Lyn Benedict - Ghosts & Echoes

“I thought you’d decided that was a dead end, that I’d sent you all on a snipe hunt.” She swallowed hard, took a gulp of her own cooling coffee to ease the constriction in her throat. This stupid case—she’d be glad to be rid of it, to sic Suarez on the kids, except Zoe was one of them. And Zoe didn’t have a high-powered legal retainer on her side. It made Sylvie brittle-tempered.

“So you haven’t found Zoe. But you came here anyway? To do what? Collect on the favor? To thank me for putting you on the right track?” She was getting shrill, knew it, but seemed unable to stop it. If Demalion had broken down last night, she was doing so here and now, with a cop for a witness. Sometimes, she hated her life.

She lunged out of her chair, started another pot brewing just to give her something to do. His eyes on her back made her itch the entire time, and she turned, pressing her back against the edge of the Formica counter, using that thin line of discomfort as a vital focus point.

“Are you playing offense or defense, Shadows?” He leaned back in his chair, dark eyes lingering on her throat, where she knew her pulse was visible. “It makes a man wonder what you have to hide.”

Her heart thumped; the bitter black coffee she’d gulped churned in her stomach.

“I spoke with Lisse Conrad, who admitted to hiring you. She said you knew where some of the stolen property was but wouldn’t tell her. She thinks you’re working a kickback, splitting the reward with the finder.”

“Bitch,” Sylvie muttered. “I should have charged her more.”

“We tracked you to the Alvarezes,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, hadn’t objected at all. “This time, she decided to talk to us. She gave us the story about her car, and a piece of jewelry.”

“What’s your point?” she asked. “I’m glad you got the brooch back, glad you got a lead. Now I can hand the entire damn thing off to you. It’s not like I don’t have other cases going.”

“Your Chicago cop? UFOs in the Everglades?”

“I have you to thank for that showing up on my doorstep? Remind me to send you a fruit basket.” Her surprise did what nothing else had, got her mind off the panicked Zoe track. If he’d had something on her sister, he would have mentioned it by now.

He tipped sugar into his coffee, stirred it by rotating the cup. “I sent her case to you for a reason.”

He pushed the chair at her again, and she leaned back against the counter, put her foot on the chair rung. Her apartment, dammit, no matter that he seemed determined to play the host.

“To annoy me?” The chair nudged her foot, and she moved out of range, put her back to him, and banged a skillet onto the stove. Never mind that her fridge held only a single slice of leftover pizza in it, and nothing else.

It wasn’t that she was looking for a way to renege on their deal. She had promised him answers; she would honor that—as soon as he found Zoe—but it wasn’t going to be as simple as telling him what had happened. Explaining the satanists’ fate was going to require showing as well, and that would eat time. Add in the minutes, hours, days, lost to making him believe her? She just didn’t have that kind of time.

He rose, his shifting weight making the floor creak, and she turned. His eyes, like his son’s, were mismatched, one greenish, one brown. It made her uneasy to look at them—older, wiser, the eyes Rafael should have had, if he hadn’t started his love affair with black-magic masochism.

Zoe, she thought with a lurch, could end the same way.

He leaned in, resting his hand beside hers on the counter. “I’m not stupid, Shadows. Very few cops are. We see things in the city most people never imagine. We see the very worst of human nature. But there are other things we see. Things I think you have seen.” He leaned closer still, coffee on his breath, and too much awareness in his eyes. “Things I think you’ve killed .”

She shoved him back, thinking this was what came of asking him for a favor. “Get it through your head. I didn’t kill the so-called satanists who killed Rafael, though by god, I wish I had.”

The ugly truth in her voice drove him back a step, then Wright was there in the opening between living room and kitchen, trying for casual, but his spine and shoulders stiff, saying, “Heard pots and pans. We eating breakfast in? Only I thought we had an appointment.”

“Time got away from me. Sorry,” she said. “If you’ll excuse us, Lio?”

Suarez stepped away from her, studied Wright head to toe, and said, “Well, you do take care of your clients, don’t you?”

“Beneath you,” she said. “The door’s that way. Go find Zoe, and we’ll talk.”

“We’ll talk now, Shadows. You’re just going to have to be late.”

“I can’t imagine you have anything to say that interests me,” she said. She headed toward her bedroom and a change of clothes.

Wright’s widening eyes gave her warning, and she blocked Suarez’s attempt to grab her shoulder with a supple torso twist, came around and seized his thick wrist in her hand, nails one step from drawing blood. “I really don’t have time for this,” she said.

Suarez said, “Señora Alvarez said you left her with the impression that Isabella Martinez was the thief, or one of them. She said you went inside and spoke to the girl. Is she involved? Mrs. Alvarez believes it so.”

He held up a hand in Wright’s direction; without looking at Wright, Sylvie knew the conflict written on his face—defend Sylvie or defer to the local police.

“Ask Bella”—and that was a slip she could ill afford: familiarity with a suspect—“if you’re so curious.”

“Her parents are in the Bahamas on business. We’re waiting for the family lawyers to get in touch with them, then with us. But the Martinezes’ housekeeper says you went through there like a house on fire. Lots of shouting, and you took something away. Something I doubt was stolen goods. Tell me what it was.”

“I’m not the sharing type,” Sylvie said. She reined in her brittle control, dropped her hands first to her sides, then slid them behind her back, trying to look less confrontational. It might work better, she thought, watching his eyes narrow, if she wasn’t known for carrying a SOB holster.

His hands fisted at his sides, then relaxed. “Tell me one thing, Shadows. Tell me my instincts are right. That this burglary is more than it seems. More like the UFO abduction. Something that needs your skill set. Give me that, at least, and I’ll back off until you call.”

Sylvie could give him that. She nodded once. “Stay out of it, Suarez. It’s not safe.”

“All right. I’m gone for now. I’ll bring your sister back. Then we’ll talk.”

Wright winced as the man bumped the briefcase on his way out, tipping it over. Sylvie, who knew it was locked, was more sanguine, at least until it hit the tile and popped open a tiny bit, releasing the scent of spoiled milk and dead flesh into the room. Luckily, it coincided with Suarez’s opening the apartment door on a wash of fresh summer air.

She saw him to the open stairwell, then pounced on the briefcase with a muttered curse that was more bluster than emotion. This was a problem she could solve. “Wright!”

“Yeah,” he said.

“There’s a roll of duct tape in the drawer next to the fridge. Get it? Oh, and the salt.”

Wright, heading for the tape, paused. “Salt?”

“Yeah. I should have done it yesterday, but I’m not a witch. Don’t think like one.”

He brought her the tape, the salt dispenser. She shook it thoughtfully, wondering if she had enough.

“Hold that end,” she said, passing him tape. She popped the lid on the shaker, exposed the sticky side of the tape, and laid down a thin line of salt along its length.