Blood of Dawn (20 page)

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Authors: Tami Dane

BOOK: Blood of Dawn
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“You don’t know that,” Wagner shouted from outside.
“I’m just going to check this door,” I said, stepping up to the door leading into the house. Unlocked. “Look at that, it’s open.”
“Don’t do it.”
I turned the knob and pushed.
“Sloan, if something has happened to Jia, you could be considered a suspect if you go inside.”
“No way. I have you as my witness.” I stuck my head inside. I heard no sounds. No TVs. No people talking. Nothing. “Jia? Are you in there?”
No answer.
“Jia! If you’re in there, please say something. Do you need help?”
I held my breath and listened.
One second passed.
Another.
Then, a sound. Was that . . . a cry for help?
“I think she’s in here.” I ignored Wagner’s barked no and dove through the door. I was standing in a mudroom. “Jia? I’m here to help. Where are you?” I listened; but my heart was pounding so freaking loudly, I couldn’t hear. I stepped around shoes and headed toward the doorway, which opened into a narrow hall. That hall opened into an open kitchen and family room. “Jia?”
Thump.
Upstairs.
I took a left, running through a dining room and past a home office, turned left again, and took the steps two at a time.
“Jia?” I called.
Thump.
I followed the sound to a closed door. I pushed it open. Looked around. Nobody.
“Jia?”
A softer sound drew me toward the far side of the bed. She was there, lying on the floor, curled into a fetal position.
“Jia!” I dropped on one knee and rolled her onto her back. My hand went to her throat, to check for a pulse. But she blinked; her mouth opened.
“Help.” Her hand shook as she pointed at the window, then at herself. She dragged in a deep breath.
I screamed for Wagner, hoping he was standing close enough to hear. “I found her! She’s alive. But she needs help!”
She wasn’t looking good. Pale. Very shaky. I went ahead and put my finger to her artery and tried to count the beats. I was too shaken to count—and maybe it was me, but the beats didn’t feel normal, strong. “Help’s on the way. Can you speak? Tell me what happened.”
“A man,” she said, her voice barely audible.
“Did you know him? Who was he?”
Her head rolled from side to side. She swallowed. “Don’t know.”
“What did he do?”
“Kissed me.” Her hand went to her neck. “So good.” She blinked once, twice. “But then he said . . . He said . . .”
“What?”
Her head rolled to the side and her eyes shut.
Checking again for a pulse, and finding none, I prayed Jia hadn’t just become the lightning bird’s fourth victim.
All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.
—Edgar Allan Poe
20
Not long afterward, we were at the hospital being told we couldn’t speak to Jia. She was in serious condition, but her doctors were expecting her to make a full recovery. That was good news. What wasn’t good news was what came next.
Detective Forrester came over to me and, wearing his mean-cop expression, asked if he could speak with me . . . alone.
I had nothing to hide—not really—so I went with him. Gabe didn’t look particularly thrilled to watch me being escorted away for questioning. But what was he going to do about it?
Expecting to be taken to a private room somewhere, I followed the detective’s lead down the hall. But at the end, he pushed through a doorway, leading outside. His car was angled up to the building, along with a marked Baltimore Police Department car.
“Um . . .” I hesitated. “Am I in trouble?”
“No, not at all,” Forrester said, his bad-cop expression fading slightly. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”
“All right.” Not 100 percent sure I believed him, I climbed into the back of his car, trying not to think about the fact that nine times out of ten the seat was inhabited by criminals.
The ride to Baltimore’s Southwest District police station was marked by my concentrating on breathing slowly so that I wouldn’t get too nervous. Funny, but I’d paid a visit to this building before and hadn’t felt this way. My nerves were really jittery.
After Forrester parked, he opened my door for me—the door was locked so I couldn’t open it from the inside. He motioned for me to precede him into the building, leading me down a corridor to a room I’d visited before. It was an interview—aka interrogation—room.
I sat.
“Can I get you something to drink? Coffee?” he asked.
“No thanks.”
An hour later, I was glad I’d declined.
An hour and a multitude of questions after that, I was pretty sure I was being arrested. Maybe it was for breaking and entering, or maybe for something far worse.
And an hour after that, I was tired; I needed to pee bad—when I’m nervous, my bladder spasms; I’d answered the same questions a dozen times, at least, and the beginning of a migraine was throbbing in my temples.
“When am I free to go?” I finally asked, after telling him, yet again, why I’d let myself into the Wu home without permission. “Am I being charged with a crime?”
“At this time, no charges have been entered,” the detective told me.
“At this time”
echoed in my head.
“Then I can leave?” I asked.
“Yes. But—”
I stood, walked to the door, and tried to open it. Locked. I turned, brows raised.
“It’s standard procedure.” He waved at the big mirror hanging on the wall, the one that was really a one-way-window.
The lock went
click.
I opened the door and oriented myself. Then I turned, asking over my shoulder, “Ladies’ room?”
“Down the hall, make a left.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you. And Miss Skye?”
“Yes?” I answered.
“We need to ask you to stay in state, please. That is, until these issues can be sorted out.”
“Of course.”
“In state”
reverberated in my mind.
Baltimore was in Maryland.
Mom and Dad’s house was in Virginia.
So was Quantico.
I went into the ladies’ room, took care of the most pressing matter first. As I was washing my hands, I took a look at my reflection. Not pretty. At all.
I went back to the front desk and reclaimed my purse. After hauling ass out of the building, I checked my cell. Five messages. The first was Mom, telling me she and Dad had gone swimming with dolphins. The second was Chief Peyton. So was the third. And the fourth. The fifth was Gabe, checking to make sure I was okay.
I wasn’t okay.
I was standing outside the police station, having been questioned for hours. I suspected I was this close to being arrested. For all I knew, that was still a distinct possibility.
I had no way to get home.
I couldn’t go home, anyway, because home was in another freaking state.
And it was possible the real killer wanted me dead.
Gah!
How had this happened? How had things gotten so out of control?
I knew the answer to those questions. It was painful to admit the truth.
It was all my fault.
I was pretty sure the chief was going to chew me up and spit me out for what I’d done. And it was, no doubt, deserved. I wasn’t generally the type to avoid the unpleasant; but tonight I wasn’t in the frame of mind to listen to what was going to be a lecture.
I called Katie. No answer.
My next call was to Gabe.
Again, no answer.
I was running out of options.
In fact, I was down to two. The chief. Or JT.
I dialed JT’s number. After three rings, the phone was answered. He said, “Hello? Skye?”
“It’s me. I need a favor.”
“Um . . . sure.”
“Can you pick me up? I’m at the BPD. Southwest Precinct.”
“Okay. What are you doing there?” he asked.
“Long story.”
“I’ll be there in thirty.”
“I’m going to walk down to the restaurant down the street, grab something to drink.”
“All right. I’ll see you soon.”
“JT?”
“Yes, Sloan.”
“I’m sorry for calling you so late.” The dam burst and the tears started flowing. I tried to hold them back, but I couldn’t. I ended the call, not wanting JT to hear me cry. I walked down the street slowly, hiding my face from passing cars. I didn’t enter the restaurant until I’d quit sobbing. Once I was inside, I ducked into the restaurant’s bathroom and tried to tidy myself up a little before facing the hostess.
She gave me a wary look; then she led me to a table.
I hid behind the menu for a while, until the waitress bounced over to take my drink order. Even after she left, and I’d placed an order for a cola and some fries, I kept that menu up in front of my face. I was in the frame of mind to find a cave, crawl into it, and curl into a ball. I had a feeling I was about to lose my job. I was on the verge of being arrested. And I hadn’t heard from Damen in four nights.
About three hours later, or so it seemed, the waitress brought my drink and fries. I forced them down my throat while distracting myself with a game of Angry Birds on my phone. JT arrived after I’d lost my tenth game.
He slid into the seat across from me. “Skye, you look like . . . Er, what’s going on?”
“I was questioned. I think I might be spending some time in jail in the near future.”
His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “What?”
“I know. Can you believe it?”
“No, I can’t. What the hell happened?”
“I let myself into someone’s home. Without permission. But I didn’t break in. The door was unlocked. And I had a solid reason for not waiting for the police.”
“Hmm. You realize, there are procedures we generally follow—”
“Damn it, the door was unlocked, and I had a good reason to believe an innocent girl was in danger. And, as it turned out, I was right. If I hadn’t . . . er . . . let myself in, she might have died.”
JT’s forehead arched. He said nothing.
“I think the chief is going to fire me,” I added, figuring I might as well lay all my cards on the table. “I sneaked out of her house after Jia called me.”
“Why didn’t you tell her where you were going?”
“I tried, but she was in the shower, and I didn’t want to wait for her to finish. If it sounds any better, I called her after I left. She can check her messages. There is one there.”
JT helped himself to a handful of fries. He shook one of them at me. “You didn’t tell her because you knew she’d stop you.”
“Maybe.”
“Sloan.” He shook his head. “This goes beyond what even an agent should do. An agent can’t run off on his own and chase down an unsub. That’s the job of the local police.” He shoved the fry he’d been shaking at me in his mouth and chewed. “This is the problem here, Sloan. You’re not following procedure.”
“But I wasn’t
chasing
the
unsub.
I was saving a friend. A young woman . . . a girl.” I pushed my nearly full plate toward him.
He dunked another fry in ketchup. “Did you call it in?”
“No.”
“You weren’t saving a friend. You were playing the hero.”
“Heroine.”
“Whatever.” JT’s sigh was loud enough to be heard outside. “You’re a brilliant woman. I’ve never met anyone so intelligent. And yet, when it comes to some things, you’re incredibly—”
“Stupid?” I finished for him, feeling the stab of his words.
“No. Not ‘stupid.’” He visibly searched for more appropriate words. “Maybe it’s your age. You’re young, only twenty, and maybe it isn’t fair to expect you to act older.”
“What are you saying? Am I a flighty twit?”
“I’d rather not put a label on you.”
“I am a flighty twit?” Once again, my eyes burned. I was on the verge of another pity party/sob attack. I was so
not
going to let that happen.
Oh, hell.
The first sob slipped from between my lips, even though I’d clamped them tightly shut.
I grabbed a handful of napkins and smothered myself in them.
“Sloan, I’m not trying to be cruel.”
Sure, I knew he wasn’t.
“I think we’ve all dumped too much on you, thinking you were so intelligent you could handle it. We made a mistake.”
Another sob slipped out. I tried to swallow it back down, but it came out sounding like a hiccup.
“I’ll call the chief and talk to her. I don’t think it’s fair to fire you for our mistakes.”
At this point, I didn’t give a damn about the stupid job. I was feeling abandoned and pitied, and I hated both of those feelings.
After forcing down a few more sobs, I was confident I could speak without another one sneaking out. I said, “Don’t bother. I quit.”
“But, Skye. Sloan—”
“No, JT. I’ve had second thoughts about the FBI all week. This is it. I’ve had enough. I can’t sit in an office and pretend to be useful, drafting profiles of criminals, while leaving the real work to the police. That’s not good enough. No. But thank you for helping me realize I don’t belong in the FBI. At least I figured it out sooner rather than later.”
“Sloan, that wasn’t what I was trying to say.”
I slapped a ten-dollar bill on the table and stood. “I’m done here. Again, I apologize for calling you so late and making you drag out here to pick me up. If there was anyone else I could’ve called, you know I would have.” I headed for the door; JT followed behind.
Outside, we strolled toward his car, parked in the first spot. “Where do you want me to take you?”
“I don’t know. I’m not supposed to leave the state. I left Mom’s car at the coffee shop. I could get it. And then I could go . . . ?”
“Get in.” He opened his door.
I opened the passenger side and slumped into the seat. “Where are you taking me?”
“My house.”
“But you live in—”
“I’ll call Forrester.”
“And what about—”
“We’ll get your car tomorrow. It’s late. And I don’t want you out, running around by yourself.”
“Because you’re afraid I’ll get myself in trouble again and make the unit look bad?”
“No, because I don’t want you to get hurt. Damn it, Sloan! You’re pissing me off! I care about you. We all do. Even Hough.”
“Speaking of her—”
“Don’t even go there. Do you think I’m so damn selfish that I’d leave you to fend for yourself because it would be inconvenient?”
“No. I guess not.”
Once again, he sighed loudly. “Sloan, you’re enough to drive anyone insane.”
“Thanks. I love you too.”
 
 
Thankfully, JT refrained from lecturing me during the rest of the drive. We parked, and I dragged into his house. And there was Hough, lounging on the couch in her pajamas, looking like she lived there.
She gave me a weak smile. “Skye.”
“I’m sorry for interrupting.” I turned to JT. “Where would you like me to sleep?”

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