Page 29

Calisto

The whole vibe up here was extremely unpleasant, both in the lack of upkeep to the building, and in terms of the sheer magnitude of men who had nothing better to do than lounge against any solid surface they could find—wall, doorway, each other for one particularly rough looking pair—and stare at us. If Asher was ice, I was glad of it, his composure unshakable as he kept a deliberately unhurried pace toward our destination. If his heart was hammering the same way mine was, he gave no external signs of it.

With each step we took, my belief I could get us out of this waned in the face of what we were up against. How many men were there up here? Forty? Fifty? It had to be at least that number. And although none of them were waving a weapon about, I assumed they were all armed. I didn’t remember John describing there being this many, which made me think O’Reilly had shored up her ranks since her return from Germany. Why? Because she could? Or because she had bigger plans once she had her daughter back?

Asher nudged my shoulder with his. “Are you alright?”

“Never been better,” I deadpanned, keeping my voice to a whisper. “I always wondered what was missing from my Friday evenings, and now I know. It was being looked at like I’m a specimen in a jar.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Asher whispered back. “I remember a few clubs like that from my younger days.”

I smiled. “Oh, yeah. I bet you got all the stares. Probably a lot more besides.”

Our arrival at a door brought the prospect of any further conversation to a grinding halt. The man with the blue eyes that weren’t a patch on Asher’s didn’t stop to knock, opening it, and waving us through ahead of him.

“Different room,” Asher said, his voice too quiet for anyone but me to hear him. Was it good that things from the vision were changing? I decided, given the unfavorable ending of the original, that it was. And I’d keep believing that while there was still breath in my body.

I’d expected the door to lead into a flat, but if it had ever been one, someone had knocked down the internal walls to make one large room instead. The décor of white painted walls and counters rather than furniture said laboratory, my stomach doing a flip at the realization, even while the more logical part of my brain argued that it was more likely to be a meth lab than anything sinister.

The woman waiting at the far side of the room in casual black slacks and a pastel pink blouse said we’d reached our destination. I looked to Baxter as covertly as I could, my friend immediately offering a nod and disappearing through the wall to look for Ben. O’Reilly stayed put, letting us come to her, the slight delay providing an opportunity to take an inventory of the room.

Four men, two by the window, two flanking O’Reilly. One of them with a clearly visible shoulder holster with a gun. At least it was in the holster and not pointed at me. Although, if we followed the path of Asher’s vision, I had that to look forward to. The last thing of note in the room made my blood run cold. It made no difference that O’Reilly had told me to expect it, and that what I’d been tasked with doing today wouldn’t have been possible without it. All of that faded into obscurity at the reality of being confronted with the dead body of a young girl.

She lay on a hospital stretcher and looked to be in her mid to late twenties. Long auburn hair fanned out around her head. Had O’Reilly picked her because of the similarity to her daughter? There was something particularly cold and calculating about that, like shopping around, but for people rather than a toaster.

“It’s so nice to have you here finally, Mr. Dominguez.”

I almost… almost went into automatic polite mode and urged her to call me Calisto. Thankfully, I stopped myself. I blamed being unable to tear my gaze away from the dead girl, guilt settling like a heavy boulder in my gut. The last thing on earth I wanted was to be on first-name terms with this woman.

“She’s fresh,” O’Reilly said, following my gaze.

Nausea bubbled in my stomach to compete with the guilt. ‘Fresh!’ Who used a word like that to describe someone recently deceased? She was a girl, not a pack of sausages.

“Oh, dear!” O’Reilly said. “You look like you’re going to be sick.” She turned her head to the pair by the window. “Bring Mr. Dominguez a chair, would you? I think he needs to sit down before he falls down.” One of them immediately rushed to do her bidding, carrying a stool across one-handed and dropping it unceremoniously next to me.

If it had been up to me, I would have refused her offer, but Asher was already urging me to accept, his hand settling on my shoulder, his body warm against my back as he assumed a protective stance. And I had to admit to a certain relief that my legs wouldn’t give way beneath me.

“You being squeamish surprises me, Mr. Dominguez, considering what you do for a living.”

I finally shifted my gaze from the girl to O’Reilly. The bemused look on her face made me want to laugh. There was no explaining to a woman like this, that there was a world of difference between murdering to order, and bringing back people who’d died of natural causes, that it wasn’t the dead body that had my guts threatening to return my breakfast, but her actions, so I didn’t even try. When I offered no response, she simply shrugged and switched her attention to Asher. “I thought you were a PA, Mr. Baines. Are you branching out into bodyguard duties?”

“I’m a concerned friend,” he said. “Here to make sure you keep your side of the bargain.”

“My side?” she asked with a slight tilt of her head.

“Calisto does what you want, and in return, we walk out of here, along with Ben.”

“Of course,” she said. “I’m a woman of my word. Your friends would have discovered that if they’d kept their side of the bargain, and let me have the mask. Unfortunately, they played games instead. I trust there’ll be no repeat of such underhand tactics.”

I gestured at the room. “No skeletons. Nothing I can use as a weapon, even if I wanted to.” Well, except for the girl. But one reanimated girl against four armed men would be worse than useless.

O’Reilly shared a look with her men that said the choice of this room had been a carefully thought out one. “And for that, we’re all grateful.” She cleared her throat. “What do you say we get on with it?”

Asher’s fingers tightened on my shoulder. “Not until we see Ben and know he’s okay.” I nodded to show I agreed with Asher’s demand.

As if on cue, Baxter melted back through the wall. “He’s in a flat at the end of the corridor,” he said. “Not in the best state, but alive. I had to check a few before I found him. You don’t want to know what’s going on in some of the others. Needless to say, I’m not into sex anymore. Or drugs. But then drugs never were my thing.”

Two of O’Reilly’s men were already leaving the room, O’Reilly having given the instruction while I’d been focused on Baxter. “Two minutes,” she said, “and you’ll have your proof.”

“Bitch!” Baxter said, echoing my thoughts exactly. “Like some sort of librarian assassin that would come after you if you refused to pay the fine.”

The wait for them to bring Ben in was excruciating, two minutes stretching for an eternity. Baxter hadn’t been joking when he said he wasn’t in the best physical state. He could barely walk, O’Reilly’s men dragging him between them. When he finally mustered enough energy to lift his head, one eye was so badly swollen shut I doubted he could see out of it. The two men dropped him like a stone, Ben crumpling to the floor.

I went to stand with every intention of going to him, only the pressure of Asher’s hand bearing down on my shoulder and holding me in place, stopping me from completing the movement.

“There you go,” O’Reilly said as Ben struggled up to his hands and knees, a slight sway broadcasting a danger of him toppling over before he found his balance. “Alive, as you can see.”

“Barely,” I snapped, unable to stop myself. “What did you do to him?”

My voice seemed to penetrate whatever fugue state had plagued Ben up to this point, his head jerking up and his one good eye fastening on me. “You shouldn’t have come,” he said. “I told you not to come.”

I mustered up a smile for him, hoping there was at least a tiny shred of reassurance in it. “It’s good to see you too, Ben. I would say you’re looking good, but I’ve seen you look better.” Asher turned his body toward Ben, getting him on camera. I suspected Griffin’s relief at seeing his husband would be short-lived once he got a good look at him.

“DCI Weaver thought he could muscle his way out of here,” O’Reilly said. “We were forced to demonstrate that it wasn’t an option.”

She had an interesting way of phrasing things, like it was entirely Ben’s fault for making a stupid decision, rather than any unreasonableness on her part.

“So…” she said. “Can we get started now, or do you have any other demands that need to be met?”

I shook my head. Sweat prickled beneath my arms. Either it was warm in here, or my body was intent on demonstrating its unease through sweating. I suspected the latter to be true. Asher looked as cool as the proverbial cucumber. If I didn’t already know he got as hot under the collar as any man during sex, I might have thought him incapable of sweating.

Did I do it here on the stool? Even knowing Asher was here to watch my back, both figuratively and literally, that left me feeling vulnerable. I stood, every pair of eyes—and a single one of Ben’s—following the movement. “I need to sit on the floor,” I explained. I chose the corner farthest from the body, Asher following me over to take up a sentry position in front of me as I slid down the wall and sat cross-legged. I imagined for a moment what this would have been like without Asher’s presence, how it would have felt to leave my body behind in this room with no one to watch over me. Asher might be unarmed, but I knew he would fight fiercely for me, if necessary.

I looked to Baxter, my friend’s nod telling me the moment I was there, he would be, too. Breathing deeply, I closed my eyes.

“How long will this take, Mr. Dominguez?”

I opened my eyes again, O’Reilly having moved closer.

Asher spoke before I could, the merest hint of agitation having crept into his voice. “It will take as long as it takes, and it will take longer if you don’t let him concentrate.”

“Watch your tone, Mr. Baines. You’re surplus to requirements in my agreement with Mr. Dominguez.”

That was the second time she’d used his name. It should have come as a surprise that she knew who he was, but it didn’t. I expected she knew the name of every single PPB employee, from the cleaners to the man who only came once a year to service the lifts. Knew their names and had calculated how every single person might be useful to her. While I didn’t like what she’d said about Asher and wanted to argue, I recognized the futility of doing so, letting my eyelids close once more.

It was a wholly different prospect to relax to the degree I needed to in a room full of armed men, O’Reilly, and a nameless corpse, than it had been within the sanctity of Asher’s bedroom. But once I had, the transition itself was quicker. And this time, I knew I was there before I opened my eyes, the air thicker and more still.