“Want to come over?” asked Sandy. She almost whispered it, and there was remembered passion but also need there. Not desperation, but a genuine desire for more of him. More of them. “For the night, I mean?”
It was so tempting. It was an offer made with trepidation and caution, but wrapped up in her pride and her history of being harmed. Monk knew that this was an offer rarely made, and it was all the more appealing and lovely for that.
But he saw Patty and Tuyet in his mind. He saw pain and horror, and he saw his own anger thrown like a goblin shadow on the wall. He came to Doylestown for answers and so far had none, and he was feeling guilty for the time spent with Sandy. Monk did not want to paint this moment with those colors.
“I can’t tonight,” he said, trying not to wince. “I gotta get back to Pine Deep. This thing I’m working on…”
She looked immediately hurt and suspicious, but Monk took her hand and kissed it very gently.
“Listen to me, sweetness,” he said softly, “you’re amazing. I’m not joking. You have no idea how long it’s been since I met someone like you. You’re beautiful, smart, funny, and sexy. If you’re asking if I want to spend the night, then yes, I really do. I think it would be something of real beauty even if all we did was curl up together and sleep. But this case I’m on is doing real harm to my friend. She’s an old friend. Not a girlfriend. We’re family. Another one of us who’ve been through the Valley of the Shadow. You’d like her, I think. She just got out of the hospital today and she’s a mess. I need to make sure she’s okay. You can understand that. I know you can.” He paused and dug a card out of his pocket. “This is my cell and my email. Text me so I have your info. And as soon as this shitstorm is done, let me take you out on a real date. Not joking. You put on your pretties and I’ll—so help me God—wear a tie. Maybe we’ll go down to Philly and catch a concert. Or we can hit the movies and find a really nice place for dinner. Somewhere they’ll wait on you and treat you like the queen you are. We can—”
She stopped him with a kiss. And that turned into a smile and then a laugh.
“What’s so funny?” he said, pulling back an inch.
“You are so corny, so old-fashioned,” she said. “So sweet. I don’t think I know any guys like you. You might even be the real deal.”
“I’m never going to lie to you and never going to hurt you,” he said, and he meant it. There was no way to look into those dark-brown eyes and tell anything but the God’s honest. “I give you my word.”
She kissed him again and was still smiling as she put the big Expedition into gear and drove him back to his car. He stood on the wet pavement and watched her go, rain falling on his shoulders. His cell vibrated and he glanced at the screen. She must have stopped at a light around the corner. The text said two words.
White Knight.
Below that was her phone number.
“Sandy,” he said to the night.
There was a faint cawing sound and he turned to see that the nightbirds he thought he’d left behind in Pine Deep were standing in dense rows along the rooftop of the one-story building that was INKcredible. Dozens of them. Scores.
Monk studied them, trying to read something from the way they stood, from the agitation of their oily black wings.
The tattoo parlor was still closed, the sign exactly where it had been before. Nothing was really different.
Or was it?
He went to his car and opened the trunk, unlocked the gun safe, removed the Sig Sauer, and tucked it into the back of his belt. He didn’t feel like getting soaked by taking off his jacket to slip the shoulder rig on. Monk looked past the open trunk to the store, then took a few additional items from his gear bag: his leather case of lockpick tools, and an old-fashioned blackjack with its wafer of lead sewn between thick black leather. That went into his right front pocket. He preferred to use his hands in a fight, but there was something wrong about the energy. Those nightbirds were spooked, and that spooked Monk. The blackjack had a short, springy handle, and if used with the right flick of the wrist, transferred a lot of kinetic energy to that dense lead core. Lay it just so and he could daze someone and take the fight out of them; put a little more English on it, and it would shatter a wrist or a skull with equal precision. Cops used to carry them but too many were heavy handed, resulting in brain damage or death for their victims. Monk wasn’t technically allowed to have one, either, but he operated on the philosophy that he’d rather be tried by twelve than carried by six.
He closed the lid and approached the parlor. The rain was steady but not hard, although it was icy cold and wormed its way down into his clothes. On his skin the faces of all those dead girls and women were stretching their mouths and trying to say something. He glanced around and saw their ghosts. He’d long along learned that even the dead can be frightened.