Fallen Angels 03 - Envy (5 page)

Dear God, where was his head at?

Not on reality, apparently.

It was almost like the magnitude of what had happened on that patch of red-stained leaves over there was so great, his brain was seeking shelter in any topic other than the giant, bloody elephant in the forest.

Then again, maybe he’d just lost his mind. Period.

“Thank you, Detective,” Reil y said as she stepped back with his weapon and leather holster. “Your phone?”

He handed it over. “You want my wal et?”

“Yes, but you can keep your driver’s license.”

When the handoffs were finished, she tacked on, “Further, I’l ask you to remove your clothing at home, bag it, and turn it in to me tomorrow.”

“No problem. And you know where to find me,” he said, his voice gruff.

“Yes, I do.”

As they got ready to part, there was no coy duck of her chin and flash of the eyes. No hair flipping. No brush of the hip. Which, okay, would have been ridiculous under the circumstances—but he had the sense that the two of them could have been at a club by the bar and she wouldn’t have pul ed any of that obvious crap anyway. Not her style.

Shit, she real y did just keep getting more attractive by the minute. This kept up and he was going to end up asking her to marry him next week.

Har-har, hardy-har-har.

On that note, Veck turned away from her for the second time. And was surprised to hear her say, “You sure you don’t want a coat, Detective? I’ve got an extra flak jacket in my trunk, and it’s going to be cold on that bike of yours.”

“I’l be fine.”

For some reason, he didn’t want to look back. Probably because of the peanut-gal ery combo of de la Cruz and Bails.

Yeah. That was it.

At his BMW, he threw his leg over the seat and grabbed his helmet. He hadn’t worn the damn thing on the way here, but he needed to conserve body heat—and as he pul ed it on, he half expected de la Cruz to wander over to revisit the lawyer issue. Instead, the venerable detective stayed where he was and spoke with Officer Reil y.

Bails was the one who came up. The guy was in gym clothes, his short hair spiky, his dark eyes a little aggressive—no doubt because he didn’t like Reil y taking over. “You sure you’re okay to get home?”

“Yeah.”

“You want me to fol ow you?”

“Nah.” Likely the guy would anyway. He was just that way.

“I know you didn’t do it.”

As Veck stared at his buddy, he was tempted to unload everything—the two sides to him, the split that he had felt coming for years, the fear that what he’d worried about had final y happened. Hel , he knew he could trust the guy. He and Bails had been at the police academy together years ago, and though they’d gone their separate ways, they’d stayed tight and in touch—until Bails had recruited him to come up from Manhattan to join the Caldwel homicide team.

Two weeks. He’d been on the force here for only two frickin’ weeks.

Just as he opened his mouth, a van pul ed behind to other CPD cars, announcing the arrival of Team Nitpick.

Veck shook his head. “Thanks, man. I’l see you tomorrow.”

With a swift punch of his boot, he kick-started the engine, and as he pumped the gas, he glanced back to the scene. Reil y was kneeling by his jacket, going through its pockets. Just like she was going to do with his wal et.

Oh, shit. She was going to find—

“Cal me if you want me to come over, man.”

“Yeah. I wil .”

Veck nodded at Bails and eased his bike off the shoulder, thinking he real y didn’t need her to see the two Trojans he always kept in that inside slot behind his credit cards.

Funny, being a slut had never real y bothered him before. Now, he wished he’d tied it in a knot years ago.

When he got out to the proper road, he gunned the bike hard, and went roaring off. As he rocketed through 149’s twists and turns, he leaned into the corners, ducking down tight over the handlebars, becoming just another aerodynamic part of the BMW. With his lick-split velocity, winding turns became nothing but quick jogs left and right as he and the bike wagered on the laws of physics.

Given that he was betting everything he had at this speed? He’d be lucky if he left anything big enough to bury.

Faster.
Faster
. Fast—

Unfortunately, or fortunately, he wasn’t sure which, the end for him did not come in a screeching rip into the trees to avoid a Buick or a Bambi.

It was a Polo Ralph Lauren outlet store.

Or specifical y, the light right before the place.

Pul ing out of the tunnel vision he’d enjoyed made him feel strangely disoriented, and the only reason he stopped at the red was that there were a couple of cars in front of him and he was forced to obey the traffic laws or ride over their roofs. The goddamn light took forever, and the lineup he was in moved at a snail’s pace when it final y got its green on.

Then again, he could have been popping sixty-five on the highway and it would have felt like he was twiddling his thumbs.

But it wasn’t like he was trying to run from something. Of course not.

Passing by Nike, Van Heusen, and Brooks Brothers, he felt as empty as the huge parking lots, and there was a part of him that wanted to keep going . .

. past this retail fringe, through Caldie’s suburban maze, out around the skyscrapers, and over the bridge to God only knew where.

The trouble was, everywhere he went . . . there he was: Geographical relocation wasn’t going to change the face in the mirror. Or that part of him that he’d never understood, but never questioned. Or what the fuck had gone down tonight.

He must have kil ed that sick bastard. There was no other explanation. And he didn’t know what Reil y was thinking in letting him go. Maybe he just needed to confess. . . . Yeah, but to what? That he went there with the intent to kil , and then he—

The headache that plowed into his front lobe was the kind of thing you couldn’t think around. Al you did was groan and close your eyes—not the best move when you were on a bike that was basical y just an engine with a padded seat screwed to it.

Forcing himself to focus on the road and nothing else, he was relieved when the cranial thumping eased off and he pul ed into his development.

The house he lived in was in a neighborhood ful of teachers, nurses, and sales reps. There were a lot of young kids, and the yards were maintained by amateurs—which meant in the summer there was probably going to be a lot of crabgrass, but at least the shit would be mowed regularly.

Veck was the outlier: He had no wife, no kids, and he was never going to bust out a Toro or a Lawn-Boy. Fortunately, he had the vibe that the neighbors on either side of his postage stamp of a yard were the type to cheerful y encroach with their blades.

Good people. Who had told them they felt safer with a cop next door.

Showed what they knew.

His two-story house was about as fancy and unique as a penny from the seventies. Which, as it turned out, was the last time the place had been wal papered.

Pul ing up to the garage, he dismounted and left his helmet hanging from the handlebars. There wasn’t a lot of crime in this area—so his mowing neighbors were getting a burn deal on a lot of levels.

He went in the side door, passed through the mudroom and walked into his kitchen. Not a lot of Food Network going down in here: al he had were a couple of empty pizza boxes on the counter, and some Starbucks dead soldiers clustered around the sink. Half-opened mail and loosely stacked reports were on the table. Laptop was closed down for the day next to a Valpak coupon book he was never going to use and a cable bil that was not yet overdue but probably would be because he sucked at paying shit on time.

Always too busy to write a check out or go online to pay.

God, the only difference between this place and the office downtown was the fact that there was a king-size bed upstairs.

On that note, Officer Reil y wanted him to get naked, didn’t she.

Snagging a Glad trash bag from under the kitchen sink, he went upstairs, thinking he was going to have to hire a cleaner to come once a week so that he didn’t end up with cobwebs in every corner and dust bunnies going IVF clinic under the couch. But this was no home and was never going to be. Pine-Sol and 409 four times a month didn’t get you cozy.

Although at least the occasional chick he brought in would have somewhere halfway decent to get re-dressed in.

His bedroom was at the front of the house, and al it had in it was that big bed and a bureau. His boots, socks and pants came off quick. Turtleneck was the same. As he peeled off his black boxer briefs, he refused to think of Officer Reil y handling them. Just was not going to go there.

Heading into the bath, he turned on the shower, and as he waited for it to get warm, he stood in front of the mirror over the sink. No reflection to bother with—he’d covered the glass with a beach towel the day he’d moved in.

He was not a fan of mirrors.

Lifting his hands, he held them out palms down. Then flipped them. Then looked under his nails.

It appeared as though his body, as with his mind, was empty of clues. Although you could argue that no scratches, no blood, no gore on him was an indicator—and no doubt what the fine Officer Reil y had noticed and acted on.

Man, this was the second time in his life he’d been in this situation. And the first . . .

No reason to think about his mother’s murder. Not on a night like tonight.

Stepping into the shower, he closed his eyes and let the spray fal down his head and shoulders and face. Soap. Rinse. Shampoo. Rinse.

He was standing in the steamy, wet heat when he felt the draft: Sure as if someone had opened the window by the toilet, the blast of air shot over the top of the plastic curtain and brushed across his skin. Goose bumps came when cal ed, popping out across his chest and shooting down his legs and back.

The window hadn’t been opened, however.

And this was why he’d removed the glass wal of the shower and covered that built-in mirror over the sink. Those two things had been the only changes he’d made to the house, and the unimprovement had been for his own sanity. He’d been shaving for years without his reflection.

“Get the fuck away from me,” he said, closing his eyes and keeping them that way.

The draft swirled around his legs, feeling like hands roaming over his flesh, going higher, fondling his sex before hitting his abdomen and his pecs, up to his neck . . . his face. . . .

Cold hands ran through his hair—

“Leave me alone!” He threw out his arm and shoved the curtain aside. As warm air greeted him, he bore down at his core, trying to kick the intruder out, kil the connection.

Stumbling over to the counter, he braced his arms and leaned down, breathing hard and hating himself, hating this night, hating his life.

He knew damn wel that it was possible, if you had multiple personality disorder, for a part of you to break free and act independently. Sufferers could be completely unaware of the actions their body had taken, even if it involved violence—

As that headahe started kicking his temples like tires again, he cursed and dried off; then pul ed on the flannel shirt and NYPD academy sweatpants he’d slept in the night before and left on the back of the toilet. He was about to go downstairs when a quick glance out the window held him in place.

There was a car parked across the street about two houses down.

He knew every vehicle in the neighborhood, al the trucks, vans, SUVs, sedans, and hybrids, and that shadow-colored, late-model American nothing-much was not on the list.

It was, however, exactly the kind of unmarked that the Caldwel Police Department used.

Reil y was having him surveil ed. Good move—exactly what he would have done in her position.

Might even be her in the flesh.

Hitting the stairs, he hesitated at the front door, drawn to go out in his bare feet, because maybe she, or whoever it was, had some answers from the scene. . . .

With a curse, he pul ed himself out of that bright idea and headed for the kitchen. There had to be something to eat in the cupboards. Had to be.

Pul ing them open and finding a lot of shelf space and nothing more, he wondered exactly what grocery-fairy he thought had magical y come and delivered food.

Then again he could just throw some ketchup on a pizza box and chow down. Probably good for his fiber intake.

Yum.

Two houses down from Detective DelVecchio’s, Reil y was behind the wheel and partial y blinded.

“By al that is holy . . .” She rubbed her eyes. “Do you not believe in curtains?”

As she prayed for the image of a spectacularly naked col eague to fade from her retinas, she seriously rethought her decision to do the stakeout herself. She was exhausted, for one thing—or had been before she’d seen just about everything Veck had to offer.

Take out the
just
.

One bene was that she was real y frickin’ awake now, thank you very much—she might as wel have licked two fingers and shoved them into a socket: a ful -frontal like that was enough to give her the perm she’d wanted back when she’d been thirteen.

Muttering to herself, she dropped her hands into her lap again. And gee whiz, as she stared at the dash, al she saw . . . was everything she’d seen.

Yeah, wow, on some men, no clothes was so much more than just
naked
.

And to think she’d almost missed the show. She’d parked her unmarked and just cal ed in her position when the upstairs lights had gone on and she gotten a gander at the vista of a bedroom. Easing back into her seat, it hadn’t dawned on her exactly where the unobstructed view was going to take them both—she’d just been interested that it appeared to be nothing but a bald lightbulb on the ceiling of what had to be the master suite.

Then again, bachelor pad decorating tended to be either storage-unit crammed or Death Val ey–barren.

Veck was obviously the Death Val ey variety.

Except suddenly she hadn’t been thinking about interior decorating, because her suspect had stepped into the bathroom and flipped the switch.