Sleight of Hand (2 page)

“Nokes is sure there was someone in the warehouse. We can’t take the risk, but we can’t take the risk of someone seeing rifles either. Rack the rifles in my trailer, take the pistols instead and keep them hidden,” he said, looking around. “Spread out and check this place from one end to the other. In, on, under everything. You see him, fucking kill him. We’ll hold anyone else at the gate. I’ll come up with a cover story.”

I texted Morales again:
They’re looking for me. Real soon would be good.

Inbound,
he responded.
Head down.

What the hell had spooked Nokes? It wasn’t the missing coat—he’d have said. I’d left no trace. He hadn’t seen me. He hadn’t heard me. Smell? I’m trained; I wasn’t wearing perfume and last I checked I smelled better than the coat I’d stolen. Maybe he was just right for the wrong reasons, like he’d been about the hydraulics.

The only benefit from this was that the drivers who were looking for me weren’t driving away in their rigs. But if they did a good job with the search, they’d look up here soon. It was a straight race between the SWAT team and the search party. I distracted myself by trying to estimate how long it should take those men to search the compound, and comparing it with the response time the SWAT team quoted.

It had gone quiet, except for the idling engines. I peered over the shed roof again. Windler and Estes were still there, Nokes to one side arguing on his cell. Everyone else had gone off to look for me. Nothing like being wanted to give a girl a nice, warm feeling on a cold, wet night.

Estes held his pistol up in the headlights, checked it and chambered a round. He stuck it back in the pocket of his coat, unsafed. Idiot. The pair of them wandered over toward the office.

“Don’t like this,” Windler muttered, not ten yards from me. “Not tonight. It’s trouble.”

“He’s just jumpy, for Christ’s sake, Guy.”

Windler wasn’t going to be calmed. “There’s been something the whole fucking day.”

“What d’you mean?” said Estes. “It’s just a hydraulic pipe. It happens, man. Nokes is scared of his own shadow.”

“No. Right from the start today. That fucking bitch from HR poking around. Something off about her. Trouble,” he said again.

“Look, him or her, we’ll find them,” Estes said. “Then they’ll be no trouble at all.” He chuckled and grabbed his crotch. “If it’s her, maybe we don’t kill her right away.”

Windler had started to shake his head in irritation again when there was shouting from the gates. Awesome. The cavalry was here.

Windler was the first to react. He turned and sprinted to the new cab. It hadn’t been connected to the trailer yet, and its engine was running. Nokes went for it too.

No freaking way. I leaped off the roof, coat flying, and landed next to Estes.

He turned to me, shock and disbelief on his face giving way to terror. I guess it was the makeup. He started scrabbling in his coat pocket, jerking at the pistol to free it.

“Pleased to see me, are you?” I said, as I grabbed his wrist and slammed my elbow into his face.

Everything happened at once. The pistol in his pocket went off and the bullet tore through his thigh. Windler’s cab started to roll. Estes screamed and would have collapsed but for my grip on him. The SWAT team opened the gates to come swarming through.
No! No! No! Shut the gates!

“FREEZE! POLICE!” was being bellowed from every angle. Someone was yelling my name. Shots were fired. I was standing right between the cab and the gates. It was barreling down on me, twelve feet tall and eight wide, hard bright chrome, lights blazing, engine roaring, dirt and gravel spurting out the sides. I felt a stupid sense of disbelief. He wasn’t going to stop.

There was no chance Estes could get out of the way.

I wanted him in prison, not the morgue. I’m far stronger than I look; I lifted him up and hurled him clear. I’m also very quick; I nearly made it, too.

So, so close.

I was diving backwards when the cab hit me and I did the old rag doll flip through the night air.

“MAN DOWN!” someone screamed.

Oh, jeez, that hurt. I know it was dark and, yeah, I was wearing coveralls and a coat, but come on, guys, gimme a break. Then the ground came up like a huge fist and punched my lights right out.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Cold. Dark. Squeezed in a still, breathless space. Why was I crying? Sergeants don’t cry.

I opened my eyes. Rain, not tears, on my cheeks. Hands on my face, pinching my nose, gripping my jaw. Behind that, someone loomed, inches away.
No! I won’t go back to that cell.

I sucked in a panicky lungful of air and lashed out. I caught him on the chin, and Detective Jennings grunted and collapsed backward.

“Farrell!” Morales shouted at me. “Stop!”

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I levered myself up. Bad mistake. The world went all wobbly for a second and when it settled, I was on all fours, kneeling beside Jennings. At least he was blinking and mumbling.

A medic shouldered me aside and bent over him, muttering about friendly fire.

Morales knelt next to me, but not too close.

“You okay?” he said.

I grimaced as the fog in my head cleared out. The truck…

“Windler? Nokes?” I twisted around to look, making my head spin, and ended up slumped back on my ass.

“The guys in the truck? They got out the gate. We probably hit the driver with a couple of shots, but we didn’t have time to set up a blockade. They’re gone, but they won’t get far.” Morales reached out carefully and lifted my chin up to the lights, looked at my eyes. “You weren’t breathing,” he said. “No pulse.”

“Just shock,” I said. “It wasn’t as bad as it looked.” It was. Or would have been for anyone else. “Anyway, heart and lungs working now.”

“You need to get to the hospital?”

“Thanks, but I don’t like hospitals.” I flexed my shoulders. “Nothing but bumps and bruises anyway.” My shoulders twinged and I stifled a hiss. A lot of bumps and bruises, but I can’t have doctors looking at me.

Morales knew some of the background on this and he was just fishing with his question. I guess I couldn’t blame him. He thought I must know more about it than I did.

I wasn’t a vampire. Yet. And if there was anything I could do to stop it, I wouldn’t become one. In the meantime, I couldn’t risk what might show up on X-rays and blood tests any more than I could risk violating my agreement with the army. And even mouth to mouth resuscitation might have been a really bad idea for Jennings to try, for both of us.

“This man has a concussion. We’ll need to keep him under observation.” The medic glared at me as they stretchered him away.

“I was
not
going to lie there and let him pump my chest and slobber all over my face,” I said defensively to Morales. “You know why…ah, hell. Apologize to him for me, will you? I’ll buy him a drink next week. And, uh, thank you too. Good timing.”

Morales grunted and stood up. “Well, if you don’t need to go to the hospital, do you need a lift home?”

I started to shake my head and thought better of it. Falling over wouldn’t look good. “No, thanks.” I got shakily to my feet. Not good, but not bad. I’ve felt worse.

He handed me a handkerchief. “You might want to get that muck off your face,” he said. “You
will
have a full report in my in-tray tomorrow morning, 9 a.m. And you
will
be available for any further questions.”

“Yes, sir.” Damn, so much for sleeping in tomorrow. But at least he wasn’t chewing me out for not keeping a low profile.

“Then get the hell off my crime scene.” He waved toward the gate.

I couldn’t resist. “Oh. That’s what all this pretty yellow ribbon is for, is it?”

TUESDAY

Chapter 2

Well, unless sitting in the office was my own personal purgatory, I was still alive.

I hurt like hell, though.

I completed the report and stretched, carefully. The bruises would fade and the sprains and strains would repair themselves. I heal exceptionally quickly, but being hit by a truck is always going to hurt for a while.

Scary stuff. Just my kind of evening’s entertainment.

Sitting still while typing the reports had stiffened up my back and I attempted some gentle twists. One of the problems with being five-ten; there was more of me to hurt. Still, on the bright side, a normal person would have been in the hospital, if she were lucky.

Morales had gotten his report. This one was for Carter. I attached it and a final invoice to an email, signed it off as Amber Farrell, Commercial and Private Investigator, and sent it. That began the sweet process that would end with money in my beleaguered bank account. Not a moment too soon. This case had lasted way longer than I had anticipated; the flat fee I’d agreed to had turned out to be a bad decision. It had been interesting, sure, and that was important to me personally, but it meant I had put aside the everyday work that kept an investigation business solvent.

I couldn’t face the thought of that everyday work at the moment. I’d earned an afternoon off. But should I go swimming and show off the bruises all down my body, or just opt for a run to loosen everything up? Or both? That way, I could justify a steak dinner and one of Lario’s legendary chocolate desserts. My mouth started to water at the thought. I’m totally OCD on physical fitness, and a girl’s gotta fuel all that energy.

Before I did anything else, I logged into the bank account and paid Tullah. She had come to work for me with the clear understanding that salaries get paid when they can, but I felt guilty when it was late.

Done. I gathered the remaining notes on my desk and stuck them in the Crate & Freight folder.

I guessed Windler would be in custody by now, with a charge for attempted vehicular manslaughter added to a long rap sheet.

My cell rang and at the same time, the outer door opened. That was unusual, since we didn’t get much walk-in business, but Tullah would hold whoever it was for a few moments. The caller ID on the cell showed Morales.

This ought to be good
. Clearing up a major drug smuggling operation in one hit like that would look good in front of his bosses. So, a little thank you from the police captain, that would just be icing on today’s cake, or Lario’s chocolate dessert, whatever.

The warmth from outside had set the air conditioning off again and made me think how cool that swimming pool would feel. I needed to keep this short.

“Captain Morales, good day,” I said cheerfully.

“Farrell, we have some problems.”

“Hmm. ‘We,’ Captain?” My vision of an afternoon off receded, but I wasn’t going to let it go without a fight.

“Yes, ‘we,’ Farrell, and you can put away the smartass comments any time now.”

“What’s wrong?” I said. “Don’t tell me Windler and Nokes got away?”

“For the moment.”

Despite the sour note of their escape, I still felt good about the op, but I had to get moving.

“Okay. Well, I guess you didn’t call for that.”

“Yeah. Look, Farrell, we’ve locked down Crate & Freight.”

“Damn! Carter’s not going to be happy.” Not to mention me—my invoice wasn’t going to get paid while the company accounts were frozen.

“He isn’t, and let’s be clear, that’s an understatement. That’s the first reason I called you—to give you a heads up. He’s hurting and he’s blaming you.”

The heads up surprised me. Captain Morales wasn’t ever my biggest fan. When I left the police force, I guess I could have dug my heels in and made it an issue, which wouldn’t have looked good on Lieutenant Morales’ watch just as he was pitching for the next slot. In the event, I had left quietly and he was made Captain a month or so later, but that didn’t obligate him to call me with warnings on a matter like this. I guess this was my thank you for last night.

“Okay. Thanks for that.” I hesitated. My paycheck was delayed, and I didn’t want any more bad news today, but I knew there was something more here. “What else?”

“Farrell, we’re talking literally tons of cocaine. This is major league organized crime. There’s someone else hurting here.”

He didn’t need to go on. I was the cause of an astronomical loss to some crime boss. It wasn’t a good place to be.

The landline phone rang and I heard Tullah pick up. Never one thing at a time. I had to end this call.

“I hear you. Thanks again, Captain. I’ll be careful.”

He wouldn’t let it go. “Haven’t you got somewhere else you could be? I’d still need to be able to—”

That plain ticked me off. Of all people, he should have had a good idea of how well I can take care of myself. “I have all this kinda stuff hanging over me already, remember,
Lieutenant
? Now, I have a business to run. Gotta go run it. Bye.”

“Dammit, Farrell, the feds will want—” I hit the cut off and sighed. So, the local drug boss wanted my hide.
Take a number. See if you can find me before the vamps do.

Tullah put her head around the door.

“Amber, there’s Ms. Kingslund to see you, and a call. It’s Mr. Carter on line 1.” Tullah looked irritated, and I guessed that Carter was beyond being polite. If he had a beef with me, I’d take that, but I didn’t want him being unpleasant to Tullah.

I sighed, and all hope of the afternoon off disappeared completely.

“Ask Ms. Kingslund if she would allow me a couple more minutes for this call, please,” I asked Tullah.

“Okay, honey, I hear you,” came back through the partition in a pleasant contralto. “Go ahead.”

My office was a former storeroom at my accountant’s. Ms. Kingslund and I were separated by the thinnest of partitions. I grimaced. Not ideal. I could have done without the ‘honey,’ too, but this wasn’t going to be the best introduction a client could have and I let it ride. I couldn’t put Carter off any longer.

Steeling myself, I picked up the landline.

“Carter, it’s Farrell—” I was going to apologize for him having to hold while I was on my cell, before we discussed how he talked to Tullah, but I never got that far.