Burn (2 page)

“No one will want her now.” He smiled and his teeth
were filmy with blood. “No one but me.”

“Officer,” Zebulon shrieked. “We need help in here!”

Zebulon had met Sumchai Wyatt once, when he had
moved the Wyatts into the farmhouse four years ago. He
saw nothing of the friendly, openly loving new husband
who had carried his wife over the threshold before disap
pearing into the bedroom to christen it as only happy
newlyweds could. The man with the sinister grin of sat
isfaction before him now was a lethal stranger in the
midst of killing his wife.

“Put the blade down, son,” Zebulon said. He slowly moved his hands in a gesture of supplication. “You don’t
want to do this.”

Sumchai turned and slashed at his wife, startling a
tiny shout out of Zebulon, who was relieved to see that
Sumchai had chopped off more of her hair and not her
flesh.

Though in the back of his mind Zebulon knew that
not even two minutes had passed since he’d sent Zeb for
the policeman, he wondered what was taking so long.
Mrs. Wyatt’s face was unrecognizable; so much blood
covered her torso, it was hard to see her wounds. She
didn’t have much time left, if she hadn’t already bled to
death.

Zebulon wished that a lamp or a chair remained in
the room, anything he could have used as a weapon.

P
hysically, he was no match for the taller, younger,
stronger, insane man, but that didn’t stop him from
rushing Sumchai when he clutched the knife in both
hands and raised it high above his head.

Zebulon’s momentum sent the knife flying and car
ried Sumchai off Mrs. Wyatt. The two men landed at the
base of the windows. Slippery as a greased eel with his
wife’s blood, Sumchai wriggled free of Zebulon’s hold and
nimbly leapt to his feet. On his hands and knees, Zebulon
scrambled for the knife, but Sumchai beat him to it.

Two seconds of indecision made the difference
between life and death, Zebulon was sure of it. Knife in
hand, Sumchai had spent two seconds, his empty eyes as
black as his spiky hair, staring between his wife and
Zebulon as if deciding who to gut first. Sumchai had
taken one step forward when a shot echoed off the walls
of the empty bedroom, dropping him to his knees.

Panting, the red-faced officer stood in the doorway,
his gun still trained on Sumchai. Zebulon scarcely heard
him speak into the radio clipped to his shoulder, calling
for backup and ambulances. He was only marginally
aware of Zeb, who took off his T-shirt to cover Mrs.
Wyatt. Sumchai fell forward, writhing in pain from the
wound in the back of his left thigh.

His hips, knees, hands, and back all at once
reminding him of his age, Zebulon sat with a protective hand lightly embracing the top of Mrs. Wyatt’s head, his eyes fixed on the frustrated rage frozen on Sumchai’s face
as he stared, unblinking, at the woman he’d once vowed
to cherish.

Swift, fluid, elegant, and powerful, the two men
engaged in a battle as captivating as an Alvin Ailey dance. A brisk sweep of a long leg took the taller man down, but
in an acrobatic display of agility, he rolled out of his
opponent’s reach and jumped to his feet. He answered
the takedown with a series of quick, blunt blows to his
opponent’s torso, but he pulled his punches, stopping
just short of making actual contact since this was only a
sparring match.

The encounter was convincing enough to stop the
progress of a woman walking past the plate-glass window
fronting the studio.

Catching a glimpse of her dark head shrouded in big
sunglasses and a filmy black scarf, the taller combatant froze. Before he could blink, before he could block or
dodge an oncoming blow, he found himself moving
directly into a hard fist as he tried to get a better look at the woman on the other side of the window.

A stinging lump warmed the point of his right cheekbone as he recovered, felling his opponent quickly with a
throw that put him in position to deliver any combina
tion of kill shots to his adversary’s head and chest.

The students kneeling in prayer positioned along the
edges of the thick vinyl floor mat applauded. He offered
a
hand to his sparring partner, the wide, loose sleeves of
their crisp white
gis
flapping like the wings of seagulls.

“Thanks for the match, Gian,” said the man who had
just gotten back on his feet. “Almost had you that time.”

“Good thing ‘almost’ doesn’t count,” Gian said
absently, his eyes scouring the street for the mystery
woman who had stolen his concentration.

* * *

She barely stood taller than the students buffeting her
as they exited the dojo, but with her head cloaked in a
sheer black scarf and wide black sunglasses, she stood out
among the seventh- and eighth-graders in their bare feet
and gleaming white
gis
. The little bit of her face that was
showing appeared much younger than her wardrobe indicated, though the resolute line of her full mouth reminded
Gian of the nuns who had taught him his ABCs.

His students performed hasty bows before exiting the
dojo, knowing that failure to show proper respect would
earn dozens of knuckle pushups at their next class. The
woman in the black scarf, clearly a stranger to the rules
and etiquette of a dojo, stepped onto the floor mats with
her shoes without first bowing, which stiffened Gian’s jaw.

His first thought was that she was a parent to one of
his students, but she looked nothing like the mothers
who sent their children to him twice a week to learn the
discipline and athleticism of martial arts. The desperate
housewives of Webster Groves, Missouri, wore their
b
leached, tinted, and processed hair in bobs or stylized
mullets. They didn’t cover their heads with funeral cloth,
particularly not in June, when the radiant heat of the sun
off concrete could cause third-degree sunburns. Exposing
their heavy, veiny thighs and flapping upper arms in
pastel ensembles of walking shorts and tank tops was typ
ical, which made the woman in black stand out even
more in her sensible khaki slacks and long-sleeved white
button-down.

“Is there somewhere we can speak in private?”

Her voice was deeper than he expected, and a bit
raspy. She was shorter than he, but not by much. If she
straightened her spine and relaxed her shoulders, she
would gain an additional inch or two, bringing the top of
her head even with his chin. Her clothes hung off her
slender frame but they suited her body type, and he won
dered if she’d had a sudden weight loss. His Italian
instincts kicked in—he didn’t even know her name, yet
he wanted to feed her.

“Mr. Piasanti,” the woman prompted, shifting her
head, presumably to meet his gaze through her dark
glasses.

“Sorry,” he said, refocusing his thoughts. “My office.
We can talk there.”

She followed him, each of her steps annoying the hell
out of Gian. Her soft-soled flats caused no physical
damage to the mat, but the lack of respect irked him to
the core. He led her out of the studio and down a short
corridor, past locker rooms for women and men—iden
tified only by Chinese symbols—past two more doors
a
nd into the spacious office at its end. He held the door
open for her. She turned her left shoulder inward to avoid
touching him as she moved past him and entered the
windowless office.

“Hey, boss,” greeted a dark-haired man whose mus
cular frame seemed too big for the swivel chair he sat in
behind a desk cluttered with stacks of papers,
Asian World of Martial Arts
catalogs, a pair of sparring mitts
and red ballpoint pens stamped with SHENG LI.
“Sionne can cover my five o’clock, so . . .”

The man seemed to lose his train of thought once his
eyes found the woman in black. He stood and rounded
the desk, his bare feet silent on the worn red and black
Oriental rug. “Karl Lange,” he said, offering a big hand
criss-crossed with thick veins. “Can I help you with
something?”

She cupped her elbows in her hands, her shoulders
drawing tighter as Karl’s close-set black eyes raked over
her. Karl moved closer to her, stroking his thumb over
the bare skin of his sternum, which was exposed by his
unbelted
gi
.

Perhaps subconsciously, the woman moved closer to Gian. “You’re in the attic apartment in the big Victorian
on Elm, right? My brother’s girlfriend’s father owns the
company that installed your security system. That’s some
package you got,” Karl said with a low whistle. “Ain’t even a housefly gettin’ in there without the right security codes.”

“If Sionne is covering your five o’clock, maybe you
should get going,” Gian said. Karl’s remarks left the
woman shivering, and illustrated one of the things Gian
h
ated about living in a small town—everyone knew
someone who knew your business. “If you want to get
good parking, you’d better get to the stadium early.”

“Good thinking, boss,” Karl said. “I’ll bring you a
souvenir.”

As he moved past her to the smaller desk in the corner
nearest the door, Karl stroked the woman’s arm. She
cringed, and Gian quickly ushered her into a chair, care
fully circumventing her personal space before taking a
seat behind the desk.

“What brings you to Sheng Li this after—”

The woman set a stack of bills on the center of his desk. Her touch had been delicate, but the sudden sight of the pile of cash jolted Gian.

“I’d like to take private lessons,” she said plainly.
A low chuckle issued from the desk near the door.
“Get the hell out, Lange,” Gian ordered.

“Sure thing, boss.” Karl picked up his yellow and
black duffel bag. “Enjoy your private lesson.”

Gian didn’t reply, and he and the woman kept their silence until they heard the front door of the studio open
and close.

Gian leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers
over his abdomen. “There’s a schedule out in the front lobby detailing the times for adult instruction. I offer a
variety of classes that would fulfill your personal defense,
strength and conditioning, and competitive fighting
interests. Classes start as early as seven in the morning
and end at six. I’m sure you’ll find something that will fit
into your schedule. You should take a look—”

S
he grabbed the cash and was rising from her chair when, faster than she would have believed possible had she not felt it, Gian caught her wrist. Her startled gasp
earned her release. She dropped the money back on the
desk.

“I’m sorry,” Gian hastily said. “I shouldn’t have . . .
You don’t have to run off.”

“If you don’t offer private lessons, I have no interest
in pursuing study here,” she said, a slight tremble in her
voice. “I need to start right away. Thank you for your
time.” She swallowed hard. “May I go now?”

“You don’t need—”

He had started to tell her that she didn’t need his per
mission to leave, but the longer he looked at her, the
more he realized that perhaps she did.

She sat the way she stood, as though she wanted to
take up as little room as possible. Her hands trembled
despite the warmth of the room, and she constantly,
nervously, plucked at the edges of her scarf, making certain that as much of her head and face was covered as
possible.