5. Chapter Five
Chapter Five
“Tell me your name, where you are, and the day of the week.”
Kathleen blew out a breath. “Is this really necessary?”
“Part of the procedure, Detective.” The paramedic flashed a penlight into her eyes, momentarily blinding her. “Name, where you are—”
“And serial number. I got it. Kathleen Harper, the back of an ambulance. It’s Thursday night, almost Friday by now, and I’m fine.”
The paramedic didn’t even blink. The woman likely had to put up with a lot of unruly patients as part of her regular work. “No concussion. I’ve cleaned your shoulder—it’s just a graze, so it will heal cleanly. You’re clear. Get some rest, Detective.”
“Thanks.” Kathleen stepped down from the ambulance.
Despite the late hour, the entire street was lit up with flashing blue and reds. It used to be that seeing that sight gave her comfort, knowing fellow law enforcement officers were on site.
These days she associated them with massive fuck ups, lots of bodies—or in this case—both.
The door to the Imperial Silk Palace opened, and the coroner’s assistant wheeled out a body. Behind him, two familiar figures followed, talking in quiet tones. The older of the pair, Captain Samantha Murphy, was in her late fifties, her dark hair streaked with gray. She had the stern set of someone who had been in the job too long. In contrast, Detective Toshi Gibson looked like he’d had a full night’s sleep.
Kathleen was well aware of the warning glance Murphy gave her and the obvious order to Detective Gibson before the Captain walked briskly to the perimeter where a small crowd of onlookers and a few reporters had gathered.
Gibson walked directly toward Kathleen, giving her a once-over. Kathleen resisted the urge to bristle, reminding herself he wasn’t a client but her partner. Sometimes she let herself get too into character.
“Harper.”
“Gibson.”
“How’s the shoulder? They cleared you already?” Gibson looked down—she had buttoned her shirt, but it still didn’t cover much.
He wordlessly shrugged out of his jacket, offering it to her.
Her eyes ticked to the jacket, then across the parking lot. She appreciated the offer, but out here, in front of everyone else, it felt like a weakness to accept. “Shoulder’s fine. Just a scrape. And I’m not cold, thanks.”
“The Captain asked me to get you to walk the scene before you’re clear to leave,” Gibson said, still holding out his jacket.
Of course she did. Sam Murphy was a hard taskmaster and politically savvy. There were bound to be plenty of eyes on this. Especially if any of those nosy reporters already peppering her with questions realized the connection to the recent murder of Lachlan Hayden. She wanted something to give them, and soon.
Which meant Kathleen’s night wasn’t over yet.
Relenting, she accepted Gibson’s jacket, pulling her arms into it and wrapping it around her. It was a thoughtful gesture. Gibson wasn’t one to worry about working with—or for—a woman, but there were plenty in law enforcement for whom that was not the case. Walking a scene dressed as she was invited assumptions—and she had worked hard to build her reputation within the force.
Something Toshi Gibson knew well.
It was one of the many reasons Kathleen liked him. The other being that he didn’t try to get too personal. It had been a fruitful working partnership of two years.
Gibson led the way inside. He didn’t stop and hold the door open for her. A single comment early in their partnership had established that boundary. Kathleen knew he didn’t view it that way, but others saw any concession, even one as small as holding open a door, as a sign of weakness.
And she wasn’t weak.
The inside of the Palace looked alien in the bright slash of portable floodlights the crime scene unit had set up. Gibson and Kathleen both stopped to put baggies on their feet. She paused to slip off the heels. Going barefoot, even if there might have been blood on the ground, was a relief.
Several crime scene technicians were hard at work around the room, taking photographs and bagging evidence. Near the entrance to the VIP room, another body was being bagged, and Kathleen stopped, dragged to a halt by a weight that pressed on her chest.
The dark hair, her gentle smile. Lisa wasn’t going home to her son tonight. Kathleen almost said it aloud, but what was the point? What could she, or even Gibson, do about that?
“Harper?” Gibson prompted.
“Yes.” Kathleen pressed her teeth together as she tore her gaze from the dead woman, taking in the rest of the room. The pressure lingered, but she ignored it. That was the job. “I didn’t see what happened out here. I was back in the VIP room.”
“From what we can tell, the perp entered the front door and gunned down everyone who carried a weapon. He was pretty deliberate about it. There were a few civilian casualties, but they looked accidental,” Gibson said as they walked through the space.
Was that why he had left her alone? “The VIP room’s sound proofed. He could’ve been working out here for an hour, and I wouldn’t have heard him.”
“It wasn’t long, according to the remaining witnesses. They’re drunk and freaked out. Couldn’t produce a coherent description of the perp. Anyway, it backs up the medical examiner. He’s already estimating the time of death for those in proximity. Perp was methodical, quick.”
The technicians wheeled away Lisa’s body, and Kathleen saw another just beyond where she had fallen. Most of Victor’s face was gone, but she still recognized the tattooed enforcer. One of his hands was flung outwards, almost like he had been reaching toward Lisa.
Kathleen wondered if he had put up a fight. If it mattered.
The guy was a dirtbag, and she knew it. He hurt people, and she didn’t feel sorry for him. But she still felt it.
There’s no room for sentiment on a job like this, Captain Murphy had told her on the first day she joined the homicide branch. Not if you want to survive.
And she did, very much so.
Kathleen pushed through the door into the VIP room.
This area was also brightly lit, and the devastation more apparent. The grenades had shredded the gaming tables nearest the door. There were blood stains here and there, but no bodies.
“He walked in here and immediately threw two grenades,” Kathleen said. After he looked at her, she thought, but no way was she going to share that fanciful thought aloud. She was starting to think she had imagined it. “He had them prepped. It didn’t matter that there were civilians, though they weren’t his targets.”
“So why did he try to kill them?”
Kathleen pictured him stalking toward her, no reaction at all in his expression to the explosions at his back. It was like she was looking at an automaton. But she had seen that expression before: in the eyes of military veterans and old cops who had seen a great deal of violence. The assassin had appeared to be in his early thirties—too young to have that dead look in his eyes, though.
She shrugged. “I think they were just in the way.”
Gibson didn’t like that. Kathleen saw him frown her way, but she kept moving deeper into the room, past other tables. He followed, content to let her set the pace.
“He was exceptionally proficient with his weaponry. The way he held the rifle, the way he fired. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was ex-military.”
“So, some kind of nutjob thing?”
“No,” Kathleen said, sharper than she intended.
Gibson was studying her, but she kept looking at couches. The initial rattle of the gunfire had torn them up. The bodies had been removed, and she was grateful for that. She didn’t want to picture Michael or Daniel or the two women too closely—because their fate should have been her fate.
Kathleen couldn’t explain why she wasn’t also dead.
She fought to keep her voice even. “He was focused, driven. With the others, he didn’t check them. But with these, four, five here—he walked up to each and put a couple of extra bullets in them.”
“A hit job?”
“It makes sense. I dropped down when the assassin first fired, and I pulled Daniel Liang, the leader, with me. He was hit in the first spray, but he was still alive.”
“You protected that shit heel?”
“We needed to know who hired him. Now we’ve got fucking nothing.”
“All right.” Gibson’s hands lifted, signaling surrender. “Maybe that’s why he left you alive. He saw you protecting this guy. He recognized you as law enforcement.”
Kathleen was conscious of the painful tear at her scalp as the assassin pulled her up by her hair. Her skin was still stinging from it, but that wasn’t what had her distracted. It was the feeling that had been welling in her since the killer had pulled her to her feet. A warmth between her legs.
She had liked it. The way he had grabbed her, the way his eyes had skated over her neck like he wanted to devour her. She felt a stirring of desire that hadn’t ever come over her unexpectedly like this.
Kathleen could name a dozen similar situations—close calls, near deaths—but she had never had a reaction like this. Maybe she didn’t know herself as well as she thought—or maybe, somehow, he knew her better than she imagined. The way he’d looked at her, his blue eyes sharpening like someone waking from a fugue into sudden awareness…
“Harper?”
“Yeah. Sorry.” Kathleen shook her head. “Tired.” She was, but it was more than that.
“I think I got what I needed. I can get started on the initial report, and you can close it out in the morning. Given the press, I’m betting Murphy will want to debrief you herself.”
“I bet. Thanks, Gibson.”
“No problem. Let me give you a ride.”
Kathleen didn’t bother to hide her relief. “I’ll be glad to stop driving that Chrysler. It smelled of something worse than dead.”
Gibson chuckled. “I won’t tell you what the techs cleaned out of it then.”
Kathleen wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. I know you’re joking, but please don’t. I need to sleep tonight.”
Home was a condo in Cathedral Heights. The building had a solid security door and a doorman, and it was hideously expensive—far above her salary. Kathleen had inherited it six years ago, not long after she joined the force. She had never met the distant relative of her mother who willed it to her, but she was grateful for it every time she came home. She had lived in cheaper accommodation for her first six months in the force and experienced nightmares every night.
Now they only came once a week. Kathleen took that as a win.
Gibson parked his truck outside the front of the complex, and Kathleen reached for the door handle.
“You want me to come in?” Gibson asked.
A tension coiled in her gut. They had slept together a few times, but it wasn’t any kind of relationship, just a mutual need to blow off steam during particularly frustrating cases. They hadn’t done that for a while, and she had never let him into her condo. Kathleen wasn’t about to change that.
“Aren’t you seeing that blonde dispatcher? What’s her name? Sally?”
Gibson rolled his shoulders, sighing as he glanced sideways at her. “I’m trying to be a friend, Harper. I’m pretty shit at it, admittedly, but I’m trying.”
Kathleen snorted. This was another reason she liked Gibson. Sometimes he echoed some of her thoughts. “Yeah. I’m shit at it, too. I’m good, though. Just going to take a shower and crawl into bed.”
“Listen, if you can’t sleep tonight, you call me. I’ll shout you a round of beers at some seedy bar. Anytime.”
Kathleen bit off a flippant reply because she knew he was being sincere. “Thanks, Gibson.” She remembered, at the last minute, to return his jacket, then waved him off as he peeled away.
She smiled at the doorman as she walked inside. “Hi, Ben.”
The man was a fixture of the building. He’d been in the job even before Kathleen moved in. It was always a relief to see his steady features and brown eyes peering at her from behind his glasses, a sign she was safe at home. Even though he wasn’t physically muscular, Ben was in good shape for a man in his forties. Since he confessed he was studying karate, knowing he was guarding the door had been a great comfort.
“Detective Harper.” Ben nodded to her as he pushed the door shut. “Rough night?”
It made Kathleen chuckle. He knew what she did for a living. Ben had long ago stopped being surprised at the various states she turned up in. “You can say that. If anyone comes by for me, I’m out of the country.”
“You got it, Detective.”
Kathleen slipped off her heels, leaning into the wall and massaging her aching arches as the elevator creaked its way up to her third-floor condo. The combined lounge and kitchen area in the one-bedroom condo provided most of the open space, creating a light and airy feel, especially when the door to the balcony was open.
When she first moved in, she had tried her hand at decorating. She’d bought prints at cheap stores and markets and bartered a bedside table and lamps. She was proud of the black leather couch—it was long enough for her to stretch out and comfortable enough that she had fallen asleep on it far too many times to count. Her record collection was her other great score, collected over the years.
Kathleen pulled a record out and set it on the player: Beethoven’s 7th symphony. She thought it was one of the records her mother used to play when she was little, but she couldn’t be sure. Her parents had died when she was young, and she had been in foster homes until she aged out. The music gave her peace, easing the band of tension she had been harboring in her gut.
Cracking open the window, she leaned out to check the plate. Still full. There was a stray cat Kathleen left food out for, but it didn’t always show up, especially in the warmer months. She didn’t mind. It was a relationship of mutual benefit at best.
Shedding her clothing on the floor, Kathleen walked through her bedroom and into the bathroom, grateful she wouldn’t have to wear the hated garters again. She might even have a bonfire party—those were supposed to be cathartic.
The shower stall sat next to the marvelously deep bath where she regularly indulged in long soaks after a hard shift. For now, though, she just wanted to get clean. When she turned the hot water on full, the water pipes creaked and groaned in protest, finally settling into a steady hum. She stepped under the relaxing stream of hot water, a long breath escaping her lips as the heat soaked into her muscles. Her shoulder ached where the bullet had nicked it, but the waterproof bandage the paramedic had put on held in place.
Thinking of it brought to mind the assassin. His blue eyes darkening as they found hers, his muscles bulging as his hand wrapped into her hair, his gaze ticking down…
Kathleen traced her fingers along her neck. She imagined his lips following the path his eyes had taken, trailing down her throat.
She felt a tingling between her legs and took a breath.
What the fuck.
She would not touch herself over an assassin. Get a grip, Harper.
Kathleen spun the cold water up and showered with quick efficiency, shivering. Her long hair was almost dry by the time she finished her microwaved dinner and climbed under the pile of blankets on her bed.
She wondered what he was doing: where he was, what he was thinking. Almost certainly, he wasn’t thinking of her, so why was she thinking of him?