Disruptor (11 page)

Though what the hell she was looking for, or
hoped to do with that information, eluded her. Cops needed to be
doing this, not her. And while her night vision was a handy
enhancement, it wasn’t the best for detail work. She had an early
iteration of that bit of tech, and had escaped before the scheduled
upgrade for it and her neural interface. Something bothered her
about the girl’s skin, though, and she wished she had a flashlight
to see better. Tiny marks that appeared to be in pairs…puncture
wounds? Needle tracks? What the hell?

Dani patted down the pockets of Kevin’s
jacket. He wasn’t a smoker, there was no hint of that odor in his
apartment. But he seemed like the kind of guy who liked to have a
lighter, in case a pretty woman needed a light. She scored in the
left inside pocket, a Zippo. The metal was cool to the touch.

Screams in Russian. Burning flesh and the
thick copper tang of blood in the air. Smoke and flame and
fury.

Dani regretted none of it. They were
traffickers, they deserved it. Look what they’d done to this girl,
just for escaping. Sure, technically, it could have been just about
any predator in Cabrini. There were certainly plenty of them. But
Dani was sure it was the traffickers, asserting their control over
their property, sending a message to other girls who either had
escaped that night or might consider trying. She flicked on the
lighter and leaned closer to examine the strange marks.

Right away she knew what they were – stun gun
marks. That bastard with the stun gun, he hadn’t been in the house
with the rest of the traffickers. He’d found this girl, tortured
her with his fucking stun gun, and strangled her to death.

Dani swore and closed the lighter. There were
three more girls out there. He’d be looking for them.

So would she.

***

Kevin searched the apartment for a note,
anything to indicate where Dani was and when she’d be back.
Nothing. He was confident she would be back, she needed the new
identity documents. But he was worried about her. She could
definitely take care of herself physically but it was obvious there
was some emotional stuff going on that might not be so easy to deal
with. Getting in the habit of worrying about her was not a good
idea. She’d be gone as soon as the ID came through, and the next
time she had another rough night full of bad dreams, he wouldn’t be
there to help her through it.

Relief flooded him when a knock came from the
door and he rushed to open it. “Are you okay?”

Tyler stared back at him. “I’m fine. Are
you?”

Kevin exhaled loudly. “Yeah, yeah. I just
thought you might be someone else. What’s up?”

Tyler waved his hands at the door. “You gonna
let me in or what?”

Kevin hesitated. She could come back at any
time. Tyler would give him hell if Kevin didn’t let him in, though.
“Of course.”

They settled in the living room. Tyler
started to talk but Kevin heard none of it. The tablet had been
moved. He picked it up and checked – sure enough, the Twitter app
was up. She’d been reading the #CabriniGhost column. He scrolled
through it, hoping she hadn’t gone out into the night on some
vigilante mission.

“Hey, are you even paying attention to me?
I’m trying to talk to you, man.”

The image of a dead body appeared in the
column. Kevin dropped the tablet. “Fuck.”

“What’s your problem?” Tyler leaned over and
tried to pick up the device.

Kevin beat him to it. “Nothing.”

Holy shit. Dead girl by the river.
#CabriniGhost needs to get her ass back out here.

So call the fucking cops instead of taking
pictures like a Goddamn ghoul, Kevin wanted to scream.

“Look, I could really use your help with
this. I’d like to buy out my investors but cash flow is a problem
right now. So I just thought going into business with a friend
would be more fun, you know?”

Kevin tried to piece together what Tyler was
talking about. “You want me to invest in your club?”

“You, me, and every model in the city, at the
hottest new club in town. Sounds perfect, huh?”

“Not really, no.”

Tyler’s good humor turned on a dime. “Fuck
you, man.”

“What is it you need? Just tell me.” He
wanted to mollify his friend, and get him gone. If Dani didn’t come
back soon, Kevin intended to go looking for her.

“I thought we were friends.”

“Of course we are. Just because I’m not
interested in going into business with you doesn’t mean we’re not
friends. Stop acting like we’re still in high school and tell me
what’s wrong.”

Tyler glared for a moment. “I had a press
release sent to the paper about the club opening. That bitch who
writes the society column talked about my old drug arrests. Now my
backers are worried all their money’s gonna go up my nose.”

“I don’t see how I can help with that.”

“I paid my fines and went to rehab for that
shit. Why the hell won’t people let it go?”

Kevin didn’t know how to answer that without
further angering his friend. “My family reminds me of my arrest
record every chance they get.”

“Yeah, but they’re just like everyone else.
They don’t think you’re an asshole, but people do think that of
me.”

“That’s because you are.” Kevin was rapidly
losing patience.

“You don’t have to say it too, man.”

“Have you tried not being an asshole?”

“You know what, fuck you.” Tyler stood.

Kevin followed suit. “What is it that you
need me to do? Come on, cut me some slack. It’s been a rough
week.”

Tyler blanched, as if just remembering that
his friend had been badly beaten and injured mere days ago. The way
he was, he probably had forgotten all about it. “I’m taking a lot
of grief from my investors. I’d like to buy them out but I
can’t.”

That rang alarm bells. “Did your father cut
you off again?”

Tyler said nothing, which told Kevin
everything. Kevin rubbed his jaw, trying to dig through his
impatience to find an ounce of diplomacy. “Look, neither one of us
knows the first thing about running a nightclub. And frankly, I’m
not interested.”

“I owe a lot of money, but I know if you help
me out with this, we can make it back and then some.”

Forget alarm bells, that set off red lights
and a bleating klaxon. “Wait, are you saying you owe these people
money? That’s why they’re you’re investors?”

“It’s complicated.”

“It sounds like a clusterfuck. Dude, you need
to talk to your old man. Apologize for whatever pissed him off this
time and get him to give you access to your accounts back.”

“I tried that! He won’t do it. Not unless I
come to work for him, and you know what that would mean. Under his
thumb twenty-four seven. I want my own business and I want it to be
a success.” Tyler shook his head. “Aren’t you tired of being the
family fuck up? I know I am.”

That hit Kevin like a physical blow. Yes.
Yes, he damn sure was tired of being the family fuck up, even if
they didn’t think he was an asshole. But going into business with
someone even more irresponsible than he was didn’t sound like the
way to make a change.

The door opened and Dani walked in, saving
Kevin from having to answer. Now he just had to come up with a
cover story for her presence that wouldn’t be insulting to her.

Damn, she looked good in his black leather
jacket.

Tyler turned his attention to the new
arrival. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” He looked her up and down and
gave her a smile that was more smarm than charm. Kevin curled his
lip in disgust.

Dani ignored Tyler and addressed Kevin. “We
need to talk.”

Kevin nodded, trying to suppress a little
thrill of gratification.

“I’m Tyler Kincaid.” Tyler stuck his hand
out. “Kevin’s oldest friend.”

“One of my oldest friends,” Kevin said.
“Tyler, this is Danielle Marquez.” It was the name she’d given him
for her new ID. “She’s a personal trainer and self-defense expert.
I’m going to be taking a few lessons from her.” Wary, he searched
her face for her reaction.

She visibly relaxed. “Nice to meet you, Mr.
Kincaid.” To Kevin she said, “We need to talk about our schedule
and the workouts and all that.” She pointed toward the kitchen.
“I’ll wait for you.”

Both men watched her walk away. Kevin caught
the look on Tyler’s face and hoped to God that he, Kevin, didn’t
look like a dog with his tongue hanging out. Tyler said, “Personal
trainer, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“She knows her way around the place
already?”

Shit
. Kevin scrambled for an answer.
“We had an interview before I hired her.”

Tyler faced him. “Was that your jacket she
was wearing?”

Kevin forced out a chuckle. “Of course not.
Look, I need to take this meeting. Dani’s very exclusive. She’ll
drop a client if they’re late too often or won’t put in the work. I
know it may seem silly, but after what happened I really want some
self-defense training.”

The not so subtle reminder of the attack had
the desired effect. Tyler backed off. “I hear you.”

Kevin ushered Tyler to the door.

She didn’t look like she’d been hurt. That
was a good sign. If she’d been reading the #CabriniGhost hashtag –
and he figured there was no
if
to it – that wasn’t such a
good sign. Especially if she’d seen the tweet about the dead
girl.

Dani stripped off the jacket and tossed it
onto a countertop. She stood at the sink and turned on the hot
water. Watched it run down the drain as she waited for it to heat
up. As it hit the metal sink, the clear liquid ran red, cloudy at
first, then thick and dark. Dani jumped, gasping. With a blink, the
blood became clear, clean water again.

The night she’d burned down the trafficker’s
house, that first shower she’d taken here after Kevin found her in
the street, the water had turned red as she washed the blood off.
Just some weird trick of memory after the stress of seeing a dead
body. The dead body of an innocent. The traffickers deserved every
injury, every bullet and cut and kick and punch. Dani had no
remorse about killing some of them. None whatsoever. She only
wished she could have killed them all, especially that bastard with
a fondness for a stun gun.

Steam curled up from the flowing water. She
found a soap dispenser and pumped way more than she needed into one
palm. Scrubbed her hands, wrists, all the way up to her elbows,
even though she hadn’t actually touched the body. Seeing her was
bad enough, but leaving her felt like a betrayal. Dani had left
with no cell phone, or change, not that there was a working
payphone below 110
^th
Street. Hell, there might not have
been a payphone left anywhere in the city. Police needed to be
tipped off. Even if they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, solve the girl’s
murder, they would at least make sure she was buried somewhere. Not
left abandoned, prey for animals one last time.

Pain from the intense heat of the water
didn’t register right away. Once it did, though, Dani bit back an
oath and shut the tap off. She shook her hands, searching for a
towel. The world turned fuzzy and dark. She grabbed the edge of the
counter. How long had she stood there like that? Her hands were
tomato red and sore.

Oh God. You’re dissociating again.

She lunged for the jacket and shoved her face
in the lining. Kevin’s cologne filled her lungs.

“
best to engage all five senses and force
yourself to stay in the present and”

Dr. Hurd’s voice whispered to her from four
years in the past. After Cassidy was dead and Wolff carted off to
who knew where, Dani, Nic, and Angel finally got the treatment
they’d needed for PTSD. They may have had the same diagnosis but
their symptoms varied. Hurd believed Dani’s was worse because of
her background. Dani had no opinion on that but she didn’t much
care either way once she finally tried some of the coping
techniques and figured out what worked for her.

She let the jacket fall away and staggered to
the fridge, cupped her hand under the ice dispenser and pushed. Two
chunks landed in her palm with others hitting the floor. The cold
burned on her already raw skin.

Kevin entered the kitchen, mouth open to
speak. He shut it and stared.

“I’ll be okay,” she ground out. “I can
deal.”

“What can I do to help?” He hurried to her
side.

“Turn some music on. Doesn’t matter what,
just something loud and obnoxious.” She slid to the floor, passing
the ice from hand to hand.

Kevin plugged his phone into a sound dock.
The horrible girl group wall of noise that emitted from it made her
question his sanity.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You
told me loud and obnoxious, I gave you loud and obnoxious.”

“Did you pay actual money for that shit?” She
tried for a smile and was glad to note that she got there. It was
working. She felt calmer, more centered.

He knelt beside her. “I’ll have you know they
happen to be really cute, and I have very eclectic taste in
music.”

“That means you like a lot of embarrassing
stuff, right?”

He smiled. “I’m a sucker for cheesy pop.” He
noticed the ice in the floor and gathered it up then tossed it in
the sink. “You want to tell me what happened?”

What happened…Jesus…where to start? Water
dripped from the ice melting in her hands. She watched it run
between her fingers, onto her jeans and the floor. Afraid if she
stared too long she might start to slip away again, she climbed to
her feet and dumped the mess in the sink. Kevin handed her a towel.
She dried her hands and gestured at the sound dock with her chin.
“Could you turn that down a little?”

Once again he did as asked. “I would offer
you a drink but I’m trying to take it easy with the booze. How
about coffee instead?”