J Duncan - Deadworld

“Don’t worry, Nick. She’ll be fine once you get her out there and in a bed.” He chortled at his own wording the moment he finished. “Sorry, didn’t mean it quite that way.”

Nick gave him a feeble grin. “I wasn’t even close to taking it that way. I think she would prefer to strangle me at the moment.”

“Probably right,” John said with an amused shrug. “Glad she’s at your house and not mine. She’s on vacation the second this case is done.”

She needed that vacation now. Yesterday. Nick could not help wondering to himself if Jackie would even make it to the end of this case. Emotional stress was particularly hard to manage if you were physically hurting. He knew that well enough. “She really needs it.”

“Nick,” he said, laying a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “You’re absolutely sure this Drake guy is not going to come anywhere near your place?”

He nodded once. “Trust me, John. He’s too close to the end, and he won’t risk mucking his plans to come after one little beat-up FBI agent on the off chance I get lucky and get him. She’s safe.”

“Okay, thanks. This is just a little against protocol, but we don’t really have one when it comes to dealing with vampires.”

Nick shook his hand and left to track down Jackie. This is just a little against my protocol as well.

A little demon inside Jackie’s head continued to jab his pointy little fork at her skull. His cousin lanced her ribs with a shish kebab skewer on every breath, and some torturous little bastard with hot coals and a cheese grater was telling her to keep the knee still or else. Mostly, however, it was the notion of going to sleep at Nick’s. Why had she agreed to such a stupid idea? Grief. It had to be the only logical explanation for thinking that napping at the vampire’s pad was a good idea.

He stopped at her apartment so she could pick up extra clothing, and grabbing a few things from the bathroom gave Jackie time to actually look at her reflection in a mirror for the first time since the attack at Cynthia’s house. “God, I really look like shit.” Then again, that was probably a better state of affairs when hanging with a vampire. Maybe the attraction for blood was less if you were unattractive. “Nuts,” she muttered and grabbed the small bag with a brush, toothbrush and paste, and deodorant. “I’m completely fucking nuts.”

Outside the bathroom, Jackie realized there was a dent in her wall. She could not even recall how it had gotten there. She fed Bickerstaff an extra-large bowl of cat food with some tuna mixed in, scooped his cat box, and marched back out the door with her duffel. The sky was threatening, storm clouds rolling in from the west. There would be rain. All the better, Jackie figured. It suited her mood.

The rain had begun to fall by the time they reached Nick’s, and the misty drizzle, along with the fading, late afternoon light, gave the house a warm, inviting look. Fucker. Why couldn’t he live in a shitty, two bedroom apartment like every other lowlife private dick?

Fortunately for Nick, he had kept quiet the entire trip out, letting Jackie doze, her head propped against her hand. She had been ready for him to say something, anything remotely tactless, and give her a reason to tell him to fuck off, but he had not. He had known to leave well enough alone. He said nothing until the clunk of the garage door behind them made Jackie jump in her seat.

“I’ll take your bag into the spare room and get things situated for you.”

Jackie looked at his hand as if he held a cockroach in his palm. “I’ll hold on to it, thanks. Just show me the room, and I’ll get my couple hours. Then you can turn around and take me back downtown.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself, Jackie, but there is no way you will be back up in two hours.”

Opening the door, Jackie stepped out of the car. “It looks a lot worse than it is, believe me. I’ve been worse off and been just fine.” The look Nick gave her, staring at her with those luminous eyes, clearly stated his opinion on her assessment. “Fuck you. I’ll be fine. I didn’t need to come out here.”

He stepped around the car and opened the door into the house for her. “Then why did you?”

“Because…” The reason escaped her for a moment, lost on her while she stood in the doorway beneath the arch of Nick’s arm. “I had no choice.”

“Fair enough. You want anything to drink? Tylenol? I have some with codeine around here you could use.”

“Nothing a shot or two of tequila wouldn’t fix,” Jackie muttered and stepped inside. “I’m fine, thanks. Just show me the damn room.”

“Go through the entry and down the hall. Second door on your left.”

Jackie made an effort to avoid limping as she proceeded across his house, but gave in after several steps and continued with the limp. Did she really have to prove herself to him? No. It didn’t fucking matter what he thought. She just needed to get a little energy back, and then they could get back out and find that bastard Drake. They had to. Some little eight-year-old’s life was depending on her to figure things out before it was too late.

The room had more of the same craftsman-style furnishings, a double bed with a heavy head- and footboard, a large leather-covered chair in a corner, and a bookshelf filled with more Old West knickknacks. The man could open a tourist shop with all the shit he had around his house. Jackie tossed her bag on the chair, kicked off her shoes, and sat down heavily on the down comforter covering the bed. The instantaneous relief made her groan. Nick showed up at that precise moment, a bottle of something in his hand.

He had a vague smile on his face. “You still think two hours?”

“I’m setting the alarm on my phone,” she snapped back. “I’ll be up. Take my fucking phone, and I’ll kill you.”

Nick put two shot glasses down on the nightstand next to the bed and poured from a bottle of Patron tequila. “This bed will spit you back out when it’s good and ready. I’m guessing four hours minimum. Here,” he said, handing her a shot. “It’ll take the edge off.”

“You know your tequila at least.”

He nodded, raising his shot to her. “I’ve had my share. Here’s to reaching the ends we seek and to better days.”

Odd thing to toast, but Jackie could argue with neither. “Thanks.”

Nick poured one more shot in her glass and headed for the door. “See you when I see you, Jackie. Get some rest.” He closed the door behind him.

Jackie stripped down to panties and a T-shirt and pulled back the comforter, revealing burgundy flannel sheets smelling faintly of lilacs. Not exactly the smell she would have associated with Nick Anderson. More of an oak-and-leather kind of guy, she thought, setting the alarm on her cell phone for two hours. Five thirty PM. They could be out of there by six, hit a Burger King on the way in, and be downtown, good to go, by seven.

Slipping beneath the sheets, Jackie moaned with pleasure at the softness enveloping her body. It felt like the bed was wrapping itself around her. “Goddamn,” she said and reached over to turn up the volume on her phone. She downed the other shot of tequila and sank back into the feather pillow with a heavy sigh. Jackie slept before the warmth from the shot had faded from her throat.

She woke with a gasp in near darkness, the sounds of someone thrashing in water fading quickly from her foggy brain. She swore and reached over to pick up the phone, its screen glowing faintly in the dark. It read 9:37 PM.

“Son of a bitch!” She sat up and swung her legs out of the bed, feeling a bit light-headed. Leaning up to reach the lamp on the nightstand, Jackie put pressure on her injured knee. For a moment she thought something hard tore itself right off the bone. “Oh, goddamn.” An instant later Jackie was on the floor, all her weight shifted to the other side of her body.