Head Rush (3 page)

Steven continues. “Reacting to a legal form of assault’s all he was doing—spitting is a legal form of assault—”

“Are we all okay?” Otto interrupts.

“We’re okay,” Steve releases Hal.

Simon grunts. Hal grunts.

“Then let’s see that it stops here.” Otto extends a hand to Steve and they shake.

“It’s an honor, Sir,” Steve says. “We really meant no harm. And I have to tell you, all us guys here are behind you all the way, for all what you’ve done. The curfew and all the rest. Don’t listen to the whiners—let’s get this job done. Let’s yank the criminal element out by the root.” Steve goes on to repeat different iterations of this message as Otto listens with keen and noble interest.

The female citizens of Midcity have mostly approved of Otto and his flamboyant ways for years, but men like Steve didn’t warm up to Otto until he almost single-handedly ended the eight-year crime wave, first as a detective, then as police captain, performing many feats of strength and cunning, like when he personally chased down and captured the Brick Slinger, one of Midcity’s most notorious serial killers. Then, during his first month as mayor, Otto survived a brutal kidnapping by a gang of killers, participated in their arrest, and got elevated to beloved Midcity action hero.

The inexplicable new crime wave has cast Otto in the role of the embattled yet charismatic new mayor who dared to take a stand, whereas any other politician would be seen as ineffective and weak. That’s the magic of Otto. Though his latest strong-against-crime policies, especially the curfew and enhanced police powers, have turned some against him. Not everybody wants to trade rights for safety, even temporarily.

Hal pulls himself together enough now to shake Otto’s hand, apologizing for the scuffle and assuring Otto that everybody at the lot knows he’s doing what it takes to “put the boot down”. Otto converses with them in low, confiding tones. Hal and Steve seem enthralled.

Sometimes I watch Otto and just marvel that we’re together. I most enjoy looking at him from the point of view of my former self, the self who so idolized him as Detective Sanchez. I like to call him Detective Sanchez when we’re having sex, and he plays along. It’s very exciting. Actually, we’ve developed a whole slew of X-rated Detective-Sanchez games. Sometimes I think it’s probably not the healthiest thing in the world for a couple to pretty much only have role-playing sex, but there’s nothing like the dirty fun of role-playing sex to take a girl’s mind off of that.

Simon groans. I go over and take his arm, help him up. He stands unsteadily. I keep hold. “Don’t you ever do that again,” I whisper. “Ever.”

He touches his bloody nose. “You were going to do it. You’d be glorying right now.”

“You need to respect my choices.”

He wiggles a tooth, and his breathing seems weird. Labored, somehow. Wheezy.

“Hey,” I say. “Are you okay? Do you need medical attention?”

“I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

I glance over at Otto, who seems to feel my stare, and he turns his eyes slyly toward me, head tilted, as he asks the men some question. I don’t hear the question but I sure hear the voice. It’s his gravelly Detective-Otto-Sanchez voice—the one he uses when we have sex. This shot goes through me.

Simon follows my gaze over to Otto, then he wrenches his arm from mine, like he’s really angry all of a sudden. “You were stupid not to do it,” he says.

“You were a jerk to back me into a corner.”

Otto comes over and kisses me on the cheek. “We’re going to straighten out this business of your car,” he says.

Simon smiles, like he’s not in pain, like blood isn’t dripping all over his face and coat and chest. “Excellent.”

Otto frowns. “For God’s sake, Simon.”

I flinch as Otto slides his hand inside the breast pocket of his coat and pulls out a handkerchief.

Quickly I look away, hoping nobody noticed my fearful reaction. Even two months after I witnessed that killing I flinch when Otto reaches into his breast pocket. It makes no sense—Packard’s the one who killed Avery, not Otto.

“What led you two to check here?” Otto asks me.

I say, “Simon got the idea there was a clerical error. I guess there was.”

“Except we don’t make clerical errors,” Steve puts in.

I give Steve a look. “Yet lo and behold, the car was there.”

Otto turns to Steve. “I don’t care about any of that. What happens now? Do you have a process for releasing a car like this?” Otto would never ask for special treatment. He doesn’t have to.

Steve straightens up, all business, and asks me if I can point it out on a lot map.

“I can,” Simon says.

Steve heads to the truck and Simon follows, slowly, listing a bit to the right. With a huff, Hal retreats to the office.

“How’d you find me?” I ask Otto.

He comes back with a question: “Why did you and Simon shake Max?”

“It was just a crazy, stupid thing…” I watch a car pull in across the way. More Midcitians with towed vehicles. I tell him about the intensity of the ride, going through the electrified fence. He doesn’t like it, but he needs to accept my friends, just as my friends need to accept him.

“You’re smiling,” Otto says.

I realize I am. “It felt exhilarating. Being off the radar. Free. It just feels confining, sometimes, that a bodyguard is always there…and everybody recognizes me and expects me to act upstanding. It felt good to, you know…”

“To bust loose?”

I put a hand on his arm. “I love being your fiancée, and I love that you want to make sure I’m safe, but it’s stifling.“

“Justine. I know you prize your freedom, but highcap crime has gone up a thousand percent. Cannibal gangs are roaming the streets at night. It won’t always be like this.”

“How’d you find me?”

“Honey—”

It all becomes clear:
I was never off the radar.
“You’re tracking me!”

“It’s a dangerous time.”

My face goes hot and I step back. “I won’t be tracked. I’m not a pet you can put a locator chip into.”

“No,” Otto agrees, brushing my hair from my forehead. “You’re my fiancée who I love so much, sometimes I think my heart might explode.”

A lump forms in my throat. I should be happy with this. It’s the life I wanted, I remind myself.

He moves closer. “Just two months ago—”

I fling up a hand, cutting him off right there. I don’t need a reminder of how close we both came to being killed, and I especially don’t need a reminder of how it feels to be alone and helpless, surrounded by sleepwalking cannibals, or how sharp human teeth feel when they’re piercing the tender skin of your belly. “I don’t care. No trackers.”

“Justine—”

“I mean it.”

Otto looks distressed. I should’ve said “I love you” back, but it’s too late—the timing’s weird and it’ll feel like a lie, as it so often does. Sometimes I wonder if witnessing so much violence has eroded my ability to love. I used to think Otto and I were soul mates. And I know in my mind that we fit perfectly, and that I’d be insane to let him go. And we understand each other, and we need each other in ways other people can’t comprehend.

Still.

I brush back a curl, careful not to disturb his beret, which he wears as a protective layer. Like me, he worries a vein in his head could bulge and burst at any time. The beret is mostly psychological, but in some cases, it really could help against vein star syndrome.

“Let’s get rolling.” Steve calls, waiting by the open back door of his giant extended-cab truck.

I touch Otto’s arm. We head over as one and get in.

Steve watches warily as Simon climbs in after me, probably worried about blood getting on the upholstery.

The truck sounds like a huge semi when he starts it up, but it bounces a lot less than Simon’s car. I sit between the two men, hating the tension. Why won’t Simon just accept Otto?

From the top of the ridge, you can see thick snow clouds floating in from the west. To the southeast, the tall buildings of downtown gleam pale yellow. Just beyond that stands the dark, hulking highway interchange known as the Tangle, looking like a skyscraper made from a snarled Slinky, encircled by misshapen buildings.

Otto watches black smoke trailing up in the distance. “Lord help us if that’s the river on fire again,” he says softly, pulling out his mobile and scrolling. The winter before last, the Midcity River went up in flames. It never freezes because of all the pollution.

Simon wipes his chin with Otto’s now-bloody handkerchief, though it’s more like he’s smearing the blood around his face. He blows his nose. “I’m going to look hideous for the bridesmaids’ dinner tomorrow.”

“You’re not a bridesmaid,” Otto says.

Simon smiles. “I understand you’re having blue crab flown in from the coast. That’s going to be delicious.”

“Simon,” I warn.

“We have a deal,” he says, offering Otto the handkerchief back. Otto shakes his head and pockets his phone.

“Behavior unbecoming a bridesmaid will nix that deal,” I say.

“What deal?” Otto asks.

I plop my head back and stare forward as we bump past razor-wire fencing. “I told Simon that if he located my car”—I turn back to Simon—“in good working condition—then he can be a bridesmaid.”

Otto is silent a beat, likely coming to terms with the fact that he can do nothing about this. He looks at me admonishingly, out the side of his big, brown eyes. “How delightful.”

“Isn’t it?” Simon says from my other side.

And then Otto laughs his warm laugh. “Oh, Justine.” His laugh makes me smile. He takes my hand and brings it to his mouth, kisses it.

When I look over at Simon, his lip is curled in disgust. Quickly he pastes on a grin and touches his tooth. “I really wanted to keep this one,” he says. “It’s my third-favorite tooth.” He turns to look out his window, wiggling the tooth.

I stare at the back of his head, baffled. When Simon has an opinion, he always offers it; the more upsetting, the better. Why is he holding back?

Up front, Steve grunts something about section D-13 and passes a clipboard back to Simon. “Just so you know, Mayor Sanchez, this is irregular. Civilians never ride along like this.”

“I thank you for making this exception, Steve,” Otto says.

“And for what it’s worth, this is the first I’ve heard of clerical errors. I’ll be damned surprised if that car’s out there.” Steve seems sincere in this.

Otto nods. “All that’s important is getting it back, if it is indeed there.”

I can’t get over Simon’s disgusted look. What did it mean? But if my friends didn’t like Otto, they’d tell me. Shelby used to dislike him—she used to tell me so all the time, but she’s long since changed her mind.

Ten minutes later we’re all standing around my little gray car. So it was towed after all. “Why would it have gotten towed?” I ask nobody in particular. “I left in it my own space behind my building where I’ve parked it for years.”

“You sure?” Steve asks. “No offense, but lots of people forget where they left their cars. You’d be surprised.”

“I’m 100 percent sure.” I look at Otto. “I remember very specifically—it was when Francis picked me up, on our way to, you know—” I give him a significant look. I mean when Francis and I and some guys went to find him. Back when he was kidnapped.

“Could be some kids took it out for a joyride, and then it got towed. If it was in our system, we’d know where and why it was towed.”

Simon says, “Maybe we should search the car. Maybe there are clues for what happened.” 

Otto pulls on his leather gloves. “Don’t touch. I’ll have crime scene come out and dust it first.”

“I want to drive it home,” I say. “Look—” I pull my mittens from my pocket. “Okay? I really want it back. More than I want answers.”

Otto gives me a warning look.

“I’ll hardly touch anything.” Before he can stop me, I unlock the door and get in.

Otto comes over and crouches between me and my open car door, scanning the interior. “Wasn’t hot-wired. Are the mirrors and seat adjusted correctly?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “And this is the only key.” I start it up and the engine growls to life. Through my windshield, I see Simon gesture like he’s lifting a top hat from his head.

“Hold up,” Steve says, “got some things for you to sign.” He goes back to his truck.

I get an idea. “What about the thieves who robbed me the day you were kidnapped? Maybe they took my car at the same time.”

Otto stands, winds a gloved finger into my hair. “And made a copy of your key, leaving you with the original?” The featherlight brush of his glove on my ear makes a whisper sound, and gives me shivers. “Unlikely. Nevertheless”—this now in his rumbly and commanding, sexy detective voice—“we need to treat this seriously.
Don’t
touch the glove compartment.
Don’t
touch the trunk. We’ll see what we find.”

“But I’m still driving it home. Anyways, I already touched the wheel with my mittens.”

Otto smiles down at me. “Yes, you’ve already compromised that bit of evidence, haven’t you?”

I inhale sharply; this is something he sometimes says when we’re playing X-rated Detective Sanchez. He’s the stern detective, and I’m the unrepentant criminal.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I say in my saucy gangster-moll voice. “Too goddamned late for the steering wheel, I guess.”

“But not too late for the glove compartment and certainly not the trunk,” Otto says slowly. “I’ll be mercilessly thorough there.”

I make a supreme effort to keep my expression neutral.

“I won’t rest,” he grumbles, “until I’m completely and one hundred percent satisfied that there’s nothing more to be yielded.”

I widen my eyes minutely at Otto, shocked that he’s bringing our secret detective-sex game so fully to this level.

Simon’s there, suddenly. “Well, we know what Packard would say, huh?”

I give him a hard look. For once I wasn’t thinking about that horrible scene, Packard shooting Avery. Pulling the rug out from under my entire world.

Otto holds up a finger. “Ah, yes, our friend Packard.” He turns a cool gaze to Simon, “Our dear friend Packard, who would have us believe that the day after the kidnapping, Justine drove around on some mysterious errand while some
other
person shot Avery.” He turns back to me. “And then Sophia brought you to the lake parklands, marched you up to the crime scene, erased your memory, and implanted the false one of Packard killing him. And your car languished until towed.”