Alexandra Sokoloff - Book of Shadows

Naked, he eased into the hall, his heart pumping hard. It was dark, but there was a light at the end of it, dimmer than the living-room light would have been. In the kitchen, then…

He stopped at the end of the hall, pressed against the wall, and steadied his weapon as he strained to hear.

There was a soft, hydraulic swish. Refrigerator?

He carefully stuck his head around the wall of the hall to survey the dark living room. No one. Then he crossed the hardwood floor in swift steps, stalking barefoot, holding the Glock in a double grip before him, and peered around the separating wall into the kitchen.

Carolyn stood at the refrigerator, blond hair cascading around bare golden shoulders. She wore nothing but a clinging cream silk teddy and held a dripping bottle of Cristal, and looked as out of place in his little kitchen as a runway model in a trailer park double-wide.

She swiveled on showgirl legs, surveyed Garrett’s Glock and his nakedness, and smiled a cat smile. “I hope you got some sleep. We have celebrating to do.”

She poured champagne into the two flutes she held carelessly in her left hand and walked barefoot and pedicured across the kitchen tiles to him. She stopped in front of him and gently pushed the gun aside. “Sorry,” she said briefly, barely glancing at it. She put a glass in his hand and clinked her own against it, then drained the flute as she leaned forward against him. There was nothing but the thinnest silk between his now aching hardness and the warm wet of her. Garrett ground himself forward as he drained his glass, then pushed her against the counter, pushed the silk aside, and eased the length of his shaft into her. Carolyn laughed deep in her throat and wrapped one sleek thigh around him as he bent her back on the counter, tearing the silk of her teddy down, exposing lush breasts that he pressed his palms into, feeling hard nipples against his hands as he thrust; spearing, slamming, into the wet suction of her cleft. He moved his mouth to her breasts, sucking greedily as he clutched the globes of her ass and his aching cock plunged deeper and deeper and she gasped into his ear. And as he ground himself into her, he had a flash of dark hair spilling on creamy skin and a gleaming dagger between perfect breasts and the thought made him explode in molten, volcanic waves, with an inarticulate cry as he collapsed into Carolyn’s heat.

He woke again, this time to full and painfully bright sun. He knew from the angle that it was way past dawn; it was not the shiny brightness of morning, but used daylight, afternoon daylight.

Waking more, he realized he was alone in bed. Carolyn was long gone, leaving a lingering scent of Dolce & Gabbana on the sheets. Her last words, before he’d dropped into a black abyss of sleep, had been, “I think you should meet my father.” And exhausted as he had been, Garrett had registered the words with an electric thrill.

Now, turning the idea over, he understood that he had passed some test, had graduated to a new level. Meet the family.

He lay back on his pillow, marveling. This was turning into a hell of a fall. Even though all of this—the high-profile nature of the case, the apparently quick solve—was partly just luck. Then again, luck was possibly part of the ongoing test, with Carolyn. He suspected luck was toward the top of Carolyn’s internal list of non-negotiable requirements.

The thought gave him a twinge of discomfort he didn’t want to look at, so he glanced at the clock instead. 3:00. That was P.M., which meant he’d slept nearly thirty hours, minus, of course, their little interlude.

But for once he didn’t feel any jolt of tension, of urgency to be somewhere. He stretched, savoring the feeling—and the warm fragrance of perfume and sex.

It’s not that they could stop working, never that. But the investigation had entered a new phase, a slower phase. Now they had to build an airtight case (unless the charging package proved to be enough to force a plea, which neither Garrett nor Carolyn thought was likely).

And they had time. Justice was slow. Realistically, after the arraignment, Jason Moncrief’s trial would not be for months. There was no longer that urgent rush…

The word Samhain flickered briefly in Garrett’s mind, spiking his pulse.

But he immediately shut down the thought. He would prove Jason did it, beyond a shadow of a doubt, and that would be that. There would be no replays, no more killing. Their suspect was in custody. The world was safe.

He threw back the bedclothes and stood.

It was 5:00 P.M. before he rolled into Schroeder, and Landauer had barely preceded him. The big man looked him over knowingly. “You look relaxed, this fine evening, Rhett.”

Garrett allowed himself a small indiscretion. “Yeah, I just about got myself relaxed into a coronary.” He grinned at Landauer, the cat who ate the canary.

“Wild women,” Landauer said. “Rich, connected wild women,” he added. He looked pretty relaxed himself. Land didn’t talk much about his wife except the obligatory marital bitching, but there was no bite to the barbs. Garrett knew that—except for the smoking—Bette kept the big man in line, and that was saying a lot.

The newly relaxed partners headed for the lieutenant’s office, and not even the prospect of facing Malloy could take the swagger out of their steps.

“What’s on the agenda for tonight?” Malloy began coolly, without preamble. So much for that brief flash of goodwill. Garrett reined in his thoughts, kept his face carefully neutral.

As Carolyn had predicted, there would be no getting in to see Jason, and his high-powered lawyer had also denied requests to interview the family, not that there was much of one. The gag order was frustrating, but it made sense to Garrett. No lawyer with a single brain cell in his head would want anyone questioning that kid.

He answered Malloy, his voice level. “We interview potential corroborating witnesses: Moncrief’s bandmates. I want to establish an ongoing threat to Erin Carmody.” I want someone to give me incontestable proof he did it, he thought to himself silently. I want to hear someone say,“Yeah, it was him.”

I want to believe it.

“Good,” Malloy sniffed, shuffling files so he wouldn’t have to meet Garrett’s eyes.

Fuck you, Garrett told him silently. I’m on the rise, and you know it. You can kiss my shapely Irish ass, and sooner than you think. You keep that chair warm for me, L.T.

“Yes, sir,” he said aloud, and followed Landauer out.

Garrett had found regular band rehearsals listed on a calendar taken from Jason’s desk drawers. Instead of calling ahead the partners decided to just show up; the element of surprise had worked in their favor before.

The rehearsal space was in a warehouse near Kenmore Square, on a dicey side street just a stone’s throw from Cauldron. Jason’s bandmates were far less eerie in person than they appeared in the poster and on the cover of the CD, really just eighteen- and nineteen-year-old kids with dyed hair and black clothes—and none had Jason’s feral charisma. The long-haired keyboard player, Todd Hartlaub, was cute in a puppy-dog way that probably netted them a sizable number of young female fans, and he did the talking for the other two: a bassist who was a good six and a half feet tall, with black-rimmed glasses and huge hands, a cross between Ray Manzarek and Tommy Tune; and a spaced-out drummer, mop-haired and clearly, hopelessly stoned.

“When was the last time you saw Jason?” Garrett began.

The boys looked around at each other. “Two weeks,” the keyboard player answered. Front man, Garrett thought.