“Absolutely.” Lips pursed, she studied the crumbling hotel. She recognized it as a rent-by-the-hour special. “Is this where she lives?”
“Who?”
“The girl you were talking about.” She lifted a brow. “I have ears, too, Alexi.”
He should have known. “As long as you keep your mouth shut.”
“There’s no need to be rude,” she told him as they started in. “Tell you what, just to show there’s no hard feelings, I’ll buy you both lunch.”
“Great.” Judd gallantly opened the door for her.
“You’re so easy,” Alex muttered to his partner as they entered the filthy lobby.
“Hey, we gotta eat sometime.”
He hated to bring her in here, Alex realized. Into this dirty place that smelled of garbage and moldy dreams. How could she be so unaffected by it? he wondered, then struggled to put thoughts of her aside as he approached the desk clerk.
“You got a Crystal LaRue?”
The clerk peered over his newspaper. There was an unfiltered cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and total disinterest in his eyes. “Don’t ask for names.”
Alex merely pulled out his badge, flashed it. “Blonde, about eighteen. Good-looking. A beauty mark beside her eyebrow. Working girl.”
“Don’t ask what they do for a living, neither.” With a shrug, the clerk went back to his paper. “Two-twelve.”
“She in?”
“Haven’t seen her go out.”
With Bess trailing behind, they started up the steps. To entertain herself, she read the various tenants’ suggestions and statements that were scrawled on the walls.
There was a screaming match in progress behind one of the doors on the first floor. Someone was banging on the wall from a neighboring room and demanding—in colorful terms—that the two opponents quiet down.
A bag of garbage had spilled on the stairs between the second and first floors. It had gone very ripe.
Alex rapped on the door of 212, waited. He rapped again and called out. “Crystal. Need to talk to you.”
With a glance at Judd, Alex tried the door. The knob turned easily. “In a place like this, you’d think she’d lock it,” Judd commented.
“And wire it with explosives,” Alex added. He slipped out his gun, and Judd did the same. “Stay in the hall,” he ordered Bess without looking at her. They went through the door, guns at the ready.
She did exactly what she was told. But that didn’t stop her from seeing. Crystal hadn’t gone out, and she wouldn’t be walking the streets again. As the door hung open, Bess stared at what was sprawled across the sagging mattress inside. The stench of blood—and worse—streamed through the open doorway.
Death. Violent death. She had written about it, discussed it, watched gleefully as it was acted out for the cameras.
But she’d never seen it face-to-face. Had never known how completely a human being could be turned into a thing.
From far away, she heard Alex swear, over and over, but she could only stare, frozen, until his body blocked her view. He had his hands on her shoulders, squeezing. God, she was cold, Bess thought. She’d never been so cold.
“I want you to go downstairs.”
She managed to lift her gaze from his chin to his eyes. The iced fury in them had her shivering. “What?”
He nearly swore again. She was white as a sheet, and her pupils had contracted until they were hardly bigger than the point of a pin. “Go downstairs, Bess.” He tried to rub the chill out of her arms, knowing he couldn’t. “Are you listening to me?” he said, his voice quiet, gentle.
“Yes.” She moistened her lips, pressed them together. “I’m sorry, yes.”
“Go down, stay in the lobby. Don’t say anything, don’t do anything, until Judd or I come down. Okay?” He gave her a little shake, and wondered what he would do if she folded on him. “Okay?”
