No Rest for the Wicked (5 page)

Before I could answer, Peter put a hand on my arm. “Adam might be working with us.”

I turned to him. “On what? You told me NSA took over the case.”

Peter rubbed his chin and looked everywhere but at me. “Not exactly.”

“CITAC snatched Suits before Peter could finish questioning him,” said Nancy. CITAC, the Computer Investigations and Infrastructure Threat Assessment Center, was the FBI's relatively new cyber threat investigation unit.

“Too bad.” I studied Peter, who still wouldn't meet my eye.

“Peter and Davis had…words.”

“Really?” Davis was a mulish meathead whose appointment to head the Robbery Homicide Division was generally known to have been more political than deserved.

“So I suggested that Peter help me follow a few leads that CITAC couldn't, and he agreed.”

“Oh, he
did
, did he?” said I.

Peter was frowning at his toes like they puzzled him.

Son of a bitch.

“Can I have a word, Peter?” He didn't resist when I grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him into the kitchen, swinging the door shut and turning on him. “You said you'd take a break when you closed Snipes,” I whispered. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

You think I'm a stubborn, recalcitrant SOB? You should see Peter when he's made up his mind. He planted both feet there and crossed his arms, lower lip stuck out. “It's my job, Adam.”

“It's not your job to solve every homicide in Los Angeles County.”

“Don't exaggerate. I've got a leg up on this because I was there. And because of you. And Nancy and I have worked together before.”

“You're exhausted. You haven't had a day off in months.”
You haven't had a good, hard
fuck in weeks
. I glanced at the open door that led to the living room where, I presumed, Nancy and Jonathan stood wondering what the hell we were whispering about.
At least I hope you
haven't.

Peter still was frowning at his feet. There was more. “What?” I asked.

“I think we should tell her.”

“I think she figured out we're fucking, Peter. Not that we actually
are
lately, but in theory.

I think she got that.”

He looked impatient. “No. About the…” He made a circling gesture with his hand. “You know…”

“
Are you out of your mind
?” My voice squeaked a bit.

Peter glanced at the doorway. “If we tell her, then we can skip all the bullshit and maybe catch this guy.”

“Wouldn't even be an issue if you hadn't volunteered to work the case.”

He eyed me for a minute. Now, Peter's your classic hard-nosed cop most of the time, but he can shift gears as smoothly as Mario Andretti when he needs to. Suddenly, his entire body posture changed. He smiled, slid his arm over my shoulder, and said softly, “Wouldn't it be a hoot to work a homicide together again?” I could feel his body heat, smell his cologne and the minty shampoo he used.

“I'd rather you passed this on to someone else,” I whispered back.

He laid a hand on the tie I still wore. It was my only tie. A little out of date, but it was the one he'd given me when I'd made detective a decade ago and needed a decent suit. Now he straightened it just a little, tugging at it. He may as well have tugged at my dick.

“Just this one case and I'll take a break,” he said. A smile appeared on his lips. “I promise.”

“I've heard that before.”

His hand on the back of my neck was warm, and he did that thing with his finger that made the fur rise up my spine. “Help me out here.”

He was close to me and whispering. I could smell his essence. That cinnamon scent underneath all the others that was wholly Peter. Hell, I could still taste him on my tongue from the kiss earlier. He stroked my tie again, and I would have agreed to walking on my hands and chirping like a bird if he'd asked me to. “Fine, whatever,” I said. “But I'm not telling Jonathan.”

“We'll wait until he's gone home.”

Well, that mollified me considerably. The assumption that Jonathan would be leaving and I would be staying, that is. “Oh. Okay.”

And now Peter had that look in his eyes. The one that said he knew my secret. He grabbed my chin and planted a warm, damp kiss on my mouth and by the time he'd released me I couldn't even remember what we'd been arguing about just moments ago. “C'mon, let's get to work.”

* * *

“Jonathan, I hope you don't mind,” said Peter when we reentered the living room. “The material we have to discuss is confidential, and…”

Jonathan did mind. I could tell by the knives he looked at me. “What about
him
?”

“Adam is on the case too.”

Jonathan raised his clean-shaven chin and shrugged as if it was no big deal. “Sure.” What else could he say? He gathered his things together, then stopped at the door. “We still on for lunch tomorrow?”

Peter glanced in my direction. “Maybe. You know how it is when a case first breaks.”

Jonathan had an expression of disappointment that was entirely out of proportion for a cancelled meal between “friends.” “But if you're only consulting, can't you take an hour for lunch?” he pleaded. Really, he was pathetic. Somebody should kill him and put him out of his misery.

“Maybe,” said Peter. “We'll see.” He opened the door.

Jonathan turned one more dirty look in my direction. “Good night, Adam,” he said. “Keep the shiny side up. Isn't that what you bikers say?”

“Something like that. Pedal safely now, Lance.” Ostensibly to save gas, Jonathan rode around the West Side on a fat old beach cruiser.

“Ha ha,” said Jonathan.

We grinned at each other like Death Heads.

“Lunch?” I said when Peter had reseated himself.

I thought I managed to sound casually curious, but Peter shot me one of his “don't go there” warning looks. “Payday Wednesdays,” he said. “Remember?”

Payday Wednesday at the Police Revolver and Athletic Club downtown was an LAPD

tradition. He and I had met there for drinks for years. And then, after I'd taken the pledge, we'd met for late lunch. Of course, now I couldn't. Chances were half the men I'd see there had attended my funeral. I guess I'd assumed that Peter had stopped going as well.

Yes, the world revolves around yours truly.

It didn't seem fair that Jonathan could have lunch in my stead just because he wasn't dead. I couldn't say shit, though, because, according to Peter, Jonathan and I weren't competing.

Right.

Nancy had begun digging folded sheets of paper out of her briefcase. I didn't like the way she was spreading herself out over Peter's dining-room table like she planned to be staying awhile. I could see that they were badly Xeroxed copies of LAPD crime scene files. “I managed to copy these before we handed the file over to CITAC,” she said.

“Wait. I thought you were working on this in tandem with the cyber squad?”

Peter made an impatient gesture. “You know how territorial the feds can be.”

There was something up. I knew by the way both he and Nancy were averting their gazes.

Nancy picked up a pen and a sheaf of papers that were stapled at one corner. “Justin Lake had been in the news for weeks because of the lawsuit between him and his partner,” she said. “Over the rights to a code he'd written. Rumor is he'd perfected it and instead of selling it was going to release it open source.”

This sounded exactly like what Drew had been babbling about. I still had no idea what it meant. “Right.”

Nancy gave me a keen look. “Which of course would tick off the partner if he wanted to sell it the old-fashioned way.”

I gave up trying to look like I knew what she was talking about. “What is 'open source'?”

“Lake would release the code for free use. As long as you didn't make a profit off it, you could utilize it, personalize it, whatever.”

“But if this code was supposedly worth millions, why would he do that?” I asked.

“Altruism,” said Peter. “For the greater good.”

This explained the holy gleam Peter had in his eye. The one he'd get when a homicide investigation had become personal. “With Lake dead, Orville Suits gets it all,” he said.

“Looks that way,” said Nancy. “The company was a simple partnership. The popular mythology is that Cloud Ninety was begun with a handshake at a LAN event. Neither man was married, so they both had wills that stipulated that, in the event of either's death, the whole ownership was set to go to the other. That's where the thing gets complicated, though. An attorney has come forward and claimed that Lake had approached him recently with questions about changing his will.”

“What did Suits say?”

Peter's face flushed. “Goddamn Davis. I was minutes away from something.”

Nancy nodded. “He was starting to sweat. I was watching the interview,” she told me.

“Suits wasn't even a little surprised to hear that Lake was dead. He started to twitch when we told him the manner of the death, though. And, of course, the first thing he asked was if we'd recovered a hard drive or anything that might have held several gigs of material.”

“According to Suits, Lake had the only copy of the code, and nobody but he knew where it was located,” said Peter.

“Of course you didn't believe him.”

Peter shrugged. “Suits can't release the code for sale or use without the FBI knocking on his door three seconds later, so I believed him.”

“So, you don't think the code was the motive?”

“Oh, that code is at the bottom of it, but we haven't figured out how.”

“Odds are Lake hid the code somewhere. Suits had some choice words about how paranoid Lake was, etcetera,” said Nancy. “He was pretty damned upset about it. More than he was about Lake's death. CITAC seized every computer they could find at his home and office. NS is convinced the cloud code could be used by cyber terrorists to attack our government.” She rolled

her eyes. “And they call me paranoid. They want to get their hands on it so they can begin building a firewall against it. But our cyber experts are pessimistic about locating the code on some random computer lying around Lake's offices. They all seem to think he was some sort of mad genius who would cover his tracks digitally.”

Peter nodded, looking grave. “Best-case scenario, the code is lost forever. Worst-case, it's lying around somewhere waiting for anyone to find.” He tapped the table for emphasis. “
Anyone
.

Suits couldn't stop obsessing about that.”

“One of the CITAC guys let me in on their theory. They think Lake's murder was accidental,” said Nancy. “Maybe somebody Suits hired to scare Lake into giving out the location of this…thing. And that somebody went too far. So, they figure they'll get Suits to work with them to recover the code and give him a deal in return.”

“That was no accident,” I said. “That was a deliberate kill.”

Nancy's eyebrows rose. “Pardon me?”

“I think,” I amended feebly.

Peter cleared his throat, looking sheepish. “Um, by the way, Nancy. There's something I've been meaning to tell you about Adam.”

“I understand,” said Nancy. “You know I kind of figured it out. I'm surprised you thought you had to mention it. What you do in your private time is
your
business.”

“No, not that. I mean…” God bless him, Peter was blushing like a schoolgirl. “I mean, yeah, that. But Adam isn't your average man. He's a…”

I don't think he'd ever said the word. He looked to me, and damned if I couldn't say it either.

“Something funny happened during a drug bust last year,” I said. “And I woke up dead.”

Nancy squinted from me to Peter, a smile hovering on her lips. She thought we were jerking her chain, of course.

“Somebody stuck their fangs in my neck and left me to bleed to death. Except I woke up in the morgue. Changed. We're still trying to figure out what it means,” I elucidated a bit.

Nancy's smile began to fade.

“Ever since this happened to Adam, I've been following these deaths,” Peter told her. “It's not something I feel comfortable making official, you understand.”

I couldn't identify the expression on Nancy's face. “Sure, I understand.”

“So, normally I'd keep this to myself. But I need to get you on the same page as fast as possible. The marks on Lake's neck and the manner of his death are in keeping with a rash of similar homicides all occurring this past year. Adam's…state…was the result of an attack by one of these…persons.” Peter looked truly uncomfortable.

By now Nancy was clearly angry. “Funny,” she said. “Did Thomas put you up to this?

Because I don't have time for any of his bullshit.”

Of course. Nancy “Mulder” Dickes probably had had a bellyful of practical jokes at her expense.

“Show her,” said Peter.

So I did. All I had to do was think about blood, and the change crept up over me like a chill. Of course, she'd caught a glimpse earlier, but this time I held it long enough for her to really get a good look. Nancy barely flinched, though I heard her heart do a little
kathump
. Half that incredulous smile still hovered on her lips, so I went and got a bag of blood from Peter's vegetable bin. I was hungry anyway.

I always lose myself in the process but when I broke away, Nancy's smile was gone. She looked a little pale.

“I see,” she said shakily. “I understand why you take care whom you tell this to.”

Peter was pink in the face, like he was embarrassed. “Once you get used to it, it's just like a skin condition.”

I managed not to laugh in disbelief.
A skin condition?

“I'll toss this,” I said, picking up the bag and heading back to the kitchen. By the time I'd disposed of everything, wiped my face, and sat down again, Nancy had recovered some of her aplomb.

“I've always suspected there was something going on out here that nobody would admit to,” she said. Her pale, tired demeanor was gone, and she had a glow as if lit by some inner fire.

I exchanged glances with Peter. “We're trying to keep it quiet,” I told her.

“Citizens have a right to know,” said Nancy. “You can't cover something like this up.”

Peter frowned. “There's no cover-up. Murders by exsanguination of this particular sort had been popping up around town without anyone really taking note of them for a year or so.