Bad Blood: Latter-Day Olympians (8 page)

By early spring, all that was done. Venice Beach, L.A. and its environs were as close to normal as they ever got.
Real?
Well, that was a matter of perspective. Out here keeping it real was just an expression, no more comprehended than “right as rain” or “sick as a dog”.

On this beautiful April day people and street performers—fire-eaters, roller-blading musicians and stand-up philosophers—milled around on the boardwalk a quarter mile away. Farther still rose the scenic Santa Monica Mountains. Lovers might stroll at sunrise or sunset. But for now, I had the beach all to myself. Just the way I liked it.

I didn’t know what I expected to find, nigh on a month after filming wrapped, but it almost didn’t matter. The sun was shining, as it did three-hundred-plus days of the year. The breeze was blowing. My slingbacks knocked against each other as I held them, allowing my toes to curl into the deliciously chill sand. Life was good.

Murder? It was the farthest thing from my mind.

That was the kind of effect the ocean had on me, when I could actually hear the crash of the waves over the roar of the people.

I wandered up and down what I estimated to be the right section of beach, futilely stooping to examine the occasional bit of detritus. If anything of the fish-folk had been left behind, the ocean had claimed it. Finally, I approached the water, which rode in to the beach on gentle four-foot waves, sadly underestimating the tides. As I jumped back from the shock of ice-cold water, I caught movement beyond where the waves began. That froze me. I swept the spot again, hoping to find what had caught my eye, but there was nothing. A figment of my imagination or light hitting the rippling water just so.
Maybe
. But my hindbrain, the part that processed without conscious effort, wouldn’t accept that.
Something
had been there. Too cold for swimmers, too tame for surfers. Anyway, either of those would have surfaced again.

Damn
, I was going out there. I sat my shoes down in the sand with my jacket folded atop to await my return and rolled up my pants legs as high as they would go to just above the knee. I wouldn’t get far, but it would have to do.

The water had only gotten as high as my ankles when my teeth started chattering. I hugged my arms to my chest, as if that would help, and bulled on ahead. Another step, a breaking wave, and the water was up to my knees. Still nothing. My gaze panned the ocean, catching flecks of foam here and there beyond the waves, but nothing
off
. One or two more steps, and I’d be risking the wrath of my dry cleaner. Plus, I was starting to lose feeling in my toes.

What the hell
, I thought.
I’ve come this far. If need be, Apollo can spring for a new suit. Call it a business expense.
I waded forward and something brushed my feet. The chill suddenly hit my heart. Then that something wrapped itself around my leg and yanked. Hard. A scream ripped from me as I went down, opening my mouth to the rush of water—gagging, choking, burning and freezing at the same time as it raced down the wrong pipe, seizing my lungs. I thrashed, but the
thing
had hold of my leg, was pulling me into deeper water. I was desperate for air. My heart pounded but couldn’t seem to expand, as if gripped by a tightening fist.

That panicked me. I jackknifed, clawing at the hand holding me—webbed, I noted as the skin separated. It was a grotesque feeling, worse because it came with a spike of triumph. The grip released. I kicked it away, straining toward the surface—what I hoped was the surface.

A single gasp of air, then the creature had me again, this time in a bear hug around the waist. It practically climbed my back, its body weight pulling me down as it leveraged itself up. Oddly jointed arms circled my neck, cutting off any aid from that last aborted breath.
Last
. No, I wouldn’t accept it.

I kicked backward with all my strength, but had no leverage and his legs quickly wrapped around mine to keep me still. Defenseless.
He
because whatever sick fuck was behind me was getting off on the whole thing. I could feel it. I fought the urge to tense and instead played limp as if the fight had gone out of me, hoping not to telegraph my next move. In the following instant, I flung my head back, bracing against his very body as I smashed his face.

I felt something give and the arms went loose, just long enough for me to twist, to try to bring my arms up between us. It brought me face-to-face with Circe’s killer. No time to dwell on the insanity of what I was seeing as his coal-black eyes met mine—or maybe those were spots swimming before me. Deep, dark, depthless. Already I felt myself slipping away from lack of oxygen. I hoped to Hades the family legends were true and focused everything I had into freezing my attacker in place with the glare.

Nothing moved.
Nothing.
We were sinking before my sputtering brain realized that meant it had
worked
. No treading was keeping us afloat. He was frozen.

Galvanized, I shrugged out of his arms and kicked for all I was worth in the opposite direction—up! My arms felt like lead and my legs like they were encased in cement, but I kept moving.

The urge to open my mouth, to breathe, became nearly unbearable. Spots became my landscape. I wasn’t going to make it.

It was as if the surface rushed to meet me as I poured the last of my strength into one final kick. I hit the air coughing up water and taking oxygen in great gulps.

All I wanted to do was lie there floating, recovering my strength and just breathing, but somewhere below me that thing waited. I didn’t know how long the paralysis would last—still couldn’t believe my whammy had worked at all.

It seemed the hardest thing I’d ever done to make myself
move
. My arms and legs were stiff with cold and refused to bend. It was as if I beat the water with sticks. Only fear propelled me. Every time I bobbed upward I focused on the beach, but it never seemed to be any closer. Finally, my movements slowed almost to nothing except for the shaking. Tremors racked my whole body now. Hypothermia—or something. Something I was supposed to remember. I nearly sank before I thought to turn onto my back. To float. Sun blind. Helpless.

Something grabbed for me—
again
? I thought—but I didn’t have enough energy to fight or figure out why that should be disturbing.

The world had contracted to my palsied limbs and the unexpected warmth of the grip. Dimly I realized that I was moving again, then I lost the fight with consciousness.

Chapter Eight

“All things being equal, I prefer life over death, ’cause, you know, I never have thought of a suitable comeback for that.”

—Tori Karacis

I awoke to a slight pressure on my chest and lips on mine—vaguely, um, mushy—with breath definitely garlic-tinged pushing its way into my mouth. My gag reflex kicked in and the pressure disappeared as I curled onto my side in a fetal position and coughed up a noxious cocktail of saltwater and bile. The heel of a hand bruised my back several times, presumably to encourage the purge. It certainly did that—each time my head would swim and the vertigo caused me to heave-ho.

I was about ready to take a whack at the hand’s owner when I realized something terribly important: I was alive. Pain was just a side effect.

“Ulg—” I managed as the hand hit me again.

A moment of blissful silence was observed. Then I rolled over only to be captured by the rapt stare of my green-haired, barely post-pubescent rescuer.
Sure
, I thought,
it couldn’t have been Orlando Bloom or Hugh Jackman. Oh no, it had to be a refugee from Green Day.
It wasn’t a thought I was particularly proud of, but apparently my inner censor hadn’t yet recovered her equilibrium.

“You okay?” he asked earnestly.

Since the poor boy was still dripping wet, I was guessing I owed him for more than a little mouth-to-mouth.
 

When I didn’t answer immediately, he added, “Jill called 9-1-1.”

It was the first I noticed that there were other people around as well. Enough to start our own beach volleyball game.

I groaned.

“I saw you go down out there,” he continued. “I didn’t think there were sharks here, but I guess I was wrong, huh?”

I tried to shake my head and it nearly split in two.

It felt like someone with a crowbar was trying to whack his way out of my skull.

Seconds later, we were joined by paramedics, who oh-so-helpfully pushed aside the kids and shined an overly bright light into my eyes. I only let them live because 1) I was too weak to move farther and 2) they brought blankets.

It was all fun and games ’til they pulled out the stretcher, the better to cart me off to the hospital, at which point I became an instant convert to Christian Scientology—or whatever it was that claimed medical care was
Evil
. ’Cause everyone knows that evil spelled backwards is live.

Everybody stared at me as if I had two heads and had maybe conked them both too hard out there on a reef. The burlier of the two medics looked like he was ready to haul me in anyway—for a psychiatric exam if nothing else—but his partner held him back with a “Dude, we can’t do it.”

He turned to me then. “But, lady, if you don’t go with us, you gotta get someone to come out here for you. There’s no way you’re going home on your own steam. You can’t drive.”

Burly rolled his eyes. “I’ll get the paperwork,” he said, and stomped off up the beach toward the ambulance.

From the ’tude, I was guessing refusal of care came with a cover-your-buttload of paperwork. But that wasn’t my problem. My problem was that on my shoestring budget I never had gotten around to frivolous things like health insurance. The paramedics alone would probably bankrupt me. The hospital was right out.

Paperwork meant questions I shuddered to consider answering. My throat ached like I’d swallowed prickly pears. I tried to think of something that would head them off at the pass.

“Wallet,” I croaked to the surfer dude, shakily moving to pat my pocket.

When I left my purse behind, I generally folded essentials—driver’s license, PI license, gun permit, some cash and cards—into a bifold case that slipped into my pocket. I hadn’t planned on going for a swim. I wondered what had fared worse, my body or various IDs.

Surfer dude took pity on my slow-motion attempt to fish out my wallet and finally did the honors. He took an inordinant amount of time flipping through everything, even letting an “oh cool” slip out at the sight of my PI license and carry permit, before finally stopping at one card with a hand-scrawled cell phone number. Armani’s. I groaned as he turned it toward me in question and took a swallow—
big mistake
—before nodding my head in answer.

Armani was going to make me pay for this, but I didn’t see any other option. I was pretty sure that the cell phone on my hip and all the nice numbers in memory had not survived the dunking.

My eyes must have started to close because the next thing I knew, I was getting slapped in the face. “Stay with us,” surfer boy commanded.

“So tired,” I mumbled.

But surfer boy had an answer for that—a series of rapid-fire questions to correspond to those little blanks on the paperwork attached to his clipboard. I tried answering each in ten words or less, wondering if they’d believe my near-death experience had spurred me to a sudden vow of silence.

By the time Armani arrived, the few gawkers—no big drama like spurting blood or writhing in pain to hold them—had melted away, including my rescuer, who I realized to my shame I hadn’t even thanked. I was almost looking forward to whatever riot act Armani was sure to read me if only because he wouldn’t expect an answer—at least, not until he wound down. Dashing my hopes, he drifted in silent as the grave to loom over the shoulder of my inquisitor after talking to the other EMT. His lips were tightly compressed, though, and I could tell this was just the calm before the storm.

When the questioning finally died off, Armani reached down to help me up and through sheer force of will I managed to get my muscles working so that I wasn’t completely dead weight. The romantic image of being clasped to Armani’s chest while he heroically bore me off into the sunset fell apart completely with the reality that the scene would more likely involve staggering and cursing under his breath. Not to mention the whole damsel-in-distress thing had never worked for me anyway.

Girl power and all that aside, though, there was something about Armani clutching me tight, his strong arm heating my gooseflesh that was maybe just a little gratifying. Add to that the fact that he wasn’t even complaining that I was getting him completely soaked in the process and I was about ready to take him home to mother, but that seemed a piss-poor way to repay him.

As soon as Armani had me settled into the car with the heat cranked to full, he turned my way and I thought
here it comes
.

“Christian Scientology?” he asked, a glint in his eye.

My shrug was barely detectable. “No insurance,” I rasped back. “Had to say something.”

He looked like he was struggling not to smile. “I think they call themselves Christian Scientists.”

“I’ll—” I winced as the pain temporarily overwhelmed me, “—remember that.”

Armani studied me for a few beats before reaching for his seat belt, adjusting my mirrors and generally doing the guy pre-flight check.

“Sounds like you’re in a lot of pain right now, so I’m not going to ask, but as soon as you get some aspirin and dry clothes, I want the full story, even if you have to sign it to me.”

I nodded meekly, made mellow by the warmth. My eyes shut of their own volition and the next thing I knew, Armani and I were parked out front of my apartment building and he was trying to wake me by chafing my hands. His face was less than a breath away from mine until he noticed that my eyes had opened.

Once inside, I felt like an invalid as I sat at what would have been my kitchen table had I had such a room and directed Armani toward pain meds and glasses via hand gestures. I tried not to notice that my studio apartment was not exactly in company condition—the pull-out sofa I slept on was still in disheveled bed mode, my jammie T-shirt slung over the side, dishes I’d been hoping elves would clean piled in the sink. But it seemed that Armani was the most concerned with the fact that I was about to exceed the doctor-recommended dose of the generic painkiller he brought me.