Fallen Angels 03 - Envy (45 page)

“Nothing,” came the male voice from above.

Reil y took to the ladder-like steps, clawing up them with her hands and fol owing with her feet. In the attic proper, the other officer had turned a bald lightbulb on, and the thing was swinging on its tether, going back and forth and pul ing shadows out from the rafters.

After glancing around, she knelt down and ran a finger across the wooden planks that had been laid over the insulation. Dust. Lots of dust.

Frowning, she inspected the flooring that was around the opening they’d come up through. Her footfal s and those of the other officer left a distinctive pattern in the thick, pristine layer of particles.

What the hel ? she thought.

Not only was there nothing up here; nothing had
been
up here since wel before Veck had moved in.

“ ’Scuse me,” she murmured, before slipping back down the folding stairs.

She went into the first guest room she got to. Inside, there was only wal -to-wal carpet with footprints on it—no indentations left from boxes having been stacked anywhere. And in the bottom of the closet? More of the same: smooth, unmarked rug, the kind of thing you got when you’d vacuumed a while ago and left the fibers alone to recover from the tracks of your Dyson.

Getting up on her tiptoes, she looked at the shelf. No streaks from things having been pul ed off and removed.

The other bedroom was the same.

Downstairs, she went into the kitchen, passed through the mudroom and headed out the far side into the garage. No lawn equipment or tools or birdseed. Just two bins for garbage, both of which were empty.

“When’s the trash pickup?” she asked, not expecting anyone to answer.

It was a fact worth knowing, and no doubt someone would be finding out soon enough.

Returning to the kitchen, she stood in front of the open cupboards and drawers. It was clear that he’d given permission for them to search the house because he’d known damn wel they wouldn’t find anything—and she’d been aware of that coming over here.

But she had the sense that nothing had been here to begin with. She hadn’t seen any boxes anywhere when she’d been over, but more to the point, there appeared to be no evidence that anything much had been moved in. Yeah, sure, he’d had a good twelve hours to get rid of stuff . . . but you couldn’t manufacture things like layers of dust and unscarred carpets.

Maybe Veck had tweaked to the juvie report’s fal ing out of something . . . and thrown the documents out. Except what the hel had Bails been talking about when it came to the boxes? And why would he have lied? The two were wel -known for being friends, and the guy had been legitimately crushed.

God, there were just too many black holes everywhere.

With a curse, she checked her watch, then took out her phone and dialed de la Cruz’s number. The detective had stayed behind at the station house, and when she got voice mail, she didn’t bother leaving a message.

He’d know what she was looking for.

Outside, she got into her car and sat behind the wheel. Eventual y, she looked over at the house. In the bright sunlight, the shadows were nearly black—

Her cel phone went off and she answered it without checking who it was. “Reil y.”

“I have the results of the polygraph.” De la Cruz sounded as tired as she felt. “Just came in—and I figured that was why you cal ed.”

“It was. Can you tel me?”

“He passed everything—al of it.”

“
What?
”

“You heard me.”

“How is that possible?” Except the instant she asked the question, she knew it was BS. A good liar, an exceptional liar, could fool the machine. It was rare, but not impossible.

With a groan, she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Hold on, just to be clear, they asked him about the visit to the Bartens’, the earring, the evidence room—”

“Everything.”

“And he denied it al , and the machine said he was tel ing the truth.”

“Yup. Except for one question.”

So he was a stupendous liar—“Wait, he failed a question ?”

“No, he didn’t deny something. The examiner asked him whether he’d intended to kil Kroner that night by the motel. And he said yes, he had.”

Reil y shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would that be the only thing he admitted to?”

If he was lying about everything else, why wouldn’t he cover his ass on that one as wel ?

“I don’t know,” de la Cruz muttered. “I got no answer for that. . . .”

“
C
ouldn’t they shut the goddamn cupboards?”

As Adrian stood in Veck’s kitchen, he stared across the empty, al -open everything, watching as the poor bastard closed shit with hard claps.

On some level, it was hard to get jazzed about anything—and that included not just someone else’s drawers, cabinets and closets, but the war in general. The only thing likely to get his attention was if Devina showed up again, but that demon seemed to have gone into hiding.

Never a good thing.

Next to him, Jim was hanging back as wel , letting Veck do his thing to put the house back together. When the detective went upstairs, the savior glanced over.

“Devina had better make her fucking move soon or his head’s going to explode.”

Ad grunted in agreement. “But not much we can do about it.”

He and Jim had also backseated it during the interrogation and the lie detector test and the further interro, until Ad had become convinced that they were never getting out of the police station. In the end, however, Veck had been released. Al the cops had against him was circumstantial shit, and with the results of the polygraph in, there was not enough to charge him or even put him on a forty-eight-hour detainer.

Good news on some level—better to have the showdown with Devina away from al those uniforms. But the detective was pushed to his limit, and Adrian knew al too wel what that was like.

Abruptly unable to stay stil , Ad went over to the refrigerator and cracked the thing. Not much inside—no surprise there—but even if there had been a boatload of lo mein, he didn’t have any impulse to actual y eat.

Even breathing was just something he did out of habit at this point.

Matter of fact, he’d heard once that there were stages of grief. Was he in depression now? He certainly wasn’t as pissed off as he had been when Eddie had first . . . whatevered. At the moment, al he had was a cage of pain around his lungs and the sense that he was dragging a river barge behind him.

Shaking his head, he deliberately put that shit out of his mind. Introspection was not his friend right now—

Too bad the resolution didn’t stick.

Glancing over at Jim, he said, “Do you think he’s al right left alone?”

“Veck needs the space.”

“Wasn’t talking about him.”

“You mean Eddie?” Jim crossed his arms and cursed. After a moment, he said, “Actual y, yeah, I think he’l be al right. Devina’s not incented to fuck with him because as long as he’s with us, it’s an open wound that won’t heal. She takes the body or compromises it? That’s a short-term thing.”

Ad walked over to the window and looked out. Five o’clock and the light was just starting to drain from the sky.

Man, he was jumpy al of a sudden. “She has to know where he’s being kept.”

“But I marked that door. Anyone gets in there”—the guy pounded his chest with his fist—“I’m going to know.”

Ad paced around a little, feeling like he had ants on the inside of his skin. Eventual y, he muttered, “Look, I’m just going to head over there and check on him. I’l be right back—”

Jim stepped in front of him. “Eddie is okay. And I need you here. Shit is about to go down.”

“Ten minutes.”

“This is exactly what she wants. You need to realize that.”

Adrian didn’t want to throw down with the guy. They already had enough tempers flaring, thanks to Veck going WWE with the attitude—and Ad had enough sense to know that he was unstable himself, capable of flaring up or burning out with the flip of a coin.

But he couldn’t shake the abrupt need to return to the garage.

“Look, I’l be right back. Promise.” He met the savior’s eyes with his own. “I swear on Eddie’s soul.”

“Goddamn it,” Jim muttered.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Without waiting for another round of disagreement, Ad spirited himself out of that house. And as soon as he took form on the garage’s front lawn, he knew he’d been right to come: there was another presence inside the apartment with Eddie.

Instantly fal ing into fight mode, he outed his crystal dagger and—

“What the hel ?” he muttered, lowering his weapon.

At that moment, Colin opened the door at the top of the staircase and stepped out onto the landing. “That would be ‘Heaven,’ thank you very much.”

The archangel was not in namby-pamby whites, but the kind of clothes you could fight in: loose pants and a tight shirt. And he was alone, at least as far as Ad could sense thnt>

“What are you doing here?” Ad asked, even though he knew there was only one explanation.

“Watching TV.”

Adrian went over to the bottom of the stairwel . “Jim doesn’t have cable.”

“So one can imagine how dissatisfied I am.”

“Nigel’s let you guard him?”

“He knows I’m here, yes—”

The wind abruptly changed direction, shifting so it came out of the east—and it brought bad news with it: Riding along the invisible currents, weaving in and out of the gusts, was a subtle groaning sound.

“Fucking. Bitch.” Adrian nailed Colin with his stare. “You stay with Eddie.”

“Thank you for the order,” Colin said dryly. “But that is why I came.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

There was no time to kiss ass any further: As the wind intensified and the moaning sounds turned into shrieks, Ad didn’t just curse Devina and her warlords—he wanted to kick himself in the head. This was precisely what Jim had said was going to happen: The pair of them apart, him dealing with a bunch of soul ess, boneless bastards as Jim undoubtedly handled the actual crossroads.

He’d played right into the demon’s hands.

And he was going to have to stay in her palm.

He sure as shit wasn’t leaving now: Colin was powerful, but there were limits—and they’d already lost Eddie once.

Not going to happen again.

Moving fast, Adrian flashed into the garage. Over in the truck, there was a duffel ful of leather riding gear, and he quickly yanked on studded gloves that went al the way up his forearms, and then pul ed out the black duster Eddie had used for long trips on the bike.

On his way out, he passed by a pitchfork—and doubled back to grab it. Shit knew he felt like stabbing the crap out of something—and he’d just seen how much fun lawn tools could be.

When he stepped outside again, Colin was nowhere in sight, which was good timing and exactly what he wanted: Al around, minions were pul ing up out of the shadows, forming into eyeless kil ers that were just his fucking cup of tea.

Adrian inflated his lungs until his chest stung and then he let out a war cry that shook the tree limbs around the garage, blowing them back so far a few of them even snapped.

And then he went in.

Locking a death grip on the worn wooden handle, he lunged forward, nailing the closest minion right in the gut before angling the tool heavenward—until it jacked right into the rib structure of the torso. With the tines locking in place, it was a case of up-and-over as he slung the bastard into left field like it was a bale of hay. Then it was the smal matter of tucking the business end under his arm so that he caught the SOB riding up on his ass in the thighs.

Adrian wheeled around, yanked out the tool, and went over the head, bringing the curved spikes down lateral y on the crippled bastard. They penetrated through the face, such as it was, and went into the chest cavity from above, reducing Devina’s fighter to a mud puddle.

The squeal was so fucking satisfying.

Disengaging again, widened his stance and angled himself so that the pair of minions that were trying to split his attention got what they were asking for: Keeping his head straight forward, he measured them in the peripheral vision of both eyes.

He was banking on a third coming from behind.

It was just too cocksucking obvi.

Flexing his knees, he threw himself into the air, backflipping over the one he’d guessed right about—and then stabbing it in the back and twisting hard.

As the impact registered, the minion went into a ful -body spasm, acidic blood going flying to the point where he had to disengage and get gone. Diving around the side of the thing, he ducked into himself and hit the ground on a rol .

When he sprang up onto his feet, he was prepared to take on the other two.

Instead, he faced an army.

Minions had boiled up from every shadow in the yard and they surrounded him, their numbers so deep, they were in and among the trees on the edges of the garage’s lot.

There must have been thirty. Forty. Fifty.

Facing the overwhelming force, a resonant calm flooded through him, kind of like he was bleeding out. Eddie was going to be okay; Colin was going to make sure of that. And Ad was going to give that archangel enough time and space to get the pair of them out of here.

As for him? He wasn’t getting out of this in one piece, and he was just fine with the way he was going to go.

This was the way to die: defending your territory and taking out a fuckload of the enemy on the way to your grave.

This was honorable.

As Adrian got ready to go into the thick of it, he thought, for what was going to be the last time, that he wished his friend was with stil him. At least they wouldn’t be separated for much longer, however.

Downtown at HQ, Reil y found herself on the verge of leaving and going home. For about an hour and a half.

There was nothing for her to do. She hadn’t been assigned a new case yet; she’d finished up her work on her other ones; and God knew she was off Veck’s. And yet she was sitting at her desk as though someone had superglued her butt to her chair, her col eagues having filed out a while ago.