Cold Hard Steele (Daggers & Steele Book 2) (18 page)

Shay hummed, and I felt the weight of her eyeballs on me.

Shannon came back, a slip of paper in hand. She gave it to me. I gave the publishing team a nod, a perfunctory thanks, and a good view of my backside as I showed myself the door.

31

The bumps of the rickshaw made reading difficult, but I glued my eyes to the page and persevered. The big reveal was nigh. I could feel it. And I needed to understand it before I confronted Frank Gregg with our own evidence.

Rex Winters struggled against the bonds that held him, his arms stretched behind the splintered wooden chair, his wrists tied tightly in a knot even a seasoned sailor would’ve had difficulty replicating. A drop of sweat trickled down his brow and onto the corner of his lips. It tasted of salt and little else. How long had it been since he’d had a drink? How long had he been in the cellar, for that matter? It felt like only a few hours, but he didn’t know how long he’d laid unconscious after the cultists had captured him.

A door squeaked, and Rex lifted his head. In the room’s wan light, he barely noticed a dark shadow enter the cellar across from him. Rex struggled harder, but the bonds didn’t budge. A wave of panic hit him like a slap to the face. Was this it? His final hour?

The shadow stepped forward, and Rex focused his eyes on the figure.

“Mayor Goldberg?” he said.

“Hello, Rex,” said the mayor. A grin spread slowly across his face—a grin that was equal parts victorious and malicious.

Rex’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not the mayor. I knew him. He was a good man. A man who wouldn’t send brain-washed fundamentalists to terrorize innocents and murder the city’s defenders of justice in the dark of night. And he certainly wouldn’t imprison me in this dark, dank cesspit without reason or quarter. Besides, the mayor’s dead. I saw him wash up against the lee of my boat, his body bloated and pale.”

“Now, now, Winters,” said the mayor. “That’s no way to speak to your old pal.”

The grin spread even wider, and the dim light glinted off teeth that seemed a touch too sharp at the tips.

“You monster,” said Rex. “What did you do with him? Who are you? What are you?”

The mayor waggled a finger. “Ahh, Rex, that’s what I like about you. Most people would be pleading for their lives, begging for mercy in a situation like this. But not you. You’re committed to justice, to knowledge, and to truth, all the way to the bitter end. It’s foolish, but it’s commendable. My colleagues told me I should kill you and be done with it, but I felt you deserved a little more. You deserve the truth before you die. Maybe I’m a bit of a fool myself, but it’s not as if showing you the other side of the coin now will help you escape its inevitable flip.”

The mayor leaned in close, to the point where Rex could feel his hot breath on his cheeks, and reached up a hand. Rex flinched as the fingers approached his throat, but instead of grabbing him, the mayor turned the hand upon himself. He dug it into the skin at his throat, separating the flesh from the muscle in a horrifying yet bloodless affair. He pulled and stretched the skin like taffy, pulling it up past his chin, over his nose, and off the top of his skull with a gruesome yank. Rex wanted to look away, yet he forced his eyes on the macabre scene—and what he saw shocked him to his core.

Beneath the mayor’s skin, there wasn’t flesh or blood or bone, but rather a gray, formless mass that undulated and shifted.

Rex gasped. “Skinwalkers!”

A small oval-shaped opening materialized in the gray mass, roughly in the spot Mayor Goldberg’s mouth would’ve been had the mask still been in place.

“Oh, please,” the sound undulated. “That’s such a coarse term. We prefer to refer to ourselves as doppelgangers.”

I looked up from my book. “Doppelgangers! That’s it!”

Shay looked at me from the seat at my side. “What?”

“Remember how I was telling you that in the most recent Rex Winters book there’s a secret society that’s killing off important political figures around the city? But the people being killed were still showing up afterwards? And the murders were strangely reminiscent of the ones we’ve been finding?”

“I have some vague recollection of that,” said Steele. “I think I tried to block it out. What about it?”

“Well,
that’s
how the secret society was performing the murders and getting away with it. That’s why the murders were being perpetrated in the way they were. Because of doppelgangers! Skinwalkers were taking the victims’ skin and using it to imitate the living.”

Shay raised one of her eyebrows as high as it would go. “And…?”

“And?”
I said, incredulous. “This could be the piece we’ve been missing, the clue we need to crack this thing wide open. We’ve been wondering why the murders were committed in the fashion they were. Maybe it’s because of doppelgangers.”

“Daggers…” said Steele.

“Maybe the victims were skinwalkers. Maybe that’s why they were struck with icy daggers. Maybe the reduced temperature solidifies their corporeal self into a form that can be killed. And maybe that’s why they’ve all been struck in the same spot—the heart. Not that a skinwalker has a heart, but maybe it’s significant.”

“Daggers…”

“Or, perhaps
the killer
is a doppelganger,” I said. “Maybe the temperature of the dagger is important in the transformation process. Perhaps the body needs to be cooled before the skin can be stolen. Not that the skin of any of our victims was missing, but perhaps the doppelganger only needs to interface with the victim before taking on their identity. If so, this could have serious implications. Frank Gregg could be out there right now, dressed up as Terry, or Creepy, or—”

“Daggers!”

Shay placed her hands over mine and pushed on them gently, forcing closed the book I still clutched between my fingers.

It was a simple gesture, one born of concern. It probably meant nothing. We’d touched hands before, after all, during a handshake or while helping one another off the ground. But this felt like something more. Her flesh was warm and soft, her touch gentle, and her hands lingered a moment longer than they should’ve. Her eyes met mine, those deep pools of azure that were fierce, enthralling, and doe-like all at the same time.

“Daggers,” she said again, more softly this time. “I think it’s time to put the book away for a while.”

I felt the well of emotions within me start to bubble again. It was becoming harder and harder to push it back down—and not because my emotions burned so strongly, but because my push was so feeble.

That’s when I realized it. I was changing. My desire to suppress the feelings that churned within me was fading. My emotional wall, so solid for so many years, was crumbling—and all it took was the simple touch of a delicate hand.

I sighed and tried to focus. “I know. I’m getting too invested in the book. I can see that. I should probably step away from it for a bit and focus on our case.”

Shay smiled. “Well, yes, there’s that. But we’re also here.”

She was right. The rickshaw had stopped in front of a large, gated estate in the supremely expensive, ultra fancy-pants Brentford neighborhood. Quinto and Rodgers were already dismounting behind us.

“You think you can keep it together while we interview Gregg?” asked Shay.

“Of course I can,” I said. “All that stuff about doppelgangers is already a distant memory. I’ve pushed it from my mind. I’m very talented at forgetting things, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” said Shay. “Your selective memory is impeccable.”

It was true, though. I’d banished Rex Winters and his doppelgangers from my mind, but in their place, I hadn’t filled it with thoughts of Frank Gregg and our current case. Rather, I couldn’t stop thinking about Shay’s soft, tender hands.

32

I told everyone to follow my lead as I pounded on the looming, hand-carved oaken doors that fronted Gregg’s place. Not that I really needed to make that assertion. Rodgers and Quinto had let me lead the way on this one—it was Shay and I’s case after all, and they weren’t as familiar with it as we were—and Steele didn’t want to step on my toes in regards to Gregg. I think she understood how much the Rex Winters series meant to me, even if she did give me guff about it.

After a few distinct knocking attempts, a man in his mid-sixties, balding, with a hook nose and sagging skin under his eyes cracked the door.

“Um…yes? Can I help you?” he said.

I showed him my badge, and the crack investigative team behind me followed suit. “I’m Detective Daggers. These are Detectives Steele, Rodgers, and Quinto. Are you Mr. Frank Gregg?”

Our badges and air of authority seemed to put him marginally more at ease. The door opened a bit farther. “Um, yes, I suppose. Some people call me that.”

“Wait…what? Some people? Why?” Images of doppelgangers with fake identities flashed through my mind, try as I might to suppress them.

“Frank Gregg is my pen name,” he said. “I was born Antonin Gregorov.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling rather foolish. “Well, what name do you prefer to go by, then?”

“Gregg’s fine,” said Frank. He narrowed his eyes. “What’s this about? Am I in some sort of trouble?”

“No, sir,” I said. “We’d just like to ask you some questions regarding a case we’re investigating. Do you mind if we come in?”

Gregg glanced at me, then Steele—where his eyes lingered for a few moments longer than they needed to—then Rodgers and Quinto.

“You and the sexpot can come in,” he said. “But leave the goon squad outside.”

I shot Quinto a glance. He shrugged. “Whatever. I’m used to it. My partner, Gordon, and I’ll do a slow waltz around the perimeter, keeping an eye on windows and escape routes.”

“Only if you hold me close, Folton,” said Rodgers with a smile.

The names almost threw me for a loop. The guys never referred to each other by their given names. I’m not sure Shay had ever heard them before, but she didn’t seem to process the new information. Her jaw was clenched and color had blossomed into her cheeks. I don’t think she appreciated being referred to as a ‘sexpot.’

Gregg led us into his palatial home, the mortgage for which probably would’ve made me weep genuine tears of agony. I didn’t bother asking how much such a place could cost. Brentford was strictly a neighborhood for folks so rich they hired other people to wipe their asses with money for them—which made me wonder where Gregg’s butler was hiding. Probably the bathroom.

We reached a sitting room, and Gregg waved his hand at some couches adorned with delicate mohair throws. While we sat, he walked to a freestanding cellarette and poured himself a couple fingers of brandy. He didn’t offer us any before sitting down.

“So,” he said. “You’re Daggers, and you’re…?”

“Steele,” said my partner.
“Detective
Steele.” Her rose-colored cheeks hadn’t completely faded, and the tone of her voice was remarkably similar to how it’d been when I’d first been introduced to her—when I’d acted like a huge jackass.

“Right, right,” said Gregg. “That’s a pretty snappy combination for two partners. Daggers and Steele?”

I gave Shay a slow glance that I turned onto Gregg.

“You know, because daggers are made from steel?” Gregg said.

Neither I nor Steele commented.

“Whatever. Never mind. What do you two want?”

In any other interviewee, Gregg’s abrasive personality would’ve turned me into a rigid, gruff-mouthed hard-ass hell bent on wrestling control of the interrogation to my side of the mat, but Gregg was a living legend—a man adored by legions of trench coat-clad tough guys and bespectacled nerds alike. It was all I could do not to ask him for an autograph.

“Well, sir,” I said. “I know you’re busy, and I wouldn’t want to interrupt your creative muse—”

Shay snorted.

“—but we need to ask you a few questions about an investigation of ours.”

Gregg took a swig of his brandy. “And when you say investigation, what are you talking about? Theft? Arson? What kind of cops are you, anyway?”

“Homicide,” I said.

“Murder?” Gregg frowned. “Shit. Don’t tell me some lunatic’s trying to recreate one of my novels in real life again.”

I shared a glance with Shay. “Um…that’s happened before?”

“Once,” he said. “A long time ago. Don’t ask. They caught the guy. That’s the important thing.”

I kind of wanted to know, but I took the old dude’s advice and didn’t ask. I could always look up the case files at the precinct later if the bug bit me. “Well, to answer your question, no, nobody’s recreating the murders from one of your novels in real life. Not exactly, anyway. But there are a few deaths that are in a way
connected
to something you wrote. Do you, by any chance, know a woman by the name of Cynthia Gladwell?”

Gregg shifted in his seat a bit as he took a sip of his brandy. He swished it in his mouth before answering. “Hmm? Name doesn’t ring a bell. Sorry.”

Shay gave me a look, one that said she was willing to let me take the reins on the interrogation, but if I didn’t press Gregg further after that kind of answer she’d kick him in the balls herself and extract answers from him the hard way. Seriously, Steele has
very
expressive eyes.

I leaned forward. “Look, Mr. Gregg? I didn’t tell you this right off the bat, but I’m actually a big fan. I’ve read almost all your published works, with the exception of one very hard to find novella. Your Rex Winters stories inspired me, and I like to think they played a part in me pursuing the career path I did.”

Gregg raised an eyebrow.