Then again, it was a dead human, and Erika clearly had a heart. How could it not be hard?
As a period of quiet stillness seemed to permeate the whole building, he had to look away because he felt as though he were intruding on a private moment. Unfortunately, the body was the only other thing to really look at, and he saw what he had walked in on with fresh eyes: The victim was lying faceup, in the position that Balz had found her in. She was wearing blue jeans that had rips in both knees, a t-shirt that seemed way too thin for the season, and nothing on her feet. Her blond hair, which had a brassy tone to the frizzy ends and two inches of dark regrowth, was matted with blood that had darkened from bright crimson to black. The face was so bruised and swollen, the features were unclear, and the mortal wound, that penetration in the center of the chest, had bled so extensively that half of the mattress underneath was showing the stain.
“Why did you come here?”
At the sound of the brisk voice, his head came up, and as he met those hazel eyes again, it was clear his detective’s professional composure was back in place. No more sadness in her eyes or her expression; she was all business.
“Do you know them?” she prompted. “Connie and her boyfriend.”
“In a way.”
“And what way is that?”
God… even though this was definitely not the place, and completely not the time, he wanted her—and part of the attraction was the power in her. There was no come-hither bullshit, no flirtatious eyelash batting or that awful pet-the-hair-and-preen stuff. Nope, this woman was like a water cannon, hitting him with the force of her intelligence, her try-me-if-you-dare, her confidence. And what do you know, she blew him out of his boots.
“So how do you know them?” she repeated.
Yup, she was going to make him answer that—and his explanation, that he’d read a man’s mind and saw that he’d hurt his girlfriend, was not going to make her happy. Oh, and then there was the fun fact that he had cocaine in his jacket, unregistered guns under both arms, and a matched set of steel poke-and-tickles strapped to his chest.
But hey, as penetrating as that stare of hers was, at least he knew it didn’t detect metal. Important tip.
“From the street,” he said. “That’s how.”
When she rose to her full height, he did the same—and she had to tilt her head up to look at his face. “You’re a hard man to find, you know that.”
She mostly kept the grimace of pain to herself, and he wished he could tell her to please, please, stop probing those memories he’d buried.
“If I’d known you were looking for me,” he said, “I’d have made myself easier to locate.”
She blinked at that. “Do you mind telling me your name?”
“Balthazar, no last name. I’m like Cher. Madonna. Bono. Guess those references date me, huh.”
“Will you come down to the station and answer…”
Her voice drifted off, and for an egotistical split second, he entertained the fantasy that she was so captivated by him, she’d literally lost the ability to speak. But then a trembling came over her, her hands shaking so badly that she raised them in confusion and alarm. With a stumble backward, she arched as if she couldn’t control her balance—
Balz jumped over the body and caught her just as the whites of her eyes flashed and she went limp. “Erika? Erika—”
With an abruptness that made no sense, her face turned to his, and that sightless stare met his own as if she could see him.
In a guttural, unreal voice, she said, “You are in danger. I need to save you.”
CHAPTER TEN
Rural Route 149
Nate, adopted son of the Black Dagger Brother Murhder, was desperate… just really, really fucking desperate… for his best friend, Shuli, to finally stop talking about—
“—and then she took my shirt off. Listen, naked is all well and good, but I didn’t give a crap about my top half. I wanted the pants gone. But it was like she read my mind. All of a sudden, I feel her hands on my belt buckle and—”
“That’s enough,” Nate cut in with a wince. “I’m good with the details stopping here. I’m so totally good with closing the curtain now.”
Shuli looked over from the driver’s seat of his white-on-white Tesla like someone had insulted his taste in cars. The male was an aristocrat all the way, diamond studs the size of bowling balls in his earlobes, some kind of big, heavy rose-gold watch on his wrist, the air of someone who had gotten what he wanted all his life as golden a halo as anybody could get. And yet in spite of all that, he wasn’t a bad guy.