concrete lip that was chest high. After he inspected the linked panels, he nodded. “Okay, I think I know what to do.”

  “I should never have called you.”

  “Are you even serious? This is so much better—”

  With that, V dematerialized in mid-sentence.

  Standing by his little lonesome, Butch slammed one shitkicker into the pavement like a five-year-old. Then he froze, waiting to hear an alarm. Then he paced when nothing of the ear-plosion variety occurred.

  The clunking sound of the bay’s sections going up was loud in the quiet, and V’s leather-clad legs and muscle shirt and bare shoulders were revealed inch by inch.

  “—than staying home with that angel,” he finished as he leaned down and offered his palm. “I swear to God, it was going to be me or him.”

  Butch grabbed onto the lead-lined glove and was hauled up into a receiving area that was every bit as grimy as the parking area. “I don’t get it. You could have just left the guy and gone back to the Pit.”

  “Fritz is cleaning our place tonight.”

  As V shuddered and eased the panels back down with a hand crank, Butch whistled under his breath. “Yeah, I’d pick Lassiter over that.”

  “I swear, that butler would vacuum my backside if he got the chance.” Securing them inside the receiving area, V clapped his hands together. “So where are we going?”

  Butch glared at his roommate. When V just stood there, patiently waiting, Butch resolved to learn breaking and entering skills from Balz.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he bitched.

  “Is that a department here?” V drawled. “Or just a certain floor.”

  Grinding his molars, Butch glanced around. Thanks to the glowing “EXIT” signs over the various doorways into the building proper, he was able to assess things well enough. Not that he was inspired. Other than rolling bins for FedEx boxes and a long stretch of counter that looked like a processing station for mail, there wasn’t much to go on.

  He’d been hoping for a map mounted on the concrete wall or some shit. Hey, the folks who worked here had to know where they were going with the envelopes and the packages, right?

  “I need to find the basement,” he muttered as he headed randomly toward one of the doors. Before he went more than two steps, he held out one of his forties. “Take this. I know I’m not going to get far trying to make you leave.”

  “It’s like you know me or some shit, true?”

  “Shut up, V,” he said as they set off together.

  * * *

  They had made love the second Syn had come to see her at nightfall.

  Is that the right past tense? Jo thought as she hit her direction signal and then put her hand back in Syn’s.

  Or was it more like, they’d had sex. They’d fucked. They’d screwed. They’d banged, boinked, bumped uglies…

  Whatever the grammar, whatever the vernacular, they most certainly had been together. Pretty much all over her apartment. But she’d promised herself that enough was enough. Given Syn’s… issue… she just couldn’t bear being so selfish as to expect him to service her sexual needs like a stud and get nothing out of it for himself.

  And the aftermath for him was so much worse than just nothing.

  Next to her, in her passenger seat, he repositioned himself gingerly, and the wince that hit his face told her everything she needed to know about how uncomfortable he was.

  So, no, she had not intended to get intimate. All she had wanted to do was see him. Smell him. Hold him—and all of that had happened the moment he had come through her door.

  Followed by more of same. Just with a lot less clothing on.

  “I can’t believe you’re willing to go on another of these wild-goose chases with me,” she said.

  The way he squeezed her hand was getting to be familiar. “I’m off-duty tonight so there’s nowhere else I’d want to be.”

  Before she could think of something to say to that, he leaned into her and whispered, “I love the way you’re smiling right now. You’ll have to tell me exactly what you’re thinking about later.”

  “Okay and now I’m blushing, too.”

  “Good.”

  Except then he moved stiffly again, pulling the seat belt out from his chest and realigning his hips with a hiss.

  “Syn, are you all right—”

  “Perfect in every way. So where are we going?”

  Jo shook her head, but let it go. Having a conversation with only one person participating was difficult, and clearly, he was in asked-and-answered territory when it came to his discomfort.

  God, she hated it, though.

  “Well, as you know… I’m just so sick of these memory lapses I’ve been having.” She debated about whether or not to tell him about her trip to see her father, but like that was relevant? More to the point, she wondered if there was any way to volunteer the visit for her amnesia. “It’s a long story, but apparently, I came out to this abandoned outlet mall a couple of nights ago. Bill, my friend, talked to me while I was there, and also on my way home, except I have no recollection of leaving my apartment. Driving anywhere. Seeing anything or doing anything.”

  “Bill is the one who is mated? Who you work with.”

  “Yes. He and his wife just lost a pregnancy.”

  Syn’s frown was deep. “For that, I am sorry.”

  “Me, too.” Jo leaned into the windshield. “So yeah, I want to come here and check the site out. The turnoff should be right—yup, here we are.”

  Heading up a rise in the road, she braced herself for a headache—and sure enough, as she made the final turn and a darkened stretch of one-story shops came into view, the pain hit her right in the frontal lobe.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Syn said grimly.

  “I have to do something.”

  As she let her car roll to a stop, she knew—she knew—she had been here before. Done this before.

  “I swear to God,” she muttered, “it’s like someone keeps getting into my brain and stealing things from me.”

  “Park your car over there.”

  “Where?”

  “Behind that lean-to, and make sure you turn it around so it’s headed out. You never know.”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  As Jo did as he suggested, she decided there were distinct advantages to having a trained killer around.

  When they got out of the Golf, she was further impressed by Syn’s direction. Her car wasn’t big, and the lean-to, which was a bus stop that had been Adirondack-ify’d, was the perfect cover for it. No one would know they were here—and he was right.
If they needed to get gone in a hurry, all she had to do was put that sewing machine engine in drive and hit the gas.

  “So Bill told me he was going to come and meet me here.” She winced and massaged the back of her neck as they started walking. “He was worried about me being all alone. But he never made it out. He said I called him on my way home and told him I hadn’t seen anything. So he turned around and went back to his own house.”

  “Have you and he ever been together—”

  Jo whipped her head around. “Oh, my God, never. He’s married. And even if he wasn’t, he’s not my type.”

  Syn gave a grunt of satisfaction at that and Jo had to smile. Taking his hand, she bumped herself into him. “You’re jealous.”

  “I am not.”

  “Really?”

  “Nah. I always want to tear people limb from limb. It’s exercise, you know.” He pounded his pec with his fist. “Develops the heart muscle, the arms. And plus the satisfaction of destroying an enemy is the best trophy there is.”

  He looked down and winked at her.

  “You are incorrigible,” she said.

  “I don’t know what that word means—” As her boot nailed the lip of the concrete walkway, he easily caught her as she fell forward. “You okay?”

  Jo laughed. For no other reason than they were together. “Yup. I am.”

  Forcing herself to focus, she stepped over a chain and proceeded forward, looking into the darkened shops as they went down the promenade. Not much to see. Not much left behind. Not much that would have made her think to come for an after-dark visit.

  God, her head was pounding.

  At the end of the covered walkway, they stopped in front of the faded stencil of a cow holding an ice cream cone with his hoof. As the wind kicked up, blackened leaves chattered and rushed along the cracked sidewalk, congregating in the corner of an inset doorway with others of their kind.

  Pivoting around, she shook her head and felt like a fool. “Bill said I’d gotten some kind of tip that I’d been vague about. I’d told him it was off my blog, but there’s nothing about this site anywhere on it—hey, there are stairs over here. Do you mind if we see where they take us?”