Vicki Pettersson: The Scent of Shadows

Ajax shot a condescending look my way. “Does it matter?”

I didn’t suppose so. I moved on to something that did. “And how did you find me?”

“Let’s put it this way: you bear a striking resemblance to another of our enemies.” And he chuckled, clearly intent on being vague.

As we rounded another corner, my steps only a fraction ahead of his, I noted pockets of people lounging along the perimeter of the wide carpeted hallway, some reading papers and sipping tiny cups of espresso, others conversing quietly in groups of threes and fours. Most, I saw, wore badges, stragglers from whatever that day’s convention was. Unfortunately, none of them looked like they could stop the bus, much less a maniac with a blade.

“Turn here,” Ajax said, indicating the marble alcove housing the garage elevators. He placed his right hand, his killing hand, on my shoulder, ensuring that I did so.

I know it may not have seemed like it, but this was what I wanted. I’d trained in contact combat for so long that such openings were glaring and instinctive. This was my chance, and I’d get only one.

Yanking my shoulder easily from beneath his grasp, I half turned, half stumbled, and pointed my wineglass at him. Slurring my words, I yelled, “Pervert! Don’t ever touch me again!”

Papers were lowered, eyes raised, heads turned. Visitors to Vegas were always ready for a show, and public domestic disputes were a popular spectator sport. I played up my Jerry Springer moment for all it was worth.

“By the way, I lied when I said your brain stick wasn’t that small!” Sloshing what remained of my wine on Ajax’s suit, I met his murderous look with a contemptuous one of my own. Then I reeled away, slammed into the corner of the wall, tripped, and sprawled inelegantly across the marble floor.

Everything happened fast after that. An elevator door chimed. Ajax growled. A woman screamed. And I rose to my knees, the stem of my shattered wineglass clenched firmly in my fist. Grabbing me by the shoulder again, Ajax whirled me around, and as he did, I buried the crystal shard deep into his neck.

His growl scuttled off into a strangled gurgle, and his eyes went round with shock and pain. He still had the wherewithal to lift his blade, the bastard, but my training and fury had taken over, and I slammed the heel of my palm into his nose, driving it with the force of a woman who knew how to put her hips and shoulders into a blow. He’d have a fuck-all time of breathing now.

I took out his left knee with my heel and he cried out again, crumpling to the ground like a marionette’s abandoned toy. Only a top-notch surgeon would help him walk again. I wanted to do more, and I had a clear shot at his kidney. Remembering the joyous smile of the woman he’d threatened to kill, I reared back pitilessly and aimed the strongest part of my body into the center of his being. I kicked—

And missed. Something, someone, slammed into me and I backpedaled madly, but couldn’t regain my balance in three-inch heels. I would have crashed into the steel doors behind me except the elevator had opened, and instead I was wheeled into the mouth of the car, along with my new attacker. I grunted as the wall broke my fall, knocking the breath from my body.

Ajax was struggling on the floor against two men in black suits, fighting to reach me, his killing hand stretched toward me. His smell was strong in my nose—sooty hatred and soured defeat—and his pain and his fury were top notes, burning off hot and fast. Then the elevator doors shut. I was free of the abominable Ajax, but trapped inside a steel box with, beneath, and against a new and unfathomable threat.

Very few things are certain in this world, even fewer when the adrenaline and heat of a combat situation are still on the rise. As the elevator ascended, here’s what was certain. The person pinning me against the wall was male. He outweighed me by at least fifty pounds. And as soon as I got an opening, he was going to lose his left nut. The man crowded in close, as if he knew it too.

We jockeyed for position, me trying to gain enough space and distance to land a forceful blow, him defensive, but doing nothing to launch an assault of his own. I didn’t care. I wanted out; out of his grip, out of this box. Out of this whole nightmare. Gradually, though, his voice penetrated the fog of anger and fear that kept me swinging.

“Stop fighting! It’s okay. You’re safe…” He gasped this, struggling to shield his family jewels. “C’mon, Jo-Jo! I’m not going to hurt you!”

Jo-Jo. Only one person on this earth had ever called me that. I looked up, shocked, into a face I hadn’t laid eyes on in almost a decade. And froze.

Is it possible for a heart to plummet and swell at the same time? Because I swear that’s what mine did. I sagged against the wall, and the body I’d trained to be so capable and strong was suddenly shaky and faint.

I spent a moment more cursing my traitorous, overactive, estrogen-ridden, double-X-chromosome-carrying hormones. Then I turned and soaked in the sight of my first lover.

His features were more angular and defined than I remembered, though his expression was one I was intimately familiar with—intent gentleness. He had a scar just below his hairline, which must have required stitches, and I wondered briefly how it’d gotten there. Dark hair curled over the collar of his shirt, not too long to keep him from looking respectable, but long enough that he could be a chameleon if he chose. I’d always loved those wild curls, and my fingertips twitched as I looked at them.

He was taller than the boy I’d last seen; wider too, but the hips locking me in the corner of that elevator car were still slim as daggers beneath tight black jeans, and his scent was the same heady mixture of spice and soap and musky heat that had always held me captive.

Like Pavlov’s dog, I damned near started to salivate.

“Hello, Ben,” I said, resisting the impulse to reach out and smooth an errant lock from his forehead. It was a pretty anticlimactic greeting after so many years. I swallowed self-consciously, aware his eyes had yet to leave my face. He was studying me, I knew, in the same way I’d studied him, and I managed a shaky smile and tried for something with a bit more flash. “That’s a hard…badge you’ve got there.”

He pulled away quickly, shifting so his chest was no longer touching mine, and I was instantly sorry I’d said anything at all. Staring down at the badge like he’d forgotten it was there, Ben shook his head as the elevator dutifully rang the fifth floor. The doors opened to the parking garage, and it was suddenly, oppressively, quiet.

“Christ, Jo,” Ben said, breaking the silence. “Are you okay?”

In the years since he’d last asked me that question, I’d become an expert at taking care of myself…and Ben had become a cop. One didn’t need a psychologist to tell you neither result was surprising. I’d been on my back in the ICU that first time, and he’d been sobbing, his adolescent face contorted with tears and guilt. But I knew Ben better than most, or had at one time, so I also knew regardless of what had happened to me—to him, and to us—a cop was what he was always meant to be.

Opening my arms in a courageous gesture that said “see for yourself,” I discovered I couldn’t stop them from shaking, and crossed them quickly over my chest. Still, I was obviously unharmed.

“God, when I saw that knife…” He lowered his forehead to the wall, shut his eyes, and let out a breath so deep he could have been holding it for years. He recovered himself almost immediately, though, straightening to his full seventy-four-inch height. “If I’d known the guy was armed I would have told my team to move sooner.”