Authors: Rob Knight
"Decomp, huh? Gross." His coffee cup got a push, right under his
nose so all he could smell was java and cream, and the gag reflex he
hadn't even noticed eased. "But it wasn't deep. Not like an underground
feed?"
"I don't know. It was definitely under the ground, but it was a place, a man-made place, not a cave."
"The floor. Was it metal or stone?"
"Not metal. It didn't ring. It echoed. Concrete? The book didn't
echo when he dropped it, just his footsteps." Her blood had dropped on
the book, fat drops from her fingers. "She bit her nails."
"Then we ought to be able to get a good sample." Sometimes it made
him crazy that Artie compartmentalized. Sometimes it helped. "What
about the knife? You said it was custom?"
"I said it was little. Curved. Like a finger. Like his fingers, held
against his hand." He held up one finger, curled it like a claw. A
shiny, sharp claw. "He touches her with it."
"Close your eyes and tell me what it looks like. Silver? Black handle? Does it have any chasing on the blade?"
"The blade is silver, sharp, shiny shiny shiny. There's no handle,
just a blade with a hole in the bottom." He could almost see the man.
Almost. Weird, because he didn't. Not usually. Not usually, but he
could almost see, even if it didn't work that way.
"The guy's a regular ball of fun. Okay. All right. Did you see
anything else? Her clothes? His? His hand? What did it look like?"
He must be looking edgy. Artie was wrapping up. They'd do this again and again, he knew.
"Yeah. His fingers were crook..." He frowned, a flash from last
night hitting him deep and low, bending him over his own hands.
"Blonde. She was blonde, Artie. All of them have been and the next is
going to be, too."
Artie caught his coffee cup as it fell. "Then we'll look for more. Try to find his pattern. That's enough for now."
The stubble covered the little scar right above Artie's upper lip.
The scar Artie got when he fell off the jungle gym in Mrs. Marsh's
fourth grade class and Janie Potts laughed at him and made him cry.
Greg nodded. Yes. Yes, okay. Enough. Enough. He'd washed, but he
could feel the blood on his fingers, in the ridges of his fingerprints.
"Why didn't he send the book to the police, the media?"
"Because they can't do what you do. You want some food?" Joints
popped as Artie levered up. "You caught me just as I was about to share
a TV dinner with Duke."
"Those things are atrocious and not for breakfast." He stood up,
stretched as tall as he could go, the loft spinning around him. "I
should have real food in there."
Grinning, Artie nodded. "And I can even cook it. What do you want, man?"
Yeah. It was good to have someone to pull him out of it. To make things normal.
"Grilled cheese and tomato soup." He winced, but refused to take it
back. It was comfort food and it was going to comfort him. Damn it.
Comfort.
"Hey, that I can do. You want that fancy-pants cheese?" Okay, it was
one thing for Artie to know where the cups were, but the frying pan?
Either he was predictable or Artie was here more than he thought.
"No. I want the stuff with the crinkly plastic wrapper and white
bread, and if you tell anyone else, I'll deny it. Alice and Mitch are
being organic, and I said I'd try."
He could only be so good, and he felt like he had run a mile. Two. Underwater.
"Processed cheese food and gooey white bread fried with butter
coming up." Soup can, pot, frying pan, can opener. Artie really was
gonna make them grilled cheese and tomato soup. For breakfast. Damn.
Then he went and grabbed Artie a cherry cola and himself a cream soda. Cherry cola. He had cherry cola.
In his fridge.
He used a dishcloth to set Artie's on the table, open his, and pour
it into a glass. No reason to beg for trouble, his brain was blown
right open today.
"Thanks." Before long he had four neatly cut triangles of oozy
cheesy bread and a bowl of an-orange-not-found-in-nature soup. "There
you go. Eat up."
"Thank you." He waited for Artie to sit, and he did eat, and it was
delicious and comforting, soothing. "This is just what the doctor
ordered."
"Excellent." Man, Artie slurped his soup. That shouldn't surprise him. Didn't surprise him. "Been a long day."
"Tell me what happened?" He nibbled, leaning back in his chair.
Artie wouldn't have bothered cooking if there wasn't something to say.
"Just a lot of crap. They grilled me and Leah about where we got the information to track Galloway down."
Galloway—big and Irish, hated women, hated cops, left a gun at
one crime scene and Greg had held it. Actually traveled across Raleigh
and held it, sitting in the passenger's seat of Artie's Camaro. He
hated holding guns. Hated all the layers upon layers of things there.
"Ah. Your boss—" He never could remember if Frank Walters was
a captain or if that was just television eating his brain.
"—always seems to be concerned about me."
"Well, he figures I can't drag you to court." Dabbing a dribble, Artie sighed. "Leah's pregnant."
He tilted his head, sandwich half up to his mouth. Pregnant. Huh. "No wonder she looks tired. Does she ... Will she still work?"
"Up to a point. The docs think she might have trouble. She's got the
high blood pressure you know?" Leaning back, Artie rubbed the back of
his neck. "She's just over three months; they think she'll work until
five or six."
"Is Tim happy?" Artie wasn't happy; Greg wasn't surprised. Policemen liked things that stayed the same.
"He's over the fucking moon. And giving me the evil eye every time I
come around." Yeah, Artie and Leah had never been together-together,
but cops had a bond. That had to be hard.
He supposed.
"Protective? Tim? I might have to see that with my own eyes." He
drank deep, washing down the last bit of sandwich. "Do you have to get
a new partner, while she's gone?"
He was beginning to relax, feel the synapses in his brain ease, lose that white-hot sensitivity.
"No. At least when Amy over in Dan's precinct went on maternity
leave, he didn't get anyone." As Greg relaxed, Artie got wound up,
fingers drumming on the bar.
Weird how that worked. He wondered if the energy in the room did it
or if they were simply diametrically opposed. "Good. I quite like her."
"Me, too." High praise for a man who usually grunted once for yes and twice for no.
He nodded, mind wandering, floating from thing to thing like a
helium balloon in a high rise. Four years since the first phone call
he'd made to the Raleigh PD. Four years since he'd gotten a sarcastic
laugh and Artie'd grabbed his hand and snarled, "Psychic? Fucking prove
it."
He had, too. Over and over and over and—"Do you ever want children? A family?" he asked idly.
"Me?" That snapped him back. Artie looked absolutely horrified. "No way, man."
He laughed, amused balls to bones. "Don't sound so shocked. It is a biological imperative."
"Yeah? I missed the memo." The cherry cola can crumpled in Artie's
fist. "I'm not the daddy type. Agatha's twins are plenty enough."
He nodded, shuddering. The one time Agatha had brought them to the shop had been ... horrifying at best.
Artie gave him a keen look. "Better?"
"Yes. Yes, thank you." He met Artie's eyes straight on. "Are you going to want me to try the book again?"
He didn't want to. He would, if Artie was there, if Artie asked, but he didn't want to.
"Not now. Depends ... you know?" That was one thing he
did
know. Once Artie had seen what it did to him, Artie'd believed. Well,
the detective wasn't a cruel man, no matter what they said in the jail.
"Right now, I'll take it, they'll run the blood, fingerprint it, check
the envelope."
He nodded. "Just remember, it'll fade. The more people that touch it, the more it'll fade."
Although he wasn't sure it would, not with the blood and the fear on it. Not with the pain on it. Not with her on it.
"I know. I just, you've had enough for right now, man. Want me to do the dishes?"
"No. I will." He wanted to ask Artie to stay, but he knew. He could
see the jitters, the way Artie's eyes shot to the elevator. "You want
ice cream?"
"Sure. Sure. If you want." Yeah, Artie was a good guy. Annoying. But
good. He could tell how much the man wanted to be gone, but he'd stay.
A little longer, anyway.
And if he had chocolate almond in the refrigerator alongside his banana nut? Well, neither of them had to comment on it.
Chapter Two
Fuck, he was tired.
Artie got all three locks undone, foot stuck out to keep Duke from
scrambling past him and down the stairs. Those college kids two flights
down had just bought themselves a new little pit bull puppy, and sure
as shit Duke'd kill it in a tussle. Beast.
Muscling through the stacks of this and piles of that, he managed to
turn the police scanner off, turn the kitchen light on, and get his
shoes off his feet, all at the same time. Artie plopped his stack of
files down on the dinette table, ignoring it as it slid halfway off the
cracked red vinyl, paper fluttering to the floor. The fridge yielded a
beer and not much else, and he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as
Duke gnawed his ankle.
Damned fucking half-Siamese yowl. The cat looked just like John Wayne in
Rooster Cogburn
, and twice as fucking mean. It was hard to be mean back to a one-eyed cat.
"Looks like canned food for you tonight, buddy. And delivery for me."
His answering machine was empty, no blinking lights, no blinking number. Nothing.
Damn.
Looked like
he'd
have to call Greg. See how things were. Greg
was always weird as hell the day after, and he'd want to know what
Artie'd found out anyway.
What did it say that he had Greg on speed dial ahead of Domino's?
The phone rang and rang—one, two, come on Professor, three,
four. It's not like the man was out and about wandering Lenoir Street.
Right before the machine picked up, Greg did. "Hello? If you're selling
something, be assured I'm not interested."
Man sounded tired, worn, ragged around the edges.
"I'm buying, Professor. What do you want me to pick up for supper?"
That was that. He'd go see Greg, make sure for himself that everything
was okay.
"Oh. Artie. Italian. Please." Greg never ate at restaurants, never,
and take out could be challenging until the food was on Greg's plates.
For a man that enjoyed food like Greg did, it was a shame. Hell, for a
man that had lived a full life—dances, parties, department
doo-dads—it was a tragedy. "I have a bottle of red."
"I'll go to Mario's." Mario's had the happiest chef in the world. He
must have mistresses that wouldn't quit. "I'll be there in about
thirty."
"The back door is unlocked." Greg hung up before he could bitch about being safe, not being stupid.
Fuck. One of these days some sicko would get to Greg that way. He
called in an order for alfredo and that fancy assed cannelloni Greg
liked, changed into jeans and a T-shirt, fed Duke (who growled at the
canned shit), and headed out toward Pullen Park, the mid-October air
crisp enough to justify the jacket that hid his holster.
Thirty minutes later exactly he let himself in at Greg's, taking the back steps two at a time.
The loft was spotless as usual, music low and almost
unnoticeable—some jazz shit that managed not to be irritating.
The heavy wood table was set, wine breathing—which was just a
gross term, breathing. Who wanted their booze to breathe? Who actually
set a table with cloth napkins, for God's sake? It was just unnatural
that a single man should be so fucking neat, gay or otherwise.
"That you, Artie?"
"Yeah." Well, at least he wouldn't be horking up a hairball with supper. "I got you that rolled shit."
"Thank you. I made a salad to go with." Big-assed wooden bowl in
too-long fingers, Greg was wearing a damn near see-through pair of
pants, a loose tank top. Bare feet. No shaving that dark-dark stubble.
Ah, twitchy today. He'd probably been naked all day.
Artie hoped the chef was having a damned good day.
"Cool. I got some of that bread if you want to get the olive oil.
And that pepper grinder thing." He liked the freshly cracked pepper.
Even if he would never admit it.
"Mmm ... There are two pieces of cheesecake left, too, for after."
Greg pottered, bare feet slapping on hardwood floors, as pristine white
dishes filled with oil, with olives, with little chunks of white cheese.
The man did love his little dishes and fussy stuff. But it was good
food and made things feel ... well, special was a foofy sort of
thought, but Artie wasn't gonna bitch. He slipped off his jacket, got
out of his holster, and set it aside. Then Artie put the food out, got
it on the plates, carefully, and let Greg get the bread. "You get any
rest?"
"Not particularly. I got online, did some research. I was curious
about the book. Did you?" His wine was poured, dark, dark red casting a
shadow on the table.
"No." He stared at the wine. "The lab has the book. We're making zip
headway on the missing person. Leah might have a bead on the blonde
thing, though. She thinks she might have a couple of random
disappearances."
Greg sat, dark head bowed almost like he was praying. Then
black-as-pitch eyes met his, dead-on, shadows dark underneath them.
There was a painting behind Greg on the stark white wall, a depiction
of Dante's Inferno with horned beasts and fire and winged demons
framing Greg's head. Even creepier was that Artie knew the backdrop
behind him was dripping with cherubs and angels, the hosts of heaven
hung on a blood red wall. Nothing like a sense of irony. "Let's eat. It
smells too good to waste."
"You bet." The man was all skin and bones as it was. They could talk after. "Eat hearty."