Love Me to Death (Underveil, #1)(4)

Gonzalez asked, “What do you do at the hospital?”

“I’m a research biologist in the hematology lab.”

Gonzalez must have forgotten it wasn’t his turn in the keep away game, because he continued the questioning. “What is your job in the lab?”

“I have a Ph.D. in Biology. I’m working as a research scientist on a cancer drug protocol. I study blood anomalies.”

Deep laughter filled the room. Elena had been so distracted by the detectives she’d forgotten the death angel, who had moved to the glass wall when the questioning began. “That’s perfect,” he said in his deep voice. “Absolutely perfect. The fox in the henhouse.”

What was that accent, she wondered. German? No, Russian, maybe. Whatever it was, the effect of his voice on her body was as profound as his smile. Her insides clenched.

Knowles spoke next. “So you’ve been going to this convenience store every day to get a candy bar after work.”

She nodded but continued to watch the death angel, who chuckled as he stared out the window into the ER hallway. Like something out of a really great dream, here stood a huge guy with sexy markings, deep voice, and a sword—and for some reason, she was the only one who could see him. Physically, he was too good to be real. Maybe he was a dream. Don’t wake up, Elena, she urged, trying to memorize every detail of his magnificent body. But she knew it wasn’t a dream. She had died and was stuck in some kind of freaky purgatory.

“Miss Arcos, are you okay?” Detective Knowles waved his hand in front of her face.

“Uh, sorry, yeah,” she mumbled, reluctantly drawing her eyes back to the computer as Knowles restarted the surveillance disc. On the screen, she watched herself pick up a Milky Way bar. The robber walked into the store and spread his hands out on the counter. The clerk behind the cash register dropped the tabloid he was reading and stood up. She watched the small laptop screen as the robber pulled a gun out of the front waist of his pants under the flannel shirt and shot the clerk, who collapsed behind the counter. Everything was exactly as she remembered it. The guy cleared out the cash register and then walked down the aisle beyond her to the back of the store. He turned on her aisle, and she bolted. He leveled the handgun and shot her in the back on the right shoulder. She hit the floor. The guy shoved her with his foot and then kicked her. Calmly, he aimed the gun at the middle of her back and fired. Blood spread out between her shoulder blades. As if he had not just shot two people, the guy strode nonchalantly out of the store.

Detective Gonzalez stopped the disc. “So, Miss Arcos, what happened next?”

Elena held her breath in an attempt to control her panic. No way was she going to talk about her imaginary death angel, who had disappeared from the exam room sometime during the review of the surveillance recording. More unnerving than his presence was his absence. “I don’t remember.”

Detective Gonzalez started the disc again. Neither he nor detective Knowles watched the computer; they watched Elena, who could feel their gazes as she concentrated on the black and white images on the screen. After the robber left the store, the death angel appeared out of thin air. She gasped, and then looked at the detectives, who were oblivious.

In the recording, the death angel spoke and then shoved her over onto her back effortlessly, as if she were a rag doll. He stood over her and withdrew his sword. Grabbing her chin, he forced her head to the side. She remembered he had told her to spit the blood out of her mouth so that he could understand her. Elena in the recording went limp.

She watched the laptop screen, mesmerized, as he lifted the sword to plunge it into her chest, but stopped short. He resheathed the sword and squatted down over her, opening her eyelid with his thumb and finger. Then he parted her lips and examined her teeth. He turned her head to one side and then the other, as if he were checking out her neck.

He ran the back of his fingers over her cheek. When he withdrew his hand, he balled it into a fist and punched the metal shelf next to her, causing an avalanche of candy to cascade to the floor. He appeared to shout as he stood up. Pausing a few times to look at her, he paced like a fierce, caged animal. Elena was glad there was no sound to the recording, because from the look on his face, she was sure his words were as aggressive and dangerous as his movements.

He stopped pacing and returned to her unconscious body. He pulled out a cell phone, punched some numbers, and put it to his ear. After speaking only a few words, he shoved it into his back pants pocket. As if he were afraid to touch her, he rolled her onto her stomach. He placed his palm over her shoulder blade and slowly pulled his hand away. When he turned his palm over, it looked like something was in his hand, as if he were a magnet that had attracted something. The bullet? No way.

Not breathing, she watched the computer screen, as he repeated the process over the middle of her back. Again, something stuck to his palm. Damn. It had to be the bullet. He put whatever it was in his front pocket and stood up. After staring at her for a moment, he shook his head and disappeared.

A woman entered the store and covered her mouth. It was clear she was screaming. After some time, men came and put Elena on a gurney. Obviously paramedics. The next stop would be the hospital. End of story. She wasn’t dead. Death had saved her instead.

Detective Knowles stopped the recording and closed the laptop. “So, um, explain that please, Miss Arcos.”

“Explain what?” she mumbled, half buying time, half testing to see if they had seen the death angel.