Fallen Angels 04 - Rapture (27 page)

On the far side, the sunshine was bright and cheerful as she headed for Tony’s car, and the sedan was warm inside. Settling into the driver’s seat, she gave herself a stiff lecture before starting the engine—except it didn’t do any good.

Not even the part about how a man who was mysterious and unavailable was likely to, given her reporter’s instinct, seem oh, so much more appealing than your average schlub—but that didn’t make him a good bet.

Maybe this was why she was still single. It hadn’t been for lack of dating invites. It was more likely the fact that the men who had asked her out had had steady jobs, and nice enough looks … and their memories.

No shadows, no excitement.

Nah, she was into someone with a possibly shady past and a breakfast companion who had Barbie’s body and TV-commercial hair.

Healthy, realllllly healthy.

Starting the car, she nudged into traffic, her rendezvous with Monty the Mouth set for a park about seven blocks from the hotel.

At least the timing of it all was in her favor: If she had to go back to the newsroom and pretend to be working while she stared at her computer screen, she was liable to lose it.

Goddamn men, she thought as she found another free meter, pulled a better parallel and got out.

Following the instructions she’d been given, the whole thing with Monty had shades of spy movies, with her going over to a bench under a specific maple tree. All she needed was a newspaper to hide behind and a secret word and they’d be in total shaken-not-stirred land.

Monty showed up ten minutes later, in plain clothes that marked him as a swinger type. He was in a good mood, the subterfuge clearly giving him the kind of drama injection he needed.

“Walk behind me,” he said in a low voice as he passed by.

Oh, for crissakes.

Mels shifted to the vertical when he got ten feet ahead of her, and she kept his meandering pace, wondering why the hell she was putting herself through this.

After a little stroll, they ended up down at the river’s edge, at the big Victorian boathouse where people launched their canoes and sailboats when the weather got warmer.

Stepping inside, her eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim interior, the diamond-paned windows not letting much of the sunlight in, the racks of rowboats and stacks of buoys and lineups of paddles and rolled-up sails making the place seem crowded. And it was loud in a sense, too—all around, the water clapped in and out of the docking cribs, the slapping noises echoing through the empty slips—

With a sudden explosion, barn swallows shot out of their early nests, dive-bombing them both before escaping into the open air.

As her heart settled back into a normal rhythm, she said, “So what have you got?”

Monty took out a large, flat envelope and handed it over. “I printed these out at home this morning.”

Mels slipped a finger under the metal butterfly clip and freed its hold. “Who else knows about this?”

“At the moment, just you and me.”

One by one, she slid out three color photographs, all of which were of the victim: the first was a full-body with the shirt down, the second closer with the shirt up, the third tight on what appeared to be a series of runes.

Cecilia Barten.

That was the name that went through Mels’s head as she examined the images: Sissy had been another girl, younger, and far, far outside the kind of life where getting murdered was a job hazard.
Her body had been found in a quarry just recently with the same-kind of characters carved into her abdomen. She’d had her throat slit, too. And she’d been blond.

“You saw the pictures from the crime scene, right?” Monty asked.

“Yeah.” Mels refocused on the close-up. “The skin was red, but there was nothing like this on it. Wait, so tell me, off the record if you have to—how did this go down? You said you were a first responder—”

“
The
first responder. I went into the room with the manager, and promptly followed procedure. I cordoned off the door and called for backup.”

“Where was your partner?”

“She’d called in sick, so I was out alone—budget cuts, you know how it is. No replacements. Anywho, while I was waiting, I took the pictures.”

She hated people who used the word
anywho
. “You moved the shirt.”

“I was examining the body and the scene in my official capacity.”

Creep. “Why take the pictures at all though, if the official photographer was coming?”

“The real question is, Where did that lettering go.”

Man, this just wasn’t right, Mels thought.

Looking over at him, she asked, “So what can I do with this?”

“Right now, nothing. I don’t want to be accused of tampering with the body.”

But you did, didn’t you. “So why give these to me?”

“Someone has to know. Maybe I’ll go to de la Cruz—or maybe you can put this out in the
CCJ
and just say it’s from an anonymous source. The thing is, the time of death was clocked at around five or six, so the killing happened fairly soon after whoever took the
room occupied it. I got there at, like, nine fifteen. That leaves four and a half hours for someone to get in there and get out.”

What he was missing, though, perhaps deliberately, was the fact that those runes had disappeared between when he’d arrived on scene and when the CPD photographer had taken pictures. The body couldn’t have been alone for very long and scarification didn’t just up and disappear.

This was
really
not right.

“Okay, just let me know what you feel comfortable with on my end,” she said. “Whenever you decide.”

He nodded at her like they had sealed some kind of a deal, and then started to walk off.

“Hold up, Monty—quick question on something else.”

Her source paused in the doorway. “Yeah?”

“You know that man they found dead at the Marriott?”

“Oh, you mean the stiff in the delivery entrance? The one who disappeared from the morgue?”

Mels stopped breathing. “Excuse me?”

“You didn’t hear about it?” He came in close to share the report. “The body’s gone. As of this morning.”

Impossible. “Someone stole it. Out of the St. Francis morgue.”

“Apparently.”

“How does that happen?” As Monty shrugged, she shook her head—and knew that whatever was going on with the missing corpse, it wasn’t good. “Well, I hope they find the damn thing. Hey, you don’t happen to know what kind of bullets were in that vest the victim was wearing?”

“Forties.”

“And I heard there was a tattoo on the body?”

“I don’t know. But I can find out.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

He gave her a wink, and a sly smile. “No problem, Carmichael.”

When she was alone, Mels went through the pictures again, one by one … and decided Caldwell probably had another serial killer on its hands.

Not exactly the kind of job security she or the CPD were looking for.

And she had to wonder if he wasn’t a man in blue.

As Devina folded her napkin beside her empty breakfast plate, she smiled across the table at her prey. All in all, things were going well. Matthias was starting to remember, and that little door she’d opened about his father had brought back just the kind of light she liked to see in his eye.

That old man of his had been key, of course, the beginning of the evil, proof positive that infection could happen even human to human, not just demon to human.

But she had to be careful to walk that line.

“I’ll get the check,” Matthias said, lifting his hand to signal to the waitress.

“You’re such a gentleman.” She reached into her bag and started shifting her lipsticks from left to right, counting. “I’m glad we ran into each other.”

… three, four, five …

“Stroke of luck.” He glanced over at the window, like he was making plans. “What were the chances.”

… six, seven, eight …

“What are you going to do today?” she asked, her heart starting to beat as she closed in on the end of the count.

… nine, ten, eleven …

He answered her with something she didn’t follow, but then, she was nearly finished.

Twelve.

Thirteen.

As she exhaled, she took the last tube out and popped the lid. Focusing on Matthias, she willed him to watch her mouth as she exposed the soft, blunt tip of the lipstick and began to run it over her flesh.

He did precisely as she wanted, but the response was not what she was after, the regard clinical, not sexual. As if she were an instrument he was briefly considering using.

Devina frowned. When he’d stepped out to go chasing after that fucking reporter, there hadn’t been any of this remoteness. He’d been naked while fully clothed, trained on that woman like she was something inside of him, rather than separate and apart.

The demon tucked her lips in and released them, feeling her mouth plump back up—and to make sure he got the point, she inserted a thought in his head of her mouth around his cock, sucking, pulling, swallowing.

It didn’t work.

He just glanced over at the waitress, took the check she gave him, and wrote his room number down.

The sound of a hard wind rattling all the windows in the place had people looking around, including Matthias: Sitting across from
the guy, Devina seethed, her temper flaring and touching the elements outside the hotel, kicking up a gale that came from the south.

All she could think of was how Jim had toyed with her—and now this lame-ass cripple, who was going back to Hell as soon as this round was over, was blowing her off.

Bastards. Both of them.

She stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder. “How long are you staying?” she bit out.

“Little while longer.”

True enough. Things were moving fast with him, even if he didn’t know it, and this round was going to be over very quickly.

Maybe she should take him up to his room and remind him that he was a man, not a robot—and that those “injuries” weren’t going to be a problem as long as he was with her.

Good luck with your reporter on that one, she thought.

“I’m heading out right now,” he said. Like he was dismissing her.

Devina narrowed her eyes, and then remembered that she had a role to play. “Well, I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

“Seems like it. Good luck with your mother.”

As he turned away, she kind of wanted to fuck him for reasons other than the round. He had the same kind of strength Jim did— as well as that essential elusiveness.

She should have paid more attention to this man when she’d had him. Fortunately, he was going to come home soon.

In the meantime, she needed to take care of that reporter. That was not the kind of influence she needed in this game.

And accidents happened all the time. The Maker couldn’t find fault with her for that.

Matthias took a cab to the offices of the
CCJ
and waited in the parking lot behind the building. He figured Mels had borrowed that Toyota to come over to the hotel, and sure enough, her friend’s ride wasn’t parked along with all the other beaters with trash in them.