Under the Gun (4 page)

I raised an eyebrow and Nina rolled her eyes. “That’s a compliment.” She frowned.
“Okay, wait. Sampson was running the UDA all on the up-and-up or, you know, down-and-Underworld-y
for ages. Why weren’t the Sisters Grimm after him then?”

I frowned myself. “I don’t know exactly. Maybe he was just off their radar?”

“Well, there you go. Either you convince this Feng that Sampson is not the threat
she thinks he is, or we make sure to, once again, get him off their radar.” Nina was
proud, but I couldn’t even begin to hide my skepticism.

“Fine,” Nina said, wrinkling her nose. “Option number three? You can’t do a job that’s
already been done. Tell Feng that Sampson’s already dead.”

I sucked in a shaky breath. For some reason, I felt as though he already was.

 

 

I left the bathroom with the damp paper towel clasped against the back of my neck
and little droplets of cool water dripping down my blouse.
I’m in the clear
, I told myself as I zigzagged my way through the Underworld Detection Agency’s hallways.
They were crowded with the mid-afternoon rush, buzzing with hushed conversations,
and it may have been my imagination, but every conversation seem to get more hushed
or stop completely when I walked by. People turned to stare at me, their eyes dark
and accusing. I should have been used to being stared at this way, because as far
as blending in with my co-workers and surroundings? Well, that always got a big, fat
“needs improvement” on the monthly reviews.

Secrets or not, my breath made me suspect to some of the purist Underworld inhabitants.
The fact that demons and people tended to drop like flies whenever I was around turned
some off and wreaked havoc on my Match.com profile. And surely the fact that I was
practically running down the hall, doing my best to look nonchalant, was killing what
remained of my minuscule ability to fit in.

My body was humming with nerves, a beacon letting every Underworld demon know that
that was something going on and that something was big. My blood pulsed and a few
of Vlad’s VERM cronies turned to me. Slate-grey eyes looked through me. I heard nothing
but the thunder of my heart, the rush of blood as it coursed through my veins. I walked
in slow motion and the VERMers blinked at me. One slowly licked his lips. I knew it
was involuntary, the way I salivate over a newly opened package of chocolate marshmallow
pinwheels. The sound of blood, the pulse of my heart in its heightened state, was
appealing to them. Though eating humans—even the slightest nibble—is strictly against
UDA policy, it still skeeved me out to know that at any given time (especially times
like this), any number of my coworkers was imagining me on a plate with a parsley
garnish.

I needed to get out of the office.

By the time I made it to the elevator my nerves had begun to settle and I realized
that I was overreacting, that no one was staring at me or licking their lips. The
piped-in Kenny G ballad that struggled to cover the sounds of the aged, groaning elevator
was even soothing and I breathed deeply. I was perfectly calm, my heartbeat at a normal
pace as the elevator whisked me upward. I swayed a little bit. I whistled along with
Kenny G.
I
was going to bail Sampson out. Everything would be okay. I was going to be the hero
for once.

I smiled a little bit, imagining what my superhero costume would look like. Maybe
something with flames and that super-shaping spandex. Nothing too showy. I wondered
if Spanx made capes?

The elevator dinged and the big steel doors slid open, revealing the fluorescent glow
of the San Francisco Police Department vestibule and perfectly framing Alex Grace.

And just like that, my calm, cool countenance turned to quivering jelly.

I really could have used that super-shaping spandex.

I chewed on my bottom lip, trying to pull up some of the cool nonchalance that had
been sliding off me all afternoon. But regardless of my intellect or my personal soliloquies,
my body tended to have the uncanny ability to spring to hormone-pulsing life whenever
Alex Grace was around. Maybe it was his piercing, ice-blue eyes. Maybe it was the
chocolate curls that lolled on his perfect head and licked the top of his completely
kissable ears. Maybe it was the dual scars just under his shoulder blades—perfect,
silver-fleshed reminders of the wings that had once been there.

I fisted my hands, tried to call up my own personal
Rocky
theme song as I faced down the most perfect specimen of man or angel ever expelled
from the heavens.

His eyes flicked over me and he edged his chin in the universally sexy-man way of
saying,
Hey
. Then his voice came out, sinfully smooth. “Hey, Lawson, haven’t seen you in a while.”

My mouth instantly went Mojave dry, my every muscle sucking in on itself. I felt my
eyes dart, looking for some tiny wormhole through which I could escape.

It wasn’t that I wanted to avoid Alex per se; I had every intention of talking to
him the second I was ready. I just was hoping to be able to select that second of
readiness myself, ideally after some lengthy therapy, or at least when the memory
of me stepping out of Will’s apartment in the early morning and running into Alex,
his face creased with shock and dismay while we stood in an oppressive, awkward silence
that seemed to last the span of several lifetimes, was less distinct and raw.

I sucked in a shaky breath and tried to will the hot coil in my stomach to disappear,
tried to shake off the guilty prickle that climbed up the back of my neck.
Alex and I are broken up
, I tried to remind myself.
I’m a grown woman, and I can spend the night with whomever I want.
I might love Alex, but I’m certainly not in love with him.

Right?

Suddenly, my tryst with Will was feeling less like a lapse in judgment and more like
a mammoth mistake.

His grin deepened. “Cat got your tongue?”

Alex Grace was an angel—of the fallen variety. And sometimes I was sure that I had
crashed right along with him.

I pasted on my friendliest smile. “Hey,” I roared back.

His eyes widened and my cheeks flushed again in what I was certain was a candy-apple
red. Adorable on a bouncy brunette. Positively lobster-ish on a pale-fleshed redhead
like myself. “Sorry,” I said, lowering my voice.

There was a beat of awkward silence before Alex put his hand on the elevator door
and raised his eyebrows.

“What?” I asked.

“You coming out or were you just taking this puppy for a ride?”

“Right. I was just heading out.” I pointed to the door, in case he was questioning
my mode of exit.

“Me, too,” he said.

“But you were waiting for the elevator.”

“Checking up on me?” he said, falling into step beside me.

Maybe he isn’t upset with me
, I said, my body suddenly feeling light.
Maybe he’s going to ignore what happened and we can go back to being friends! Maybe
everything can go back to normal.

Before we hit the glass double doors, a voice called out. The chief of police had
tired basset hound eyes that zeroed in on Alex, then flicked quickly to me. “Grace!
Oh, hey, Lawson. Hey, man, we just got a call. Sutro Point. Double homicide. Looks
pretty bad.”

Oh, yeah. Things were definitely going to be back to normal.

Alex gave me a gentle push forward.

“See you later, Lawson.”

I flattened myself against the wall as officers surrounded Alex, giving him the lowdown
as their shoulder radios squawked and beeped. Alex’s shoulders stiffened, his eyes
on the officer in front of me. I took a few tentative steps closer, my head cocked
as I tried to listen. My stomach dropped.

“. . . bloodbath,” said one of the officers.

“Double homicide,” another one finished as he shrugged into his coat.

“The area is destroyed. Looks like a tornado hit it.”

The officers filed out into squad cars, kicking on lights and revving engines. Alex
went out the door toward his car and I followed, yanking on his arm.

“What’s going on?” I wanted to know.

“None of your business.” He didn’t meet my eyes, but I noticed how the color had drained
from his face. His jaw was set hard and that same muscle—the one that said he wasn’t
telling me the whole truth—jumped. I flipped on my heel.

“I’m coming with you.” I had the car door open when Alex turned the engine over.

“No, you’re not.” He kicked the car in reverse and I did a double hop, surprising
myself when I flopped down into his passenger’s seat, yanking the door shut behind
me. There was a faint smile on Alex’s lips as he looked over his shoulder, backing
us out at warp speed and throwing on the flashing lights.

“You really don’t understand the word no, do you?”

I shrugged, hoping he couldn’t hear the wild thump of my heart. “Seems like kind of
a waste to learn now. What’s going on, Alex?”

He pinned me with a hard glare. “Why don’t you tell me, Lawson?”

Heat surged over me once again and I jammed my hands under my thighs. “I mean right
now. This case.”

He swung back to stare out the windshield, negotiating the midafternoon traffic like
the SUV was a pinball. “Double homicide out by Sutro.”

“I thought they said bloodbath.”

Alex’s eyes flashed. “You were listening.”

I nodded. “The place was destroyed? Like a tornado?”

Alex’s eyes stayed fixed on the road in front of us, but I could tell he was thinking,
considering how much to tell me. His grip on the wheel, his white knuckles, told me
there was a lot to consider. “It’s police business.”

I narrowed my eyes, shooting him a steely glare. I was surprised when my hard look
softened him a touch. “Fine. As far as I know, right now it doesn’t look supernatural,
but it does look bad. Real bad. Which means you’re going to sit your pretty little
ass right here in this car while I go take a look.”

I was happy to have my ass acknowledged and happier still that it was preceded with
“pretty” and “little.” But it didn’t stop me from crossing my arms in front of my
chest and hitching my chin. “How do you know it’s not supernatural?”

He blew out a sigh. “Look, if I find any unicorn hooves, I’ll call you, okay? If I
weren’t in such a hurry I would have tossed you out of the car.”

“You still could have.”

“Before or after your
Dukes of Hazard
stunt?”

I thrummed my fingers on my thighs as Alex slowed for a light. “Hey, about the other
day.” I kept my eyes fixed on the dashboard. “When I ran into you in the hallway?
I was leaving Will’s apartment and it looked bad, but . . .”

I mustered up my courage to look Alex in the eye—or in the right ear, as he was staring
out the windshield—when he stepped on the gas and we blew through the intersection,
sirens echoing off the sky-high buildings all around us. I was pressed against the
leather seat with my heart firmly lodged in my throat and clawing toward the dashboard
to right myself when I heard the cackle and scratch of the dispatch radio.

“We’re almost there,” Alex barked into it.

He made no motion to acknowledge my speech—or my presence—as he banked a corner that
sent me sliding into the center console, the seat belt cutting against my chest.

I cleared my throat as the car and my heartbeat slowed. “As I was saying . . .”

“Oh, Christ.” Alex raked a hand through his ragged curls and snatched the radio with
the other. “I thought they were keeping this one under wraps.”

“We did our best,” the broken voice answered him. “But you know how it is. People
smell blood on the air and they come running.”

We pulled into the cracked parking lot that sat above Sutro Point, our tires crunching
against the gravel. I saw Alex’s jaw harden as he maneuvered the car through the crowd
of cop cars and emergency vehicles parked at angles. Civilian cars dotted the lot,
too, and every other inch of space was taken up by enormous news vans setting up makeshift
stations, their coifed and ready anchors stepping in front of cameras and painting
on suitably concerned faces as they launched into their monologues. A handful of onlookers
circled the anchorpeople and vied for their chance to wave on film; another cluster
was gripping the metal police barricades and craning their necks to peer through the
trees. The air was charged with palpable electricity; I couldn’t tell if it stemmed
from the fear or excitement of the onlookers but every inch seemed solid and static-filled.
A tense murmur cut through the crackling of police radios and the detritus of the
news teams; I hadn’t even left the car and I could feel the electricity pulsing through
me, the collective disquiet pushing painfully against my chest.

I glanced at Alex as he kicked open his car door and swung his legs out—the leg of
his jeans rode up over his ankle and I saw his gun holstered there. It gave me a little
shock but a weird sense of security. I scrambled out after him. He shot a look over
his left shoulder at me and cocked a brow, but seemed to think better of telling me
to get back in the car.

“Grace, Lawson.”

Officer Romero was standing on the other side of the yellow crime scene tape, beckoning
us with his blue, latex-gloved hands. Alex grabbed my elbow and yanked me through
the crowd.

“What’s going on?”

Romero stood just a few inches shorter than Alex, and where Alex filled out his black
T-shirt and jeans mercilessly with muscle that begged to be touched, Romero’s uniform
bulged with jelly donuts and dimples over his elbows. He wagged his head, then stroked
his scraggly black goatee.

“I’m not going to lie, Grace, it looks bad.” Romero lifted his chin toward me. “I
don’t think you’re going to want to go down there, Sophie. It’s just—” He looked at
me, his heavy shoulders shimmying under a small shudder. “It’s really messy.”

“She’s not going in. She’s going to stay here with you. Up here.” Alex’s eyes raked
over Romero, daring him to challenge, but Romero just broke into a grin.

“Good. I could use another set of eyes. Make sure them over there”—he jerked a thumb
toward a group of civilians pressing hard against the police tape—“stay back.”

“Can’t.” I shook my head and snatched a pair of gloves from Romero’s chest pocket.
“I’m going in.”

Alex turned and I followed him down the trail. “I don’t even know why I try,” I heard
him mutter.

“So fill me in,” I said, yanking on the gloves. “Tell me everything you know about
this case.”

Alex turned. “You know as much as I know. And I’ll let you take a look at this crime
scene, but that’s it. No more nosing into my business.”

There was real annoyance in Alex’s tone. I hadn’t expected it to cut me so deeply,
but it did and I felt a pang of sadness stab at my gut. I wanted to answer him, but
I was afraid to open my mouth and set forth a slew of blubbering explanations, apologies,
and pent-up frustration so I just nodded and followed him, my gloved hands raised,
doctor style.

There was a clearing in the brush where the trail veered off sharply, nosediving toward
the cliffs. The grass here was matted down and the vegetation was broken; the smell
of the foliage was heavy with something else, too, something overpowering and metallic.
I felt bile rise in my throat.

“Blood,” I whispered.

It hung heavy in the air, giving the usually calming stretch of forest an ominous,
sharp feeling. It stuck out against the crisp, refreshing air of the forest.

We wound through the trees and popped out in a clearing; the foliage was heavy but
shorter here, and I was able to spot slivers of the roaring ocean through the trees.
The scene would have been picturesque had it not been for the police officers, the
men in their white-lettered FORENSICS jackets, and the two sheeted bodies laid out
on the dirt. I sucked in a breath and steadied myself.

“Something came through here like a tornado.” Detective Campbell was standing with
his back to us, staring out over the ocean and speaking to no one in particular. He
was built like a fireplug with a basketball-shaped head that seemed to bleed into
his shoulders, into his thin white button-down shirt. He jammed his hands into his
pockets and spun around, shaking his head and clucking his tongue like we were dealing
with an errant teenager rather than a heinous crime scene.

My eyes followed his to the half circle of redwood trees that surrounded the clearing.
The bark was torn clean from one of them, and it looked as if someone had taken an
ax to the trunk, leaving four clean slice marks across it. The lower branches on the
surrounding trees and the suckers around that were mashed down and broken; the soft
pine underbrush was kicked up and scratched into two deep grooves.

“Grace!” Campbell’s face broke into a wide smile when he noticed Alex, and I snapped
to attention.

Alex shook Detective Campbell’s hand. “What happened?”

The smiled dropped from the detective’s face and he led Alex by the shoulder, stepping
cleanly over one of the sheeted bodies. My stomach twisted and the backs of my eyelids
pricked; someone was underneath that sheet and the detective
stepped over him
. Suddenly, strangely, I was overcome with sadness and I crouched down to brush off
the bits of pine needle and dust that Detective Campbell’s shoe had rained over the
body. My hand stopped, frozen, when I saw the bubble of blood seeping from beneath
the sheet. It moved in a slow river at first, picking up bits of debris from the forest
floor, then moving faster, pooling.

I felt the acid churning in my stomach and burning the back of my throat. My brain
commanded me to stand, to move, to run, but I was rooted to that spot and now everywhere
I looked was marred by blood—in smears and in pools, congealing, dirty, splattered.
The smell was overwhelming and my head felt heavy, my knees weak. I saw the forest
roll upward and the blue of the sky before Alex grabbed me. His hands were rough—one
around my waist and one on my upper arm—and I tried to right myself, but his lips
were on my ear.

“I told you to stay in the car.”

I shook him off and swallowed hard, willing my stomach to settle. “Wha—what happened
to them?” I asked.

Alex shook his head, waiting until I stood on my own before turning toward the detective.

“Any word—murder weapons, wounds, anything?” Alex nudged his chin toward the bodies
and Detective Campbell nodded, flipping open his black leather notebook.

“We don’t have positive IDs yet. So far, we’re fairly certain it’s two females, late
teens early twenties, maybe.”

“You’re ‘fairly certain’ they’re females?” I asked.

It was then I noticed the chalky bits of spit gathered at the corners of Detective
Campbell’s mouth. His skin was ashy. “It’s that bad.”

Alex put his hands on his hips, dropping into cop mode. “What are you thinking?”

“Wild animal, maybe. Never seen anything like it before. Not out here at least.”

Without warning, the detective leaned down and pinched one corner of the sheet, pulling
it up. I felt my eyes grow and every muscle in my body tightened, curled in on itself,
crushed my breath from my lungs. When Alex pressed a palm to the back of my neck I
leaned into it, loving the cool feel of his skin on mine. A breeze kicked up and sent
a shiver through me; I realized that my whole body had broken out into a bitter sweat
and I clamped my eyes shut instinctually, bent over at the waist.

“You okay?” Alex’s voice was a throaty whisper and I let him help me upright.

I cleared my throat, but my voice was still hoarse. “What happened to her?”

The detective dropped the corner of the sheet, but the image of the woman—decimated,
torn—was seared into my mind. Her skin looked like it had once been a flawless, pale
porcelain but was shredded into snarled ribbons now; what remained of her clothes
and stringy blond hair was blood soaked and caked with mud and pine needles. I gagged
when I realized that she hadn’t been placed so much as dumped—limbs next to torso,
torso next to head—and none of the limbs were attached.

I turned around and gagged, not caring who saw me vomit. I tried to keep my eyes open
because every time I pinched them shut, the girl—what remained of the girl—was burned
into my eyelids and I gagged again.

Alex rested his hand on the small of my back. “Are you okay, Lawson?”

I used the back of my hand to swipe at my eyes and nose, then spat on the ground and
used the bottom of my shirt to wipe my mouth. I nodded, still bent over, hands still
on my knees. “Yeah.”

When I straightened up I saw that Alex’s face was pale and his eyes were glassy. He
had been a detective for a long time and the crime scenes he was privy to were some
of the most gruesome, but this destruction was overwhelming.

“You don’t have to stay out here,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s nothing UDA
about this.”

“So you think this was, what? A mountain lion, black bear?”