Black As Night (Quentin Black Mystery #2) (2 page)

Which begged the question, why the hell had he called me?

Inwardly I cursed again that he had to call
now,
of all times. A part of me was paranoid enough to wonder if he’d done it on purpose. I hadn’t seen either of my friends in weeks, which I knew wasn’t wholly accidental, or because they’d been spending more time downtown than usual. I knew Nick especially had been at the Northern District precinct station a lot in the past two weeks, since I’d seen his motorcycle in the parking lot we both used. Since the nearest real coffee shop lived in my building, directly below my offices, I usually ran into either him or Angel accidentally every other day or so, even when we didn’t plan to see one another.

But not the last few weeks. Which told me that Nick at least––who was much more of a dedicated coffee junkie than Angel––had to be avoiding me deliberately.

I knew why, of course.

And yeah, some of it was about my new job.

Nick still hadn’t gotten over the fact that I’d accepted the offer from Black Securities and Investigations, a high-end P.I. firm located on California Street in downtown San Francisco. He claimed it was because I was a sellout. He accused me of going in for money over helping real crime fighters––namely him.

I knew that was mostly an excuse, though.

Nick’s hating on my new job had less to do with money and a lot more to do with the owner of said firm, one Quentin R. Black, who Nick was convinced was a dangerous psychopath.

Well, an extremely annoying one, anyway.

Truthfully, I suspected my new job was only part of why Nick had been avoiding me, though. Hating on Black might be the emotion Nick had the easiest time expressing, but I suspected it wasn’t the deepest one. I’d picked up glimmers a few times that he felt guilty for everything that happened when I first met Black. Not just for introducing me to Black in the first place by having me profile him, or even for arresting me back when he still liked Black for the Wedding Murders. More than any of that, I knew Nick felt guilty about Ian...as in Ian Stone, my former fiancé, who I’d met through Nick.

The same Ian Stone who’d tried to kill me in my own apartment.

I knew Nick wasn’t over all of that.
 

For that matter, neither was I. Over it, I mean.

But––unlike Nick himself, I suspected––I didn’t blame Nick for any of it.

Either way, it hadn’t been Nick who set up today’s lunch. That was Angel’s doing. I strongly suspected that she’d finally had enough of the silence between the two of us and probably thought both of us were acting like idiots. I couldn’t even disagree with her really.

Either way, this lunch was a peace offering kind of lunch. An ice-breaking one, at least.
 

Black calling now, after not bothering to call for over a month, was just so...
Black
...of him.

“I’m hanging up,” I warned him through the phone when the silence continued.

“Miriam?” he said.

“Yes?” I said through gritted teeth. “You called
me
.”

He barely seemed to hear me.

Then, tangibly, I felt his attention snap back.

Whatever had distracted him moved into the background even as I shifted to his foreground. Focusing his whole attention on me, he spoke rapidly, that odd, hard-to-place accent of his only bringing his words into sharper focus.

“I’ve sent the car,” he said. He sent a snapshot of a limousine directly into my mind, making me flinch and disorienting me in the same micro-second. I still hadn’t gotten used to his psychic abilities, or how intensely and yet functionally he employed them. “...ETA two minutes. Don’t worry about luggage. Kiko filled a carry-on at your apartment when she picked up your passport. If she missed anything, you can expense it here...”

I fought between anger and a sharp desire to laugh. “What?”

He exhaled, as if impatient.

“I need you to come here. They’re being...difficult. I could use you anyway. Come straight here, as soon as you arrive. I’d really prefer if you came right from the airport.”

“Wait...what?” I said, sharper. “Airport? Come get you? Where?”

“Phra Ratchawang police station,” he said at once.
 

He sent me another snapshot, this time of a building standing at the corner of a very not-American looking intersection, with four white ionic pillars decorating the front doors and covered in unfamiliar-looking writing. Again the sharpness of the image and the way it blotted out my physical vision made me flinch and blink.
 

“...There’ll be a driver waiting for you. They know where it is, so don’t bother trying to write it down. Most of the drivers here don’t read English. Oh. And you’ll need to pick up the lawyer. Hanu Hotel. Sathorn. Near Naradhiwas.”

“Black!” I snapped. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Kiko should be there soon. She can explain whatever I missed.”

I practically saw him checking his military-style watch.

“Tell her to drive fast,” he muttered. “I may have cut it overly close with the booking, but I really can’t afford to waste time being locked up in here for much longer.”

“Locked up?” I said, alarmed. “Black, I’m not even in the office––”

“I know,” he cut in, dismissive. “Omui Sushi Island. I had my people trace your phone. It would be better if you waited in front,” he added. “I really need you to catch that flight, if it’s at all possible.”

“Black, I can’t just
leave.
I have clients this afternoon––”

“Already dealt with,” he said. “I had Lizbeth cancel and reschedule everything of yours this week, including that profiling thing I had you on. This has to take top priority.”

“What does?” I said. “Busting you out of jail?”

Across from me, Nick let out a grunt.

I practically felt the total lack of surprise on him.

“...Again?” I added, focusing back on the phone.

At Black’s silence, I exhaled, combing my fingers through my hair.

“Where am I going?” I said, my voice more subdued. “Can you tell me that, at least?”

That time, I felt genuine surprise waft through our connection.

“Bangkok,” he said, that surprise reflected in his voice. “I thought that was obvious.” Ignoring my disbelieving snort, he added, “I’ve pushed them to get me to use the phone, but I’d really better go, Miriam. I don’t know who’s watching me here.”

“Black––” I began, frustrated.

He’d already hung up.

“HE’S OUT OF his fucking mind,” I grumbled, climbing into the back seat with only a bare wince as I landed a little too hard on my bad leg.

Kiko laughed, shutting the door of the limousine behind me.

I didn’t know her well yet, but I already liked her.

She intimidated me a little, too.

That might be funny to some people, since I’m 5’9” with a background in martial arts whereas Kiko only stood at maybe 5’3” and weighed probably fifteen to twenty pounds less than me. But all of Kiko was solid muscle, and while I didn’t know much about her background, I got a strong military vibe, like I did with a good chunk of the people Black hired.

Even Black’s office help could be intimidating. Lizbeth, his fifty-something admin assistant, looked like she could fight me in the ring and probably win, too.

Kiko definitely wasn’t an office worker, even though she drove for him sometimes, like now. She headed up internal security for Black Securities and Investigations. She also acted as Black’s personal bodyguard at times––a frightening idea in and of itself.

I rubbed my leg where the shrapnel wound had mostly healed, trying not to think about the look that came to Nick’s face after I told him and Angel where I was going. I made a point of never using my psychic abilities on any of my friends––not on purpose, at least––but it was hard when I saw the scowl painted on Nick’s face.

It did settle one thing in my mind, however.

Nick and I needed to have a real heart-to-heart.

Probably with no one else around, not even Angel as referee.

The limousine’s engine started with a low rumble as I glanced back at the restaurant. It barely caught before Kiko was already pulling away from the curb.

My lips firmed as I tried to decide if I should call Nick now.

Extend an invite to meet at my place when I got back. Offer to get him drunk.

He had zero ability to self-censor when he drank––with me, at least. Of course, that only held true for personal stuff; Nick turned into an impenetrable vault when it came to sensitive information related to work. I’d known that about him since our military time together, even before he recruited me into intelligence.

I glanced up as Kiko lowered the window between the driver’s seat and the back of the limousine. When I saw that dark pane go down, I immediately shifted to the seat across from where I originally sat, so that I’d be closer to her. I rested my arms on the backrest of the leather seat, meeting her gaze in the mirror.

“You know anything about what happened over there?” I said.

She shook her head at me, smiling. “No.”

I exhaled, in frustration as much as anything. “Figures.”

“He tell you I did?”

I grunted, nodding at her eyes in the mirror. “Is he a pathological liar? Or just nuts?”

It only occurred to me after I said it that maybe that wasn’t the most politic thing to say to her about our mutual boss. Kiko had worked for Black a lot longer than I had. I didn’t know
how
long exactly, but I knew from things Black said that it had to be a few years, at least. More to the point, I knew nothing about their history together.

Kiko only chuckled though, shaking her head.

“Black? A liar? No. He probably thinks he told me. Sometimes I think he can’t tell the difference between thinking about doing something and actually having done it.” She glanced at me again in the mirror, adding, “You might need to get used to it, doc. Especially now that you’re his favorite new toy.”

I bristled a little at that, even though I knew it was stupid.

I knew what she meant. She definitely didn’t mean it the way the more paranoid part of me wanted to take it, as in some kind of insinuation that anything more intimate was going on between me and Black. Even if she had been, I knew it was ridiculous to react in anything but indifference. Black hadn’t gone near me in that respect since our one aborted make-out session after we’d both nearly been killed. I was pretty sure that whole thing was off the table between the two of us now, at least if his actions towards me were any indication.

I figured he must have moved on. Or maybe he had rules about trying to bed one of his employees.

Whatever the reason, he’d more or less pretended like that whole thing hadn’t happened.

“Do you have any idea why he’s even there?” I said to Kiko. “Bangkok?”

“Is that where he is?” she mused.

Her voice remained friendly but disinterested.

I sighed, rubbing my face with a hand.

Turning around, I sank deeper into my seat. After another few seconds of thought, I pulled out my phone, clicking over to web browsing. I tried looking up how long I’d be airborne for a non-stop flight from San Francisco to Bangkok, but it turned out there weren’t any nonstop flights between those two places. The flight combinations listed on my online travel site ranged from seventeen to thirty hours, depending on layovers.