Deadly Lover (15 page)

An image of Jolaj, another big Ormney male, flashed into Lily’s thoughts. She couldn’t help wondering how his big body would feel beneath her hands. It was her turn to blush. Something she couldn’t remember doing since her teen years.

Lily rubbed her palms along the tops of her thighs. “Did anyone else know that Jennifer had taken an Ormney lover?”

Tie looked at her through his lashes. “I don’t think she talked about him to anyone but me.
Non
, she didn’t want anyone to know. Some folk may have seen him in the building, but I don’t reckon they would’ve known anything for sure.”

“But he came and went often?”

“
Oui
, often enough.”

“Did she mention anyone who might have started treating her differently?”

“
Non
.”

Lily thought again about Jolaj. He’d said he’d been friends with Lanyak. Did he know what his buddy was up to?

“Did she ever mention Lanyak frightening her or becoming violent?”

“
Non. Mais oui
, he bit her once, enough to leave a scar. But she said it was a love bite. Nothing that scared her. She went to the clinic to have the scar removed, that’s all.”

Lucas appeared in the doorway and handed them each a carton of flavored water. He and Tie both looked tired, like they carried weights around as they moved.

“Thank you for talking with me.” Lily shifted her focus to Jen. “I’m going to sit with her awhile.” She didn’t want to go back to her apartment where Bradley was sprawled across her bed. “You should go home and get some sleep. I won’t leave her alone.”

The two men made appreciative noises and left her to sit with the broken woman. Jennifer lay pale and lifeless. She didn’t, however, look ill. No fever, no sweating, no toxin setting her body on fire.

She showed no sign of the terrible reaction Lily had suffered from her claw wounds. Hopefully, her warning to Sean had allowed them to stave off that battle for her, but it seemed odd there would be no sign at all.

No anti-toxin was one hundred percent without side effects. No, it didn’t seem likely Jennifer would have been spared all of the effects of the toxin secreted with the Ormney claws.

Jennifer should have been dying much faster.

Lily sat curled in the chair next to Jennifer Richardson’s bed when a subtle change in the tones and lights on the med displays jerked her out of a light doze. She pulled herself to her feet and hurried into the hall to see several of the white-coated med staff already headed her way at a relaxed pace. She stepped away from the door, clearing the way for them to go in, and watched through the viewing panel as they moved around the room in a methodical pattern.

She’d spent more time than she cared to in med facilities over the past year, but she had no precedence for what she saw. The lack bugged her. She wanted to know what was going on but she didn’t want to disturb the med team. Detective Newman, who’d been sitting in the hall, had also gotten to his feet, but he shrugged, clearly no more in the know than Lily. When she turned toward the nurses’ station, looking for someone she could tag to explain, she saw Timothy Perry in his tailored hospital scrubs straighten and turn toward her.

“Hey, Lily. How long have you been here?” The Timmy she remembered from down the block when they’d both been kids had been awkward and reserved, but he seemed to have gained grace and confidence with age.

“A few hours, I guess. Can you tell me what’s going on in there?”

He stepped over to the view panel and watched for a moment, eyes following the quiet pattern of movement in the room. “This is the patient you asked about, before.”

“Yeah.”

He finally turned to face her. “I’m sorry, Lily, they knew she wasn’t going to pull through.”

Lily nodded, swallowing down an unexpected lump of sadness.

“Her metrics finally fell below legal requirements for life sustaining care.” Tim studied Lily’s face as he continued, “They’re turning off the machines, freeing her from the ventilator and IV. The on-duty MD will call it and record the time of death for the records.”

There was no fight left in Jennifer as she died. She didn’t show any reaction to being deprived of the mechanical aids that had kept her alive. Lily, Timothy at her side, stood sentinel at Jen’s bedside as her body simply gave up.

He finally glanced at his wrist-com, as if checking the time, then back at Lily. “You look beat, you should go home.”

She wondered if Tie LeRoue would beat himself up for not having been there when his friend died. “If you can point me toward the nearest cafeteria, I think I’ll grab some coffee before I go.”

“I can do better than that,” he said. “This way.”

He led her around a corner and down a hallway to a nearby staff lounge, where he cleared the security door and ushered her inside. The room went quiet as he closed the door behind her, shutting out the constant background noise of the terminal care unit. A full-size sofa, a fridge unit, several lockers, a tiny table, and two chairs crowded the cramped space. Timothy stooped to dig through the fridge unit and came up with a supplement-bev.

“These are great for energy when you’re running on empty.” He tossed her the carton and watched in silence as she opened it and took a grateful swallow. It had a mellow fruity flavor that went down cool against her parched throat. The bev and edibles with Sara had been nearly eight hours earlier. She tipped the carton toward Timothy. “Thanks. I needed this more than I realized.”

He nodded and waited for her to take another long swallow. “The other night, you didn’t say anything when I assumed you were a cop.” There wasn’t any heat in his observation.

“Sorry about that.”

“Hey, it’s none of my business. I’m just surprised. You were so determined to be a cop like your dad.”

“After he died a lot changed.”

Timothy nodded. “You left the neighborhood.”

“Mom wanted a clean break from the past.”

“She wanted a husband who wouldn’t be killed in the line of duty,” said Timothy.

It was an astute observation.

Lily swallowed another gulp of the cool beverage. “You know they never actually declared his death as being in the line of duty. He’d logged out right before.”

“They never caught the guy?”

“No. Since they couldn’t determine if Dad had been responding to a crime, they ruled it a random homicide.” That had made her father a victim instead of a hero. It didn’t matter to Lily, but it had made a difference to her mother, who’d felt cheated. If she had to lose her husband, she had at least expected to be a hero’s widow.

“Losing a parent changes things,” he said. “No matter the reason.”

“Yeah. Your mother?” Lily vaguely remembered his mother had been out of the picture, but she didn’t know how or why.

“Mom officially went missing when I was about nine. The cops didn’t find any evidence of foul play so they assumed she just left us. But Dad and I knew she wouldn’t have abandoned us. She had to be dead.”

They shared a quiet moment before Tim shook himself and straightened from where he’d been leaning against the fridge. “I have to get back to rounds. You can stay here as long as you need.”

“Thanks. You’re a life saver.”

He smiled then left, pulling the door closed behind him.

Lily took advantage of the privacy to use her com to link into the Deepwater data-engine and do a multi-source search on Tie LeRoue and Lucas Delaponte. She was relieved to see they had no history of connections to any anti-Ormney groups. No public criminal record, but without going through Sean, she couldn’t access Metro’s internal files to make sure they hadn’t been tied to any investigations or had any complaints filed against them.

She had to find time to go over things with Sean. God willing, there wouldn’t be another attack and she could spend the day digging into the information from the earlier cases. She had to find out more about the first two deaths. An Ormney male and a human female. Could they have been lovers like Jennifer Richardson and Lanyak? She needed some answers.

The Ormney didn’t carry personal coms, instead they used a system of community coms. Lily put in a message for Jolaj to meet her at the entrance of the S&H dock district as soon as curfew lifted for the morning. She wanted to get a feel for the first crime scene and interview the dock workers who’d covered it up.

Lily could get through the next twelve or so hours without sleep, but she’d spent the last twenty-four alternately at the scene of a murder, in a morgue, and camped out at the terminal unit. She refused to face the day without washing all of that away. Her apartment wasn’t far from the dockyard where she hoped to meet Jolaj and she wasn’t going to let the fact that Bradley was passed out on her bed keep her away from a hot steamy shower.

As she expected he was still there when she arrived. At some point he’d woken up enough to pull off his clothes and crawl under her comforter. She propped a knee on the edge of the bed, grabbed his shoulder and shook hard. “Get up and go home, Bradley.”

He groaned and buried his face under her pillow.

She leaned back and considered her options.

She could shoot him. Maybe with her pulser on stun. But that seemed counterproductive.

He started to snore softly beneath the thick bedding.

Damn.

She could pull him off the bed. Hitting the floor would certainly wake him up.

She flexed her shoulders and decided she was too damned tired for that. A quick check of the time confirmed she needed to meet Jolaj in ten minutes. Waking Bradley now would mean dealing with him and she was already going to be late. Better to do it on the way out of the door.

Lily headed for the shower, pulling her clothes off as she went. She wasn’t particularly modest. That didn’t mean she wanted Bradley to see what a mess Kiq had made of her body.

If she was quiet and quick, she’d be done and dressed before time came to drag him out of bed and leave him in her hall wearing nothing but whatever he’d kept on under her comforter. Liking the idea more and more, she showered with the speed and efficiency born of on-the-job practice.

She’d stepped out of the shower and was rubbing Dermamend into the scar tissue across her abdomen when a com tone shrilled. She pulled a wrap around her body and stepped clear of the privacy screen to get a better view of the room. Bradley hung half out of the bed, digging through a pile of his clothes on the floor. He came up with his com and opened an audio link before he noticed her.

“Morning, sweetheart,” he said. Then, “shit,” as he quickly switched to his ear-tuc, but she’d caught a word or two from the other end. Enough to know it was her sister.

“Ah, sorry, Rose,” he said. “Just realized I overslept.”

At that moment Lily hated them both for dragging her into their screwed up lives.

“No,” he said. “I’m not at the flat. I had to work late and I crashed on the office couch.”

Anger had her dropping her wrap and striding toward the storage unit next to her bed. She jerked open a panel, pulled out a pair of undies and a white SafeSkin tank top then yanked them on. She faced him as she was tugging the bottom edge of her tank down to her hips.

“You shouldn’t lie to your wife, Bradley. I know I don’t have any practical experience on marriage, but I’m sure that’s not a good thing.”

“Damn, Lily.”

He really was an idiot. She’d been careful to keep her voice too low to be picked up on the com and he’d gone and said her name. From the look on his face, he’d caught a glimpse of her scars. He stared at her as if he’d never seen an injury before, but she didn’t give a damn. The scars didn’t embarrass her and maybe if he saw them, he’d realize he really had gotten the better model with Rose and stay the hell away from her.

His attention snapped back to whatever Rose was screaming into his ear while Lily pulled out a pair of gray trousers then stepped into them.

“You have to leave,” she said. “I have some place I need to be.”

She went to the bed and yanked the covers back. It turned out he was wearing boxers these days. He was still pretty to look at, but she felt only contempt for the way he conducted his life. She grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet as he continued to try to calm Rose on the link.

After scooping his clothes off the floor, Lily dumped them in his arms then shoved him toward the door.

Focused on Rose, Bradley let her guide him across the room. She opened the door and pushed him out about the time she spotted a startled-looking Jolaj coming up the stairs. He was there and then gone—
slipped
toward
out-of-sync
in an instant.

Lily shoved Bradley farther into the hall then pulled her door closed and pressed her back against the smooth carbonlite surface. She waited as Jolaj
synced
into view in the middle of her apartment. “I thought we were meeting at the docks.”

Jolaj thought she looked worse today and every bit as fascinating. The purple crescents beneath her eyes were darker again. They made the green of her gaze shimmer a deep emerald.

Thick, steamy air from the shower she’d obviously just left filled her home. Her bed was a rumpled mess and reeked of the mostly naked man she’d just pushed into the hall. He’d recognized the man as Ormney Affairs Liaison Bradley Rubiero.

Lily leaned against the door looking like a cross between warrior woman and vulnerable female. She wore a tight sleeveless top that hugged her breasts and abdomen, emphasizing her toned, athletic build. The faint white scars that wrapped her arms added to the image of a seasoned Defender.

Her golden hair hung wet down her back and her tiny pink feet peeked out from under loose fitting trousers. Jolaj wanted to take those feet in his hands and press against the arches to see if she would squeal with laughter or moan in pleasure. He wanted to trace the delicate pattern of blue veins visible through her pale skin. He wanted to shake her until she swore an oath to stay away from Bradley Rubiero.

“Liaison Rubiero has a mate,” he said, unable to stop the growl that rumbled unwanted from deep in his chest. “A wife.”