Black As Night (Quentin Black Mystery #2) (37 page)

All right!
Solonik burst out.
All right! I do this! I am leaving now!

I tensed, wondering if Black was really going to let him go.

I knew the answer to that already, though. I knew even before I felt Black focus all of his attention back through that scope. I knew it before I felt him hold his breath, his whole concentration narrowing down to that single point through the rifle’s scope.

He fully intended to kill Solonik.

He’d kill him regardless of what he’d said to Anders. The whole Lucky thing had just been a ploy to get Solonik moving for the door.

Even as I saw it––even as Black renewed his grip on the gun stock and I put the pieces together in my head––someone standing right behind us cleared their throat.

Black and I both jumped, turning our heads.

Neither of us moved from where we crouched on the floor.

“Okay, Mr. Black,” a familiar voice said. The man’s gray eyes darted to me, his lips curving in a humorous smile as he gave me an open wink.

“...You can put down the gun. We’ll take it from here.”

Sixteen

OUTMATCHED

I FELT BLACK waver for a few seconds.
 

I couldn’t decide if he was considering shooting Solonik, regardless of what the man standing over us said, or if he was trying to decide if he should shoot the other man first, before he went back to doing what he came here to do.

Either way, he must have decided neither course would be wise.

Exhaling sharply, he leaned back from his crouch even as he relaxed his hold on the gun, wincing from his shoulder as he pulled his fingers away from the trigger. He rested the stock on the hardwood floor, then held his hands up slowly, his eyes fixed warily on the man behind us.

It was Anders, of course.

For that reason alone, I wasn’t surprised at Black’s choice. I knew he couldn’t afford to start a war with Lucky over this, no matter how badly he wanted Solonik dead.

Then again, it might not have been Anders at all who made up his mind.

It might have been the presence of the other six people standing there, wearing Kevlar and aiming handguns at us in a line behind where Anders stood. I didn’t recognize any of their faces, but a few were tall enough and had strange-enough eye colors that I strongly suspected Black’s psychic tricks wouldn’t be much help.

Anders once more cleared his throat, causing both of us to look at him.

“Relax, Black.” He smiled, giving me another indulgent look. “Mr. Lucky has no intention of reneging on your deal. But killing Solonik wasn’t part of that.”

“What do you intend to do with him?” Black said.

“That’s none of your concern.”

“The hell it isn’t––” Black began angrily, but Anders cut him off.

“––He is being subdued as we speak,” the other man said coolly. “He will not come after you again. Not in regards to this matter. Your human friend, Kevin Lawless, is perfectly safe. So is his grandson, Pete. You have Mr. Lucky’s word on that, too.”

Black glanced back out the window, a frown on his sculpted lips. He still held his hands off his body and in plain sight––not quite up, in the usual surrender position, but definitely conveying the same idea. I saw him glance at the gun on the floor, but he made no move to touch that either.

“The gun stays here,” Anders said. “We’ll have it sent to you, Mr. Black. To your office in San Francisco. Certainly you can have no objection?”

Looking up at him, Black scowled.

“He’s a walking time bomb,” he said. He jerked his chin towards me. “He’s completely fixated on her. You know that makes him dangerous as hell.”

“That’s our problem now, Mr. Black. Not yours.”

“What about the killer?” Black growled. “Is he your problem too? According to your pet psychopath, it’s
me
he’s after.”

“We are monitoring that situation as well,” Anders assured him, without missing a beat. “Mr. Lucky believes the current spree has ended...whatever his true motives may have been. In any case, we have it on good authority that he’s no longer in Bangkok, so your business concerning this matter is now entirely closed...at least so far as this City of Angels is concerned.”

I pressed my lips together, glancing at Black.

He returned my look with a frown. I could tell from his expression that he was thinking the same thing I was.

Namely, that we had no choice.

“Where is he now?” Black said, looking up. “Can you tell me that much, at least?”

“Paris, I am told,” Anders said, folding his hands easily at the base of his back. “We received intelligence that he left on a plane for Paris just this morning...after ensuring that Solonik followed his instructions regarding the burning of those last two unfortunate victims.”

Ander’s voice couldn’t have held less interest if he’d tried.

I was surprised he didn’t yawn at the end, or maybe glance at his watch.

Again, Black looked at me.

Again, I had nothing for him.

Really, it didn’t seem like there was much more to be said. Not here, anyway. Clearly they weren’t going to tell us anything. Moreover, I didn’t see how we could trust anything they told us, even if they did.

Black seemed to feel the same way. Reaching towards me with his good arm, he took my hand firmly in his, ignoring Anders and the others as he met my gaze.

“Let’s go home, Miri,” he said softly.

Feeling a tightness in my chest as I studied his eyes, I only nodded.

I followed the pull of his fingers as he rose gracefully to his feet, bringing me with him. My other hand wrapped around his where he held me, as soon as I was standing. I fought back the pain in my foot, biting my tongue as I adjusted my weight. Even so, I found myself scanning the faces of the armed men who stood there, their guns still aimed unambiguously at the two of us––but mostly at Black.

It hit me again that we were completely outmatched.

It wasn’t the men standing there really, or even the fact that they held guns.

It was something else. Some feeling I got looking at them––like there was a lot more of them somewhere. A hell of a lot more than what worked out of Black’s offices in San Francisco.

Black gripped my hand tighter, right before he began to walk.

We walked right through that line without hesitating, but I noticed Black didn’t really look at any of the people standing there either.

He left the rifle on the floor where he’d dropped it.

Seventeen

CITY OF ANGELS

WE DIDN’T GO back to the hotel.

Black had his phone out as soon as we got back to the SUV, calling Fah to learn the status of our flights out of there, then calling Farraday and Kiko to let them know we’d meet them at the airport.

While he spoke to them, I saw a limousine pull up to the front of the hospital on the other side of the chain-link fence separating the parking lot of the hotel from that of the hospital. Five men in suits had hold of Solonik, who looked like he’d been knocked out in some way––either with drugs or something else.

I watched them bundle him into the back of the limousine, trying to fight back the flush of fear that remained that he was still alive.

I was still staring that way when Black took my hand again, squeezing my fingers reassuringly.

It didn’t help much though, since I could tell he more or less felt the same way.

He started the engine seconds later, and I forced all of that from my mind.

I nearly dozed off on the drive to the airport, which gave me some idea of just how exhausted I was. Once we arrived, Fah took the keys of the SUV from Black when she met us on the curb. Before we even went to the ticket counter, Black took me to a small clinic inside the terminal, where my tennis shoe was basically cut off me before they cleaned off and stitched up my foot a second time. While one doctor worked on me, another cleaned, stitched up and bandaged Black’s shoulder, after making sure the bullet had exited cleanly out his back.

They bound my foot up a lot tighter than Black had done when they finished with me. They also gave me a modified sandal and a protective sock to wear on the plane and warned me not to walk on it any more than I absolutely had to.

They wanted me to use a wheelchair, but that’s where I drew the line.

I just hobbled next to Black as we made our way to the international gate, using his good arm when he offered it and taking advantage of every escalator and moving walkway we came across. I felt pretty out of it for most of that, though.

All I know is, at one point, I finally found myself sitting on a plane.

Black dropped his considerable length down next to me, sprawled out on the first class seat, wearing mirrored shades. He’d given me the window seat, I noticed.

Looking at him, I shook my head a little, smiling in spite of myself.

“What?” he said, stretching out his arms. Wincing at his shoulder, he retracted them seconds later. “I thought you’d approve. Less conspicuous.” He grinned at me. “Fewer women who’ll want to jump me, as a result.”

I rolled my eyes. “Actually your freaky eyes probably lessen that number, Black.”

“My ‘freaky’ eyes?” He frowned. “You don’t like my eyes, doc?”

Sighing a bit, I adjusted my body in the chair, not answering him. I had to admit, first class definitely had its perks. The seat was more like a living room recliner than the one I’d ridden in on the way out here.

“Yeah, well,” he said, his voice more subdued. “Sorry about that. First class was booked that way. This way, it was wide open.”

I nodded, looking out the window where the baggage workers were tossing luggage from a motorized cart onto a loading belt that disappeared inside the hold of an adjacent plane. I was still looking out when our plane began to move with a lurch.

Then it was backing up smoothly, executing a gradual, three-point turn to aim us onto the marked stretch of concrete leading out to the runway.

“Hey,” he said, nudging me with his arm. “You’re not going to answer? Are you trying to make me paranoid?”

Looking up at him, I smiled. Reaching up, I took the sunglasses off him, meeting his gaze. I frowned slightly, pretending I was thinking about whether I liked them or not.

The joke was ruined somewhat by the sadness I saw in his eyes.