Black Is Back (Quentin Black Mystery #4) (32 page)

I glanced at Angel again.

I hadn’t told her any of this, either.

After another pause, I exhaled in frustration, combing my fingers through my wet hair. “It’s not Black’s fault. I had kind of a panic moment myself yesterday... I must have scared him. I called for help... from Black, I mean. But I was totally overreacting...”

Nick’s voice grew wary. “Overreacting to what, Miri?”

Sighing again, I just said it. “The guy. I felt him. The Templar.”

Silence.

“I was in Chinatown,” I said, exhaling again. “I’d just had lunch with Lacey, and I felt him looking at me. He was following me, I think... and I don’t know, I guess I panicked. I called Black.
That
way, I mean... not with my phone.” I felt impatience on Nick, like he’d already figured out what I meant. “...But he never answered, and I didn’t feel the guy again, so I thought maybe I just imagined it. I thought about calling you, but what could I say? I felt a ‘presence’ watching me? I didn’t have anything concrete to give you, Nick. I tried tracking him, pretty much right after I felt him... but the guy’s a ghost. I lost him really fast.”

The silence deepened.

I didn’t read Nick––I never read Nick. But in this case, I didn’t have to.

I knew him well enough to know he was about to explode.

“Look, don’t freak out, Naoko,” I said. “If I’d felt the guy again––even for a
second
––I absolutely would have told you. I didn’t want to waste your time on something so flimsy, not with only one contact. I knew you were busy following real leads. I also knew you’d probably overreact if you thought the guy might be following me around, so I wanted to be sure what I was feeling was
real
before you wasted a bunch of resources on my funny feelings...”

“You mean, the ‘funny feeling’ that a
serial killer
was stalking you, Miri? A professional killer we already know has a hard-on for you? Is that the ‘funny feeling’ you meant?” He paused, and his voice grew lower, cold as ice. “You know my favorite part of all this, Miriam? It’s the part where you took it upon yourself to try and
track
the fucker... alone... and I’m assuming unarmed. In
Chinatown,
of all places...”

I exhaled again, glancing up when I felt Black. He stood in the doorway, his hair wet as he glared at me, buttoning up his shirt.

“Is that Nick?” he said.

I’d barely nodded when Black stepped forward. Moving in his usual, inhumanly fast way, he scooped the phone right out of my hand. Before I could protest, he’d already put it to his ear.

“Hey,” he said, his voice gruff. “It’s me.”

I could hear Nick on the other side of the phone.

I had no idea what he’d said, but he sounded pissed as hell, and not at Black.

“Yeah,” Black said, giving me a pointed glare before he turned his back on me, walking out of the kitchen with my phone. “...I know,” he said. “It’s fine. My people have been on her since yesterday. A car’s still outside, keeping an eye on the road...”

He paused, as if listening to something from Nick.

“Yeah, I know. I just called them. They haven’t seen anything. We can do shifts if you’d rather. I just thought...”

He trailed again, and again I knew it was because Nick was talking.

I’d stiffened at his words, though, and now I stared at his retreating back. When he didn’t spare me so much as a glance, I looked at Angel.

“Did he really just say his
people
have been on me?”

“Yup. He did.”

“That they were here last night?”

“Yup. He said that, too.”

I frowned, still staring into the other room. “And you heard him just now, right? Talking to Nick, like... I don’t know... they’re best buddies all the sudden? What did I miss?”

Angel laughed, leaning back in the chair, her arms folded, her coffee cup balanced on her arm. Shaking her head, she met my gaze, her eyes serious despite the smile on her lips.

“Black’s trying, doc. Don’t know if you noticed, but he seems pretty determined to establish a solid place for himself in your life. Hell, maybe Nick’s even accepted the inevitable by now and he’s trying too.” Watching me with that more subtle scrutiny, she smiled wider. “Anyway, I thought you
wanted
us all to get along. You change your mind, doc?”

I took another sip of my coffee, my jaw clenching slowly.

I could still hear them talking in the other room, and now I was having trouble not eavesdropping. Was Angel right about Black? Was he playing nice with Nick because he wanted them all to get along now? Because he saw Nick as a part of my life?

Putting that together with what we’d talked about just that morning, I felt that pain in my chest worsen. When that pain turned to a harder nausea from the nerves that washed back over me, I set down the giant orange coffee cup I held. I stared at the face of the grinning cartoon cat on the face of it, then turned, focusing on Angel with an effort.

“Nick wants us to meet him down there now. At Stow Lake.”

Angel tensed perceptibly. “Another victim?”

I shook my head. “He said no. But he was being... weird. Even before I mentioned Chinatown. I have no idea what it was about, but something happened.” I hesitated, meeting her gaze. “And the Templar has that whole water, purification thing.”

“Stow Lake is freshwater though, right?”

I nodded slowly. “So maybe it’s a coincidence.”

For a moment we just sat there. I realized I was listening for Black again in the other room. When I realized what I was doing, I flushed a little, glancing at Angel. She smiled at me knowingly, then shook her head, stretching as she looked out the window at the view.

“Okay,” she said, still extending her arms overhead. “Guess I’d better get dressed.”

Black and Nick were still talking on the phone when I skulked past him to get to the bathroom. Luckily, the hair dryer in there was loud enough that it drowned out any lingering temptation I might have had to try and eavesdrop more.

WE LEFT ABOUT twenty minutes later.

Angel surprised me, announcing we’d take her car for the trip to Stow Lake.

I rode shotgun, mostly because Black insisted. Black climbed in directly behind me, stretching out his long legs in the limited space afforded him in the classic car. We’d only been driving a short while before he leaned forward though, and then his arm wrapped around the back of my seat and he was caressing my neck and shoulder, then massaging my arm. I fought back and forth on whether I wanted to push back on that, especially given where we were going––but in all honesty, I’d been struggling with the lack of contact too.

I ended up leaning into his arm and palm and fingers instead.

Angel glanced at us. When she did, I looked up at Black too, but he was staring straight ahead, through the windshield, his hand still wrapped around my shoulder but without him acknowledging it overtly, or me.

Heat was pulsing off his fingers now though, and he’d leaned against my seat, so I could practically feel his heart beating through the space between us.

“Are they going to follow us?” Angel asked him, meaning Black. He didn’t look over, not at either of us, so she cleared her throat. “Black? Your friends who had eyes on my place all night. They going to follow us to the scene?”

Black gave her a brief look. Then he looked back at the road. “Should I have asked you?”

Angel shrugged, gripping the steering wheel with both hands.

“Sorry,” he said. “Next time I’ll ask.”

She let out a half-humorous snort, rolling her eyes without taking them off the road.

“Nice car,” he commented then, giving her a faint smile.

That time, her eyes slide sideways towards him as she lifted an eyebrow, but when she saw his smile, she gave him a more genuine smile back, shaking her head.

“Thanks, Quentin,” she said.

Angel drove a mint condition, midnight blue with white racing stripes, 1970 Plymouth Hemi Barracuda. It was a vehicle I used to forget she even owned––for the longest time, she only ever rode her motorcycle to work, and kept her car safely locked in her garage.

But something changed in the last few months. Maybe it was that she and Anthony, her on-again, off-again boyfriend of the past four years, seemed a lot more “on-again” and serious as of the last six or seven months. Because of that, they were going on a lot more road trips to Tahoe and the wine country and Big Sur, among other places.

Either way, Angel had definitely loosened up about her car.

She’d
really
loosened up if she was taking it to a crime scene. I knew a time when she would have called a cab rather than risk scratching her baby by taking it somewhere filled with hotshot cops in city vehicles and lab-rat CSI guys and whatever else.

Maybe she got tired of looking at the thing parked in a garage and only wiping it down with an oiled diaper once a week. Nick used to always bitch at her about that, telling her what a waste it was, to leave an engine like that up on cinderblocks, essentially, and not drive it.

Or maybe something else had changed.

I knew the car had sentimental attachment for Angel. She’d fixed it up with her father before he died, so it was her last real connection to him.

I could understand that. I had nothing of my parents.

I used to envy her for having this.

When I glanced over next, Black was looking at me.

Before I could look away, he leaned closer, kissing me on the mouth. The kiss grew warmer, then deepened before I thought about whether I should let it. Then I decided I didn’t care about that either. When he parted my lips with his tongue, kissing me harder, I wrapped my arms around his neck. The next time he paused, I was stroking his hair with my fingers.

I’ll let you rip apart my motorcycle and put it back together if you want, doc,
he sent, smiling faintly.
I’ve got a few classic cars, too. Pick one.

I kissed his neck, leaning my face against his.

I’m sorry,
I told him softly.
About before.

His fingers tightened in my hair, and I felt that warmth on him flare.

Softer still, I added,
I love you.

Pain ribboned out of him. It hit me intensely enough that my breath caught. He kissed me again, harder, but I could feel myself losing touch with myself again, losing touch with the car. It scared me, given where we were. That fear forced me to break off the kiss.

He didn’t seem to mind. Or maybe he just felt why I’d done it.

Either way, when I looked up, he smiled. Kissing my cheek, he pressed his face into mine.

Thank you for saying that... gaos,
he sent, soft. He kissed me again, then met my gaze, his eyes more serious.
I want to talk later. About the other thing.

Glancing up, I studied his eyes. Realizing I already knew what he meant, I nodded, forcing myself to relax.
I know. And you’re right. We should.

I want to talk about what you need from me, to make that real... because it’s real to me, doc. It’s real now.

Meeting his gaze, I nodded again, swallowing.
Okay. I understand...

But he wasn’t finished.

I’m willing to wait on making it formal with everyone else,
he added, still caressing my jaw with a finger.
I’m willing to wait for as long as you need... I mean that... but not forever, doc. And not if it means I’m pretending what happened with us didn’t happen.