Living with the Dead (26 page)

  COLM  

Colm had to warn Adele.

He took out the cell phone she'd given him, the one she'd taken from Robyn. She'd set up a speed-dial number to her cell phone. He called it... and got a message saying she was unavailable.

He tried twice more. She must have accidentally turned it off. He had to get to their meeting place. He ran behind the bookstore, his chest so tight that each breath seemed to lodge in his throat.

What had happened in there?

Adele had made it sound so simple. Get Robyn Peltier out and Adele would take it from there.

But she hadn't said
how
to get Robyn out. Maybe she thought it was so simple he didn't need instructions. But it hadn't been simple at all.

He'd hesitated and, in that hesitation, he'd betrayed Adele.

The kumpania taught that the gods punished mortals for laziness, for letting fate lead the way, for failing to take decisive action in shaping their own destiny. Adele knew how to please the gods. She'd never hesitated to take the most difficult steps to protect herself and the kumpania. A strong, shining example, like his mother. Colm was weak, indecisive and afraid, like his father.

His mother never said anything negative about his father, but Colm had heard the rumors. His father had been a durjardo, like Adele, an outside clairvoyant welcomed into the kumpania. Unlike Adele, though, he'd failed to assimilate and in the end, he'd abandoned his family, and for that he'd died. Killed by the gods. Given a chance at the best possible life for a clairvoyant, he had turned his back on it.

Now Colm saw himself failing, like his father. He'd followed Robyn Peltier... and walked straight into a trap. He'd never told Adele about that couple at the apartment. He'd seen the man's supernatural powers. He'd suspected the woman's powers. But he'd refused to consider the implications. He'd run away.

Adele had thought Robyn was an unwitting pawn. She'd been wrong. Robyn was part of the plan to capture Adele for the Nast Cabal. If there had been any doubt, any sense he might be overreacting, it had been erased when he'd seen the man in the ball cap.

Colm knew him. He had no idea how or from where, but one look at the man's face and recognition had hit like a fist to his stomach. With that recognition came the feeling that seeing him was bad, horribly and impossibly bad. That meant the man had to be from the Cabal.

Like every kumpania child, Colm had undergone "the lessons." He couldn't remember much about them, but sometimes he'd have nightmares and wake gasping and shaking, remembering snippets of a basement room and Niko's voice and photographs being flashed on a screen and jolts of indescribable pain. Seeing that man, and feeling that dread, Colm knew he must have seen him in those photographs – pictures of people who worked for the Cabal.

The man had said Colm's name. Not once, but twice. And Colm had seen his future – locked in a Cabal cell, forced to use his clairvoyant powers until he fell into madness, consumed by his visions.

The accidental dropping of his gun had seemed almost a stroke of good luck. As the security guard bore down on him, gun at the ready, Colm had seen his escape route – the final release every kumpania child was taught to take if he was ever cornered by a Cabal. All he had to do was reach for the fallen gun and the guard would free him.

But the Cabal man hadn't been about to let that happen. And when he distracted the guard, giving Colm a chance to escape, he'd taken it.

He hurried around the rear corner. No sign of Adele. That was okay – she'd be hidden ahead, trusting he had everything under control.

He slowed, thinking of how he could slant the events to favor him without downplaying the danger. When he had his story ready, he picked up his pace and looked behind the bin where Adele was supposed to wait.

She wasn't there.

Disappointment and dread prickled under his skin, and he stamped his feet, shaking it off. He had to focus. So she wasn't here. Big deal. He'd been gone a long time and she must have set out to see what was wrong.

But why not just call him?

Her cell phone must be broken, which is why he couldn't get through. Or maybe his was. If it came from Robyn and Robyn was with the Cabal, then he shouldn't be using it at all. Maybe Robyn had planted a trace in it. That would explain how they'd known he was in the bookstore.

He took out the cell phone and pitched it against the wall. It didn't break, but made a satisfying crack. He kicked it under a bin. Then he strode back around the building to find Adele.

Colm climbed the fence behind the store, dropped to the other side and huddled there, knees clasped to his chest, his back to the fence, gaze darting side to side, knowing he wouldn't see anyone, but looking anyway.

He'd circled the store and weaved through the parking lot looking for her, one eye always fixed on the store doors. There was a police car in the lot, meaning officers were inside. When they'd come out, he'd hid between two minivans, then balled up his nerve and tailed a group of kids his age into the store. Adele hadn't been in there either.

He'd found a pay phone and tried her cell, but got that same "unavailable" message. He'd even tried catching a vision of her. He knew he couldn't – clairvoyant powers didn't work on one another – but he'd hoped their connection, their love, might help him past that barrier. It hadn't.

He couldn't find her. And he couldn't find any of the others – Robyn, the pretty Indian girl, her boyfriend or the ball-cap-wearing man. That could only mean one thing: they'd taken Adele.

That's why they hadn't chased him. He was just a boy, coming into his powers. Adele was a trained clairvoyant, her powers proven. She was their only target.

The incident in the store had been staged. Robyn led him to the pretty girl, making him realize something was wrong, making him worry. Then the man called his name, sending the worry into full panic, distracting him while the girl's superhuman boyfriend snatched Adele outside.

He had to call the kumpania.

But what if he was wrong? What if Adele was looking for him? And if Niko learned she'd been targeted by a Cabal and had said nothing, leaving the entire kumpania exposed...

Colm rubbed his hands against his jeans to clear the images from his head. Niko wouldn't kill Adele, no matter what kumpania law said. He'd give her another chance. He had to. Colm couldn't bear to think –

He rubbed harder, the rough seam scraping his palms, skin burning from the friction.

Why hadn't she told Niko from the start? By not admitting it, she'd only made the situation worse and now he was stuck making decisions he should never have to make.

He clenched and unclenched his hands, exhaling slowly. He'd make one more round of the parking lot and store, and then he'd call his mother. If Adele didn't like that, too bad. Saving her from the Cabal was all that mattered.

He hefted himself up onto the wooden fence, a simple sound barrier that wobbled under his weight. He made it to the top when a slender, light-haired woman rounded the bookstore back corner.

Adele's name sprang to his lips. Then the woman stepped from the shadow, shading her eyes to look up at him on the fence, and he saw it was Robyn Peltier.

He twisted to scramble back down.

"Wait!" she called. "We need to talk to you."

He leapt from the fence. One knee buckled as he landed, and he fell on all fours. A shadow passed over him. He looked up to see the man from the apartment vaulting the fence.

Colm tried to bolt, but the man landed in his path. His eyes met Colm's and something shamefully like a whimper bubbled in the boy's throat. The man lifted his chin. A slight tilt of the head, raising his nose, nostrils flaring... and Colm knew what was standing in front of him. A werewolf.

Colm's insides liquefied and a few drops trickled down his leg. The werewolf's nostrils flared again, as if he could smell Colm's humiliation.

The man lifted a finger, a subtle "wait" to someone. Colm noticed the pretty girl from the apartment on the fence. The man kept his gaze locked with Colm's.

"We're not going to hurt you," he said. "We just need to talk."

Colm's gaze shunted to the side, looking and praying for Adele.

"She's gone," said the girl from her fence-top post. "We just want to talk. We can go someplace that you'll feel safe, someplace public – "

Colm bolted. He knew it was useless. The man was a werewolf – he could lunge and break Colm's neck before he made it five feet. When he didn't, he glanced back to see the man still standing where he'd left him.

As Colm turned, he saw why. A middle-aged man stood in the medical building lot, his key fob extended, now stopped to watch what was unfolding at the fence line.

Colm checked over his shoulder one more time, then broke into a full out run for the building. The man in the parking lot watched Colm, his key fob still in hand, other reaching toward his car door. When Colm reached the building door, the man nodded, as if he'd done his duty, seen the boy to safety. He opened his car door.

Colm reached for the building door. If it was locked, he'd run to the man in the car, make up some story. If it opened, that meant there were more people inside and he could hide there.

He pulled the door. It swung open. He ran through.

FINN

In police college, one of Finn's instructors claimed the greatest impediment to justice was prejudice. The ability to assess a situation free from those shackles was the greatest gift an officer could possess. And any officer who thought he could achieve that absolute lack of prejudice was deluded.

The human brain is designed to make connections. It looks for similarities and patterns, and when it finds them, it is happy. A cop can't help that initial flood of associations and, yes, prejudices. But he can recognize them for what they are and reassess based on facts.

Standing on the sidewalk, looking up at Nast corporate headquarters and instantly disliking it, Finn was aware that this was a conclusion based on stereotyping.

The building annoyed him, plain and simple... maybe because the building itself was not plain or simple. The block was full of historical landmarks, stately and dignified. In their midst, the Nast building looked like a Euro-chic runway model swanning through a room of refined dowagers, contempt in every glance she cast on her elderly neighbors.

Finn guessed that one of these grand old dames had been felled by a wrecking ball to make way for this soaring postmodern blot. Could he overcome that prejudice?

He doubted it.

Though it was Sunday, the lobby lights blazed. When he pulled a door open, it made a sucking sound, as if the vestibule was vacuum sealed. Past the second set of doors, a young man sat behind a stainless steel desk that bore an uncanny resemblance to a morgue gurney. His trim build and suit suggested he was more reception than security, but Finn suspected that was for appearance's sake.

Finn reached for the interior door. Locked. The young man looked up sharply, as if Finn had set off an alarm. There was a whoosh as the door behind him closed tight.

He couldn't help thinking of those movies where a guy walks into a tiny room that seals behind him and slowly fills with poisonous gas. The faintly metallic smell of the cold air blowing down on him didn't help. Nor did the guy at the desk, who watched him, blank-faced as a cyborg.

Finn turned to say something to Damon... and saw him still outside on the sidewalk. He discreetly gestured for Damon to walk in. Damon not-so-discreetly gestured that he couldn't.

Finn opened the outer door, abashedly relieved to see that it
would
open. Damon walked up to the opening and bounced back. He put his hand out and his palm flattened and whitened, as if pressing against glass.

"Huh," Finn said. "Maybe you're a vampire now. You need to be invited."

"A joke? I'm impressed. We'll need to work on your delivery, though. Right now..." Damon rapped his knuckles against the invisible barrier. "Small problem."

"Is this what happens when Robyn's around?"

Damon's eyes lit with hope, then it faded. "Nah. With Robyn, I get relocated, like a raccoon wandering into the city. I'll look for another way in."

When Finn stepped back into the vestibule, the guard was still watching him, face still impassive, as if he saw guys leaning out the door talking to themselves all the time. On the Sunday shift, he probably did.

The guard made no move to come to the door or turn on the intercom and ask Finn's business. Even when Finn buzzed, the man continued to sit there.

As Finn raised a hand to buzz again, the man finally pressed a button. A speaker overhead clicked.

"Nast Corporation. How may I help you?"

Finn held his badge to the glass. "Detective John Findlay, LAPD."

For almost twenty seconds, the man sat there, as if waiting for a better explanation. Finally, he pressed another button and the door opened.

As Finn approached the desk, the young man sat robot straight, his eyes gray ball bearings fixed on Finn's forehead.

"I'm looking for this man." Finn lifted a cropped version of the photo, without the girl. "I've been told it's Irving Nast."

The guard's gaze flickered across the image. "I couldn't say, sir. The photo quality appears degraded."

"Let's pretend it is Mr. Nast, then. I need to speak to him. His wife said he was in the office this morning."

"Mr. Nast has left for the day."

"Could you check that? Call his office for me?"

Those ball bearings bored holes over Finn's eyebrows. The young man waved at the computer display embedded in his desktop. "Our security system monitors all access. Mr. Nast used his code to exit the rear doors at 11:23 and did not reuse it to enter."

"All right. Then I'll take his cell phone number."

"I'm not at liberty to divulge that information."

"This is a matter of some delicacy," Finn said, in the same measured tone. "I'm sure Mr. Nast would prefer I didn't call on him at home. Why don't
you
call him and ask if you can give me the number. Or call and hand me the phone."

"Mr. Nast has left for the day. I don't expect him to return. It's Sunday."

"Which is why I'm asking for his number."

The guard checked his display screen. "Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. Nast is unavailable this weekend."

"Has he left town?"

The young man's lips pressed together for – yes, Finn counted – eight seconds. "I'm not privy to the personal plans of our employees, sir. Mr. Irving Nast has indicated he is unavailable this weekend and if a situation requiring executive attention arises, it should be directed to another vice president. Would you like me to do that for you?"

At the sound of footsteps, Finn looked to see a man striding from the elevators. He was midtwenties, tall and slender, carrying a briefcase and wearing a navy-striped crewneck and dark jeans. Finn pegged him as a fresh MBA. Part of that expensive education should have taught him that as important as it was to put in overtime, corporate success was just as dependent on image, and the casual look and blond ponytail wasn't going to score him any points with upper management, even on a Sunday.

"Sir?"

Finn looked back at the guard.

"Would you like me to contact an alternate executive?"

"I don't think that would help with my investigation and I'd hate to waste anyone's time. It's very important that I speak to Irving Nast himself, and I can't wait for tomorrow, not on a case that involves four murders, including the deaths of two LAPD officers."

"I'm quite certain Mr. Nast would know nothing about that."

"I'm sure you're right." Finn sucked the sarcasm from his words. "I still need to speak to him."

"Let me contact Josef Nast for you. He's our CFO. Perhaps he can – "

"I don't think you understand. The CFO – "

" – will really not want to be bothered on a Sunday," said the young ponytailed man from behind Finn. "My uncle Josef is at church, as I'm sure your schedule shows, Mark."

The clerk jerked up, like a soldier snapping to attention. In the consternation that crossed his face, Finn saw the first proof that the man was indeed flesh and blood.

"Mr. Nast, sir," the guard said.

Finn took a closer look at the young man, seeing his face full-on, the resemblance to the photo now clear in the coloring and the brilliant blue eyes, though his build and features were thinner. That would explain how he got away with the ponytail.

The young man extended his hand. "Sean Nast."

"Mr. Nast is our COO," the guard said with a note of sourness that blamed Finn for making him look bad in front of a VIP.

Finn shook his hand and introduced himself.

"You wanted to speak to... ?" Nast prompted.

"Irving Nast."

"Ah, you just missed him." Nast checked his watch. "Irving won't be home yet and I suspect if I call his cell, he won't answer." A wry smile. "I spent the morning pestering him with questions on a project and he was eager to be off. Why don't we go up to my office and I'll call his house in a few minutes, explain the situation and get him back here for you? He'll likely prefer not to have the police come to his home."