Hard Days Night (The Firsts Book 8) (17 page)

Whatever the fuck
that
meant.  Jinx glanced into the office to make sure Canzone wasn’t looking, and slipped out of the building with files that compromised everything Canzone had built for thirty-five years.  When he got to his car, he locked the doors and slowly left the area,
no hurry
,
don’t draw attention, get the fuck out before they knew what he was doing.

Once he thought he was safe, he got on the highway to head downtown as fast as he could move without risking a pull-over by
Mal’s buddies.  He’d give her the shit and disappear.  While Jinx would be the first to admit that he wasn’t the
smartest knife in the drawer
, he wasn’t stupid either.

“Detective Kalani, would you come in here, please.”

Mal looked up at the Captain standing in his doorway.  He did
not
look happy.  She glanced over at Luka’s empty desk.  Yeah, she knew why.

Standing, she made her way over to the office as quickly as a five
-year-old going to its parent for a spanking.  This was going to be pretty similar.

As she reached the door to his office, Mal hovered.

Jeffrey Kordalis looked up at her from where he was reseated at his desk.

“Close the door.”

Once she did, she moved closer, but didn’t take a seat.

“Yes, sir?
  What was it that you wanted?”

“I think you know what.  May I ask you who gave you permission to confront Canzone at the governor’s ball last night?”

“Well, he wasn’t taking my calls.”

“Really?
  Didn’t we have a conversation last week?”

“Yeah, but sir, Luka’s still missing.”

“I know, Mal.  But I took you off the case because you’re intimately involved.  Not only because he’s your partner, but because the main suspect has you on his radar.  Mal, you’re suspended.”

“What?”

“You heard me.  I want you away from everything to do with this man.  I have teams working on Luka’s whereabouts, and I don’t have time to have them searching for you, too.  This man is ruthless and powerful and he has a thing for you.  I have video of the confrontation last night.  Mal, he’s grinning every second.”

“I know. I nearly wiped that smile on the Italian tile under our feet.”

“I could see that.  I’m actually shocked that you
didn’t
hit him.”  Jeffrey paused.  “I won’t let anything happen to you.  I promised your father I’d look after you, and I’m going to by sending you home.”

“He can get to me in my apartment just like here.”

“No.  Not your apartment.  I want you to go to your mother’s home.”

“No.”

“It’s already done. Your father is meeting you there.  No one knows about Brigitte’s cabin.  You’ll be safe there.”

“Captain…”

“If you want to help Luka, you need to go, Mal.  You’re obstructing the investigation and.   God, I hate to say this, but if he
is
still alive, he won’t be for long.”

Mal opened her mouth to protest, but she knew better.  Kordalis wouldn’t change his mind.  She even
thought he may be right.

“Yes, sir.”

Each footstep felt like lead as Mal went to her desk, picked up her bag, nodded to the other officers she passed, and left the building.

IN SOUTH AFRICA

Luka sat on top of a raging tower of water.  It was perhaps the most beautiful place he’d ever seen in his life.  Although the air was warm, the constant scatters of water shot up from below cooled his skin and felt like a piece of heaven.

He felt good and looked better.  His body, oh fuck, did it look better.  He was huge now, all over.  The muscles that he’d worked his ass off to get back home in the local gym had been replaced with video-game sized muscles.

His new body lo
oked amazing and felt awkward.  Scanning the birds that flew down into the water, he acknowledged that he was grateful to be alive.  But at what cost?

His entire life.
His friends and home, his family, what was left of it.  A job he loved.  And Mal.

They’d told him he could never go back.  That he would adapt and be happy.

His advanced hearing let him know someone had arrived behind him and he knew who it was by the soft footfalls.  When he looked up, his breath caught a little, as it usually did.  If he was extraordinarily handsome now, his looks had nothing on hers.  She was otherworldly gorgeous.

“Luka, how are you this fine night?”

“I’m okay, Chione.  Still adjusting.”

Dropping beside him, almost as if she defied gravity, she was so elegant, Chione tilted her head.  “It will be a while. 
Did you get enough to eat at first meal?”

Luka laughed.  “Yeah, I guess.  Still can’t believe I can eat all that food.”

“It’s one of the perks.  Humans love that when they are changed.”

“I bet. I’m okay.  You don’t have to babysit me.  I know the big guy assigned you to me.”

“He did not.  I have a sympathy for people, a skill for understanding.  Your pain reached out to me. It’s quite intense.”

Luka watched the pounding water and didn’t answer.  He’d lost everything that meant anything to him. 
Fucking
right his pain was intense
.

“I am here if you need someone.”  Chione slipped her fingers around Luka’s forearm, the tips caressing. 

It felt good to feel something, anything.  The scream inside his mind calmed, he could feel his heart actually slow its rapid beats.

“What are you doing to me?”

Chione smiled, and he was caught.  She lit up the world when she smiled.

“It’s my gift.  Would you join us for the dance tonight?  We’re celebrating the new harvest.  You will love our
MoonShine.”

“Booze?
  Never turned down a good brew.”

“It’s our local wine.  Since we are the children of the moon, we call our special wine
MoonShine.  Luka, you will not have any use for beer once you’ve tasted this magic elixir.”

“I might, then.” He drew a long breath and looked down at
Chione’s fingers, still attached to his arm.

“I like
that.  You really do have a magic touch.”

“I really do.  Please, come to my dwelling in another hour and escort me to the gardens.”

“If that would please you.”

Chione stood, her slender legs, the V between, near his face now.  His heartbeat sped back up again.

Luka forced himself to look up at her face.

Her eyes sparkled.
“You please me very much.  I will see you soon. I’m going to pick a flower for your hair.”

Grinning, Luka brushed his hand through his hair that was longer by far than it had ever been.  “How about some scissors?”

“Tonight, my new friend.”

Shaking his head, Luka admitted, there were a
few
things
he liked here.

Mal brewed coffee and opened up the bag she’d stopped for on her way home.  If she was suspended, with pay at least, she was going to indulge.   She reached in
to the bag and put the contents on a big platter she’d laid on her small table and just stared at it.  Six large round donuts, icing-filled and chocolate-covered.  Diet busters.

Good start.  Hot coffee and pastries should help her get through the rest of the day and the night to come while she worried about Luka.

Only she wasn’t really
that
worried about Luka.  It puzzled her that she wasn’t ape-shit crazy searching for him.  He was the brother she never had, and as much family as her father, she should be bulldozing every building in L.A. searching for him.  And yet something inside of her remained calm, like she knew that he was okay, like everything was as it should be.  She didn’t think she would find him, but she didn’t know why.

Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs that threaten
ed her sanity, Mal picked up the platter and carried it to the sofa.  When the coffee was ready, she poured a big mug to the rim and turned on the television that was lucky to be turned on once a month.

After three donuts and two mugs of coffee, Mal felt worse.  Exhausted, confused, sad, lonely…she didn’t understand what was wrong with her.  Something was, though, because since she got back to L.A., she hadn’t felt right.

She finally gave in to the exhaustion and closed her eyes.  Sleep came fast, a white emptiness that felt comforting.  Then he arrived, a shadow on a bright wall, male, big, and covered a naked Mal lying in the whiteness on a shiny floor with his warm body.  The dark, shadowy hands slid over her breasts, then down, down, until he pulled her legs apart, and the shadow dived into her, a scalding tongue reaching halfway to her soul, buried between her legs.  She woke abruptly, breathing as if she’d run a ten-miler.  Oh, God, she was bone-deep tired.  She just needed sleep. 

Mal pressed the off button on her remote and went into her bedroom to drop dramatically onto her bed.  She released a long, loud sigh and pulled her pillow up under her head in
to a tight ball.  Within minutes, she’d fallen asleep as easily as she had on the sofa.

The dreams came
again immediately, this time in full color, the most vivid of her life.  A beautiful beach at night with a nearly full moon, the shadow from before now a man walking beside her, a perfect dream lover, tall, extraordinarily well built, already naked as a dream lover should be,
very
well hung,
too perfect to actually exist!
  He led her onto the beach and removed her clothes slowly, then made love to her, there on the soft sand, so intimate for a woman afraid of intimacy.  But she was safe in dreams, so she let herself love this man, let him inside her, crawled inside of him.  She let him touch her heart, and that had never happened before.  Not even in a dream.

Intense emotion
drove her from the dream.  She sat up, her hand to her belly, which felt weird, as if something moved inside of her.

Ahhh
.  Those damn donuts must be attacking her.  She groaned.

Six at once!  As if she didn’t know better.  Between the belly ache and the
erotic dream, the last place Mal wanted to be right now was in bed.  Normally, she’d down a hot coffee, but her stomach felt too off for even that, so she drew a tall glass of clear, cool water and sat on her sofa with her feet pulled up.  What had gone so wrong with her life?  Why was she so out of it?

Luka
.  He’d always been her rock, the one that kept her grounded and stable.  He was gone and somehow, she knew he wasn’t coming back.  How could she know that?  And if she did, why wasn’t she devastated?

When the doorbell
chimed, it startled her so much she just sat and looked at the door, a hand to her chest.

“Mal, are you there? It’s Bev, Mal, I’m worried about you.
Mal?”

Damn it,
what was wrong with her that she was jumping at every little thing?

Mal hurried to the door
, released the deadbolt, and slid off the chain to open it wide.

Bev had a sympathetic smile that made Mal want to barf.  She turned away, but left the door open as an invitation.

Entering, Bev closed the door behind her.

“Hi, honey. How are you doing?  The Captain told me he’d sent you home.”

“I’m okay. I think.  Maybe.  I don’t know.  My partner and dearest friend is missing and I know it’s likely he’s dead.  Yet somehow I think he’s not.  And somehow, I think he’s okay.  But I know he isn’t ever coming home.  And I feel like shit!” Mal looked up at Bev finally.  “And I ate 6 supersized crème-filled donuts!”

“Oh, babe.
You’re on a sugar high with all the other emotional trauma running through you.  You need to sleep, baby girl.”

“I can’t. All I do is dream of this sexy man fucking my brains out.
”

“Dreams sometimes manifest what we need.”

Mal threw a pillow at her.  “Bev, I don’t know where to go from here.  The Captain wants me to go to my mother’s house in Hawaii.”

“Where’s it located?”

“On Molokai.  It’s isolated, on a cliff overlooking the Pacific.  I haven’t been there since she died.  My father is supposed to meet me there.  I’m not sure I’m ready to spend time with him again.  And I can’t find peace with Luka. I told you, I’m screwed up in the head about him.  I don’t know why I’m not terrified that he’s dead. Canzone promised to kill him and, Bev, he might have.”