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  Chapter 3—A First Line of Defense

 

  Detective Jason Bryson admired the sway of the Drake woman’s hips as she crossed the street in lithe strides. The sway was for him, he was certain. He’d seen the wolfish look in her dilated eyes and felt the power of her personality as she sparred with him. The dilated eyes weren’t from drugs, he was sure of it. As if it would make any difference.

  “I’m sure you know CPR, indeed,” he murmured, but her taunt made him smile.

  “What’s that?” Clint Blacklock, his partner who’d been interviewing the Safeway kid, came up beside Jason. Clint was a big man, ham-fisted and rough-voiced. He was a straight-up, by-the-book, high-school football player gone a little to fat and a lot to beer, but he was a good father to his six kids, a good husband to his wife, and as honest a cop as Jason could ever hope to meet.

  Jason lifted his chin toward the woman and Clint followed his gaze. “Just something she said. Got a bit of an attitude, that one.”

  “Not too hard on the eyes—at least from here.”

  “You should see the front view. And close up.”

  “That’s our suspect you’re talking about, I s’pose?” Clint’s appraisal was clear.

  “Sure. Though her boss says it can’t be so. Apparently she works for some secret arm of the American Geological Survey. Part of Homeland Security. You ever hear of something like that? Says she came out to check on an agent and found him.” He glanced over his shoulder at where the body had been. There was something seriously ‘off’ with the scene: no blood, but the body had had a strange, almost deflated look under an odd layer of white dust.

  Clint shrugged and looked back at the car. “Not exactly what the kid said. Said she looked wild and was punching the guy.”

  “Could have been CPR.”

  “Could’ve, I s’pose.”

  “I’m thinking not.” Jason watched the woman get to her car, pause. The misty rain made her form shimmer and fade as the light caught her. Her brown gaze had been huge and terribly alone when he’d helped her up. He shivered.

  Perfect. She’d been a damsel in distress, before the wolfish look returned. Well he wasn’t the rescuing kind. He wasn’t a red riding hood either.

  “The patrol officers said they found her doing something to the body. Shaking it, one of them said. Or beating it. Vic’s body was dancing all over the concrete. Not any kind of CPR I’ve heard of.”

  Jason’s hand went to the evidence bag in his pocket. It was odd stuff to find at a murder scene. He’d seen her bite back an argument about him not returning it.

  It was odder still when the woman didn’t climb in her car. Instead she turned and stared down the street into the darkness, glanced back to where her A-with-a-capital-A-hole boss had been parked and then started walking down the street.

  Not even a glance in his direction.

  “Now that’s interesting. Her boss told her to get back to the office and he doesn’t look like the kind that takes kindly to disobedience.”

  “Guess that tells you somethin’ ‘bout her, don’t it.”

  “Given her boss, you almost got to like her for it.” Jason grinned at his partner. “Think I’ll see what’s got her interested.”

  He hiked his trench coat collar against the rain and started down the sidewalk behind Vallon Drake. This time she didn’t walk as if she were aware of him. This time she strode out in a long, loose-limbed stride straight down the middle of the street that made him think of solitary predators. A leopard, maybe.

  Which suggested that the distressed way she acted in the parking garage was just that—an act. Well, Ms. Vallon Drake, let’s see what you really are.

  He kept well back in the shadows, letting the rain and front yard foliage obscure him. The air stank of wet cedar and sodden earth. Just past the parking garage that had been built in the late 80s to accommodate the many people who came to shop the Broadway strip, the area’s shops disappeared and well-kept, heritage houses lined the street. They were all darkened now, so it was only the street lights he needed to avoid.

  Just as Vallon Drake was doing.

  She eased past the translucent misty columns and stepped ever deeper into the darkness that verged onto the fenced reservoir, but her focus seemed as if she could actually see through the darkness, and some particular thing drew her.

  At 11th Avenue she turned south, her form-fitting jeans and black leather jacket fading into the darkness so that he almost lost her, because there were no streetlights. But then would come a shift of the rain, a glimpse of a white hand smoothing rain-darkened hair off of a white cheekbone, and her form grew out of the night.

  She’d slowed. Again, like a cat, she trod carefully, pausing as if she were stalking, and what the hell was going on, because suddenly there was a greater stir of the darkness, something dark separated itself from a stand of tree.

  She froze. “What the hell’s going on? Why are you watching me?”

  Her voice rang out crystal clear and over-loud and then a sound like thunder ripped through the street. No flash. No light. But the thunder so close, so loud and powerful he collapsed, clutching his ears. The earth moved, trees swayed, and then everything went still.

  He picked himself up, swearing at the mud on his trench coat and trousers. Earthquake? Not like any he’d experienced in the Pacific Northwest before. The air stank of ozone and ether, and there were none of the car and business alarms that were usually set off by an earthquake. And where was Vallon Drake?

  There. On the other side of the street, she moved swiftly past the reservoir back the way she’d come, looking back over her shoulder as if someone—something—were on her tail.

  He crossed to the place she’d been, half-expecting to find earth torn or charred, but there was nothing. Just trees and the scent of cedar and rain and the salt of Elliot Bay. Clouds overhead held the lights of the city like an old friend guarding something precious.

  Not like Vallon Drake. The sight of her sent a shiver down his back.

  She walked alone.