When Sparks Fly (12 page)

Like a hornet in a jar, she paced, seeking a
way out. “This doesn’t make sense! Why Brandy? Why not me?”
Suddenly a thought hit her, and she froze. “Why not me? They were
shooting at me before. Why move to Brandy and Luc now? What’s
different?”

Blue moved toward her, looking concerned.
Maybe he thought she was losing her mind. “I don’t know, but settle
down. Once Brandy is able to talk, we’ll sort it out. She’s not
going to withhold information about someone who hurt her like that.
You know Brandy; she’ll want to see him fry.”

“Unless he kills her first.” She looked at
Blue in horror. “She’s not safe in that hospital!”

Blue took a deep breath. “Woman, that place
is swarming with cops. Nothing’s getting past them. Now calm down
before you blow a gasket! Look at yourself.” He grasped her
shoulders and turned her toward a mirror on the wall. She didn’t
recognize the tormented woman who stared back.

She shuddered and looked away. “I have to
get out of here. I have to see Brandy, then try to see Jean Luc and
make him talk. Then I’ll…”

He shook his head. “Still making lists? I
think this thing has gone beyond something you can organize.”

“I have to try!” she exploded, using fury at
him to boil off her frustration. “I can’t even walk outside without
a shadow these days, my sister might have been killed, and you want
me to calm down? I know I can’t do it all! I know I can’t…” She
broke off as a sob tore from her throat. Horrified, she turned her
back on Blue. “Get out. I need a couple of minutes.”

Hesitant hands touched her shoulders. She
shrugged them off. “Get out!”

Instead, he turned her around and pulled her
into a kiss. Cautious, restrained, the embrace grew into an
emotional exchange of tension, fear and a buried tenderness. Blue
kissed her hard and held nothing back; nothing except his heart,
she was certain.

She pulled away with a small moan of pain
and buried her face against his chest. He was killing her. He’d
made her want him, made her want to have him in her life. When she
felt him holding back, it made her realize how limited his offer
was. The loss of hope hurt worse than the wanting. “I can’t take
this.”

“Shh.” He rocked her a little, stroked her
hair, kissed the top of her head and rested his cheek against it.
“Shh, little one. Just hush.”

Blue wanted Gem to be innocent, wanted it
desperately but didn’t dare trust his instincts. His personal
feelings were no guarantee she wasn’t involved. It would be almost
as bad if she weren’t but her sister was. He knew where those kinds
of situations went. The only possible way things could work out was
probably the most unlikely outcome. How typical of his life.

Gem pulled away again and sniffed. “I need
to go see Brandy,” she said.

“Okay.”

There was a guard outside Brandy’s hospital
door, but Blue wasn’t necessarily reassured. A rent-a-cop was
hardly a threat to the type of guy who’d been responsible for all
the recent attacks.

To his surprise, Brandy was able to talk,
though it cost her. She looked at Gem and said mushily, “Sis.” Her
eyes dulled with agony, and her lids half closed as she drew in
deep breaths.

“Oh, Bran. Don’t try to talk,” Gem began,
reaching for her hand. She stopped in mid-motion, remembering in
time that it was broken.

Brandy’s eyes flashed under the bruises.
“Sh! M-man was short. A-accent.”

“We know. Jean told us,” Gem said hastily.
“Blue caught him on video, too.”

“Drrrrugs,” Brandy struggled on. “Wanted
know. Jean wouldn’t talk.” Furious tears ran down her face, but she
flinched when Gem gently dabbed at them. “Ugh! Stop,” she managed
to say, her voice semi-garbled.

Blue stepped in. If Brandy was going to
talk, he was going to help her. “Did you know Jean was making
drugs, Brandy?” he asked.

She nodded. Gem’s lips parted, and she
pulled away a little.

Blue hurried on before Gem could interrupt.
“Were you involved?”

A slight head shake:
No.

“Then when did you find out? Recently?”

Brandy sighed and sent a guilty look at Gem.
She shook her head. “Last year.”

Blue’s eyes narrowed as he considered the
possibilities. “Was he blackmailing you for silence?”

Another gusty sigh and a nod. “Gem,
sor-sorry.”

Gem swallowed and looked to the side.
“Girl…Bran, you should have told me. We would have worked it
out.”

“You…need…S-spark,” Brandy gasped and closed
her eyes in pain. More tears leaked out.

Gem wiped them away, careful as she did. She
said, “Stop, now. I’d rather throw the match on The Spark and watch
it burn to the ground than lose you. Sleep. Rest. There’ll be time
later to talk.”

Brandy frantically shook her head. “He’ll
try kill. W-won’t testify.”

“You won’t, or Jean won’t want you to?” Blue
asked.

“Won’t…He won’t…”

“Want you to,” Blue finished grimly. “I
understand. I’ll take care of it.”

Amazingly, her eyes closed and her body
relaxed.

Gem looked sharply at him. “What are you
going to do?”

“Move you both,” he replied. “Whoever was
hired to knock you off might not quit just because Jean’s going to
jail. Until we figure out who the other party in the game is,
you’ll be better off somewhere else.”

“I have a business to run. My one sister is
beaten almost to death, the other is off with the Galactic
Explorers! I can’t just leave!”

“As of now, your business is worthless to
you,” Blue interrupted ruthlessly. “It’s in the middle of an
investigation, and you’re going to run for your life. We’ll get you
a manager and talk to your banker. I don’t want you walking back in
there until whoever did this is dead.”

“But…”

Blue shot a frustrated look at Brandy’s bed
and dragged Gem out of the room. He didn’t stop until they found a
clear chunk of hallway. “Think, Gem! Jean Luc has a motive to kill
your sister, but we still don’t know if he was the one trying to
snipe you. Someone else was after him. What if that same someone
was the one who tried to kill you?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to follow
his logic. “This is too complicated.”

“Agreed. Let’s settle you somewhere we can
sort it out.”

“No.”

“I have somewhere in mind. I’ll take care of
it,” he promised.

“You’re not listening, Blue! I said no.”

Fury flashed in his eyes. “You’re in the
middle of a drug war, and you want to stay here and play house like
nothing can touch you.”

“Stop it! I’m not the guilty one here, so
stop trying to belittle me. Nor am I so naïve that I think I can’t
be hurt. I have a reminder right there.” She pointed back down the
hall to Brandy’s door with a trembling hand. She forced herself to
steady and looked him in the eye. “My family needs me.”

The need to cry was choking Gem, from fear
and rage and worry for her sister. She wanted to stomp up and down,
throw fragile things, watch the splintered fragments slide down the
wall. Protect and defend? The cops had no idea what that meant.

“You’re a fool, lady,” Blue said. “This
thing is going to tear you apart.”

She looked at him so hard her eyes burned.
“Maybe you don’t know me like you think you do.” She held his gaze
for a long moment, then said, “I’m going to talk to Jean Luc. Are
you coming?”

She had to do some fast-talking to get the
cops to let her see him. Jean Luc wasn’t being allowed visitors,
but she convinced them she might be helpful. On the slim chance she
might, they let her visit with him through a Plexiglas screen. It
took an effort to clear the anger from her throat enough to speak.
“Luc. You let my sister get hurt.”

He stared at her, the stitched-up knife
wound fresh and ugly on his cheek. “My apologies. It was
regrettable.”

“You led the wolves to her.”

His expression was cool. “Your sister is an
adult. She’s responsible for her own actions.”

Gem’s smile was ugly. She took a moment to
stare at this man whom she’d thought she knew, who had been running
drugs out of her establishment without her permission or approval.
She said, “You realize the cops have my full cooperation.”

Jean Luc sat back and looked at her in
consideration. “Did you come just to chat, then?” He shrugged. “I
suppose it’s a change of pace from my cell.”

She smiled again without humor. “A small
thing: I had a question about Cirrus.” She noted the distaste on
Jean Luc’s face, and was pleased by it. She hoped it would help
with the questions to come.

“I know you like him as little as I do,” she
said. Jean Luc remained quiet, so she added, “He approached me at
the wake for that miner. He invited me to his house, which
surprised me. It surprised me even more that he wanted me to
recommend him to you.”

Jean Luc’s lip curled with disdain, but he
said nothing.

“That was my reaction, too. I told him to
piss off.” She let the faint satisfaction in Jean Luc’s face settle
in before she said, “I have a clue what he wanted now, but what I
don’t understand is why
you
dislike him. He’s a…persistent
man. Is there something about him I should know?”

Jean was silent. It was clear he wasn’t
willing to give up any information. Gem wondered if he was nervous
about damning himself further.

She stared at him for a moment. “Well, if he
wanted to get me to promote his cause with you, he’s going to be
disappointed, isn’t he? I expect he’ll back off now. And with you
out of the way, nobody will try to hurt my family again. I can
chase Blue off, cooperate with the cops. Everything will go back to
normal. Everything seems to work out for the law-abiding…” She
stood up as if to go.

“Gem.”

She hesitated but didn’t turn.

“Don’t let Cirrus near you.”

Gem gave in, looked back over her shoulder.
Jean Luc looked deadly serious.

“As for the other…keep him close. It’s not
over yet.”

Blue dialed from his encrypted communicator
and paced Gem’s office as he waited for someone to pick up. They’d
just gotten back from the local police station, and he was in a
foul mood. He kicked the flowered couch as he passed, cursing for
good measure.

Gem Harrisdaughter was ruining him; he’d
seen Azor the other day and known it. He himself used to be the one
with the cold smile, the cool head when everything around him went
south. Now look at him: he’d tried to remove a suspect from an
active investigation because he was afraid of her getting hurt…and
because he was afraid she might be guilty. She might be guilty and
he was trying to protect her! When had a woman become more
important than justice? Snarling, he mentally flayed himself.

Blackwing’s voice came on the phone. He
wasn’t Blue’s commander, but he was support on this end for the
under-funded and unappreciated Galactic Narcotics office for which
Blue worked. “What have you got?”

Blue kept a wary eye on the door. Gem had
gone to her room with her laptop computer, so she could look
through online listings to try to choose a temporary manager for
the inn. He was delighted, because her agreement at hiring the
stand-in would make it easier to relocate her for security reasons
until the assassin was caught. She wasn’t doing it for his
convenience, however. She’d determined that Brandy needed her right
now, and she wanted to make sure The Spark continued to run
smoothly while she was preoccupied. She still had no current
intention of hiding, of running.He decided to skip the conversation
with Brandy, and Blackwing already knew about the one with Jean
Luc. He decided to simply report: “Gem refuses to leave The
Spark.”

“Interesting.” Chief Blackwing sighed on the
other end of the line. “Do we think she’s innocent?”

“Well, with her sister as involved as she
is…” Blue couldn’t quite vindicate her. “Gem’s part in this is
still unknown. Personally, I think she’s scared for Brandy, and I
believe that she didn’t know Jean Luc was blackmailing her.” He
thought the situation over carefully, reviewing all the details in
his mind. Was Gem capable of dealing with Jean but leaving her
sister unaware? Were the sisters so double-dealing as to lie to
each other?

There was a beep as a new participant was
added to the communicator frequency. “I think Gem’s innocent,” Zsak
remarked, coming in late to the meeting. He walked through the door
to Gem’s office and glanced at Blue, who adjusted his earpiece.
“She’s too uptight, too straitlaced to get involved in something
like this. Her sister? That’s less surprising. She’s wired pretty
tight.”

Blackwing pondered Zsak’s remark. “That’s a
big difference of opinion between you two. Why are you convinced
Gem’s still a possibility if Zsak isn’t, Blue? At this point, for
her to be involved would require an enormous amount of deception
and a convoluted scheme.”

“I’ve seen it happen, sir,” Blue
interrupted, tense with warring emotions. He couldn’t let this go
until he was sure, didn’t want to be wrong about Gem. He
couldn’t
be wrong about her. He didn’t want to look into
why.

“Did we get a match on those surveillance
photos?” he asked, changing the subject. Brandy and Jean Luc’s
assailant had been uncommonly stupid. Though the man had worn a
mask, preventing Blue from identifying him, he’d avoided none of
the cameras while entering and leaving the brewery, and the police
had computer programs that could reconstruct his face under the
cloth. It wouldn’t be a perfect picture they created, but it was a
great start. As soon as they could match that against another
photo, they’d have the man dead to rights.

“Hamish Nasser,” the chief said. “He’s got a
record and is suspected in several other cases where we lacked
enough evidence to convict. He’s a local miner, had been using an
alias to lie low. This time we have him. The only trouble will be
finding the bastard.”