Any Given Doomsday (2 page)

“Back in the system.”

I winced, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Even if I were capable of mothering eight problem kids, the state would never let me.

“You think someone hit you?” Hammond asked.

“Someone did. Ruthie grabbed my hand and then… wham! Next thing I knew I woke up here.”

The two of them exchanged glances.

“What?”

Landsdown nodded and Hammond spoke. “According to the doctor there wasn’t a mark on you. No head trauma. No gunshot or knife wound. No drugs in your system.”

“But—” I lifted my hand, trailing tubes and sensors. I didn’t feel any bumps. “How long have I been out?”

“Four days.”

I glanced at the window where snow still swirled. I’d been right about the weather. Still springtime in Wisconsin. Gotta love it.

“Someone hit me,” I insisted stubbornly.

“Maybe you fainted.”

I glared at Landsdown. I did not faint at the sight of blood like a swooning maiden.

“If no one conked me on the head,” I pointed out, “then why was I in a coma for four days?”

Hammond shrugged. “No one knows.”

The two detectives shifted in their chairs, then twitched their necks as if their ties were too tight. Considering that the offending pieces of clothing appeared to have been loosened hours ago, perhaps when they’d slept in those suits, I didn’t need a psychic flash to understand they wanted to ask me something, and then again, they didn’t.

“We need a favor.” Hammond actually tried to smile. He must have needed a favor bad.

“Mmm,” I said noncommittally. Without even a
do you mind
? Hammond tossed something at me, and I caught it. The instant I did, I murmured, “Jimmy.”

“Jesus,” Landsdown muttered. “How do you
do
that?”

I wish I knew. Because if I did maybe I could quit doing it.

If wishing could have made the bursts of intuition disappear, they’d have been gone shortly after I was able to voice what I’d been seeing all my life. That was when everything pretty much went to hell.

“Where is he?” Landsdown demanded.

“What?” I shook the cobwebs from my mind, peered at the baseball cap gripped desperately in my fingers. The Yankees. I hated the Yankees. Doesn’t everyone?

“Do you see where he is?” Hammond murmured.

My heart picked up in panic. These guys were homicide. However, if they wanted me to tell them where Jimmy was, he couldn’t be dead. Or at least I hoped not. I might have kicked him out of my bed a long, long time ago, but I’d had a much tougher time kicking Jimmy Sanducci out of my heart.

“No.” I pitched the cap into Landsdown’s ample lap. “What do you want with him?”

They exchanged glances again. The two of them were like an old married couple, which is what most longtime partners were. They squabbled, made up, shared jokes, and spoke without having to speak.

My partner and I had been like that, which was why he’d listened to me when I said I had a “hunch” where we could find the strung-out junkie who’d killed his supplier. Because of me, that strung-out junkie had also killed Max.

“You’re acquainted with Sanducci?” Landsdown’s voice brought me back to the hospital.

“You know damn well I am.”

They might be annoying, but they were thorough. They knew about Jimmy and me—at least what was fit to print in the records of social services.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

I didn’t bother to be nice. I rarely did—especially when the conversation involved Jimmy Sanducci.

“I believe it was right after I told him not to let the door hit him in his incredible ass on his way out of my life.”

Hammond coughed, but his lips quivered as he tried not to laugh.

“You had a relationship with Mr. Sanducci?” Lands-down asked.

“No.”

What Jimmy and I once had could by no stretch of the imagination be called a relationship. Jimmy didn’t understand the meaning of the word. In truth, neither did I. I shouldn’t be angry with him, but I was.

“Why are you looking for him?”

Hammond met my eyes. “Why do you think?”

For several beats I still didn’t get it. When I did, I straightened so fast Hammond reared back and nearly upset his chair.

“Jimmy wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“He wasn’t so particular about hurting people when he was a kid.”

My eyes narrowed. Juvenile records were sealed. They couldn’t know about Jimmy and—

I cut that thought off before it could drift through my mind and show on my face. But I wasn’t fast enough.

“You know Sanducci is capable of murder,” Lands-down said triumphantly.

I did. But I wasn’t going to tell them that.

“He’d never hurt Ruthie. Never.”

Hammond shrugged. He didn’t seem convinced.

“Why are you so sure he did it?”

“Smoking gun.”

“Gun?” That definitely didn’t sound like Jimmy.

“Figure of speech,” Hammond said. “Knife. Pure silver.”

I winced.
That
sounded more like Jimmy. He’d always been weird about his knives.

“He fled the scene.”

“You’re gonna need more than that.”

“Fingerprints on the knife, hell, every old place.”

“Too dumb for Sanducci.”

Landsdown lifted a brow. “Why would a photographer be so savvy about evidence?”

Jimmy was a globe-trotting portrait wizard. Annie Lei-bovitz with a penis. An artiste of epic proportions. Everyone who was anyone wanted their picture taken by the great Sanducci.

“Any moron knows better than to touch everything,” I said.

“Maybe he was pissed. Maybe he’d just found out Ruthie was going to leave you all that she had.”

I frowned. “Ruthie doesn’t have anything.”

“According to the neighbors, they were shouting at each other. Then Ruthie’s dead; Sanducci’s running. Open and shut.”

Not so much. Jimmy never yelled. Unless it was at me.

“Do you know where he is?” Landsdown pressed.

“Give her the hat again,” Hammond ordered.

I held up my hand. “It doesn’t work like that. You can’t tell me what you want to know then expect an answer. I’m not a crystal ball.”

“What are you?”

Though Landsdown’s voice was neutral, his face gave him away. He thought I was an aberration, if not a con artist.

“I’ve never been quite sure of that myself,” I murmured. “I get flashes sometimes when I touch things or people.”

“But not always?” Hammond asked.

“No.”

“And not now.” Landsdown sighed. “Let’s go.”

I didn’t bother to say good-bye, just listened to the door shut behind them, then, seconds later, listened as another opened behind me.

“Why didn’t you tell them?”

The voice came out of the darkness, flowing over me like a warm summer wind, making me remember things I’d spent years trying to forget.

“You knew I wouldn’t, Jimmy. Otherwise you never would have come here.”

Chapter 3

I could smell him from across the room—cool water, tart soap, and a hint of cinnamon to his aftershave. Jimmy always smelled like he’d just stepped out of the shower. Usually because he had.

No doubt a remnant of a childhood without abundant water and scented toiletries, his teen years had been full of both. Sometimes he took three or four showers a day. I wondered that his skin didn’t peel off.

I bit my lip to keep from saying something I’d regret. I hated him, but I loved him too. Talk about a gift and a curse.

He hovered in the shadows; I reached for the light. “Don’t,” he murmured.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I couldn’t lie here any longer. I felt fine. Better than fine, in fact. Rested, jazzed, ultra-alert—not at all the way I assumed I’d feel after a four-day sojourn in the land of coma.

The tubes and wires prevented me from getting up, so I yanked them out. The IV hurt like a bitch anyway.

As I got to my feet, I flicked the switch on my bedside lamp. I never had been very good at taking orders, especially from Jimmy.

The muted glow spread across the faded tile, lending just enough light to see. He had one helluva shiner.

“Ah, Jimmy.” I lifted my hand toward his face.

He had the good sense to step away. “Baby, if you want to go back to where we were when you threw me out, I’m all for it. But right now I’m a little busy running for my life.”

“Do
not
call me ‘baby.’“ My hand, which had been hovering in the air, clenched into a fist. “You don’t ever get to call me ‘baby’ again.”

The pain in my voice surprised me. I’d thought I’d gotten over his betrayal. Guess not.

“Fine.” He sighed. “Just don’t touch me. I—” He broke off and ran a hand through his hair. Longer than I remembered, but just as sleek and black. “Never mind.”

Everything about him was dark—his eyes, his clothes, his heart. His complexion, tan even in the middle of winter, pointed at several heritages, but he didn’t know any for certain. Like me, Jimmy had been dumped. He hadn’t a clue who his parents were any more than I did.

Despite the shiner—or perhaps because of it—he still looked the same. Too good. Jimmy Sanducci was major eye candy, always had been. It was how he’d survived on the streets for so long.

There were things he’d done even I didn’t know about, and I didn’t want to. I’d done things too. Until you’re so hungry you’d wrestle garbage away from a rat, you have no idea what you’re capable of. Jimmy and I knew. We were two of a kind.

“Did you do it?” I asked.

His black eyes flicked to mine. “Fuck you.”

“Not in this lifetime. Or at least not again.”

“What the hell did I come here for?”

He started toward the door; I blocked his way. “What
did
you come here for?”

“Lizzy,” he warned.

Jimmy was the only one who dared call me that. To everyone else I was Elizabeth—Liz if you were really trying to be my pal. But Lizzy? Just try it, and Jimmy’s shiner would look good to you in the morning.

“Did. You. Do. It.” I punctuated each word with a step forward; with each one he took a step back until his shoulders slammed against the wall.

He wanted to deck me; I saw it in his eyes. But while Jimmy might have done things he couldn’t forgive himself for, he would never hit a woman, especially me. I hit back. He’d learned that the hard way when we were twelve.

I smiled at the memory of the first day we’d met. He’d been living at Ruthie’s for two years; I was brand-new. Fresh from another foster home that hadn’t wanted to keep me.

I was an angry twelve-year-old. Taller than the other girls, already “developing” and mortified by it. I wore shapeless clothes, hunched my shoulders, let my hair cover my face. On the streets, in the system, you didn’t want to be noticed. And a girl like me, with my special talents, wanted to be noticed even less than most.

“What’s so funny?” Jimmy slumped against the wall as if he needed it to hold him up. Were there more bruises than the ones I could see?

Always.

“I was remembering the first time I had to kick your ass.”

He tilted his head and his too-long hair slid over his injured eye. “And that was funny?” “Hilarious.” Jimmy was the big cheese at Ruthie’s place. He’d had to move in with one of the other boys so I could have his room. He wasn’t pleased, so he’d put a grass snake in my bed.

I’d named the snake James, found him a cage, then loosened Sanducci’s teeth the next morning. He hadn’t messed with me again.

Until we were seventeen.

And there was a memory 1 didn’t want to revisit. Not now with him so close and me naked beneath my thin, gaping hospital gown.

“Who hit you?” I asked.

“Does it matter?”

“If you want me to help, you need to tell me everything.”

“Who said I wanted help?”

“Why did you come here if not for that?”

He looked away, out the window where the snow still swirled. “Maybe I wanted to keep an eye on you.”

I recalled waking up once, the sensation that I wasn’t alone, then that weird flash of monsters.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“How long?”

I could just see him hiding in the bathroom, watching me. Hell, he’d done it before. Back when peeping at me was his idea of foreplay.

“Not long.” He flicked a finger at my hair. “When did you cut it?”

I blinked at the change of subject. What did my hair have to do with anything?

“Years ago,” I snapped, the amount of time reminding me that when I’d thrown him out, he hadn’t returned. Why was that almost harder to forgive than his betrayal had been?

“You had really pretty hair.”

Everything seemed out of sync. Jimmy in my hospital room, talking about my hair when the cops wanted to arrest him for Ruthie’s murder. I’d had dreams like this before—so full of mundane activities that they must mean something, though I never could figure out what.

The reality of Ruthie’s loss hit me, making me a little dizzy, causing me to snap out an answer. “Having hair down to your ass causes too many problems when you’re a cop.”

“I heard you weren’t a cop anymore.”

As if 1 needed to be reminded.

“The third time some dickhead spit his gum into my hair through the wire cage in the squad car, I hacked it off. It was so much easier, I never went back.”

“Seems even darker short.”

“My hair’s the same color it always was.”

Dark brown with a twinkle of red—mahogany in certain lights. My skin was also darker than the average Caucasian. I was part something else, but what that could be was anyone’s guess. My blue eyes were as much a mystery as the rest of me.

“What happened at Ruthie’s?” I asked.

“According to your cop pals, I killed her.” He stared at me for several seconds. “You seem to think I did too.”

“You wouldn’t.”

His brows lifted. “Such faith. I’m touched.”

“I’m the only friend you’ve got right now, Sanducci.
Don’t
piss me off.”

“i doubt I’ll be able to manage that,” he muttered.

“Just tell me what happened. Why would you and Ruthie argue? Who came to the house? Who killed her? And how could they if you were there?”