Black As Night (Quentin Black Mystery #2) (35 page)

I FOLLOWED BLACK without looking at anyone, feeling like a shadow as I kept my head low and stood behind him, and away from any windows to the street.

I could feel Black willing my invisibility, so that was part of it.

Although he wanted me with him so he could shield my light, he didn’t really want me out in the open at all, a sentiment I couldn’t help sharing. His stress and hyper-consciousness of my visibility made me more paranoid than I’d maybe ever been in my life, however. After he parked the SUV in the parking lot behind the L-Tune Hotel and we crossed the parking lot to reach the back entrance to the lobby, Black’s tension and hyper-vigilance had me nearly sick with adrenaline, even before we reached the glass doors.

Even inside, after Black opened the door quickly and urged me to walk in front of him, I was half-afraid he’d shoot someone just for looking at me wrong.

Now we stood at the reception desk of the L-Tune Hotel, another hip-looking modern skyscraper with a pool on the upper floors, although no where near as tall or as high-end as the Hanu, where Black and his crew had been staying. It was located in more or less the same part of the city, however, and surprisingly close to where I’d eaten breakfast that morning, maybe only a ten minute drive down that main street.

I wasn’t sure if I found that comforting or unnerving.

Fah had already left, after leading us to a a long silver case she’d been guarding from one of the lobby’s plush chairs. Like I’d halfway expected, it was the same silver case that I’d picked up in baggage claim when I first arrived in Bangkok––the one Kiko instructed me to deliver to the Hanu Hotel the same day we picked up Black at the police station.

The case did a pretty good job of hiding its contents, even though it screamed “rifle” to me now that I had a strong suspicion of what likely lived inside it. I had to assume the leather bag Black handed me held ammunition. Since the case itself had to be custom built, I had zero reason to believe anyone else would know what lived inside it, even if they had a military or other professional background involving high-caliber weapons.

Fah also gave Black a dark shirt to wear over the gunshot wound in his shoulder. I’d stood there, holding the ammunition bag and not looking at either of them while she helped dress him in it. Even so, I felt his wince as she pulled it over his shoulders.

I couldn’t help checking out Fah as she disappeared through the glass doors, noting her form-fitting sky-blue dress and four-inch heels with a frown as she walked away.

I knew I was being ridiculous.

Worse, I was being catty, and for no reason.

Apart from helping him with the shirt, she’d spoken to Black quietly while she’d been there, laying her hand on his arm a few times. Never once did I get the sense she was messing with me, though, or implying anything romantic between the two of them. In fact, she looked openly alarmed when she saw me––and about to comment on my condition––when Black waved her off and muttered something about having her arrange for “transport” for everyone on his team, definitely for that day, but maybe not for a few hours.

She left even as Black made his way to reception, practically dragging me along with him by the wrist. I’d already seen him push a few people into looking away from me, in part because I looked like I’d been beaten up and dragged behind his car for a few miles. The blood that colored half of one of my yellow tennis shoes definitely didn’t help with that impression, much less the rope burns still visible on my wrists, or the fact that I was limping.
 

Unlike with Black, a new shirt wouldn’t have done much to help me blend.

Still, with one gentle shove from Black’s mind, they all looked away with smooth expressions. I watched their faces blank for a pause as they stood there––right before they went back to whatever they’d been doing before they noticed me.

I could tell Black was doing something to the woman standing at reception too, even from where I stood behind him, compulsively checking the doors as he held me gently so that he stood between me and the windows to outside.

“Yes,” he was saying to her. “The west side of the building. Something on the ninth or tenth floors...” His eyes slid slightly out of focus. “No, not that one,” he said, even though she hadn’t showed him anything that I could see. “No. No...do you have a corner room?”

I knew he was showing her a part of the building in particular; I could see the image in my head too, even as I felt the slight pressure he exerted on her. I watched her eyes glaze like the others, almost fascinated by the process by now.

Then her lips pursed and she was scanning her computer screen for rooms that met his modified specifications. After a few more seconds, she smiled.

“I think I have the perfect room for you, Mr. Black,” she said, sliding his obsidian black credit card off the counter in front of us with a smile. She swiped it through the reader on the side of her computer monitor, and handed it immediately back to him. “...1013. It’s a corner room, a suite, so I think you’ll be quite comfortable...”

I glanced up at Black, and could tell from his eyes that he was reading her to verify the line of sight. After another few seconds, his eyes clicked back into focus.

“Sounds lovely,” he said with one of his killer smiles. “Thanks so much...Lia,” he said, reading her name off the name tag she wore.

I rolled my eyes, fighting not to smack him again, and he glanced at me, aiming part of that smile at me, even as his eyes raked over me briefly.

That time, I bit my lip for a different reason.

I already knew how I looked, having glimpsed myself in the mirrored wall on the way in. I didn’t really want to do a point-by-point comparison with the woman on the other side of that counter, who was another gorgeous Thai woman about five years younger than me, with a perfectly made-up face done with flawless powder and red lipstick and wearing a low-cut green dress that matched the contact lenses she wore. She looked like she’d never emitted so much as a bead of sweat at any point in her life.

Seconds later, Black had two key cards for us and we were headed to the elevators.

He still kept me walking on the inside of him and away from the doors. Now that we had left reception, he was all business again. That cloak came down over me like a three foot wall, so dense I found it difficult to think my own thoughts.

When I tried, he gave me a sharp look.

“Stop fighting me, doc,” he said, glancing at me as he punched in the button for floor 10. “Just relax, okay? Let me overcompensate.”

He startled me then, leaning towards me swiftly and kissing me gently on the mouth. He began to raise his head, then seemed to change his mind. Bending down, he kissed me a second time, more lingeringly. There was a lot more heat behind that one.

“And stop getting jealous,” he murmured. “It’s fucking adorable and it’s distracting me.”

When I scowled at him he winked, then stroked my cheek with his fingers.

Briefly, his flecked gold eyes grew more serious.

“It’s also completely unnecessary, Miri,” he said, his voice softer.

Before I could get over my surprise at that, the doors pinged, opening in front of us. Black stalked out of the elevator with his usual, cat-like walk, holding the handle of the long case in one hand while I lugged the leather bag, tugging it back up to my shoulder when it slid down my arm. I started to follow him but he held up a hand, signaling me to wait. Jamming my thumb down on the “Open Doors” button, I did as he asked. Only after he’d scanned the hallway in both directions and checked a corner alcove did he wave me out of the car.

“Okay, doc.” His eyes never stopped searching the corridors.

Releasing the button I’d hit when he told me to wait, I followed him out when he motioned for me. The elevator doors closed pretty much the second I left the car.

We stood in front of 1013 not long after that.

He handed me the keycard, watching the corridors again as I opened the door.
 

Once inside, he made me wait by the entrance while he scoped out the entire suite. It seemed like I stood there for a long couple of minutes before he pinged me an all-clear.

“It’s okay, doc,” he called out. “You can come in.”

I walked into the living room, where he was already laying the silver case on the floor and flipping numbers on the combination lock to get it open, wincing as he jarred his hurt shoulder. He had it unlocked seconds later, and then I saw him unsnapping the catches and flipping open the hard lid.

He stood up briefly, pulling out chairs and then dragging an eight-foot dining room-sized table away from the longest of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the two-story suite. The place was bigger than my old apartment in the Richmond, I noted, glancing around––and probably intended more for families than couples staying here.

Once he’d cleared a space on the hardwood floor, he began assembling the gun.

“Is that an M-82?” I asked him, frowning.

“Modified, yes.”

I nodded. I recognized it from field training. But the barrel looked longer. And something was different about the way it connected with the receiver.

If he heard me thinking about it, he didn’t bother to answer my questions.

“Are you going to be able to fire it with that shoulder?” I said.

He gave me a faint smile. “Yes.”

Exhaling, I folded my arms, watching him fit the pieces together for a moment before I went back to scoping the layout of the suite.

A full kitchen and bar stood to my left, just past the end of the corridor that made up the foyer. A wraparound sectional sofa and a massive wall-mounted LCD television stood directly in front of me. To the left of the bar lived the bottom of the staircase to the second floor of the suite, and to the right of that was where Black had cleared a space to work on the floor next to floor-to-ceiling windows that stretched twenty feet overhead.

A corridor snaked off to my right, leading to what I assumed had to be the master bedroom and possibly a bathroom, since I’d heard the receptionist telling Black the room had its own private jacuzzi with a view of the river. Upstairs had to be more bedrooms.

I leaned against the bar next to the espresso maker, watching Black as he checked the bolt of the gun. Wanting to get closer, I started to walk in his direction.

He gave me a sharp look, holding up a hand.

“Stay where you are, doc,” he said. “You’re good right there for now.”

“Why?” I said, stiffly.

“I don’t want you near the windows.”

I let out a frustrated exhale. “Black. It’s not me he’s trying to kill.”

He shrugged, unmoved. “I’m not getting too close to the windows either,” he said, not looking up as he adjusted the scope on top of the rifle.

He pulled out the bipod legs on the front of the barrel, setting it on the cloth he’d placed on the section of hardwood floor he’d cleared at the base of the window. Lying down on the floor on his stomach, he slid forward, pressing the recoil pad on the stock against his good shoulder as he aimed the barrel at the opposite building––the same white, European-style building I remembered from our shared vision earlier.

He propped his hurt arm on one of the cushions from the couch, presumably to take some of the pressure off the muscles and joint as he used that as his trigger hand.

Settling his weight as he looked through the scope, he grunted. “...Or hadn’t you noticed I got us on the 10th floor, so he wouldn’t have direct line of sight?” he added, without looking up.

I had noticed that, so I didn’t answer.

Anyway, I could tell Black was still dealing with his own issues with everything that had happened today, if in his quieter yet arguably more violent way.

“I’ll need you over here in a minute anyway,” he added, gruff. “But stay behind me. And on the floor.”

“How do you plan to get him near the window?” I said, frowning. “He would think of this, you know. He’s not stupid.”

“Neither am I, doc. Just trust me okay?”

I nodded, getting a sliver of a snapshot off him that time. I still felt so entwined in him and his mind that I could feel pieces of what he intended. I still couldn’t feel anything about the deal he’d made with Anders though, so I knew he had some control over what he showed me.

When he finished with the gun, positioning it where he wanted it, he glanced at me again from where he leaned over the stock, motioning me towards him.