Guilty by Association (Judah Black Novels) (25 page)

“A lot of that going around,” I said. “What do you know about Robbie, anyway?”

“He may seem harmless but Robbie can hold his own. He's fae so don't be loose with your words.”

“What kind of fae?” I asked.

“Hobgoblin.”

I frowned. Hobgoblins are a subtype of fae you don't see often, mostly because they're almost extinct. They employ a specific place on the fae social hierarchy of scary things, somewhere between the sadistic, gore loving goblin and the friendly but tricky brownie. They're basically what you'd get if you crossed the two. The one thing hobgoblins are well known for in BSI is their love of practical jokes. By practical jokes, I don't mean hand buzzers and whoopee cushions. I mean they think it's hilarious to fill apartments with gas and wait for you to light a cigarette. Like their goblin cousins, they've got a thing for fire. Fire plus twisted sense of humor doesn't often turn out well for the butt of the joke. BSI employs a few on their demolition squad. Don't ask me why BSI needs a group of people to blow up buildings. National security and all that. And if you buy that, I've got a bridge in Alaska to sell you.

“So, what's a hobgoblin doing running a strip club” I mused, shaking my head. “Shouldn't he be more drawn to something like the fire department?”

“Agent Black, if you can figure out why anyone in Concho County does what they do, you'll be ahead of the curve.”

The one stoplight in all of Paint rock was red when I hit it. “Jesus Christ, I can't catch a break, can I? Damn it all to Hell.”

“Please, Judah. Don't abuse His name.”

“Sorry. Damn it all to heck.”

Reed sighed and crossed himself. “I'm going to be saying a good many Hail Mary's on your behalf, aren't I?”

I laughed, looked in all directions and decided to speed through the never ending red light. Beside me, Reed sucked in a deep breath and shook his head. “So, what do you know about Marcus Kelley?” I asked him.

“Next to nothing, unfortunately. I've never met him.
All I know is that a fair amount of his personal finances is tied up in philanthropic enterprises surrounding Paint Rock.”

I frowned. “He ordered his lackeys to write me a check for twenty-five thousand dollars,” I said and then glanced over at Father Reed. “What is he trying to bribe me for?”

Reed directed his gaze out the window. “I need to feed my cat.”

* * * * *

I dropped Reed off at the church so that he could retrieve his car. I'd wanted to hit the ground running and get everything done in one fell swoop but that clearly wasn't going to happen. Reed insisted he was fine enough to drive and that he needed to get home to feed his cat so I made the drive home alone, watching the sun come up over another sleepless night.

As I drove, I thought about my last job. Cleveland hadn't seemed like much of an improvement over Philly but it sure as hell seemed cushy now. The station there had a bunkhouse where dead tired cops could go and pass out for an hour or two without having to drag their work weary selves home. I used to crash on those bunks all the time. All it took was a call to my neighbor who'd come in and check on Hunter and I could get a power nap. The local cops didn't care one way or the other about me being there and using their facilities. Here, I couldn't walk through the front door of the station without feeling like I had to justify myself. Now, I had to drive all the way out to the edge of the rez for a little shut eye. I couldn't even sleep in the truck because the damn desert sun would burn me alive.
What I wouldn't give for one of those crappy cots right about now...

I started awake and tried to swerve back into the right lane only to see the white Jag blocking the roadway. Panic caused me to over-correct, jerking the steering wheel suddenly and slamming my foot down on the brake without down shifting. The engine stalled out and I drifted off into the desert at thirty miles an hour, powerless to do anything but steer myself to a descent stop, which I somehow managed to do without wrecking.

Still shaking, I gripped the steering wheel tight and rested my head against it, trying to get reason to overcome adrenaline.
That could have been bad
, I thought.
Really bad
. I was exhausted, too exhausted to be behind the wheel of a moving vehicle. I needed sleep but that was going to have to wait.

I adjusted my rear view mirror to see Andre LeDuc strolling through the desert after me. Shit. I adjusted the gear back into neutral and tried to start her back up. The engine coughed but refused to turn over. “Come on,” I whispered. My prayer came out in white wisps of cloudy breath and I shivered. Something was wrong. It was mid-July in Texas. There was no way it was cold. Yet frost slowly crept up the outside of the truck windows and the inside dropped a fully forty or fifty degrees in the space of a minute. I gave up on the idea of starting the truck back up in favor of trying to get out but the extreme temperature change had made my muscles stiff and slow to respond. The inside door handles were covered in an inch of ice by the time I managed to find one, my teeth chattering.

Andre LeDuc walked up to stand on the other side of the driver's side window and looked in at me with an unnatural coolness in his eyes. He surveyed the truck with feigned interest while I hugged my body tight and tried to regulate my breathing. It had to be below freezing inside the truck now and the temperature was continuing to drop. If it didn't let up soon, I'd be the first woman to freeze to death on a ninety-degree day.

“Agent Black,” said LeDuc, his voice muffled by a layer of ice covered glass. “Ever the curious cat, aren't we? But you know what they say about curiosity and the cat.”

“L-l-leDuc,” I stammered. “You...” I wanted to say something else but I'd lost all the feeling in my nose, lips and fingers.

“Don't strain yourself,” he mused.

LeDuc stretched out one little finger and placed it lightly on the outside of the glass. Either because of the difference in temperatures or because of something unseen that LeDuc did, the window exploded inward or I was showered with a thousand tiny bits of safety glass. The desert heat flooded in and I choked out a breath. LeDuc casually reached in through the broken window, unlocked my door and then opened it from the outside. He gripped my seat belt and tore it away from me as if it were made of paper and then pulled me out with both hands, dumping me in the sand. The temperature change was too sudden for me to adjust. Pain welled up in my chest and my heart skipped a beat. My head spun. LeDuc's little trick had rendered me absolutely helpless until the shock wore off.

He smiled down at me while I rocked back and forth in pain and then grabbed the back of my shirt. Sand and dirt scraped against my back as he dragged me back toward the road.

The passenger side door to his Jaguar creaked as he opened it. “You and I are due for a talk, Black,” he said smugly and shoved me inside.

Sometimes, I wish I was a vigilante superhero instead of a law enforcement officer. Things would be so much easier. I wouldn't have to worry about the burden of proof or answering to my superiors. There wouldn't be any paperwork if I somehow found myself recovering from shock, speeding along at forty miles an hour next to the man I was sure had taken three children and had a hand in murdering three adults. Those were just the ones I knew about. Someone like Andre Leduc, he seemed like the kind of guy who left a trail of bodies behind him wherever he went.

I managed to relax enough that I could sit up in the car and look out the window. We were driving around the perimeter of the reservation on a series of streets I'd never been on before. The trailers and hastily constructed houses fell in a haphazard pattern, all grouped close enough together that a good spark would have sent the whole neighborhood up in flames.

“Life used to be so simple,” Andre said suddenly. He had a thoughtful but pleased with himself kind of look on his face. “Once, people actively worked to make the world a better place. Mankind was generally a progressive race, always seeking out new ways to change the world for the better. It's why humanity developed that big brain. Progress. That's what America is built on.”

“You're Canadian,” I pointed out.

LeDuc chuckled. “But you're not. You must understand that progress comes at a price.”

“If that price includes innocent children then you can keep your progress.”

He shot me a warning glance that turned into a smile, making me shiver all over again. “Did you know the most widely used technique in western medicine to save hypothermia victims was developed by Nazi scientists?” he said matter-of-factly. “In fact, almost all of our advancements in medical science came about because of some kind of war time atrocity. Human experimentation, while extremely controversial and ethically charged, is still used today in most fields. Scientists and doctors just don't talk about it. We don't like to admit that medicine and science kills more people than it saves.”

“Is that an admission?” I asked turning to face him.

“It's fact. The rate of MRSA is highest in hospitals and the percentage of patients who die in surgery, even routine surgery, is staggering. The United States has one of the highest infant mortality rates of any developed country in the world, despite the fact that we know why and how to change that. And those are just the human problems. The werewolves, the vampires and the fae have it even worse. Seven out of ten adolescent werewolves today attempt suicide. Over half of them succeed. Medical science has yet to fully explore the biology of most fae and a large amount of vampires actually die of acute but preventable organ failure.” He pursed his lips. “We have all the ingredients for a healthcare revolution at our fingertips and yet we squander it on developing generic Viagra and new weight loss procedures. And why? Because the human urge to consume now outweighs their desire to survive. They've become cattle. They are born. They breed. They die. There is no purpose for them beyond that. They have become less than human.”

“What about the families of Paint Rock?” I asked and gestured to the houses we were passing by. “Most of them aren't human.”

“Most of them accept their fate,” Andre snarled, his upper lip curling. “It's a psychological condition called learned helplessness and your organization fosters it with unmatched ferocity. This social experiment that is Paint Rock, it cannot be allowed to stand. Those that wish to stand with the humans, let them stand and let them fall. No one should be forced to fight for something he doesn't believe in.”

“That sounds like revolution talk,” I told him and watched his expression harden. “Like treason.”

“If I were American, perhaps. But I answer to a higher authority. When I became a physician, I swore an oath to use my knowledge to save people's lives.”

“Like you saved Elias Garcia and Donald and Teagan Summers?”

I expected him to deny the claim but Andre simply lifted his head an inch or two and directed his car back onto the main road. “Sometimes a few must be sacrificed in pursuit of the greater good.”

At that moment, I knew Andre LeDuc was a self-obsessed, idealistic madman. Whatever good he thought he was doing had become more than a mission for him. It was the reason for every breath he drew and he would stop at nothing to see his dream realized. He had ambition. From another point of view, I supposed, some might see him as a hero instead of a raving lunatic. It all just depended on which side of the crazy you stood on.

I let the silence drone on for a few minutes, trying to guess where he was taking me. So far, we'd only driven around in circles, touring the town. Maybe he was looking for a secluded place to kill me.
No
, I thought.
If he wanted to kill me, he would have done it already. He could have done that while I was still trapped in the truck. This is about something else.

“Okay, LeDuc,” I said, throwing my hands up weakly in a gesture of surrender. “You're obviously not going to kill me or you would have done it already. What is this all about?”

“This is where you get off,” he said, though he obviously didn't mean it in the literal sense. “No more investigating the Garcia murder. No more looking for the missing children. I will deliver you safely home after which you will pick up your phone, call your home office and immediately resign your position. Tomorrow morning, you will call a moving truck in which you will place all of your possessions and you will leave Paint Rock never to return.”

“You've got to be joking,” I said, though by the looks of him, Andre was dead serious.

“This is a one-time only offer,” he replied. “Any deviation from the plan I just outlined will greatly reduce my ability to guarantee that you and your son won't be harmed.”

I thought about his offer. Honestly, it was a good one. If I kept down the road I was on, chances were good that I could get killed. I'd already placed Hunter in the line of fire since LeDuc knew where I lived. Donald and Teagan Summers had paid the price for my persistence already. How much more blood did I want to have on my hands? I could do what he said and leave now. That was the only way to guarantee that Hunter and I would be safe.

The cost of our safety, however, would come at a great many more lives. LeDuc and his band of thugs would be free to continue to terrorize the families of Paint Rock. Sal would go away for two murders he didn't commit and the Garcias would never know what happened to their son. Hunter and I would be safe, though, and far away from there. We wouldn't have to think about the mess in Paint Rock ever again and I could be free of the restraints BSI put on me. I could try to live a normal life. That was, until Hunter started to change.

LeDuc pulled into my driveway and put his car in park. “Here we are,” he said. “Safely delivered, as promised. Now, I have your word that you'll be out by tomorrow, yes?”

I narrowed my eyes at LeDuc. “I know what you are,” I lied. “And I know what you did. I'm not leaving Paint Rock until one of us is dead.”

Andre's smile turned into a scowl. He didn't move but the locks clicked closed and his eyes took on that same, cool glow I'd seen when he froze up the truck. “Oh,” said LeDuc and then gave a low laugh that vibrated the glass in the windows. “I don't think you have any idea who or what I am, Agent Black. In fact, what you know about this town and the supernaturals in it couldn't fill a teacup. You're walking on dangerously shaky ground. Take care that your friends and family don't pay the price for your poor footing.”