Fallen Angels 03 - Envy (38 page)

“Okay,” he said. As Reil y recoiled, his mouth tightened. “You don’t have to look so surprised. Just take Bails with you this time. Or de la Cruz. The idea of you alone with that man, even though he’s in a hospital bed and you’re good with a gun, gives me the heebs.”

God, she wanted to take his face in her hands and kiss him for being sensible.

Instead she smiled and took out her cel phone. “I’l check in with de la Cruz right now.”

As she got the detective on the phone, she signed into her e-mail—and nearly lost focus on the conversation she was having with the man. Veck had left her something in her in-box, and she double-clicked on it just as some kind of update on Kroner’s condition came over the line.

There were only three words:
I love you
.

Her head whipped around. But Veck was looking studiously busy with his computer.

“Hel o?” de la Cruz said.

“Sorry. What?”

“Why don’t you and Bails go together.”

“Fine.” Her eyes stayed on Veck’s face as he stared at the screen in front of him. “I’m ready to head out when he is.”

Some other things were said, but damned if she knew what they were. And when she hung up, she was at a loss.

There was no
I think
before the
I love you
. No stupid photo below the words of a cat and dog with computer-generated affection in their eyes. No other way of misinterpreting the statement.

“Just thought you should know,” Veck said under his breath.

She wasn’t aware of a conscious decision to hit
reply
, or of putting her hands on her keyboard. It just happened—

“What’s going on here?”

Reil y cleared the screen with a quick click. Swiveling her chair around, she looked up at Bails. Crap. He was right behind her, looking tense.

“Did de la Cruz cal you?” she said smoothly.

The guy glanced over to the back of Veck’s head—where he got nothing, obviously. So his eyes returned to her. “Ah . . . yeah, he did. Just a second ago.”

Cue the
Jeopardy!
theme. And the likelihood that he’d read what had been on that e-mail.

“And when wil you be ready to go over to the hospital with me?” she prompted.

“Ah . . . I’ve got a suspect coming in for questioning right now. So after that?”

“Fine. I’l be here.”

As she stared up at him, she met his narrowed gaze ful y and without apology. She didn’t know the guy wel at al , but it was pretty clear he wasn’t happy. And this was why you didn’t date people from work. Possessive best buddies were bad enough if al you had to do was deal with them on the occasional poker night and during major sporting events. Seeing them nine-to-five?

Then again, as soon as Veck’s probationary period was over, she was going to go back to IA.

The idea eased her. Much better al around—

Oh,
crap
. She was going to have to disclose this relationship, wasn’t she. And once she did, they were going to take her off monitoring him—which was absolutely appropriate.

Wel . . . it looked as if she wasn’t going to have to wait for a month before she went back to her department.

“Hey, DelVecchio. Pick up your phone,” someone cal ed out.

Funny, she hadn’t heard it ringing. Neither had he or Bails, apparently.

As Veck yeah’d and uh-huh’d his way through some kind of conversation, she could feel Bails hovering and wanted to shoo him off like a fly.

Fortunately, the same woman who’d cal ed out for Veck to get with the receiver came over and told the other detective that his suspect was down at intake.

“I’l stop by when I’m through,” Bails said. After she nodded, he clapped Veck on the shoulder and walked off.

Veck hung up. “That was de la Cruz. He wants me downtown on a shooting that happened late last night. He ne an extra hand—and I think he wants to make sure I don’t get any ideas about going to the hospital with you.”

Made sense. “We’re not heading off for a while, though.”

“This is going to be a long day. We’ve got to cover an entire apartment complex.”

Veck stood up, put on his coat, and patted his various pockets, no doubt checking for badge, gun, wal et, keys, cigarettes.

“You need to stop smoking,” she blurted out.

As he froze, she thought, Damn it, way to sound like a girlfriend; those three words he’d sent her over e-mail didn’t give her those rights. Step in that direction? Yeah. But not a door to drive a bus through.

The trouble was, she cared about him enough not to be comfortable with sitting by and watching him kil himself—

Veck took out his open pack of Marlboros . . . and crushed them in his hand.

“You’re right.” He tossed the wad into the wastepaper basket under his desk. “If I get cranky for the next couple of days, I apologize.”

Reil y couldn’t stop the smile on her face. And in a whisper only he could hear, she said, “I’l think of some ways to distract you.”

As she slowly uncrossed and recrossed her legs, his eyes flared. Which told her she might as wel have revealed her Secrets, so to speak.

“I’m going to hold you to that.” He winked like a bad boy who knew what to do with her body. Natch. “Stick with Bails—and cal me when you’re through, okay?”

“Deal.”

She turned back to the desk she was using, but watched him walk out the door from the corner of her eye.

Dear Lord, that man looked good from behind. . . .

O
n some level, it felt great to be out doing his job, Veck thought a few hours later.

Okay, it was
not
great that some sorry bastard had gotten shot in the face, or that none of the neighbors wanted to say a word about what they might have seen, or that he and de la Cruz were likely wearing out the soles of their shoes for nothing. But this was normal-course-of-hard-business shit. This was not about his father or freaky, no-footprint-leaving, midnight-stalker shit.

The victim in question had been popped while parked and sitting in the driver’s seat of his SUV at this twelve-building apartment complex known for its lively, il egal cash-and-carry commerce. Discovered this morning by the street-sweeping crews, there had been no drugs or cash on the body or in the vehicle, but they had found a list of names and dol ar amounts on a crumpled piece of paper in the guy’s coat, crack residue in a series of plastic bags in the back, and a total of five guns in the car.

None of which he’d evidently been able to get to fast enough.

Unless you assumed that the ones that had been easy-access had been lifted along with the rest of the valuables.

By noon, he and de la Cruz were wel into their rounds of the buildings, knocking on doors, trying to get people who were suspicious of cops and rightful y scared of retaliation to talk.

As he went from door to door, he kept recal ing the victim’s frozen grimace as the kid sat slumped behind that wheel, the seat belt across his chest al that kept him upright, the facial features that had once identified him to his mother and his family and his buddies ruined to the point of putting him into dental records territory.

Thinking back to Kroner in those woods, Veck remembered his own urge to kil . The idea that he was going to take out an evildoer had made it seem more justifiable—at least, to one part of him—but did that real y matter?

Hel , the motherfucker who’d shot this victim in the SUV no doubt had his or her reasons, however twisted they might have appeared on an objective moral scale. Except a murderous act was a murderous act, no matter the target’s disposition.

Too bad none of that mattered to the dark side of him: That element didn’t give a crap whether Kroner was a saint or a sinner—the kil ing, the taking had been the thing. The object of the wrath? Important only insofar as it was a target to hit.

Which was undoubtedly how his father felt about other people.

And what a happy thought that was.

As the sun started sinking, and the shadows grew longer, the warmth of the afternoon dwindled and the complex seemed even grungier. He and de la Cruz had split up and were focusing on the buildings around where the body was found, but given that there were six stories of apartments, they’d be lucky to wrap this part up by five o’clock.

Turning away from yet another no-answer, Veck hit the bald concrete stairs, descending to the lobby. The front doors were supposed to be locked, of course, but they’d been kicked open so many times, it was a wonder they shut at al .

Rubbing his face and wishing he had a cigarette, he turned to the east and headed for the last apartment building that was his responsibility. He was just at the door when his phone went off. The text from Reil y said that she was heading over to the hospital now with Bails.

Wel , at least that gave him some more time to tie things up on this case.

And afterward, maybe take a little trip down to Connecticut
, an inner voice suggested.
To see your father.

He actual y looked behind himself to see if someone was talking to him. But there was nothing except thin air and weak sunlight on his tail.

As wel as the conviction that he was probably going to do just that. Soon.

With a curse, he turned back to the entrance, and as he pivoted, he happened to glance down at the cracked cement of the sidewalk.

What he saw stopped him dead.

He glanced over his shoulder again. The sun was setting right behind him, the single sun—as in one light source. And there was no huge reflective surface to throw a second il umination, no car with a lot of chrome, no stage light, for God’s sake.

He looked back down at his feet. There were two shadows thrown by his body. Two separate and distinct shadows, one leading north, one leading south.

Graphic evidence of what he’d always felt—of two halves of him, cleaving apart, drawing him in opposite directions.

Look down at your feet, Thomas DelVecchio . . . and then you call me when you get scared enough.

As Jim Heron’s voice shot through his mind, he thought of Reil y. He’d beonfident of protecting her from any stalker, so fucking sure he could be what she needed. But al that cock and bal s did not apply to this shit on the ground. He didn’t understand it himself; how the hel could he fight it for her?

And Reil y
was
on the line. Otherwise she wouldn’t have spent the night before sitting up in a chair with a gun in her hand.

I’m the only one who can help you.

God knew if Heron had wanted to hurt either of them or get aggressive he could have. Instead, al the guy had done was point them in the right direction at the quarry . . . and disappear.

Decision made, Veck al but lunged for his phone. He’d saved Heron’s number in his contacts for the incident report on the guy, and as he dialed it now, he prayed that the man who left no footprints would answer . . . and tel him about what was at his own feet.

The sound of a cel phone ringing out loud behind him ripped him around.

Jim Heron was standing three feet away from him, as if the guy had been there al along—which he had been, hadn’t he.

Veck narrowed his eyes and took a careful visual picture of the man. The bastard seemed solid enough in his leather jacket and his fatigues. And as he exhaled smoke from his Marlboro, the shit floated over and tickled Veck’s craving button.

But he wasn’t real, was he.

Heart pounding in his chest, Veck hit
end
on his phone and the sound coming from Jim’s pocket ceased.

“Time’s growing short,” the guy said.

And this made Veck think about his father: That note in the mail. That hourglass that was draining as they got closer and closer to the execution.

Which was coming so very soon, wasn’t it.

This was it, he thought. Everything, his whole existence, had led up to this . . . whatever the fuck it was.

As Veck met the man’s eyes, he felt as though the movie of his life had been out of focus without his even being aware the shit was blurry. The cameraman, however, had final y woken up and gotten with the program with his equipment . . . and it was a new fucking world.

Especial y given the fact that the fading light of day was coming from behind Jim Heron . . . and there was nothing at the guy’s feet. No shadow at al .

“What the fuck are you,” Veck demanded.

“I’m here to save your ass, that’s what I am.” The guy took a drag on his cig and exhaled slowly. “You ready to talk to me now?”

Veck stared at his own pair of outlines, both in the shape of his body. “Yeah. I am.”

Reil y was behind the wheel of her unmarked as she and Bails went over to the St. Francis Hospital complex. Beside her, the detective was quiet in her passenger seat as she navigated heavy traffic and got stuck at red lights and then hit a detour that took her in the opposite direction.

“Any more of this and I’m going to start thinking someone doesn’t want us talking to Kroner,” she muttered.

Bails didn’t even glance over. “Yeah.”

More silence. To the point where she was going to ask him to just get it al out: The last thing they needed was this kind of tension when they were in front ot kil er.

Bails spoke before she did, however. “I’m sorry I’m not talking. I just don’t know what to do.”

“About what?” When it was safe to take her eyes off the road, she spared him a quick look. The guy was drumming his fingers against the door, and staring out of the windshield as if he were searching for answers in the glass.

“I know you saw my e-mail,” she said after a moment.

“If only that was the big problem.” As she shot another glance across at him, he shrugged. “You know Veck and I are tight, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“And you know that I’ve always been behind him one hundred percent. To the death. That boy is mine.”

As he pounded over his heart, she said, “Okay.”

“So, yeah, I saw the e-mail he sent you. I didn’t mean to, but it was up on your screen when I came over to you two.” He looked over. “I wasn’t eavesdropping. It was just there.”

Damn it.