The Fire Within (2 page)

“I rounded the corner, heading for the parking lot, when I noticed someone crouched down in the snow. At first I thought they’d fallen or something, so I asked if everything was all right. Whoever it was stood and ran. I started after them, but I noticed the person lying there, not moving, so I stopped to check on her. That’s when I noticed the wound and the shredded parka.”

He bit back a curse. The miasma around the body made him realize exactly how close Elizabeth had been to death.

Elizabeth glanced at the corpse. “I think, from the size of the wound and the damage surrounding it, she was shot from behind with a large-caliber hollow-point bullet. Or a shotgun at close range. But I don’t remember hearing a gun go off.”

Yeah. Sure. They’d find a .38 hollow point in the body.
Not.

“Is that all?” Dante closed his notebook, ready for her to be gone from here. If the Shem found out who she was, that she’d caught a glimpse of him...

Dante shuddered. She’d be one hell of a feast, especially for a Chameleon or Incubus Shem. The sheer stubbornness spoke of a strength of will they would love to break down. The emotional drain would leave her a husk of what she’d once been. And while she might think she could fight off one of the other types of Shem, against a Legionnaire or a Knight she’d be ripped to shreds. The strongest of the angel-born, Knights and Legionnaires could decimate a human without breaking a sweat.

And then there were the Azar who would literally eat her alive, or the Malachi who would take her brilliant mind and turn it into oatmeal, or the Angelus Shem who would leave her twisted and broken as it fed on her life force. Since he couldn’t tell what kind of Shem they were dealing with just from the lingering aura, all of the horrors one of them could visit on Elizabeth ran through his mind, each one worse than the last. He’d seen all of them, all the different kinds of Shem kills.

The thought of that happening to the vibrant woman in front of him?

The urge to protect her was so sudden, so strong, he nearly staggered with the force of it.

Elizabeth glanced at the open briefcase and the scattered files. “The guy was after something. Not a simple robbery.” Her gaze grew distant, turned inward as she pondered the scene in front of them. “The guy rifled her purse to make it look like a robbery, but I’d bet my license he was really after the briefcase.”

Dante tried to shrug off the overwhelming need to usher her into his car, where she’d be warm and safe. “And you reached this conclusion through your brilliant deductive skills?”

Elizabeth shot him a hard glare. “I reached it because while her purse was dumped, it wasn’t rifled through the way the briefcase was. Her credit cards were left behind, and so was her cell phone and cash. The paper this guy was after wasn’t green.”

Dante gazed at her thoughtfully. “How do you know it was a guy?”

“Movement. Build. No boobs. Looking at that—” she pointed to the purse and its scattered contents, “—he didn’t know one end of a purse from another. That sort of thing.”

Dante reopened his notebook. She might have something there. “Height?”

“Five seven, maybe five eight.”

“Build?”

“Broad. I think. It was kind of hard to tell with that huge parka. It obscured him pretty well. I couldn’t even see his face, thanks to the goggles.” She sounded thoroughly disgusted with herself.

“White parka?” Dante looked up from his notes.

“Yes, a huge white parka with a hood. He also had on ski goggles.” She frowned, her expression totally serious for the first time since he saw her standing next to the body. “There was blood on his mouth.”

Purvis made a note. She must have not given him that little tid-bit.

Dante relaxed. Maybe she’d be safe after all. If the only look she’d gotten at the Shem hadn’t been enough to identify him, the creature might just leave her be. “Was there anything else unusual about him? Could you pick him out of a lineup?”

She pushed her glasses up her nose. “He was awkward in the snow.”

Dante blinked. “Excuse me?”

“He had trouble running in the snow. Like he wasn’t used to it.”

Dante closed his notebook again, glancing as the coroner zipped up the body. The green miasma that surrounded it made it clear that Elizabeth Rand had no business looking into this death. “I want you to stay out of this.”

Her brows rose. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t try to find the murderer.” Just the thought of her running around, chasing Shem, gave him hives. “I know you think you’re Super Sleuth, but let the police do their job.”

She glared at him, and he just knew she’d try and find out who’d done this just because he’d told her not to. He had to head her off, keep her safe. “I mean it, Elizabeth. Don’t make me come down on you.”

She completely ignored him, turning to Purvis with a warm smile. “I’ll see you soon, okay? Tell Lakisha to call me.”

“I will. Tell Abby I said hello.” Purvis gave her a hug.

“Will do.” She smirked at Dante before giving a nonchalant wave and heading into the parking lot. “Detective?” She shot him a look over her shoulder, giving him a once-over that would have had him asking her out had she been anyone other than Elizabeth. “If you need anything, call me.”

And the bane of his existence sauntered off, somehow looking incredibly sexy even under seven layers of clothing and sliding on the ice.

Purvis snickered. “You are in
so
much trouble with that one.”

All Dante could do was nod.

* * *

Beth got up the morning after the blizzard with one hell of a desire for coffee, but that was nothing new. What
was
new was the intriguing murder case that had been handed to her on a silver platter the day before.

She brushed her teeth and got dressed, going over her day in her head. Mostly, as a P.I. Beth investigated cheating spouses or looked for missing loved ones. She’d had cases where she tracked down lost or stolen items, and once she’d been asked to look for a pet who’d run away.

She’d solved that one for a peanut butter cup and the sweetest five-year-old’s smile she’d ever seen.

It was grunt work, but she found it satisfying.

She helped people, people who
wanted
to be helped, and that was enough for her. People like Dante might not always understand why she’d chosen to pursue the career she had, but for the most part she’d managed to earn the respect of the local cops.

Well, except for one glaring exception. Detective Dante Zucco.

Elizabeth Rand refusing to investigate a murder that happened practically on her doorstep?

I
don’t think so.

It was just like Dante to decide what she could and could not do on a case, but hell if she was going to listen to him. Oh, no. Dante had treated her like a nuisance, just as he had eight months ago when she’d been hired to work Abby’s stalker case. He’d given her grief then too, but she’d been the one to take out the bad guy, not him.

And, just like then, she wasn’t about to put up with his bullshit, even if it did turn out he was some kind of Jedi Knight. It would take more than a Luke Skywalker-wannabe to make her give up a case. If he was some kind of angelic...

Pfft.

An angel.

Dante.

She wiped the tears away and made her way into the kitchen. Man, she hadn’t laughed that hard in
weeks
.

Still, even if it did turn out he was one of those angel-thingies like Seth, there was no way she’d back off. It would take more than a pair of glowing wings and a bad attitude to make her give up.

After pouring a cup of life-giving fluid, she made her way to her answering machine. She’d forgotten to check her messages after getting home the day before.

“
You have four new messages
.”

She punched the button and took another sip of coffee, moaning as the dark, bitter flavor exploded over her tongue.

Beep.
“Hi, Beth, it’s Abby. Seth and I wanted to know if you’d like to come and take a look at the nursery. That artist you put us in touch with is a genius. Thanks again. Bye!”

Beth smiled, some of her foul mood evaporating. Abby and Seth’s marriage had been the best thing to come out of the Marcheson stalking case. And she’d never tell either of them about the nightmares she still suffered from thanks to that night.

She shuddered at the memory of Diana’s black teeth and green blood. Sometimes, in her nightmares, she missed, and...

Yeah. Those nightmares were best left buried.

She took extra precautions now, like questioning Seth on whether or not she needed to carry a squirt gun filled with holy water. When he wouldn’t stop laughing she’d brought out the super-soaker and the rosary beads. That got him to stop and take her seriously.

Mostly.

She still didn’t know much about what Seth was. Both Abby and Seth were remarkably tight-lipped about it. She didn’t even know if he was the only one of his kind, or if there were more of them out there. She had her suspicions, but that was all they were.

There was just something about the way Seth and Dante interacted, the way they glanced at one another, that spoke of a connection deeper than friends. Oh, there was nothing loverlike or anything. Just a hunch, a pinch of something different, yet the same, about the pair that made her instincts twist and shout.

Beep.
“Elizabeth, it’s Mother. Give me a call when you get in. Paul and I want to discuss something with you.”

Yay.
Not. There were no goodbyes from her mother, and Beth had long ago stopped expecting them. Her parents disapproved of her life choices, and she returned the favor. They would have preferred she become a lawyer or a doctor rather than a private investigator. She preferred them to figure out that they were both better off living alone. Both had been divorced...

God, Beth had lost count of the number of times her parents had been married and divorced. Her mother’s latest, Paul, had lasted three years now, and Beth was willing to bet that he wouldn’t last much longer. Her father, on the other hand, was currently single and living in Florida. They hadn’t spoken in over a year.

When she did speak with her parents it was, at best, with cool civility. Part of her was certain they blamed her for their fucked up lives. While sometimes she ached for something that had never been, she’d learned early on to make her own family, the family of her heart. As far as she was concerned, she had her friends, her heart sisters, and that was enough.

Beep.
“Ms. Rand? My name is Jonathan Blake. My...my wife was murdered near your office.”

Beth blinked in shock.

No. Nothing in her life had ever gone
this
easily. She must have misheard—

“I want to hire you to investigate my wife’s death. She was a lawyer working for Todd Blessing’s campaign, and I’m worried that it will somehow get swept under the rug for politics. Please, Ms. Rand. Give me a call.”

Huh. That was unexpected. Looked like Detective Zucco would have to live with her annoying ass after all.

Beep.
“Beth? This is Lakisha Purvis. Nelson is in the hospital. He’s had a heart attack.”

Shit. She’d call Jonathan Blake back later.

Beth quickly tossed her mug in the sink and grabbed her parka.

She was going to be there for both Lakisha and Nelson, and to hell with anything else.

The Purvis family had given a damn about her when her own family hadn’t. They’d saved her ass, put her on the right track and led the way to what Beth had become rather than the delinquent she’d been heading toward. If not for Nelson and Lakisha, she’d probably be in jail right now. Nelson had protected her when she’d been a teenager and shown her a better path, Lakisha had talked to her about things her mother couldn’t be bothered with, and the pair of them had made sure that the wayward teen hadn’t gotten lost in the disaster of her parents’ lives. From them, she’d learned what a real relationship between loving people should look like.

If Nelson died, she would be losing the man she considered her real dad.

Without a second thought she raced to the hospital, the snow storm barely slowing her. Lakisha would be crazy with worry over her husband. Nelson was young, barely in his forties. A heart attack would more than likely end his career, and Nelson Purvis lived for his job. Retirement hadn’t even crossed his mind.

Beth had an idea of how Nelson could keep working the job while taking care not to overexert himself, but she had no idea if he’d accept her proposal or not. What she did might be grunt work, but she still helped people in her own way. Whether that would be enough for the veteran cop or not, she planned on offering him a place at Rand Investigations if the doctors told him he couldn’t return to the force.

She pulled up to the hospital and raced toward the front desk, praying Nelson was all right. “I’m looking for someone who was brought in with a heart attack. Nelson Purvis.”

She followed the directions the woman gave her and made her way to the waiting area. Lakisha was waiting there, cradling a cup of coffee. Her normally dark skin was pale, her hands shaking. Beth immediately took a seat next to the older woman and held out her hand. “What happened?”

Lakisha sniffled. Whatever tears came would be shed out here, where Nelson couldn’t see them. He hated when his love cried, and the knowledge that she’d shed tears would upset him far more than the heart attack did. “He left work soon after he spoke with you, saying he was tired. But the stubborn bastard saw the driveway was starting to fill up, so he broke out the snow shovel. He was clearing the driveway when he started feeling dizzy. Then his arm started to hurt, and he couldn’t catch his breath. He called me at work, and I think I broke some laws to get to him.” Lakisha’s breath stuttered. “I got him here as fast as I could.”

Fuck. That didn’t sound good. “Do they know if it was severe or not?”

“He’s in surgery. Bypass. We’ll know more soon.”

“We’ll take care of him, no matter how stubborn he gets.”

Lakisha’s answering smile was shaky at best. “Yes, we will.”