Deceived By the Others (28 page)

I paused before speaking, afraid of what might spill out of my mouth if I wasn’t careful. “Who?”

“Police. Reporters. Political activists. You name it. I gave Jen the okay to turn the phone off. They’ve been calling my cell, too.”

My neck creaked from tension when I turned to her. For her part, she held her ground, not flinching at the look I gave her.

“It won’t be long before they start knocking on our doors,” she said, ever so gently placing a hand on my arm. She wasn’t afraid of me; she was concerned. That brought with it a breath of relief, brief and ephemeral as butterfly wings. “Do you want to stay with me until the worst of this blows over?”

I looked around the tiny bedroom, at the pictures hanging on the wall, and the tchotchkes lined up on my dresser. My gaze zeroed in on the picture in the middle. My whole family gathered in the backyard, with Sara and Chaz and Arnold, taken at my younger brother’s birthday party earlier this year. Arnold had been pretending to be my boyfriend that day; Chaz hadn’t liked it, but he’d been civil enough about it. That day had started the chain of events that led to my getting back together with him, back when I thought he was a decent guy. When I thought that breaking up with him had been a mistake.

If not for him, I wouldn’t be in this mess. Sara wouldn’t be looking at me with a mixture of pity and horror.

I wouldn’t have to worry about how long it would take before my parents or brothers saw the paper.

“I don’t know,” I finally replied, the heavy weight of the statement making my voice raw. “My dad has probably already seen this. He always reads the paper in the morning. Did he call the office? My cell was broken on the trip.”

“I haven’t heard from him or your mom yet. I turned off my cell when I figured out yours was off, too. I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier, but I needed a little time… .” She trailed off, voice faint.

I offered a weak smile, which she didn’t return. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not judging. For talking to me about it. For offering to let me stay with you. Shit, Sara, I don’t know. For being my friend.”

She leaned over to put her arm around me, plucking up the box between us and pressing a tissue into my hands. Only then did I realize that tears were spilling down my cheeks.

“Fuck going into work today. Do you have any alcohol?”

Chapter 28

After I got dressed, we spent the next few hours alternately packing up some essentials and crying over ice cream and coffee liberally spiked with Bailey’s and some of the aged whiskey I’d tucked in the back of the fridge, saved for a special occasion. Sara asked some tough questions I didn’t know how to answer. When I explained that I’d sent Arnold on a mission to find a cure, she nodded and said nothing, though I could tell she was hurt that I’d told her boyfriend before her.

We decided to wait a few hours for the alcohol buzz to pass out of our systems before leaving for her place, passing the time in planning and arguing. I gave her the no-holds-barred account of what had occurred over the weekend. We ranted and railed about Chaz’s infidelity together before easing off into a subject that was, in its way, even tougher for me to face than my plans for dealing with the Sunstrikers.

Sara thought I should come clean to my parents about everything that had happened, including why I’d hidden from them that Chaz was Were. I thought that was crazy talk. My parents were no doubt both furious with and worried about me. I was not in the frame of mind to deal with my mom’s hysterics, and likely wouldn’t be for quite a while.

Finally, the two of us came to an uneasy peace; we’d figure it out later. We went back to packing.

A pounding on the door jerked me out of my funk. Sara shot me a look from across the room, hands paused over the books she’d been skimming on my shelf.

I got up from the table where I’d been sorting through some papers and peered through the peephole in the door. There were two men I didn’t recognize outside. When I pulled the door open, leaving the chain on, one of them held up a badge for inspection.

“Ms. Waynest? I’m Detective Terry Smith, and this is Detective Yarmouth.”

Police. The perfect end to a perfect day. I unlocked the chain and opened the door all the way, gesturing them inside. “Let me guess. You guys saw the morning paper.”

The officer smiled at me, his eyes a flinty gray that reminded me too much of Max Carlyle. I looked away and edged over to the kitchen table, settling into a seat. The officers remained standing, both of them eyeing their surroundings. Smith shared a look with the other detective once he spotted Sara across the room.

“Ah, Ms. Halloway is here, too? That’s good. Saves us a trip.” Detective Smith tucked his badge away and pulled out a pad and a pen, glancing between us. “We can keep this short and sweet, if you like. Is there anything you’d like to tell us about the evidence Mr. Pradiz presented in the paper today?”

“I think it speaks for itself,” I stated sourly, rubbing self-consciously at the cuts on my arm. “I’d like to press charges, too.”

“We’ll get to that. Can you identify the Other-citizen responsible?”

“His name is Dillon. Charles Hallbrook can tell you where to find him.”

“Thank you. We’ll follow up on that. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that we’ll be examining the documentation and photographs that Mr. Pradiz collected and plan to proceed accordingly. We’d appreciate it if you would keep this out of the press as much as possible as the investigation is still pending. We don’t want to bias every potential juror in the county.”

“It’s a little late for that.”

“You can prevent any more details from being leaked.”

I nodded, fiddling nervously with a napkin. Though they hadn’t questioned me about it, I had no doubt they’d find out about the hissy fit I’d had, the property I’d technically stolen and destroyed, along with all the other stupid crap that had happened this weekend.

“Ms. Waynest, Ms. Halloway, we believe there may be some danger to your persons and wanted to suggest you find a safe place to stay until the worst of this blows over. We’ve had problems in the past with disappearing witnesses; we don’t want that to happen to you.”

“Great,” I said hollowly. Lovely. Arnold’s earlier words were now confirmed by an irrefutable source. Just another reason to feel inadequate as an investigator and wronged by my decidedly
ex
-lover. I didn’t have time for self-pity, and I forced myself to pay attention to the rest of the conversation.

“She’ll stay with me,” Sara said, her tone brooking no refusal.

“That may not be wise, ma’am. You may be called as a witness, too. We need both of you to stay somewhere safe until the trial is over.”

“Are you taking us into protective custody?” I asked, straightening in alarm. “A witness protection program or something?”

The officer rubbed the back of his neck. “Due to budget cuts and a lack of foundation in this aspect of the case, we haven’t been able to get the approval rushed through yet. For the time being, until we can, we strongly suggest you get out of here and find a place to stay where you won’t be found. A hotel might do the trick. Don’t tell any friends or family where you are. If you can afford it, take some time off from work. And stay in touch with us.” He offered a business card, which I barely glanced at before stuffing it in my pocket. “We can call you in when it’s time, or when the approval to put you under official protection goes through.”

“This isn’t an official visit, is it?” I asked.

Smith reddened, sharing a significant look with Yarmouth before answering me. “No. Can we trust you?”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Can we trust you?” he repeated, darting a furtive look at Sara.

“We can keep a secret, if that’s what you’re asking,” Sara replied, puzzled.

Yarmouth kept his voice low and conspiratorial. We had to lean in to hear him properly, he spoke so quietly. “In his way, Jim did you a favor. Earlier today he sent us copies of all the material he had gathered, along with some extra info on your connections to the Sunstrikers. This is our case, but someone’s been doing their best to sabotage it. We’ve lost a few witnesses in this investigation already. We can’t afford to lose any more. All of this is completely off the record; we were never here. And since that’s the case, I can also tell you that you may want to hurry; there are a few other officers from a different bureau planning to speak with and possibly detain Ms. Waynest. Stay out of any places where your information might be traced. No hospitals, no credit cards, no cell phones. Get it?”

Sara and I shared a look. This wasn’t good news—not that I’d had much of that the last few days anyway, but this made things even more difficult and convoluted than they already were. Funny to think that the reporter had been looking out for me, in his way, even if it took destroying my personal life to do it.

“Thank you, officers,” Sara said. “We’ll get back to you as soon as we’ve found a place to stay.”

They nodded, heading for the door. “Don’t tell us where you are. Just let us know you got there safely and check in every few days.”

“Will do,” I promised.

As soon as they were out the door, I leapt into action.

“Damn it, Shia, where are we going to go?” Sara asked, following me into my room. She slammed her palm against the wall, gritting her teeth as she spotted the picture of Chaz I’d been glaring daggers at earlier. “I can’t believe he’d stoop so low. We can’t go to my house, or my sister Janine’s, Arnold’s, or your parents’ place. I’m not camping out at the office, and I can’t leave the dogs behind. Where the hell are we going to go? How are we going to get any work done?”

“Let me think a minute,” I replied, though a hazy idea was already forming in my mind.

I didn’t have enough cash to pull off a disappearing act until this blew over. Sara might, but most likely she kept the bulk of her money in the bank, which meant any transaction could be traced and lead authorities—or the Sunstrikers, if any of them were savvy or connected enough—right to us.

If the cops were that sure there would be retaliation for being a victim or a witness or whatever the Sunstrikers thought of me, I wasn’t going to sit around and wait to be found. Undoubtedly, they’d eventually come across me if I stayed in the city. No matter what, I’d make it as tough on them as I could. If they came looking for a helpless human, then I’d do my best to pull together all the firepower I could muster. Since we couldn’t go to my family or Sara’s for help, and had little money, our options for running were extremely limited.

That left us with only one place to go that might be (relatively) safe.

Sara watched in confusion as I tore through my closet, shoving things around—until I found the body armor made to ward off vampire and werewolf attacks buried in the back. I tossed it on the bed, soon followed by my combat boots, trench coat, matched guns, extra ammo, and the hunter’s belt. Next came the Amber Kiss perfume I’d hidden under the sink in the bathroom, designed to make me smell less like food to Others. I wrapped the fragile vials in a towel and placed them carefully on top of everything else.

Sara eyed the piles curiously but said nothing. All of it was shoved unceremoniously into a duffel bag slung over my shoulder. She followed as I grabbed my purse off the table and, as an afterthought, plucked my rolodex off my desk and tossed that in my duffel as well.

She gave me a look when I tucked the mostly empty whiskey bottle into my duffel, too.

We trekked down to my car, tossing everything in the back. Sara got into the driver’s seat without asking, and I didn’t question it. Jingling the keys, she glanced at me. “Any ideas yet?”

“Yeah. Let’s go pick up some stuff for you. I think I know where to go from there.”

It didn’t take long to get to Sara’s cute little brick number tucked away in one of New York’s most excellent examples of upper-middle-class suburbia. Her dogs, Buster and Roxie, had their paws up between the slats of the white picket fence, tails going a mile a minute as they barked a furious storm in greeting.

Sara threw together a suitcase with enough clothes and necessities to keep her going for a week or two. She made a few calls, including one to Jen telling her to take a couple of paid days off, which made me cringe. I’d pulled in a lot of dough doing that job for The Circle last year, but reserves were running low, and there was no guarantee we’d be able to pull off working any jobs until the worst of this mess was over. Aside from which, I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to operate now that my face had been plastered on a leading newspaper, no doubt to follow soon on the Internet. That was sure to hamper my undercover work, just as the media coverage after the incident with Royce and Max Carlyle had resulted in a couple of jobs where my cover had been unwittingly blown by curious bystanders and, in one memorable instance, the mark himself recognizing me.

That was a problem for later. For now, I had Sara at my back. Depending on her was something I’d normally rail against, but for now I was willing to make an exception. There were too many variables and too many immediate troubles to let my pride get in the way of our safety.

The dogs were a bit of a problem. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but we put the backseats down and let the dogs ride in the bed of my SUV. They kept shoving their heads between the seats and slobbering on me until I opened the back windows so they could stick their heads out instead.