3 Time to Steele (21 page)

I nodded to my partner. She gulped and nodded back, a familiar look plastered across her face, one I’d come to associate with a combination of nerves, fear, and excitement. I experienced the same cocktail of emotions anytime I anticipated action, but I don’t think it showed on my mug as clearly as it did on Shay’s, possibly because my cheek and jaw muscles had lost some of their flexibility after a decade of taking punches and truncheon blows to the face.

I stepped into the hallway, carefully working my way toward the stairs as my eyes continued to adjust to the thick, murky gloom. Despite the bright, late afternoon sun shining outside, the interior of the Physics and Chemistry building was as dark as a tomb thanks to the heavy planks nailed over the windows. My feet stirred dust motes up from the floor, sending them drifting lazily through thin rays of light that squirmed through the gaps between the boards.

I picked up speed as I reached the stairs, pausing only to make sure Shay stayed close behind. Two flights up, I pushed through a swinging door, my nightstick held before me, and stepped into a deserted hallway.

I moved efficiently and, despite my size, quietly, checking rooms to my right and left with nothing more than a couple glances, a pair of pricked ears, and the occasional sniff. Most were empty, and all smelled of must and cold metal. Shay stayed two paces behind me the entire time, making no more noise than a mouse wearing moccasins.

After peering into a half-dozen rooms on either side of me, I noticed an aura of brightness ahead emanating from an open doorway at my right, what would be the back side of the building. An unshuttered window, I reasoned. I crept forward, pausing at the lip of the door. I glanced at Steele and brought a finger to my lips. She nodded.

I sprung forward into the light—caused by a single loose window board, I soon realized—into what essentially amounted to a squatter’s den, but not just any squatter. I spotted two bookshelves packed with textbooks and scientific journals up against the left wall, a mobile chalkboard covered with complex equations, and a shiny, brass telescope propped up underneath the window, its objective lens placed in the gap liberated from the fallen board.

Given my keen deductive sense, I surmised we’d found Buford’s Gill’s private quarters, and I would’ve realized that even if I hadn’t seen the old man’s body, lifeless and bloody, prone on a mattress in the middle of the floor.

I approached the body and kneeled. “Shit. We’re too late.”

I tried to tell myself the old guy could’ve been any random physics- and astronomy-obsessed squatter retiree, but the lines in his face and along the side of his jaw shared too much with those of Darryl and Anya for that to be possible. It was definitely Buford Gill lying on the ground before me, the left side of his skull a bloody wreckage of bone fragments and gray matter. I glanced at his hands. He wasn’t bound, and his fingers hadn’t been smashed. Apparently, unlike his progeny, he hadn’t been tortured, but that didn’t make him any less dead.

Shay stepped into the room and to my right, over by the guy’s feet. “How recent is it?”

“Recent,” I said. “I don’t have Cairny’s expertise, but I’d say—”

I paused, thinking I’d heard footsteps, when a bloodcurdling scream rent the air.

33

A hooded figure, bearded, scarred, and crazy, burst out of the shadows behind Shay with a roar, a bloody claw hammer grasped in his right hand. He lunged at my partner, swinging the hammer in a wide arc.

Shay screamed and danced to her right, avoiding the killing blow by a hairsbreadth, but she couldn’t avoid the psycho’s following punch with his left. Scar Face clocked Shay in the mouth, knocking her to the ground, and funneled his momentum back into his hammer hand.

Time slowed around me, not due to anything Wyle or Scar Face might’ve done but due to the gravity of the situation. I saw Scar Face, his teeth bared in a brutal sneer, lift the bloody hammer over his head, his eyes wild and unfocused. Light gleamed off the hammer’s head as it began its descent. Complete and utter emptiness filled my mind—an inability to comprehend the events unfolding before me. Not that it mattered. No thought—mine or hers—could save her now. It was too late for that.

Thankfully, I’d never relied much on my brain in life and death situations. I didn’t even realize I’d risen and lunged until my shoulder collided with Scar Face’s midsection, driving him at full force into one of the packed bookshelves. I heard a crack—whether of shelving material or ribs, I didn’t know—and felt my own tackling blow reverberate through Scar Face, off the wall, back though him, and into me.

Scar Face’s hammer rebounded off the floor with a clang, and we both toppled to the hardwood under a rain of leather-bound books and periodicals. I fell flat on my back. Scar Face landed on top of me, driving the wind out of my sails.

Suddenly, time had shifted. No longer were Scar Face’s movements progressing at the pace of a snail, but rather they came fast and furious, faster than time should’ve allowed. I felt a whistle of wind and twisted my head to the side, narrowly avoiding a heavy punch. Scar Face’s knuckles dusted the floor, and he grunted in pain.

I grabbed his shoulder with my right hand—where had Daisy gone? I couldn’t remember—and threw my left elbow at his face, but Scar Face pulled his head back, causing me to miss. With his center of mass off from the dodge, I tried to push him off me, but Scar Face twisted and pushed and dug a knee into my kidneys. Based on his size, I was sure I outweighed him by a good twenty pounds, but like a trained wrestler, the crazed killer used his position to its full advantage.

I dished out a few half-strength punches to Scar Face’s clavicle and midsection, taking an elbow to the chin and a karate chop to the neck in return. Sensing his advantage, Scar Face worked in closer, pressing his torso against me and wrapping his hands around my neck in a chokehold. His beard scraped the side of my face, and the scent of his rotting teeth and stale sweat filled my nostrils.

I tried to punch him in the back of the head, but I couldn’t generate any power from my position on the floor, and try as I might, I couldn’t shake him.

His thumbs dug into my neck. Air rasped through my throat as I tried to breathe, and I started to see spots. I needed to change tactics, and fast. Scar Face knew proximity was his best friend, so I decided to use it to my advantage as well.

I grabbed the back of Scar Face’s skull and pulled it toward me while at the same time straining forward, ignoring the pressure of his thumbs into my windpipe. I bit down, as hard as I could, into the side of Scar Face’s jaw. I tasted blood as flesh tore.

Scar Face recoiled with a howl, but rather than pressing his hands to the wound as I’d hoped, he whipped his arms forward and drove a haymaker into my temple.

The room swam. I flailed. I think I might’ve punched Scar Face in the jaw. I heard another howl and grunting. And pounding—footsteps, heavy ones.

The walls coalesced back into focus, and I caught sight of Scar Face’s shoes, which seemed to me a blur as he sped into the hallway.

I stumbled to my knees and shook my head, the punch-induced grogginess fading fast. I could discern the footsteps now. They came from the direction of the stairs—Quinto and company if the weight of the sound was any indication.

I knelt there.

Scar Face had caught me off guard, but we had him trapped in a boarded up building with a single known exit. I could get up, take off after him, and coordinate with Rodgers and Quinto. We’d catch him in our web.

And still I knelt there.

Every ounce of my gut screamed at me to rise, to run, to chase down the murdering psychopath. Every bit of my sense of justice and right and wrong urged me to ignore the pain in my skull and RUN. CHASE. CAPTURE. But for perhaps the first time in my life, my gut got shouted down, and not by my brain or my loins, but by my heart.

I rose. I turned, and knelt by Shay.

My chest clenched as I laid eyes on her. My lungs froze, my throat narrowed, and the pressure of ten feet of water pressed down on my brain, but the sensation was fleeting. No blood. I’d remembered correctly. The hammer
had
missed.

Her eyes were closed, but her chest rose and fell evenly, and when I pressed a finger to the side of her neck, her pulse pushed back, strong and steady. Her hair, normally styled into a pompadour and pinned back or held in a loose pony tail at the back of her head, now lay partially across her face, loosened by Scar Face’s blow.

I reached out a finger and brushed it across Shay’s brow, gathering the loose strands and tucking them behind a delicate, pointed ear. A scent of lilacs filled my nostrils, but there were other hints there, too, scents entirely unique to Shay. Soap and freshly-washed hair and clean skin, all combining to form an aroma I’d come to know well and yet had never fully deciphered until now.

Shay’s eyes fluttered and opened. Rather than drawing my hand back, I let it linger, gently cupping her ear and the back of her head. My partner’s eyes darted to the right, then the left, before coming to rest on me, kneeling before her.

“Hi there,” I said.

Shay drew air into her lungs slowly, blinked, and rested her warm, full eyes on me. When she spoke, her voice came heavy and breathy. “Hi.”

In that instant, there were no walls between us. There was no guarded Detective Steele, no jaded and hesitant Detective Daggers. Only a hurt but not wounded, beautiful, intelligent, compassionate Shay, and kneeling next to her, a concerned but relieved, genuine, caring Jake full of heartfelt emotions and fading worry. Shay’s lips were full and red and inviting. Our eyes locked, and her exhaled breath became my inhaled one. Yearnings and desires filled the cavity in my chest that had once been empty but now threatened to explode. I wanted to lean down and…and…

Quinto and Rodgers tore into the room, Wyle in tow. They surveyed the room in a few rapid glances.

“What happened?” said Rodgers.

With a herculean effort, I tore my eyes away from Shay. “Scar Face. He took off for the far stairwell. Quinto, see if you can cut him off. Rodgers, stay here with me. Watch Wyle.”

Quinto nodded and disappeared. Rodgers looked displeased, but apparently he understood Shay and I were in no condition to watch over Wyle on our own. Or at least, that’s what I supposed. At the moment, I didn’t care. I turned my gaze back to Shay.

“You ok?” I said.

Shay brought a hand up to her face and worked her jaw muscles gingerly. “I think so. I don’t…remember everything.”

“Scar Face hit you with a hook,” I said. “Knocked you out, though only for a minute or two. I’m not entirely sure how long it was, to be honest. Time wasn’t functioning the way it normally does for me.”

I heard a confused grunt from Wyle, but I ignored him.

“Scar Face got away?” asked Shay.

“For now,” I said. “Maybe Quinto can catch him.”

“Why didn’t you go after him?” she said.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to. She stared into my eyes, and she knew.

I felt the heat of Rodgers and Wyle’s eyes on us, and I felt crowded.

“Can you stand?” I asked Steele.

“Yeah, I think so,” she said.

She gave me her hands, but paused before I could help her up. “Daggers?”

“Yes?” I said.

She looked deep into my eyes. “Thank you.”

The look she gave was more of a response than the words. I nodded and helped her to her feet. As I did so, I noticed Wyle staring at the bloody corpse of Buford Gill.

“You finally hear any bells ringing?” I asked him.

Wyle looked up at me, confused. “Huh?”

I nodded toward the body. “You said you didn’t know anything about Buford Gill. That the name didn’t ring a bell. Well, here he is, and in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s dead. So…care to modify your story?”

Wyle shook his head. “No. In fact…”

“In fact, what?” I asked. Not that I cared much about his answer, but talking to Wyle gave me something to do other than stare at Shay and wonder how much she suspected regarding my feelings toward her or if anything had changed between us.

“Well, it’s that…I didn’t feel it.” Wyle lifted his eyes from the body and looked at me. “The fluctuations in the time stream, I mean. I didn’t sense his death at all. Now that I’m here, I can feel some of the expanding ripples, but they’re faint. Indistinct. If Scar Face killed this man, there should’ve been a greater disturbance—certainly if he was important enough to merit being murdered.”

“So, what?” said Rodgers, nodding at Gill. “Are you saying this guy is a nobody? That he’s not Scar Face’s ultimate target?”

“I don’t know,” said Wyle. “Honestly, I really don’t know…”

Quinto’s heavy footfalls gave him away before we spotted his big round mug back in the door frame. I guessed his news before he opened his mouth based solely on the dejected look on his face.

“Sorry, Daggers,” he said. “I raced down to the basement as fast as I could, but either he already got away, or there’s another exit out of this place we don’t know about.”

I frowned and sighed.

Shay stepped up beside me and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder—an
especially
gentle hand. Intentional, or not?

“It’s ok, Daggers,” she said. “We’ll find him.”

“I know,” I said. “I know. The question is if we’ll find him before anyone else dies.”

No one had any witty remarks to add to that statement. In fact, everyone had developed a sudden interest in the tips of their shoes.

“Come on,” I said. “It’s time we enrolled some backup. This case is getting out of hand.”

34

I gave the Captain a rundown of the day’s events upon returning to the precinct, everything from progress with Wyle to the trail that led us to Buford Gill to me and Shay’s encounter with Scar Face. I didn’t pull any punches. I told the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as I remembered it. I’d expected a reproach for not going after Scar Face when the chance had presented itself, but I’d received none. Maybe the Captain knew more than he pretended to about the chemistry developing between me and my partner, or perhaps not. He’d always been a proponent of the old code, one of the most fundamental mantras of which was to never leave a partner behind, no matter the circumstances.