Living with the Dead Part 9

"Rule two, if you're going to take off, warn me."

"I didn't take off. I tried to get your attention when you left that apartment, and you couldn't see me. Then I lost you, so I hung around the apartment, seeing if I could find anything you missed before coming to the station to wait."

Finn had a good sense for when people were telling the truth and when they weren't, and one glance at Trent told him the split was about fifty-fifty.

Trent hurried on before Finn could call him on it. "While I was at the apartment, though, I saw something. There was a kid trying to break into Robyn's apartment after you left."

Finn stopped walking. "Break in?"

"With lock picks, no less. One of your guys spotted him, but he hid those picks and spun a story so fast your officer let him go."

"I'll follow up on that."

"Good, because this woman you seem so set on "

"Trent?"

"Yes?"

"Did you see me interviewing a kid a few minutes ago?"

"The dumb-a.s.s college boy? Sure, but "

"He's being processed. Go keep an eye on him."

"But "

"Go."

Finn walked back into the detective room and found Madoz at his desk.

"Do you have the paperwork on Robyn Peltier's husband?"

"Right here." Madoz thumbed through his stack. "I don't see a connection. Just a random act of stupidity. Cla.s.sic case of why it might not be wise to let Joe or, in this case, Jane Citizen carry a gun."

"What happened?"

"Woman was mugged by g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers. Gets herself a gun. Few months later, she's on the highway at night, blows a tire. Guy pulls over to help. She sees a black guy coming at her car with a tire iron and shoots him."

"Black guy..."

"With a tire iron. Like maybe so he can change your tire, you dumb b.i.t.c.h?" He handed Finn the file. "The guy was a junior high teacher coming home from a conference. Wearing a dress s.h.i.+rt and slacks. Driving a Honda. Clearly a bada.s.s carjacker."

Madoz kept talking, but Finn didn't hear him. He opened the file. There, on the top, was a picture of Robyn Peltier's dead husband: twenty-nine-year-old Damon Trent Peltier.

Thirty minutes later, Madoz had left and Finn was at his desk working when his ghostly partner returned.

"How long do you want me to sit on this " "Trent" saw the open file on Finn's desk, and the photo in it. "s.h.i.+t."

Finn didn't look up. "Is there something you want to tell me, Damon Damon?"

"s.h.i.+t." Damon slouched into the nearest chair. "I'm sorry."

"What? That I figured it out?" Finn turned his chair to face him. "Did you really think I wouldn't?"

"No, I was just hoping it'd take a little longer."

"Like long enough for you to plant false leads and throw me off your wife's trail?"

"What? No. Absolutely not. I knew you'd figure it out soon, but before you did, I wanted to prove I could be useful give you real leads. Like that one with the kid. That's totally legit. I can give you his description, the description of the officer he spoke to, h.e.l.l, I can probably recite their conversation if you'd like." He walked over and sat on Finn's desk. "I'm here to help you find the truth, which I already know that my wife had nothing to do with this. I don't need to throw you off her trail."

"Just try to sway me off pursuing her as a suspect."

"I " He stopped. "Okay, that was stupid. Understandable, but stupid, and it won't help my cause or Bobby's."

"Bobby?"

"Robyn. Sorry. From here on, I will try to keep my opinions to myself and if I slip, you can tell me to shut up. And if I don't help you, if I mislead you or I'm a nuisance, you can tell me to get lost and I will. I just..." He s.h.i.+fted on the desk. "I need to help her, Finn. She's "

Finn held up a hand. "For the next twenty-four hours, we'll see how it goes. Then you can tell me your story. For now "

"Just shut up, do what I'm told and try to dig my way out of this hole."

Finn nodded.

ROBYN.

Robyn awoke to the smell of breakfast sausage. Caught between sleeping and waking, she lifted her head with Damon's name on her lips; hot breakfasts had been his specialty. One bleary look around the motel room reminded her where she was.

Fighting the impulse to lie back down and pull up the covers, she tracked the smell to take-out boxes on the dinette, pushed aside to clear a spot for Hope's laptop. Hope sat with her back to Robyn as she read the screen. There was no sign of Karl. The bedside clock said it was past nine. So much for her resolution to jump into the investigation first thing in the morning.

Hope was so engrossed in her reading that she didn't hear Robyn approach. The file on the laptop display looked like records with dates and blocks of text. But before Robyn could get close enough to read it, Hope glanced up.

Hope closed the file window and stood. "Karl grabbed breakfast. It should still be warm."

"He's out already?"

Hope handed Robyn a coffee. "Just walking around the block, getting a feel for the neighborhood and stretching his legs."

A rap at the door.

"And there he is."

Hope checked the peephole before opening the locks. Karl greeted Robyn, then set his take-out coffee on the nightstand.

Hope's gaze followed him. "Everything okay?"

He nodded. "There's a convenience store around the corner and some restaurants a block over." He took a sheaf of pamphlets from his pocket. "I picked up take-out menus from the ones that were open." He turned to Robyn. "They all deliver. While I'm sure you're tired of being cooped up in here, you should stick to delivery for lunch. Keep the doors locked and only open them if you're expecting an order."

She glanced at Hope, who was dumping her leftover coffee in the bathroom sink. "You're heading out?"

"Just for a few hours," Hope said. "We'll be back after lunch."

"I'd like to go with you. Help out."

"You're safer here," Karl said, taking out his keys.

"I "

"Hope and I need to attract as little attention as possible. It's better if you stay here."

She hadn't thought of that. "Then what can I do here?"

Hope and Karl exchanged a look.

"I want to do something something."

"We have Internet access," Hope said. "There are a few things you could look up."

Sc.r.a.ps to make her feel useful. "Whatever will help. Just tell me "

Hope's cell rang and she s.n.a.t.c.hed it from the table, as if grateful for the interruption.

"Lucas, hey," she answered. A pause. "Yep, I got it last night. Thank Savannah for me. It's a match."

A string of uh-huhs. Hope grabbed her notepad and started jotting things down. Robyn tried to see it from where she sat, but Hope's writing was an illegible scribbled shorthand. She always joked it was so no rival could steal her notes, but Robyn knew she'd always written that way, her brain speeding ahead, pen scrambling to keep up. Like everything else in Hope's life, function came before form.

Karl seemed to be able to read it, though, murmuring questions for Hope to ask. Robyn had been able to read Damon's scrawl, too.

"Is that like a scheduled surrender?" Hope was saying.

Hope must be talking to her lawyer friend. Or wasn't it Karl's friend? It didn't matter. Damon's friends had been Robyn's, too. Or so she'd thought, until she'd been uninvited from a New Year's party two weeks before she left Philly.

She shook her head, scattering the memories.

"I'll call you later, then," Hope was saying. "I really do appreciate this."

Pause.

"Yes." Her gaze shot to Karl. "He's right here."

Her fingertips caressed the desktop, face averted as she listened. Then she handed the phone to Karl, gaze following as he took it outside.

"Did you say something about a scheduled surrender?" Robyn asked.

It took Hope a moment to answer. "That would buy us more time, but it won't work in a murder case. He's setting up a short-term scheduled surrender, if we don't find something by six."

Her gaze tripped to the window, as if trying to see Karl's silhouette through the drawn drapes.

"So we have " Robyn checked her watch. " just over eight hours. Show me what I can do."

HOPE.

Karl had driven three blocks in silence before Hope spoke.

"I wish you wouldn't do that."

He made a noise in his throat, as if waiting to hear which infraction she was referring to before committing himself to a response.

"Sneaking around asking Lucas for updates on Jaz. It would be easier if you'd just give him your number, you know."

"I wasn't sneaking. I could hardly discuss it in front of Robyn "

"And what was your excuse the last time? Or the time before that? Did you honestly expect me to think Lucas is just calling to chat?"

Another block of silence.

Karl cleared his throat. "About Jasper "

"Is he dead?"

"No."

"Escaped?"

"No."

"In imminent danger of escaping?"

"No."

"Then I don't care."

She turned to the window, nails biting her palms. Did Karl really think she'd want to know how Jaz was doing? Did he think she'd care?

Last year, after their disastrous first attempt to s.h.i.+ft from friends to lovers, she'd tried taking the rebound remedy. If there was one word to describe Jasper Haig, it was fun. He bounced through life with enthusiasm, and he'd pursued Hope with gusto, not caring how big a fool he made of himself. In short, Jaz was everything Karl was not and exactly what she'd needed... or so it seemed at the time.

Jaz was currently incarcerated in a maximum-security Cortez Cabal prison, his execution stayed only while they studied his rare supernatural powers.