Chapter 17

“NOW WHAT?” GREG asked, jogging to catch up to me as we emerged from the tunnel behind the transit center. He’d stayed behind after my exit to text the photos to Jang-Mi along with the office number if anyone knew anything. “What’s next?”

I started walking to the car, my head down. “I don’t know.”

“Where do we look next?” Rabbit asked, catching up to me.

“No idea,” I replied, still not looking at them.

“Well, then, what’s the plan, Jimmy?” Greg was on the other side of me now, and I stopped right in front of the car and turned around.

I hopped up on the car hood and looked at them. “I have no idea,” I said. “That was my best lead, and it was useless. All we got out of that was another dead body, and I got to kick somebody else’s ass. I’ve got nothing. At least, not anything useful. So we’ll go back home, and see what the others have for us. Abby’s asking around with the regulars at the Angel, William is checking in with the rest of the supernatural community, and Sabrina is working things from the CMPD side.” Just then my phone vibrated, and the dulcet tones of Bob Marley singing “I Shot the Sheriff” came from the speaker. I looked down, and the shattered screen showed “Law” in splintered letters. I tapped the bigger pieces, trying to answer, to no avail.

After a few seconds of me cursing my destroyed tech, I heard “I Fought the Law” coming from Greg’s pocket. He pulled out his phone, swiped a finger across the screen, and handed it to me. “It’s for you.”

I pressed it to my ear. “Yeah, Sabrina. What’s up?”

“Did you break your phone again?” One sentence from my girlfriend and suddenly I’m four years old and caught sneaking sips of my dad’s beer again.

“Yeah.”

“You have got to take better care of stuff, Jimmy. It’s not like you have an endless supply of money.”

“I’m actually pretty sure that’s exactly the opposite of correct,” I replied. I didn’t mention the fact that I controlled most of the pot trade in Mecklenburg County, apart from some really nice homegrown up in Davidson.

“Whatever,” she said with a sigh that I’m pretty sure she never uttered before meeting me. “I need you to get over here. We’ve got another body, and a bigger problem.”

“Bigger than another drained corpse?” I asked.

“Yeah. Fitz is on the warpath and won’t let Bobby take the girl’s body unless he rides with it.”

“That is a problem. Send the address to Greg’s phone. We’re on the way.” I turned to Rabbit. “You go back underground and see if you can dig up any new leads. We’re going to another crime scene.”

“Somebody else?” Rabbit asked.

“Yeah, another girl, and now we have a cop getting in the way. Sabrina’s new partner is insisting on accompanying the body in the ambulance.”

Rabbit nodded and jogged off into the night, while Greg and I got in the car and headed toward the address Sabrina texted Greg.

TEN MINUTES LATER we parked behind Common Market, with blue lights bathing the brick walls in flashing LED color. I knew the uniform manning the perimeter, so he let me duck under the yellow crime scene tape without any trouble. I walked over to where Bobby stood with a gurney. A black body bag lay on the gurney, the lump inside too short to be fully grown. A few feet away, Sabrina stood arguing with Fitzpatrick, who just leaned against the ambulance doors with his arms folded.

“What have we got, Bobby?” I asked, my voice low to keep Fitzpatrick’s attention off me for a couple more seconds.

“We’ve got a dead little girl, a couple pissed-off detectives, and one very nervous assistant coroner who wants to get this body somewhere safe and preferably staked through the heart before she wakes up and tries to eat him. Once a week is more than enough for that bullshit.”

“Any estimate on time of death?” Greg asked, looking around for any cameras he might have to wipe later if she woke up before we could get her out of sight.

“My best guess is around eight. The manager at the Market took trash out to the dumpster then, and he said there was nobody dead back here. He found her an hour ago when he made his last trash run of the night.”

“It’s almost four now,” Greg said, looking at his phone. He walked off to scan the scene, using his senses to pick up smells and possibly other trace evidence that the crime scene techs missed.

“That means we need to hurry,” I said. “This guy’s last victim woke up almost at eight hours on the dot, so we can’t screw around.”

“I’m trying to do just that, but your girl’s partner won’t let me roll without him, and she is not letting him get in the back of that bus.”

“Can I take a look at her? Maybe it wasn’t a vampire, and all this is nothing.” I knew better, but I had to hope. I reached for the zipper on the bag, but jerked my hand back as Fitzpatrick turned and shouted at me.

“Don’t touch her!” Sean came over and got in my face, practically bumping chests with me. “You stay the hell away from her. The last time you had anything to do with a victim’s body at one of my crime scenes, I lost any chance at an autopsy. That is not happening again, Black. You touch that body, I’ll throw you under the jail.”

I looked down at him. He was flushed, and his nostrils flared little puffs of condensation as he breathed heavily in the cold air. “Calm down, Sean,” I started.

He cut me off with an angry poke in the chest. “Don’t you ‘Sean’ me like we’re best buds. We aren’t buds. You’re a civilian, and you have no reason to be in here cluttering up my crime scene. Which one of these idiots wants to be busted down to crossing guard in the morning? I’ll figure out who let you in here, and I’ll see that they don’t even get ammunition for their sidearm for the next month!”

He took a deep breath, and I could almost see the gears turning in his head as he spun himself up for Round Two. Instead of listening to any more of his ranting, I focused my will and locked gazes with him. I pushed my will at him, overwhelming his mind with my own, and spoke. “Shut up.”

His mouth snapped shut so hard I was afraid he might bite off the tip of his tongue. Bobby glanced at me, but I just shook my head. “Sean, I’m going to ride to the hospital with you. You will not think this is in any way out of the ordinary, and won’t object at all. If anything dangerous or strange happens, you’ll follow my lead and my instructtions.”

He nodded. “Okay, so what are we waiting for? We need to get the autopsy rolling on this girl now, so we can get as much information as quickly as possible.”

“He’s right,” I said to Bobby. “What are you waiting for? Let’s load her up. Sean, do you want to ride up front with Bobby?”

He glared at me. “No. I am not letting this child out of my sight.” He opened the back door to the ambulance and helped Bobby line the gurney up with the guides set into the floor of the ambulance. He and Bobby pushed the gurney into the ambulance, locked it into place, and Fitzpatrick climbed in to sit on the padded bench next to the body.

I tossed my keys to Greg, nodded to Sabrina, and climbed in. As I reached out to pull the doors shut, Bobby leaned in to me. “You got this?” he whispered.

“Yeah, I’ll make sure he doesn’t get dead,” I said.

“Screw him,” Bobby said. “He’s a pain in my ass. Make sure I don’t get dead!”

I ducked into the ambulance laughing as Bobby slammed the doors on us. My good humor vanished when I saw Sean sitting there glaring at me.

“What’s going on, Black? I don’t know why I even let you ride along with me . . .” He got a fuzzy look in his eyes, then shook his head. “Whatever. There’s something screwy going on here, and I think your friend up front has something to do with it.”

I was honestly amazed. “Bobby?” I asked. “Sean, I swear to you, Bobby does not have anything to do with these girls’ deaths. He’s one of the good guys, I promise.”

“Yeah, but are you?”

I leaned back against the bench. “What?”

“Are you one of the good guys, Jimmy? You say all the right things, you talk the talk, but are you walking the walk? Sabrina’s crazy about you, and McDaniel seems to like you, but something’s not right here. I can’t put my finger on it, aside from you acting way too old to be as young as you are, but there’s something strange about you.”

“You have no idea,” I muttered.

“Yeah, I think I do,” Fitzpatrick said. “Are you dealing?”

My head snapped up. “Am I what?”

“It’s a simple question, Jimmy. Are you selling drugs? And does Sabrina know about it? Look, I don’t care if you smoke a little weed. Hell, I did when I was your age. But if you’re dealing, and if Sabrina knows about it . . . well, that makes her a dirty cop. And I’m not going to look the other way.”

Jesus, not only did I have a dead girl in a bag in front of me who might wake up any time and decide to take a bite out of law enforcement instead of crime, but now I had Fitzpatrick thinking I was a street-level weed dealer who conned my girlfriend into covering for me. Then I thought about exactly how wrong he was, but not in the way I wanted him to be. I wasn’t a quarter bag-at-a-time dealer. I controlled most of the marijuana sold in the city, and a fair amount of the prostitution. I was a no-shit mob boss, and I was dating a cop.

The enormity of that whole situation crashed down around my ears, and I let my head fall back to thunk into the wall of the ambulance. It didn’t hurt, so I did it again. Then again, and again, and again, until finally Fitzpatrick leaned all the way over the girl’s body and grabbed my leg. “Jimmy,” he said, “look, whatever it is, we can work it out. We’ll figure this all out, and Sabrina doesn’t have to get hurt. I’ll help you, I swear.”

There are a lot of times I hate the fact that I look like a twenty- something, but having people perpetually underestimate me is something I’ve come to enjoy. I didn’t need to be able to hear his heart rate speed up, or smell the tang of liar’s sweat on his upper lip to recognize his bullshit. I’ve seen plenty of Law & Order episodes, I know when a cop is lying. I shook my head. “That’s not it,” I lied. My heart rate didn’t flutter, not even the least little bit. Stayed steady right at zero as I lied to his face.

I took a deep breath. “I’m not dealing drugs.” Technically true. I had never sold drugs myself. Just paid for a ton of weed and taken a cut as other people sold it. “And Sabrina doesn’t know anything about any of my troubles.” Complete lie. As much as I tried to keep her separate from my extra-legal activities, it was pretty much impossible. She knew everything. She probably knew more about my criminal empire than I did. “And none of that has anything to do with why I’m in the back of this ambulance.”

Another lie. If I weren’t Master of the City, there is absolutely zero chance that I would be riding around in an ambulance with a fledgling vampire about to come out of her shell and a homicide detective. Just wouldn’t happen.

“You don’t have to tell me tonight,” Sean said, patting me on the leg. I hate when people pat you on the leg to make you feel better. It’s the most condescending thing in the world. “But when you’re ready, I’ll be here to listen.”

I took a breath to say something lame like “Thank you,” or “I’ll remember that.” But that’s when the baby vampire ripped through the body bag and grabbed Sean’s arm. Then things got really interesting on the ride to the morgue.