Black On Black (Quentin Black Mystery #3) (24 page)

“Is it all right if I touch them?” I asked in French.

The person who appeared to me to be in charge, a forty-something man in a blue suit with grey-streaked dark hair and dark blue eyes, frowned a little bit, looking me over, then nodded.

I bent down and lifted the eyelids of the first man lying there, then the second. One had violet irises, like Solonik, only darker and with a light blue ring around the edge. The other male’s eyes were nearly black in color, darker than the darkest brown eyes I’d ever seen. Inside that dark color, pale blue flecks stood out, almost like stars.

“What the fuck?” Nick muttered.

He bent down like I had, lifting their eyelids one by one. He stared at the violet irises the longest, then glanced over his shoulder at me, frowning.

“They’re not contact lenses,” he murmured. “Did they do this surgically? Is this part of the cult thing, Miri? To have fucked-up eyes?”

I saw him frown before I’d answered him, as if thinking.

Straightening, he looked at the features of the two men, then seemed to be measuring their heights, their overall builds, before going back to their faces.

I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same thing.

They looked different.

Different from normal people, I mean.

They also looked like Black.

Not really
like
him, exactly, but the similarity there was impossible to refute, or to un-see once it had been seen.

It was hard to pinpoint what it was exactly that was so starkly different about the two men compared to the other people in the room, but lying side by side, even with their eyes closed, that difference was obvious. They both had high cheekbones, strangely perfect mouths, young faces, unblemished and even-toned skin. Both were unusually tall, six-four or six-five from what I could tell with them lying down, with slim hips and broad shoulders.

Both had black hair. There was something faintly Asian about their features, although either could have passed for white, particularly if they weren’t standing next to one another. Both were unusually handsome, as in model or actor handsome, but there was something strange about that handsomeness, an unreal and oddly androgynous quality, despite how muscular they both were, and how prominent their jaws and Adam’s apples.

I remembered how strange Black looked to me when I first saw him, and Solonik.

Ian hid it better and frankly looked more human to me even now, but on Black and Solonik, that strangeness had been obvious from the start. Solonik looked like a vampire to me when I’d first seen him in that dim basement in Bangkok.

I knew Nick saw what I saw.

Moreover, I knew he’d already made the connection to similarities in Black’s appearance, in his features...
 
in his gold-colored irises. That sculpted mouth.

Hell, Nick might even see those similarities in how I looked.

For the first time, my mind went over the different aspects of my own features, cataloguing those similarities, even though I’d always been told I looked more like my mom than my dad.

Until now, I’d never considered that the seer thing might be visible on me.

Nor had I really considered what that might mean to me personally if information about seers ever went public. The idea that my connection to Black’s “people” might be something someone could see just by looking at me was a little frightening. Based on what Black told me about that other dimension, that might not work out very well for me, either.

I didn’t read Nick as he stared between the two bodies, cataloguing those differences, but I found myself thinking he was starting to connect those dots already. He likely hadn’t come up with a coherent explanation for what it all meant, but he’d definitely noticed something off with my story about who and what these people were.

Knowing Nick, he already knew I’d lied to him about that.

Or perhaps he thought it was Black who’d lied to me.

Without answering his question, I looked back at the four people standing there in suits, talking to Nick’s friends in the body armor. After clearing my throat so they glanced over, I asked them in my rusty French what they intended to do with the suspects when they woke up.

That same man with the gray-streaked hair explained to me that they’d would be booked and questioned, initially for being in the customs area of the airport without authorization, but possibly with suspected domestic or international terrorism, depending on what they uncovered.

From a brief pass over his mind, I felt he was more than a little puzzled about how they’d gotten past security. Both men had been armed, I now saw, glancing to my right, where holsters and sidearms had been placed on a separate stainless steel table.

I’d expected them to ask Nick the questions since they knew him and he’d been the one to contact them before we got here.

But the blue-eyed man looked only at me when he next spoke.

“Do you know these men?” he said.

I shook my head. “No.”

“How did you identify them as a threat?”

“I recognized their faces from photographs,” I lied.

“From where?”

“My employer.” I glanced at Nick. “I don’t know what Detective Tanaka has told you, but I work for a private investigation and securities firm based out of San Francisco. My employer has encountered this group before. He showed me photographs once. Known associates.”

“You have photographs of members of this organized crime family?” The man’s eyebrows rose, right before he glanced at Nick. His eyes returned to me, studying my face with a more cop-like interest. “These are the same people you believe have your lover, yes? Is he not also your employer?”

When I didn’t answer, he looked between me and Nick a second time.

“You have photographs of these people now? With you?” The man focused on Nick. “Will your government share this information as well? Since we are aiding in your investigation?”

I glanced at Nick, too.

Apparently he’d told them this was a government-sponsored thing.

He’d also told them a lot more about me and Black than made me strictly comfortable, but I could understand that, too. After all, Nick trained me. He’d always said it was better to tell the truth in as much of a situation as you could, especially if you were hiding a big lie.

Moreover, personal motives could often mask less-personal ones.

When Nick only raised an eyebrow at me, basically his cue to “tell them whatever you want,” I fought back a scowl.

“I don’t have the photos with me unfortunately,” I said, looking back at the man with the blue eyes. “I can contact people at my firm, and ask them to send you whatever they have. It may be complicated by the fact that my boss is currently indisposed. I am new to working for him, so I don’t know their exact protocol for releasing that information...
 
at least not without the boss’s permission.”

“This boss who is currently being blackmailed by this same group?”

“Yes.”

“You cannot reach him now?”

“Not for two days, no.”

“Why did he have this list?” the man asked, his blue eyes holding a sharper scrutiny. “Initially, I mean. How did he become involved with this group?”

I shrugged. “A case? I honestly don’t know.”

“What did he tell you about this group? Before the two days since you have been unable to communicate with him?”

“Very little, I’m afraid. And he went dark with his company when he came over here...
 
so I don’t know how much any of them know either.”

“But he has been in Paris for months, no?” The blue-eyed man’s eyes narrowed. “I was under the impression the two of you were in contact. Prior to these two days.”

I nodded, exhaling a little. “Yes. We’ve spoken. But only in regard to personal matters, I’m afraid. He made it clear he wasn’t free to speak about anything else, that his communications were being monitored.”

The man frowned, nodding, then glanced at the other three people in suits.

The woman was murmuring something to another agent, a man with sandy blond hair and a large nose. All four of them murmured to one another briefly in French, too low for me to catch most of it. I could tell without reading them that they had some awareness of Mr. Lucky already, and not just from Nick. Apparently he’d been operating in Paris for several years at least.

Nick’s pals remained mostly quiet, but I could tell they were listening, too.

Eventually, the blue-eyed man turned back to me.

“Do you know how they are connected here?” he said. “At the airport?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry. I really don’t.”

“But you knew they might come here?”

“My employer implied there was a risk, yes.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you had lost touch with your employer?”

“We have...” I looked at Nick, then back at the man. “...I have. He told me before. Not about France specifically. He told me I would be followed if I left San Francisco, and that they might try to kill me or kidnap me if I came after him.”

“And you know for certain he is still in France?”

“Last I knew he was here, in Paris. It made sense to start here.”

The man continued to watch me with those sharp eyes, now basically ignoring Nick. “Just to confirm, this is Quentin Black to whom we are referring, yes? The man whose information we got from Detective Tanaka?”

I nodded. “Yes. I don’t know what Nick gave you...”

Letting my voice trail, I glanced at Nick, my eyebrow quirked, but he didn’t return my gaze.

The man in the suit nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t satisfied.

I felt him wavering about bringing us to the station that night, to question us more before we could leave the city. I pushed lightly on his mind when I felt the direction of his thoughts, concentrating all of my focus on what I wanted him to think instead.

Later...
 
I pushed softly.
It can wait until tomorrow. Focus on the main suspects first...

The man’s blue eyes blanked briefly.

Then he turned away from me, and spoke for a few minutes to Nick’s friends in the body armor, one of whom still held a tranquilizer gun. I felt myself relax when I caught the gist of his thoughts and words. I had no idea if my mental “push” was the cause, but he’d decided not to detain us that night after all, but to wait and question us tomorrow.

The man turned back to me and Nick then, smiling for the first time.

“Okay, thank you very much...
 
both of you...
 
for your help in this matter. We always appreciate any cooperation and information sharing between our two governments.” His smile seemed somewhat put on over the more clinical look I saw in his eyes, especially when he looked at me, but he was going to let us go, which is all I cared about. “...I think we have enough from you for tonight.”

I definitely caught the emphasis on the last word.

Nick shook hands all around with the people wearing suits, then gave a short wave and a nod of thanks to his friends in the body armor.

He motioned for me to follow him out once he had.

The man with the blue eyes called after us as Nick opened the door.

“We will likely need you later, Detective Tanaka,” he said politely, his eyes on me as he spoke. “...You and your charming friend, Dr. Fox. I would appreciate it very much if you could make yourselves available for questioning at a less obscene hour of this day. Perhaps in the early afternoon, after you’ve had time to sleep off the worst of your jetlag?”

Another of those wolf-like smiles.

“...After we’ve had time to question the suspects, of course.”

I doubted the “suspects” would remain in custody for more than a few minutes after the tranquilizer darts wore off, but I only glanced at Nick.

“Of course,” Nick said, giving him a thin-lipped smile in return.

“And perhaps your friend, Ms. Fox, could get us those photographs for us by that time?” the man added. “Or inquire at least...
 
as to her new employer’s ‘procedures’ for such a thing?”