Prey (40 page)

It was a riot of color—red, blue, green, yellow, and black—and covered most of the center of his upper chest as it sprawled out in flight, its long, slender, feathered tail curving around his pierced left nipple.

“That’s gorgeous,” Roan blurted. It was; it was one of the most beautiful, detailed tattoos he’d ever seen.

Matt glanced down, as if he wasn’t sure what he was referring to, and again shrugged as Roan finally heard sirens screaming off in the distance. “I was really into body modification there for a while. This was the first part of a sequence of tattoos that was going to cover my entire torso like a shirt, y’know. But I found out that, once you’re sober, tattoos kinda hurt. Also, without downers, I didn’t have the patience to just lay there and get stuck by needles for hours on end.”

“I bet.”

Matt studied him closely for a moment, and said, “You’re a lion, aren’t you?”

This kid was just full of surprises, wasn’t he? “How do you know that?”

He smiled warmly at Roan, proud he’d guessed it right. “Like I said, you’re regal.”

“Lions aren’t regal. From what I understand, they’re lazy, sexist bastards.”

“You can’t believe everything you hear on Animal Planet, y’know.”

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A very familiar ambulance screamed to a stop next to the curb one car removed from them, and it had barely stopped before the back doors of the rig burst open and a familiar EMT jumped down, holding a medical kit as big as a pro fisherman’s tackle box. “I just knew it was you,” Diego exclaimed, bustling over. “We hear about an infected who’s been shot in a firefight, and I said to Steve, ‘Holy shit, Ro has finally snapped.’” He was crouched down next to him before he even noticed Matt, and at Dee’s slightly stern look, Matt withdrew his shirt and backed away from them, giving Dee room to work. He ripped open Roan’s shirt for a better look at the wound, and scowled at it, like he could frighten the bullet out of his chest. “Oh man, what are we gonna do with you?”

“Buy me body armor?” he offered. Dee’s harsh glance suggested he didn’t find that funny.

The first cop car finally pulled up, and he asked Dee quietly, “Call Paris for me, would you?”

Dee’s expression softened as he nodded. “Of course.”

And he thought Paris was going to be heartbroken about the Mustang. Oy vey, he didn’t even want to imagine how he was going to react to this.

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8

Meantime

PARIS knew he should have called Annie, but he felt like he should be useful first. He had a job to do, right? Okay, technically it was Roan’s job, but he was his partner. Kind of. In a way.

Oh fuck it—okay, he was looking for an excuse to put the call off.

Roan was the strong one, not him. He did the facing up to things, while Paris was more than happy to wade deep into denial and do some fly-fishing. That was why Ro was the Rock of Gibraltar and he was the sissy boy who had a nervous breakdown as soon as he’d realized he was infected and had probably killed (and ate) someone. What he’d always hoped was that he’d get some of Ro’s strength by osmosis, that he’d finally grow a fucking spine. Had he? He didn’t really know; he suspected he’d have to ask someone else, although that wasn’t a good sign. And what irony: he was a tiger. A big, strong tiger that wasn’t afraid of anything, unlike its Human counterpart, who was a bit more of a pussy.

Ro had given him his user name and password into the special database that apparently was exclusive to investigators, and Paris knew why after first getting into it—it was fucking scary. The sheer amount of shit you could find on people! He’d once started a search on himself and stopped, because it freaked him out a bit. And he was Canadian! He’d assumed the database would only cover him since he’d been in the States, but oh no, this database went over the border. He’d almost searched Roan, but then thought better of it.

Roan had left behind notes from the Humanity First group therapy/bitch session, and he decided to make himself quasi-useful by investigating the woman that gave Ro such a bad feeling, Karen Hammond.

She was only thirty-six, which shocked the hell out of Paris; he had been sure she was in her forties. Man, she looked really shitty for her age.

Was she a heavy smoker or drinker? That kind of info wasn’t in the 250

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database, but nearly everything else was. She lived in a trailer park in a really sad suburban outskirt known as Frederickson, and she owned the trailer (and had for the past eight years) but not the land she was residing on. Twice divorced, she had four kids: Noah, 20, Lacey and Joshua, both 18 (fraternal twins), and Kaitlin, 14, deceased (the dead, cat-chasing daughter who had made her so vengeful). She’d worked at the Rite-Aid down on Hauser for the past eight months. Karen had some minor arrests on her record, ranging from driving under the influence (he knew it—

drinker), misdemeanor assault, a domestic violence charge that was dropped (pressed by her second, soon-to-be-ex-husband; she’d scratched his face and hit him with a coffee pot), public nuisance, and some neighbors of hers once got a restraining order on her when she lived down in Redding. She wasn’t an emotionally stable person, that was pretty obvious, but he could almost hear Ro saying in his head, “
None of this
adds up to serial killer.”
Which was true and fair enough. (Ro was going to make him an investigator if it killed him.) It did make her a good suspect, though. She was a troubled woman who really didn’t have much to lose, and wasn’t averse to resorting to violence. But again, that Roan voice: “Not enough.”

Now what? He input the names of a couple of other people who had been there and whose names Ro had made a note of, but none of them were nearly as interesting as Karen. One guy, Vince Hempstead, had quite a lengthy juvenile record, but that meant next to nothing, especially since most of those were for vandalism and shoplifting. Karen still remained the most viable “potential” in the crowd.

He switched the CD to Thom Yorke and went to grab a Pepsi when the phone rang. Inwardly he cringed, sure it was Annie again, but when it went to the machine, he got a surprise. “Paris, it’s Diego. If you’re there, pick up, it’s an emergency.”

Diego was calling for
him
? Weirdness. It wasn’t that they didn’t get on okay, because they did; Diego was cute and smart, although a bit type A, and he really didn’t get how he and Roan could’ve had a relationship, no matter how brief. Roan was very much a type B, in spite of his personal intensity, and it just seemed like a recipe for disaster. Being smart and gifted with a cutting wit were about the only things Roan and Diego had in common; from thereon in, it was just conflict.

He just had a sudden awful feeling about this and darted over to the phone to pick it up. “I’m here. It’s not about Ro, is it?”

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He sighed heavily, and Paris felt his stomach just drop to the floor.

Oh God no. “Look, he’s okay,” Diego began, which wasn’t the most heartening way to begin a conversation. “He got incredibly lucky, which is actually par for the course with him, but don’t tell him I said that; I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Paris wasn’t sure he could speak for a moment. “What the fuck happened?”

“He was shot. He—”

“Shot?” It felt like someone had injected liquid nitrogen straight into his circulatory system. “What? Who shot him? Where was he shot? Is he… are you at County?”

“I am. I told you, Paris, he’s fine, he never even lost consciousness.

Which is creepy when you’re trying to examine a wound and your patient keeps criticizing it—”

“I’ll be right there,” he said, trying to remember which coat he had the GTO keys in.

“He’s in stable condition,” Diego said, in his low, steady paramedic voice. It was the professional one he used to calm the upset and panicked, and Paris mildly resented hearing it. He wasn’t panicking yet; he thought he was holding in the hysterical scream quite well. “He lost some blood so they’re going to keep him here, but he’s being a total dickhead about that.

Maybe you can talk him into staying overnight before he tries storming out of here, dragging an IV stand.”

“I don’t think even I’m that good,” he replied, and told Diego he’d see him in twenty minutes—fifteen if he could open up the throttle. Only after he hung up did he realize that Diego never told him where Ro had been shot, or how much blood he had lost. Christ, now his imagination was just going to run wild.

He went up to the bedroom to get his jacket, the one with the GTO

keys, but before he even knew what he was doing, he was crouched in front of the dresser, opening the lowest drawer. There, beneath some folded shirts that Roan only kept around as “schlep clothes” (where Roan had picked up so much Yiddish he wasn’t sure, although he
had
said that when he was a teen he’d dated this “nice Jewish boy” he met at a Cramps concert), was a small cherrywood case, too long and flat to be a jewelry box, although it was nice enough. Inside was the “spare gun,” the Beretta Cheetah (yes, that was its actual name—Roan thought it was kind of 252

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funny), along with a spare ammunition clip. He didn’t need the clip, though, as the gun was fully loaded, the safety on. Buried among the shirts was a belt clip holster; hanging in the closet was a shoulder holster rig.

Where you wanted the holster depended on what situation you were going into, what you could conceal, what you were more comfortable with. Paris had never liked the shoulder holster, although it looked quite manly on Ro.

He knew how to shoot. He had an air rifle and pistol as a kid, although he’d never used them for much beyond target practice and mild vandalism (he was never into killing anything, not even animals, which may have been why waking up covered in blood and bits of skin was such a shock). Roan had also walked him through the basics on the Beretta and the SIG Sauer, on the off chance he ever had to use them. Paris had paid attention but hated the idea, as he wasn’t a fan of guns—real guns, ones that could kill so easily and indiscriminately.

But now he clipped on the belt holster and snugged the Beretta inside before retrieving his jacket and heading downstairs. Someone had shot Roan; the very idea turned him to solid ice. He wanted the fucker to come back, to show his face, because Paris had a surprise for him. Shoot his lover, would he? Two could play that game, and Paris was willing to bet he was a better shot.

But as he headed out, all he could think was the killer had come calling. And he wondered if he should pay a visit to Eli, and see if his alibi held up. He wondered what he’d do if it didn’t.

HE HAD just reached the hospital when his cell went off, Franz Ferdinand’s “Michael” startling the shit out of him. He grabbed his phone and turned it off, not caring who was calling or why. Right now, he only had room in his head for Roan.

Even though it wasn’t nearly hospital “prime-time” hours (pretty much any time after sunset, according to Diego), the waiting room seemed unbelievably crowded and noisy, and he cringed slightly at the intrusion on his perfect fear and perfect rage. He had to ask the nurse at the desk twice what room they were keeping Roan in, and then had to clarify he wasn’t asking about Joan. Part of him just wanted to barge off and find him himself, but this was a huge hospital and he had no doubt that he’d get lost easily.

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She was telling him these weren’t visiting hours when Diego showed up in his dark blue paramedic’s jacket, waved at the nurse, and said “He’s with me,” before grabbing him by the arm and pulling him off down one of the corridors.

“Thank you,” Paris told him, as soon as they ducked into an elevator.

“I figured you might need the help. It’s a zoo around here.” Diego said it so casually it was almost impossible to tell it was a lie, but it was.

Once again, he was being kind.

Paris always felt big next to Diego. He wasn’t short, he was just so thin; he was so type A he seemed to have a super metabolism, one that burned up the calories almost as fast as he could put them in, although he imagined his job probably helped as well. He was a good-looking guy, with café au lait skin and large, dark eyes, curly black hair cut short and tight to the scalp (which flattered his delicate bone structure, and boy did he know it), so it was easy to see what Roan saw in him, but it was also easy to discern why it didn’t work. He seemed to hum with energy, even standing still, and he knew those type of people got on Roan’s nerves after a very short period of time. “How is he doing?” Paris asked. “What happened?”

“Again, he’s fine. He must be fine if he’s still being a stubborn asshole. And from what he told the cops, it was essentially a drive-by.”

“What?”

“Somebody shot at him and this kid he was with on Brazil Street, barely slowing down to do the job. Roan put a couple rounds in their vehicle, though, and they took off. They shot out a few windows and put some holes in his car, but Roan only caught a single bullet, which was damn lucky. Those guys had an automatic or something.”

“Where was he shot?”

“Upper left quadrant of the chest.” Diego held up his hands in a warding-off gesture even as Paris took a breath to speak. “It totally missed his heart, it was a couple inches off. It passed through him on a straight-line trajectory—which is good—and the worst he got out of it was some torn muscles and blood loss. He will be fine. He’ll recover. Although they want to get him into surgery to repair some of the muscle damage and he’s refusing. God knows why. I think Roan just likes being a stubborn butthead sometimes.”

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The elevator’s slow ascent stopped and the doors opened with a faint chiming sound, disgorging them on a floor Paris vaguely recognized as a sealed part of the ICU. Because Roan was infected and his blood was full of a contagion, he had to be kept in a special wing.

Paris’s head was spinning with all this information, his heart trip-hammering, and he followed Diego out, feeling numb. The bullet missed his heart by a couple of inches? Jesus Christ. (He didn’t care about his pacifist stand at the moment—if he saw that fucker, he was dead. He’d punch him until something in him broke, then he’d shoot him. Was he becoming very American, bitter, or some combination of the two?) As they walked down the white tiled corridor with its rainbow of colored lines on the walls leading to various places, a lanky young blond kid who looked like one of the “junior cruisers” (his and Randi’s term for the barely legal, extremely horny young guys who’d pretty much fuck anyone who smiled at them) who hung around the fringes of Panic—but was strangely wearing a doctor’s pale green scrub top—stood up from the molded plastic chair he’d been sitting in, and started to say something, but he paused and stared at Paris in shock instead. “Oh Christ, you’re even better looking in real light,” he breathed.