Black As Night (Quentin Black Mystery #2) (29 page)

This isn’t a good time. I’m at the docks. We’ve checked two of the barges––

I know where you are,
I snapped.
I just saw you...through him. He’s following you, Black. You need to come back to the hotel. Now. I mean it. Have your people check the barges the old-fashioned way.

I felt him thinking about my words.

Like I’d feared, they didn’t create the reaction in him that I wanted.

I felt his anger rise instead, along with a harder determination that felt a lot more calculating. I also felt his relief, and had to fight not to yell at him when I realized what it was from.

He was glad Solonik was there. He was glad Solonik was there and no where near the Hanu Hotel and me. As soon as that crossed my mind, I realized something else.

I felt zero surprise on him that Solonik had followed him.

Black might have even gone down there partly for that reason, deliberately baiting Solonik to come after him. Trying to lure him away from me. Or maybe trying to tempt him to try and move Lawless’s grandson, Pete, before Black’s people could get to him.

I decided he probably was doing at least one of those things.

Or more likely, all of them.

It’s fine,
he assured me.
Thanks for the head’s up. I’ll contact you in a bit, doc.

Goddamn it, Black––

But he’d pushed me firmly out of his mind.

Before I could try and speak to him again, he’d closed some kind of door between us.

After I tried a few more times to get through, I found myself staring at the water again, breathing harder as I fought to think. Farraday watched me with overt concern now, but I ignored his worried stare, looking over my shoulder and once more watching Kiko and the other guard where they sat under the shade of the building.

I didn’t have a lot of time.

Twelve

FAMILY

“HI,” I SAID, smiling as I approached their table.

I’d brought my second cappuccino with me, thinking it might make me appear calmer, more rational. I knew, above all, I would need to come across as both reasoning and non-reactionary, as someone thinking with their head, not due to trauma and fear. If they decided I was having some kind of PTSD panic reaction to what had happened to me, they would definitely blow off anything I said about Black’s safety.

From the wary look on Kiko’s face, and her glance at the broad-shouldered man sitting next to her, I could tell my attempted nonchalance didn’t really work.
 

I sank down on the chair across from the two of them, placing my cup and saucer on the table.

“I wondered if I could talk to you...the two of you,” I added, including the man with a glance when he looked up. “Farraday tells me you’re my protective detail.”

Kiko darted a second look at her companion, another of Black’s tattooed, ex-military-looking guys, an African-American man maybe in his mid-thirties who I also recognized from San Francisco. He smiled at me in a friendly way, giving me a chin-nod before he went back to decimating the plate of eggs, bacon, pancakes and sausage that sat on the table in front of him.

I guess I wasn’t the only one who’d been hungry.

“Talk away, doc,” he said, after swallowing another mouthful of pancake. He aimed his fork at my chest. “So long as it’s not, ‘I’d like to leave your sight for a few seconds later this morning,’ or ‘hey, can you two come with me to buy some new shoes anywhere but the hotel lobby’ or ‘can I go touring?’...we’re all ears.”

He grinned at me when I started, frowning. Then he gave me a wink.

“Black warned us about you, doc,” he said. “He said you’re smart enough to talk a rabbit into thinking it could fight a german shepherd. He also said he’d make sure neither of us was equipped to have children ever again if we let you out of our sight––or out of this hotel––for even a fraction of a fraction of a second. So don’t even think about using that smooth tongue of yours on either of us. The answer is no.”

He waved his fork over the pool.

“...You can go for a swim. You can get a massage, but we’re going to be right there with you, in the room. You can take a nap, but one of us will be planted on a chair next to the bed...the other will be right outside your door. Expect to get really really used to seeing us, Ms. Fox, pretty much anywhere you intend to be. Kiks here claims she’s even going to follow you into the toilet...and Kiks doesn’t joke, doc. Not about work. Not ever.”

Kiko nodded from next to him, stretching out her tanned legs and giving me an equally friendly smile. The look in her eyes was, if anything, even less compromising than the look in her partner’s.

“Dex is correct,” she confirmed. “I don’t joke.”

Exhaling in some irritation, I sat back in my chair. “This isn’t about me.”

The man Kiko called “Dex” looked at me in surprise. “The hell it isn’t,” he said. “Until that fucker’s in the ground, doc...or behind bars, something...it’s all about you. For me and Kiks, too. Sure as fuck for Black. You’ve become the center of our little world, isn’t that right, Kiko?”

“That is correct,” she confirmed. “The goddamned center.”

I nodded, but I couldn’t bring myself to smile at the joke, as much as I could feel them trying to pull me that way. Instead my mouth firmed in impatience.

“What if I told you Black is in danger?” I said. “What if I wanted you to put a protective detail on him? Right now, I mean...at the docks.”

Dex looked up. Obviously suppressing both surprise and a smile, he glanced at Kiko. Kiko didn’t return the smile part of his expression, or the disbelief, but she raised a questioning eyebrow at him in return. Shrugging, Dex looked back at his plate.

He didn’t manage to keep the humor out of his voice.

“Well, doc,” he drawled, still friendly. “I’d be prompted to ask you if you forgot who the boss is around here. And maybe whether you’d actually
met
Black, if you think he’d let us put a detail on him.”
 

“I haven’t forgotten,” I said, my voice equally even. “And I’ve met him. But Black doesn’t have all the information in this case. He also isn’t willing to listen to me about this right now because he’s too angry about what was done to me...”

Seeing Kiko and Dex exchange looks again, that time with discomfort in their traded expressions, I bit my lip. I hadn’t been playing that card on purpose, and wished I hadn’t said it, truthfully. It wouldn’t benefit me to remind them of what happened to me, not right now.

I deliberately calmed my voice again before continuing.

“What if I told you Solonik
wants
Black to come after him?” I said. “That he’s actively hoping for it, in fact?” Feeling Dex’s dismissal, I fought the frustration out of my voice with an effort when I added, “What if I told you he’s stalking Black right now?”

“I’d ask how you could possibly know that, doc,” Dex said mildly, giving me a level look.

“Because I know Solonik.”

Dex shook his head though, looking back at his food.

I pressed my lips together, looking between the two of them. I knew this was the rub. I had no way to tell them how I knew. Or how real-time my data truly was.

“What if I just asked you to trust me that I’m telling the truth?” I said. “That I’m not overreacting? That I’m genuinely worried about him?”

Dex let out an uncomfortable laugh, exchanging looks with Kiko.

“Look, doc. I know you’re fond of Black. We all are––”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“––And I didn’t mean that to be belittling,” Dex said, his voice warning. “But I don’t think you fully understand. It’s not just about you anymore. Or even just about Black.”

I looked between him and Kiko, frowning. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Dex sighed, watching me, his hands folded above his plate, his elbows on the table.

“Look, if you need me to pull rank on you, doc, I can do that,” he said, shaking his head. He went back to sawing into his pancake with his knife and fork. “You don’t sign my checks. Black does. You also seem less likely to
stab
me if I let you distract me from my job.” His coffee-colored eyes met mine. “But the truth is, I
agree
with Black, doc. I’d do the same whether he was paying me or not. Any of us here would.”

I looked at Kiko. Her face was harder to read. So was her mind for some reason. Even so, I could tell she agreed with what Dex had said. She agreed with Black, too.

“So you don’t even want possible intelligence from me?” I said, looking back at Dex.

“What intelligence would that be, doc?”

Both he and Kiko looked at me with sharper eyes.

I clenched my jaw, realizing that they both already thought I was having some kind of panic reaction from what Solonik had done to me. They didn’t believe my fears were real. They thought I’d made Solonik into the bogeyman in my mind.

Moreover, both of them thought I was sleeping with Black.

More than sleeping with him––they thought I was Black’s girlfriend.

Apparently that was unusual enough in and of itself that it was making Black’s entire team hyper-protective of me. On Black’s behalf, sure, but it was a strange thing to feel on relative strangers, regardless. Moreover, I knew it wouldn’t make this easier, it would make it harder.

I had no choice but to try, though.

“I know who he works for,” I said, frustrated. “Solonik. They aren’t the kind of people that even Black can take on and win, not by himself. Black has said as much to me––”

“Black can handle one asshole mercenary, doc. Don’t you worry.”

I started to argue, but Dex cut me off, resting his hands on either side of his plate.

“What makes you think this fucker could even
dream
about getting close to Black?” he said, gesturing with his fork towards the pool. “Are you really not paying attention to how seriously Mr. Black
takes
this issue, Ms. Fox?”

“I’m paying attention.” Frustration and now anger gritted my teeth. “But anyone can get hit by a sniper...you know that as well as I do.”

“You think
Black
doesn’t know that? Why the fuck do you think he’s got eyes on every entrance to this building?”

“I’m saying it might not be enough,” I said. “More than that, I’m saying
I
might not be the target. Are you hearing me on that at all?”

“I heard you.”

“But you’re just going to completely blow me off?”

Dex stared at me from over his plate, his lips sliding down in a puzzled frown. He glanced at Kiko, who was watching me with an even denser scrutiny.

Dex sighed then, turning back to his food. After taking a bite of bacon, he waved the fork at me again. “Stop angling, doc. Just spit it out. What is it you want from me, exactly?”

I bit my lip harder. “There’s no goddamned angle,” I said unable to control my temper that time. “I’m being as transparent as I can
possibly
be. Black’s not safe. He should not be out there alone. He’s playing right into what Solonik wants...”

Dex let out a disbelieving laugh. “So fucking what?”

“So what?” I stared at him. “Are you really willing to risk your boss’s life like that?”

Dex shrugged, focusing back on his food. Even so, something about his non-answer made me look between him and Kiko again.