The line clicked.
She tried dialing Harry's phone a second time, but got only his voice mail. The fire station was six blocks away. She began walking, and then fear set in, and she ran.
The unit was parked under a cypress tree by the small pond in the center of the park. Sam felt relief flooding her as she saw Harry's silhouette through the driver's-side window. He had his window open, and a hand propped against his head.
He was taking a nap.
Christ, is he going to be mad when he finds out someone reached in and stole his mobile.
Sam still slammed the door out of principle as she climbed in behind the wheel. "Can't you wait for the deck chairs on the boat, old man?" Harry didn't answer her, so she reached over and shook his shoulder to wake him up. "Come on, wake up, wake—" She pulled back a wet, red hand. "Oh, my God." She grabbed Harry's head and pushed it up. "Harry. Harry."
Blood from his slashed throat transferred from his jacket to her hands, and without thinking she picked up his hand to check for a pulse. Their palms brushed.
Cigarettes. Tiny red lights. Streetlights. Briny, humid air. Angry faces. Bored faces. The darkness of the alley. Harry's inhaler. The smell of its medicated spray.
Sam was seeing his last moments—as they had happened. Harry hadn't been dead long, or they would have come to her backward. Maybe she still had time—
A stray cat, carrying something in its mouth, darting out of the alley. Harry's watch. The door of the unit. The windshield. The glove box. A prescription bottle. Two tablets on Harry's broad palm.
"No," she heard herself saying.
A flash of silver from the rearview mirror. The blade slashing the air. The fist around the hilt. The bare arm.
Sam closed her eyes and screamed, but the images didn't stop.
The huge spray of blood. On the dashboard, on the windshield, everywhere. One bloody, trembling hand held up in the light. Reaching for the tiny crystal dolphin, Sam's good-luck charm, hanging from the rearview. The hand falling. Darkness.
Darkness.
Darkness.
"I'm sorry," Sam whispered. "I'm sorry."
A soft white glow. The smell of pine trees. Stars falling all around her. Rain made of light.
The roof of the unit. The alley below. The cooling towers, the rooftops. The block, the street, the city, all falling away. The lights of the living dwindling to tiny jewels on black velvet.
Above.
Sparkles of light, white and pure and untouchable. Stars swelling into suns. Stars melding with other stars. Stars exploding. More light, growing, blazing, consuming everything that was and would be—
Darkness.
The last thing Samantha remembered clearly doing that night was calling Dispatch on the radio to report her location and the fact that her partner had been murdered. After that, most of her brain seemed to simply shut down.
She was aware of things, distant, unimportant things. Like the fact that the first people to arrive on the scene were fire rescue; they simply walked over from the station next to the park. She knew that one of them checked Harry for a pulse, while another talked to her through the window. There were questions asked that she didn't answer. She could hear them debating with each other on whether to move her or let her stay.
She stayed with Harry.
There were pretty colors on the dappled surface of the lake in front of her. Flashing blue, white, and red lights. More of them lit up the park as squad cars and an ambulance pulled in on either side of Sam's unit. More voices tried to talk to her, but she still saw no reason to speak. Her partner was dead, murdered, right there beside her. If they couldn't figure it out, then they shouldn't be carrying badges.
"Sammy, come on." Ortenza's voice, strained and pleading, penetrated the haze of pain and disbelief. "Snap out of it."
Peterson answered for her. "Leave her alone."
Wise, sensible Peterson. Sam wanted to thank him, but nothing would come out of her mouth. Then Garcia was there, not asking, not begging, not saying a word to her. It was his hands she allowed on her, his strength that guided her out of the car and put her into another one.
"No," he said to someone asking angry questions. "Tomorrow. Tomorrow."
The captain didn't question her, which was fine with Sam. He seemed to be reading her mind, though, for he pulled off the road twice so she could get out and vomit into the grass. Both times he knelt beside her, an arm around her shoulders, a hand holding her hair back.
Everything after that came in briefer flashes, blinks of reality.
Stairs. Blue hair, black leather, worried young eyes. Chris. Low voices, an exchange of keys. Doors opening, doors closing. Taking off her jacket, pushing her onto her narrow bed.
She'll be all right. Sam's tougher than you think.
She wasn't this tough, Sam wanted to argue. This surely was going to kill her.
Chris's voice returned, soft and sweet as she read from one of Sam's books.
" 'Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.'"
Harry had wanted help from her, but Sam had been too busy playing with Lucan to be there for him. Now he was dead.
" 'Life has not forgotten you… it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall.'"
Chris kept reading. The words hung over Sam, mobiles of moving beauty, memories of another life's pain. No one should have to suffer such things as this.
Harry never would again. Harry, who had left her behind, was safe.
Sam started weeping. Not sobbing; her throat refused to let out a single sound. Tears streamed down her face until the low, sweet voice stopped and Chris was beside her, holding her in her arms and rubbing her back.
"Keep breathing. That's all you have to do now, Sam. Keep breathing."
Lucan had to discover whether Richard had left Ireland and where in Florida he would be residing, as well as prepare for the coming battle with Cyprien. All of that went out of his head the moment Rafael told him that Harry Quinn had been robbed and murdered not a half dozen blocks from the club.
"Samantha?"
"She was found on the scene with him. She was in shock, so her superior took her home. A neighbor is with her now. My lord, about this situation with the seigneur—"
"Not now." Lucan scooped up the keys to his Ferrari and strode out of the club.
Once he was standing outside the door to Samantha's apartment, however, his determination deserted him. Lucan had seen Samantha and Quinn together. All of the reports indicated theirs had been a close and affectionate relationship. She would not stop until she brought the old man's killer to justice.
She would be in shock, horrified, suffering for the loss of a man she held in great affection. What could he do for her now? Seduce her? Even he was not so callous as to take advantage of her grief.
She will wish to be alone. I would.
The door to the apartment abruptly opened, and a young woman with the most astonishing head of blue hair stared out at him. "I thought I heard someone out here." Her eyes widened. "I know you; you're—"
"Samantha's friend," Lucan said, taking a step closer so that the space between them filled with the scent of jasmine. "I've come to see her."
The girl's eyelids drooped, and she smiled. "Of course you have." She opened the door wider. "Come in."
Lucan stepped inside and smiled down at the girl. "I will care for her now. You should go home and sleep."
"Sleep." The girl yawned. "Yes. Good night." Without protest she walked out and went into the apartment across the hall.
He saw some candles burning here and there, but most of the electric lights had been switched off. Samantha lay curled up on her bed, still dressed in her day clothes, her eyes staring at the ceiling. At the threshold he again hesitated.
"I heard you talking to Chris," she said, not looking at him. "Come in."
"Rafael told me about Detective Quinn." Cautiously he approached the bed and stood at the foot of it. "I am very sorry for your loss, Samantha."
"That's what we always say to the victim's family. Right before we ask them who might have wanted the victim dead." She sat up, looking a little bewildered. "How did you know where I lived?" Before he could reply, she rubbed her eyes. "You've had me investigated. Why?"
"I wanted to learn more about you." That seemed the blandest way of putting it. "I know you're a very private person. I apologize for intruding."
"Don't. I'm flattered." She swung her legs off the bed and tried to stand, but had to grasp the headboard for support. "I'm not doing too well right now, though. Maybe you could hit on me another time."
"Samantha." He went to her, catching her as she tumbled forward, holding her against him. "It wasn't your fault."
"I should have been with him. I'm his partner. Was his partner." She rubbed her hand. "I saw how he died. Brutal, but quick. He didn't suffer long. I suppose that's better than dying slowly in a hospital bed."
He had forgotten about her talent. "I wish I could have spared you that." He would find whoever killed Harry Quinn, and he would gut them slowly. That much he could do for her.
She uttered something like a laugh and lifted her hand, exposing the puckered scar across the palm. "You know, you're the only person I can trust now. You know about what I do."
He wanted to protect her, but he was the very thing she despised. All his plans to make her his kyrya seemed slightly obscene now. "You shouldn't trust so easily."
She looked from her hand to him. "Twenty people at the club confirmed your alibi; they saw you there the entire night when Lena was murdered. You weren't the man in the garden with Montgomery. And you were with me when Harry was murdered."
She was going to rip the heart out of his chest. He put her down on the bed and drew his hands away from her. "I will go and bring the blue-haired girl back here."
