Dark of Night (13 page)

He cleared his throat—not once, not twice, but three times. “Special Agent Bill Connell. I'm in charge of this investigation.”

Dave focused his eyes, and … yup, it was Connell, with his florid complexion and hard-drinker's vein-riddled nose. Bill was nearly as big of an asshole as Barney Delarow had been. Wasn't this just swell?

“Good,” Sophia said, “then I'll give my statement to you, right here and now. It's pretty simple. Dave and I flew to Boston to see my father, who's in this hospital, in the cancer ward. We came in late, and likewise, it was late when we were finally ready to leave the hospital to go to our hotel. It was also raining, so Dave went to get the car. I waited in the lobby, which is where I was when he called me on my cell phone. He made certain I was okay, and then told me he'd been attacked in the parking garage.”

Whatever was in that new IV bag was making him even more woozy, so Dave used his right hand—the one that Sophia wasn't tightly holding— and pulled the little tube under the hospital blanket. He folded it in half, effectively stopping the drip, even as he forced himself to focus.

“He told me to stay with the security guard,” Sophia continued, turning to look at Dave, “which I did, since she went into the garage herself, to assist the police as they arrived on the scene. Dave was trying to get to his feet when I got there, but his injury was severe and he fell. He seemed to
recognize the dead man, whose throat had been slit, and who was lying partly under our car.” Her voice didn't shake or wobble but her words became slightly more precise, and Dave cursed himself for putting her through this. “Dave insisted—quite emphatically—that this was not the man who'd attacked him. He said that his attacker had been large, with a shaved head. Dave also insisted that he was unaware of the dead man's presence until the police brought it to his attention.

“Because Dave was bleeding heavily,” she continued, “I was, at this point, focusing on getting him onto a stretcher and over to the ER. You now know everything I know, Special Agent Connell. Although surely there's footage from a security camera.”

“Conveniently, there's not,” Connell said. “Camera went out of order a few hours earlier. That's something you know how to do, isn't it, Malkoff?”

“As does nearly everyone in this room,” Sophia countered.

“Except we weren't on the premises earlier,” he pointed out, looking from Sophia to Dave, looking at their hands, which were tightly clasped together. “You work with Malkoff at Troubleshooters Incorporated?”

“That's correct,” Sophia told him. “But he's also my fiancé.”

What? Dave looked at her, but she squeezed his hand and shot him her
don't argue
look, disguised behind a sweet smile.

“Really,” Connell said on a laugh that was a mix of amusement and disbelief. “Malkoff, you old dog, you. What is it with you and obscenely beautiful women? You must be hung like a horse.” He turned to Sophia. “He tell you he has a habit of killing his fiancées?”

Color had already been rising in Sophia's cheeks over that
horse
comment, but now her demeanor turned positively icy. “If you're referring to Anise Turiano, yes, he's told me about her. About how she found out he worked for the CIA and tried to sell him to the highest bidder. About how he nearly died, thanks to her betrayal.”

“He tell you that her body was pulled out of a river, wrapped in plastic?” Connell asked. “Which was nice, since it preserved some of the forensic evidence. His DNA was all over her, inside and out—”

“I was cleared of those charges,” Dave interrupted. “Sophia knows that, yes.”

“She know that Turiano's throat was slit?” Connell asked him. “Much as Barney Delarow's was tonight? Or how about the fact that your semen
was found in Turiano's body, with forensic evidence indicating ejaculation occurred
after
she was dead?”

Oh, shit.

“Yeah,” Dave said, giving Sophia an apologetic smile, although it probably came out more like a wince. She was moving her thumb across the back of his hand—just the slightest of caresses. It was both soothing and reassuring. “That didn't come up, because, you know—and you
do
know, Bill—that it was verified, through extensive testing, that the
minute
amounts of my … DNA found inside the body contained chemicals— spermicides and traces of latex—indicating that sperm had been taken from a used condom and—”

“That's right,” Connell said. “I forgot. According to your statement, you and your first fiancée
always
used condoms. Mr. Careful.”

Sophia's thumb stilled, and as Dave met her eyes he knew instantly what she was thinking.

One of the few things that he
had
told Sophia about his brief but tumultuous love affair with Kathy-slash-Anise was that the woman had given him an STD. Which implied that there had been at least
some
unprotected sexual contact.

Connell just kept on flapping his mouth. “Your story was that you
didn't
murder Anise Turiano and then fuck her dead body in a homicidal rage, but rather that you were framed. Right.”

Dave shook his head as he looked at Sophia in silent apology.

But the CIA agent wasn't done. “Dave passed a lie detector test,” Connell continued, speaking to Sophia now, “and since no one's
ever
bullshitted their way past one of
those
before … Case closed.”

“It
was
closed,” Dave said quietly, just wanting the asshole to leave the room, so he could talk to Sophia. Try to explain. “So if you're done—”

“Interestingly,” Connell said, “Barney Delarow kept the Turiano file active on his computer. He accessed it just this morning.”

Okay, so
that
wasn't good news.

“You know anything about that?” Connell probed.

Wearily, Dave shook his head. “I haven't seen Barney in years.”

“Phone contact?” Connell asked. “ E-mail?”

“None,” Dave said.

“That's easy enough to verify,” Connell pointed out.

“Yes,” Dave said. “I'm very aware of that and I'll say it again: I've had
zero contact with Barney Delarow since I left the CIA. And I'm sorry, but shouldn't you take advantage of the fact that I'm relatively alert by getting my description of the man who knifed me—and probably killed Delarow, too? Maybe bring in a police sketch artist, get a picture for a BOLO?”

But Connell had turned to Sophia. “Whose idea was it to come to Boston yesterday?”

“My Aunt Maureen's,” she told him flatly. “My father took a turn for the worse, we got a call Sunday morning, so we came. I came. Dave came with me.”

“I'll bet he did,” Connell said with a smirk. “I bet he
comes
with you a lot.”

And that was it. Dave was done. He sat up, ripping pain in his side be damned. “Get out of my room,” he spat. “Your superior will be hearing from me about your disrespectful—”

“Relax,” Connell said. “It was a joke. She doesn't mind—”

“She minds,” Sophia said curtly, even as she tried to push Dave back. “Nurse!”

One of the nurses came bustling back in, frowning at the IV bags, which, of course, weren't dripping as they were supposed to. Dave let go of the tube just before she pulled back the blanket to check both it and his stitches. But she wasn't fooled. “You're going to be one of
those
patients, aren't you, Mr. Malkoff?”

“Soph, you got a pen and paper?” Dave asked, and she released his hand to search through her purse.

“Go,” she said a moment later, clicking her pen open.

“White, male, six-six, two-fifty, gold tooth, Irish accent, although that could've been faked,” he told her even as he felt the sedative or painkiller or whatever they'd given him slipping through his veins. “He mentioned a name. Santucci.
Give my best to Santucci.
I don't know a Santucci, do you?”

She shook her head, and he went on to describe the man completely as she wrote it all down, even as he felt his eyes start to roll back in his head.

He could hear her then, speaking to someone—no doubt Connell. “FBI agent Joe Hirabayashi from the Boston office will be here at any moment. I'll give this information to him, since it's clear you're not really interested in a true investigation.”

Connell: “It doesn't alarm you, even a little bit, that Anise Turiano's killer was never found?”

“No, it doesn't. She apparently had dealings with a number of dangerous people—”

“Including David Malkoff.”

“I'll thank you to get out of this room. Dave's asleep and can't answer your accusations—”

“And you don't worry—”

“If you have any additional questions for me”—Sophia's voice was sharp—“you can ask them
after
Mr. Hirabayashi has arrived.”

“Ma'am, I'm not the bad guy here.”

“Yeah?” Sophia laughed her disdain. “Coulda fooled me.”

Another voice then, the nurse, insistent: “The patient needs his rest.”

There was the sound of a door closing, and then Sophia was back, her hand gentle on Dave's forehead, her fingers interlacing with his. She leaned over him and kissed him, and he breathed in the sweetness of her perfume.

He wasn't asleep, not yet—there was a reason he'd fought to stay awake. There was something he still had to tell her. But it took such effort to move his mouth and he couldn't squeeze her hand no matter how hard he tried.

“Soph,” he breathed, and forced his eyes open.

Her face was right there, above him—beautiful and surprised.

“Oral,” he said. “Sex.”

He could see her confusion, and he knew she didn't understand.

“Didn't… kill her. Wanted to.”

“Shhh,” she said. “It's okay. Go to sleep. I'll be right here.”

“Would have,” he told her. “Didn't.”

“It's okay,” she said again, and Dave surrendered to the darkness, hoping that she was right, but knowing that they were in for a very bumpy ride.

D
ecker hadn't showered or even changed his clothes, and he was hyper-aware of his high scruff factor as he held open the door to the Starbucks so Tracy could go in first.

Then again, he almost always felt scruffy and vaguely underdressed when he encountered the Troubleshooters receptionist.

This morning, she both looked and smelled dangerously good— which, again, was nothing new. Her long auburn hair shone as it bounced around her shoulders like a living shampoo commercial.

She was wearing a sleeveless top, a pair of those ridiculous pants that ended mid-calf, and sandals. It was meant to be casual-wear, but on her it seemed elegant. Classy. The pants were khaki and had pockets everywhere, none of which looked as if they could hold anything useful, since they, like the pants, hugged her curves. They weren't too tight, but they were very nicely fitting. Very.

Ditto for the shirt, which was a shimmering shade of blue. Probably silk—although he hadn't let himself touch her. Despite that, he knew it certainly wasn't cotton like the one he was wearing beneath his overshirt.

And her sandals? Heels, of course. With the exception of last night, when she'd been in white and pink sneakers, Decker couldn't remember ever seeing Tracy in anything but heels. High ones, that brought her closer to his not-particularly-impressive height.

Not that he was exceedingly short.

But he'd made note last night—and this morning, as she'd emerged
from her bathroom, wrapped in a towel and barefoot—that without the heels, Tracy was. Or at least she was significantly shorter than he'd thought.

Which was probably why she nearly always wore heels.

And yeah, he'd absolutely been thinking only about her diminutive height as she'd come out of the bathroom wearing a towel. Kind of like the way he'd only been thinking about the best mall to hit on their way to the safe house this morning, as he'd sat outside her bathroom, listening to her take a shower.

Right.

She'd accepted the fact that she was going to have to be contained at the safe house, and had made the call to Tom from her cell phone, negotiating a week of paid vacation, with two more at lost time. Lost time was exactly that—lost. Which meant she wouldn't be paid for those weeks, so Decker would absolutely be paying her rent next month.

That was going to suck, but then again, there were worse ways for him to spend his money. Like buying funeral wreaths to lay on a good friend's grave.

Last night, Tracy hadn't blinked when Deck had told her they'd leave for the safe house in the morning, and that until then they'd stay in her apartment, with him sleeping on her couch. But his rule about her leaving the bathroom door slightly open whenever she used the facilities had gotten him a disbelieving stare.

“What exactly do you think I'm going to do while I'm in there?” she'd asked.

“I'm sorry,” he'd said, which was the refrain of the day, “but—”

“Just… whatever,” she'd cut him off. “You're worried about Jimmy, you don't trust anybody, including me. I get it.”

She'd been uncharacteristically silent out in the hall and on the stairs, unlocking the door to her apartment and gesturing him inside.

And still she didn't speak, having correctly deduced that he'd need to sweep the place for surveillance devices. She was right—he'd unzipped the duffel and gotten to work.

Her place was smaller than Tess and Nash's, but had the same light, airy feeling, with big windows overlooking the street.

It was messier than he'd imagined, with books overflowing the one enormous bookshelf in her living room, stacked in towering piles nearby,
and scattered across her coffee table. Catalogs were everywhere, too. Unlike him, she apparently didn't immediately throw them away when they came with the mail. She actually looked through hers—some were open, with pages marked by bent corners and Post-it notes.

Her bathroom was cluttered, too—the sink counter filled with bottles and jars. The room itself was thick with recently hang-dried nylons and lingerie in a rainbow of colors and styles, which, as far as décor went, absolutely worked for him.

But Tracy brushed past him and quickly gathered it all up as he went over the area thoroughly with the bug sweeper. A bathroom—particularly that of a beautiful woman—was a favorite place to hide a mini-cam.