Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set (103 page)

The next profile lacked the same personal details, and the sole method of contact would be a friend request. Grant felt the familiar exhaustion coming on that preempts a dead-end lead.

He took a larger sip of scotch and opened the last of Sophie’s links.

Adrenaline clobbered the beginnings of the evening’s buzz.

The profile pic was only a pair of eyes—big and dark and with accentuated lashes so long they seemed almost alien—but the sickening heart-lurch of recognition was unmistakable.

He clicked on the photo album, and with each image, felt the world reorienting itself around this new knowledge.

Grant reached for his jacket on the other side of the table and dug through the pockets until he found his phone. He made a mad swipe across the screen of his contact list. Names ascending in a blur.

He hadn’t used the number in almost a year.

Worried he might have deleted it.

Should have deleted it.

There it was.

He dialed.

It rang five times and defaulted to an automated voice mail message he’d heard many times before.

“Hey, Eric, it’s Grant. I need to speak with you asap. You can reach me at the number I’m calling from.”

He let the phone clatter to the table.

Outside, the rain intensified. It wasn’t just misting anymore.

Grant downed the last of the scotch and slid the glass away as the phone illuminated with a new text.

On shift until midnight.

His coat hadn’t even begun to dry.

Chapter 4

Grant pulled his black Crown Vic past two idling cabs and parked at the entrance to the Four Seasons.

A bellhop with bad acne scars said, “You leave your car there, it’ll be towed.”

Grant was already reaching for his wallet. He held it up as he passed the kid, let it fall open, his shield refracting glints of overhead light.

The bellhop called after him, “Sorry about that, sir. It’s cool.”

Grant shouldered through the revolving doors into the lobby—sleek, modern, and minimally decorated for Christmas with only a handful of evergreen wreaths hanging from the walls. There was stone and wood everywhere, a dynamite contemporary art collection, and a long fireplace near the entrance to the adjoining restaurant and lounge flooding the place with heat.

Grant spotted Eric at the concierge desk. From a distance, he didn’t cut the figure of a guy who could stumble you into any type of recreational substance or activity in the city. Looked more like a law student—twenty-four or twenty-five, clean-shaven, hair cropped and pushed forward like classic George Clooney. Tonight, he wore a black single-breasted coat over a Carolina-blue vest and matching tie. Grant waited while Eric patiently gave an older couple directions to the Space Needle, and as they shuffled off, the concierge glanced up from his brochure-laden desk. Rising, he came around to Grant, fishing a pack of Marlboro Reds out of an inner pocket of his coat.

# # #

They stood just inside the entrance overhang, protected from the weather, watching traffic crawl down Union Street.

It was cold.

Rain collected in pools along the sidewalk and streams of it sluiced down the curb toward Elliott Bay.

Eric fired a cigarette.

Grant took out his phone—already had her Facebook profile pic pulled up on the browser, her eyes dark and popping, filling the screen.

He showed it to Eric.

“Know her?”

Eric stared at Grant for a beat.

His looked at the phone.

Nodded.

“I want you to set something up for me for tonight,” Grant said.

“That’s not going to be possible. She isn’t like the others.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just so I’m clear ...” Eric dragged hard on his cigarette. “I’m talking to you as a human being, not a cop, right? I mean, this is for
you
, like before.”

“That’s right.”

“Okay. Good. Look, Gloria isn’t your type, man.”

Grant smiled. “I didn’t realize you’d expanded your services into matchmaking. So now you’ve acquired some sort of insight into what I want to fuck?”

“She’s two thousand for an hour. You telling me you can swing that on your public servant’s salary?”

“I didn’t come here to see a financial advisor. How do I contact her?”

“Through me.”

“Where does she work?”

“Out of her house.”

“And where’s that?”

“Queen Anne. Look, you don’t understand. She’s referral-only.”

“So refer me.”

“She takes care of a handful of clients. A very elite club.”

“I’m trying not to get offended here, Eric.”

“Haven’t I always set you up with excellent companions? All top shelf? All Johnnie Walker? But let’s shoot straight. Call it like it is. You’re a red- sometimes black-label guy. This woman is Johnnie Walker Blue all the way. Her select group of repeat clients spend between eighty and a hundred thousand dollars a year for her company. She’s not a one-shot deal, okay? It’s like you’re leasing a Lexus. There’s a commitment implied.”

“I want to see her tonight.”

“Grant—”

“Listen to me very, very carefully. I’m going into the bar to have a drink. One drink. Before I’m finished, you’re going to come into the bar and tell me that you made it happen. You’re also going to buy my drink. If these things don’t happen, Eric, I will shut you down.”

Eric threw his cigarette into a gutter, exhaling as he shook his head. “When you first came to me, I didn’t want to work with a cop. And I told you that. There’s an imbalance of power going on right here, and it’s not fair.”

“Jesus, how old are you? There is no fair. There’s only how it is. And
this
is how it is.”

“I could—”

Grant stepped hard and fast into the concierge’s airspace, pushed him up against the cold brick, smelled the tar and nicotine coming off his breath, his face, his hands.

“You could what, Eric?”

“She’s not gonna go for this.”

“Then tell her a pretty story. Sell it. I have faith in you. And don’t use my real name—first or last.”

He slapped Eric on the shoulder and started back toward the hotel entrance.

# # #

Grant slid into an empty chair at the corner of the bar and stared out at the darkness of the bay. Wasn’t much to see at eight thirty on a rainy Thursday night—just the reflection of lights from the waterfront buildings.

The lounge was bustling—a small crowd mingled by the floor-to-ceiling windows, everyone clutching small, still-wrapped presents.

Was Christmas just two weeks away?

Last year, he’d dropped two hundred on a world-class single malt. Spent the day plowing through the bottle and watching the Godfather trilogy for the umpteenth time. He’d passed out during the first twenty minutes of
Part III
—no big loss there. Maybe he’d take this Christmas in the same direction. Might be something he could almost look forward to. The start of a tradition. Or maybe he’d put a request in to stay on-call. Get lucky, catch a juicy murder.

Didn’t really matter as long as there was a plan.

As long as he didn’t let the holiday creep up and catch him off guard. Advanced preparation was the only way somebody with nobody had a prayer of surviving Christmas.

“What can I get you?”

Grant turned his attention to the tall, pretty barkeep. Black vest. Long blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. The clear fresh eyes of someone who’d just come on shift.

“Johnnie Walker Blue, rocks.”

“That’s seventy-five dollars a shot, just so you know.”

“Then make it a double.”

Halfway through the glass, he sensed the warmth coming, a pleasant bleariness settling in behind his eyes. But strangely, he didn’t feel calmer. Not at all. The only sensation was a shift in the night’s energy. The threat of being hurtled in a new, unforeseen direction.

He was down to his last few sips when Eric climbed into the open chair beside him.

“Just texted you her address.” As if on cue, Grant felt his phone vibrate. “You have a meet-and-greet in one hour. It’s no sure thing. She has to like you. If she doesn’t? That’s not on me. I told her you were an architect named Michael. You were warned she’s expensive. You better pay in full. I gotta tell you ... I’m stunned she even went for this.”

Grant slugged back the last of his scotch, stepped down off the stool, and grabbed his coat.

Eric said, “If I get complaints, if you burn this bridge for me—”

“Then you’ll deal with it, won’t you? Thanks for the drink.”

Chapter 5

He parked two blocks away on Crockett Street per the directions Eric had texted him and turned off the Crown Vic.

Rain beaded on the windshield, distorting the lights of passing cars.

Grant glanced at his phone: 9:25.

The knot in his stomach had been tightening with every mile he’d driven since leaving the Four Seasons, and now it felt taut enough to fray.

He locked his gun in the glove compartment.

Opened the door, stepped out into rain that was cold enough to leave a metallic chill where it touched his skin. Grant raised the hood of his North Face jacket, thrust his hands into the pockets, and started down the sidewalk.

It was an affluent quarter in upper Queen Anne—rows of brownstones interspersed with Victorian mansions. Streetlamps ran along the block, and between the rain falling through their illumination and a haze of mist lingering in the alleyways, the neighborhood assumed the eerie gloom of a nineteenth-century London slum.

At the next block, Grant stopped and stared cattycorner across the intersection at a freestanding brownstone. The building was three stories. It occupied a corner. Evergreen hedges rose almost to the windows of the first-level, and though the curtains were drawn, he could see light around the edges. The second and third floors stood completely dark.

Grant waited for a break in traffic and then jogged across the street, dodging a large puddle several inches deep.

He stopped at the wrought iron fence that encircled the property and leveled his gaze on the front door. The scent of wood smoke was faint in the air.

The number on the small, black mailbox beside the door matched the address he’d been given. He unlatched the gate and pushed his way through, moving along the path of flagstones, and then up the stairs. With each step, he noted a strange sensation, a pressure building in his head, his pace involuntarily quickening, as though he were being pulled toward the building.

Then he was standing under the covered stoop, his pulse at full throttle, trying to catch his breath before he knocked.

A small camera pointed down from just above the door’s upper hinge.

This was happening too fast.

His head still hummed from the Johnnie Walker Blue, and he had only the vaguest concept of what he was going to say.

Swallowing the doubt and the fear, he pressed the buzzer.

The muffled thud of footsteps—most likely barefoot—came into range on the other side of the door.

A voice crackled through an intercom under the mailbox.

“Michael, how are you?”

Grant hit the TALK button, leaned in, responded with, “Doing well. Little wet out here.”

“Then let’s get you out of the cold.”

The slide of a chain.

Two deadbolts turning.

Hinges creaking.

A blade of light cut across the stone at Grant’s feet as the heavy wood door swung open.

Top-shelf perfume swept over him.

The light was poor.

She wore a purple silk kimono with a pattern of black vines and flowers that curled down the sleeves. Plunging neckline. Her blond hair had been lifted off her neck and shoulders with a pair of black chopsticks. She stood barefoot in the doorframe, her hand still clutching the knob. Behind her, the darkened room shifted in the firelight.

Grant looked into her face, into her eyes, hoping for some unfamiliar detail, but they all belonged unquestionably to her.

Waves of horror and relief raged through his head.

She tried to shut the door, but he’d anticipated this, the toe of his boot already across the threshold.

“Leave,” she said. “Right now.”

“I just want to talk to you.”

“How dare you.”

“Can I come in?”

“You here to arrest me?”

“No.”

“How’d you find me?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I want you to leave right now.”

“That’s not gonna happen.”

“What do you want?”

“Just to see you.”

“Congratulations. You’ve seen me. Toodaloo.”

“Why do you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you.” She was still trying to force the door closed.

Grant put his hand up and braced himself against it.

He said, “I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. That’s the truth. Then I find out you’re back in Seattle. You could’ve reached out to me. You could’ve made contact.”

“And why on earth would I do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Because I’m your brother?”

“So what?”

“How could you say that?”

“I don’t need you sweeping back into my life for a night. Leveling your judgment. Telling me how I’m destroying my life. How I should fix it. How you’ll help me—”

“I miss you, Paige. I just want to see you. That’s all.”

“You’re melting my heart.”

“Please.”

She looked him up and down.

For a moment, there was nothing but the hush of rainfall on the street. The quiet hum of the globe light above their heads. The thunder of Grant’s heart slamming inside his chest.

She said finally, “All right, but you leave when I say.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not here to fix me. You understand that?”

“Yes.”

Paige sighed and moved back from the door.

Chapter 6

As Grant stepped inside and pushed the door closed after him, Paige turned and headed up the staircase that launched out of the foyer.

“Where you going?” Grant called after her as the steps creaked under her footfalls.