Later Cyn would realize that Lee had been right. Her instincts were still functioning. It was just him who got by them. Because when she opened the door she saw Sandoval asleep in his bed. He breathed in once, and while the front of her brain couldn’t detect a single thing wrong with it, the back of her brain told her it looked funny.
She was diving to the side even as he sat up, a gun in each hand. The black barrels were pointed right at her, and later she would still be able to see the orange-red flare of bullets leaving the chamber. For some reason there was no sound. Just the feel of heat ripping her skin. From her position where she was pressed to the floor, she watched as deep red blooms appeared on the white of her clothes.
And, God, if that didn’t just piss her off. Somewhere in her mind she realized she’d been shot. But since it didn’t hurt, probably due to shock, and since she was mad that he’d shot her, and mad at herself that she’d gotten shot, she sat still until the bullets stopped.
Then she lifted her head. With knives in hand, she looked at Sandoval at the same time she let fly. The blades were already airborne before she was consciously aware that he was sitting up, and watching her, an empty gun in each hand.
Lee appeared in the doorway just then. To Cyn it was only a movement of Sandoval’s eyes as he glanced over her shoulder and up. The movement behind her registered in her brain, but she didn’t turn.
In Eduardo Sandoval’s eyes Cyn read too much. They were bright and clear‒he hadn’t been sleeping at all. They had narrowed when they saw her standing in his doorway, his brows had pulled down even as he’d come upright with guns firing. He’d been expecting her, if not her small size or the fact that she was female. Now, his eyes widened just a little as they looked in the doorway again. He hadn’t been expecting Lee.
Her knives found his shoulders, and she was throwing another even as she registered that his arms had gone limp. Sandoval’s mouth opened, and his pupils dilated, as the knife found his throat, but it was already too late. Small round burns already littered the center of his chest, the seventh, eighth, ninth, whatever, appearing even as the first began its red spread across the button down shirt he wore.
Almost too slowly, Sandoval slumped back across the bed, his head falling onto the pillows, his body leaching fluid and making macabre designs on the sheets. For a moment his throat burbled blood, but after the first initial spurt even that satisfaction was gone.
Sitting on the floor, Cyn had to blink twice, the thick plush of the carpet was the same creamy shade as every other damn carpet she’d seen in these stupid safe houses. Not that they were safe. Not for the men in them, she’d made sure of that. And this one hadn’t been safe for her either.
There were spots on the carpet, small red spots, and another appeared as she stared. From behind her, hands reached around and clasped her waist, lifting her to her feet. Cyn hung limp, until finally her legs caught and locked. She felt Lee’s hands on her shoulders, turning her. Only as she faced him, still feeling out of sorts, did his hand move. Pain shot through her arm and up to her spine, but Cyn only clenched her teeth.
“Son of a bitch” were the only words out of his mouth.
She shook her head, certain she could clear it of the fuzz that was derailing her thought. With a few blinks Cyn re-entered reality and noticed Lee’s mouth held in a tight line. His shoulder had blood on it. Her eyes widening, she reached for it, only to have him jerk back, the line around his lips growing whiter with tension.
His voice was a whisper, as always in these situations, in case Sandoval had been prepared with more than guns. “First we tie off the wounds. We can’t be bleeding on everything. Then we sweep for cameras and bugs. Then we clean the blood.”
Lee reached under the ivory colored sweat shirt he wore, Cyn shot her gloved hand out and stopped him. “Don’t rip your shirt. You’ll leave evidence. We’ll use one of his.”
She turned and went to the closet, aware that blood was seeping down her arm, but thankfully not dripping. She chose several white button-down shirts much like the one Sandoval had died in. Even walking back to Lee, still in the doorway, watching over Sandoval as though the man might just get up, she tried to rip the seams. But pain shot through her arms and she swore.
“I need scissors.” Uncertain if there even were scissors in this barely occupied house, Cyn tromped downstairs into the kitchen. Luckily there was a pair in the knife block, so she stole those, then turned to find Lee behind her in the archway.
He searched under the sink, pulling up several garbage bags and a large bottle of bleach. By the way he held it, the jug looked heavy and therefore full. Cyn was grateful.
The curtains on the ground floor were all closed for night, she didn’t have to look. She’d checked before they entered. Although now she thought maybe they’d been closed in anticipation of their arrival. “Let’s do this here.”
Careful not to move her arms too much, she began peeling the sweatshirt over her head. Thinking to warn Lee, she looked up at him, and saw that he was already making sure not to bump the cap he wore as he pulled his own shirt off. Spilled hair could be damaging evidence.
She peeled down to her bra, stuffing the clothing into the garbage bag along with Lee’s shirts, not letting anything touch the floor.
“Holy shit!”
Lee’s voice caused her to jerk, wondering if she was wounded far more seriously than she felt like. It was entirely possible with the adrenaline coursing through her system. She almost asked ‘what?’ but he must have seen it in her eyes, because he answered.
“That’s a real bra!”
Her breath huffed out of her, and her chest loosened. The feeling of being annoyed by Lee was the only familiar one she’d had since she’d opened that door, and that felt like it had been a thousand years ago. It had in reality been less than ten minutes.
Shirtless, and ignoring the blood that oozed slowly from the wound at the edge of his shoulder, Lee pushed a finger into the waistband of her once-pristine white jeans and pulled. He looked down, “What the hell did you do with Cyn? You’re wearing lace and bullet holes!”
He just looked confounded. And bleeding.
She rolled her eyes, hoping her face didn’t convey the comfort of the exchange.
“It’s from Victoria’s Secret.” She said it as though that would explain everything, when in fact she knew it explained nothing. Instead of continuing, she grabbed him and turned him to where her eyes were even with the wound.
Entry in a small neat hole, already red and swelling from the trauma. No exit wound. “Good news, bad news.”
“Lay it on me, then it’s your turn.”
With a deep breath in, wishing it wouldn’t ever be her turn, she told him what she saw. “The bullet’s embedded. That means no nasty exit wound, but I’m going to have to dig it out.”
“Later. Bind it.” He tilted his head away and Cyn did just that. She folded fabric and paper towels she pulled off the roll, thinking they’d be cleaner than the towels in the kitchen. Then bound the bundle tight against the wound with strips she cut of the fine fabric of the shirt. Then she rubbed at the blood down his arm with a wet paper towel and threw that into the garbage bag as well.
He started to move, but Cyn held onto him for closer inspection. Something in her heart pounded in an unfamiliar rhythm. Nothing could happen to Lee. Even though she wasn’t sure why, as she’d been alone all along before this, she simply couldn’t let anything take him out. So she checked every inch of exposed skin and looked at his pants for holes and blood that he might not be feeling.
She had left blood on the scene at Robert Listle’s house. The only place she’d left blood before tonight. It had been cleaned up, along with Listle’s blood, and never noticed. She’d never been suspected. But here . . . she didn’t want to think what her blood here might mean. Cyn pushed aside the memory of the red spots on the carpet upstairs, uncertain what she could do about it now.
Lee now grabbed her and began cleaning her up. He pushed reddened paper towel after reddened paper towel into the garbage bag, and had her hold a few pads over the wounds that were still seeping. “You got grazed.” He said about her right upper arm.
“Grazed again, deeper.” About the blood coming from the left side of her rib cage.
“In and back out again.” About her left arm. Followed by, “You lucky little bitch.”
Cyn didn’t begrudge him the term. He’d only caught one bullet, but she was going to have to excavate it. Her breath escaped her as his pronouncement sunk in. If she was a lucky little bitch, then she was going to live and be relatively unscathed.
Lee tied off the wounds, using the same padding of fabric and paper towels, and strips of Eduardo Sandoval’s shirts. At least this way, if the FBI collected fiber evidence it would lead no further than the upstairs closet.
Cyn picked up one of the shirts off the floor, and pulled it on over her bra and bindings. It was way too big, and it grated to be wearing that man’s clothing. Her gloves stayed on the entire time, making the buttons hard to work, but she wasn’t about to take them off. Tucking the too-long tails in required her to open the front of her jeans and push the smooth fabric down the front of her legs. When she was put back together, albeit uncomfortably, Lee was ready, looking even dapper in the fine fabric that fit his frame. Aside from the lumps of the makeshift bandages, Cyn realized this must be what he’d looked like in his old life. She wondered if she should have grabbed him a tie or two and a jacket.
With barely a head nod to each other, they worked in concert to clean up. Cyn triple bagged their shirts and the used paper towels, while Lee found a mop. They poured a good quantity of the bleach in the center of the floor and spread it as far as they could. They debated scrubbing down the cabinets, the bleach would destroy the evidence, but it would lead the investigators to everything they touched.
“We had gloves on.” Cyn looked down at their hands. No blood on the fingers of the gloves. There was a spot at the edge of the cuff of her right hand, but she and Lee decided it was worth the risk to not highlight with bleach everywhere they’d been.
There was about a quarter of the jug left, and Cyn suggested they bleach the spots in the carpet upstairs. “The chemicals would destroy all the cells right? All the DNA?”
Lee nodded. “But it admits that we bled. They’ll go looking for other sources of evidence. And they likely won’t stop until they find it. We’re serial killers.” The words sounded harsh in the whisper she was growing familiar with. Without another sound, which they’d tried to keep to a minimum, just in case the place was bugged and they were heard, Lee reached out and plucked a freshly washed tumbler from the dish rack.
Unsure what was happening now, Cyn carried the bleach jug and the bagged clothing up the stairs behind him. The ache in her arms slowed her, and by the time she reached the edge of the room, she found Lee using another of Sandoval’s shirts to protect his gloves while he tipped the body and spilled gooey blood into and over the cup.
That’s disgusting. She almost said it out loud, but instead watched, mesmerized, as Lee brought the cup of blood to her, and proceeded to pour it over the few spots where she’d dripped her own blood.
That’s brilliant.
She’d have to remember to say it later.
He created new spots, re-doused the originals that contained her blood, and when he finished he looked around the room. Her eyes followed where his led, seeing bullet holes peppering the walls all around the doorway. With a breath in at what she’d missed, Cyn went back to work, and into the closet to bring Lee another several shirts. She left the hangers on the rack and carefully wrapped the glass so they could carry it out without incriminating themselves.
Setting the bundles in the hallway, they did a quick sweep of the bedroom, hoping that if there was a bug or a camera that they’d find it. But they found nothing. They had no detecting devices, no scanners, nothing any more technologically advanced than the guns that Lee carried, or the laser sharpened edge on her weapons. They were operating on prayer. Cyn just wasn’t sure who to pray to.
Lee took the bag, and slung it over his shoulder, looking like a sinister white-clad Santa Claus, and left Cyn to carry the cup. They’d have to get rid of it later. They made their way back onto the roof, being very careful not to leave evidence of their passing. She was pretty certain that from inside no one would suspect they had gone out the attic vent. However from outside, fresh tracks appeared on the rooftop, and that would be a dead giveaway to anyone who stood back far enough to see. She let Lee and his sack of evidence go down first, while she used the bundle and her hands to move the snow around, hopefully obscuring their tracks while she backed down to the corner.
She did the same thing as she backed away from the house. Under the cover of trees they spent another half hour making tracks in every direction they could find, then finally gave up. Once they were in the car she cranked the engine to a soft purr and pulled out of the spot where they’d left it hidden for hours now. In the distance she heard sirens and wondered what they were for. But she decided to ignore it, and took them, and her thoughts, to the nearest paved road, where their tracks completely disappeared amid all the others.
Only then did Cyn find relief. And in her relief she felt the burn from her arms as she steered, and wondered what Lee must be feeling in the passenger seat. He was finally able to sit still, as he should have from the moment they’d discovered he had a bullet lodged in him.
He stayed that way for the hour it took Cyn to find an open and empty looking campground. At this time of year, with snow blessedly beginning to fall, the grounds were cleared. They pulled spare clothes and the first aid kit from the back of the car, and hiked to a wooded spot at the edge of the water. Most of it was frozen, but only thinly, and a current passed visibly under the layer of ice.
Cyn peeled her gloves for the first time in hours, and pushed her fist through the surface, the shock of cold water far more painful than breaking the half inch thick ice. Still she reached back in and handed a chunk of it to Lee to hold against his shoulder.
She was shocked when she opened the kit. He had syringes and anesthetics, long forceps and small suture packs. “Did you rob a doctor’s office?”
“No!” He looked offended. “I paid someone to rob a doctor’s office.”
She just had to laugh. It felt good, too, especially considering that Lee expected her to sew him up.
It seemed he preferred to do the injecting himself. “I paid really close attention the last time I got stitched.”
“Why?”
He shoved the needle into his arm and depressed the plunger several times while he talked, clearly already somewhat numb from the ice. “It was after the Kurevs roughed me up. And I knew what I was going to do. So I paid attention.”
She frowned while he touched his shoulder a few times before pushing the syringe in again, this time further back. He seemed to not notice that he was shirtless in the cold air. “Why did they beat you up?”
He stopped with the needle and handed it back to her, “Same reason they killed Samantha and Bethany. To get me to cooperate.” He shrugged with his good shoulder. “Problem was, after that, there was no reason to cooperate. There was nothing worse they could do.”
He touched at his shoulder again, as Cyn realized there was nothing she could say. Her mind wandered, to wonder what her father had done to get himself killed. It must have been something unredeemable, and apparently turning the Kurevs in to the Feds was considered redeemable if they’d left Lee alive. Or maybe they’d simply discovered that killing their accountant wasn’t the best way to go.
Lee’s voice pulled her back to the present, which she wasn’t sure was any better. “You should get to it, I have no idea how well this stuff works since it’s a few years old.”
For the first time she looked at the bottle. Xylocaine. That part sounded good, but, “This expired a year ago.”
“Then get cracking.” He closed his eyes.
With cold fingers operating cold forceps, Cyn prodded and poked at the wound. She could feel the bullet in there, and he winced when she tapped it. After eight tries that made her as tense as he was, she grabbed it and managed to pull it halfway out. Swearing a blue streak, she went after it again, then threw it into the unfrozen section in the middle of the lake. It landed with a small satisfactory plop.
She cleaned and stitched him with clumsy fingers, and re-bandaged him with more ease. He even thanked her at the end, then demanded that she strip down and subject herself to the same stinging torture she’d just put him through. But he extracted no revenge.
They climbed into the clothes they’d worn out of the motel that night, jeans and shirts, ball caps and sneakers. Setting three smaller bundles into the stone circles nearby, they burned the evidence and later washed the glass in the spot where she’d opened the ice before breaking the tumbler on a rock and scattering the pieces into the water.
Cyn reopened her wounds when she showered when they got in to the motel. But she made sure all the blood went down the drain. Groggy as the sun came up beyond the curtains, she let Lee re-bandage her before she slipped into her frog pajamas and curled up against him.
Owen had jerked awake as his pager buzzed, knowing instantly what it was. But, then again, with all his other cases closed, solved, or absorbed into someone else’s investigation, what else could it be?
The ninja had been out again. Or the gunner. When his pager went off in the middle of the night these days he could be assured of a dead body with one of two things accompanying it: a big red bow or executed dogs.
Randolph in dispatch informed him right away that he only had the dogs.
And that pissed him the hell off.
That simmer of anger, for a fugitive he had previously admired if not liked, had kept him awake on the long flight‒another thing he was relatively assured of when he was summoned in the dark. In fact, he’d kissed Annika and a sleeping Charlotte good-bye and was in the car with his packed bag slung into the back before he even returned the call.
Now, in the middle of Idaho, of all places, his body was threatening sleep. Owen was threatening back with large quantities of low quality coffee, even though he was mostly immune by this point. Maybe he’d switch to soda. But out here it was too damn cold to think about enforcing that one any time soon.
A quiet snowfall belied the importance of the night. The Christmas Killer had struck in time for her holiday, even if she’d come without ribbons or tags. And Owen, for one, hoped that meant that she’d sit still and be quiet for December 25th, and just maybe he’d get to spend it with Anni and Charlotte.
That meant clamping down on media coverage. The only way Owen knew to clamp down was to keep them entirely ignorant. Once the cops had called it in to the Bureau, they’d been informed in no uncertain terms to put the lid on it. According to the looks on their faces at the scene, they’d been offended that someone thought they needed to be told.
Good cops, Owen thought to himself, and he hoped his smile conveyed his appreciation. The local blue had traipsed through the house, destroying a good lot of evidence. But they’d backed out once they saw the body, and called in the feds. Not so much because of the dogs they said, but because they recognized Eduardo Sandoval from the case on TV.
Good enough.
The body was going on twenty-four hours old according to Nguyen. Judging by how the blood had congealed, and the lack of rigor mortis, and a few other things that Owen didn’t want to know about.
He’d read on the flight over that the local police had been tipped off by a neighbor who didn’t like all the activity at the house next door. Out here though ‘next door’ was barely in within sight. But she’d heard something suspicious the night before and then nothing. So she’d called Ray, the Sheriff, because she’d helped his mama some when he was little, and he radioed Jeff, his cop friend whose jurisdiction it was in, and Owen got a headache with all the degrees of separation that had somehow put him just outside of Boise staring at a dead Eduardo Sandoval at eight a.m. two weeks before Christmas.
He shot the last of his coffee and worried the cup in his hands.
Blood was in random places around the room. Even though Nguyen had turned on the fluorescent it didn’t show anything that wasn’t already visible to the eye. Sandoval had died laid out on his bed. The lower half of him was still under the sheet, although when they looked they saw he was wearing khakis and shoes.
Nguyen raised his eyebrows, “He was waiting up for them.”
Owen had had the same thought.
The lab man smiled, his paper form giddy with energy Owen didn’t feel even though he knew he should. “Dunham, Sandoval shot at least one of them. That means blood and that means we’ve got more DNA. Finally.”
Owen agreed in theory. It looked like Sandoval hadn’t left the bed. So he couldn’t be responsible for the blood by the closet, the window, or the door. There were even three small drops over in the corner by the TV. Those were the ninja’s. Or the gunner’s. Or, if they were very lucky, both. Owen didn’t expect them to be that lucky, though.
The body sported no bow. That irked Owen as much as anything. But again he agreed with Nguyen. “Looks like he shot her, or them, and they just took him out.”
“If the knives in the shoulders are any indicator, she disarmed him-”
“Funny.” Owen responded dryly.
“Gotcha.” Nguyen only nodded. Maybe not that much was funny when the house was warm enough that the body was starting to let off a little odor. Owen considered going to get another hit of coffee before he suited up and joined his friend. But Nguyen wasn’t finished talking. “And the gunner just killed.” He held up the edge of the shirt placket, “Looks like between five and fifteen shots here, clustered right into the heart, a little left of center.”
Nguyen took a moment to admire the gunner’s skill. Owen did, too. He looked at the pristine wall behind the dead man, at the headboard of the bed, which had blood splatters, but not a single nick. When they got the body into the lab and counted the actual bullet holes through the heart, then they would know exactly how many shots the gunner had fired.
But there was no bow. No tag. No articles condemning the already dead.
Owen turned to go. Let Nguyen play with the body some more. His brain needed space to digest. Sandoval was clearly dead. So why no fluffy ribbon? Had she come without it? Had she lost that feminine touch? This man hadn’t suffered, not because he didn’t deserve it, but because he knew what he was in for.
Given the nice clothes he was wearing, Owen guessed he had been hoping to call his boss with the Christmas Killer ready for delivery. Although if that would be alive or dead, Owen didn’t know.
He figured that Sandoval hadn’t counted on what he himself had only just discovered: that there were two of them. Had they met on the internet? In some sort of “I hate the mafia” chat room? He’d set the profilers on both the gunner and the pair of them, to see if they could glean more supposition for him. The problem was that profilers worked off of past evidence, and previous female serial killers were rare. Very rare. Duos were also very rare. All the recorded cases seemed to involve a dominant personality and a submissive. A girlfriend who helped her man bait the unsuspecting. A husband who brought the wicked playthings to his sociopath wife.
And not one damn little iota of it applied here. None of the Christmas Killers’ victims were kidnapped or taken anywhere. They were all killed in their own homes. Strike one against known history. There was no dominant personality here. Strike two. The two killers seemed to have been working entirely separately and met up, either by chance or design, and decided to go it together. Strike three-damned-thousand-four-hundred-and-fifty-fucking-two.
Owen wanted to rip his hair out and scream to the heavens. Not that the Christmas Killers would hear him because they were damn long gone by now. Snow had fallen and obscured any tracks. Although something should have shown. If they’d left tracks that is. And he just bet these guys didn’t.
He stepped outside, feeling his ass freeze as he ducked into the small tent the locals had set up in the front yard. He refilled his coffee and grabbed a rice crispy square, then made sure he saw at least one other cop eating one before he took a bite of it. The taste threatened to transport him back to childhood. The situation threatened to get him transported to the looney bin. For a moment he gave psychiatric care careful consideration. Annika would visit him every day. But there would be no conjugal visits. Oh well, that was a deal-breaker. So he wandered the lower floors, trying to figure out how these lethal creatures of smoke, who apparently did bleed, had gotten into these damned houses in the first place.
He tried the basement, with no luck. Other cops and local agents were looking through the area, but it appeared that the killers hadn’t been down here at all. Owen wandered the ground floor next, not finding much more to go on, until he hit the kitchen.
Just beyond his senses lingered an odor he recognized.
Quickly swallowing the last bite of the crispy treat, he sniffed again, and stepped further into the room. It was a local female cop who held out an arm to stop him. All she said was “Bleach,” followed by “Look.”
She turned out the light, then pulled her flashlight from her belt, shining it on the cabinet directly in front of them. Her voice was too sweet to have seen any real action on the job, but she wasn’t vomiting, so Owen listened. “My Mama was one of those white gloves people. And she’d check if I scrubbed the floor well enough by putting the lights on dim. It shows all sins.”
When Owen looked at the floor, he realized her Mama had been right. The floor was shiny clean, even streaked, in a wide, irregular patch in the middle of the room, but the edges weren’t touched. It had to be the killers. No way Sandoval did this. When Owen leaned over the smell was much stronger, someone had poured straight bleach onto the floor and pushed it around. But why?
“Dunham!” Nguyen called from upstairs. And momentarily Owen was pulled from his thoughts. “I’m going to have them pull up every patch of carpet with blood on it. But you’ve got to get up here. It’s all random, and get this, Sandoval has no shirts.”
Owen was halfway up the stairs by that time. “What?” His face contorted with the total lack of reasoning involved.
“Yeah,” Nguyen met him halfway out the door. “He’s got pants, jackets, ties, sweaters, but no shirts. Just a batch of hangers.”
“Son of a bitch!!!” This time Owen did scream it to the heavens. His head tipped skyward and Nguyen moved like the waves of sound had blown him back several feet.
When Owen gathered breath to speak again, it was at a slightly lower volume, which was still too loud for even impolite company, and with no less anger. “He shot them! Sandoval shot one of them!”
“Yes?” Nguyen had already said that.
“They bled. They took the shirts to the kitchen and bandaged whoever was shot and they bleached the floor. There are fibers pushed to the edge of the clean spot and every goddamned one of them is going to be from an over-priced designer white button down!”
“But there’s blood!” Nguyen pointed at the spots littering the room.
Owen was still in his impotent rage. “Who the fuck bleeds a little over here and then a little over there? What in God’s name would they be doing by the TV for just a second?” He took a fortifying breath in and started up again, “They knew they were bleeding. They bleached the kitchen. You think they left you drops in here!?!? Ten grand says there’s nothing in here that’s usable!”
Nguyen looked taken aback, and Owen couldn’t think of any time he’d let his anger get the better of him in front of his friend. He stomped off muttering, “We still don’t even know how they get in the god-damned houses.”
Lee had jerked awake that morning at three a.m. according to his watch. Then again at 5:30, although he’d barely been able to see the face of the watch that time as Sin had been lying on his arm.
She didn’t even pretend to go into her own room anymore. Somehow, since Idaho, he’d found it vaguely comforting. That could be because the nightmares he had involved her diving through a rain of gunfire. When he jerked awake with her limp body in his arms, he always had a moment of panic, but then she moved, stirred, in some way letting him know that she was alive. His brain would recount the hours after Sandoval opened fire on them, and he would turn his face back into the pillow and fall back to sleep, only to have it happen all over again.
The reporters hadn’t flocked to the scene. The TV stations didn’t tell tales of the Christmas Killer racking up another body in time for the holidays. Only two days later had CNN confirmed that a body found in Idaho had been identified as Eduardo Sandoval, recently acquitted of a long list of tax evasion crimes and suspected of much worse. No one seemed to miss him much. And no one breathed about the Christmas Killer.
So the FBI had found him. Lee had hoped that maybe the Kurevs would get to him first and dispose of him. No one would complain if Sandoval went missing. But he’d been reported, so no luck there.
The holidays came and went with him and Sin scouring the internet, traveling to three different states to do so, and not turning up much of anything. Lee prayed every night that Sin’s blood didn’t incriminate them, that it didn’t even show. It would mean they could lock her up forever, or fry her if she was ever caught.
He’d told her that he thought maybe someone upstairs was watching out for them.
Sin had replied, angrily, that she would have fucking appreciated it ten years ago.
That he understood.
New Year’s had passed with a couple of Jack and Cokes. Lee had gotten just buzzed enough to remember kissing Sam that last time, over at her mother’s New Year’s Eve party. He’d barely made it, late from work, and he was so glad now that he had.
His shoulder still stung if he shot too many rounds at once. Sin still punished the pop bottles, and had added cardboard boxes with ketchup and mustard packs she’d taped to them just for the fun of watching them bust.
The fact that Sin had done anything ‘just for fun’ had amazed him. Even her silly shopping spree after Thanksgiving had seemed to have a purpose. He itched somewhere deep inside, what with the passing of the holidays, or the fact that they’d nearly been blown to pieces. With the weather cold and often dark, he was lacking in good outlets for it. “Come on. We need a good fight.”
He stood across the mats from her and stared her down. He crouched low, ready to go after her, but she stood with her hands on her hips, just in front of the practice dummy. It stood silent behind her, knowing better than to disobey, as she’d already beaten two of the lights into an early grave. “I don’t need a fight.”
“Your practice dummy says otherwise.” He pointed. But she didn’t rise to the bait.
“You need to take it easy on your shoulder.”
He didn’t buy that one either. “But you don’t? You took three bullets.”
“Grazes! One shot in the arm for Christ’s sake.” Her voice rose, and Lee had trouble with what was before him. Something was simmering in there. He’d be more comfortable if they could just beat the crap out of each other. She huffed. “Why didn’t he kill me?”
“Did you want him to?” He got closer, figuring if he tackled her, she’d have to fight back. And he needed something, some good physical exertion, to get his feet under him.
Sin had to see him stalking her, but she didn’t respond, not even to his question. She just steered the conversation a different way. “I just don’t understand. He fired two guns to empty and I got three grazes and you got one bullet, because you were stupid enough to step in the way.”
He stood up straight. Fuck this. “You’re welcome. Next time I’ll let you take all the heat.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Her hands gestured into the air in front of her, no language sufficing for the frustration she clearly felt.
His shoulders slumped. “You could have asked me that weeks ago.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “We didn’t get any mortal wounds because he’s mafia. They kill by their willingness to empty an entire clip into a person. Not by any finesse or accuracy. Did you see where some of those bullets went?”
She nodded. “Some went out into the hallway.”
“Uh-huh. He was aiming with prayer and not talent.” Some of her worry started to dissipate, so he continued. “And your reflexes are fast. By the time I realized what was happening, you were already on the ground.”
“I knew something was wrong when I opened the door. You were right about my instincts.”
There wasn’t going to be a fight.
Never mind that he was on edge. The winter hemmed him in every year. Mostly he read, but this time he was watching Sin do katas‒martial arts forms. He’d had her teach him a few, but they felt like Tai Chi to him, almost slow and peaceful. It had been much more fulfilling to learn how to grab a wrist and strike against the forearm up near the elbow disabling an opponent for at least part of a second. She’d demonstrated on him, and by god it worked.
She’d asked about his shooting techniques, using his third finger as a trigger finger and lining his index along the barrel of the gun. In the living room, with non-firing practice rounds in the Hecklers, he’d showed her. She’d easily gotten the hang of it, and liked it as much as he had when he’d first discovered it. You just point at the thing you want to shoot and squeeze your middle finger. It was virtually impossible to jerk the trigger accidentally, and made two-handed firing much more feasible, as you no longer had to sight the barrel.
Unfortunately, the first time they got out for her to try it, she nearly lost the gun. On the recoil, which she usually managed to control, the weapon threatened to fly out of her hand. The butt of the gun was too big for her smaller hands to grip well with her strongest finger now on the trigger. Any aim she gained was well and truly lost and Lee took the gun away from her, fearing for their safety.
But that had been over a week ago. He was healing, and had no vent for his agitation. He had no intentions for his future kills, and didn’t want to know what Sin was planning. Having Sandoval pop up, armed to the teeth, was enough to make him think they needed a new M.O.
And he had no idea what it should be.
So when Sin came up that night right after he finished his sandwich, he was already restless, and not up for whatever she might have in mind. When her hands pushed him forward to the edge of the couch, and she crowded in behind him, he wondered what the hell she was doing. When she began kneading his shoulder and back muscles, you could have knocked him over with a feather.
“Sin, what are you doing?” He tried to keep his voice even. But it was so hard to do. His brain was warring between worry about what Sin was really up to, accepting the back rub for what it was, and sudden, day-bright memories of Samantha doing exactly this after he’d been at work all day. He almost laughed aloud there in the small cold cabin. You didn’t know what tense was until you’d been underground for almost four years, killing hit men for sport, and living with another killer whom you were only recently certain wasn’t truly sociopathic.
Lee tamped that thought down. Sin had always had a conscience. It was a little overzealous maybe, but she wasn’t a sociopath. That thought didn’t make him worry any less when her uber-deadly hands were rubbing at his shoulder blades, no matter how good it felt. Still he tried to relax. He leaned back into the pressure of her fingers, not asking what had inspired this, because he was in knots, and if he pissed her off she’d stop. He could analyze it later, after she finished.
She worked with motions that should have been surprisingly strong for her size, but Lee didn’t think twice. Aside from sneaking up on him, there wasn’t much she could do that did surprise him anymore. Then he reminded himself that she was giving him a backrub, and realized he didn’t know half as much as he thought he did about her.
Her hands worked down to the base of his spine, then started back up with slow, heavy, sure motions. By the time she hit the area around his shoulders and neck he was positively loose, and it was only as the blackness was closing in around the edges of his vision that he realized he’d been had. But he couldn’t pull out of it, and he sunk deep into the abyss.
“Lllleeeeee.”
“Llleeeeeeee.”
The voice came from so far away, and he was shaking. Or rather someone was shaking him. As his eyes fluttered and light strobed into his brain, he realized it was Sin. The momentary relief to see her was blindsided by the sudden realization that she had been responsible. His tongue found action by sheer force of will and he spewed at her. “What the fuck was that?!?”
She smiled.
That bitch had the nerve to smile?
Then again, he’d allowed Miss Umpth-degree Black-belt to give him a back rub. That was class A idiotic if anything ever was.
Her voice worked just fine. All of her did. Lee was flexing his fingers even as she spoke. “Vagal nerve. It runs along your carotid arteries, just to the side of your neck. If you push it you can slow the heart.”
“Thanks for the demonstration, Lizzie Borden.”
“Hey, I had to practice. It’s hard to find.”
He stood and rounded on her. “And I’m sure slitting my throat would have been just too crass.”
She looked put out. What right did she have to look put out?
“You would be dead if I had slit your throat. I wouldn’t do that.” Forget put out, she looked hurt. “Besides, you got a nice back rub.”
“And a nice trip to the netherworld.” He stood and paced the room.
“Well, we need something new. Something to occupy us until the media coverage dies down and we can go after the next one.”
“Newsflash, sweetheart,” He was still mad at her, even though she had artfully changed the topic, “It isn’t the media that made Sandoval fire at us.”
She frowned, and Lee felt some of his anger fade at being the next replacement for her used-up practice dummy. “The media didn’t cover a damn thing about mafia hits. Just because some of their guys came in bows didn’t mean we were after Sandoval. Not only is the FBI after us, but the Kurev family is, too.”
With a deep breath, he waited while that sank in, then he went at it and hammered the point home a little further. “The Kurevs have thought one of the other families got themselves a nice ninja hitman and came after them, and they might have retaliated, which I have no issues with. But they put it together a while ago. Svelichko had a gun in his hand and another under the bed. And that was before the Christmas Killer got named.”
His hands went into his hair, and his heart sped up, and he had a fleeting thought to be grateful that all of him worked properly and that he was going to pay her back. “By my best guess, none of them knows there are two of us. But I don’t know that for a fact. I’m hoping they weren’t able to get DNA from the blood you dripped. And I’m hoping I didn’t drip any, because we sure as hell didn’t find it, but the FBI will.”
Her voice sounded like she was at a tea party, it was only missing a good English accent. “So your plan is: lay low and beat up on each other for a while?”
He felt his mouth quirk. “I was actually ready to give up on the fighting, and the back rub was nice. But I’m really ready go ten rounds in the ring now.” Consciously, he unclenched the fists that had formed at his sides.
“I’ll give you a real back rub?”
“Like I’m going to fall for that shit?”
She shook her head. “No ninja stuff.”
“Bite me.”
“You can learn it on me.”
At that, he turned back to her.
Sin babbled like she was trying to cover for something, but Lee wanted to see where this went. “See, I learned on you, you can learn on me. You should know how to do this, too.”
She motioned to the couch beside her, then tugged him down. With his hands in hers he let himself be led, although he wasn’t sure why, other than good old-fashioned curiosity. Sin placed his fingers around her neck in several different ways before deciding that it would work best if he used a choke hold and crossed his thumbs, so each was hitting the nerve on the opposite side. “Now press. Gently!”
Lee stared at her. He had his hands wrapped around her pretty little neck. Now, he had no illusions that if he actually tried to cut off her air‒which was really tempting to a good portion of his brain‒that she would fight back with all she was worth and inflict some serious damage. But he pressed his thumbs in where she showed him. “There’s something very satisfying about this.”
She was going to nod, but her eyes were turning glassy. Her mouth started to work, and the sounds she produced were faint. “I think you found it.” She made as if to push his hands away. “Hhhheeeyyyy.”
Lee smiled as her eyes rolled back, and he laid her down on the couch, certain she was still breathing, and denying that there had been something vaguely erotic about it. He’d never gotten off on something like that before, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start now.
He enjoyed the three minutes of peaceful silence he got before she came to, sputtering. Lee simply lifted an eyebrow at her as she attempted to glare at him from where she was spread out across the couch. Between the backrub and getting to choke Sin, he’d lost the desire to hit something.