Living with the Dead (31 page)

HOPE

Karl knocked Hope to the floor as gas filled the room. She yanked her shirt collar over her mouth, then looked to make sure he was doing the same, but he'd flipped around, grabbing Rhys's legs as the man dove for the floor.

Smoke swirled around them, thick as Maine fog. The men disappeared into it, a leg or arm appearing for a second, then gone with a
crack
and a grunt as they fought. Her eyes stung, watering. She blinked hard and peered into the fog, smacking the floor as she searched for her gun.

"Get Robyn!" Karl shouted, knowing she'd be trying to come to his rescue instead.

"Rob?" Hope yelled.

A cough answered.

"Cover your mouth," Hope called, choking back her own cough as the gas burned her throat. "Close your eyes. I'll find you."

She crawled, hunching along on one hand, the other holding her shirt over her mouth. She closed her eyes – she couldn't see anyway. Chaos eddied through the gas, steady waves tickling over her skin like a lover's touch, making her shiver.

Robyn coughed again, to her left now.

"Stay where you are!" Hope called.

A grunt of pain and a curse from Rhys. Chaos shuddered through Hope, the demon begging her to stop and enjoy it. She gritted her teeth and told the demon this wasn't the time. It ignored her until another
crack,
this one followed by a hissing growl that the demon recognized as Karl in pain. That shut it up.

"Robyn?"

A hacking cough, to the right now.

"Stay put! I can't – "

Booted footfalls clomped into the room. Shadowy figures appeared in the fog. Hope scuttled to the side and flattened up against the bed. The figures passed.

The room had gone quiet now.

Another cough. Robyn must have mistaken the men for cops. But a murder suspect didn't warrant a riot squad takedown. Gas and SWAT teams were the Nast's trademark. Hope knew now who Rhys worked for.

Hope slithered across the floor, toward Robyn. She couldn't be more than a few yards away – the room wasn't that big. The footsteps stopped. Hope did, too, lifting her head to listen.

A dull thump right beside her. A voice, muffled, as if by a gas mask, the words indecipherable. When the response came, Hope was concentrating hard enough to make it out.

"Think so."

A hollow, echoing snort. "Comforting. You gonna..." The rest was muddled. The answer was a laugh.

Robyn coughed.

Hope held her breath, but the men kept talking. Then a voice came from the back near the bathroom. "Move it. Mr. Nast wants us on the road pronto. We've got to grab that clairvoyant girl before dark."

"Take his legs and I'll..."

Hope didn't catch the rest or the response, but the gist of it was that they were trying to get someone outside. Rhys. The gas would hold the rest of them until they'd moved their comrade to safety.

She waited until they'd gone. Then a cough came, so soft it was more a throat clearing. Hope crawled toward it. A sliver of light filtered through the fog from the drawn curtains, meaning Robyn was next to the front door. Perfect. A few more feet and Hope would be –

Her forehead smacked into the door. Hands caught her, tugging her down with a "shhh."

She reached to pat the hand, tell Robyn she was okay. Her fingers touched a ribbed cuff. Rhys's sports jacket.

Hope spun, fists flying into the fog. One struck home, the impact jolting up her arm. She swung the other in the same direction. It hit with a smack. Then fingers vise-gripped around her wrist hard enough to make her yelp. Rhys wrenched Hope's arm behind her back. Her eyes flooded with fresh tears, salt stinging her burning cheeks. She tried to punch with her free hand, but he slammed her onto the floor, nose hitting hard, pain exploding.

Rhys crouched over her back, pinning her down, arm still jacked up behind her back. When she wriggled, he ratcheted her arm higher, making her gasp.

"Shhh!"

She smashed her foot into his leg. He yanked her arm higher and she bucked until the pain forced her to stillness, panting and blinking back tears.

Rhys yanked Hope to her knees.

"Up," he whispered, with a heave that forced her onto her feet.

She heard fingers sliding along the wall, as if searching for the knob. The door eased open, and a breeze gusted in, pushing the fog back as Rhys propelled her through. The fresh air hit like an icy blast. She gasped. Her throat and lungs and eyes burned. Even her skin felt hot. Her stomach roiled.

Rhys kept pushing her. She smacked into someone. A hard blink and she could make out a short figure in front of her. Another blink brought the face into focus – a preteen girl fixing Hope with a glower before shouldering past, muttering.

Hope glanced behind her. Rhys was blinking hard, eyes streaming. He swiped his jacket sleeve across them and reached into his pocket. Hope threw herself forward. He pulled her back, wrenching her arm up without a beat. A shake of his hand, unfolding his sunglasses, and he put them on.

"Keep walking."

Hope looked around through the glaze of tears. Another gust of wind rattled along the motel front, shaking the screen doors and sending fast-food wrappers swirling about their feet. The sun needled her eyes. Strands of hair whipped her face. One head shake and she knew she had more hair outside her ponytail than in it.

She pictured what she looked like, rumpled and disheveled, eyes streaming as she grimaced against the sun like a kidnap victim pulled from an underground hole. With a guy at her back, wrenching her arm up, she obviously wasn't out for an afternoon stroll. If anyone noticed, they decided not to care.

As her eyes and lungs cleared, her stomach chimed in, wanting its share of attention. Typical. Motion sickness or nerves always set her gut roiling like a teakettle, bubbling over at the slightest provocation. And right now, the tear gas had it feeling provoked.

When she stumbled over a sidewalk crack, her mouth filled with bile. She gagged and forced it down, the taste only making the nausea worse.

"What's wrong?" Rhys said gruffly.

Hope swayed, her free hand clutching her stomach. "The gas. I feel..."

"It does that. Just keep going."

"I-I don't think – " She took a deep breath, head tilting back. "Okay. That's better." She took one more step, then doubled over, moaning and gagging.

"Oh God, I'm going to – "

She swung, so fast his slackening grip fell from her arm. He grabbed for her, catching her wrist. And that is when the Aikido lessons paid off, Hope's body instinctively recognizing the hold and reacting without instructions. A wrench, a grab, a flip and he was on the ground with
his
arm now pinned up behind his back.

At that moment, someone decided to notice. A burly middle-aged man lumbered from the parking lot, glaring at Hope from under bushy brows. A woman being forced along a motel sidewalk hadn't been worthy of his attention, but apparently, that same woman pinning a man twice her size was somewhat suspicious.

"He – he attacked me," she said, gulping air between words.

"Hope," Rhys said under his breath. "You don't want to – "

"The – the manager. Get the manager. Please."

Hope lifted her teary, reddened eyes, and the man jogged off toward the front office. She flew off Rhys, gave him one hard kick in the ribs and ran.

A man shouted. Rhys? The burly man? She didn't know and, frankly, didn't care, just hunched down and pummeled the pavement.

As she veered into the lot, she slowed to a jog. A very fast jog, arms pumping, trying to look like an ordinary runner.

She jogged to the edge of the motel lot, just past the boundary fence, then wheeled, running along it. She measured the distance until she'd be at the rear of the motel. Then she turned to the fence, ready to climb.

In front of Hope was an eight-foot-high sheet of solid two-by-fours. Not a finger- or foothold to be seen, and not a chance in hell of jumping up and grabbing the top.

In the past twenty-four hours, she'd scaled two fences, so she'd seen this one and thought
no sweat
without making sure it
could
be scaled without grappling hooks.

The demon growled in her gut.
Get the hell over that fence. Get through it. Smash it down. Karl is over there, in danger.

Which was all very fine, but unless the demon could conjure up real superpowers for her, she wasn't flying over or through that fence. She kept jogging along, hoping a way over would miraculously appear. A ladder would be good. A rope just fine. Hell, at this point, she'd settle for a strong vine or overhanging branch. She found two knotholes, but even her size-five toes weren't squeezing in them.

Could she get around the back end? If the fence belonged to the motel, it would stretch the full perimeter.

Just get past it,
the demon screamed.
Around, over, through. Get Karl!

Every second she fussed was another second for the Cabal to load him into a van... if they hadn't already. She had to go back the way she'd come. She turned... and there was Rhys, running full tilt toward her.

FINN

Finn sat in the car and watched the building. A cookie-cutter motel – an ugly block of rooms with an office at one end, a cleaning cubby and vending machines in the middle. He imagined a motel salesman back in the fifties, drumming up customers. "You want one of our Model A roadside motels. Model B? Well, actually, we don't have a Model B..."

The problem with Model A was parking. The layout presumed you
were
in the fifties, heading down Route 66 on a family road trip and, naturally, you only needed one parking spot, which was conveniently located right outside your room door. If you brought a friend or towed a trailer, you needed to park it in the dirt lot out back, which was quite possibly the worst location for a stakeout. So Finn was stuck in one of the empty spots along the front. Uncomfortably exposed and, worse, unable to see one half of the building, now that a billboard of a minivan had pulled in beside him.

He'd gotten out once to scout, but he wasn't inconspicuous enough to loiter for long, so he was stuck with two hopes. One, that Adams was in the part of the motel he could see. Two, that Damon would get his phantom ass the hell back from wherever he'd gone and
tell
Finn where Adams was.

Making Damon hitchhike in the taxi had been an inspired plan. And like all his inspired plans these last few days, it had played out much better in his mind than in reality. Finn had managed to follow Adams's cab for a few miles. Then he'd lost it as a transport cut him off. When the transport had passed, the cab was gone. A half-mile later in his rearview mirror he'd seen the cab pull from this motel.

All he had to do then was pull in and wait for Damon to come out and tell him which unit Adams was in. That had been ten minutes ago.

As Finn leaned back in his seat, a man jogged past his car. Anytime Finn saw someone running in L.A. without a jogging suit – hell, sometimes even with one – he paid attention. The guy was nearing forty, clean shaven, wearing a team jacket and a ball cap, heading toward the road, no sign that he was chasing or being chased.

Finn relaxed. Then another man, older and heavyset, ran past, this one along the sidewalk in front of the motel rooms.

"Hey!" the second man yelled. "Hey! Someone stop that guy!"

That got Finn out of the car. He strode to the sidewalk. Ahead of the running man stood a girl, no more than eleven, dressed in a halter top and denim skirt that wouldn't be out of place on a street hooker.

"What's happening here?" Finn said, flashing his badge to the big man, who'd stopped now, doubled over, panting.

"There was a girl..."

"That girl?" Finn jerked a thumb at the preteen.

"No, a – " He caught his breath. "Woman. Young woman. She said that guy attacked her. I told the manager to call the cops, but I don't think he's going to."

"Where's the young woman?"

"Took off," the girl said.

"Is he chasing her?"

"Dunno."

"Which way did she go?"

"Dunno."

She scuffed worn sneakers against the pavement. Crossed her arms. Scowled as if she was being asked to do a chore. Finn started walking, taking out his phone to call for backup.

"My dad's right," the girl muttered behind him. "Too many foreigners in this city. Stupid lady smacked right into me. Never even said sorry."

Finn stopped and looked back. "The young woman?"

"Yeah. Mexican or something."

"East Indian, I think," the man said. "Tiny thing, but the way she threw that guy down – "

Finn didn't hear the rest. He was already running down the front sidewalk. A young couple blocked the way. They'd stopped to look at a partially open door.

As Finn passed, the young man plucked his sleeve. "You smell that?"

He caught an odor that made his guts knot, remembering a training seminar where they'd sprayed new LAPD recruits with CS gas.

Wisps of smoke spiraled from the cracked-open door. Inside, someone coughed. He pulled out his gun and eased the door open another inch. The distinct peppery smell of tear gas wafted out, mixed with another smell – whatever caused the smoke, he supposed.

The smoke had almost evaporated, and he could make out a figure on all fours, hacking. A woman. Young. Slender. Dark blond hair in a ponytail. His hand tightened on his gun, the image of Adele Morrissey popping to mind. Then the woman lifted her head and Finn saw the face that had been taunting him for three days.

Robyn Peltier.

A careful look around the empty room, then he holstered his weapon and hurried inside, grabbing her under the arms and lifting her. Once they were past the door, she staggered to the wall and leaned against it. Her head dropped forward as she sputtered and gasped, tears streaming.

Finn called for backup and an ambulance. When he gave his name, Robyn stiffened, head rising, watery reddened eyes meeting his. Then she dropped her head again, racked by a fresh wave of coughing and dry heaves.

"It's Detective Findlay, Robyn," he said when he got off the phone. "You called me last night."

She tried to nod between coughs, face still lowered.

"Paramedics are on their way," he said. "That was tear gas. It's not dangerous, just..." He was about to say something suitably neutral, as the department taught, but remembering what it felt like, what came out was: ". . . vile."

Her cough softened into a laugh. "That would about sum it up."

Finn shifted his weight, resisting the urge to take her arm.

He'd spent three days searching for this woman, and now here she was, hacking up her lungs, and all he could think was that she looked... small.

He glanced around for the ambulance. "Keep breathing. Do you feel like you're going to be sick?"

She shook her head and went to swipe her sleeve over her eyes.

Finn caught her arm. "Don't rub. You'll only make it worse. We need to get your eyes washed out. Same with your skin. Does it burn?"

"Ice," she croaked.

Good idea. There'd be water in the vending machine, too.

He plucked a bill from his wallet and looked around for someone to run the errand. The tiny crowd had dispersed, which may have had something to do with the stinking fog still seeping from the opened door. He closed it, scanned the lot and found the heavyset man, hanging back as he stared at Robyn.

When Finn waved the man over, he shook his head, still gaping at Robyn with the horror one usually reserves for Ebola victims.

"It's tear gas," Finn called. "It's not – "

The man climbed into his car, shut and locked the door.

"The ice machine's right over..." Robyn squinted to see, her eyes still streaming tears. "Over there," she said resolutely, then took an equally resolute step before faltering against the wall.

Finn went to grab her only to realize he still had hold of her arm. He tightened his grip, helping her find her balance.

"Sorry," she said. "Guess I'm a little off."

Now it was his turn to laugh, a rusty rumble. "I'd say you've got a right to be. I'll get the ice and water. Stay here and catch your breath."

Finn jogged to the vending machine. He fed his bill into it while scouring the cubby for something to hold the ice. He bought a water and a Coke, then snatched up an empty chip bag, filled it with ice and put it into his pocket.

The sidewalk was empty.

Finn strode to the spot where he'd left Robyn. He looked around. Even opened the motel room door again. She was gone.

He dropped the bottles. Threw them, if he was being honest, as he started running.

How stupid had that been? He finally catches his fugitive suspect, only to leave her unattended while he trips over himself to get some water, some ice... Hell, she could probably use a Coke, to boost her blood sugar.

He reached the side corner to see her race around the back, remarkably agile for someone unable to take two steps a few minutes ago.

She'd played him.

He tore down that side stretch so fast he barely had his gun out before he wheeled around the back corner and –

There stood Robyn Peltier. Holding a gun on him.