The Psy-Changeling Series, Books 6-10 (90 page)

Then he spoke, drawing her attention to those well-shaped lips. “Sophia.” He’d braced one hand on the doorjamb, didn’t pull it down to offer to her.

She appreciated the gesture—many humans took it as an insult when she refused to shake their hands, never realizing that the common courtesy could cost her everything. “I thought I should let you know I’d arrived. I’ve been placed in the apartment next door.”

Max glanced to his right. “That’ll make things easier.” Easy words, but his tone said something else.

“I won’t be spying on you, Mr. Shannon.” Something long dormant in her stirred at the challenge she read in him. “To be quite frank, your personal activities hold no interest for either me or Councilor Duncan.” Not quite the truth. Nikita might not care about Max Shannon’s personal life, but Sophia found herself compelled to know the man behind the enigmatic mask of an Enforcement detective.

The edge of a smile touched Max’s lips, but it was his eyes that mattered. They never lost that blade-sharp gleam that told her he was calculating her every move, her every act. “You just want me for my detecting skills, is that it?”

She didn’t know how to respond to the patently nonserious question—she’d been dealing with humans her entire adult life, but she’d never dealt with someone who evoked this odd . . .
fascination
in her. It had begun with the way he looked at her but was now a wholly independent thing. And the fact that it was already so strong so soon after a reconditioning, meant she had far less time than she’d previously believed before her telepathic shields sheared forever.

Someone spoke behind Max at that moment, and he turned, dropping his arm from the doorjamb. That was when Sophia saw the two other individuals in the room. A human female and a male who was clearly
not
human. She took a step back and to her left as the couple exited to stand to her right.

“Clay, Talin, this is my . . . partner”—a pause she knew had been intentional—“Sophia Russo.”

The man gave a nod, while the woman smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

Sophia nodded in response, wondering how this Talin could stand with such calm beside the male who was unquestionably a predator. And since this was San Francisco there were only two possible conclusions—only one once you factored in the way the green-eyed man had moved, with a fluidity at odds with the muscular size of him. “You’re members of DarkRiver?”

“You must be new to the city,” Talin said, tucking back her hair to reveal an ear adorned with a dangling earring made of irregular glass beads in the colors of autumn. “Most people recognize Clay.”

“I’ve been to San Francisco before,” Sophia replied, intrigued by the odd shapes of the beads, the way they’d been put together. There was no conformity, no perfection. “However, I deal almost exclusively with humans and Psy.” Changelings had authority over all crimes that involved just those of their race.

“Sophia’s a J,” Max said, leaning one shoulder against the doorjamb.

She noted the corded forearms revealed by the rolled-up sleeves of his vivid blue shirt, noted, too, the easy grace with which he made even the smallest of movements—this man, she thought, was built along the sleek lines of the low-slung cars preferred by so many of the emotional races.

Her gaze clashed with his at that moment, and the question in them made her aware they were all waiting for something from her. Breaking the contact—which felt oddly, inexplicably intimate—she took a step to her left. “I’ll leave you to your visit. Detective Shannon, if you’d just let me know when you’re ready to start—”

“We can start now,” he interrupted, still in that lazy position against the doorjamb. If she hadn’t seen him in Wyoming, she might have been fooled into believing him “safe.” But she had seen him in that prison. Not only that, she’d read the file that chronicled his stubborn, relentless pursuit of the Butcher of Park Avenue. She knew the danger that lay beneath the languid charm.

“We’ll leave you to it, then.” The woman named Talin stepped forward to kiss Max on the cheek, breaking Sophia’s line of sight. “But I was hoping you’d have dinner with us,” she said, turning to include Sophia in the invitation.

Max glanced at his watch even as Sophia curled the fingers of her left hand into her palm. What Talin had just done, that easy contact . . . it had been ordinary. Human. And it had made Sophia brutally aware of the gulf between her and this cop whose presence, whose watchful eyes, fanned the fires of rebellion in her.

“It’s almost three now,” Max said, his voice low and smooth—and disturbingly abrasive against Sophia’s skin, “so how about dinner around seven? We should be ready for a break by then anyway.” A glance up at Sophia from those eyes that saw far too much. “That work for you?”

She didn’t know why she said, “Yes, that’ll be fine,” when she should have demurred from the social invitation. As her response to Max demonstrated with manifest clarity, she’d failed in her attempts to be the most perfect of Psy. But she was in no way similar to a human. She was, in all probability, even less “human” than most of her brethren, her psyche having been worn away by the corrosive acid of the images stored in her brain.

Clay said good-bye then, his voice deep against Talin’s softer tone. As the couple left, the leopard male’s hand on his mate’s lower back, Sophia found herself the sole focus of Max’s perceptive near-black eyes, the eyes of a man who was used to stripping shields, unearthing the most deeply buried of truths. “Come on in,” he said, “unless you need to grab anything from your place? We should go over the details, make sure we’re on the same page.”

“Yes, I’ll retrieve my organizer.” The words came out calm, though her heartbeat had turned erratic. “It’ll take me only a minute or two.” Stepping to her door, she pushed through and picked up the small case she’d left on the coffee table. She should’ve walked straight back out, but she took a minute to breathe, to check her PsyNet shields for any minor fractures that might betray the swiftness with which her recent reconditioning had begun to degrade.

Satisfied that everything was holding for now and certain, too, that her secrets were safe from a cop who saw too much, she went to Max’s. His living area was empty. Assuming he’d gone to retrieve his own notes, she closed the door and took a seat at the small table in the dining alcove near the window.

She’d just opened her case when a huge black cat jumped onto the chair opposite, placed its front paws on the table, and looked at her with one gray and one brown eye. Physically startled, she nonetheless contained her reaction—that aspect of her conditioning was so much a part of her, it no longer took much effort to maintain.

The cat continued to stare at her.

Curious as to what the creature would do if touched, she extended a hand and brought her fingers to its nose. It sniffed at the leather-synth of her glove before proceeding to stare at her again.

“Ignore Morpheus.” Max walked back into the room and picked up the cat to drop him easily to the floor. The feline padded off, tail in the air. “He likes to stare people out.”

“I see.” She found herself following Max’s movements as he put some cat food and water into a split feeding dish. He’d changed into jeans and a black T-shirt that bared his arms, the color an austere contrast to the golden warmth of his skin tone. “Have you had any further contact from Bonner?”

Sleek black hair fell across his forehead as he shook his head and rose. “No.” A single harsh word. “Bastard’s probably waiting for us to crawl back to him.”

“He’ll wait a long time.”

To her surprise he said, “If I thought he’d tell us the locations of the bodies if I crawled, I’d do it without hesitation.”

The answer added another layer of complexity to his personality, made the fascination inside her grow. “Most males, especially those drawn to a career in Enforcement, would consider that an insult to their pride.”

“Pride is meaningless if you can’t keep your promises.” Washing his hands after making that cryptic statement, he wiped them on a towel and came to take a seat opposite her. “First things first”—all cop, not even a trace of the deceptive charm she’d seen in the doorway—“here’s what I know.” He recapped the situation. “Do you have any more information?”

“I don’t believe so.” She made herself concentrate on the screen of her organizer. “As far as I can tell from your summation, we were given identical files.” Except that hers had included an image of Max Shannon, an image she’d saved to an encrypted file.

Max leaned back in his seat, waiting to speak until she’d lifted her eyes to him. “Have you been to any of the scenes?”

“No. Kenneth Vale’s—the apparent suicide’s—apartment has been compromised to the point where it’s useless as far as any forensic examination is concerned,” she told him, having checked that with Councilor Duncan. “However, it was left intact to give Council psychologists a chance to examine it in case it threw any light on Vale’s personality. His suicide is considered an unusual case.”

Max narrowed his eyes. “You talking about the method he used to hang himself?”

“Yes.” Sophia couldn’t imagine the demons that would drive a man to choose such a long, tortuous form of death—if indeed, he had chosen his death. “I’ve been given the codes to access his apartment.”

“Good, we’ll go have a look. I’m guessing we’ve got nothing on the heart attack victim—file says he was cremated,” Max said, tipping back his chair.

“They would have taken samples of his blood, checked for—”

“I e-mailed Nikita from New York,” Max interrupted, “asked her about that. Seems like the samples have mysteriously disappeared.”

“Interesting.”

“Isn’t it?” He tapped his finger against the table, and it wasn’t a restless movement. “What about the car the third possible victim was driving when she had her accident?”

“It’s being held at a private facility here in the city.”

“Well, that’s something at least.” Scowling, he tipped his chair even farther back. “Would’ve been better if Nikita had called us in right away instead of waiting several weeks after the crash—but I guess she figured she could get to the bottom of it herself.”

Sophia couldn’t concentrate on his words, her attention held by something else altogether. “You’ll fall over if you keep doing that.”

He shot her an amused look, continuing to hold the precarious balance. “Used to drive my foster families nuts.”

His openness about being in the foster-care system was unexpected. And it made Sophia give in to the seeds of rebellion, to ask a question that a perfect Psy would have never asked. “You weren’t with one family long term?”

“No. Longest was six months,” he said easily, and tipped his chair back down on all four feet. “I assume Nikita had her techs check the vehicle out?”

She nodded, a strange realization taking form inside of her. Max hadn’t had parents either, not in reality. He was like her, at least in that way. She wanted to share that with him, with this man who’d seemed to
see
her from their very first meeting, but she didn’t know how, having no capacity or experience at building bonds with another individual. “Yes,” she said instead, harshly aware of how remote she sounded, how inhuman . . . as if she was already dead. “However, Councilor Duncan has authorized the expenditure required to get an independent report if you think it necessary.”

“I’ll decide that after I have a chat with the mechanic.” Pushing back his chair, he rose to his feet, the scent of his body—soap, warmth, something darker—sweeping across her senses. “But first—Vale’s apartment.”

“Alright.” She stood, aware her movements were not as graceful as his—her body felt jerky, disconnected. “If you’ll give me a moment to change out of my suit.”

“You had court this morning?” He reached out to open the door for her, the action making her pause for a second. Men never did things like that for her. It wasn’t because she was Psy—she’d watched any number of males do the same act automatically for all females. But they always seemed to want to distance themselves from the violence she wore on her face—as if they were afraid it was catching.

“Sophia?”

She realized she’d been quiet too long. “Yes?”

“How did the case go?”

“How it always does,” she said, unlocking her door with gloved hands that were a constant reminder of who she was, and who she’d be till the day she died—no matter the need to rebel, to break the chains of a past that refused to set her free, there could be no other tomorrow for her. “I told the judge and jury what I saw. That is all I do.”

Max watched Sophia disappear into her apartment and let out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding. The woman got to him, no doubt about it. And she got to him in a way that made a mockery of any thoughts he might’ve had about keeping his emotional distance.

Heading back to his bedroom with that truth circling in his head, he grabbed a black Windbreaker from his suitcase. It took only a couple of seconds to shove his cell phone inside and shrug into it—walking back out, he leaned against the wall opposite Sophia’s door as he waited for her to finish changing. It gave him a couple of very needed minutes to calm down.

And face the facts.

His body not only liked the idea of Sophia Russo, it liked the reality of her even more. She had lush, sensual lips, curves that made a man thank God—and she smelled so good he wanted to bury his face in her neck like the leopards did with their mates. But those eyes that had once reminded him of River’s laughing gaze . . . they were utterly flat, so lifeless he may as well have been talking to an automaton.

With most Psy, he would’ve accepted that lack as an inevitable side effect of their emotionless personalities, but with Sophia, he knew it had to be a carefully constructed lie. Because no one who’d seen the things Sophia Russo had seen, who’d walked in the blood-soaked footsteps of evil, could have remained unscathed by it.