“That’s right,” Trina said with a confidence she didn’t feel. They decided to admit to getting as far as Virginia on the off chance they’d been captured by a traffic cam or something. You couldn’t be too careful, Nikita had reasoned. The best lie was the one that stuck closest to the truth. “But like I said, the trail went cold.”
“We’ve got CIs on the lookout for him,” Lanny said. “And a reward’s been offered. If he shows his face again in New York, we’ll know about it.”
Their captain gave them a long, flat look. He didn’t believe them, she knew…but they had a spotless record, and Abbot wasn’t the sort to start thinking the worst of his people.
Finally, he let out a deep exhale through his nose; it whistled faintly. “You’re both damn lucky you’re my best detectives, you know that?”
Relief crashed through her.
“You’re both riding a desk for the next week. And my body-snatching problem? I want itsolved.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Absolutely, thank you.”
They talked over one another and ducked out of the office before he could change his mind.
A half-dozen heads whipped back toward computers and open case files as they stepped back into the bullpen, and Lanny smirked. “Buncha vultures. Coffee?”
“Dear God, yes.”
They went out to the cart on the sidewalk, and once they had warm paper cups in hand, leaning against the stone retaining wall in front of the precinct, Trina took her first deep breath of the afternoon.
Fall was coming, the days a little shorter, the heat an echo along the ground, the air smelling cooler and sharper, the first faint hint of an autumnal ripening. She tipped her head back and stared up the crisp blue wedge of sky she could see, framed on all sides by the lines of building roofs.
Lanny pressed his shoulder against hers, an undemanding touch that she returned with pressure from her side.
He breathed a quiet chuckle. “Can you believe we pulled that shit off?”
“No. Gonna take a few more days to sink in.”
“Do you think they’ll really leave us alone?” He didn’t have to clarify who.
She winced. “I hope so. At least for a little while. That video…that’s the sort of thing that could cause one hell of a mass panic. They don’t want it getting out.”
“What about the other video?”
She frowned, and turned to gauge his expression. He looked mostly relaxed, a little tired around the eyes. Content.Healthy, which was the most important. But she saw the worry, too; faint, but persistent.
She offered a wry smile. “It feels like I accidently watched something top secret that would keep regular folks up at night if they knew the actual state of the world. Which. Idid.” She sighed. “It’s terrifying. It’s unbelievable. But do I think that we could do anything significant to push back against it? No, I really don’t. So. I say we do what we can. Here in our city. For as long as we can.” Until the literal wolves gathered outside the door.” She reached up to touch his throat, the smooth place where a tumor had once lurked beneath the skin. “We have time now, and I want to take advantage of it.”
He covered her hand with his own. “Me too.”
Around them, pedestrians flowed down the sidewalk in an endless stream; cars belched exhaust, and people shouted, and horns honked, and New York greeted the coming of fall with its usual brash forthrightness.
Time, Trina thought with a smile. Nikita was probably right, and immortality wasn’t a gift. But time was. To her at least. They could figure outforeverlater; for the moment, she was going to relish every last bit ofnow.
~*~
Jake woke, and slept; and woke, and slept. He didn’t know how many times that happened, only that there was so much pain, and he just wanted to go under again.
Finally, he woke fully, to the beeping of monitors and the drone of the heat working. His eyes were crusted almost shut, and it was long moments before he could blink them clear. His head ached abominably, and his body felt leaden. He lay on a hospital bed, hooked to all sorts of machines, but he was in a fancy, paneled bedroom in the upper part of the house.
Someone was seated in a wingback chair beside the bed, but when he tried to turn his head, pain arced through his skull and his vision whited out.
“Easy, easy, don’t move,” Dr. Talbot’s familiar voice soothed. He stood up and moved into Jake’s line of sight, a paper water cup with a straw held in one hand.
Jake tried to open his mouth to ask what had happened…and couldn’t. His jaw wouldn’t work.
