Devil's Playground (4 page)

A
s I exited
Devil’s Playground
through the back door, I saw two police cars still in the alleyway. Each vehicle had red and white lights blinking from the rooftops. It was all illuminated ostentatiousness.

A reaching glow bounced from off the cement walls and skipped eerily over the body bag that held the remains of Darcy Mae Walker. Her corpse was being pushed over the cracked pavement on a gurney. A few seconds later, I watched, as a medic loaded the body into an ambulance that was parked off to the side. Two police officers barely noticed my presence, but Detective Andrews looked up from his notepad, as I walked over.

“Can you see all this yellow crime scene tape? It means you’re not allowed back here. So please, take your leave, miss.”

I thought about arguing with him, but I knew it would be for naught. That guy wasn’t the rule-breaker type, not even for a pretty pouty face. Not saying that I’d have pouted, or anything. Well, maybe I would have a little, for the right information.

I met the detective’s eyes and saw that they were full of irritation. Apparently, I was annoying him. He hadn’t seen nothin’ yet.

“Sorry, tough guy. I was checking to see if you and your friends had cleared out yet. I need to make this exit available for our customers, fire hazard and all.”

I shrugged after the lie. My real reason for being there was to do a little investigating of my own. The police still being there had thrown a wrench into my plans.

Darcy’s cold breath floated from behind to chill my ear lobe.

“What’s his problem?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered in her direction.

When she went silent, I turned, only to find that Darcy wasn’t there anymore. She’d vanished into thin air, like ghosts tend to do.

Andrews pushed his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose.

“What did you say?”

I shook my head and replied, “Nothin’.”

He gave me another one of his exasperated looks and went back to whatever he’d been doing before I arrived.

“You can go now.”

I noticed a glint out over the detective’s shoulder. It came from the ground by the dumpster. The spark was tiny, shining every time the police lights skipped over it.

Interesting
.

I pulled a half-empty box of Tic-Tacs from my back pocket.

“I’ll leave. I just need to throw this away first.”

I rushed forward, before anyone could try and stop me.

“Hey!” Detective Andrews yelled after me.

“Damn it,” I said, dropping the breath mints on purpose. “I’m such a klutz.”

Trying to be as sly as possible, I reached down and picked up both the mints and the item I’d spotted from the ground. The sparkly trinket had been partially hidden under the trash bin. I would have missed it altogether if it weren’t for its bright flash.

I could hear boots shuffling through the gravel, coming quickly toward me. Just as I tossed the mints inside the open trash bin and stowed the pilfered item down the waistband of my pants—the feel of cold metal, sliding down to settle in the front of my panties—I found myself spread-eagle up against the wall, thanks to one of the police officers.

I hid a grin behind my hair, mussed from the tussle, because as screwed as I was, I’d successfully acquired what I’d been after. I sure hoped it was worth it… whatever the thing was.

Detective Andrews yelled, “Let her go, Officer Tyler.”

Officer
Tyler
grabbed my wrists hard and shoved them together behind my back. The asshole wasn’t being gentle
at all
. A gasp of pain escaped me.

“Hey, Andrews!” I yelled from the awkward position my body was in. “Mind telling your henchman here that I can leave on my own accord, no police escort needed?”

“Shut your mouth, lady,” Tyler hissed between his teeth, pushing me harder against the wall.

I couldn’t help it; I yelped like a Chihuahua. It felt like my wrist would crack against the pressure. I healed fast, but damn, that didn’t mean I couldn’t feel every bit of pain inflicted upon my body. And the guy was throwing down the hammer. And by the tiny bulge rubbing against my right butt cheek, I could tell the son of a bitch was getting off on it.

Detective Andrews appeared next to us, his face hovering an inch from the officer’s.

“Let her go now. Don’t make me tell you again, rookie.”

I grinned at Detective Andrews, who was apparently not as bad a guy as I’d initially thought.

“I was just throwing away some trash. I thought it would be stupid to litter around an officer of the law. Guess I was wrong.”

I looked behind me at Officer Tyler and caught the look of rage and disgust in his eyes, before he finally let me go.

“She’s up to something, Detective. No one who dresses like she does and hangs out in the back alley of a bar like a cheap hooker isn’t.”

I looked past Tyler and saw embarrassment on Detective Andrew’s face.

“Get away from her now, officer.”

Officer Tyler gave me one last cold glare.

“We’re not finished, lady, not by a long shot.”

What the hell did I ever do to catch the ire of that idiot? From the way he looked me up and down, I could give it a guess. He gave off that male chauvinist pig vibe. You know the type—
Me man, you woman. Man go kill dinner. Woman stay in cave for man to hump.

Rubbing my sore wrists, I gave Tyler a cold hard stare of my own, as I said, “Go screw yourself.”

The back door to the club flew open and slammed against the wall with a solid
thwack
.

“If you value your life, punk, you’ll step the fuck away from her now.”

Both the detective and Officer Tyler drew their weapons.

“Stay right where you are,” Anderson’s voice boomed.

Rafe’s perfect features were drawn tight with rage, every muscle in his body coiled to strike.

“You can point those fucking things at me all you want. Just get away from her.”

“Rafe, I’m not hurt. Go back inside.”

His eyes latched onto mine.

“Sorry, Kris, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m here as long as that punk-ass cop is.”

The situation was going south fast. Rafe was a powerful vampire—my vampire—and he could snap these guys into twigs if he was so inclined. And on the flip-side, if Rafe decided to keep all of his superhuman strength and speed under wraps, his bravado would certainly land him in jail. I had to defuse the testosterone-infused bomb, or it would surely explode in all our faces.

“Hey, guys. Look, I’m leaving. Let’s forget this entire scene even happened, okay? We’re worked up over the murder, and we could all use a rewind.”

I watched Tyler’s hand tremble around the hilt of his gun. His stance was stiff, eyes narrowed on Rafe. A rookie with a nervous trigger finger was bad… very bad.

“Officer Tyler,” I said calmly, so as to not spook him further, “that unarmed man is my friend, and he also works here. You said some pretty unpleasant things to me, which I’m willing to forget if you will lower your gun, so we can walk away from this unharmed.”

At that moment, the metal thing-a-ma-jig that I’d snatched off the ground slid even farther down my pants. One of the ends caught and dangled from the lace seam, and the other slipped down my leg. I shifted awkwardly. Rafe must have caught the move, because he raised a questioning brow. I shook my head and prayed it wouldn’t fall out and land on the ground.

With his back still turned, eyes focused on our unfortunate circumstance, Anderson said, “Miss, why don’t you move it inside and take your friend with you, so we can go about our business, and you can go about yours? How does that sound?”

That was the break I was looking for.

“Yup, let’s do that.”

I eased forward, around Tyler, who looked pissed off at Anderson’s decision to let us leave, and walked straight into Rafe’s arms. He held me out in front of him, fingers clenched around my upper arms.

“Did that scumbag hurt you?”

I pushed against his chest, which was rock hard, tensed from the near miss of violence, and guided us back through the open door. As soon as we entered the club, I kicked it shut.

“No, I’m fine,” I said, as I shoved my hand down my pants.

Rafe’s eye’s widened.

“If you wait for Rush, he’d be more than happy to do that for you.”

I felt around in my pants and said, “Where are you?” Then my fingers snagged on it. “Ah-ha!” I yanked the chilly sucker out of my pants and held it out for display. “Look what I found. It’s a clue… I just know it.”

Rafe’s humored stare narrowed on the bracelet, hanging from my fist.

“So that entire scene in the alleyway and your crotch-grabbing was for that?”

I smiled wider than the Cheshire cat.

“I think I just stole evidence from a crime scene.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

Darcy appeared, and her eyes bulged, when she saw what I held in my hand, her face morphing from pleasant to livid.

“Get that thing away from me!”

“Wha…?”

I looked down at the bracelet in my hand. It was nothing special. Just an ordinary piece of jewelry, made from silver or white gold. It had a single round charm, dangling from one of the chain links. Upon closer inspection, I saw that engraved in the disc was the likeness of a wild pig or boar. From its mouth, lower tusks protruded, giving the appearance of a vicious predator. It was an odd choice for a woman to adorn her wrist with, but nothing peculiar enough to get upset about. Or so I thought.

“Do you recognize this?” I asked.

Darcy floated back a few feet and nodded.

Rafe looked at the empty space next to me and asked, “Who are you talking to?”

Waving my hand at him impatiently, I said, “A ghost named Darcy. She’s freaked out by the bracelet.”

“Oh.” He looked thoughtful. “A ghost is here with us now? Can she allow me to see her, like your great-grandmother, Deidra, did?”

“No, she’s too young.”

“I see. Or I guess I
don’t see,
in this case.”

I glanced from Rafe to Darcy and asked, “Will you tell me about the bracelet?”

Terror faded to a whisper of fright in Darcy’s eyes.

“I guess so.” She took a long breath that produced no air. It was a force of habit for a ghost to mimic the human condition. “From what little I can remember, all of us had to wear those damn things. It’s how our Handlers kept track of us.”

“Handlers?” My thoughts jumped back to Josh and how he described his role in Darcy’s murder. “Do you mean the people who picked you up and dropped you off?”

“Uh-huh. As I mentioned before, they also forced me to drink some weird concoction more than once a day. I didn’t know what the hell it was, but as soon as the effects of it kicked in, I couldn’t tell up from down. That’s when the Handlers would come. The rest is foggy.” She took another glance at the bracelet and grimaced. “Except for those damn bracelets; I remember those. We were branded by them like a herd of cattle.”

My heart bled for her. I could only imagine the kind of Hell she’d been through. It was enough to make me want to strike out in vengeance for what was done to her and God only knew who else. Then a truth so apparent hit me. From Darcy’s definition of a Handler’s duties, Josh, even though Slone swore to his innocence, knew far more about her death than he was letting on.

“Rafe, can you do me a favor?” I asked.

My tall perfect specimen of a man gave me an endearing look. The softness in his features warmed me. Not in the way that a certain vampiric porno show in the basement did, but in a familiar one that denoted a love that was born from pure loyalty of heart, trust of mind, and creation of the flesh. I knew without question that Rafe Devereaux was someone I could trust with everything. Our bond was without measure.

“Of course, Kris. Anything, just name it.”

“How do I get one of those?” Darcy interrupted.

I ignored her and her raging hormones.

“Can you go down to the kitchen and see if a guy named Josh is still there?” I was breaking Slone’s confidence by asking Rafe to do that, but if what I suspected were true, it couldn’t be helped. “Slone will know.”

Rafe’s mysterious dark eyes dimmed even further, almost to a pitch black. The look he gave gripped me with its fierceness, and soon after, a feeling of foreboding shadowed me. I had a hunch that it wasn’t only my emotions I was experiencing.

That wasn’t the first time Rafe and I had shared our minds. We’d once forged a connection so strong that I could see through his eyes and feel everything he was feeling at the exact moment it was occurring. It was so powerful a joining that it knocked me out cold.

“Something isn’t right. You think this punk is no good, maybe even evil.” Rafe’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “This means he may be a danger to you. No way am I going to bring him near you. I’d much rather kill him on sight.”

With a charming smile, I explained, “My suspicions aren’t truths. Besides, how can anyone harm me with you around to watch over me?”

He thought about it for a second, and then his shoulders relaxed a bit.

“I’m not taking my eyes off that fucker. And he stands right next to me the entire time you’re talking to him, just in case your gut feeling is on the money.”

“I can live with that,” I said.

He grunted his agreement before turning to leave.

“Oh, shoot!” I said.

“What?” Darcy asked.

Her eyes were glued to Rafe’s retreating backside.

“I forgot my phone behind the bar, and I need to get in touch with Rush.” I scraped both hands over my face. “And I need to drop off a rental agreement by 6:00 tonight, or I’m going to lose an apartment I really, really want.”

“Oh. It’s 5:00 now, so you still have time,” she said.

“How do you know what time it is?”

Darcy laughed and pointed to a big round clock that was bolted to the wall. The timepiece was encased in a mesh cage, so it wouldn’t be damaged by any of the hazards that came with being in a supes bar. Time was important to vampires, especially in a light-tight establishment, where they couldn’t tell if it was night or day.

“I’m a ghost, Kris. I’m not blind.”