Chapter Twenty-Nine
She reached up, cupped the air where Galinko’s Shadow had swung from the rafter. “Show.”
Nothing. The ink painted everything black. “Show light,” she amended then concentrated, like back in the cottage when she pushed hard enough to make those tiny her pinpricks of sunshine pierce the darkness. “Please,” she whispered. “Where is he? How is he?”
A Shadow jumped onto the floor, but Walter Galinko did not lie there before her. Instead Rob Haslom gurgled blood and had the stiletto jabbed into his chest. “Natasha. Help me.”
She gasped but “Tsarina?” Owen stepped between her and the Shadow, blocking it. “You’re bleeding.”
She latched onto his hand. “Look!”
His gaze hopped to the floor where Rob was bleeding. “Help…me,” it whispered.
They stared then it faded. She slipped her palm from his hand.
“You’re bleeding,” he repeated, and stripped his shirt off, handed it over.
She hesitated and he flashed a tight grin. “You snooty about my sweat, Your Highness?”
Hardly. She folded the shirt—“Thank you”—and pressed it to her face, eyes averted from his chest, chiseled and inked in a riot of colors. He’d held her against his heart outside and now she craved the scent permeating his t-shirt; musk, man, and rain. “Crazy,” she mumbled, and ignored his quizzical brow. Not only was this not the time, but she’d made this mistake once before—lusting for someone who belonged to another. Although…she sneaked a peek at him. It wasn’t like Owen Brophy would care that her heart turned disquieting somersaults around him. He had his little red-haired Shadow named Sondra, a memory that followed him where-ever he went. Case in point; even when he’d held her (so tenderly. Dammit! Why had he been so damn gentle?) outside, she’d been able to hear Shadow fragments of the phone conversation he’d had with Sondra Mitchell. Had heard Sondra say “Play her.”
So all these peonies raining petals all over the floor could politely go to hell. Any tenderness he’d shown was just another undercover op, and he was playing a role. She stuck a foot out, stomped a peony under her heel.
He cocked his head. “I’d ask why you’re always surrounded by flowers, but I think we have more pressing ground to cover. I asked Steve to ask some discreet questions about Walter Galinko. If this was all just a scare tactic, and the guy’s still around, we need to warn him.”
By saying what? That a member of the psychic family he’d been raised to hate saw him in danger? Like he’d believe them. Like she’d even be safe telling him. And besides—“I don’t think we can help him.” Her Shadows were ink but her gut wasn’t.
And Owen Brophy, Knight Crawler and policii wasn’t fazed. “So he is dead? Why kill him?”
She didn’t know, but a guess—“He’s no longer needed?”—felt right.
He pursed his lips. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, and took her elbow.
Back in her cottage, Shoes mewed and wound ’round their ankles with her hobbly gait. Owen stooped, scooped her up. “Who could Galinko be working for?” he said, for they’d theorized the entire way over; if the assailant was indeed a woman like Sondra said, then Walter Galinko was a mere hired gun, a willing participant due to his grudge-filled history with the Hasloms, Cory Chandler—and with the Nikoslav family and there supposed guilt after the suicide following her attack with the red brush back in Alberta. The suicide which, according to Owen, remained a hot-button topic on a website called Alberta Unsolved.
“Could our threat-maker be someone who calls herself Third Eye 20/20?” he asked.
“W-ell…” She considered it. “Whoever she is, she does have psychic abilities.” And it was a relief, actually, to think that it wasn’t a Galinko; after indicting her so harshly for so many years, it had somehow felt like an insult to imagine any of them having even latent prescient ability. She hunted for her phone. “Here.” She handed it to him. “Find the website, let me touch the names.”
He palmed the device with one hand while cradling Shoes with the other, and the kitten purred, a ball of fur sweetly content against the riot of color on his skin. The contradiction of soft and tough made her heart turn another now-familiar cartwheel, and she turned quickly—“One second”—then disappeared into Jakob’s bedroom. Surely her Armani-wearing cousin had at least one t-shirt to his name. She rummaged rapidly through his dresser. Nope. Then his closet.
Oh, God. His closet.
Tucked behind an acre of dress shirts, pressed jackets and, yes, a couple t-shirts, the portrait, Calling In Light, was propped against the back wall.
“Got it, Tsarina,” called Owen.
She couldn’t tell him, wouldn’t tell him. Hangers jangled as she slid the clothing back over the painting then, snitching one of the hanging t-shirts, she called “Coming!” then dropped Owen’s bloodied one into the hamper by the door. “J-just getting you something to wear.” Her mouth didn’t work right. Felt like it had been mashed full of electric cotton. When had Jakob gotten that painting?
“Here.” They both said simultaneously back in the living room, her handing him the shirt, he passing her the phone. Her fingers trembled as they slid over the screen, touching names. “Night Crawler,” she whispered, and glanced at him.
He grunted, a tight sound, then slipped the t-shirt on, hiding his skin in a way that made her both relieved and hungry. Her gaze darted quickly back to the phone. “Grace 02. That’s…Anna Wright?” She was astonished. “She owns the bakery in Echo Creek. I…I thought she hated me as much as everyone else.”
“Apparently not.”
The way he watched her…another somersault seized her heart and peonies….God. There were peonies everywhere.
“Play her.” His girlfriend’s little red-headed Shadow stepped out of the wall with a smirk.
Right. ‘Play her’. Peonies wilted as she sank to the sofa. “Third Eye 20/20.” She touched the name and a Shadow leapt before her. She quickly read through the thread of messages he’d written, his Shadow sardonic and vaguely defensive as he sparred with @Night Crawler. “Jakob,” she said, because nothing he’d written gave her reason to protect him, and she had to tell the Knight Crawler some things. She could, after all, play him too. “He said he’d meet you.” She looked up.
“This morning,” he confirmed, and though his Shadow tossed an arm up to block, she still saw a rapid-fire exchange. ‘Protect her,’ Jakob had said.
Ah. So everyone was playing her. “I see,” she said. “Is he paying you?” She was proud it came out absent.
“No,” he replied, arctic cold.
She shrugged nonetheless. “I can protect myself.” Then went back to the phone. “Avenger911. That’s Walter G,alinko.”
“You sure?”
“Ja. Yes.” She kept her fingers lightly atop the name, but yelped as Shadow visages of fists, knives…and then a red brush turned everything into blood.
“You okay?”
Protect her. A duty. Those tender arms around her outside Jakob’s shop had only been a job. “Yes,” she murmured, and slipped away from him.
“The woman?” he prompted.
She set her phone aside. “Cory Chandler,” she answered, unbidden.
He sank to the chair across from the sofa, waited for more.
“He…when I first saw his Shadow it kept saying ‘Be true’, and I didn’t know what to make of it. Then I picked up all the angst about his wife, Elayna—”
“—who Jessalyn hates.”
“Yes, but it’s normal, sometimes, to hate and blame the non-offending parent, blame them when…when the other parent strays.”
He squinted, confused.
“Chandler cheated, Owen. All the guilt and regret I see…he cheated on Elayna.”
“And is the woman he banged the one we’re looking for? Has she been packing a grudge because he didn’t leave his wife like he’d promised? Didn’t hook up with her even after Elayna died?”
Possibly. For hadn’t she, once upon a time, resented Gregory with every cell of her being because he didn’t leave his wife? “I…maybe,” she mumbled. “People…people are complicated.” She looked away lest he see the memories, and the shame.
Yet he watched her like he had before, in that penetrating way that made her feel like he was somehow taking stock of her soul. “Natasha,” he said.
There was compassion in his sea eyes. It was the softest thing she’d ever seen.
“I know life happens.”
Her gaze clung to that softness but then a Shadow darkened it. Play her. She looked away. Shoes was batting at dust motes in the corner. She watched her instead. “If it redeems me at all, Gregory is the only man I’ve ever been with.” She smiled, humorlessly, at the shock she could feel. “So much for your theory that I am some sort of bordello masseuse, Policii Brophy.”
Lonely. The thought flashed through his head before his Shadow could toss its arm up and block it. She shook her head. “That’s Jakob’s word for me,” she said. “Not mine.”
He watched her again. “You lying to me, Tsarina?”
About some things? Yes. About this thing…? Tears smarted her eyes. Yes. “No,” she answered. “And we’ve crept off topic. Cory Chandler,” she repeated.
He held up a hand. “Wait.” He’d glanced beyond her, out the window. “My brother’s here.”
She hurried to the door, Owen beside her. “Steven! Come in.”
“Natasha.” He nodded, then looked at his brother. “You,” he said. “Need to come with me.”
There was dead serious on his face and in his tone. Dread unfurled in her belly and she was surprised when Owen folded her hand into his larger one.
—Just stay close—
he said.
Play her, replied a Shadow, angry and black.
She froze and Steve said “You two must have been reading tea leaves or something.” A puff of drywall dust drifted off his head as he shot a hand through his hair. “Rob found a body in one of the houses in the new development.”
—Oh, God, Owen! Walter Galinko!—
He squeezed her hand. “Galinko?” he asked.
Steve waggled his head. “Not sure. But the cops are there and Rob’s a mess and Jessalyn is bleating.” Here he fired a quick little apologetic look her way.
She clawed for her voice till she rasped, high and reedy, “H-how did the person die, Steven?”
He winced and she could tell he didn’t want to repeat anything gruesome. A warm rush of affection coursed through her and Owen said
—He’s liked you from the start—
then added
—He’s a good judge of character—
PLAY HER became a floor-to-ceiling Shadow. Ignoring it, and slipping her hand from his, she said “W-was it suicide? Like…a hanging, or—”
“No. The guy…” Steve whipped his hand through his hair again, wafting more dust. “The guy had a fucking shoe, a high-heeled shoe, jammed into his chest.”
©bonnie randall 2005
