Mirrors, p.9
Mirrors, page 9
Handheld told time just as accurately.
Ten minutes to seven. He could chirp her, or just start walking that way now and see how good her personal sensors were. Window rolled down as he took his first step and she waved once, closing up immediately.
Greyson nodded and trooped over. The passenger door unlocked as he got close, so he climbed in and slammed it shut. She was dressed almost identical to how he was, except she had a sedate gray tie on over her blue shirt and under her collar. Like him, longcoat in brown rather than a blazer, but hers looked nicer. Less miles and firefights on it, one presumed.
“Watchers behind us,” Rachel said before he even started fastening the seat belts into place. “Picked them up not far from the station. Figured they were why you had me walk this particular path this morning, so I didn’t bother losing them on the way over.”
She looked over expectantly, with a matronly smile that was just a little frosty. The smart kid in the front row answering questions for the rest of the class that had been too lazy to read the homework.
Greyson nodded and finished his contraption.
“Turn left at the light and go down six blocks,” he said simply. “We’ll take a right then and hop up on the highway for a bit. Nice and casual.”
“Still not trying to lose them?” she asked as the car eased into traffic.
“Want to know who cares that much,” he replied, giving her the address and the freeway exit she needed to take. “Might be anybody, but without Zielinski, they’re probably reporting to Owens at this point, at least indirectly.”
“And we still don’t know nothing, so we have this huge stack of dead trees to go through to try and find our first clue?” Rachel grinned.
“Fun part comes if I suddenly decide to have a loud Eureka moment in the restaurant, wave a piece of paper in the air too fast for optics to zero in on it, and then we high tail it out of there like the world was ending,” Greyson grinned back. “Imagine the panic when they think we’ve gone from nothing to a major breakthrough they missed, and now have to somehow bump into us to catch up.”
He picked up the stack of papers in the envelope between them, pulled them out, and inspected the top page.
“You didn’t cut the deck yet, did you?” he asked.
“The what?” she glanced over.
The report was by date of disappearance, and then alphabetized within each day. Someone running the same report, or making a copy of it last night, would have the exact same stack with him, probably in the lap of whoever was sitting in the passenger seat of that Scout back there. The one that had lit out after them and was maintaining a polite distance.
Greyson didn’t figure they could actually lose another cop. Most likely, someone wanting to follow Rachel would go ahead and drop a tracker on this car when she left it in the underground garage, and could then watch her drive around on their little navigation console.
But they wouldn’t be able to listen in to a conversation in a random restaurant from outside. They’d have to come in and get within his line of sight to be any sort of social threat.
Assuming Rachel was clean and not just writing up reports for Zielinski and Owens in her spare time. She’d been a straight-arrow cop a year ago. And Greyson didn’t think she was willing to bend too much if she really wanted London.
Once there she might bend, but that wouldn’t be his problem at all.
All that flashed through his mind as he pulled the stack out, randomly pulled the top third off and put it on the back before sliding it right back into the envelope and putting it back.
“More mind games,” he said happily. “If they have the same stack, and see me flip to a certain page, they can guess close.”
“But you won’t be starting on day one,” she said. “So they’ll be someplace completely messed up. Why are we working so hard to screw with other cops, Leigh?”
“It’s my case, Rachel,” Greyson let some of his anger show. “I had a nice retirement going, and those bastards decided to come mess it up. Zielinski had to walk out of the mist and sit down at my table. Threaten me. Cajole me. Finally make a deal with me. Cost him everything, because Upkins called my bluff and retired the son of a bitch. But she hasn’t cleared the rest of the riff raff out of the building, so now, on top of everything else, I got angry cops afraid that I’m going to start up the old investigations that nearly got them in trouble a year ago. Maybe jail time. So yeah, I’m gonna screw with them until I suss out which ones are trouble.”
“And me?” she asked, glancing over as they accelerated up the ramp.
“If you’re one of them, then nothing I do here is going to matter,” Greyson stared hard at her, waiting for some flinch, some tell that would give her away. “Most likely, they’ll fuck up the case and flush the Phrenic before I’m ready to take him down. So he runs. Probably gets away. I work for a while until it becomes clear that I can’t solve the case, and then probably somebody big makes me a deal to retire again. This time for good.”
“And if I’m clean?” she asked, angrily grinding the words out of a tense jaw like a Russian speaker. Like maybe she was a touch insulted at his presumption. As she should be.
“Then we have a chance to be heroes, kid,” he said. “Simple as that. I come back as a favored son. You get dipped in honey and glory so deep your hair turns strawberry blond and the folks in London start stalking you about maybe coming over a bit early. So I don’t care if you were a little bent. Or were even two days ago. You can go straight right now and help me solve the case, as long as you haven’t spilled my lead to those two bozos back there. If you have, then you might as well just hit the next off-ramp and drop me at a bus station, because the case will be blown, regardless of what promises they made you.”
She flinched.
Barely a twitch, but she might as well have screamed in the close confines of the car. And they both knew it.
Greyson watched her turn crimson all the way to the pointy tips of those cute ears. Noted the death grip on the steering wheel turning her knuckles white. Listened as she didn’t breathe.
“Who?” he asked, skipping over all the other questions someone else might have asked. All the denials, evasions, and acceptance necessary to get to the critical point.
Jesus, was he going to have to walk every cop he knew through the stages of death on this case? Kubler and Ross probably owed him royalties at this point.
Still, she remained tightly focused. Silent. Angry now, if he was reading her eyes right. Wasn’t sure if it was at him or someone else.
“Rachel?” Greyson pressed one last time.
If she didn’t answer, he would just open his door at the next red light and walk into the crowd on the sidewalk. Maybe mail his badge and gun back in, just to be a shit. Because if Owens was in on this, he was so screwed he’d be wasting everyone’s time even trying at this point.
Those morons would be tracking down every delivery driver and cross-referencing God knows what. Some fool of a detective, not even a hunter, would start interviewing them about Kelly Anne Nazarian and the target would vanish into the mists, like Greyson had done to Olek, back at the noodle bar.
“Redhawk,” she finally admitted in a tiny voice.
Greyson sighed. That was that. Owens’s right hand. Case closed, they just haven’t told everybody yet.
“And Upkins,” Rachel added just as she started down the off-ramp that would dump him onto the streets and back into civilian life.
Greyson stopped his motion to undo his seat belt and turned back to her.
“What?” he asked in a dead voice, just a hint above a whisper.
“Someone was watching us at the station house,” Rachel said, her own voice joining his in the graveyard. “Watched us leave. Counted the clock. Those two were standing there in my parking garage when I got home. Said they didn’t think I would react well if they were in my living room when I walked in.”
“Good way to get yourself killed,” Greyson breathed.
“You have no idea,” she rasped back. “I have to look in every closet and cupboard when I get home, gun in hand, just in cast somebody’s already there.”
“Oh, I know exactly what you mean,” Greyson countered. “Nightmares this morning got me up at four-thirty. Went and got some coffee and came back to wait for you. Tell me about your visitors.”
Stalking horse. But whose? Upkins changed the equation in his head. Had Redhawk seen that Owens was going down, and maybe move up and join the Metropolitan’s staff instead of a lowly Police Commissioner? Or was he maybe maneuvering himself to replace the man completely?
Greyson felt the tides suddenly turn and start to run a different direction from what they had been just yesterday.
“Edgar Redhawk can be quite charming, even when he looks like he’s sizing you up for a coffin,” Rachel replied hollowly, as if she was standing a million miles away. “He did most of the talking. Interrogating.”
Greyson grunted. That man would. Needing to impress the new boss that he could be salvaged when Owens had to take a fall, early retirement just like Zielinski had been offered. Assuming nobody had enough axe to grind to put the man in a cell for a while. Or another coffin.
“But he was there with Upkins?” Greyson confirmed.
“Yeah,” Rachel’s voice shook a little now, like maybe she’d had all that ugliness at the start of the night and it had only made its way over to his place later. “Wanted to know what you knew, with just two days on the case. I got the impression that she was expecting you to have already solved it by tomorrow.”
“What did you tell her?” Greyson asked pointedly as the light turned green and she drove across the intersection and down into the city streets of the old west side. “Exactly.”
“That you had a pretty good lead, but needed to sleep on it,” Rachel said.
He watched her for another flinch and didn’t see one. Didn’t mean she wasn’t lying. Maybe she was getting better at it.
Or Metropolitan Denise Upkins and her new assassin had maybe scared the young woman more than Greyson Leigh’s reputation might.
“And?” he pressed.
“And that we were running a background query that you thought would narrow down your suspects pretty quickly today, after you had a chance to look at the missing persons for the last two months. Nothing else. I was too frightened by the power play I was seeing in front of me to try to come up with anything interesting on the fly.”
“Good,” Greyson nodded. “They’d have nailed your hide to the wall eventually for any lies. Let them come after me later. I’m a big boy. I can take it.”
“Redhawk’s turning?” Rachel asked/guessed.
“He’s going to burn Owens,” Greyson guessed aloud. “Maybe already has, and they just haven’t pushed the man off the ledge yet. I’m guessing they told you to keep everything quiet.”
“Redhawk did,” Rachel’s voice had a different edge now. Fear. “Upkins just smiled and said it wouldn’t matter who knew. She knew you’d figure this out?”
“Something like that,” Greyson said. “We have a history, she and I, going back many years.”
“Anything you’re going to tell your new partner?” Rachel glanced over.
“Nothing I’d tell even my shrink or my rabbi,” Greyson shot back.
“You aren’t Jewish,” Rachel said.
“Exactly my point, youngster,” he said. “Park here and take several deep breaths before you get out of the car. I need you looking natural and feisty today when we eat breakfast, since we’ll have an audience watching.”
“Redhawk’s people?” Rachel asked.
“No,” Greyson mused. “If they approached you last night, they’ll expect you to keep them at least sort of up to date, but clear things with me before you leak it to them, so I can predict the incoming fire. That Scout back there is a couple of Vice Detectives or something. Somebody we won’t know on sight, that owe favors to our boys. Any cop that walks in will be telling Zielinski and Owens everything they see. Keep that in mind.”
“Got it,” she said. “Incoming fire?”
“This case is just a wedge, Rachel,” Greyson replied. “Upkins is likely to have other heads on stakes outside her office by the time you and I deliver her a Phrenic serial killer.”
She nodded at him and took a deep breath.
Greyson watched Rachel move towards calm and wondered just how much house-cleaning Denise Upkins had decided to do under the guise of bringing him back onto the force.
It wasn’t going to be pretty.
12
Missing
Greyson had asked for a table instead of a booth, then taken a seat that let him see both the kitchen area and the front door. Rather than be across from him, he had Rachel on his left, watching the parking lot out the front.
The place was ancient. It had been a restaurant for more than a century for a while one of those big, national chains that never closed, with bright, airy interiors and a long counter where a single like Greyson Leigh frequently sat, reading the news on his handheld and sipping the coffee dark and heavy enough to stand a knife up in it some mornings. These days, it was a local joint, serving a better quality of slop than the chain had done because they didn’t need to serve the exact same meals elsewhere. Texans had weird ideas about breakfast.
Waitress approaching knew Greyson’s face but not his crimes. Taller woman, heavy-set with middle age and dyed hair needing work on the roots coming in. Dressed in the standard uniform of a skirt and apron, with a hat in her hair that always reminded him of a cloth tiara.
Greyson got the impression that she thought this might be some sort of a date, rather than business, but he chalked that up to the woman not being able to smell cop coming off him this morning. Rachel didn’t look like a cop or a prostitute. Wasn’t dressed well enough to be an office drone, but too nice to be a machinist. Too sour and focused to be a girlfriend out for breakfast, and not rigid enough to be a tumble-and-food-before-parting sort of thing.
So the waitress decided to play it safe, from the smile she gave him.
“Coffee?” the woman asked, big glass carafe in one hand held up expectantly.
Greyson already had his mug flipped. Rachel was there a beat slow, but he put that down to her still recovering from expecting him to walk at that red light back there.
Which just might have taken her career down when he did.
Fuel got poured. Menus were left. They were alone.
“So I still can’t tell,” Rachel murmured finally when she realized he wasn’t going to speak first. “Did I fuck up or not? With Redhawk and Upkins.”
“We’ll see,” Greyson replied, about as honest as he could right now. “Pretty sure those two had you in an impossible situation last night. She’s good about picking the death ground she wants to fight on, and very few people ever win when she decides to go all in.”
“But?”
“If you told them I had a lead and needed to look at faces on that print out, and nothing else, then we might still solve the case,” he looked over at her and felt the muscles in his face turn sour and brooding. Couldn’t be helped.
Ethen nodded to himself, aware that even Zaborra wasn’t so stupid as to stay with that cover if a Homicide Detective showed up out of the blue. He’d flee, probably just abandoning Ethen on this damned planet so that Zaborra could get home, thoroughly chastened.
Or not, the being didn’t do introspection worth a damn. Would have made a lousy cop.
Ethen would have no chance to escape if that happened, at least until he found a way to slip the bonds of Greyson Leigh and vanish as well. Or he could stay.
Living with the man had opened his eyes to all the stupid shit that Ethen had ever done, and the raw luck that had kept him alive this long. And he had looked up gas-lighting as a verb on Greyson’s handheld. Read the definition with their eyes.
He’d been a schmuck. A loser. A dupe that Zaborra had manipulated. But Ethen Boli had always been a victim. A sucker that a stronger personality could bully into taking risks for him.
Ethen Boli could never undo the crimes he had done. The murders that ruined so many other lives. Even putting the nerve scrambler in his mouth and pulling the trigger right now wouldn’t fix that.
Plus, he needed to stop Zaborra first. End that creature’s reign of terror in the shadows.
Then maybe he’d kill himself. End both his and Greyson’s lives in one blast of retribution.
If he could.
Ethen knew he was a coward under it all. Looking at Greyson Leigh in the mirror had stripped away any lies or deflections he might have told himself otherwise. Listening to the man’s internal monologue about how to be a good cop and a good person just laid it all bare, with no place left for an alien intruder to hide.
Hell, there were times the thought of letting Greyson just take over sounded better, but that was all the gas-lighting talking. The thought that Ethen Boli wasn’t good enough, wasn’t smart enough to ever be an upright citizen.
That way lay Deathwalkers.
“I’m clean, Greyson,” Rachel said in a quiet, earnest voice.
It took both of them a moment to find context. She was referring to Upkins.
Greyson flashed back nearly a decade to a younger cop and a younger pol. The quiet things that had never quite erupted into a proper affair, but always danced right along those edges, even less frequent physical moments than he and Emmy had but just as intense.
For Denise, too much risk in opening herself up emotionally after her husband had died suddenly, balanced against certain needs, in a situation where a quiet cop who could keep his mouth shut might be enough.
Hadn’t been that many occasions. And they had ended sharply when it became clear that she was poised to run for Metropolitan. And would likely win.
Even then Greyson had to remain in the shadows, or folks might have started to ask what he used to do for the Army. Answers he could not give without doing time in a military prison. Any scandal that was his would have stained her as well.
