Black As Night (Quentin Black Mystery #2) (5 page)

He also had a beard that had to be at least a week old.

His skin had at least one layer of dirt and sweat on it, making him look darker-skinned than I remembered, and no way was all of that was from the sun.

He also looked like he’d lost weight.

I watched, stunned, as one of the police officers placed a sheath with his ivory-handled bowie knife in Black’s filthy hands. The Thai cop frowned in obvious disapproval as he did, saying something to Black sharply in Thai.

He’d been carrying that thing around? Openly?

No wonder they picked him up.

He looked like a drug addict in those clothes, or someone who was living on the street. The blade of that knife had to be eight inches long.

He walked up to me warily––or stalked really––his almond eyes still assessing my face as he crossed the floor. As usual, he moved like a dancer...or a fighter, really...circling me as much as approaching me, as if he half-expected me to hit him if he got too close.

As always seemed to be the case with him, his height made me tense once he did enter my personal space. I was still looking up at his face, trying to read his expression, when his gold eyes flickered down me once more, taking me in more thoroughly that time.

“Hello, doc,” he said.

His voice was deeper than I remembered.

“...You ready to go?” he finished after a pause.

For the briefest second, I really was tempted to hit him.

Then I sighed, combing my fingers through my hair.

“Sure,” I said, letting my hands fall to my sides. “Where to?”

When I met his gaze again, his expression looked puzzled.

“You’re angry with me,” he said.

“I’m tired.” I gave him a hard look, my voice a touch warning. “I just got off a plane, Black. The flight was over twenty hours.”

“But not angry.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So you
are
angry?”

I bit my lip, glancing around the police station before folding my arms, staring up at him.

“You want to talk about this here?” I said. “...Really?”

His eyes followed mine. Then he looked back down at me. “No,” he said. “I’d much rather go for a swim. Did you bring a suit? Or do you still intend to rack up the company credit card I gave you in revenge for my bringing you out here?”

When I didn’t say anything but only refolded my arms tighter, he smiled faintly, making that soft clicking noise he made sometimes, looking me over again, more lingeringly that time. Somehow the sound, the way he sidled closer to me, that faint smile on his face, the tattoos on his arms...it all struck me as even more alien in the middle of a Thai police station.

Maybe because it was so very clear how different he was, even here.

I found myself unable to avoid the fact that there was just something...
off
about him. Whatever it was, it had little to do with him being born somewhere other than the United States, as much as I’d tried to convince myself otherwise.

The differences went...deeper, somehow.

They were more fundamental.

“Come on, doc,” he said, while I was still looking him over. “Not here.”

When I glanced up at his face, his eyes looked serious, making them even harder to read. He motioned towards the exit with his head, still clutching that deadly-looking knife in his hand. Now that he stood closer, I realized he stank too.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “We really do need to talk.”

I wrinkled my nose. “You need a shower first,” I informed him.

“Undoubtedly.”

“And a shave. And a haircut.”

“And food,” he said agreeably. “We’ll get to all of that, too. You’re also looking a bit...travel worn, doc.” Motioning towards the door a second time, he made his voice polite. “Shall we?”

Feeling my jaw harden at the audacity of his implied insult, especially given how he looked, I was about to tell him just
how
badly he smelled when he turned, presenting me with his still heavily-muscled back and the edges of that elaborate dragon tattoo, part of which was visible under the dusty black tank top he wore.

I decided it could wait.

He didn’t look back, but began walking towards the glass doors leading out to that high-ceilinged lobby and the parking lot beyond.

Watching him, I only sighed, unfolding my arms before I followed.

Three

SEPARATION ANXIETY

HE INSTRUCTED THE driver to take us back to the Hanu Hotel.

I made him roll down the windows.

When we got there, Black walked us both into the high-ceilinged lobby and directly up to the front desk to request room keys for both of us.

To their credit––and despite my embarrassed smiles and foot-shuffling––the two immaculately-coiffed women at the front desk acted as though someone dressed like Black walked into their five-star hotel and demanded room key cards for high-end suites on a daily basis. They also seemed to know him, so maybe that was part of it.

They might be accustomed to his eccentricities, if he stayed here a lot.

Or, more likely, they chose to overlook those eccentricities because he was rich.

Either way, we didn’t have long to wait before they returned with key cards for both of us for two separate rooms on the thirty-eighth floor.

After the elevator brought us up to the correct floor––and I complained again about being stuck in an enclosed space with him given how bad he smelled, some combination of wino and street hippy––he disappeared into his room without another word.

I found the roller bag waiting for me in mine.

The silver case was not, however.

Shrugging it off, I headed straight for the shower, barely pausing to kick off my shoes before I’d turned the water on full. I finished undressing as I waited for the water to warm and then I took one of the longest, most heavenly showers I’d taken in as long as I could remember.

When I finally emerged from a cloud of steam about twenty minutes later, I was wrapped in a huge fluffy terrycloth robe and feeling like a new person. Only then did I bother to wrestle the white suitcase up on a stand and unzip it to see what was inside.

Kiko had packed me a swim suit. Two in fact.
 

One of them I didn’t even recognize, which made me wonder if she or someone else had bought it for me prior to picking me up. It was gold and expensive-looking but also fell into the “why bother” category in terms of how much flesh it actually covered.

I wondered if I was being hazed, as Black’s newest employee.

The other bikini was black and pretty basic as far as bikinis go, but it was mine, at least.

I put that one on instead. I had no idea if Black had been serious or not about the swim, but it sounded good to me, even after a shower. I figured I would just throw clothes on over the suit, so I’d have the option at least. Before I did, though, I checked the mirror.
 

I was relieved to find I still liked it on me.

My thigh looked red from the shrapnel wound, but the fading scar didn’t look half as bad as I’d feared. I looked tired, but my face looked significantly better post-shower, even without much make-up, and my hazel eyes shone a bit clearer. I could use a haircut. I’d lost weight, which wasn’t surprising really, given that I’d been working out compulsively since that whole incident with the Wedding Murders. Mainly that had consisted of going to five sparring classes a week––sometimes even six––rather than my previous two or three. So I looked a little leaner and a little more banged up and my haircut had lost some of its shape, but the suit still worked.

It had been an impulse buy during my last real vacation; I bought it because I thought it flattered my slightly more voluptuous figure at the time. I’m pretty picky so when I find a suit I like I tend to splurge.

That had been during my last trip to Hawaii with Ian.

The casual thought of Ian paused my breathing.

I shoved the feelings aside that wanted to rise as his face rose in my mind, but not before compulsively placing a hand around my own throat, almost like I was checking to see if it was still intact. The bruises that ringed it for weeks had finally faded, but a part of me still felt his handprint there. Something about seeing those bruises in the mirror every day evoked more shame than anger, however.

The memory of that shame made my teeth clench, even now.

Some part of me still couldn’t quite believe I hadn’t seen it.

I hadn’t seen what he was.

That scared me more than anything, I think. It also made me think about Zoe, my sister, and how I’d wondered for years how her murderer had caught her unawares, given that she’d been psychic like me. The thought brought a fresh pang of guilt. I’d never blamed her, of course, not even in the abstract, but the question had nagged there, in the back of my mind.

Maybe I’d just wanted to believe I had more control over things than I actually did.

But I’d been with Ian for over a year, and I never saw anything.

While he’d been trying to kill me, he told me he loathed every minute of our time together. He’d told me that he found me unclean, foul. I’d never had a chance to ask Black anything about that either, or what the hell Ian meant when he’d called me a “half-breed.”

Somehow I strongly suspected he hadn’t been referring to my Native American mother.

I was still standing in front of the mirror, frowning, when I heard a sharp knock on my door.

Snatching up the bathrobe with a grumble, I was still tying it around my waist when I opened the door. To my utter non-surprise, I found Black standing there.

Even so, I couldn’t help staring at him once I got an eyeful.

He looked significantly better than he had in that police station.

He definitely looked cleaner.

He’d shaved off the beard, revealing the hard line of his jaw and the curve of his lips––the latter of which were almost inhumanly precise in terms of their perfect shape. His hair was wet, so he’d obviously just showered too, and the layers of dust and sweat and whatever else were gone. He wore the clothes I most associated with him––black pants, a black form-fitting T-shirt, black dress shoes. The only thing he’d worn across both outfits was his military watch, and I don’t think I’d ever seen him without that except the one time we shared a bed.

Realizing his eyes were on me as well, I flushed, stepping out of the doorway to let him in.

“I’m not fully dressed,” I said absently as I stepped back. “Well...not unless you were serious about going for a swim right now...”

I’d more or less turned my back on him as he closed the door behind me.
 

I was startled by an arm circling my waist.

I twisted around to face him, stiffening in his hold, about to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, when he yanked me swiftly up against his body. I found myself pressed against his muscular form...and then, before I could wrap my mind around even that much, he was doing that thing where he crashed into me in some way, flooding me with presence.

That presence was undeniably his. It was intense enough that it stopped my breath.