The Company of Darkness (14 page)

Maybe it was cowardly of her, but Cady pushed back the blankets and got up to cover the mirror and the one in the bathroom for good measure.  Almost as an afterthought, she paused by the dressing table before climbing back into bed.  Snatching up a dark eyeliner pencil, she went to the window, inscribing the sigils for protection.  The foreign words came easier this time, firmly rooted in her memory, but still she had to give it all her concentration to get them all out and complete the spell.  Satisfied she’d at least rendered herself slightly safer, she settled into bed, pulling the covers high with a measure of peace. 

Maybe it was only a dream, but Cady wasn’t stupid either. 

I wish you could come with me to this thing.
  Cady sent the text to Ethan, along with a pic of herself in the green dress, her hair all braided up and out of the way for the wedding.  She sent him pics of Kelli, Penny and Marjorie, her maid of honor (which secretly chapped her hide, seeing as how Marjorie was Justin’s sister and barely even knew Penny). 

Ethan sent back comments, but she could tell he wasn’t really into it.  The surveillance job was over, and God only knew what he was working on now, but he always texted her back within a few minutes.  Still, he didn’t object when she put her phone away for the ceremony, going communications dark until she took her seat at the head table.  Doing her best to ignore Derek, who got all kinds of uncomfortable whenever she got within three feet of him, she picked up her phone again, giving the jerk the cold shoulder while she took pictures of the happy couple out on the dance floor. 

The more Cady thought about it, the more she decided she should tell Ethan about the dream with Ash since it still weighed heavily on her mind.  Instead of fading from her memory, the fear returned every time she closed her eyes at night, wondering if Ash would find some other way to get to her.  Telling herself she just needed to hear Ethan’s reassurance that she was making a mountain out of a molehill, she sent him another message. 
We should talk about the other night.

Uh oh.  I may not have a lot of recent experience, but I do remember it’s never a good thing when a girl wants to talk.

Are you trying to be funny right now?

Apparently not.  What’s up?

I really think we need to talk in person. 

“Hey, how come you’re not out on the dance floor?”  Detective Lucas’ voice had her tucking her phone away, biting back a few choice swear words before she turned to look at him.  Despite the casual elegance of the wedding, he wore his usual band t-shirt over jeans, the logo for Steely Dan emblazoned across the chest. 

“Seriously?  Is nothing sacred to you?”

“You look fantastic, by the way, green is definitely your color.  Want to dance?”  He held out a hand.

“I don’t suppose it matters to you that this is a private party?”

“Not to me, it’s not.”  He pulled up the t-shirt to show his badge, not that she needed the reminder. 

Cady considered telling him to take a flying leap, but Derek’s interest in the badge had her standing up to lead Lucas away to at least a modicum of privacy on the dance floor.  “Fine, but just so you don’t get any ideas, I’m not kissing you again,” she muttered, which brought a grin to the cop’s face.  “What are you doing here?”

“You know, I’ve missed these charming little talks and your concern over my wellbeing.  I’ve been fine, by the way, I tried doing those what-do-you-call-them, Pilates classes?  That is not for me, I was sore for three days afterwards.  Nah, give me a ball and some hoops, that’s my kind of exercise.”

Exercise?  “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Normal stuff.  You know, like people do when they haven’t seen each other for a few days.  Oh, I’m sorry, did you want to talk about Rikard instead?  I thought that stuff was off limits.”

Cady darted a nervous look around.  “Shh, someone might hear you.”

“I thought no one here knew about him.”

She grabbed hold of his hand, all but dragging him from the dance floor.  “They don’t.  Or at least, they shouldn’t, but you never know.  I thought I told you to drop this topic.”

Lucas shrugged.  “You told me a lot of things, not many of which turned out to be true, so I thought I’d do some checking on my own.  Here’s what I found.”  He produced a folded square of paper with Rikard’s picture in the upper corner.  A list of aliases and warrants trailing down the length of the page, similar to the cover sheet she’d seen for Ethan’s file and her stomach dropped. 

“Oh no… please tell me you haven’t shown this to anyone.  How did you even get this?” 

“I started with the name Rikard, and it wasn’t hard to get a picture of him from the traffic cam on the corner outside the bar, from there it was just a matter of following the trail of breadcrumbs, but guess what the most interesting thing was I found?”

“Arson and extortion?” she murmured, her eyes still scanning the list of suspected charges ascribed to Rikard.  This was
so
not good.  Ethan was going to blow a gasket when he found out. 

“Nope.”  Lucas’ entire face was lit with barely controlled excitement, in fact, his entire body thrummed with energy, practically bouncing in place.  “Not an hour after I compiled that information I was contacted by the same government types telling me to back off, just like they did with your boy, David.”

“He’s not my boy, and please tell me they got through that thick skull of yours and you’re actually shutting down your stupid crusade.”

“Not even remotely.  You know what I think it is?”

“Not even the slightest bit.”

“Would you like me to tell you what I think is going on?” he grinned like a fool.

“Am I going to be able to stop you?”

“I think it’s a huge government conspiracy.  I think these guys are killers for the U.S.”

Cady stared at him blankly, at a loss for words.  Where did he come up with this stuff?  “What would make you think that?”

“I started looking into the agency that contacted me, and they’re completely bogus.  That is, I couldn’t find a direct link from them to any branch of the government.  It was all bullshit, the names and ID’s of the agents who came to see me, the addresses on the business cards, all of it was a total sham.”

Balls
.  Cady closed her eyes.  He was in for it now.  “Okay wait, you said they weren’t linked to the government.  Why would you think it’s a government conspiracy then?”

“I said I couldn’t find a direct link, that doesn’t mean they’re not linked to a shadow branch of the government.  Listen, I came across some chatter about mercenaries for hire, and I found someone to talk to me about it.” 

Cady grabbed hold of his arm, her voice low but deadly serious.  “Do not, under any circumstances meet with this person, do you understand me?  Don’t even talk to them, not unless you want your life to drastically change, and not for the better.”

“Why not?  Don’t you see?  I’m finally on to something.”

“Take a step back and look at what you just told me.  Say by some stretch of the imagination that even part of it is true – do you want these people finding out that you know about them?  Do you know what they’d do to you?”

“No, but see, they’re…”

She wasn’t getting through to him and Cady grabbed him by the t-shirt, slamming him against the wall to get his attention.  “These are not nice people.  They’ve hidden themselves for a reason.  Now I’m being completely honest with you when I say I have no knowledge of mercenaries or secret branches of the government, none.  But I do know that the kind of people who go through all this trouble to mask their actions aren’t playing around.  They’ve asked you to back off politely, and that’s exactly what you should do.”

“Not dating the cop, huh?” Kelli, grinned, coming up to elbow her in the side and Cady could only give her a tight smile and ease her hold on his t-shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles in the fabric across his chest.

“Is that what she told you?” Lucas grinned back, wrapping a proprietary arm around her waist.  “Isn’t that just like my Cady-bear.”

“Don’t call me that,” she scowled, wondering where he’d picked that up from.  Had he been talking to Ian?  It was easier to let Kelli think that though, instead of revealing why he was there in the first place.  “Where’s Ian?”

“He’s off pouring a shot of Jager into the groom to get him to loosen up.  What are you two doing all cuddled up in the corner here?” Kelli teased. 

“Looking for a little privacy.”  Cady shot her a look, one that was girl code for scram and Kelli’s blue eyes widened enough to see the whites all around.

“Oh, right,” she winked, and made a clicking noise with her tongue.  “Gotcha.  I’ll leave you to it then.”

“You can take your arm off of me now,” Cady said in a low voice after Kelli flounced off.

“Better not, she’s still watching us.  We have to keep up appearances after all.”  Lucas brushed a strand of hair back behind her ear and he was really selling it, she thought he had that besotted look down pat. 

“Look, you seem like a nice enough guy. Why don’t you find another hobby?  I hear Jimmy Hoffa’s still missing.” 

His head canted to one side as he studied her.  “You really do care about me, don’t you?”

Uh oh.
  Showtime was over, she didn’t want him getting the wrong impression.  Reaching back to peel his hand off of her waist, she took a step backwards, putting some much needed space between them.  “Only because my conscience couldn’t take it if I knew you ended up killed or worse because of me.”

“Killed or
worse
?”  The corner of his mouth tugged up into a half smile.

“There are some things it’s better if you don’t know,” she said gravely, hoping to dispel that smile, but when it faded, his words didn’t inspire any more confidence.  

“I can’t live with that.”

“Keep it up and you might not have to.” 

* * *

Let’s meet tonight then, at the Century theater.

It was a while until she got to the text, but Cady sent back a
see you there
, slipping away from the party after the bride and groom made their departure.  Maybe her bridesmaid’s dress was somewhat fancy for a date at the movies, but she felt pretty in it and didn’t want it to go to waste.  The only thing she did before she turned up at the movie theater was to unpin her hair, unraveling the tight braids that left her hair crimped and wavy, like a mermaid’s.

She could feel Ethan’s eyes on her while she waited in line for her ticket, but didn’t try looking for him in the crowd.  In the darkened theater, she took a seat in the last row in the back.  They’d done this before with decent results, and it was agreed upon what movie to see and where to sit in general, and Cady was confident he’d be able to find her in the sparsely populated theater. 

Ethan slipped into the seat beside her after the previews started.  The house lights dimmed even more and she suppressed the urge to kiss him, settling for laying her hand atop his on the armrest.  The last time they’d tried this, that was as close as they’d gotten, but clearly he had more in mind as his hand soon slipped out from under hers to land on her thigh.  His fingers crawled forward, inching the slinky fabric under his hand until he reached her bare thigh. 

Cady smiled, keeping her eyes focused ahead on the screen, until he slid his hand higher up, breaching her inner thigh and she gasped, turning her head. 

“Don’t look at me, watch the movie,” he ordered, his voice low by her ear as his fingers strayed even higher, brushing against the scrap of lace hiding her curls.   

When had he gotten to be so handsy?  Cady tensed, uneasy with the intimacy in a public place, even under the cover of darkness.  His touch felt good, like it always did, but it was all wrong, and she couldn’t put her finger on why.  She’d made out in movie theaters tons of times, her hands bold as anything, but this felt… wrong. 

It didn’t feel like Ethan was the type to do this, not after working so hard not to be seen in public together.  Sure, no one gave them a second look right at that moment, but anyone who turned to watch them would clearly see they were together.  It was the total and complete opposite of what he’d been drumming into her from day one. 

Cady squirmed under his touch, reaching down to still his hand, pulling it away.  “Hey, quit it, someone will see,” she hissed.

“Not if you stop making so much noise.  Shh, just let me…” He leaned closer, kissing her neck as he reached for her again, but this time she deflected him, legs pressing primly together as she sat perfectly straight.

“We can go somewhere to be alone afterwards if you want, but not here.”

“Fine,” Ethan bit out, slouching away from her and drawing out his phone, where he proceeded to page through the screens and compose a text with plenty of beeps from the keyboard. 

If he didn’t watch it, the ushers might toss him out.   “You’re not supposed to do that in here,” she whispered. 

“It’s the
only
thing to do in here,” he muttered irritably and she couldn’t help but wonder why he was in such a shitty mood?  Just because she didn’t want to be groped in public? 

Apparently she wasn’t the only one who wondered the same thing as a guy two rows down turned around and scowled at them.  “Do you think you could keep it down?”

“Fuck off,” Ethan retorted before she could apologize.

“I’m sorry,” she added hastily, teeth worrying at her bottom lip.  This wasn’t like Ethan at all and she couldn’t help but wonder if it had something to do with Ash.  “We need to talk,” she reminded him softly.

“So talk,” he grunted. 

“Not here.”

“Why the fuck not?  We paid our money to sit here just like those assholes, we have every right to be here.”