The Taken

“You donned the sinful flesh—”

“It wasn’t really a sin. More like a lapse of judgment—”

“You have breath!”

“I gave it back.”

“And now flesh!”

He drew a blank until he recalled the grit in his eyes when she blew him back. He looked down, panicking. “You gave me … skin?”

Her snarl grew to a fanged smile. “You cannot enter the gloaming, Child of Sin. You have no place in the Everlast.”

“That’s Child of God to you.” Grif’s eyes narrowed. “And I have wings.”

“Ah, that’s right.” She grinned so widely that wood grain punctured the plastic. “I’ll take those.”

And she plucked his wings from his body—his flesh—then pushed him so hard that decades rushed by, along with burning stars and rioting universes that roiled around him like debris as he fell … fell … then landed with a jarring thud.

Rockwell’s corpse bounced as he landed on his back, on the bed. Unmistakably, on the Surface. It shocked Grif into losing the breath he didn’t even know he possessed. Then the pounding began in earnest, starting at his shoulder blades, where his wings should have been. It spread like lava through his core and into his limbs, nothing like the lapping low tide of the pulse he’d shared with Rockwell. This was a red monsoon. His veins throbbed and surged as they … what?

What?

“Fill with blood.”

Grif turned his head and found Nicole Rockwell’s eyes fixed on him, though her pupils were overtaken by surging flame as Anas stared from the dead girl’s body. His heart leaped again, and his veins pulsed and rushed and, yes …

Filled with blood.

And the yearning ache he’d felt while inhabiting Rockwell’s body crested in his chest. Rearing against the pain, Grif felt new flesh stretching over bone. A scream lodged against his unused vocal cords, and he fell still, closing his eyes, trying to hold it all back.

“Breathe,” Anas instructed through Rockwell’s corpse.

Grif gasped and shivered. This was the animation of skin coupled with life force. This wasn’t just the innate desire to live. This was rebirth. This was life.

Clamminess lunged to seize the new oxygen in his lungs. It was only the experience of having been alive for thirty-three years once before that kept the confining flesh from being revolting. Maybe when it warmed, Grif thought, he wouldn’t feel such a need to run from himself.

But blood still clotted most of the virgin veins, and his heart had to struggle to move it. Its amplified thump hammered like the lead bass in a marching band.

“Breathe.”

The word banged like a pot off Grif’s competing thoughts. Worse were the spasms ripping through his chest. Fear, insecurity, guilt, and sorrow all huddled in newly exposed corners, naked, cowering things, frightened children trying to pull the covers of the Everlast up to their chins.

But the protective coating was slipping away. He knew it, and it was why—even without a true heartbeat or thawed blood or a sense of self and place in the universe—he began to shake in his new flesh. “No …”

“Breathe,” Anas hissed again.

“It hurts,” he managed, squinting into her fiery gaze.

“Being clothed in sin does, yes.”

“I can’t …” The shake of his head, side to side, set the pots to clanging again. He had no idea how he heard Anas’s voice above them, only knew that she said, “It will hurt more when you die again.”

And a knock sounded at the door.

He stilled, looking at Anas.

“You must flee,” she said, eyes still burning, breath still scalding. Still merciless.

“Why—”

She cut him off. “There’s a window in the bathroom. Go while you can.”

“But I—”

“But you’re lying next to a murdered woman. And you, Griffin Shaw, are alive.”

He couldn’t comprehend it, but the burning skin, the pulsing blood, the breath in his chest … “It’s too much.”

It was all too much.

Another knock at the door, louder, accompanied by annoyed voices on the other side.

Anas was right; the time for privacy was over.

“Just enough then,” Anas said impatiently when he still didn’t move. She pursed Rockwell’s blue lips. Everlast washed over him in a cooling balm and he could sit, and then stand.

“It won’t last.” And the burning eyes dulled, then snuffed out completely, leaving behind Rockwell’s black, sightless pupils.

Yet the small hint of Everlast had cleared his mind and Grif could see what Anas had, and what anyone else would when they entered this room: a man standing over a woman’s blood-splattered body.

Whirling, he darted into the bathroom, and wedged open the small, single-paned window. He heard the door to the room open just as he clambered through, and reached the rusting ladder right before screams sounded behind him. Half-falling, half-jumping, Grif hit the ground seconds later, and ran from the voices and the building. He ran blindly. He ran until the sliver of Everlast wore off.

He ran until he could run no more.

CHAPTER TWO

Kit had never been to the station house on a Saturday night and found it even noisier and more crowded than during working hours. The irony was that if she had stuck to those hours—if they had—she wouldn’t be here now. Waiting to be interviewed by a cop. Shivering in a dress meant for cheerful occasions, not sober ones. Mourning the death of her best and oldest friend.

“Kit!”

She looked up, relief washing over her at the voice, strain immediately returning as she spied the tight look marring her ex-husband’s always handsome face. He might be able to hide his emotions from an entire courtroom, she thought as he wound his way through the noisy room, but she’d known him too long not to see the irritation bristling from him. The hard-pressed man was one of his best looks, and Kit knew then that he’d only come in case she needed council. The go-to attorney. Another favorite.

Kit chided herself, feeling stupid as Paul neared. But they’d once shared a life and a bed, and Kit needed someone around her who’d known both her and Nic well. Yet as soon as Paul perched on the plastic chair next to her, her loneliness doubled.

And it made her wonder. If he’d been the one she’d never see again after tonight, would there be anything left behind to miss?

The shame accompanying that silent question settled next to the guilt already at home in her gut.

Nic was dead.

“What the hell happened, Katherine?”

“Don’t interrogate me, Paul.”

“Hey, I left a Caleb Chambers fund-raiser for this,” he said, which explained his tuxedo, the over-styled hair, and the hint of scotch lacing his breath. No, Kit thought, catching two underage girls whispering from behind cupped palms as they stared at Paul. She wouldn’t have missed him at all.

“At three thirty in the morning?”

“VIPs and generous donors to his various charities are often invited to his house for a private party after the gala.”

Of course they were. And Kit didn’t have to ask which group Paul belonged to. He was always trying to buy his way into something. “Well, while you were brown-nosing the don of the social scene, someone murdered Nic. She’s dead, Paul.” She blinked. “I could be dead.”

His brows knit, and he reached for her hand after a brief hesitation. He really was a handsome man, Kit thought, automatically pulling away. His golden hair glinted even under the station’s harsh fluorescent bulbs, and his eyes were the color of spring moss. But they were unable to hold a gaze, which meant unable to hold a promise. The girls across from them didn’t seem to notice. Nothing but experience could teach them that anyway.

“Let me guess,” Paul said, oblivious to the teens, to Kit’s fractured heart, to everything but being right. “You came up with some harebrained idea and Nicole ran with it.”

Kit looked away, jaw clenched. Paul knew them, that was for sure. Nic had run with it like she always did—blindly, blithely, madly. Like the idea was chasing her instead of the other way around. But this time it’d chased her into the grave.

Kit covered her mouth with a fist to hold back a cry.

“Dennis said you guys snuck into an illegal brothel.”

Her head shot up. “You already spoke to Dennis?”

“I need all the facts if I’m going to represent you.”

“I don’t need representation,” she spat, twisting the word. “My best friend was murdered while I waited only yards away! Those are the facts!”

“Please lower your voice.”

“Right,” she said bitterly. “Paul Raggio’s first rule of decency and decorum. Don’t make a scene.” Don’t make a mess. Don’t make a real effort when phoning in an emotion would do.

Yet he surprised her by putting a hand on her knee. “I’m trying to help.”

Kit sat back and tried to steady her breathing. When she thought her voice would hold, she looked up. “It wasn’t just an illegal brothel. It was a movable operation. Truckers let each other know about it online.”

Hearing the explanation aloud didn’t make it sound any better. Paul’s answering silence made it significantly worse.

“Look, Katherine—” he finally said.

“Kit.”

Paul gave her his courtroom look, the one solely responsible for her falling out of love with him. “Truckers tweeting about their roadside lays is tawdry, but hardly breaking news, and if I know you, you were going after a bigger fish. What was it?”

“It” was a Pulitzer. At least, that’s what Nicole had said. Make our mark before we’re ancient … or at least thirty.

“Truckers passing time on the road in the most predictable way possible might not be news, but concrete proof that judges and councilmen are passing the same women between them is prize-winning reporting.”

Paul leaned forward, the sweeping angles of his face hardening into calculated thought. “What do roadside hookers have to do with Nevada politics?”

“Good question. Though not one I was even asking. Not at first.” Kit wasn’t interested in politics, but people. What they did and why. Human nature fascinated her, and this had started out as a human-interest story—on johns, their habits, and why they’d even use hookers when they presumably had wives and girlfriends waiting at home. “In order to find out, we put an ad out on Gregslist.”

Paul’s brows lifted high. “And these guys talked to you?”

“Of course not,” Kit scoffed, but that hadn’t deterred Nicole and her. It was too fascinating an idea, and Kit was too curious, to simply let it go. Especially after Nic came up with the idea of posing as a hooker just to get a chance to talk to one of them. “But she didn’t catch any action until she started playing down in age.”

“Gee, what a surprise. Pretend you’re a hooker, get a revved-up guy alone in a hotel room, and then ambush him with a camera and a legal pad. That is a good way to get killed.”

“We’re not stupid, Paul,” she said, back on the defense. “We weren’t meeting a john. Another prostitute answered the listing. She warned us we were encroaching on already staked territory.”

“Gregslist has street corners?”

Kit shook her head, remembering. “You should have seen this message, Pauly. It was full-on text-ese. Whoever this girl was, she should’ve been giggling over school dances, not sexting strangers.”

“Underage?”

“That was our impression.”

Paul leaned back, crossing his arms. “Maybe she’s illiterate. Or just playing the juvie for extra dough.”

“We considered both. But then she sent us this.” Kit drew a printout from the handbag at her side.

His eyes widened at the names on the list. He’d probably been hobnobbing with half of them just hours before.

“And that’s just some of them,” Kit said, pleased she’d managed to surprise him. “She promised more if we met in person, but she wanted to verify we were legit first. After that, she swore to give us names that would make fat-cat heads roll.”

Paul sighed, and shot a glance at the girls straining to hear the conversation. They immediately burst into an uncontrolled fit of giggles. “Do you really have to talk like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like that,” he said, straightening his jacket like it’d straighten Kit out as well.

“Embarrassing you in front of your groupies?” she asked, tilting her head. “Shall I revert to syllables they can sound out?”

“I’m talking about all of it.” He let his gaze scan her body. “Your June Cleaver dress, Bettie Page bangs. The Hayworth face paint. The stupid car.”

Kit narrowed her eyes. “Watch your mouth, dear. That’s a Duetto.”

He scoffed and flexed. Giggles rose around the room like startled pigeons. “See, that’s what I mean. You weren’t born mid-century, Kit. Get over it. At your age, playing dress-up should be reserved for the bedroom.”

“This isn’t dress-up, Paul.”

“This” was her lifestyle … one that clashed violently with his post-yuppie materialistic drive.

“Makes it hard to take you seriously,” he mumbled, looking pointedly at her peep-toed heels.

“People are going to take me seriously, all right. The whole damned country will take me seriously when I bust this case wide open, vet every name on that list, and find out who killed my best friend!”

He shook his head and huffed out a dry laugh, no longer looking handsome. Again, the girls across from them didn’t notice. “Kit, the men on this list could own you a thousand times over.”

Kit clenched her teeth at the dig. She came from money, a fortune Paul once thought would marry perfectly with his ambitions, and he’d married her before realizing the entire inheritance had been poured back into her family’s newspaper. He’d even encouraged her to sell once he realized newspapers were worth less in the Internet age than the paper used for printing, but there was no way she’d ever do that.

“I’m a newsperson, Paul,” she’d told him. “It’s who I am as much as what I do.”

“Then go down with your ship,” he’d replied. “But you’re not taking me with you.”

And he’d taken himself right out of her life.

“Being rich doesn’t make a person immune to the law,” she said now, another familiar argument.

“There’s no proof that anyone on this list has broken the law,” Paul pointed out.

She knew that. And it would take considerable resources—time, energy, favors, and yes, money—to prove otherwise. For now, Kit had her reporter’s instincts. “I saw something.”

“Tonight?” He leaned in again when she nodded. “What?”

“A man … or his silhouette, at least. He was in the room with Nic. He pulled aside the curtain that overlooked the parking lot. It was like he was looking right at me.”

“Did you see his face?”

Kit shook her head. “No. Only his silhouette. But he was wearing a hat—not just a hat, but a stingy brim, like Sinatra—”

Paul leaned back, letting his hands drop. “Gimme a break.”

“I know the style, Paul,” Kit said, irritated. “Maybe he knew I was there, or just knows of my lifestyle, and he was taunting me.”

“Please don’t repeat that to anyone. I can see the sordid headlines now: Rockabilly Murderer Targets Street Whores.”

“Bravo,” Kit snapped. “You just insulted my life and my profession in one breath.”

“Voice,” Paul reminded her, gaze wandering. The girls across from him straightened, but his expression remained smooth as it traveled the rest of the room.

Kit pulled out her gold cigarette case, mumbling, fighting not to whack it against his pretty head.

“You can’t smoke in here.”

Kit blew a stream of smoke directly into his face, running her tongue along her top lip when he coughed. The girls gave her a nasty look.

“These are vintage Gauloises.”

“Trolling eBay again?”

She shook her head. “Some old coot was storing them in a backwoods cabin for the past fifty years.”

Shaking his head, Paul stood. “I gotta go.”

“Wait.” She put a hand on his arm, panicked but unable to help it. “You’re gonna help me, right?”

His jaw clenched as he looked away. He was either considering it or posing for a profile shot. “You got anything else?” he finally asked.

“In my notebook, but I gave that to Nic.” She cursed the impulse now. There was little chance of recovering it as it’d surely been admitted into evidence.

Paul opened his mouth to answer, but stopped and jerked his chin at an approaching detective. “Here comes Dennis. He’ll look after you. You don’t need me tonight.”

Kit stared up at him, wondering at what point he thought she’d have ever needed him, if not tonight.

Glancing back down, Paul caught her expression and his jaw clenched. “Look, I’ll read the reports. Ask around, see what I hear.”

He paused, waiting for a thank-you, but Kit merely took a drag on her stick. He was right, she didn’t need him.

Shaking his head, he turned.

“You know, Nicole was once your friend, too,” Kit said loudly, just as Dennis reached her side. “She was killed because someone was hiding something big.”

Paul turned slowly, and waited, knowing there was really nothing he could do if she was determined to make a scene. It was just another thing he couldn’t control about her—like her hair and clothes, like her lifestyle. Like her emotions.

“I’m going to find out who did it,” she told him, chin wobbling but gaze hard. “I’m going to find out what they were hiding. And I’m going to bring them to justice.”

“Still the intrepid girl reporter,” he said, but the bite had left his voice, and his gaze had softened. It was what he’d called her in the beginning, back when she, too, had gazed at him like those girls across the room. Tears, already close to the surface, welled.

“Give me a couple of days,” Paul finally sighed, returning, one hand outstretched for the papers. “I’ll look into it in my spare time.”

“Thank you,” she replied, even though he’d said it like there wouldn’t be a lot of it.

Leaning down, he gave her a dry kiss on her cheek. “Get some rest, Kit.”

Kit didn’t say anything, but watched him go, like every other girl in the room. Then she shrugged at Dennis’s chiding look, sucked down the last of her stale tobacco, and rose to be questioned about her best friend’s murder.

Kit spent the next few hours in a room with the cold personality of a morgue, giving a statement about the time, hours, and days, leading up to Nicole’s death. Some questions could have as easily been applied to a job application as a murder interview, and strangely, these were the ones that tripped her up. How long have you known Nicole Rockwell? What’s your relationship to the deceased? Have either of you ever been a part of a murder investigation before?

Oh, Nic.

The hysteria she’d felt at the murder scene was gone, and the resultant shock had dulled into a numbness to rival a visit in any dentist’s chair. The indignation at being questioned—no, doubted—by Paul had evaporated like boiling water, not too unlike their relationship, actually. All that remained was a faint ring of fatigue.

Dennis, whom Kit had known both personally and professionally, in that order, brought her fresh tea, let her light another cigarette while they were still alone, and put a comforting hand on her shoulder, kneading slightly at her neck before letting his arm drop. Kit looked up with a watery smile, grateful for even that small touch.

“You understand we have to ask you these things,” he said, when his partner arrived and she’d been read her rights and informed the interview would be recorded. “Not because we think you’re guilty, but because it’ll help us put together a picture of the events leading to the crime. Rarely is something like this truly random.”

“I know that.”

“That’s right,” said his partner, who was so stiff he could have been pressed into his clothing. He’d introduced himself as Detective Brian Hitchens. She didn’t know him, but unfortunately he seemed to recognize her. “You’re a reporter, aren’t you? The same one who released the name and address of a gangbanger last year?”

She could tell from the way he said it that he already knew she was, and harbored a grudge over it. Kit gave Dennis a wary glance, then answered, “He was sitting on a stash that would make a cartel blush.”

“It got one of our men shot.”

Her heart jumped in her chest, but she held his dark gaze. “I didn’t pull the trigger.”

“How’s the saying go? The pen is mightier than the bullet? Or the knife.” It was sword, but he knew that. The intimation was that tonight wasn’t the first time she’d put someone in danger.

“Damned straight,” Kit said, without apology, but inside she was cringing. She knew her work helped people … but did it also hurt them? Kill them? Had it killed Nic?

“Let’s get back to the interview, shall we?” Dennis said, shooting Hitchens a hard look. “Tell us about Nicole.”

Her favorite color was blue. She could dance for hours and never break a sweat. She was a flea market junkie, she could recite every line in Grease, and she wore beautiful lingerie just for herself …

“We’ve been friends since junior high. Met on the student newspaper. She was a wiz with the camera, even then.” Kit cleared her throat, which had tightened in a painful knot, and took a sip of her cooling tea. “She could tell a story with her photos, or even alter one with a camera angle alone. She was a college dropout, but smart. Edgy, liked to push people’s buttons. And of course, she was a billy, like me.”

“Billy?” Hitchens asked, glancing at Dennis and back to Kit.

“Rockabilly,” Dennis answered with a small smile, and Kit flashed back on an image of desert sun glinting off the pomade in his jet hair, ciggies tucked in his shirtsleeve, and creepers crossed at the ankles as he leaned against a ’sixty Starliner. It’d been a while since she’d seen him that way, but she smiled, too.

“I’ve heard of it.” Hitchens leaned against the wall. His forearms looked like black logs folded across his chest. “You dress up like you’re stuck in the fifties. Took ‘Let’s Do the Time Warp’ literally.”

“It’s not just music or dress,” Kit explained, though Hitchens’s pinched expression told her she needn’t bother. She gave Dennis a look to let him know she was taking one for the team—rockabilly didn’t fit in any better with life on the force than it did in a federal courtroom. Fortunately, Kit didn’t have to worry about either, as a reporter. “It’s vintage cars, hot rods. Pinup girls. Mid-mod home décor. Cigarettes. It’s a way of living.”

It was a celebration of the senses, and it married well with Kit’s theory that life was about the details. She was ever aware of what she put on her body, how she wore her hair, how she crafted her cocktails. Despite the effort, or because of it, Kit had only grown more fond of rockabilly after a decade-long involvement. In a world increasingly guided by touch screens, sometimes it seemed nothing touched the mainstream populace at all.

“It’s a subculture,” Dennis added.

“A lifestyle,” corrected Kit, again pulling out her gold cigarette case.

“You can’t smoke in here,” said Hitchens. Dennis looked pained, but nodded. Kit returned the case to her purse, a square, red Lucite clutch that Hitchens now eyed suspiciously, like it was a piece of a puzzle he was still trying to fit.

“Let me get this straight. Your friend was involved in a subculture that essentially lives in the past? So maybe it was one of these weirdoes who offed her.”

Dennis stiffened, but didn’t say anything.

Kit was careful to move nothing but her eyes. “My friends and I get off on American cars, swing music, and nautical-themed tattoos. We’re not murderers.”

Hitchens huffed. “It still sounds weird.”

“Probably because it demands more of you than plopping down in a La-Z-Boy, sticking your hand down your pants, and plugging into someone else’s reality.”