4.2
The ambulance arrives first. It was just a nick; the bullet grazed Dirk's upper arm, as he reminds me and everyone else caring for him. The forensics arrive next, and I watch them walk into the house. When they're out of earshot, Dirk points out, voice low, "You've still got the office keys."
They're in my pocket, despite my protestations to him. They weigh heavy, offering something we might otherwise never find. "I'm going to turn them into evidence."
"Sure. Listen, if you are going there, wait for me to get out of hospital. I don't like you going alone after what just happened here."
"Come on," I say, dropping any pretence that I'm still intending to do the right thing. "Like you said, everyone involved is dead. What are the odds of two incidents in a row, besides?"
Dirk’s lips thin. "I'm fine. They've bandaged me up. I can go with you…"
"Don't be a shitty patient. You need to go to the hospital or Tawill will shoot you herself and you know it.”
“It’s a scratch! If anything, my car is the real patient.”
I glance back over my shoulder at Dirk’s poor car. One tyre blown, the front windscreen a mess of cobwebbed cracks, and a couple of bullets buried in the upholstery. I can hardly disagree that it’s in worse shape. “Well…”
“El, I really don’t think it’s a good idea to go alone…”
I click my tongue. “I'll be fine, mother hen. I need to get there before people hear about the political partner too and start stomping around his office. Don't worry."
Dirk sighs through his nose. As the attendant pulls him further back into the ambulance, he goes, all the while muttering about bloody paperwork. "Don't go after dark!" he calls out as the doors close and the siren comes on.
"I know, I know," I call back, though I can't say whether he could have heard me.
***
I go after dark.
It’s not that I mean to, but by the time I get to leave the manor in one of the extra cars brought by the forensics, the sun is going down, and I hit Tregam's infamous traffic on the way back in. I drop the car back off at the station, figuring it best not to draw attention considering where I’m about to go, and catch the subway Downtown. By this hour, the subway is mostly empty. A thick-set older woman with wispy grey hair who stares at me long enough that I have to figure she’s seen me on TV gets off at the same stop, but when I look behind me on the next street, there’s no sign of her or anyone else.
By the time I'm standing on the street, the dark building is made more oppressive by the fact that most of the lights are off. The clouds beyond are lit up by light pollution, but the daylight is long gone. This building is old for a skyscraper, having made the news several times because the thin glass of the windows has allowed for a number of accidents, not to mention the few businessmen and office workers who decided to take a dive on purpose. But replacing them has never happened, regardless.
Unease creeps up my spine, and I glance both ways up the street, toward the lights of the main road around the corner. I don't see anyone, but the feeling of being watched is becoming familiar to me lately.
Probably just Needler, I think, then take a moment to consider the 'just' in that sentence. How did that become my norm?
I put it down as a problem for another time, muttering, "Sorry Dirk," and head on in.
I pass no one else in the elevator or the dimmed light of the hallways. The office, up on the fourteenth floor at the end of a cream-walled hallway, is what I'd expected, a velvet couch, a round rug under an oak desk, and a display cabinet with an authentic-looking collection of antiques which, upon closer perusal, are somewhat mismatched. A long window takes up the back wall, looking out at the other skyscrapers.
Leaving the door open to make it to the desk without stumbling in the dark, I switch the desk lamp on and start going through the drawers. Did Needler come here? If he did, what did he find? We have to assume he was sure before he made the hit, and this seems like a good place to find evidence. And there’s what he said to me; ‘going places you can’t or won’t’. Well, I guess this at least is proving him wrong on that point.
But at first glance, there’s little of interest. I'm idly thumbing through a sheaf of papers, wondering what I'm even looking for, when something tumbles out in the hall. The office door is just slightly ajar, letting little extra light in to join with the dim glow of the lamp. I put down the binder, stepping towards the corner of the desk. I thought I’d left the door more open.
I’m just about to step out from behind the desk and towards the door, to open it again, when I catch the movement in the corner of my eye. Before I can turn fully, the shape lunges off the couch and collides with me.
I cry out as we tumble awkwardly, bumping into the office chair on the way down to the floor. My attacker is on top of me, and the only thing I know for sure is that this isn’t Needler.
My hands wrap around thin wrists as fingers reach for my face, but they’re using their weight to push something down against my lips. Whipping my head side to side, I buck my hips once and violently so that whatever they were trying to press into my mouth tumbles under the desk.
"You're gonna eat it, bitch,” a woman’s voice grates at me, accompanying the words with a heavy strike across my temple, which snaps my head to the side. I see then what tumbled under the desk. A pill, but one I recognise. In pictures from the Talisof case. A cyanide pill.
She hits me again, one of my wrists pinned under her knee, and I taste blood this time. She doesn’t seem or look big, but she's strong, a kind of weight lent by being a bit crazy and willing to kill. "You took my Greg away!" she shouts, and I register her reaching for her pocket again. Knowing that means she's got another pill, I writhe, trying to get free. My head pounds, my hand throbbing where she's digging her knee into it.
Her nail scrapes my chin. I feel the pill brush the corner of my mouth and clamp my teeth shut. That’s when she punches me hard in the stomach and my vision blackens. Pinning my other hand, she clamps her hand on my jaw, squeezing, nails biting. When she leans down, I can see her face, eyes alight with something like ecstasy as she tastes victory. My eyes go wide. It’s the woman from the subway, though now crazed. It wasn’t Needler following me this time at all.
The pill is coming towards my mouth, her hand like a vice on my jaw holding me from wrenching to the side. This is it. She's going to drop cyanide down my throat. I wish I knew how long it will take after that. I need to tell Dirk it's not his fault. Maybe I'll have time.
When her face cracks into a wide grin, coming closer and closer, like she wants to watch every moment, all I can see is her. I don't see him behind her.
She freezes suddenly, her grip tightening on my jaw, scraping skin away as her head whips back. Suddenly her weight leaves me, and she's drawn up onto her feet, the leering grin replaced by a sneer of pain as she reaches back to where he's got her by a fistful of hair.
Then, as fast as any of the rest of this happened, she’s pitched towards the back of the room, into the window. It smashes under the impact, a waterfall of glass gone in a second. Then she's gone too, marked only by a short scream. I'm still on the floor, staring wide-eyed at the missing window, the glass glittering on the floor, when he shakes me, and I turn to look into the mask. His hood has fallen back, but at some point in the scuffle, the lamp fell off the desk and smashed, so the only light comes from the hallway door. "Eleanor! Talk to me. Did you swallow anything? Did she get anything in your mouth?"
"I, uh…”
Too impatient for my answer, his gloved hand grips my jaw, not unlike the way my would-be murderer just did. I wince as he presses on tender skin, my mouth opening wide. He peers in as I make a small, almost offended noise and pull out of his grip. “She didn’t!”
Appearing to have reached that conclusion himself, Needler takes my arm and pulls me to my feet. "Who was she?" I ask. “She mentioned Greg Talisof…”
"That’s your job to work out, isn't it?"
I can hear traffic on the street below, subtly changed now. Abruptly, I look back at Needler. He's here, apparently concerned for my welfare. How chivalrous, except he'd also just killed a woman without a second thought. "Why are you here?" I ask.
"I saw her following you." His black-gloved hand comes up, brushing away a lock of hair stuck to my forehead. "And that’s my job."
My aching head and other various injuries make themselves known, now that the relative safety is setting in, replacing the adrenaline of almost being killed. I touch my temple, finding sticky blood. I wince. "She’d dead. You saved me. Why?"
"I like having you around."
"I'm the cop on your case. I'm trying to put you in prison."
"But you're so much more fun than anyone else."
I shake my head, stepping back. "I need to…" I stumble against the side of the desk. Needler catches me, a hand on my waist. Somehow, I've ended up between him and the desk, looking up into the silver mask. For the fact that I linger, I blame the head injury. For glancing at his mouth, inviting it, I blame the near-death experience.
There’s no stolen kiss this time. It’s slow, savouring, the taste of aniseed dimmed, and his arms around me, pulling me against him even as his body presses me back against the solid desk. I close my eyes and that mask disappears. He just feels like a man. I lift my chin, pulling deeper, fingers digging into his shoulders. In these moments of temporary insanity, I want more, to feel alive, to postpone the moment when the terror of everything that just happened will set in. And he gives, hand sliding up between my shoulder blades, leaning into me, claiming my mouth.
When some semblance of reason returns, I breathe, "I can't be here.”
Staying against me, hips to mine, looking down on my face with my own shadow blocking a clear view of his mouth and chin, Needler asks, “No? Your friends will be on the way.”
My thoughts are muddled, everything leading to this moment a confusing mess. There’s a dead woman out the window, fourteen floors down. “No, I… I’m not supposed to be here.”
A pause, and then I almost hear him smile. “Breaking the rules, are we?” He leans down again, lips nearly brushing mine, voice low as he asks, “Any more you’d like to break tonight?”
I sway, gaze dropping to his mouth, the black smear more distorted for our kiss. The blackness might be on my own lips too now, a mark of him. How far could this go? I hang onto reason. “How am I going to explain a dead woman outside?” I demand, pushing him back a step.
“Tell them it was self-defence.”
“God.” I grip my head with both hands. “They’ll put me into protection again, counselling. I don’t even have a warrant. It’s too messy. I’ll lose my job.”
“Eleanor…”
I drop my hands, focussing back on him. “You killed her! You need to clean this up."
"You want me to save your life and clean up your mess?"
" My mess? You threw her out of the fucking window!"
"You would have been the mess if I hadn't been watching her. And you."
My temple throbs. "What do you care if they blame you for this? You kill people all the time!"
Needler crosses his arms. "Certain people! And carefully. This is messy. I don't like it. That’s not how she should have gone."
"You're nuts. And you know who she was."
“Sharna Wells,” Needler tells me. "Talisof's handler. Think of her as an erotic mother figure."
"Wonderful." I press my fingers to the bridge of my nose. Dirk didn't want me here now. Tawill will be mad that I was here at all, as will the FBI no doubt assigned to the Cadden case by now. And unless I then tell everyone I did that to Sharna myself, I'll have to admit to being witness to a murder. More than one, at this point.
"Man had issues with his seniors. Are you really surprised?"
"And who are your issues with?" I ask with some venom.
"Besides the ones you're locking safely away from me and giving phones to so they can call in revenge?" He tilts his head, pretending to think. "I thought my grudges were clear. And they’re not with you, although following you is proving rather eventful."
"Let’s be clear. What you're doing is stalking me, not following me."
Needler shrugs, not denying it. "If that concerned you as much as you’re making out, why aren’t you telling your colleagues?"
"Because playing by the rules isn't working," I snap.
His smile is wide, lips closed, made wider by the black makeup. This is the longest look I’ve ever gotten of him, hood back, with some but not much light. But when I focus, try to commit something to memory or recognise him in someone else, my skull aches.
"I can help you, make it like you were never here. Have it look like I did all this alone."
"Okay…" What’s that saying? If it sounds too good to be true…?
"But it'll cost you."
Of course. I grind my teeth. " What will it cost me?"
He pauses for a beat. "You know what I want."
Do I? My heart does a little flip. I can't help imagining it, after so long, to be held, filled, taken . “You can’t mean…”
“Yes.”
I take a step back. "You killed my husband. I’ll never…"
He's already turning for the door. "Enjoy explaining everything away, Little Shadow…"
"Wait.” I glance around the room. Can I do this myself? I know where the evidence usually is, but we were rolling around on the floor. My skin might be under her nails, my hair through the rug, my blood... My head pounds, almost definitely the start of a minor concussion. Needler has turned back to me, waiting. “What’s it going to be, detective?”
My eyes narrow. “Why ask for this? Why not ask me to drop your case, stop hunting you?”
His head tilts, that mask laughing at me. “Because, Little Shadow, I want more of you, not less.”
I feel that my gulp is audible. Could I? Just once, to know, to feel. But it’s a bridge you can’t uncross.
“What do you want?” There’s a lilt in his voice, even through the alterer, that suggests he knows my thoughts.
“I want…” If I didn’t have minor brain damage, if I wasn’t imagining sirens already on the edge of my hearing, I might have tried negotiating, or at the very least, outright lying. “I want to know. And I want to feel. But,” I amend, mostly for myself. “Only once.”
The corner of his black mouth lifts. When he steps towards me, I inhale sharply. Now? Here? His glove grazes my neck. "Just once, then. I'll come to collect."
I blink. "Not… now?"
He chuckles. "No, we'll need more time. I have to do my part now. And you need to be far away from here."
***