Chapter Eight

Standing outside of Trinity’s suite, directly across the hall from Dhane’s, gave me the heebie-jeebies. The hallway was eerily quiet and so still that I could clearly hear over the hammering of my heart the voice in my head screaming to get out. I thought about my dad. Not because I was scared and wanted my daddy, but because if he were here he’d tell me to suck it up and do what needed to be done. So I sucked it up as best I could.

Just as I lifted my hand to knock, Dhane’s door opened behind me, scaring a startled yelp out of me.

“Well if it isn’t Ms. Smith. Fancy meeting you in this hallway twice in the same day.”

Clutching my hands over my chest to prevent my heart from leaping out and running off down the hall for safety, I turned to find Detective Kennedy leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed like he’d been expecting me. He regarded me with glimmering verdant eyes, a smug smile playing around his mouth.

God I hated him.

I dropped my hands and rolled my eyes. “Don’t you have a crime to solve and an innocent person to release, or is it case closed? Time for coffee and donuts for you.”

I seemed to have amused him even more because his eyes bunched up at the outside corners. “You’re very good at the best-defense-is-a-good-offense strategy. Sure you’re not a lawyer?”

I stared hard at him, trying not to huff and roll my eyes. All I’d be missing then would be a firm stomp and a whine like a teenager who’d just been put on restriction. Why did this jerk bring out the worst in me?

“I hope you’re better at being a cop than a stand-up comedian,” I countered. Good. That was good. I sounded the right amount of annoyed and indifferent. “Shouldn’t you be out setting up surveillance or checking in with the crime lab or something?”

“Jesus. Everybody who’s ever watched an episode of CSI is suddenly an expert on police procedure.”

I balled my hands, hating the way he pushed my buttons. “You’re a tremendous ass, you know that?”

He put his hands up, palms out. “Easy, Ms. Smith. Wouldn’t want to have to take you in for police brutality.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, vibrating with anger. “Go away.”

“Sure thang, sweetheart. Just one pesky little question. What are you doing here…again?”

I folded my arms over my chest and shook my head.

“You always go about everything the hard way?” he asked.

A voice called to him from within Dhane’s suite, drawing his attention away from me. He told them just a minute, then returned his attention to me, running a hand through his hair. “I really don’t have time for this. As much as I’d like to stand here and exchange barbs with you all day, I do have a murder case to solve. So just tell me what you’re doing here so I can get on with it.”

I studied him closely, noticing for the first time the strain around his mouth. His tie had been pulled loose and hung off center, and his auburn hair wasn’t carelessly rumpled but disheveled from hands raking repeatedly through it. His eyes appeared a brighter green because of the tired redness around them. I imagined those eyes had seen more than their share of horrors and human depravity.

Inwardly, I sighed. Really, why was I arguing with him? I hitched a thumb over my shoulder. “I’m here to see Dhane’s sister.”

Kennedy’s brows climbed. “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“And why would the, ah…recent acquaintance of her deceased brother be paying her a visit?”

Oh, crap. Yeah, why would she do that? I went with my earlier measure of truth tactic. “She asked me to.”

I’d surprised him even more. Good. I supposed it was wrong of me to enjoy it, but this day had held so much suckiness, it felt good to get something over on Old King Kennedy.

“Really?”

“Wow, you’re a real tough interrogator. If you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment.” I started to turn away from him, but his voice brought me back around.

“Tell me why she asked to see you.” He shifted his stance, letting the door close behind him. “This ought to be good.” He folded his arms over his chest.

“Well…” Make something up. Make something up. Make something up quick! “She’s a friend of a friend of mine.” I licked my lips, trying not to look up to the left…or was it the right that gives away a lie? Jeez, I really did watch too much CSI.

“Uh-huh.” He did that regal head nod thing, inviting me to continue digging my hole.

“That’s it, really.”

He frowned. “I’m disappointed in you.”

“Look, what do you want from me? You’ve locked up my best friend for no good reason and now you’re wasting time chatting with me instead of looking for the real killer.”

“I’d say a full confession is a pretty good reason to lock up a suspect.”

“A what?” There was a sudden clanging in my head from a dozen warning bells. Tiny dots filled my vision and I swayed a little, blurring the dots. “What…what did you say?”

“Ah, Jesus. You’re not a fainter, are you? Here, sit down.” He made a move to grab ahold of my arm, but I jerked away from him.

“You’re wrong. You must be wrong. Vivian would never…she couldn’t…you must have misunderstood.”

“This is a real shock for you.”

He reached for me again, but I batted his hand away. “I want to see her. You’re wrong. This is all wrong.” I turned my back on him and headed for the elevators. “I’ll talk to her. She always tells me the truth.”

But she hadn’t told me the truth about her and Dhane. I pulled up short. A sickness clenched my gut and I fisted a hand over it, pressing back against it. Confessed. No. No, no, no, no, no. That was not right.

“I need to see her.” I started forward again, but Kennedy’s words stopped me.

“You can’t. She’s in custody. The only person who can see her is her attorney. So unless you studied torts and crimes along with cuts and perms, you won’t get in to see her.”

That did it. I turned on him. “Look, you arrogant son of a bitch—”

“Ah, your color’s back. Thank Jesus. For a minute there I thought I’d have to deal with old Dave again. Sorry for the insult. But I don’t have time to deal with a fainter and you looked like you were going to keel over at any moment.”

“You’re crazy. You know that? You drop that bomb on me, then insult me. What’s wrong with you?” I wanted so badly to shed myself of him, I felt like I was suffocating. I brushed past him, purposefully knocking him back a step. I banged my fist on Trinity’s door. I could feel Kennedy’s eyes boring holes into the back of me.

The door swung open enough to reveal an Asian man who I assumed was Tenchi, but I really didn’t care. I walked in, seized the door from him, and took supreme pleasure in slamming it in Kennedy’s arrogant face. Then I brushed off my hands and turned to find a small group of people gawking at me.

As if they had a right to stare, garbed like rejects from a Clowns-R-Us catalog. Really, where did these people get their clothes?

“You must be Azalea,” the one who’d answered the door said.

“Yup. Ah, sorry. That guy is kind of a pain.”

“We know.” A tall, scarlet-haired woman uncoiled from the sofa. “I’m Sora.” She held out a hand and when I shook it, the phrase “wet noodle” popped into my head. I resisted the urge to wipe my hand on my jeans, but only narrowly.

“I am Tenchi.” The doorman’s handshake was much better, but I still wanted to rub his creepy cooties off.

“Ace.”

I turned to find a young man with the striking high cheekbones and long raven hair of a Native American warrior. After our handclasp, I closed my fist, sealing in the contact our hands had made. Not creepy. Not creepy at all.

“We’ll excuse ourselves.” Sora motioned to Ace and he followed her out of the room like a hound scenting his dinner.

Then I was alone with Tenchi. His weird eyes and weirder blond pageboy haircut made me wish I were back in the hallway exchanging insults with Kennedy again.

“First the rules.” He signaled for me to take a seat. When we were settled he continued, “Talk directly to Trinity, not to Curio. He merely serves as an interpreter, if you will.”

“Interpreter. Like for a foreign person?”

“Correct.”

“Okay.” I’d never been good at rules and hoped there weren’t very many more.

“Don’t look Trinity in the eye. Don’t say the words ‘three,’ ‘fortune,’ or ‘skunk.’ She especially hates the word ‘skunk.’”

“Skunk. Got it.”

“You can’t chew gum, but breath mints are permissible. You can cross your right leg over your left, but not your left leg over your right.”

“You’re making this up.”

He tried to pull a brow up into his bangs but his Botox-frozen face wouldn’t oblige him. “Do you want to speak with her or not?”

“Yes. Sorry. Carry on. Right leg yes, left leg no. Got it.”

“You’re not an Aquarius, are you?”

“No, a Cancer.” Jeez. Was this guy for real?

He nodded approval. “There’s just one more thing.”

Thank goodness.

“You can’t mention Dhane’s name. This is important. Just his name sets her off and we’ve finally gotten her calm again after the police left.” He shook his head in pity, but oddly his hair stayed still. Nothing on this guy moved. “Do you agree to the terms?”

I anxiously bobbed my head, but how in the world was I going to pull this off? Right leg and breath mints yes. Gum no. Don’t say three, fortune, skunk or Dhane’s name. Don’t look at Curio and don’t look Trinity in the eye. Oh, and that thing about Aquarians. I supposed it was a bad time to mention that my rising sign was Aquarius.

“This way.” He stood and walked to a closed door. “Just one more thing. I need to hold your cell phone. She hates cell phones, especially since they started making them with cameras.”

I pulled my phone from my bag and stared at it for a moment. This was my last link to the sane world, and I really didn’t want to be without it, but I handed it over to him anyway. I was deep in the crazy den, about to meet the queen of the crazies. It would have been nice to be able to call for help, should they try to eat my brain or something.

“Remember, talk to her, not Curio.” Then he opened the door and shoved me through it, quickly shutting it behind me.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimness in the room. The faint mocking scent of bubble gum hung in the air, competing with the smoke from a recently extinguished candle. I shuffled my feet and rubbed my arms. It was much colder in here than the rest of the suite. Unease crawled up the back of my neck. I fought to control it, clamping down on my fight-or-flight reflexes.

A match ignited, illuminating the hand that held it. The smell of sulfur tinged the air as three candles were lit. Three. The irony was almost a relief. But the thing that really struck me was the face revealed by the match before it was blown out.

Pale as the moon and framed by hair darker than night, Trinity’s face was eerily perfect, freakish in its symmetry, as if it had been made by a machine. I supposed some would have called her beautiful, with features exactly the size and shape as they should be. But there was something wrong, something altogether ugly and unstable about the way they came together.

In the meager candlelight, I could just make out her shape on the bed piled in pillows. Afraid to blink, I froze in place with the door at my back and the unknown before me.

And then she spoke with the voice of a child, high and tinkling, edged with unrestrained irritation. “She’s wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Why is she here? Here and not there? Tell her to go away!”

“I asked to see you. I wanted to know why you sent me a note from Dh…ah…y-your brother.”

“No note. No notes for her. For her but not her. It’s all wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.”

“The note wasn’t for me?”

“Why is she here? No notes for her. Notes for her not her. Tell her to go away and bring me the one. It’s wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.”

“What one?” This whole speaking to me like she was reading from a Dr. Seuss book was frustrating.

“I want the little one, the one who made all the red. Tell her to bring me the one who made the red.”

What the hell was she talking about? I squinted in the darkness, trying to get a better feel for what I was up against here.

“Red, red, red. Red flowers, red lips, red hands. Hands dipped in red, dripping red, all red. Red, red, red.”

Oh, no. Somehow I understood what she was trying to tell me. Dread washed over me, pinning me in place. The room seemed to narrow. I took a step forward, then another. I’d been here before. Disappointment warring with hurt, and over it all a desperate need to believe that this was not happening.