Djinn and Tonic (6 page)

“What about Leila?”

“Who?”

“The bartender? The one I was—the bartender working when all this happened.”

Archer catches my slip. “The one you were what?”

I try to cover, “The one I was talking to, just before whatever happened, happened.”

Archer rolls her eyes. “Yeah, ’cause that’s what you were gonna say.” She shakes her head and waves the subject away with a sweep of her long fingers. “Anyway, we spoke to her, but she claims not to know anything. Says she has no idea how the building was destroyed.”

“Do you believe her?” I ask. Connections are forming in the back of my mind, but I refuse to examine them.
 

Not yet, least.
 

“Not really,” Archer says with a shrug. “But there’s no evidence of any kind of a crime. You were with her, and she says it must have been a robbery, but the building is so damaged that it’s impossible to tell if anything was stolen. I personally think she’s hiding something, but I don’t know what, and I got no proof of anything at all, regardless of my feelings. I’m not even sure what I’m looking for. This is one of the more bizarre things I’ve ever encountered.”
 

I can only nod and sip my coffee. It’s all too strange. Too much like the al-Mansur case in far too many ways, and I have no intention of getting caught up in another case like that one.

Captain Archer is staring at me intently, examining me. “You like her, don’t you? The bartender?”
 

I shrug, not wanting to talk about her.
 

“Look, Hale,” she said. “You’re
allowed
to like her. Something weird happened, sure, but there’s no conflict of interest that I can see. God knows you need a girlfriend. You’re working too hard, you need something to look forward to ’sides one case after another. If you like her, go after her. That’s my motherly advice for today.”

I wish it were that simple. I’ve got a feeling it will be anything but.

With instructions to take it easy and to come back to work only when I’m ready, the captain leaves.

Not even an hour after Captain Archer leaves, Leila shows up, looking as toned and fit and sexy as ever. We talk, I resist asking questions, and she avoids providing any answers. The whole time she’s here I feel a thousand questions boiling in the back of my head, demanding I ask her about what happened. But before I can do that, through flirting banter, we talk about our first kiss in the bar, and Leila seems to think
she
kissed
me
first, when I know for a fact it was the other way around. Her tongue flicks out to lick her lips, and I can’t help but remember how her tongue had tentatively touched mine in that first kiss.
 

All my questions are buried by her proximity. Her lips are only centimeters from mine now, and I feel a sense of reckless abandon wash through me. I can’t help what comes next, and I don’t try to stop it. Resistance is pointless. Her lips are so close, her eyes huge and dark and waiting, and her hand is in mine, and it’s just a matter of tilting my head just so, and our lips will touch, in the briefest of caresses.
 

She tastes of cherry lip balm again, and something else now, a slushy maybe, frozen Coke. Her hand drifts up to the back of my head, and there’s something so tender, so affectionate and familiar about the gesture. It sets me on fire, makes me crazy with desire for her. Her tongue brushes against mine, a questing touch, and the fire becomes a blaze.
 

I forget everything except Leila, except her lips and her hands, the silk-soft skin of her face beneath my fingers. Wrapping my arms around her body, I touch her back and the nape of her neck, and she arches into my touch.

And then she tenses and pulls away, although I can tell it took some effort. Her eyes are deep and dark, full of secrets and mysteries. There’s so much hidden behind her gaze.
 

I have trouble tearing my eyes from hers, but the questions about the explosion—or whatever it was that happened and why I am here, in the hospital—are boiling up inside me, and I know I won’t be able to contain them for long. The cop in me is just too strong.
 

I can see the conflict in her eyes, and I hate the fact that I have no idea what’s causing it. There are so many questions, and so few answers. She’s withholding so much from me, and I know it. I can see it in her eyes; can feel the lies emanating from her skin in palpable waves.

When I outright ask her what happened, she lies and says she doesn’t know.
 

After years of questioning witnesses and suspects, I can sense evasion and sniff out omission. I know a lie when I hear one, and she’s lying through her fucking teeth.
 

Yet, as much as that pisses me off, I can’t bring myself to push the issue. She’s keeping secrets, that much is painfully clear. As a detective, my instinct is to pursue the truth with relentless ferocity. But as a man interested in a woman, I’m conflicted; I want to respect her privacy.

How do I reconcile the two?
 

Her visit is brief, and I wonder if part of the reason is she’s scared of my questions, scared of telling the truth for reasons beyond my ability to fathom. When she’s gone, I’m torn between equal parts of relief and disappointment: relief from the internal war of the need for truth, the desire to respect her privacy, and the disappointment that she’s actually gone, leaving me to my whirling, confused thoughts.
 

After Leila leaves, I ask the nurse to lower the lights and draw the curtain around my half of the room. I turn the TV to ESPN and put it on mute. There’s a lot to think about, and I can’t imagine getting any sleep right now.

I slump lower in the hard, uncomfortable bed, scratching at the tubes taped to my forearm, flipping through the pictures again, trying to ignore the increasingly strong feeling that Leila had something to do with the destruction of The Old Shillelagh, that she knows exactly what happened and is just refusing to tell me, for reasons I can’t quite figure out.
 

God, I wish I could re-wind my life by twenty-four hours.

Chapter 4: Constricting Coils

Leila

Returning from the hospital, I arrive home and unlock my door, distracted and flustered by my visit with Carson. It is very difficult to avoid his questions. I can see that he doesn’t believe me. I don’t want to lie to him, but I have no other option.

 
Entering, I lock the door behind me and set my keys on the small ledge by the door. An overpowering yet familiar scent hits me in the face…what is it? Cologne, a thick miasma. It’s then that I notice Hassan lounging on my couch, dirty shoes propped up on my glass coffee table, smearing mud on the clean surface.
 

Rage washes through me, and I clutch at the core of power always swirling within me. My hair is whipping around my head, a sudden, impossible wind blowing through the cramped one-bedroom apartment, plucking bills and magazines and books into a whorling vortex with me at the center.

Hassan shields his face with his arms, shrinking back against the couch. The wind buffets him, batters at his human form; flickers of flame spurt from his body. His arms and legs flash between being wind-blown flame and human flesh.
 

“Hey!” he shouts. “What are you doing? Cut it out! I’m just here to talk!”
 

I pull the winds back into myself, tamping them down and forcing them to quiet, but I keep them coiled just beneath the surface.

“What do you
want
, Hassan?” My voice is cold and hard. I’m disgusted by the fact that he is in my personal living space.

I want nothing so much as to use my powers to throw him through the wall, but I don’t. For one thing, I’m not sure I could win a battle of powers between us.

“I just want to talk, Leila. Just listen to me, okay?” He relaxes his defensive posture and stands up, brushing at his Armani suit and adjusting his diamond-studded Rolex. Hassan is tall and handsome and very, very wealthy. He exudes power, authority, and arrogance. His features are Old World, a hawkish nose, deep-set, glittering black eyes, high cheekbones, lips always curled in sneering contempt.

“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m not marrying you.”

He grins, a sarcastic, snide smile. “Well, now, that’s not really up to you, is it?” He crosses the room to stand inches from me; his evil, dark eyes are hard and fixed on me. He stinks of too much cologne, and I’m choking with it. “You know what’s at stake, Leila. Are you sure you’re willing to sacrifice the well-being of your entire family? I’m not so bad.” With a lascivious smirk he adds, “You’ll see, once you get to know me. I can be very…entertaining.”

I push past him, stifling a shudder of revulsion as I pass him, and set my purse on the kitchen counter. He’s right about the fact that marrying him is not my decision.
 

This only angers me all the more. “You’re a
pig
, Hassan. I’d rather spend eternity in hell than marry you. My father knows this, but he doesn’t listen. Just like you, all he cares about is himself and his business.”

“He loves you, Leila. He wants what’s best for you. He knows I can take care of you when he’s gone.” Hassan is picking lint from the sleeves of his suit jacket as he speaks. Always so concerned with his appearance. Vain as a peacock. “He’s aging, your father. He’s growing aware that the end of his life is near. He wants to ensure you are cared for. He knows I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted, and more.”

I huff out a laugh; as if I’d take anything from him. “There’s nothing you have that I want.” I whirl to face him, stabbing a finger at him. “Not from you
or
from my father. The only thing either of you care about is money and power. All my life, I’ve never wanted for anything. I grew up getting whatever I asked for and more, yet I left all that behind…
on purpose
. You think I’m living in this tiny apartment because I like it? I pay for this myself, with what I
earn
, something you know nothing about. You inherited your wealth. You’ve done
nothing
to earn it, except maybe kill people. I don’t want your dirty money, I don’t want your diamonds or cars or mansions. I don’t want
you
. All I want is to be left
alone
.”

Hassan isn’t the least bit fazed by my outburst. “No one is asking what you want, Princess.”

“I KNOW!” I shout. “No one has ever asked what I want! And don’t call me
Princess
. That’s not who I am anymore.”
 

But Hassan isn’t done. “No one is giving you a choice about marrying me. You know what’s at stake. If you won’t come willingly, I’ll drag you, and nothing and no one can stop me.”
 

Hassan’s lips curl up in a snarl, and he’s suddenly pressed close against me, gripping my arms in a painful vise-like grip. I didn’t even see him move. His eyes turn to flickering flames, orange and hungry and hot.

“You’re mine…
Princess
. There’s nothing you can do about it. You belong to
me
. I have
purchased
you, do you understand that? Your existence is
mine
, bought and paid for.” His breath is foul, putrid and sour. “So here’s what’s going to happen: you are coming with me to Chicago, and we are going to be married, whether you like it or not. The alliance will be sealed, and your family’s wealth will be mine, as will your body and your future. I
own
you. I own your father, your mother, your cousins. Everyone. Everything. Their lives depend on your actions. So either you go home on your own, or I drag you kicking and screaming back to Chicago. Perhaps I’ll tie you up and put you in the trunk of my car. Would you like that? Bound and gagged? Either way, in two weeks you’ll sign the fucking contract and you’ll speak the fucking words, do you hear me? I will do whatever I must to ensure this is done according to our laws.”
 

“And if I resist you?” I ask with a bravado I don’t feel.

Hassan’s eyes spark and flare, orange flames glinting with threat.
 

“I’ll make you regret it,” he hisses. “I won’t harm a hair on
your
head, oh no. You’re too valuable to me intact. But you
will
regret it, let’s just put it that way. You understand what I’m saying? No? Then let me spell it out for you—everyone you love, everyone you care about will pay the price for your selfish, stubborn refusal to obey your betters. Your father, your mother, your aunt and uncle, your cousins, all of them will pay the price for your childish stupidity. You wouldn’t want anything to…
happen
to them, would you?”

I suppress my rage; my father is a fool, and he has indebted himself thrice over to the al-Jabiri clan, and now
I
must pay the price to absolve
his
debt.

“There will be no marriage, Hassan,” I say. “Not in two weeks, not ever. You and your gorillas trashed the bar I work at, and now the police are all over me. They suspect it wasn’t an accident. I will not be cowed by your threats. It will take time to convince them I had nothing to do with the…explosion.”

“That’s your problem, Princess,” Hassan says, his smile sickly sweet. I want to bash in his perfect white teeth. “You should know better than to associate with human men. You are not for them. You are mine. That was…just a little warning. To you, and to that human you were rubbing yourself all over. Next time I catch you with him or anyone else, the consequence will be much worse.”
 

“The police—” I begin, but Hassan cuts in over me.

“Are humans. They will find nothing. They will decide it was a freak occurrence of nature, and move on. And if not…? Well, then there will be a strange outbreak of house fires, mysteriously claiming only the lives of local police officers. Which, of course, will be on your conscience.” He grins, pointing a finger at me. “Two weeks, Leila. I’ll be back for you in two weeks. If I have to knock you unconscious and cart you back to Chicago in my trunk, I will. This alliance
will
happen, or I will slaughter your family in front of you, one by one. I don’t need any of them alive to take control of your clan’s assets.” His eyes are dead and cold, his fingers dig into my arm, his breath stinks of garlic and cigars and alcohol. “I will tie you to a chair and cut your father’s throat. I will rape your mother and your aunt and all your delicious little cousins, and then I’ll kill them too. I’ll cut them all into pieces and feed them to my dogs. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Leila Najafi? You wouldn’t want all that blood on your hands, would you? That much blood doesn’t wash off; trust me on that.”