Читать книгу Daughter of the Flames - Nancy Holder - Страница 12

“O kay,” Pat said to Izzy, “the movie was bad. But do you have to punish me all night for it?”

She shifted against the maroon-leatherette booth of the diner as she smiled apologetically at him. She knew she was terrible company.

They were having an after-movie snack, he a burger; she, a bowl of chicken noodle soup. She had scarcely eaten a thing since the night he had come over for dinner. Scarcely eaten and hardly slept.

That was three nights ago, when the nightmare had changed. That was an understatement—taken a quantum leap was more accurate. Maybe that helped to explain the growing feelings of unease that had been plaguing her in the waking world. The anniversary of her mom’s death usually churned her up for a couple of weeks, but this was ridiculous.

“You’re all het up,” Pat went on, putting down his burger and wiping his hands on his napkin. He tented his fingers as he leaned toward her. “Something happened to you. Recently.”

“No.” Looking down at her bowl of soup, she shook her head, fully aware that she wasn’t convincing anybody, least of all a sophisticated cop who ferreted out lies for a living. She didn’t know him well enough to talk to him about it. She didn’t know anyone that well.

His face quirked; his dimples showed. “Well, it can’t be kissing me that did this to you.” He sounded so sure of himself that she had to smile back. “Forsooth, she maketh the candles to glow.”

“That’s nice. Shakespeare?”

“Kittrell,” he answered. He took her hand and wrapped his fist around her fingers, shaking them as if to loosen her up. “A guy who cares about you. Cares if there’s something eating at you. Can I help?”

“It’s nothing, really.”

He sighed. “Okay, I give. For now.” He checked his watch. “I have to go in. I’m putting you in a cab.”

“I’m fine on the subway,” she insisted.

“Maybe on some other guy’s watch.” He cocked his head and took a breath, as if he were about to ask her a question. Maybe if there was another guy. But he didn’t. He didn’t push, and she was grateful.

He paid the check—insisting that he had to or his mama would find out and hit him upside the head. Then they put on their coats and walked outside, while Pat flagged down a cab in record time for a nonnative.

As she climbed into the back, he leaned down and kissed her. “You get some rest, you hear?”

For an answer, she kissed him back. His lips were soft and he smelled so good, like soap and limes, and she lingered, her senses tantalized.

Beaming at her, Pat shut the door and Izzy waved a bit shyly at him through the frosty window.

She got home without incident, no strange men loitering in front of her house. As she let herself in, her father looked up from the TV in the front room. When he saw her in the foyer, he said, “Hey. How was it?”

“Nice.” She unwound the scarf from around her neck. “He’s nice.”

“He didn’t walk you in.” He peered around her, as if he expected Pat to appear.

“I took a cab. He had to go in to work.”

Big Vince drank his beer. “Big bust coming down. They briefed us on it. Sting operation. He tell you about it?”

“We don’t talk shop,” she said, yawning. “I’m going to bed.”

“Good.” He nodded thoughtfully. “You got to take care of yourself, Iz. You’re getting too thin.”

She sighed. Everyone was on her case tonight.

“Night,” she said.

She took the stairs, washed her face and brushed her teeth, changed into her white nightgown and crossed to her bed. For a moment she thought about pulling back the curtains. Then she ignored her impulse and pulled back the coverlet, and slid into fresh sheets and, hopefully, some rest.

Don’t look down, a voice said inside her head.

But she did. And there he was, silhouetted by flames.

The smiling man’s features were very sharp, and a large purple scar ran diagonally from the right side of his jaw to his left temple. His face was all angles; his almond-shaped eyes were dark and fierce beneath brows that slanted upward. He looked devilish.

She had a gun in her hand and she raised it slowly. Her hand began to shake as she pointed it at him. His eyes widened in fear, and then his gaze shifted to a point behind her. He bared his teeth like an animal.

Izzy turned.

They are looking for you. Both of them, a voice said.

Within the arched curves of a Medieval monastery, a figure scanned the horizon. It was another man, very tall, with a riot of hair that tumbled down his shoulders, like her own.

A blue-tinted fog boiled up and around the long-haired man in the monastery, sharply casting him in chiaroscuro. He was holding a glowing sphere. It illuminated his fingers; on his left ring finger, something heavy and gold glittered, more like a signet ring than a wedding ring.

Then a voice rumbled like thunder, shaking her spine with a low, masculine timbre.

“Isabelle? Je suis Jean-Marc de Devereaux des Ombres. Je vous cherche. Attendez-moi. Je vous cherche.”

This time Izzy woke slowly, clutching the sheets as she whispered to the darkness, “Oui. Je suis là.” “Yes, I am here,” in French.

Only, she didn’t speak French.

Haggard, feeling as if she’d been run over, Izzy went down into the bowels of the Two-Seven. Yolanda was taking a personal day, but the new-hire, Julius Esposito, was there. He had had his black hair processed and she thought it looked a little silly, like he was an extra in a movie about Harlem in the thirties or something. Or maybe she was just looking to find fault. She didn’t like him; there was something about the vibe he threw off that didn’t sit well with her. This was only his third day, and she hoped the situation improved. On the other hand, she could use it as further incentive to get herself out of Prop. “Good morning, Isabella,” he said rather formally as she entered the Property room.

“Oh, everyone calls me Izzy,” she told him. There was an evidence bag beside the terminal tagged with Cratty’s signature turquoise tape. She gestured to it with her head. “What did he bring in?”

“Crack,” he told her.

“He’s been busy lately,” she said, crossing to the terminal to log herself in. Her elbow brushed the bag.

It’s light. The words came to her as clearly as if someone had spoken them to her. She looked at the monitor. In the column for the weight, Julius had typed in 98 gm. It was almost a hundred ten when he confiscated it. Cratty took some before he sealed the bag

And there is no way for me to know that. None.

Freaked, she moved away from the terminal as casually as she could, while Julius finished his intake procedures, put the bag in one of his lockers and slammed it shut. Then he returned to the cage window and started fiddling with the radio. “Do you like smooth jazz?” he asked without looking at her.

“Sure,” she said, although she hated it. Right now music was the furthest thing from her mind. A wave of vertigo made her wobbly. She felt as if she were standing under water and the air in her lungs was all the air she was going to get—so she’d better hang on to it.

Eye-level on the shelf to her left, she saw one of Yolanda’s lockers. The three-by-five card in the pocket showed a strip of turquoise tape—Cratty’s. She walked over to it. Touched it.

She heard his voice inside her head.

“Beating him down in the subway tunnel. Filthy skel, lowlife piece of crap, hold out on me? Me?”

Izzy jerked her hand away. She glanced at Julius, who took no notice. I am hearing things. I’m crazy.

She spotted another of Yolanda’s locker cards marked with Cratty’s turquoise tape, on the same wall but two-thirds of the way down. She stared at it for a long, hard minute.

Then she walked over and touched it.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

She touched the eye-level container for the second time.

Nothing there, either.

Hallucinations, she thought. Her heart thudded; she could feel the vein in her neck pulsing hard. I need some sleep and maybe I need to see a shrink again. I’m in trouble.

At a late lunch the next day, in a joint around the corner from work, Yolanda pushed a business card across the expanse of red-and-white-checked plastic tablecloth and said, “Just go see her. There is something terribly wrong with you. You look like you’re dying.” She grimaced. “Sorry if that’s a sore subject.”

“It’s okay, Yolanda.” Izzy reluctantly read the card. It was for Dr. Mingmei Wei, Yolanda’s Oriental medicine doctor. Yolanda swore by her. She also paid her out of pocket, because their Department health insurance wouldn’t cover her services.

“It’s your chi, ” Yolanda opined. “It’s out of whack. What she does is like feng shui, only for people. Psychic chiropractic. You need to get readjusted.”

“Does your priest know about this?” Izzy gibed.

“This is not funny. You are psychically ill.”

She indicated Izzy’s untouched barbecue-beef sandwich. “When’s the last time you ate a decent meal?” She gazed hard at Izzy. “Are you pregnant?”

Izzy burst out laughing. “Please. There’s only been one Immaculate Conception.”

“I didn’t think you were.” Yolanda stabbed her finger at the card. “But—”

Flames. Heat, smoke. Lungs…searing…

The image of her father’s red, sweaty face filled her mind.

She heard him gasping, coughing. “Izzy…Gino…”

“Oh, my God!” Izzy cried. She jumped to her feet. Her chair clattered to the tile floor. “My father’s in danger!”

“What?” Yolanda said, reaching out to her as she rose from her chair. “Izzy, wait!”

Izzy bolted and ran outside. A black cloud of thick, oily smoke billowed on the horizon. In her mind she saw her father, saw a hallway, saw rats and shapes moving in the flames.

I’m not asleep, she thought as she ran. I’m awake, and Big Vince is in that.

She flew toward the smoke, picking up speed until her feet were barely touching the ground. Her lungs burned but she kept going, weaving around pedestrians who yelled and jumped out of her way like missed targets in a shooting simulation. It was as if someone else was operating her body and she herself had no choice but to propel herself forward.

Images roared into her mind.

Flames…rats screeching down the halls. Shapes moving in the smoke. Officer Vincenzo DeMarco. Detective John Cratty.

And a semiauto pistol—a .9 mm Glock—in a closeup that filled her field of vision.

Pointed straight at her father’s head.

A voice. “Filthy cop, you’re gonna die; no one shakes me down.”

“Hit the floor!” she screamed out loud.

Then abruptly and without warning, her astonishing burst of energy left her. She staggered forward, swaying wildly left, then right; she smacked against the side of a brick-faced building and slid down it, pitching painfully onto her side.

She was dimly aware of people crowding around her, asking her if she was all right. Should they call an ambulance?

“Hey!” Yolanda caught up with her. She was carrying Izzy’s coat and purse. “Hijo de puta, did someone mug you?”

“I’m okay.” Izzy ground the words out. Yolanda put her arm around her waist, helping her to her feet.

“Are you loca? ” Yolanda said. She whistled and waved as a cab approached. The cab swerved to the curb.

“Come on, Iz,” Yolanda said, helping her to the cab.

The cabbie peered at them and frowned as his window rolled down.

“Go toward 108th,” Izzy told him as they got in. To Yolanda, she ordered, “Get my cell phone, and call my father. Number one on my speed dial.”

The cabbie shook his head. “No way. See that smoke? The cops have got it blocked off.”

“You have to go there!” Izzy yelled.

Yolanda squeezed Izzy’s hand as she opened up Izzy’s hobo bag with her other hand and dug around. “Easy, mi amor. We don’t know your father is in that building.”

“You need a cab or not?” the driver snapped.

Ignoring him, Yolanda found Izzy’s cell phone and pressed a couple of buttons. She put the phone to Izzy’s ear.

“Cratty, ten,” came a raspy, hoarse voice. “Ten” was the same as saying “over” on a police radio phone.

“This is Izzy,” Izzy announced, confused.

“It’s John, Izzy. We’re in an ambulance. Smoke inhalation. They’ve got him sucking some oxygen but it’s just a precaution. We’re going to the Metropolitan.”

“He wasn’t shot?” she asked, her voice shrill. “Tell me if he was shot!”

“No, Iz. No. Just smoke.” He sounded a little off. “Meet us at the Met.”

Located on First, it was the nearest hospital. It was where Pat had taken his Aided last night.

And her father was with the guy she had seen in visions, beating people and skimming drugs. Why was he with him? Had he tried to shoot him?

Izzy said neutrally, “Thanks. Tell him we’ll be there.”

Disconnecting, she said to the cabbie, “Take us to the Metropolitan.”

“You got it.” He screeched into the traffic.

She said to Yolanda. “Call in and explain. You’re taking me in because I’m injured.”

“Works for me, mi’jita, ” Yolanda said, biting her lower lip as she smoothed Izzy’s hair away from her wound. “Especially because it’s true.”

Izzy and Yolanda both knew the way to the ER entrance of the Metropolitan Medical Center. Anyone who worked for the NYPD in this part of town eventually found him or herself here, if not for a perp or a personal injury, then for someone close to them.

She half crawled out of the cab while Yolanda paid the driver. An ambulance sat in the dock as two men in scrubs burst out from the ER double doors, a gurney rattling between them.

John Cratty got out of the ambulance, appearing from behind the open back door of the rig. He was wearing kicker boots, jeans, a T-shirt, and a heavy dark brown leather jacket. His face was covered with soot, but he was walking under his own steam. He motioned to the two men, pointing back into the ambulance.

Within seconds, Izzy’s father was loaded onto the gurney.

“Big Vince!” Izzy cried, hurrying toward them while Yolanda worked to stay up with her.

Izzy saw the portable O2 bottle propped against his shoulder, the mask over his face. There were saline bags and a defib machine on the gurney with him—oh, God, had he had a heart attack?

As Izzy approached, Cratty put his arms around her, giving her a tight hug. She stiffened, but he didn’t notice.

He said, “Your father’s in good shape.”

“The defib—”

“Wasn’t used. But what the hell happened to you? ”

“Just a fall,” she said as she pushed past him and ran up to her father’s gurney.

His eyes were closed.

“Daddy!” she cried. “Daddy!”

The orderlies pushed the gurney through the double doors, Izzy holding Big Vince’s limp fingers. Yolanda and Cratty brought up the rear.

Inside the building, a short man in dark blue scrubs barked orders at the two men, then said to Izzy, “We’re taking him in.” He held up a restraining hand. “You can’t go with him. Let us do our job. Besides, you look like you need help.”

“No,” she protested, but Cratty took her arm.

“You know the routine,” he reminded her. “They need their space.”

The gurney zoomed on past her as the trio hung a left and disappeared down a corridor.

“You two were in a building?” Yolanda asked him as she led Izzy to the left, through a door marked Emergency Waiting Room. “The one on fire?”

“We got the hell out of there as soon as the real firemen showed up,” he concurred, puffing air out of his cheeks. “Had a couple of rough moments.”

“What were you doing in there?” Izzy asked sharply. All her alarm bells were going off at once, and at full volume.

“We were on a detail,” he said, locking gazes with her. “Confidential.”

She didn’t know what to say. They kept walking, past people sprawled in rows and rows of orange-plastic chairs, looking pale and sick and tired of waiting.

Cratty flashed his badge and the three passed through to a second security door to the curtained sections filled with ER cases. Her father was lying on his gurney with a sooty face and bloodshot eyes barely visible above an oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth. When he saw Izzy, his eyebrows met over his nose and he tried to take off the mask.

She knew he was staring at her injury. “It’s nothing, Big Vince,” she insisted, touching her cut.

The dark-haired nurse who had just wheeled a blood pressure monitor to the side of the gurney said, “We’ll look at that.”

“It’s fine,” Izzy repeated. But the truth was, her vision was blurring and she was dizzy. “Maybe I’ll just sit down.”

And then she fainted.