Jack and Djinn (The Houri Legends, #1)(53)
He was watching the TV screen, but not really seeing the action. It was more of a distraction than anything. He was trying not to think about the case. Or, as Carson thought of it in his own mind, The Case. It was one he’d not forget any time soon. Miriam al-Mansur remained stuck in his head somehow. It wasn’t like he was attracted to her in a sexual way. She was beautiful, sure, but it just wasn’t there for him, and she was with Jack Byrne, anyway. No, there was something else about her that kept her on Carson’s mind, and he knew perfectly well what it was.
How could he just…let it all go? Just write off the murder of a man as…what?
It wasn’t self-defense; Miriam had admitted that much herself. At least, partially. She had been defending Jack. Or, more accurately, exacting revenge because he’d shot Jack. Two bullets to the chest, she’d said. But you didn’t survive that kind of injury, you just didn’t. A sucking chest wound was, by all accounts, one of the most painful ways to die, next to being shot in the gut, and Miriam had had both wounds…and survived.
According to their account, Miriam had been shot in the stomach, and then somehow she’d taken Jack’s wounds into herself. Which, if that was at all believable, meant that she had had four gunshot wounds to the chest and stomach, and she’d survived. Either she was inhumanly tough, or she healed like Wolverine. There was no other explanation.
Carson finished his first drink, raised the glass, and clinked the ice at the bartender—what was her name? Leila? Yes, Leila. That was it. She filled a clean highball glass half-full with ice, then tipped a bottle of Bombay Sapphire to pour a generous two fingers’ worth. She smiled at Carson, a quick, flirting glance.
“Nice to see you again. Do you want me to start a tab?”
“Yeah, sure,” Carson answered. “Thanks.”
“You seem preoccupied,” she said by way of making conversation, setting down his drink.
She leaned on the bar in front of Carson, toying with a book of matches. Her T-shirt was a low-cut V-neck, and when she leaned over, Carson found it hard to keep his gaze from straying to her spilling cleavage. Carson had spent enough time in bars and on patrol to know the various ways women leaned over. He’d categorized them: There was the absent-minded lean, in which the woman was simply assuming a natural, comfortable position, either not realizing or not caring about how she was displaying herself; then there was the flirt-lean, where she was more aware of the spillage, but not necessarily trying to accentuate it; last was the overt seduction-lean, where she squeezed her arms underneath her breasts to prop them up and leaned over so they all but spilled out. Carson was pretty sure Leila was somewhere between number one and number two.
The way she was looking at him, combined with her body language, hinted at flirtation, but certainly not seduction. He was kind of glad for that, actually. He’d been seduced on any number of occasions, mostly by women trying to get out of a speeding ticket or a DUI arrest. He’d come across the occasional witness hoping to sway the outcome of an investigation, and he’d met his share of drunken badge-chasers. The ones who were into serious seduction, he’d found, were not the kind of girls he was interested in, at least not long-term. He’d like to be able to say that he’d turned them all down, but he hadn’t. Not all of them. He never took favors on the job or for the job—he drew the line at that—but if a girl threw herself at him off the clock, what was the harm?
Carson realized he’d not responded to Leila’s comment. “Sorry, yeah,” he said. “I guess I am a bit preoccupied, at that.”
Leila laughed at him. “Delayed reaction, much? I was starting to wonder if you’d heard me.”
“No, I heard you, I was just….”
“Lost in la-la land?” Leila teased. “It’s okay. I imagine your job takes up a lot of brain space.”
“You have no idea,” Carson said. “Today especially.”
The bar was dead, Carson one of only three patrons in the place, so Leila had time to chat. She was a beautiful girl, tall and willowy, with thick black hair tied back in a neat ponytail, and wide, dark eyes that held a wealth of expression. She seemed to like him, and that made it even better. Carson could use a distraction.
Leila grimaced, somehow making the expression look attractive. “You must see a lot of unpleasant stuff, huh?”
Carson finished his drink, and Leila poured him a third without asking. “Yeah,” Carson said. “Part of the job, I guess. Most of it I can block out, some I can’t. There are some things people just aren’t meant to see.”
“I bet. So is that what’s preoccupying you? A bad case or whatever? I hope I’m not being too nosy.”
“You’re not being nosy. And, yeah, it’s not one of those gruesome cases that’ll give you nightmares, it’s just…confusing. I’m not sure what to believe, you know?”
Leila just nodded, her attention fully focused on him. She had her chin propped on her palm, listening, watching him. Carson found himself talking about the case out loud, which he knew he shouldn’t do with a stranger, but Leila seemed different somehow, trustworthy. And the gin was clouding his judgment enough that he didn’t care.
She was pouring them stiff, more gin than tonic or ice, and Carson wasn’t protesting. He heard himself telling her about Miriam, how odd things were, how so many elements to the case seemed unbelievable, if not impossible.