Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)(25)

“I’m not telling you a goddamn thing.”

“That’s what they all say, Justin. There have been so many of them over the years, and they have all been so very wrong.”

Mary was another pistol. It had been simply ages since their last tête-à-tête. He missed talking to her. It was going to be a pleasure to get his hands on her again.

The sleek black car sped down the road, quiet as a bullet shot through a silencer.

Chapter Nine

SOMEHOW MARY MANAGED to pull away from the restaurant without clipping anybody else. In a crisis of shock and pain, her breathing erratic, she drove by rote until she found herself parked in front of a huge old Victorian house in an older tree-lined neighborhood close to Howard Park, near the St. Joseph River.

The house was more utilitarian than its sprawling gingerbread-trimmed neighbors. It was covered in beige aluminum siding, not painted, and fringed with sturdy plain white gutters. There were no perennials or shrubbery planted in its miniscule front lawn. It had been divided into apartments, and the backyard converted into an asphalt parking lot.

She had shared the upstairs apartment with three other women while attending Notre Dame. The rent had been cheap and there had been no cockroaches, so she had counted herself lucky although sometimes she had felt as if she would have been happy to sacrifice a limb for some privacy.

Muscle by muscle, she forced herself to unclench her death grip on the steering wheel. Then her body jerked as a new wave of dread hit. She twisted in her seat to search for any sign that she’d been followed or was being watched.

All she found were the peaceful sights and sounds of a quiet neighborhood settling into dusk. The adrenaline faded, to be replaced by bone-rattling tremors and the faint roil of nausea.

She was going to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder over this day. She had earned it, she was planning for it and nobody was going to take it away from her.

What happened made no sense. Who would want to attack her? What was she running from?

How did those men know her name?

She didn’t know anyone or anything. She certainly didn’t own anything anymore. Nobody had whispered a mafia deathbed confession to her in the ER. The whole thing might be laughable except that four people were dead.

[struck, overpowered, carried to a black, unmarked van]

A wail built at the back of her throat. She clenched her teeth and swallowed the sound. If she started making noise, she might not stop. Worse, she would draw unwanted attention to herself.

[so many hawks, swirling like a storm in the jewel-toned sky]

She couldn’t just sit here outside her old apartment. This street was too trafficked. Sooner or later someone would notice.

She inspected the abrasions on the heels of her hands and dismissed them as minor. Then she tilted the rearview mirror and checked the damage to her face, pressing light fingers along her swelling cheek and jaw. The damage wasn’t too bad. If she were at the hospital she would order x-rays to check for bone fractures, but that would be just a precaution.

What hit her in the solar plexus, causing her mouth to wobble and eyes to blur, was the bright spray of drying blood that dotted her face and hair. She looked down. She was covered in other people’s blood.

[flat, popping noises, the blossom of ruby stars on a child’s T-shirt, and four people falling]

She pressed both hands to her sore mouth, panting, until the fresh wave of nausea had passed.

Oooh-kay. Okay. Usually she only dealt with that much blood in a medical facility where she was insulated with scrubs and the duties of her profession, and she wasn’t clammy from shock.

She had to wash, but she couldn’t walk into a public restroom looking the way she did. She looked around. The unopened bottle of water she had bought earlier lay in the passenger seat, where she had thrown it after the drive-thru. She also kept a first aid kit and a change of clothes in a gym bag in her trunk.

A block ahead of her, a car turned onto the street. Twin beams of light flashed across her face. The car approached at a slow pace. She twisted at the waist and bent down, drumming her fingers in a rapid tempo against the water bottle until the car had passed.

She had to move. Definitely.

She started the car and drove around to the back of the apartment house, and pulled into the parking lot. There was only one car parked in the slot closest to the house. A Dumpster squatted in the corner of the lot like a giant, bloated orange insect. She pulled the Toyota around and backed toward the Dumpster then popped the trunk.

Switching off the engine, she jumped out and limped to the back of the car as she glanced around. Dusk was deepening fast. The spring warmth from earlier that afternoon had fled, leaving behind a deepening chill. The windows from neighboring houses threw golden rectangles of light across the darkening backyards.

She didn’t see or hear anybody outside.

Did that matter? Would she be able to hear anybody in time to avoid them? How paranoid should she be?

That woman in the Grotto said she had a powerful enemy.

She guessed that meant she should be pretty paranoid.

[We’ll kill everybody in the restaurant if we have to. Not that we’d mind. We like to kill.]

Who talks like that? Nobody does.

She yanked her cotton sweater off and pulled it inside out, shivering as she inspected it under the dim light in the trunk. The only spot she could find that was not soiled was inside the back. She opened the bottle, splashed water on the material and scrubbed hard at her face, hands and arms, wetting the sweater as needed. While she worked to clean herself, she took a mouthful of water, rinsed her sore gums and tongue and spat out rusty liquid. Then she swiped at her braid with the ruined sweater, threw it in the Dumpster and yanked open the gym bag. A worn white T-shirt, a pair of jeans, underwear and old, blue canvas shoes were tucked inside.