Crazy in the Blood (Latter-Day Olympians) (2 page)

“Excuse me.” I choked, racing for the sink.

I tossed my cookies, every last one from Yiayia’s special snickerdoodle care package. They weren’t nearly as good coming up with a chaser of bile. I ran water down the drain and grabbed some in my cupped hands to rinse out my mouth. I wished my mind was as easy to scour, but it would take the world’s most impressive roll of mental floss to rid myself of those scream-scene images.

“Gum?” I heard from behind me.

I whirled on them. “Oh yeah, that’ll make it all better.”

“It’s for us,” Rosen said, “so we don’t have to smell your breath while we talk.”

What the hell do you say to that?

“Sit,” Holloway ordered. “It’ll pass.”

I sat, but only because my body told me it was a damned good idea. I was shaking and my knees had gone to Jell-O. “Those people weren’t just killed, they were shredded,” I said.

“Yup,” Rosen agreed. “Holloway lost his lunch, same as you. That’s how I knew to bring the gum. You ready to talk to us now?”

Well, hell, they’d already seen the contents of my stomach, what more did I have to hide? I told them what I knew. Oh, not the god part of it. The way I spun it, Zeus, Poseidon and Hephaestus, under their street names, of course, were domestic terrorists whose activities I’d stumbled upon during one of my private investigations. I didn’t know what in the world had possessed them to plant explosives at the tar pits, and I claimed no knowledge of what had caused Mount Lee to explode, knocking the H from the Hollywood sign. Based on their questioning, I guessed that was where the bodies had been found. In life the newly deceased had been seismologists and volcanologists monitoring the equipment they’d set up to explain a magma-free eruption of a previously docile peak.
 

“This investigation that led you to the terrorists, that would be…” Holloway consulted his BlackBerry, “the Circe Holland murder?”

I agreed that it was.

“According to the police report, you described her assailant as
green around the gills, kind of scaly
.”

Uh oh. Now it got dicey. “If you know that much, you probably know that a body fitting that description was fished out of the water under the Santa Monica pier. Case closed,” I answered, like it was an everyday occurrence.
 

Rosen tapped on the table until I returned my attention to him. This back and forth of theirs was going to put a crick in my neck.

“Yes, we’ve examined the body. Very strange, wouldn’t you say? Like something out of legend.” His eyes held mine. And held. And held. He wasn’t blinking.

I had a moment’s concern about how I would play it before my natural smart-ass stepped in. “Wait, this must be some kind of new reality show, right? Like
X-Files
meets
Main Street Mysteries
?” I pretended to look around. “Where’s the camera? Which one of you is Scully?”

He still wasn’t blinking or smiling. “So you
don’t
think it’s strange?” he asked, refusing to be put off track.

“Is this relevant to those bodies on Mount Lee?”

Holloway jumped back into the fray, “We’re not at liberty—”

But Rosen cut him off. “The bodies on Mount Lee—or rather the parts found—had been gnawed. Forensics hasn’t matched the bite marks yet, but I think there’s a good reason for that. They seem too large to belong to any currently living carnivore.”

I noticed the look his partner threw him, the first genuine expression from Little Wooden Boy. Okay then, so Rosen was Mulder.

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“I’m saying that it’s possible Circe Holland’s killer isn’t the only abnormality out there.” I so wanted to start humming the
X-Files
theme, but I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket with both hands. Rosen was apparently a true believer. And that made him dangerous as hell.

“Speaking of which,” Holloway said, leaning in as if to relegate his partner to the background, “did you happen to encounter any evidence of biological terrorism during the Holland investigation?”
 

I narrowed my eyes at him, wishing I had some kind of
useful
power, like mind reading. Biological terrorism? Dead and dismembered bodies? What could they possibly think I knew?

“Like what?” I asked.

Holloway was warming to me. Really, I could tell from the dead stare.

“Vapid doesn’t play well on you, Mizz Karacis.”

“Possibly because I’m not playing.” Wait, that hadn’t come out quite right.

They fired a few more questions at me before finally giving up, threatening to be in touch and showing themselves to the door. I followed so that I could throw the deadbolt behind them, then leaned against the door for good measure, still shaking, legs feeling about as supportive as Silly Bandz. But it wasn’t all the Feds’ fault, and I knew it. I hadn’t been the same since— But no, one crisis at a time. I had my hands full with this one right now. I kept hoping that if I ignored the other it would just go away.

My first thought was to call Armani—Nick—but what in the world would I say… And could I trust that Internal Affairs wouldn’t be listening in?

I trudged back into the living room and collapsed into a chair—to the extent it allowed anyway—to do some thinking. In a way, it was comforting to know that no human was suspected of what had been done to those bodies. The kind of carnage in those pictures…it would have taken a madman. Not that they were exactly in short supply in my world.

The crime scene photos were gone, but my mail still sat in the center of the coffee table, taunting me as only inanimate objects can. It’s hard to win a staring contest with unwanted responsibility. It never blinks. And kick-boxing your mail was wholly unsatisfying. My cousin Tina was a whole other matter. Drop-kicking bridezilla would be a hoot and a half—only I didn’t suppose I’d ever make it back into the family’s good graces that way.
 

As if I didn’t already have enough to chew on, there was the catch that came with the wedding invitation. I had to find Uncle Christos, Tina’s godfather and my absentee mentor, so that he could give the bride away. Her own father was six feet under and therefore unavailable. Truth be told, I was starting to get a bit concerned about Christos myself. His sabbatical from the PI business had now taken on Odyssean proportions and no one had heard from him since the beginning. But as the fellow black sheep of the family—one of the few not to go the circus route—I felt compelled to support his decision to go walkabout. He was a big boy. He knew how to take care of himself. It warred with my innate nosiness not to pry, but I’d thus far given him his privacy. If I wanted back into the family fold, that was going to have to change. Yiayia’s snickerdoodles had been a bribe for me to give in to the family’s request. I wondered if the fact that I hadn’t kept them down voided the implied acceptance of having eaten them to begin with. But really…
Yiayia’s snickerdoodles
…what other choice had there been?

On some level, I realized I was off on a tangent. That had been happening a lot lately. Focus was a friend I hadn’t spoken to in awhile. But I tried. The vision of those poor dead scientists gave me something to hang on to. It was hard, in fact, to look away, even in my mind’s eye.

No one had hired me to investigate. No doubt Rosen and Holloway would be happier if I didn’t, but I needed something to take my mind off my tremors and a new case would be just the thing. Plus, I couldn’t
not
help, just as I couldn’t unsee what I’d seen.

Research was definitely in order, and that meant the office. My old place might not have had enough furniture for a conversational grouping, but at least it’d had DSL. Lau’s place had bupkis, unless you considered dial-up, which I didn’t. She didn’t even have decent Wi-Fi in her area that I could piggyback onto.
 

My hands shook as I used the arms of the chair to help myself up. Only through sheer force of will had I kept them relatively steady throughout the interview with the terrible twosome, but I would
not
consider that the weakness was getting worse. I was also not thinking about pink elephants, Elvis sightings or that growing feeling of need, pining for something no multivitamin was going to supply. It would pass. Ambrosia addiction had been known to kill mere mortals, but I had it on good authority that I wasn’t…or not entirely. So, I wasn’t thinking about withdrawal or the sexy god who’d dosed me with the stuff in the attempt to save my life.
First one’s free, little girl
.

Nope, I was Cleopatra, Queen of Denial.

I spared one more wistful thought for the beach before changing into black slacks, sandals and a teal top—business casual on the off chance a client wandered into the office while I was there. I’d take as many distractions as I could get.

On the way I stopped off for a triple shot latte worth every inflated cent. By the time I reached the office, at least I had a reason for the shakes. My stomach was dancing the jitterbug, threatening revolt.
 

The Karacis Investigations office was located in old Hollywood—the part that held classic theatres like the Orpheum and Rialto, many of which had since been turned into discount stores or offices. The buildings were antique, the rooms small and the rent relatively cheap. It was the only reason I could afford to stay. Certainly I wasn’t rolling in the dough. Hollywood stereotypes aside, no one had yet come through my door asking for help finding a Maltese falcon or stolen diamonds and offering to share the award.
Yet
being the operative word. I lived in hope.

I rode the creaking elevator up to the third floor rather than take the stairs on shaky legs. At my door with the peeling paint and semi-discreet gold plaque bearing our company name I had to focus to get the key into the lock without further scratching the paint. I’d just made it and was about to turn the knob when something behind the door went
thump
, loud enough to be heard over the gurgle of my insides. I froze, listening intently, waiting for the sound to repeat to be sure I’d heard anything at all and hadn’t just entered some auditory hallucination phase of withdrawal. But there it was again—the sound of something rubbing against something else. Friction, like of desk drawers poorly fitted or our closet doors sliding on their tracks.

Someone was in there.
Good, well, at least I’d mastered the obvious.

Quietly, I set down the last of my overpriced coffee and removed the key from the door to get to the canister of pepper spray I kept attached to the chain. I thumbed off the safety, then slowly, silently turned the unlocked knob. As soon as it unlatched, I slammed the door open with my shoulder. The door didn’t bounce back at me, and no one instantly pounced. That didn’t mean the coast was clear.

Holding my pepper spray like a gun, since my actual weapon was helpfully locked in my desk, I moved through the office. Entryway—empty. No tingle of my god-given early warning system as I approached the coat closet. Still, I chose one side and slid the door back as quickly as it would go. Nothing. I could see to the other side of the equally intruder-free closet. There were only three other rooms besides the entry foyer where my assistant Jesus (pronounced
Hey-Zeus
) greeted clients and dealt commentary with every sniff, eye roll and pointed riposte—my office, Uncle Christos’s office and the bathroom.
 

A little ripple of tension shot through me at the thought of Christos’s office. So, I had my direction, but also an extra kick of adrenaline because
this was new
. My scant precognition had only kicked in before when something was coming at me. It had never before given me directional signals.
 

No time to think about that now. I crept toward Christos’s office as if I hadn’t already broadcast my presence with the slamming and sliding doors. I stopped just short of entering. His door was ajar. I planted one foot on the floor and gave a “ki-yah!” as I blasted a sidekick at the door, blowing it in to hit anyone who might be hiding behind it in ambush. The door didn’t get far before meeting an immovable object and rebounding toward me. I was out of range of a knob to the ribs, but not bullets if they were the next thing coming at me, so I whirled to the side to put a wall between me and the intruder.

I would have been content to wait him out until he was vulnerable coming through the doorway, but there was another way out of that office, through the connecting door into mine. I was torn—guard the exit into the hallway or go in after the intruder and hope he wasn’t fast enough to do an end run around me. The first was probably the sane, sensible choice, since it seemed a good bet he hadn’t planned an escape route out my third floor window in broad daylight in downtown L.A.

Problem was I was riding a caffeine and adrenaline high. Every neuron was screaming go, go, GO. I went, aiming another mighty kick at the door. This time it nearly jumped out of my way. A frisson of alarm rippled through me, warning of the blow a second before it landed. I ducked and rolled, catching it on the shoulder, but I only knew because of the force. I was feeling no pain. Unfortunately, neither was I still in possession of the pepper spray.

I came up in a crouch and swept one leg out to knock the guy off his feet, but he jumped it, suddenly past me with a running start toward the outer office door, a blur in basic B&E black. I leapt to my feet and ran after, catching his shoulder just as his hand stretched for the knob. His elbow missed my ribcage by centimeters, but my kidney punch arched his back and caused a grunt of pain. It didn’t keep him from turning the knob and hot-footing it toward the staircase.