A Raging Dawn (21 page)

RYDER STARED
AT
the empty doorway where Rossi had stood. Usually when he was on the job, he could compartmentalize, force any random emotions behind locked doors so they wouldn’t distract him. Usually. Before he’d met Rossi.

Now he stood, staring like an idiot, not even sure which emotions held him captive. Anger at the animals who’d dared to attack someone he held dear. Frustration he hadn’t gotten there sooner. Fear that someday he might get there too late to save her.

He rubbed the newly formed scar on his side. She’d risked her life for him. She’d killed a man for him. Hell with feelings. He had a job to do. A promise to keep. For Rossi.

He stepped toward the door, but a woman rushed in, breathless. Louise Mehta, Rossi’s best friend, neurologist, and Ryder’s confidential informant when it came to all things related to fatal insomnia.

She pulled up short, her heels skidding on the linoleum. Her white lab coat was pristine, covering a colorful dress that hinted of springtime even though it was three days before Christmas.

“Matthew.” She glanced around the empty room. “I was called—another PXA overdose?”

“Jacob Voorsanger. Some guys beat him then injected him with PXA. He’s with the surgeons now.”

Her face crumpled with dismay. “Jacob? Oh no. Does Angie know?”

“She just left. They made her watch, Louise. I got there too late to stop it. Or catch them. The bastards are still out there.”

“You think it’s the same people behind the poisoning at the school?”

“Isn’t it?”

She took a sheaf of papers from her coat pocket. “Maybe not. I just consulted on two survivors from the school—”

“How are they? Are they going to make it?”

“Since the overdoses last month, I’ve been working on a possible treatment. It’s too soon to say if it will work.”

“You’ll try your treatment on Jacob?” he asked.

“Yes. They can start it while he’s in surgery.”

“How long will it be before you know if it works?” It would be great to be able to give Rossi some good news.

“I’m not sure. Every patient responds to PXA differently. There are just too many variables. Especially in the victims from the school.”

Ryder did a double take. “Why?”

“They weren’t solely dosed with PXA. According to their toxicology results, they were given a cocktail of PXA, Rohypnol, and scopolamine.”

“PXA plus a date-rape drug? What’s the last one?”

“Scopolamine. Used for motion sickness but actually quite dangerous. In South America, it’s known as the zombie-maker. It can be administered by touch, orally, even by blowing the concentrated powder form into a person’s face as they breathe in.”

“The perfect storm if you want to convince a room full of people to tear their own faces off.” Made sense. Their presumed poisoner, Wysycki—the woman who’d been executed after serving as the Brotherhood’s proxy—was a pharmacy assistant. The attack tonight, timed to coincide with Littleton’s release, had obviously been a long time in its planning. “Was that what they injected Jacob with? This zombie mix?”

“No. He was given pure PXA.”

“That’s good news, right? Means your treatment should have a better chance of working?”

She grimaced, gave a sad shake of her head. “In lower doses, maybe. But at the dose he was given—I can’t make any promises. Angie really should be here when he gets out of surgery. Spend whatever time she can with him. In case…”

He blew out his breath. “I’ll let her know.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Officially, we’re still not talking about her disease. She almost told me something earlier today, then all this shit with Littleton happened. But I have to tell you, I can’t take it much longer. I don’t want to add to her stress with what’s going on with Jacob, but—” He pivoted to the door, then back to her, hating his uncertainty. “Look, I’m not asking you to betray any confidences or mess with your doctor-patient relationship, but give me some advice here. As her friend. I just don’t know what to do anymore. I want to be there for her, want to help, but how can I when she won’t let me in?”

Damn, last thing he wanted was to sound like a whiny school kid with a crush. Rossi meant more to him than that. He just didn’t have the right words…couldn’t even begin to find them. Maybe they didn’t exist; maybe there were no words for what they had. All he knew was whatever they had, he didn’t want to lose it. Or her.

Louise seemed to understand. She stepped close to him, placed her palm on his arm in a motherly fashion, despite the fact that she was only a few years older than he was.

“I’ve known Angie for a long time. She’s always been a hard read. Even worse, there’s this rebel streak in her that won’t let her forgive herself for her father’s death, won’t let her be happy, so she’s always fighting. Herself more than anything else.”

“You’re saying I can’t win here? I should just walk away?”

“Would you?”

“No. No way in hell.” He wasn’t abandoning Rossi. He’d seen the way her family treated her. Even Jacob took her for granted, assumed she was so strong she didn’t need anything or anyone. He knew better. She
was
strong. It was the passion behind that strength that had drawn him to her. But she was also exquisitely vulnerable, even if she’d never admit it to anyone, including herself.

“Then there’s your answer. Just because Angie is driven to fight against happiness, to guard herself against pain and regret, that doesn’t mean she has to win.”

He straightened, feeling better. “Thanks, Louise.”

“What are you going to do now?” she asked.

“Exactly what I promised Rossi I’d do. I’m going to nail these bastards.”

ANGELA SAT IN
silence as Devon took the long way around to her place. He was glad he’d gone back to pick up the car after settling Ozzie in at the brownstone. He wasn’t sure she’d make it the ten blocks to Jimmy’s bar under her own steam.

“He’s going to die,” she said in a hushed voice low enough to be denied.

From what she’d told him about PXA comas, he wasn’t sure that was altogether bad. In fact, if it’d been someone he loved, he might consider taking matters into his own hands, if only to end their suffering. He glanced her way. She stared out the window, her back to him.

“Jacob knows how you feel about him.” It was a lie. Devon seldom lied, and never before to Angela. But the truth would only torture her. Jacob had become a friend, had shared his confusion about his ex-wife, his regret for their divorce. Said he was determined to win her back before it was too late.

Time. The greatest enemy, the ultimate victor.
When he’d worked for the Russians, an
Avtorityet
in charge of their
Bratva,
or brigade, had told him that.

Angela’s shoulders slumped as she shook, her forehead braced against the window. Through everything they’d seen and done together, he’d never seen her cry, not like this, losing all control. He focused on the road ahead, unsure what to do, certain she wouldn’t appreciate any intercession. Like him, she was extremely private, hated being exposed as vulnerable.

The street in front of Jimmy’s Place was crowded with police vehicles and a crime-scene van. He parked around the corner and circled the car to open her door, something she usually would have never allowed him do. The dome light glowed black against the dried blood that smeared her white blouse and pale skin of her hands. He helped her up out of her seat and walked with her to the bar.

Jimmy had closed the place, a handwritten sign reading
FAMILY EMERGENCY
taped to the front door. A crowd gathered beyond the crime scene tape watching the techs bustling around the alley. Angela used her keys to open the door to the bar and they made their way up to her apartment unnoticed.

Her door was unlocked. “Wait here.” He drew his gun and quickly scouted the apartment, easy to do since the loft design left everything in the open except for the bathroom and a curtain drawn across the bedroom area. “Okay, it’s clear.”

She shambled in, her unsteady gait betraying her exhaustion. “You really think they’d come after me?”

“That guy in the alley said they wanted something from you.”

She looked up at the ceiling in despair. “I don’t have anything left.”

Her door was a standard interior door; cheap spring lock that he could bypass in less time than it’d take to knock twice. No peephole, chain, or deadbolt. “This the only lock you have? I’ve seen toilets with better privacy locks.”

“That’s all it’s there for,” she said, her tone approaching robotic. “Privacy. I wasn’t much worried about anything else. Jimmy takes care of the rest with the bar.”

“I’ll send a guy over in the morning.” He spotted the mounds of pills scattered over her dining table. Stepped on several, crushing them. “Good thing Ozzie’s not here. What if he ate these?”

“My mother. She loves her drama.” She joined him, running her fingers through the colorful pills and capsules, picking and choosing. She gulped several down dry.

“Sure you know what you’re doing with those?” Ryder would kill him if he let her overdose or do something stupid. And right now, he couldn’t trust her judgment. He steered her in the direction of the bathroom. “Why don’t you get cleaned up?”

Her gaze vacant, she nodded and stumbled into the bathroom. She left the door ajar, throwing her bloody clothes out, one piece at a time. “Burn those.”

The water started. He gathered the clothing, shoved it into a plastic shopping bag, and set the bag outside her door in the hall. Next, he swept up the pills from the floor, washed them down the disposal, and sorted the other pills into some semblance of order.

She was still in the shower and he’d moved on to gathering the rest of the trash—he’d never have guessed her to be such a slob—when his phone rang. Gena. “Did you find Eugene Littleton?” he asked without greeting her.

“He found me. Has some idea that going on record will keep him alive. The old
if
-
you
-
kill
-
me, this
-
tape
-
will
-
be-released
ploy.”

“That only works if he actually knows something.”

“Exactly. Which is why I suggested we meet at your favorite restaurant.”

“Perfect.” There was an entrance to the tunnels below the Lees’ kitchen. Once he had Eugene in private, he’d see exactly how much he knew about these brothers of his.

The water stopped. Angela emerged, wrapped in a white terrycloth robe, her skin flushed from the shower. Or her illness. He’d noticed she tended to run a fever when she was stressed. And before she entered those crazy fugues of hers.

If Littleton wouldn’t talk, maybe he could persuade Angela to search his mind for the answers. They might need to dose Littleton with PXA to create the right kind of brain waves she could access. And from what she’d told him earlier when she refused to reach out to Daniel, even then it wouldn’t be easy. At least not for her.

But to find the animals who killed Tymara and all those others, it would be worth any pain. He’d just have to convince her of that.

“We’ll be there in twenty,” he told Gena and hung up. Then he turned to Angela. “Want a chance to talk to Eugene Littleton? Maybe get some answers about who those men are?”

She answered with a smile that reminded him of the Russian
Kryshas,
the brutal enforcers who knew no compassion.

IT WASN’T RYDER’S
case. Hell, technically, Ryder was a witness, therefore couldn’t touch this case with a Predator drone. What were they going to do? Demote him? Again?

He left the ER and used his new passkey to enter the Advocacy Center down the hall. All he was doing was thinking. They couldn’t bust him for that, much as it seemed at times that they’d like to. He unlocked the door to his office—first time he’d had his own office; detectives usually worked out of a squad room—and entered.

The overhead fluorescent light revealed a space large enough for a desk, two tall file cabinets, and a round table that seated four. Two walls were covered with whiteboards; someone had drawn
WELCOME, DETECTIVE RYDER!
in colorful letters.

The desk was like any institutional desk, the only personal touch a plate of cookies with a large red bow on top. An image from tonight’s crime scene flitted before him: an almost-empty plate of colorful holiday cookies right beside the shoebox holding all of the NA attendees’ cell phones. Thanks, but no, thanks. He slid the plate into the garbage can. Better paranoid than dead.

He turned to survey his new domain. Computer with dedicated access to both the hospital system and the police department, as well as state and federal databases. Nice. Could come in handy, but right now it was the whiteboards he needed.

He erased the welcome note and started jotting random thoughts. Facts he listed on the left, questions on the right.