“Julie Beard is one of the few writers who takes the concept of love and passion right to the brink! Keep up the wonderful writing, Julie. I’m a fan for life!”

—A Romance Review

“Look, Mr. Gorky…Vladimir…I think I’ve done a bad job of communicating here. I believe you’re going to murder me.”

He put his hand over his heart. “It hurts me to think that Lola’s daughter doesn’t trust me. I wanted you to think of me as an uncle. Now get in the car.”

“Why would I want to get in a car with you?”

“I’m not plotting to kill you, Angel, but I know who is. Now get in the damn car!” He said it with a smile as he pounded a dent into the hood of the limo. I had to give the guy credit for being a master of the unexpected.

Startled into complacency, I got into the car.

To my everlasting regret.

Dear Reader,

What is a Bombshell? Sometimes it’s a femme fatale. Sometimes it’s unexpected news that changes everything. Sometimes it’s a book you just can’t put down! And that’s what we’re bringing to you—four fascinating stories about women you’ll cheer for!

Such as Angel Baker, star of USA TODAY bestselling author Julie Beard’s Touch of the White Tiger. This twenty-second-century gal doesn’t know who is killing her colleagues, but she’s not about to let an aggravating homicide cop stop her from finding out. Too bad tracking the killer is exactly what someone wants her to do….

Enter an exclusive world as we kick off a new continuity series featuring society’s secret weapons—a group of heiresses recruited to bring down the world’s most powerful criminals! THE IT GIRLS have it going on, and you’ll love Erica Orloff’s The Golden Girl as she tracks a corporate spy in her spiked Jimmy Choos!

Ever feel like pushing the boundaries? So does Kimmer Reed, heroine of Beyond the Rules by Doranna Durgin. When her brother sics his enemies on her, Kimmer’s ready to take them out. But the rules change when she learns her nieces are pawns in the deadly game….

And don’t miss the Special Forces women of the Medusa Project as they track down a hijacked cruise ship, in Medusa Rising by Cindy Dees! Medusa surgeon Aleesha Gautier doesn’t trust the hijacker who claims he’s on their side, but joining forces will allow her to keep her enemy closer….

Enjoy! And please send your comments to me, c/o Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway Ste. 1001, New York, NY 10279.

Sincerely,

Natashya Wilson

Associate Senior Editor, Silhouette Bombshell

Touch of the White Tiger
Julie Beard

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Books by Julie Beard

Silhouette Bombshell

Kiss of the Blue Dragon #5

Touch of the White Tiger #57

JULIE BEARD

is the USA TODAY bestselling author of nearly a dozen historical novels. With her first Angel Baker action-adventure novel, Kiss of the Blue Dragon, she made a no-holds-barred debut in contemporary fiction worthy of a Bombshell heroine. She loves kickboxing, debating politics and being walked by her Basenji dogs. She lives in the Midwest with her husband and two children, one of whom was adopted from China. Julie is a former television reporter and college journalism instructor who has penned a critically acclaimed “how to” book for romance writers.

To Amy Berkower and Julie Barrett,

for being there when it mattered the most.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 1

Tit for Tat

Once upon a time, I would tell anyone who asked about what I did for a living that I liked to make men sweat. Men. As in plural. And though a double entendre was implied, what I really meant was that I liked to scare big tough guys who like to hurt people.

Scaring bullies is easy to do when you’re a Certified Retribution Specialist like me, armed with extensive Chinese wushu fighting skills and a Glock. Did I mention my G136? It’s a sleek black semiautomatic handgun that shoots bullets or laser.

In the year 2104, just about any weapon goes. The Wild West of the 1880s ain’t got nuthin’ on twenty-second century Chicago. With the neo-Russian and Mongolian Mobs running rampant on the streets, in business and in government, I’d even say we beat the 1920s hands down. That, of course, was the era of the famed Italian mobster Al Capone and friends. The Cosa Nostra has since been reduced to theme park motifs and legal real estate deals, but that doesn’t mean the world is any safer.

I recently learned a fancy word that describes my world: dystopia, which is the opposite of utopia. But I digress.

The point is that my unusual profession grew out of a need for order. The Scientific Justice Act of 2032 tried to take the bias out of the criminal justice system by tipping the scales in favor of DNA and other high-tech evidence. De-emphasizing good old-fashioned common sense created unexpected loopholes. As a result, the court system is now a wreck and cops are overwhelmed. So crime victims who feel they’ve been cheated out of justice often turn to retributionists for help. For a fee, we deliver criminals to their victims for a little payback time.

Some people—especially the police—consider Certified Retribution Specialists vigilantes, but we’re professionals serving an important function in society. Granted, we haven’t been embraced by the establishment, but we hadn’t been outlawed, either. Not yet, anyway.

But the state of my profession wasn’t exactly dominating my thoughts. Lately I’d been obsessing over a detective named Riccuccio Marco. Though we’d made love only once, that was all it had taken to show me that lovemaking really can be an art form.

Ah, yes, I know, cops are so boringly upright. Now, there’s a play on words. But Marco is different. Not only is he a detective with the Chicago Police Department, he’s a former psychologist. And to really complicate matters, I recently found out he was briefly involved with the Russian Mafiya Organizatsia when he was younger. You gotta love a man with a past. Exactly what it was, I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to make art again.

But that was proving maddeningly difficult.

I rang the telecom buzzer at his downtown flat and nervously pronged my fingers through my spiked, blond hair, using the brass buzzer as a mirror. Normally, I didn’t care what anybody thought about my looks, but this was different. I was here to further pursue my relationship with Detective Marco. That is if he wanted to.

“He-he-he,” came a whiskey-rotted voice from a weaving figure to my right. I made the mistake of inhaling just as the toxic cloud reached my nose.

I turned and found a methop junkie, drooling on his ragged shirt, grinning at my chest. He obviously hadn’t been to a dentist since the last millennium celebration, and he reeked of Eau de Middle Ages. That’s what happened when you cared more about your next hit of methamphetamines and opium than you cared about taking your next breath.

“What are you looking at?” I pressed the buzzer more forcefully.

“You, baby. Are those tits for real?”

I glanced down at my tight, leather V-necked vest. This was as close to cleavage as I ever got, and it wasn’t much. If this creep thought my breasts were surgically endowed, he needed more than a long bath. “They’re real and they’re off-limits, so get lost.”

“Let me give those melons a squeeze,” he said without sparing my face a glance. When he reached out with both hands, I felt like a fruit stand at a green grocers. “Nice an’ ripe, I’ll bet. How much do you charge, baby?”

“You don’t want to do this,” I said calmly. “Trust me.”

But he was too doped up or dumb to listen. Hunched over, arms extended, he zeroed in on his targets with surprising precision, but before he could make contact, I snapped my arm out in a quick backhand punch to his jaw. He went down just as the door opened.

“Hey!” the junkie protested, rubbing his chin. “That hurt like hell.”

Marco looked at me in surprise, then frowned at the junkie sprawled on the sidewalk. “What happened?”

“Sticker shock,” I replied. “Don’t worry. He’ll survive. I went out of my way to avoid his windpipe.”

“Very thoughtful,” Marco said sarcastically. Our eyes locked and sparks flew. He grinned slowly. “He had no clue what he was up against, did he?”

I smiled back. “They never do.”

“Come on in. I was just about to take a break.”

“From what?” I stepped inside a long, restored loft with shiny blond wood floors and an intriguing maze of pipes looming from the ceiling high above. I breathed in the foreign, pungent odor of turpentine and paint, and quickly surveyed brick wall after wall adorned with large canvasses covered in brilliant hues, some arrayed in geometric impressions and some realistically drawn.

My God, I thought, is Marco also a painter?

I whirled around to gaze at him in frank wonder and realized he wore no shirt. How I had missed that was beyond me. Paint-spattered, threadbare jeans slouched at his jutting hip bones. A line of dark, silky hair intersected his naval and spread up his flat belly, fanning upward and outward over the mounds of olive skin and muscle that defined his breast bone. Red paint smeared over an inch of his collarbone. My gaze wandered up to his ruggedly handsome face.

With a square, shadowed jaw, a seductive, lush mouth and brown eyes that could undress you in seconds flat, he made my mouth water. It was amazing. I was right to come here. You can’t fight fate.

Wait a minute! Be cool, Angel, I told myself. Be cool. Then I shrugged and said, “So. You wanna make love?”

Oh, God, what did I say? Could I turn and run? No, not cool. Could I take it back? Impossible. Nothing left to do but pretend I had planned it. So I crossed my arms, shifted weight, jutting my right hip in a cocky pose. I raised one brow challengingly and waited for what seemed like the most agonizing and longest minute of my life to pass.

Marco simply stared at me as if he, too, couldn’t believe I’d been so bold, so blunt. So stupid. Then he moved toward me, his bare feet padding on the floor amid the frayed hems of his jeans, and before I knew it, he’d scooped me up off my feet, both of his deceptively strong arms wrapped around my waist.

I steadied myself, putting my hands on his bare shoulders. His muscles seemed to melt beneath my fingers. I found myself kneading them. Just touching this man made me feel like I was running a fever.

Except for the one time we’d made love, I’d only seen him in suits and long sleeves. I’d thought of him as a studly but aging cop. Now he seemed like a not-so-middle-aged wild thing, more the unpredictable assassin I imagined him to be after his confession about his Mob ties. That’s who I saw, anyway, when I caught my breath and looked down into his gorgeous upturned face. Pheromones shot out from him like the grand finale of a Fourth of July celebration. He smelled musky and masculine with a hint of sweat from hard work—my favorite cologne.

“Did you just ask me if I want to make love?” His husky voice vibrated in his chest. His gaze skewered me with a “You’d better not be joking” look.

I spread my hands over his day-old beard and up through his thick, natural dark curls of hair. “Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

A touch of gray distinguished his temples, and his long-lashed, bedroom eyes ended with a trace of crow’s-feet, the legacy of too many deep smiles in the sun. He was all man, and he was mine. And he was just mature enough to make a relationship dangerous. I craved opening up to him, and dreaded it at the same time. If he really knew me—and he was smart enough to do that in time—would he still want me?

“Yes.” A simple reply. The last nail in the coffin.

He roughly grabbed my nape and pulled my lips to his. They were briefly tender, like silk, but soon parted and we melded in a mind-blowing French kiss. I wrapped my legs around his waist, feeling like I’d fallen into the eye of a hurricane. Everything around me was chaos. But something in me knew this was where I was supposed to be, and I grew calm, intent on consuming him.

I hadn’t realized he was walking, but we dropped together onto a mattress laying on a low platform in the back of the loft. We scrambled together, still kissing, as we tugged off our clothes. Jeans and leather gave way to the rub of taut muscles and slick skin. I was like a champagne cork ready to pop and nearly did when he stretched out on top of me, his long, strong legs entwining with mine.

I was ready. He was ready. Then I made the mistake of talking. Pulling from his lips, I said, “I guess your answer is yes.”

It was a joke. He smiled. But the ironic gleam in his eyes turned cloudy. He didn’t move, but I could almost see his emotional retreat, like one of those fancy camera moves in old-time horror flicks, when the dolly holding the camera retreats fast while the lens zooms in.

His interest slackened in the most obvious place. I gripped his shoulders, pulling him closer. No, I wanted to say, don’t stop now. But I wouldn’t beg.

He drew up and sank on his knees, straddling me. He put his hands on his bare hips and tugged his lips into a rueful smile. “Now that you mention it, Baker, the answer is no. I don’t want to make love.”

I was speechless. “I don’t…understand.”

He rose from his knees to a stand in one graceful swoop, then started pulling on his jeans. “I told myself that when the time came I would say no. But I let my desire get the better of me.”

I sat up, crossing my arms over my bare breasts. “Why? Am I so appalling to you?”

“Obviously not,” he said wryly as he zipped his pants. He raked both hands through his hair, looking older than he had a few minutes ago. “Get dressed. I’ll make some coffee.”

Reluctantly, I dressed, my humiliation slowly turning to anger. By the time I found his galley kitchen, which was ultrahigh-tech and gleaming with silver, I was ready for a fight.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” I declared. He tried to hand me a cup of java. I crossed my arms, so he placed it on a small round table.

“Cream and sugar?” he asked calmly as he returned to pour a second cup.

“You can’t make love to a woman like you did with me, Marco, and then just expect her to forget about you! What am I saying?” I laughed bitterly. “You probably do it all the time.”

He balanced a small pitcher of cream and a bowl of sugar in one hand, and a second cup of coffee in the other, placing them nonchalantly on the table like a restaurateur making the final touches before opening the doors. Then he turned to me with a look of bored patience.

“You’re still angry?”

“I’m pissed as hell.”

He pulled me close with a grip on my upper arms, cocooning me in a bearish embrace that was now distinctly brotherly in tone. With a firm grip that was neither rough nor gentle, he lifted my chin and kissed me as if he was teaching me a lesson. I stiffened, but soon my lips succumbed to his sensuous rotation. I resisted as long as I could, but the truth was his kisses were better than drugs.

When he was done, he pulled back and gazed at me assessingly. I dropped my head on his chest, undone again. He scooped up my head with hands on my cheeks and looked at me intensely.

“Do you think I kiss just any woman like that?”

I groaned pathetically. “Yes.”

“Then you’re a fool.”

My swollen lips tugged wryly. “Gee, thanks. You do wonders for my esteem.”

“I care for you, Angel. Too much. I haven’t allowed myself to do that in a long time.”

That implied yet more personal history that I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about. “You’ve been hurt?”

I saw it for an instant in his eyes—pain so deep it gave me a chill. He poured cream and sugar in his coffee, then sat in a little round chair too small for him, crossing his legs casually. “Anyone over the age of thirty has been hurt.”

“I’m twenty-eight. Age doesn’t have much to do with it.”

“The older you get, the tougher you are. The harder it is to hurt. But when someone does manage to do it…”

He trailed off and frowned seriously as he took a sip of the steaming coffee.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Marco.”

He looked me up and down as if he was logically considering whether that was true. “You’re a beautiful woman, Angel Baker. Fit and energetic, brave and yet grounded. Your heart is…very tender. I know you’ve been hurt, and I know you would never intentionally harm me. But I can’t watch you die. I’ve done that too many times already.”

“Watch me die?” I said with a disbelieving laugh, taking the seat opposite him. I grabbed the cup I’d earlier rejected. “You don’t have much faith in my abilities if you think I’m going to die.”

“You’re a retributionist, kiddo. Do you know what the mortality statistics are for your profession?”

“I’m careful,” I said soberly. “And I’m good.”

“Have you thought about your responsibility to Lin? What if something happens to you? Where will she be then?”

I shut my eyes and laughed ruefully. “You really go for the jugular, you know that?” I took a fortifying breath, folded my hands and pinned him with my robins-egg blue eyes. “I’m not going to abandon my foster child—not to death, not to the state foster care system. Not to anyone.”

“Then you’d better quit while you can. While you’re still alive.”

“Is this about your police committee that’s trying to get the state legislature to outlaw my profession?”

He shook his head. “No. This is personal.”

“I’m not going to do it, Marco.”

“Do it for Lin.”

I shook my head. “I rescued Lin. Remember? I couldn’t have done that without my training as a retributionist.”

“Then do it for me.”

My heart did a funny little somersault. Was he asking me for a commitment? I heard a muted police siren wail down the street in the thick silence that followed. My heart pounded. I wanted to commit, but at what price? I felt like I was trapped in a burning building with no easy exit.

“You’re asking me to give up my career to love you? That’s not fair, Marco.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s not. But death isn’t fair, either. Do you really know what death is?”

I blinked, stunned by the question. I’d spent my life defying death, even ignoring its existence. I had a feeling he knew much more about it than I, but that didn’t mean he could make such an important decision for me.

“I’m willing to take that risk.”

“Well, I’m not,” he shot back, anger giving his low voice a bass tremor. His fist came down hard on the table. “If you want to make love to me, you have to hang it up, Angel.”

“Fuck you!” I yelled and slammed my palms down so hard coffee jumped out of both mugs. “This is my life! Being a retributionist is who I am. It’s me. You’re rejecting me. Why don’t you just call it like it is?”

“No,” he said, softening his voice. “You are not a retributionist. It’s what you do. It’s not who you are. And until you realize that, we can’t have a relationship.” He raised both palms up in acquiescence. “That’s not quite true. We already have a relationship. But we can’t have sex.”

I blinked slowly. “You’re kidding?”

“No.”

“That’s just great.” I stood abruptly. “You’re a sadist, you know that?”

“Don’t slam the door on the way out, Angel,” he said matter-of-factly.

I shook my head in disbelief and left. When I reached the sidewalk, I turned back and slammed the door with every bit of flare and might I could muster. Feeling perversely satisfied, I whirled and stepped right into the methop junkie. His grimy, open palms fit snugly around my breasts. He grinned and guffawed in triumph, nearly bowling me over with his rancid breath.

“Like I thought,” he said, chuckling, “these melons are just ripe enough to eat.”

“How ironic.” With lightning speed and force, I jammed my hand down between his legs and gripped hard. While his eyes popped and his throat pumped with unspeakable pain, I added, “The melons might be perfect, but these grapes are way too shriveled for me.”

I couldn’t sleep that night. I tried to relax by watching an old black-and-white flick. I loved the early twentieth century Hollywood classics. Still, I tossed and turned. I told myself a hundred times to forget about Marco, but he was the kind of guy who made you think. Damn him. Was he right about my responsibilities to Lin? I swore I’d be there for her. She was seven years old. Old enough to know whether I held up my end of the adoption bargain or not.

When my mother went to prison—when I was seven, ironically—I’d certainly felt abandoned. While I had no plans to go to prison, I never considered that getting killed on the job would be, in effect, abandonment of my motherly duties. Was I willing to give up a dangerous career for a child? When I’d told the social worker a month ago that I wanted to adopt Lin, I hadn’t thought through all the ramifications. Love was more than a feeling when it came to parenthood.

I’d never before considered myself motherhood material. But my outlook changed a month ago when I stumbled onto a plot to sell a dozen Chinese orphans, including Lin, on the black market.

The Mongolian Mob had literally been breeding girls outside Barrington, a northwestern suburb, in a downscaled replica of the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City. Comfortably imprisoned, Lin grew up thinking she was in China. She had been lovingly cared for by an older sister, but her only kin had been slain when it was time for Lin and the other seven-year-olds to be sold at market.

Pure-blooded Chinese girls were highly prized here and abroad. They were scarce because of China’s twentieth-century one-child birth control policy. Back then, parents favored boys, so females were often aborted or sent abroad for adoption. That led to a shortage of Chinese brides, and many of the men had been forced to marry immigrants.

Lin and her friends would have netted the Mongolian Mob millions of dollars if I hadn’t rescued them. The other girls were put up for adoption, but I had kept Lin as a foster child. We bonded quickly, even though I practically had to fight for time alone with her. My mother, who now lived in my downstairs flat, and my Chinese martial arts instructor, who lived in my garden carriage house, occupied most of Lin’s time. They doted on her and babysat when I was away.

Still, Lin knew I was her savior. I was her new mother. When I realized I couldn’t let her go, I set the wheels of adoption in motion. But now that decision was forcing me to consider radical changes in my lifestyle. Could I give up my career for Lin?

The prospect of working behind a desk just to be safe made me go numb inside. But perhaps there was something else I could do with my skills. Maybe I could be a case worker for social services and make sure foster children weren’t abused. Having been an abused foster child myself, I would certainly know what signs to look for.

The possibilities churned in my mind. Finally, realizing I wasn’t going to be able to sleep, I called Marco. I used my lapel phone because I didn’t want to wake up Lin using the omnisystem. I popped the receiver in my ear.

“Riccuccio Marco,” I said softly, and his number began to ring. With a tightening in my gut, I waited for him to answer, entwined wrists resting on my frowning forehead.

“Yeah?” Marco answered in a groggy voice after five rings.

“Okay,” I said, barely able to get the word past my heart, which pounded in my throat.

“Angel?”

“Yes.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay,” I repeated impatiently. “I’ll do it.”

There was a long pause. He said, more alert, warmly, “Okay.”

“But only as an experiment.”

“How will I know you aren’t going to go out behind my back?”

“I’ll put away my Glock,” I magnanimously offered. “I never leave home without it, at least not when I’m on a job. I rarely use it and have never killed anyone, but it’s like insurance. You know that if you don’t have it, you’ll need it. No Glock, no retribution jobs.”

“Can you resist the urge to retrieve it in a pinch?”

“I’ll put it in my bank safety deposit box. You can be my witness. In fact, I insist. I want to make sure I get full credit for this charade. I’ll take a vacation for one week, but I want something concrete in return.”

“What?”

“If I go seven days without taking on a retribution job, you have to have sex with me.”

“Ah, such a price to pay,” he said, teasing.

“I mean it. I have to have some motivation here.”

He let out a sexy chuckle. “Okay. It’s a deal. You really want to do this?”

“Sure,” I said lightly. “It’ll be a cinch.”

Boy, was I ever wrong.

Chapter 2

Mirandized

Six days, twenty-two hours and twenty-three minutes into my agreement with Marco, my lapel phone rang. Waking from a deep sleep, I slammed my hand on the bedside table, feeling for the noise. At the same time I managed to blink open one eye and saw 3:12 a.m. reflected on the ceiling.

“Who on earth…?” I muttered as I grabbed the tiny round phone. Plugging the receiver in my ear, I groused, “What?”

“Angel?” came a gruff and vaguely familiar voice.

“Who is this?”

“Roy.”

I went instantly alert. Roy Leibman was one of Chicago’s best retributionists. I couldn’t imagine why he was calling me at this hour. I propped myself up on one elbow.

“What is it, Roy?”

“I need help,” he whispered.

The hair on my neck sprang up. Roy had never asked for help from me before. He was fifty-five and I was twenty-eight. He’d been my mentor. He shouldn’t need help. That’s not how our relationship worked. “Where are you, Roy?”

“At the Cloisters. Can you come?”

I glanced up at the red numbers reflected on the ceiling. It was now 3:13 a.m. I was an hour and thirty-five minutes away from seven days of abstinence from my work. If I answered Roy’s call for help, I’d have to start all over again. Since I was self-employed, I could take off as much time as I needed. And I’d enjoyed hanging out with Lin. We’d done everything from making sand castles on the beach to moonwalking in the Virtual Dome. But I couldn’t afford to be unemployed forever. More importantly, how could I not help a colleague in need? Besides, what Marco didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him—or me—would it?

“I’m on my way, Roy.”

“How fast can you get here?”

“I’ll take a chopper cab. Ten minutes, tops.”

Chopper cabs were expensive as all get out, and I splurged on them maybe once a year. But Roy needed me and I was determined to be there for him. Fortunately, there was a cab stand on the roof of the Music Box theater, which was just a few blocks north on Southport.

I dressed fast, wishing I had more than a knife and a whip to attach to my utility belt, woke Lola and talked her into moving from her bed downstairs to mine in case Lin woke up. Then I ran the ten-block distance like athletes used to when humans still dominated the Olympics. When I climbed into the cab, whose blades whooshed overhead, the driver’s sidelong glance looked like one he reserved for a con artist who was going to shake him down after takeoff.

“Don’t even go there,” I said, pulling out my CRS identification card. Then I held out my cash chip. “And, yes, I can afford it. Chicago and State. Pronto.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a faint East Coast accent. “Buckle up, please.”

Like I had a choice. He pushed a button and two belts crossed over my chest and battened me down. While we zoomed up and over the sprawling north side of Chicago, I tried not to imagine the worst and found myself reading the cabdriver’s certificate.

Herbert Banning IV. He was a Harvard grad. So many of them flew chopper cabs these days. Ivy League degrees were quaint relics of a past when a well-educated human could still outthink a computer. While a Harvard pigskin looked impressive hanging on the wall, it was no guarantee of a job, as was, for example, a certificate from a Vastnet Nanotechnology program.

I was hoping to help Roy and get back to my place before the clock struck day seven. And Herb was fast, God love him. He’d put his philosophy degree to good use. We flew well above the old-time skyscrapers, like the Chicago Tribune building and the Sears Tower, but below the executive level of the newer 200-story buildings, like the AutoMates Starbelisk and the Morgan’s Organs Surgery Center. Fortunately, only taxis and emergency vehicles were allowed in the downtown skyways, so we didn’t face too much traffic. Before I knew it, Herb settled his small, yellow chopper on a taxi pad in the heart of the Loop. I zoomed down the building’s outer elevator and ran hard to Chicago Avenue and State Street.

The buildings were so tall in this quadrant that city officials kept the streetlights on around the clock. Like Victorian gaslights, they did little to quell the canyonlike darkness of the streets. And since this once fashionable part of town had fallen on hard times—with free rangers sleeping in well-appointed cardboard boxes, methop junkies shooting up as if they were in the privacy of their own bathrooms, and emaciated hookers lurking in the shadows—it had a vaguely Dickensian aura.

When I reached the entrance to the alley that led to the Cloisters, I called out, “Roy?” as I stepped through the trash-strewed passageway. Rotting food and urine assailed my nose, which I covered with the back of one hand as I tiptoed through a brackish liquid I didn’t want to identify. It had rained earlier, and a trickle—blessedly fresh and silvery—still flowed down a drainpipe, spilling over the broken asphalt.

I focused on the cleansing overflow as I made my way toward the end of the alley. I’d almost reached the open courtyard, where I suspected Roy awaited my help, when I was greeted by the one thing in this world that could make me want to turn and run.

“A rat,” I whispered. Not just any varmint, but a rad rat. Rad as in radiation, not trendy. Rats are never in style.

About twenty years ago some idiot Director of Public Health decided the city’s rat problem had reached apocalyptic proportions and solved it by feeding the nasty critters radiation pellets. A few—the toughest and smartest—survived, mutated, and spawned offspring so large they could have registered with the American Kennel Association.

One of their descendants stood ten feet away from me right now, the size of a pit bull, daring me to pass. That’s what I hated about rats. They had attitude, in addition to beady eyes, creepy tails and vicious teeth.

“Get out of my way!” Out of habit, I reached for the Glock that wasn’t there. I seldom used it and had never killed anyone, but it was a menacing weapon to wave around. Instead, I pulled out my whip and cracked it in the air. The rat flinched, but waddled closer.

“What do you think this is?” I shouted. “Showdown at the OK Corral? Go on! Get out of here!”

Just then another rad rat stepped out of the shadows. I’d read somewhere that they mated for life. How touching.

“Okay, which one of you freaks of nature wants to be widowed first?”

I snapped my whip at the one who’d been acting like John Wayne. “Bull’s-eye!” I shouted triumphantly as it squealed and ran.

The second rat, apparently outraged by the assault, ran toward me so fast I couldn’t use my whip again, so I met it halfway and punted it, literally. The squealing—I swear, screaming—creature flew through the air and landed hard against the brick wall, then limped away.

“Ha!” At least I was warmed up. I only hoped these disgusting creatures weren’t an omen.

I ran the rest of the way down the alley to the entrance to the Cloisters, so named because it was a square courtyard surrounded by arches, as in a medieval monastery. It used to be a loading dock where trucks would unload their wares. But it was abandoned about fifteen years ago, and soon after was the site of a terrible shoot-out between police and drug runners that claimed the lives of nine officers.

Since then the Cloisters had been virtually crime free. Word on the street was that the slain cops haunted the place. Retributionists, who weren’t as a rule superstitious, sometimes took advantage of the empty real estate because it was centrally located. It was a convenient place to meet with a client who wanted a contract to remain secret.

I found the square courtyard well-lit and littered with the remains of a giant forklift, whose metal parts were scattered like the bones of a small dinosaur.

“Roy?” I called out. “Roy, where are you?”

“Here!” came his croaking reply. “It’s safe. They’re gone.”

Spying his bloody, prone body amid the metal rubble, I raced to his side, scraping my knees as I dropped to the dirty concrete. I touched his damp and cold forehead. He was very weak and, I suspected, badly in need of blood. He eyed me with a glint of affection. “Hey, Blue Dragon.”

He often called me that because of the easy-stick dragon tattoo I sometimes wore on my forehead during retribution gigs. It had become my symbol. In Chinese mythology, blue dragons are powerful creatures that live in water. Since one of my great joys as a child was swimming in Lake Michigan, and since I’d learned my best combat techniques from a former Shaolin kung fu monk, the imagery seemed to fit and gave me confidence.

“What are you doing in this shitty neighborhood?”

“You called me, remember?” I squeezed his hand hard, willing my life into him. Blood had splattered his white shirt like a panel from a Rorschach test. His abdomen looked like meat ready for a sausage grinder.

“Shit!” I muttered, momentarily squeezing my eyes tight.

I jammed my earpiece in place and called for an ambulance and police, then snapped it back on my lapel and took Roy’s pulse. It was too slow. If the ambulance didn’t hurry, he wouldn’t make it.

“Angel…”

“Yes, Roy?” I stroked his cheek. “What is it?”

He looked at me with eyes I had once watched so carefully for approval. With a gray mustache and silver hair, Roy was elegant and smart. He was also wily. He’d been the first man to tell me it was okay to be a little bad for a good cause.

“Go help the boy,” he croaked.

“What boy?”

He raised his right hand and pointed, then dropped it and passed out.

I checked his pulse again to make sure he was still alive. Then I carefully headed in the direction in which he’d pointed. My stomach surged with vertigo when I spotted a second body, which was so utterly still I knew immediately that “the boy” was dead.

As I knelt, both fascinated and horrified beside the lifeless form, I thought of Marco’s question to me: do you really know what death is? Trying to take it in as much as I could, I carefully tugged on the shoulder of the young man’s Hawaiian shirt. The weight of his shoulders pulled his still-supple torso toward me, and I winced at the scarlet carnage. I reached down and pulled his head my way so I could look at his face, in case I recognized him.

Who it was nearly stopped my heart. “Oh, my God!”

It was Victor Alvarez, the seventeen-year-old son of the Chicago mayor. I’d met Victor briefly when I’d done a top secret retribution job for his father. This was a disaster of monstrous proportions. What the hell had happened here? Had Roy and Victor been in a shoot-out?

“Angel,” came Roy’s weak cry.

I ran the thirty feet back to his side and my eyes widened when I saw how white he was. He looked at me with terror shimmering in his eyes.

“Angel, I’m dying.” He started to convulse, gasping desperately for air.

I knelt and took him in my arms, but he shook so violently his hand socked me in the temple and I nearly blacked out. When I regained my composure, he was still, his eyes wide open.

“No!” I shouted and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I fought to keep the cold of death out of my lungs while I stubbornly forced the warmth of life into his, one breath at a time.

By the time emergency technicians arrived, I was sweating and frantic, pumping at Roy’s chest, willing him to live. Strong hands gripped my upper arms and lifted me away.

“Hold it, ma’am,” said a brawny EMT, pulling me around. His round, ebony face was serious and soothing. “We have it under control now. You can stop. We’ll take over from here.”

I took in a hitching breath and nodded, as an EMT took over working on Roy. I looked around and realized the once-empty courtyard was now teaming with detectives, special forces and beat cops. When I looked back at Roy, the technician was pulling a white sheet over him.

“That’s it?” I shouted. “Why did you stop? Can’t you take him to the hospital?”

The big guy who had pulled me aside said, “We did a brain scan. There’s no activity.”

I nodded, finally admitting what I’d known from the beginning. Roy was gone. As devastating as this fact was, I could not cry for him. Not here. I had to know first who killed him. As always, I trusted my own ability to find out more than the cops.

“Angel Baker?” a voice intoned over my shoulder.

“That’s me,” I muttered, still staring at the white sheet.

“My name is Lieutenant William Townsend, director of Q.E.D.”

I tore my gaze from Roy’s body and focused on a man who towered above me a good six inches. Gray-haired and quietly arrogant, he regarded me assessingly.

“How did you know who I am?” I asked, refusing to be cowed.

“Detective Marco briefed me when I arrived,” he answered in an upper-crust British accent. He was apparently a UK immigrant who’d tenaciously clung to his distinguished way of speaking.

“Marco?” The word was like a bad dream suddenly remembered in the light of day. I glanced over and saw Marco talking to a bevy of crime scene techs and investigators.

“What time is it?” I hissed.

Arching one brow in surprise, Lieutenant Townsend replied, “Four-fifty.”

The proverbial clock had struck midnight. In Marco’s eyes, I was now officially a pumpkin. I’d failed our agreement. I rubbed my eyes with both hands and sighed.

“I need to see your license,” Townsend said in a clipped manner.

Without enthusiasm, I handed over my certification card and studied him as he held it by the edges with his uncallused, manicured fingers, as if I had cooties. I’d always been curious about Q.E.D., which was short for the Latin term quad erat demonstrandum, “that which is to be demonstrated.” I’d never met a Q.E.D. officer before but I’d heard the group jokingly referred to as the Quad Squad.

An elite group, it consisted of about ten cops who had elected to undergo psychosurgery to limit their capacity to feel emotions. After surgery, the officers took the latest bio-meds to spur connections in the logical, left side of the brain, which would then take over functions that had been surgically freed up in the right, or emotional, side of the brain. The idea being that a more logical cop could better solve crimes and would be less inclined to abuse criminals in a fit of anger.

“Are you carrying a weapon, Ms. Baker?” Townsend inquired, handing me back my ID.

“A knife and a whip. No gun.”

He fixed me with cold, gray eyes that fronted a brain working apparently with computer-like precision. In fact, he stared down his aquiline nose at me for so long with so little emotion that I began to wonder if he considered me a suspect.

“I didn’t do it, Lieutenant. But perhaps I can help you find out who did.”

“That won’t be necessary.” He gave me a perfunctory smile, perhaps one remembered from presurgery days. He motioned above my head and soon another detective joined us. My skin began to tingle ominously in this new presence and I turned to see who it was.

Marco. His jaded eyes that so recently glittered at me with desire now shone with reproof.

“Detective Marco,” Townsend said, “I’m arresting Angel Baker in connection with this double homicide. Would you be so kind as to read her her Miranda rights?”

Townsend walked away without waiting for a reply. Marco put his hands on his hips and sighed heavily. Our gazes met again. “You just couldn’t wait, could you?” he said accusingly. “What? Another hour was it?”

“Marco, I—”

“You have the right to remain silent,” he said in a monotone voice, cutting me off. “You have the right to an attorney….”

Chapter 3

Nothing but the Truth

To say I was stunned by the turn of events would be a gross understatement. I was nearly in shock. I rode calmly in the police aerocar, as if out for a Sunday drive. This is all a mistake, I kept thinking. They have to let me go. When you step in serious doo-doo, you usually don’t realize what a mess you’re in until the action settles and your olfactory senses kick into high gear.

I got a powerful whiff of it when I walked into Police Substation #1. Fondly known as the Crypt, P.S. #1 was a highly secure concrete fortress built underground so that mobs couldn’t blow it up whenever one of their leaders went there for a pit stop in crime’s never-ending rat race. It was hard to get into and out of without a police escort. Not that I planned on trying to escape. I was innocent, after all. I simply had to prove it, right? It was amazing how someone as hard-bitten as I am could be so naive.

Still handcuffed, I rode down a concrete corridor lined with twenty glass prison cells on either side. My chauffeur was a beat cop who transported me in the back of an aerocart-type vehicle you see at O’Hare Airport that carry disabled passengers and beep obnoxiously at able-bodied passengers in the way.

Slowly accepting the fact that I was a criminal suspect and not a tourist, I hunkered down in the back seat and watched the parade of prisoners with growing dismay and increasing alarm over my predicament. My eyes popped when I saw a tall, shirtless body builder in one of the clear cells. His skin was covered with so many body piercings that he looked like a human pin cushion. He glanced at me sullenly as I passed.

The next cell contained a Skinny—a prostitute who wore no clothes. Ever. Except for the facsimile of clothing permanently tattooed on her body—in this case red short-shorts and a white short-sleeve top. Since it was too painful to tattoo nipples, they remained intact, pink and perpetually protruding from her white “blouse.” Skinnies didn’t like to waste time undressing. Time was money, after all.

And just when I thought I’d seen it all, we drove past a person I’d hoped I’d never see again as long as I lived.

“Cyclops!” I exclaimed without thinking.

The pudgy, red-haired cop in the front looked back and sneered. “He a friend of yours?”

“Not exactly.” More like enemies. Cy ran his own underground prison in Emerald City, the homeless community that dwelled in the abandoned underground subway system.

Unlike the previous jailbirds I’d just seen, Cy wore a green city-issued jumpsuit with a hood, which he’d pulled over his hairless head. He’d been badly burned in an underground gas fire when he was young. Blinded in one eye, enraged and twisted by the incident, both physically and mentally, he’d been nicknamed Cyclops after the one-eyed monster in Greek mythology.

“How did you guys catch him?” I asked. Cops as a rule stayed clear of Emerald City.

“From what I hear, it wasn’t hard,” the officer replied. “He’s blind.”

“Blind?” I sat up for a closer look as we drove out of sight, so to speak. Hunched over and scowling, he looked not unlike Shakespeare’s Richard III, whom he was fond of quoting. “I thought he had one good eye.”

“Yeah,” the cop said, “some chicks wandered down in Emerald City and poked his eye out. Ain’t that a bite?”

“Yeah,” I replied without enthusiasm. The chicks just so happened to be me and my mother. Lola had stabbed Cy in the face with a stick during our fight. It was the coup de grâce that enabled us to escape from his prison. It must have left him totally sightless. Somehow I felt bad about it. Roy always told me I was a sucker for the underdogs of the world.

With a tug of guilt and the loss of Roy squeezing my heart, my numbness began to fade and I felt shaky by the time we arrived at the interrogation wing of the station. My chauffeur deposited me, still handcuffed, into a windowless rectangle and locked the door. If this tactic was meant to make me brood over the evening’s events, it worked.

I would miss Roy terribly. And Victor had been cheated out of his future. I felt for his father’s loss all the more because Mayor Alvarez was a friend of Henry Bassett, my foster father. Both men would grieve, and it killed me that I had to be associated with Victor’s death in any way.

And, as always, I felt abandoned. It was my natural reaction to everything. Marco could have come to my defense at the crime scene, but he hadn’t. I wasn’t even sure if he thought I was innocent. Now, that really hurt.

I’d refused to let Lieutenant Townsend, not to mention Marco, see me cry, but now a tear escaped down my placid face. I cried silently, a trick I’d learned during a two-year stint in an abusive foster home before I’d been mercifully rescued by the Bassetts. It was a trick I hoped Lin would never have to learn. God, I had to get out of here and get back to her.

The door opened with a brisk whoosh and a nerdy little man bearing an underarm full of electronic files, a coffee-stained tie and a suit he must have purchased at the local print shop. I could recognize the unnatural creases of a reconstituted paper suit a mile away. Was this a law student intern? I wondered as I surreptitiously wiped my face.

“Miss Baker?” he inquired, flashing a row of neglected teeth with his overly exuberant smile.

“Yes?”

“I’m your lawyer.”

“I don’t need a lawyer.”

He nodded patronizingly as he dropped his load of files on the table. “I’ve heard that before, Miss Baker. And I suppose you’re going to tell me that you’re—”

“Innocent. Damned straight.”

He looked up, startled, I presume, by my lack of remorse for the crime he clearly thought I’d committed. “Innocent,” he repeated, clearly speculating on the credibility of my reply, adding doubtfully, “Okay.”

“What’s your name?”

“Terrence Murray.”

“Don’t be an asshole, Mr. Murray. I’ve already got one, and I don’t need another.”

His eyes rounded and he pursed his wet lips. “Look here, Miss Baker, you’re lucky to have me. This is a busy place, as you may have noticed. Most people have to wait days for a chance to meet with a public defender.”

“Lucky me.”

He shook his head and opened the top file, muttering, “You’re awfully confident for someone who has caught the interest of Q.E.D.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked up from his papers. “Q.E.D. is the police department’s latest effort to reestablish law and order and polish its tarnished image. If the members of this elite force were willing to go under the knife just to increase their odds of nailing criminals, they won’t back down easily in a case involving a CRS. You’re the competition.”

“But I’m innocent.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Why are you here?”

“To represent you during your interrogation with Lieutenant Townsend.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk to that inhuman son of a bitch. I’m going to face the Diva.”

Murray’s nondescript, pale features formed into a nebulous look of confusion. “Are you crazy? You’re better off with Townsend than with the Diva. If she finds fault with your story, you’ll be facing the maximum charges with no chance of a plea bargain. You’ll be stuck in the system for years.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Let me put it to you another way, Miss Baker. I know of serial killers who are walking the streets because there was no DNA evidence to keep them locked up for more than two years, in spite of solid convictions. If they’d faced the Diva when they were first brought up on charges, she would have detected their guilt. With no chance of bail, they would have spent longer in jail just waiting for a trial than the time they ended up serving for murder.”

I just looked at him for a long moment. “That’s pathetic.”

“That’s the system. That’s why you can’t face the Diva.”

“I know you think you know what’s best for me, but I have a little girl waiting for me at home. If I don’t go back to her soon, she’ll think…” Why was I telling him this? He wouldn’t understand. “I have to go home. When I tell the Diva I’m innocent, they’ll let me go.”

The lawyer’s agitation turned to disdain. “Very well, Miss Baker, but he’s not going to like this one bit.”

“Who?”

He looked down at me with a superior smirk. “Detective Marco. Why he’d bother with someone as ungrateful as you, I have no clue.”

“So he sent you to me?”

“How else do you think you were lucky enough to see an attorney so quickly? Didn’t you see the gallery of rogues rotting away in glass booths waiting for a chance at representation? And people like you have the audacity to be ungrateful.”

The thought of Marco throwing me this bone was too much to bear. “Did Detective Marco, by any chance, tell you that he and I are involved?”

“Not in so many words. But I assumed so. Why else would he bother to call in a marker for this?” He looked at me smugly. “Do you think your relationship with Detective Marco will matter? It will buy you no mercy, Miss Baker.”

“Doesn’t it strike you as a conflict of interest that one of the arresting detectives has been my lover?”

“Yes. But it won’t matter to the judge if he’s low on convictions this month. But, of course, that’s why we have an appeals system.”

“And that lame response is why we have retribution specialists,” I snapped, standing up. “This system is so fucked up it’s beyond repair.”

“That’s why you need a lawyer.”

I shook my head. “No. I want to see the Diva. The truth has to count for something in this shithole.”

He shrugged. “Have it your way.”

As he headed for the door, I suddenly remembered something Roy had said. “Before Roy Leibman died,” I called out, “he said ‘they’ had left. Someone was at the crime scene before I got there.”

“Tell it to the Diva,” he said flippantly, adding with some modicum of sincerity, “Good luck, Miss Baker. You’re going to need it. But, as they say, it ain’t over until the fat lady sings.”

After he shut the door, I muttered, “Let’s hope she’s got laryngitis tonight.”

The Diva is a nickname for the Detection and Interrogation Visual Application System. Big words for a simple and beautifully administered lie detector test.

The suspect sits strapped in a dentist-style chair and talks to a hologram. Behind the hologram projection there’s a camera that records the dilations and retractions of the suspect’s corneas. Based on eye movements, D.I.V.A.S. analysts, watching the interrogation and programming the Divas’s questions from behind a two-way mirror, claim they can distinguish between fact and fiction.

The Diva looked like an oversized opera singer. The program’s designer thought it would be clever if “the Diva” looked liked Brunhilde. So she wore a winged Visigoth helmet and fully loaded breast plates. She was a “fat” lady, as the public defender had put it. I use the word advisedly because it’s against the law to call anyone fat. According to the Self Esteem Act of 2010, I should call her full-bodied, but I didn’t plan on discussing her weight. I was in enough trouble as it was.

I felt confident that a session with the Diva would exonerate me. I began to have second thoughts, however, when I entered the interrogation chamber and caught a glimpse of Lieutenant Townsend behind the two-way mirror. He saw me and turned out the light in the observation booth, leaving me to stare at my own reflection.

“It’s just you and me, kid,” I whispered to myself, as I had so many times before. Lord knows I’d gotten myself out of worse scrapes with nothing more than moxie and determination. And now I had the added advantage of my recently discovered psychic abilities. But I hadn’t yet learned to use them on cue. At least, not in a tense situation like this.

The lights slowly dimmed, except for a white beam that encircled my chair. As I climbed into the hot seat, I silently reassured myself I’d made the right decision. Suspects who volunteer for a session with the Diva are generally given credit for believing in their own innocence, and that sits well with judges. However, if a D.I.V.A.S. session goes badly, the suspect is immediately charged for the crime in question, and no amount of fancy footwork by an attorney can get the charges dismissed after the fact. The case has to work its way through the courts.

Suddenly the Diva appeared. Her long blond hair hung in braids. Red lipstick brightened a smile so welcoming that I found myself resisting the urge to smile back. I suspected the program had been designed to relax and disarm. That was doubtless another reason the programmer had used the image of a woman. I would have to stay on my guard.

“Hello, Angel,” she said in a rich, melodic voice.

“Hello.” I tightened my grip on the arms of the cushioned metal chair.

“I want you to get comfortable,” she said, and my chair tilted back a few inches via a remote-controlled hydraulic system. “Straps will hold you in place, but they shouldn’t be too tight. Are you comfy?”

“I guess so.”

“Good. The constraints are simply there to keep you in the correct position. Now, Angel, what were you doing at the Cloisters?”

I squinted to see through the hologram and briefly spotted the camera lens recording my eye movements. The Diva seemed to notice. She moved her head and focused her large, heavily lined eyes more intently on me. The distraction worked. I forgot about the lens and did my best to make my case.

“I was there to help my colleague, Roy Leibman.”

The Diva smiled sympathetically. “Did you know him well?”

I tried to nod, forgetting that my head was strapped in place. “Yes. He was my mentor.” A surge of emotion clogged my throat and I let out a deep, pained breath. “He…he taught me everything I know.”

“Then why did you kill him?” Rather than being accusatory, she seemed genuinely curious.

Trying to mimic her calm, logical attitude, I said, “I didn’t kill him. When I arrived, I found Roy already wounded. Victor Alvarez was already dead.”

“You know Victor?”

“Yes.”

The Diva frowned, and I sensed her sympathy slipping away. This was a very sophisticated program. The interrogators who were running the show behind the mirror had the power to supply the Diva not only questions, but emotional reactions as well. I waited, but she remained silent. Why? What was the big deal about me knowing Victor? Then it hit me.

“Oh, come on. Are you implying that my association with Victor makes me more suspicious than anyone else in this building? You think this was somehow premeditated on my part? I’m just being honest. I could have said I knew who the victim was because everyone at the crime scene was talking about him, which they were, or because he’s frequently seen on television, but I told you the truth. I have nothing to hide.”

“You call it a crime scene,” she replied. “So you admit a crime was committed.”

“Yes. Obviously. But not by me. Roy called me and said he needed help. I think he’d already been shot when he called, but I didn’t realize that until I got there.”

“He called you?”

“Yes.” When she raised a brow in doubt, I added stridently, “Check the phone records. Go ahead. I have nothing to hide.”

“If you didn’t kill them, Angel, then who did?”

I paused just long enough to feel a trickle of perspiration itching its way down my right temple. I wished like hell I could scratch it. “I don’t know. Perhaps it was a random execution by drug dealers. Wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time kind of thing.”

“So your gun just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time as well?”

“My gun?” I repeated blankly. When she nodded, I said, “That’s impossible. My gun is locked up in a bank. I’m…semiretired.”

The image of the Diva faded to black and in her place I discovered a 3-D projection of a crime scene photo. A hand gingerly held a dangling semiautomatic weapon emblazoned with a lapis lazuli dragon imbedded in a pearl handle. There was no question that it was my gun.

“Where was this photo taken?” I demanded. “It could be anywhere.”

“True enough,” the Diva’s voice replied from the ether. “How’s this?”

Another photo appeared, a wider shot of the same pose. It was Marco holding the gun for the camera. Behind him you could see Victor Alvarez’s body.

I closed my eyes, wishing they could stay that way. Forever. What could I say to refute this photo? my mind frantically wondered. Deeper inside, I thought, Why didn’t Marco just cut my heart out with a knife? It would have been less painful than this. Clearly, he wanted me out of his life. Putting me behind bars was certainly one way to do that. Had he planted my gun at the crime scene?

“I don’t know how my gun got there,” I forced myself to say, though I felt like a dead woman walking, or rather sitting. “Contact my bank. Someone broke into my deposit box and stole it.”

The Diva threw her head back and laughed, her double chins shaking as her voice ran the musical scale from top to bottom. She finally settled on me with twinkling eyes. “Come now, Angel, you don’t expect me to believe that.”

“You seem like an intelligent woman, Diva,” I replied, daring a bit of reverse psychology with my computerized interrogator. “Surely you’ve figured out by now that sometimes people are set up for crimes they didn’t commit. Do you really think I would be stupid enough to risk an interrogation with you if I’d used my gun at that crime scene?”

“Someone used that gun.”

“But not me.”

The Diva looked back over her shoulder and appeared to be talking to someone, though no one else was projected in the hologram. She turned back to me with a look of grave doubt.

“Angel, Lieutenant Townsend informs me that his men have already run a computer check of your lapel phone records. There was no call from Roy Leibman.”

“That’s a lie!” I shouted.

Her expressive eyes couldn’t quite conceal a gleam of triumph. “Take a look for yourself.”

The Diva faded to black and an image of my phone records flashed in front of me. I squinted to make out the numbers that had come in over the last twenty-four hours. Not only was Roy’s call absent, there was no evidence of any incoming calls after 10:30 p.m. The only registered conversation was the one I had made when I called for emergency help at the Cloisters.

“This isn’t right!” I called out. I tried to look at the two-way mirror, but the padded clamp around my forehead stopped me cold. I moved to yank it off, but the straps around my wrists merely tightened. “There’s a mistake in those records.”

The Diva reappeared, fading in on a bubble like Glenda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz, though her change in demeanor reminded me more of Glenda’s evil sister from the east.

“What do you have to say for yourself, Angel?”

“I talked to Roy,” I said as calmly as I could. I had to remember that I wasn’t trying to convince the Diva. She didn’t exist. I was trying to prove to the camera lens hidden behind her image that I was telling the truth. “Roy asked me to come.”

“Is that so?” the Diva replied, all frowns and pinched lips. “Did Roy Leibman ever ask for your help before?”

I paused. “No. And I’m sure that in Lieutenant Townsend’s little logical manual on law enforcement that means it’s unlikely Roy would have called on me now. Am I right?”

“I’ll ask the questions, missy,” the Diva hissed. “Isn’t it true that you came to the Cloisters because you were jealous that Victor Alvarez had chosen Roy Leibman as a Certified Retribution Specialist instead of you?”

“What? No!”

“You wanted to be among the most prominent in your profession. That’s why you rescued those twelve Chinese orphans last month. Not because anyone was paying you to do that job, but because you wanted the publicity.”

“I wanted to help the girls,” I shot back.

“You were jealous and angry that when Victor needed a retribution job done, he didn’t turn to you like his father had.”

I frowned slowly. “Wait a minute. How did you know about—”

“You didn’t want Roy to horn in on your domain as CRS for the mayor’s family.”

“That’s absurd.”

“So when you found out that Roy was meeting Victor at the Cloisters, you came to express your anger. You were the only one with a gun. Before the night was through, you used it. You killed Roy Leibman and Victor Alvarez.”

I shut my eyes. I shouldn’t have. It would probably be construed as a sign of guilt. But suddenly my eyelids were too heavy to bear. I could take no more. It had become abundantly clear the Diva wasn’t going to cut me any more slack than Lieutenant Townsend had. No surprise there, since he was doubtless programming her with the questions.

The lights came on suddenly. I opened my eyes and found the Diva had disappeared. My chair righted itself and the restraints retreated with a slight hum. Townsend came out of a door near the three-way mirror.

“Speak of the devil,” I muttered to myself as I swung my feet to the floor and rubbed my wrists. When he came close enough for me to shiver at the sight of his gray, reptilian eyes, I said sarcastically, “So, did I pass the test?”

“Yes.”

I blinked twice and tried unsuccessfully to read his urbane, starched features. The Diva showed more emotion than this automaton. “I don’t understand.”

“Based on your eye movements, the D.I.V.A.S. program has come to the conclusion that you did not lie during your interrogation.”

I squelched the urge to say I told you so!

“However, there is a great difference between not lying and telling the truth. Normally, passing the D.I.V.A.S. test would be enough to free yourself from suspicion. But your phone records offer a compelling contradiction to your testimony. Combined with a compelling motive for the murders, that offers us enough evidence of probable cause to hold you over for trial.”

“But I passed the test.”

“Article 34.A of the new 2104 Interrogation Bill passed by the city council two weeks ago allows the lead investigator to override test results in the case of probable cause.”

I stared at him, speechless.

I was aware that the legislature had passed a law designed to add so-called teeth to the bill that had established Q.E.D. two years ago. But I hadn’t realized the “teeth” would be biting my rear end.

“I’m innocent, Townsend,” I said. “If you’re going to abuse due process in the name of public safety, you ought to at least wait until you have a real criminal at your mercy.”

His gray eyes glittered keenly. “Don’t tell me you didn’t consider the new law when you elected to face the Diva. Didn’t the public defender assigned to your case tell you that?”

I hadn’t given him a chance, but I wasn’t about to admit that to Townsend. “No, he didn’t.”

“That’s a pity.” Townsend’s lips turned up in a shadow of a smile. “Angel Baker, you are now officially charged with double homicide.”

No question about it. The fat lady had sung, loud and clear.

Chapter 4

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

The sun was coming up when I finally emerged from the Crypt under armed guard. We stood a moment at the discreet underground entrance, taking in the fresh air. A pink mist hovered over the lake to the east, and across the street coils of silver steam rose from the Chicago River, an entrenched waterway that snaked through the city, splitting it in two.

Momentarily forgetting my troubles, I breathed in the glorious scent of city grime and baking pastries. A deli at the corner was about to open. Freshly brewed coffee wafted from the storefront’s vents. It was a little after 5:30 a.m. Rush hour was a noisy bubble about to burst. Meanwhile, the streets remained surprisingly tranquil. A light breeze picked up, and a little tornado of discarded papers and candy wrappers whirled around us, then rolled away, so much urban tumbleweed.

God, I love this city, I thought, feeling a surge of affection that brought moisture to my eyes. Funny how the threat of imprisonment could make you appreciate even the downside of urban life.

“There she is! Angel! Angel Baker!”

Tensing, I looked to my left and saw a couple of television live trucks parked on the other side of the street. Several well-dressed reporters hurried toward me with photographers dressed in flak jackets and combat boots trailing after them, cameras mounted on their helmets, their wireless controls imbedded in their touch belts. The photographers looked as if they were ready for a war zone, which was a good description of some downtown streets they had to cruise on various news assignments. The reporters could hang back and do a live report on the set with the anchors, but the photogs had to dodge sniper fire and gang wars to get pictures for air.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said to the cop gripping my right arm. He watched the approaching media without batting an eye.

Suddenly feeling abused, I realized this journey down the block from the station to the criminal processing center had been arranged specifically so that the media could get me on camera. It was one of many ways the police and the media worked hand-in-hand. We could have taken the underground passageway between the center and P.S. #1, but then the reporters wouldn’t have gotten their all-important “pictures.”

This was what my foster-brother Hank Bassett, a television producer, called “walking the suspect.” The police made sure suspects were paraded for the cameras. In return, the grateful press was more inclined to give cops favorable news coverage. There was nothing overtly unethical about the arrangement, but now that I was a suspect, it all smacked of collusion.

The walking shot would then be used over and over again on the news as file footage whenever there were new developments in my case. I would be forever immortalized in newsroom archives. Even if I won the Nobel Peace Prize twenty years from now, they’d pull out this footage of me in handcuffs for a retrospective of my life. Oh joy.

“Okay, let’s go,” the cop finally said when four camera crews were practically breathing down my neck.

“Angel, did you do it?” shouted one female reporter, shoving a microphone the size of a pen in my face.

I jerked my head away and kept walking. The camera operators walked backward in front of me, their head gear recording my every grimace and scowl.

“Angel, do you have anything to say to the Chinese girls you rescued?” said a good-looking male reporter.

“Why did you kill the mayor’s son, Baker?”

I turned sharply to see who had shouted this last outrageous question and came face-to-face with Rodney Delaney, a gruff, gray-haired reporter who had been in detox at least five times for five different addictions, according to Hank. Delaney’s face had more lines than a sushi chef’s cutting board, and his nose had more skeins of broken veins than the legs of an aging drag queen.

“What did you say, Delaney?” I demanded to know.

“Who paid you to kill the mayor’s son?” he shot back out of the side of his mouth, clearly trying to egg me into a good sound bite.

I jabbed his chest with a forefinger. “Look here, you presumptuous, drunken, ambulance-chasing—”

“Back off, Delaney!” A man in his midtwenties, with red hair and light freckles, pushed his way through the crowd. It took me a minute to realize it was my foster brother. Hank shoved Delaney back, then pulled me into a fierce hug. Though handsome, Hank was stocky and soft like a teddy bear.

“Wh-what are you doing here?”

He looked down at me with a world of worry creasing his forehead, then said to the cop, “Officer, I’m Hank Bassett, a relative and a producer at WFFY-TV. If you’re going to walk my sister, then you’re going to have to walk me, too.”

The officer nodded and we moved ahead. Hank held out an arm, forcing the reporters to keep their distance.

“Back off!” he shouted. “Come on, give us a break. You got your voice-overs, now go on back to your vans.”

Finally, we gained some distance from the news crews. Hank explained that was because they needed some wide shots to intersperse with the close-ups they’d already recorded, not because the reporters were having mercy on us. Accepting the bizarre fact that we were now both newsworthy, Hank placed his arm around my shoulder and held me close. I leaned into him, fighting tears. He was my kid brother and he’d rescued me. He’d fended off his own colleagues to protect me.

“Thanks, pal,” I said with emotion. “I owe you.”

“Everything’s going to be okay, Angel,” he reassured me. “I called Mom and Dad when I heard the story on the police scanners. They’re waiting for you in the processing center. They’re working on getting you a lawyer. Maybe Jack Berkowitz, he’s one of the best.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t going to turn down legal help a second time, although I didn’t like having to trouble Henry and Sydney for it. They were the Evanston couple who’d rescued me from two years of hell in an abusive foster home after Lola had gone to prison for bookmaking. The Bassetts were well-to-do, educated and had completely accepted me into their family. At times like this, I didn’t feel worthy of their unconditional love.

I hated having to face Henry after embarrassing him like this, and I worried that he’d taken the news of Victor’s death very hard. My fears were confirmed when I entered the family conference room on the third floor of the criminal processing center.

Henry sat at the table, looking older than his sixty-five years. His silver hair was not quite in place and shadows lined his cheeks down to his Vandyke. Sydney sat by his side, looking lovely as usual, with her frosted hair pulled back in a bun and the best makeup money could buy, which made her look as if she wore none, except for the coral pink on her quick-to-smile lips.

She was the first to see me, and the look of worry and relief that washed over her about broke my heart.

“Angel!”

“Sydney,” I said. We hugged tightly. I inhaled her Armand Gervais perfume and the comfort it brought me made my eyes puddle up. “Thank you for coming.”

She patted my back, then gripped my forearms and regarded me fiercely with her pastel blue eyes. “We’re here for you, Angel. One hundred percent.”

I nodded but was unable to find the words to express my gratitude. I glanced over at Henry. He hadn’t budged. He still sat, his tall, lanky frame sprouting from the small chair.

“Henry?” I said, but he didn’t respond.

My heart started pounding. I could take just about anything—a bullet, murder charges, even a guilty verdict—but I couldn’t bear Henry’s disapproval. I walked slowly forward and sat across the table from him, searching his face for forgiveness, just as I had when I was a child reporting for punishment.

My foster sister, Gigi, would always start the trouble, but when Henry demanded to know who was at fault, I was invariably the one who would break the stalemate with a false confession. Henry would look at me doubtfully and ask me if I was really to blame. Yes, I’d insist, but please don’t send me away. Never, Henry would reply. Then he’d create some chore as penance and send me on my way with a wink. Gigi would be happy and that meant Sydney was happy. Little Hank would call me a sucker, but he was on my side. Yes, I could take anything but Henry’s rejection.

“Henry,” I said, willing my voice not to shake, “please look at me.”

When he finally did, I winced at the sadness I saw.

“I’m sorry, Henry. I’m sorry I had to drag you into this.”

“Victor…” His voice faded and he shook his head.

“Yes, Victor was killed. It’s a horrible tragedy. Have you talked to his father?”

Henry nodded, then looked at me in a way that turned my blood cold—as if I were a stranger. “Did you do it, Angel?”

All breath vanished from my lungs. How could he even think such a thing? “Did I do it?” I repeated incredulously.

He leaned forward. “I know what you do for a living. It’s a risky business. Did you have a contract out on Victor?”

“Christ, Henry!” I shouted at him, which was a first. I pounded the table three times with my fist until I was sure it was bruised. “Christ! I can’t believe you just said that. You make it sound like I’m an assassin. I didn’t shoot Victor! I’ve never killed anyone. Henry, please! Sydney, tell him!”

“Calm down, Angel,” Sydney crooned.

He nodded and leaned back, his face regaining some color. “Of course you didn’t.”

I turned my head away from him so he wouldn’t see me struggle with tears. The one thing I’d had to see me through my trying life was Henry’s faith in me. Now even that was gone.

“You and I know you’re innocent,” Henry said, the numbness fading from his voice. “But the police think you are guilty.”

“I’ve been set up for a fall,” I said in a low voice, sniffing and turning back to my foster parents. It was time to get down to business. “You know I have lots of enemies. Roy Leibman called me and asked for help, but someone has erased all traces of his call from my phone records. If I can find out who did it and why, I’ll be able to prove my innocence. But I need to get out of here so I can investigate.”

“Of course,” Sydney said. “We’ve already made arrangements to post bail and have retained the Levy and Berkowitz law firm.”

My jaws tightened like rubber bands stretched to the breaking point. “How much?”

Sydney blinked several times, then said quietly, “Ten million for bail and ten million for the retainer fee.”

I choked out an incoherent reply. “You don’t have that kind of spare change, Sydney.”

“We’re going to mortgage the house,” Henry said.

I blanched. “I won’t let you do that. It’s absurd. I should be released on my own recognizance. And what kind of lawyer would ask for that much money?”

“A very good lawyer,” Henry replied sternly. “A lawyer who is risking his reputation taking the side of a retributionist in such a high-profile case.”

Humbled, I nodded. Henry continued.

“I talked to the mayor and gave him my word you wouldn’t jump bail. So he put in a call to the judge handling the case. The judge threw out Lieutenant Townsend’s decision to override the D.I.V.A.S. test results. If I wasn’t a close friend of Mayor Alvarez, you wouldn’t have gotten bail even if we had a billion dollars. He’s in pain, but he knows I’m in pain, too. And he wants you to have a fair trial, even though he thinks you’re guilty. Just be grateful it worked out this way.”

My shoulders slumped, and I pressed a hand to my nauseous stomach. Henry had really gone out on a limb for me. But at what price? Henry was a former television news director and college journalism dean who had always told us that his only retirement fund was the house, a beautiful lakefront mansion. If he lost that because of me…

“Don’t worry,” Sydney insisted, reading my thoughts, and smiled. “We know you’re good for it.”

“But you’ve got to clear your name, Angel,” Henry said. “Don’t let us down.”

Don’t let us down. At least I was home. I hadn’t let Lin down. Not yet, anyway. I had to prove my innocence. Sure, I wanted to clear my name and avoid prison. But even more I wanted to make sure I was here for Lin.

God Almighty, help me, I thought as I trudged my way up my apartment steps late in the afternoon. That I’d even gotten in the door without injury was amazing enough. The tranquillity of my wide, somewhat decrepit north side street had been replaced by a block-party atmosphere.

Television camera crews had staked out my two-flat. Neighbors from nearby redbrick apartment buildings had wandered out to see what was going on. I was shocked to see a young couple who looked like they belonged to the sons and daughters of the American Revolution holding signs that read, Down with the Retribution Movement.

I didn’t realize I was part of a movement, I thought with a touch of irony as I shoved my way through a pack of reporters who swarmed around me like killer bees. One of them—Rob Keiser from Channel 3—was doing a live shot and I decided I’d better turn on the digivision system to see what he was saying.

When I reached the top of my building’s inside stairwell and swung open the door to my living quarters, I shivered with relief. Thank God I was home. The bad news about being fast-tracked through the criminal justice system was that you could find yourself accused, charged and bonded out for an alleged crime before you knew what hit you. That was also the good news. At least I wasn’t going to rot in jail waiting for the rusty wheels of justice to churn.

I saw a note on the living room coffee table from Lola. She and Mike had taken Lin to the Lincoln Park Zoo. My knees nearly buckled when I imagined having to tell them that I was now a murder suspect. But I couldn’t think about that now. I flipped on the digivision and a flat projection of the Channel 3 reporter appeared in the middle of the room.

“I spoke earlier with Mayor Alvarez,” Keiser said, looking officious and concerned as he spoke directly to the camera, “and he admits using Angel Baker’s services for a prior retribution job. Here’s what he had to say.”

The mayor appeared in what was obviously a prerecorded interview. “I hired Angel Baker a couple of years ago,” he said. He was a fit and vital man in his late fifties, but now he looked gaunt and grim. “I employed Angel Baker after my niece, Carmella, was raped. Her rapist was convicted, but only served two years because he was clever enough to leave no DNA evidence behind. I was frustrated by the lack of justice. This is a problem many victims must deal with.”

I gasped, unable to believe the mayor had exposed his niece’s violation before the entire world. When he’d hired me, he had been so adamant that he wanted the rape and retribution to remain secret out of respect for Carmella’s privacy.

“With all due respect, Mr. Mayor,” the reporter said, “that’s why the retribution profession came into existence. Victims want justice. Are you saying you will throw your support behind the Certified Retribution Specialists, even though their tactics are coming under increasing criticism from traditional law-enforcement groups?”

Mayor Alvarez hesitated only a moment before replying, “No, I can no longer support the CRS profession. Not after the death of my son. We cannot tolerate any group, no matter how well-meaning, if it turns into a rogue force of assassins.”

“Do you agree with prosecutors who say that Angel Baker was motivated by professional jealousy? She was allegedly envious that your son had passed her over when he hired Roy Leibman.”

“I will not speculate on the matter, nor will I comment on the case until it’s settled.”

“One last question, Mr. Mayor. If Angel Baker were here right now, what would you say to her?”

Hatred filled the mayor’s brown, hooded eyes. “I have nothing to say to her. I hope I never have to see her again.”

I flipped off the digivision with a remote control and sank down into a couch, burying my face in my hands. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. But a little voice of logic inside my head wouldn’t allow me to wallow long in pity.

“Something’s not right here,” I said, trying to jump-start my resolve with logic.

The door flew open and Lin bounded in, her flip-flops slapping the blond wood floor. “Angel? Are you back?”

“Lin!” I called out and threw open my arms. She ran into them, and I hugged her as hard as I dared. I didn’t want to scare her with the depth of my need for this particular hug.

Lin was a petite seven-year-old, nimble and graceful, with bangs and shoulder-length hair as dark as night. Her lovely almond-shaped eyes always lit up when she saw me, which I considered the eighth wonder of the world.

When Lin had first come to live here, she’d been understandably reserved, but she’d thawed a little with each passing day. And though it would probably take years for her to fully accept me as a mother, we’d bonded in new, unspoken ways during the past week.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she said, beaming up at me with a resilient smile, minus one front baby tooth. “Was your trip productive?”

I laughed to hear such a sophisticated word from her little mouth, but I quickly sobered and felt cold inside. How and when would I tell Lin that I was a murder suspect? After my disastrous interview with the Diva, I’d called Lola from P.S. #1 and told her my retribution job was over and that I’d decided to spend the night with Marco. I wasn’t prepared to admit to my ex-con mother that I, too, was now in trouble with the law. Lola had decided to tell Lin that I’d unexpectedly gone on an overnight trip.

Lola, of all people, didn’t want Lin to think I was sleeping with a man. When I was a kid, I’d lost count of her lovers, but I couldn’t fault her for trying to be better at grandmothering than she’d been at motherhood.

I pressed Lin’s head gently between my hands and positioned her for a loud, smacking kiss on the forehead. “Yes, my darling girl, I had a productive night.”

Lola tromped up the stairs, fanning herself. Her frazzled red hair had obviously revolted in the late blast of summer heat. Her cheeks were flushed and, beneath her voluminous red polysynthe gown, her double-D breasts heaved in her bid for air.

“Hello, Lola,” I said.

“Honey, you got problems down there. Some idiot reporter just asked me if you’d ever threatened to kill anyone when you were growing up. I said, ‘Other than me? No.’” She laughed and I groaned.

Lola was the only person I’d ever known who could catch her breath and expend it without pause at the same time. Suddenly remembering my alleged sleepover at Marco’s, she raised her brows with prudish disdain. “Did you enjoy your trip?”

“It’s a long story,” I said, combing Lin’s silken black hair with my splayed fingers.

“I have all the time in the world,” Lola replied as she headed for the couch. “Lin, honey, fetch Grandmama a glass of iced tea.”

“Grandmama?” I repeated.

She flopped down on the couch and leaned her head back so she could mouth at me: mind your own business. Nothing Lola did was my business, yet everything I did was hers. But now wasn’t the time to get in a mother-daughter spat.

“What’s wrong with Grandmama?” Lola asked petulantly.

I held up both hands in surrender. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“What is the matter, Baker?” Mike came up beside me.

I hadn’t heard him coming up the stairs. His calm, accented words washed over me like warm, soothing water. “Oh, Mike, am I glad to see you.”

I put my arms around him, craving his strength. He held himself upright and firm, yet I felt his affection in the light embrace he gave me in return. “What happened, Baker?”

While Lola and Lin played cards in the living room, I joined Mike in his renovated coach house in the back of my garden. I ended up drinking an entire pot of green tea while I told him all that had happened. Fortunately, I had a twelve-foot wooden privacy fence around my oblong garden, so I didn’t have to worry about snooping reporters.

Sitting on the futon on Mike’s floor, gazing at his small stone fish pond through the open French doors of his one-room haven, I began to unwind and restore a sense of inner peace.

Mike listened to my incredible tale and took it all in stride. That was easy to do because he was a former Chinese Shaolin monk who had survived three years of indentured servitude in the poppy fields of Joliet, Illinois, before finding a place to call his own in my backyard. Opium production was legal as long as the harvest was sold only to legitimate pharmaceutical firms. But the poppy farms kept a low profile, preferring to hire foreign immigrants. Mike was such a one. He’d naively signed away his freedom when he signed up to work for the Red Fields opium plant. I’d rescued him and he’d been devoted to me ever since, saving my butt on numerous occasions. Nothing could shock or defeat Mike.

“Who do you think did this, Baker?”

“I’ve been thinking about that, but can’t say for sure. Lots of petty criminals I’ve hauled in for retribution might want to harm me or my friends. But none of them has the power to alter phone records or get into my safety deposit box.”

“What about one of the mobs?”

“That’s more likely.”

There was so much governmental and corporate corruption and the various criminal syndicates had so successfully infiltrated the establishment that sophisticated crimes were hard to trace.

“It could be anybody,” I said. “But the person who comes to mind is Corleone Capone.”

That was the ridiculously archetypal alias of the head of the Mongolian Mob. He’d chosen Capone because he was obsessed with the notorious Prohibition-era gangs that became rich through bootlegging. As for Corleone, he’d supposedly chosen the name in homage to Don Corleone, the main character in the novel and movie The Godfather.

His alias notwithstanding, Corleone Capone dressed like an eighteenth-century Mongolian warlord and spent most of his time trying to outdo the neo-Russian syndicate.

I’d majorly pissed him off last month when I’d negotiated the release of the Chinese orphans from his archrival, Vladimir Gorky. Gorky had kidnapped the girls from Capone for the sole purpose of foiling the competition. Gorky knew that Capone had spent seven years preparing the girls for sale. For Capone, losing the girls permanently to loving, adoptive homes was humiliating and financially devastating. I had been waiting for him to get back at me in some way. Maybe this was it.

“Yes,” I agreed. “It was probably Corleone Capone. But why didn’t he just kill me? Why did he involve me in a bizarre and pointless double murder?”

“Maybe he wants to make you suffer.”

“Well, he succeeded.”

“Do not worry, Baker. We will prove your innocence, Baker,” Mike said with his usual lack of expression. He didn’t need histrionics to prove his points. Not when he could down three men at once with fei mai qiao, “the leg flying like a feather,” or gang jin juan, “the diamond fist,” or any number of the other amazing kung fu moves he used so effortlessly. “You need rest now.”

I nodded and stretched out. Mike pulled a sheet up to my chin and tucked it around my shoulders with great care. I felt safe and loved. Why could I feel that way with a friend but not with a lover?

“Marco betrayed me,” I said with cool detachment that belied the pain I wasn’t prepared to deal with.

Mike exhaled and assumed a lotus pose, sitting next to the futon. “Perhaps he had a reason.”

“He could have given me a character reference to Q.E.D., but he didn’t even admit to the lead investigator that we knew each other. And I believe he planted my gun at the scene. He was the only one who knew I’d put it in the bank.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t have a chance. I’m not sure I want one.”

Mike mulled this over silently, and I felt a prick of irritation that he didn’t immediately condemn Marco. A breeze softly buffeted the wind chimes hanging outside. They tinkled soothingly.

“You should get your crystal ball,” Mike said at last. “Find out why Detective Marco betrayed you.”

I could do it. Marco himself had forced me to accept the fact that I’d inherited Lola’s psychic abilities. I’d used them to help us find Lin’s missing friends. I suppose I could use my talents to help myself as well. But the very thought of learning any more about Marco made me feel queasy.

“The less I know about Marco the better,” I said, closing my eyes for much needed sleep. For now, ignorance would be my only bliss.

Chapter 5

Date With Destiny

Detective Riccuccio Marco had an inbred devotion to truth, justice and the American way. Granted, all three lived in the shadows of his own crimes and guilt, but he’d learn to compartmentalize his life, and so far the positives still had his dark side on a tight leash.

Two years ago he’d entered a new program to streamline the training of solo detectives to replace those killed by the R.M.O., the Mongolian Mob, and other crime syndicates. His colleagues in the psy-ops department of the Chicago PD assumed he’d been motivated by the desire to learn more about the drug-related shoot-out that killed his rookie-cop kid brother, and in part that was true.

Handsome, articulate, sensitive to emotions and bred into a lifetime of nuance, Marco had easily excelled at crime-fighting propaganda campaigns, psychological profiles on seriously twisted suspects and media appearances. None of his superiors would guess that he’d majored in psychology so he could understand his own horrific crimes. R.M.O. attorneys had illicitly wiped his record clean.

Prior to his long years of study at the University of Chicago, he’d been a sgarrista—a foot soldier—for the Russian Mafiya Organizatsia. And before that, he’d been an innocent kid. Everybody started out in life innocent. Few were lucky enough to die that way.

Angel was still innocent, though she pretended otherwise. But she wouldn’t be for long if she got stuck in the prison system. She needed help. So Marco made two calls. One was to one of the best lawyers in town, a former prosecuting attorney who was so clean his shit didn’t even stink. The other call was to a shyster who acted as an equivalent of a capo bastone, or underboss, to R.M.O. leader Vladimir Gorky. That call cost Marco—how much he didn’t even want to know.

Both attorneys—upstanding and crooked—essentially said the same thing: Angel Baker was screwed.

Gossip in the substation’s coffee bar confirmed as much. While the department sold whiskey-flavored coffee, Marco concluded that he needed a shot of the real thing. Not even the chameleon-flavored alcohol marketed as Vivante would do. So he tossed back a quadruple espresso and headed for the nearest exit, glancing at his watch. Six in the morning wasn’t too early, or late, to drink he concluded. Not considering the circumstances. Then it would be time to call in some more chips.

Marco almost made it out the door. His mistake was taking a shortcut through the eastern corridor, which took him past the psy-ops interview suites.

“Hey, Marco, is that you?” came a bulldog voice. Captain Mitchell Deloire stuck his head out of one of the suites. “Fancy meeting you here. I need you to come in and interview a suspect before you go.”

“I’m leaving, Del,” he said, waving off the older man.

With a round, seemingly neckless head planted on broad shoulders, Deloire looked like a bulldog. But instead of growling, he whined.

“Come on, Marco, give me a break. I got nobody here from psy-ops and this nut-ball they call the Cyclops says he’s ready to talk. I just need somebody to do a quick psych profile. Then you can wash your hands. He thinks he’s King Richard III. You can brush up on your Shakespeare.”

Marco stopped and looked back with longing. He’d always had a weakness for delusional personality disorder. “I’d like to help you out, Del, I really would. But I hung up my shrink hat. Now I’m—”

“Yeah, yeah, a hotshot detective. Maybe he’ll tell you something to help with the Cloisters case. That suspect you brought in with Townsend—Angel Baker—she’s the one who brought down this wacko thespian. Maybe King Richard can tell you something about her that will nail your investigation.”

News travels fast, was Marco’s first thought. Of course, when the mayor’s son is killed, the details would travel like wildfire throughout the department. His second thought was that Angel had never told him she’d tussled personally with the Cyclops. To know she had risked her life so thoroughly and hadn’t even told him made the low-burning flame of frustration she fed in his gut flare up.

Angel was a damned stubborn woman. She’d never had any intention of giving up her work for him. That he’d allowed himself to think that she would made him feel like a sap. He didn’t doubt that she wanted him. What he doubted was her ability to reveal her hand. He wasn’t even sure if she could play straight.

From a psychological viewpoint, she was damnably intriguing and gutsy as hell. He was curious to hear what the Cyclops would have to say about his defeat at Angel’s hands.

“Okay, Del,” Marco said, massaging his frown away, “but this better be quick.”

“I heard she was here tonight,” Cy said as soon as he entered the darkened room.

Marco always turned down the lights when he interviewed a mole who had spent his life underground in Emerald City. It didn’t matter that Cy was blind. He would sense the lack of heat from the ceiling and know it was dark and feel safer.

“Who was here?” Marco asked casually.

“Angel Baker.” The stooped and disfigured young man said the name with such loathing that Marco’s arm hair bristled to a stand.

“If she were here, would that be all right with you, Scott?” he said, glancing down to make sure he said Cyclops’s birth name correctly.

“Call me Richard,” Cy said. He took a limping step forward.

According to the files Marco had quickly perused, Cy’s legs had been badly burned in the underground fire that had killed or disfigured most of his family about ten years ago. Cy was born and raised as a mole, one of the many descendants of Chicago’s homeless who had moved into the labyrinthine subway system in 2020 when the CTA abandoned the train tracks in favor of aboveground superconductor lines. Undesirable though the real estate might be, it had been dubbed Emerald City and had largely been left alone by Chicago politicians and law enforcement agencies.

The moles, who congregated in loose clanlike affiliations, often pirated gas from underground pipelines to light their dreary subway tunnels and stations. Cy’s clan had accidentally set off a gas explosion, and many of his family members were killed. Those who survived had been ravaged with burns and were treated like lepers by other clans.

Cy’s twisted scars, which covered most of his body, had left him lame and sightless in one eye. His disabilities and the loss of his loved ones had sent him over the edge. Delusional and frustrated by his misfortune, Cy had built an underground prison and hired out his services as a jailer to the various mobs, apparently enjoying his ability to control the fates of others. He called his prison the Globe and was fond of quoting Shakespeare.

“I’ll call you Richard if you’d like,” Marco said in his neutral therapist’s voice. “But according to your file, your name is Scott Owen. And I understand some call you Cyclops. The headlines refer to you as Cy. Who are you really?”

“‘I am a villain. Yet I lie: I am not. Fool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter. My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in a several tale, and every tale condemns me for a villain.’”

“You’re quoting Shakespeare,” Marco said.

“Am I? I merely speak the words that come to mind.”

“Then what is on your mind? Captain Deloire tells me you wanted to talk to someone.”

He lurched forward and felt for the chair on the opposite side of the table. He slunk down into it and stared at Marco as if he could see. “She blinded me, you know. I had one good eye, and she thrust a stick into it to free that worthless old vagabond mother of hers.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Cy laughed low like a feral hyena. “Don’t be. I’ll make her pay. That’s what I wanted to tell you. Let her know that I will find her if I have to walk through the city streets with a white cane. And when I do find her, I’ll make her pay. Tell her, Detective, that I am a hell-hound that crept from the kennel of my mother’s womb, and I will hunt Angel Baker down and kill her.”

After spilling his guts over the wrongs done to him by Angel, the Cyclops docilely answered Marco’s basic questions for an initial profile. As two guards took the prisoner away, Lieutenant Townsend entered the suite.

“Did you learn anything of use about Angel Baker?” Townsend said in his clipped British accent. “Deloire says the mole has information about her.”

Marco closed the file and handed it to the Q.E.D. director. “It’s all in here. The only thing I learned about Angel Baker is that she has one more enemy to worry about.”

“If she attacked this so-called Cyclops,” Townsend pressed, “perhaps we can add assault and battery to her case.”

Marco skewered him with a look of disgust. “The Cyclops is accused of starving people to death in his prison, Townsend. Aren’t you forgetting why he’s here?”

“I hope you aren’t forgetting why Angel Baker was here.”

“Let’s keep the two cases separate. Angel Baker confronted the Cyclops in order to free her mother from his underground prison. Is that a crime?”

“Perhaps we can make it one. Whose side are you on, Marco?”

“I’m on the side of justice, Townsend. Aren’t you?”

There was a long pause. Townsend’s gray eyes studied Marco with silent calculation, but no emotion.

And it was the lack of that simple but crucial spark of humanity that grated at Marco’s gut.

Marco had been heartened when legislators first decided to fund Q.E.D. He’d long thought it was time for legitimate law officers to regain control of the city. In spite of his shadowed past, Marco inherently believed in the law and the need for civility in civilization. But at what price? Did investigators really have to dehumanize themselves in order to catch the bad guys? Weren’t integrity and strength of character enough to face down evil?

“Your disdain for me, Detective, is obvious,” Townsend said. “But can you at least appreciate my dedication to law and order? Do you know how much I have sacrificed in the name of justice?”

Your humanity, Marco thought. “Yeah, you went under the knife so you could think like a computer. But I hope you’re going to keep me on the case. You just may need someone who has old-fashioned hunches to help you sort through all of your strategic and logical conclusions. I’m a psychologist. I’m into emotions.”

Marco walked away, but stopped when Townsend called his name.

“How is it you were the first on the scene of the crime, Detective? I didn’t get a chance to ask.”

Marco shrugged. “Fate, I guess. Right time at the right place. I happened to be in the neighborhood.” He grinned charmingly. “Don’t you worry. We’re going to nail her, Townsend. You and me. We’ll get that wicked Angel Baker if it’s the last thing we do.”

Townsend turned briskly and walked away. He may have lost his emotions, but he still recognized sarcasm when he heard it.

There was always a point when Marco realized that summer was over. It would take him by surprise, then make him wistful and, finally, restless for change. Sometimes it was the sunlight, that went from brilliant in June to a mellow August gold. Sometimes it was a noticeable crispness in the air. This morning, as he zoomed in his PD aerocar over the bridge to Little Venice, it was the mist that hugged the shoreline, looming in gray and foreboding tufts. The hawk—Chicago’s famously bitter and powerful wind—was getting ready to attack.

Marco made good time over the bridge and parked in the floating commuter lot that sat a quarter of a mile offshore. From there he’d have to take a turbo-gondola to his mother’s apartment.

To keep her safe, Marco had moved Natasha Marco Black here to the old neighborhood nearly twenty years ago when he’d broken with the R.M.O. Though she’d raised Marco here until he was five, she’d moved back to her old Russian neighborhood after his father, Luigi Marco, had died. On the north side, she settled down with a nice postal worker named George Black, who passed away five years later. Natasha and George had one son, Danny, Marco’s beloved kid brother.

As the gondola sliced through Lake Michigan’s choppy, dark water, inching down the Grand Canal, Marco inhaled the cool lake air. He admired the small palazzi as he passed, and the crooked line of multicolored town houses that towered over either side of the waterway.

Little Venice had been built about seventy-five years ago when Chicago became totally landlocked. When the Italian Mafia had been put out of business by a string of federal lawsuits and competition from other ethnic syndicates, the former Mob bosses turned to legitimate real estate.

The idea was to build a replica of Venice in the American Midwest. But when the original Venice in Italy sank into the sea beyond repair, many of the sixteenth-century buildings, piazzas and basilicas had been shipped to Chicago. What resulted was a charming, historically significant piece of lake property that was partly residential and partly a tourist attraction. The tourist angle insured that it was safe.

Marco visited his mother whenever he could, which was not as often as he should, and he steeled himself against her usual admonishments.

“Marco, Marco, why didn’t you come see me sooner?” she cooed when he entered her small, second-story apartment.

It was filled with a garish mix of iconography from old Russia, Italy and Vatican City. She’d downloaded photos of the newly consecrated Pope John Paul VI, otherwise known as El Papa Mabuto Ganni, the first Swahili to hold the post. She’d positioned the photo next to a portrait of Rasputin, who’d finally achieved sainthood a decade ago.

“Marco,” Natasha said, stroking his cheeks with smooth, warm palms. “You don’t look good, my darling boy. What is the matter? You can tell your mama.”

He gently gripped her frail shoulders and kissed her forehead. She possessed the best—and most trying—qualities of motherhood shared by her inherited Russian culture and her adopted Italian. She was overprotective, doting and superstitious. Her long dark, silver-streaked hair fell out of a bun, occasionally tumbling in front of dark, lined eyes that ominously studied his face as if his worry lines could portend the future.

“What has happened, Marco?”

He smiled. “Nothing that I need worry you about. I had some time to kill. It’s too early to make business calls. Do you have a shot of whiskey?”

Her quarter-moon mouth widened in triumph. “Is the pope Swahili?”

He took two shots of whiskey in the kitchen. The American-made liquor was her second husband’s only cultural holdover.

Marco managed to keep the conversation on a light note while he and his mother ate breakfast. When it was time to say farewell, Natasha grabbed his arm just before he could get out the door.

“Did you get him yet, Marco? Is that why you look so worried today?”

Marco set his mouth in a grim, tired line. “No.”

“Tell me you did, son.” Then she added in a whisper, her nails digging into his arm, “Tell me you’ve killed Vladimir Gorky. That bastard killed my Danny.”

“Yes, Ma,” he said patiently, “I know. I was the one who told you about Gorky setting Danny up on that drug raid.”

“Then get him! What are you waiting for?” When she started to cry, as she inevitably did at every goodbye, he crushed her petite body in a warm, silencing embrace.

“Don’t worry, Ma.” He kissed the top of her head. “Justice is always done in the end.”

When he stepped out onto the street below, he exhaled loudly, then took in a musing breath when he spotted a familiar figure strolling his way.

“Glad that’s over with, eh, Ricco?” called Sasha, his 25-year-old cousin, who stopped when he was close enough to clap Marco warmly on the back. His gruff smile notwithstanding, Sasha looked like an R.M.O. operative, with bluntly cut black hair, pale skin and dark circles under his eyes. His knee-length black shirt hanging over black jeans added to his mobster mystique.

“Sash, what are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. Did the old lady beg you to kill Gorky again?”

Marco nodded and heaved a sigh as he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah.”

Sasha shook his head. “You have my sympathies. Aunt Natasha is one determined lady. Too bad she had to find out what really happened to Danny.”

“Yeah.” Marco nodded toward the canal. He had only recently found out himself for sure—Danny had been gunned down in an R.M.O.-related drug deal because he wouldn’t let Gorky buy him off. Danny had tried to make an arrest, but his crooked partner had provided no backup. Danny had been honest. Innocent. Now he was dead. “I’m going back.”

Sasha’s impassive face relinquished a concerned frown. “Uh, not yet, Ricco. I need to tell you something.” He glanced cautiously over both his bony shoulders, then leaned in close. “I followed you out here from the city so I could deliver a message. You have an appointment tonight at Falling Water on the Lake.”

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