Gray Night (32 page)

 I sucked in a sharp breath and tried to sit up.

 “Hold him!” Irish said. She still wore her ME’s jacket and ID badge.

 Djimon’s grip tightened on me. For a second I thought of four different ways to slip out, pull him down, and break his—what the hell?

 My mind was still my own. That was something, I guess, but the demon was there, hungrier than ever and taking cheap shots while I wasn’t paying attention. I doubt it cared if someone was a friend or not. No, it didn’t.
Why should I? They betray you, they envy you, they hurt you,
Stop! I may only have one or two, but that’s one or two more than you, so shut the hell up.

 Irish and Djimon stared at me. Ummm, I might have said that last bit out loud. It’s not real, Adrian. It’s not a demon. It’s not something inside you. It’s just your instincts on an evil hyper drive. No one was going to get hurt because of me. Not again.

 
What about Claire?

 I shuddered and convulsed and Djimon let me up. I slid off the hood beside the car onto my knees and bent over dry heaving.

 “Claire? Djimon, was Claire—” it hurt to put words together.

 He shook his head. “No, we did not find her.”

 “But… ponytail guy… Lewis… I found him.”

 “We found his body. He’s dead, Adrian.”

 “No, he… he was working for… not Vitale. The other one, the one who betrayed Vitale, the man talking to lightning spider-web face.”

 They looked confused. My god, no one knew where Claire was. Three men had known, and I killed two of them. The third, the man who betrayed Vitale, he was the one I wanted. He had her! I was three feet away from him! Why couldn’t I remember? He was going to hurt her, addict her and destroy her mind. He would kill her when he was done, or worse, sell her as chattel, a broken shell and willing vessel to the depraved filth with the highest bid.

 “Adrian,” Djimon said.

 “I found them… I… I found them…” I sputtered, trying to stand.

 “Adrian we need to leave.”

 “We saved them… we found the… but Claire she…” I hammered the side of the car, caving in the passenger door.

 “Djimon, we have to get him strapped down before he injures himself worse. He is reacting far different than the women you called me to look at,” Irish said.

 “Is he in danger?” Djimon asked.

 “He has more toxin in his blood than anyone I’ve seen, but beyond that I don’t know. Since it hasn’t killed him yet he might live, but coming down will be—he’s going to crash hard. And that’s if his heart doesn’t give out first,” she said. “He needs a hospital.”

 “We don’t have time for this,” said Jack, who walked around the side of the car addressing everyone in general. “The girls are on the way to the address you gave. Is that sufficient?” he asked Djimon.

 He nodded to Jack.

 “Then we’re done here. I have injured to see to and god knows what’s happening to my people around the city since this started,” Jack said.

 “The women?” I asked.

 “We got them out, and thanks to Jack, they’re on their way to Stratford,” said Djimon. “Miss Jordan is in my car. The others were gone before we got her out.”

 “They left the ship… after Vitale…” I coughed. I grabbed my sides as my ribs turned to fire.

 “Adrian don’t,” Irish said, kneeling and pulling my arms away. “Two of your ribs are broken. Maybe more. I know it’s hard, but you need to relax.”

 “Did you see them?” I asked.

 “From a distance,” answered Djimon. “I had the women in one of the warehouses and called Irish to check on them in case there was need for immediate medical attention.

Several men left the ship as the sound of battle started below decks. They opened the gate to the rental place and took two vans.”

 “Need to… to check it out,” I said, coughing again.

 “Mr. Knight we need to leave. Now. The police will be here any minute and we’ve wasted enough time as it is,” said Diamond Jack.

 “Adrian, he’s right,” said Djimon.

 “No!” I screamed, causing baseball bats to drive nails into my sides. “Jack… Jack please. Your men… knew what they were doing. What they were getting into. Claire… she didn’t know. He’s… he’s going to hurt her. Jack… help her Jack.”

 Diamond Jack stared at me like I was the strangest person he’d ever met. For one brief second I thought Argento nodded to me.

 “Three men,” Jack said finally. “Two go in. One stays on watch out front and we go quick. In and out and then we’re gone. Mr. Adeyemo, you will accompany me. Argento will take watch.”

 Djimon looked at me and I nodded. The three men ran across the parking area and past several rows of containers before they slipped into the fenced area of the rental place.

 “How long do I have?” I asked.

 “An hour maybe. It will be a rollercoaster. Highs and lows. Eventually you’ll collapse. I don’t know what will happen after that,” Irish sat, looking at me with the most expression I’d seen in her eyes in a long, long time.

 My little sister Evelyn sat on her lap with the same look. I ran my hands threw my hair and held my head trying to fight it. My sister held her little hand out toward mine and my breathing grew quick and ragged. A lot of people close to me died after she was gone. Some had been very close. But I hadn’t failed any of them. I hadn’t lost someone I tried to save. Not since Evey. Evey and Michael.

 Now, Claire. I stretched my hands out and fought back the tears. Irish followed my line of sight, saw me staring into space with my arms out, and rubbed her eyes.

 “Oh, Adrian,” she said, shaking her head.

 She sat on her knees and moved to sit beside me when she stopped and cocked her head listening. Police sirens, lots of them, neared the entrance gate. Red and blue flashing lights reflected off the high sides of warehouses and stacked shipping crates near the front.

 “Can you move? We need to move, don’t we? Adrian, you shouldn’t be here. What do we do?” she pleaded.

 “Nothing,” I said. “No time to get away clean.”

 I didn’t tell her the demon inside had gone into stealth mode waiting to be unleashed again. It was there, hungry, angry, and crouched in the brush prepared to strike the second it spotted prey. I was far from cool on the inside. My hands shook with a tremor like being jittery from too much caffeine. It was a physical manifestation of warning to remind me the tension was building and needed a release. Would, in fact, find one eventually if I did not provide it in time. I wasn’t at all sure what would happen if I had to fight my way clear.

 It scared me. I mean really, really freaking terrified me feeling those urges and understanding the overwhelming tide of instinct bearing down on my volition. If I hadn’t dealt with it when I had—or how I had—I wasn’t sure anyone would have made it off that ship alive.

 “You don’t know me,” I said to Irish.

 “What?”

 “You’re a doctor. A medical examiner. Act like it,” I said, reaching over and tapping her badge.

 “That’s awful weak, Adrian. I’m not even supposed to be here. What possible reason would I have for being out by the river.”

 “Knew you’d think of something,” I said, trying not to tremble. Cars screeched to a halt and doors slammed. This was not a good time to lose it.

 Several pairs of boots stomped across the pavement setting a perimeter.

 “This is the New Jersey State Police,” said a voice over a loudspeaker. “Stay where you are and put your hands behind your head.”

 Some officers yelled into radios after discovering the first bodies. They rushed ahead when they saw some were still alive, and found me and Irish back against my car.

 Two officers ran over with their weapons drawn. “Hands on your head!”

 Irish tapped her badge and held it out for them. “I’m a doctor. Assistant medical examiner. This man is unarmed and injured.”

 “Ma’am? I don’t think you’re supposed to be here. I’m—”

 “Going to let a man die if you don’t let me do my job, officer.”

 “Is he stable?”

 “For now.”

 “Jimmy, cuff him to the door handle then come back over here and watch her. I need to find the lieutenant.” He ran off, Jimmy cuffed me, and took Irish several yards off to watch separately from me. Smart move, if not exactly protocol.

 “Well looky what we have here,” said Detective Harris, holstering his sidearm and looking at me.

 “What are you looking at, butthead?” I said on reflex. I mean, seriously, what an asshat casting me as Lorraine.

 Funny, I’d always wondered what the end of the line would look like for me. Losing Claire, drugged and cuffed to my car, beaten by the ex-boyfriend of the woman I tried to save, not to mention arrested for committing the crimes I’d tried to save her from—not what I had pictured.

 It wouldn’t matter what Irish said now. There was no way I was getting away from Harris without killing him and that wasn’t me, not for a long time now.

Besides, I didn’t have a reason to run. Nothing to run to. When the feds found out about the arrest, on more than a few charges that were legitimate, I would be extradited to one of the cheaper motels in hell, if I was lucky.

 “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

 Besides, how could I hurt a man who delivered one setup after another? He was a gold mine.

 “Harris,” I said.

 He grabbed me by my jacket, picked me up, and slammed me against the car. “I don’t know what the hell happened back with Clark, but your ass is mine now.”

 Whatever comeback I had died in a coughing fit. My chest burned and the crouching demon adjusted its weight to strike.

 “What is going on? You leave him alone!” yelled Irish when she saw Harris throw me against the car.

 “And just what the hell are you doing here?” he hollered, storming over to her.

 The second Harris’s back turned an officer slipped behind me and uncuffed me from the door handle.

 “Jack says to come with me, Mr. Knight.”

 I didn’t argue. Maybe Jack had found something. It was a longshot, but I was grasping at straws. I’d be out of the game in less than an hour.

 The officer escorted me through the crowd to where the police were parked and handed me a clipped stack of papers with the rental shops logo on it.

 “Courtesy of Diamond Jack. Says someone destroyed the computers, but found this copy. Hopes you can use it, but either way you two are even,” then he walked off.

 I opened the door to the nearest car, a dark sedan with a flashing light on the dash, and got in the driver’s seat. Someone would notice soon, but I needed out of the open.

 I unclipped the papers and flipped through them when I heard a girl scream. I looked around until I noticed where everyone else was looking. A man in a white van from the rental place was stopped outside the perimeter talking to several officers. The screaming girl was Ruby Jordan, who was being escorted by a couple of officers to an ambulance.

 I couldn’t tell what she had screamed at until she started again when someone opened the sliding side door on the van. Ruby stared at it, horrified and screaming bloody murder, trying to rip her way out of the officer’s grip. A van. A white van. Wasn’t that what someone had seen on the street the night Ruby disappeared? Could it have been one of those same vans? There was something else familiar about them, but I couldn’t tell what it was.

 I looked down at the pages in my hand. They were contract lists for the business’s that had regular use of the vehicles.

 Son of a bitch. The highest concentration of Gray Night activity was in and around the Bronx. That’s where all the women had disappeared from and Ruby was confirmation that at least several of them were drugged and sold. In order to do that you would need to find people no one would ever miss. Would have to be a part of the community. Someone they trusted.

 I flipped through the pages one more time to make absolutely certain there were no other possibilities. No, there was just the one I recognized. Just the one from the Bronx. Why take the time to destroy the computer unless there was something on it you didn’t want found? Then a memory tore out of the demons grip and rose to the surface. I remembered where I’d seen those vans before—parked at the loading dock outside Roman Sawyer’s shelter.

 I ran through everything from the last few days. I didn’t know why they attacked the museum, but Gray Night thugs had done the killing. Everything around the Jordan’s neighborhood fit. It felt right. The only thing bothering me was the night Claire and I were attacked at Roarke’s office. I’d thought at the time it was related to the museum investigation, and maybe it was, but I’d also just come from the shelter—and was suffering debilitating hallucinations. I couldn’t remember a thing about my meeting with Roman, other than knowing I went there, then left with a sudden and unprovoked episode. That’s right, we spoke and I didn’t think anything of it. I’d gotten a terrible headache after—that son of a bitch. He’d brought me a drink. He drugged me! The gaps in my memory. He could have had me followed and I wouldn’t have noticed. Not in that condition. Damn it! I led them straight to Nick’s office the other night. And I even introduced Claire to him the next day.

 I took a moment to assess my overall tactical situation, acutely aware every second made it worse, which is why I wanted to avoid a future mistake that could cost valuable time.

 This wasn’t a patrol car, but it still had a cage separating the front and back seats where a shotgun and baton hung on it. Glove box was empty except for the usual paperwork. A jacket with NYPD on it sat on the passenger seat with a handheld radio on top. There was a big flashlight in the door pocket, and I reached under the driver’s seat finding a backup piece. H&K .45 modified with a longer barrel. Nice. On the dash was a push button ignition switch.

 Time to go. My hand trembled reaching for the dash. I held it and tried to calm down when a sharp pain shot through my skull like a brain freeze on steroids. I grabbed my head and tried to control my breathing. The pressure redlined and needed an outlet before it fed on the only thing available—me. But trying to calm down made it worse, so I did the only thing I could. I gave it what it wanted.