He let her. He fell back on the thick cotton sheets. And then she climbed on top of him. Her hips straddled his, her long dark hair spilling all around him like heavy thread. She stared deep into his eyes.
‘Did the Doctor put you in the well again?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re cold.’
‘Yes.’
‘Let me warm you.’
She reached down between his legs and grabbed hold of him, squeezed him, made him stiff. Then she lowered her hips and took him inside her. And the Adder did what he thought he was supposed to do – though his thoughts were still far away, where they needed to be. Not here, not now. But on Larisa Logan.
‘Warmer now?’ she asked.
He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the immediate.
The Girl let out a soft sound, a moan that escaped her thin bluish lips. And she tightened down on him; he could feel it. A throbbing sensation was pulsating through him. Because of her. She was warm and wet and wonderful.
‘I love you,’ she said, again and again.
The Adder did not reply. Did not even try.
I love you . . .
He wished he understood that.
Sixty-Four
Striker and Felicia went to meet Noodles at the Ident Lab at 312 Main Street. As always in this city, there was no parking to be found, so Striker left their car on Cordova Street in the Patrol Only parking – an action which always drove the road cops crazy, but Striker couldn’t help it.
Things had to get done.
He and Felicia walked down the laneway which divided the main building from the annexe. Once inside, they made their way to the Ident Lab. The unit was old and run-down and screamed of makeshift necessity. On the left side of the hall sat the Blood Drying Room, where all soaked materials were tagged before being swabbed. Up ahead they saw the chemical lab, where Noodles had undoubtedly applied the ninhydrin to bring up the print.
To the right of the chemical lab was the main Ident office, where most of the paperwork got done. In this area, it wasn’t all that different from Homicide. Rows and rows of thrown-together cubicles cluttered the office, each one seeming far too small for the amount of clutter the desks owned.
In the last one was Noodles.
The portly Ident tech was sitting far back in his chair with his feet up on the desk and a frozen gel pack laid across his eyes. When Striker got close enough to him, he gave his chair a kick.
‘Trying to get rid of the wrinkles there, Princess?’
Felicia laughed at this. ‘Botox works better.’
Noodles just removed the bag from his eyes and blinked a few times while trying to get used to the light. He threw the cold-pack on the desk, sat forward in his chair, and rubbed his eyes.
‘Been reading prints all damn day,’ he said. ‘My eyes are seeing stars.’
‘Any news on the print you found on the can of varnish?’
‘It’s being sent through the database as we speak. I’ll let you know if there are any hits.’
‘And the DNA?’
‘Swabbed from the gun, the can, the pill bottles, the windows – God, you name it. I’ll let you know if we get any hits on those too, but that’ll take a few weeks, as I’m sure you already know. As for the palm prints, well, take a look for yourself.’
Noodles pushed his chair out of the way and showed Striker the two samples. Both were palm prints, and only partials at that. One from the Mandy Gill crime scene, one from the apartment across the street from Sarah Rose’s unit.
The first print, from Mandy’s crime scene, was well detailed, with lots of good ridge detail and areas where the bifurcation and endings were easily apparent. But the second print, the one from Sarah’s crime scene, was indistinct, blurry – as if the hand had been dragged across the window surface, catching only the barest bit of skin.
Striker stood back and changed the subject. ‘Any news on the gun?’
‘It’s a Browning 9-mm pistol.’
The news made Striker’s hopes drop. The Browning nine-mil was standard issue in the army. Good for close-quarters combat; quick and easy to draw. Plus the mags held thirteen rounds. All in all, it meant the same damn thing to him.
Another dead end.
Felicia saw the frown on Striker’s face and asked, ‘What? What does that mean?’
‘It means that, in all likelihood, Billy Mercury stole the gun from the 7th Regiment when he got discharged – it means it will probably lead us nowhere but back to the army. And a stolen pistol at that.’
‘I’ll look into it and let you know what I find,’ Noodles said.
Striker appreciated it.
He was about say more when his cell vibrated against his side. He picked it up and read the screen, expecting to see Laroche’s or Courtney’s name. But what he saw made his heart skip a beat. He had received an email from: Larisa. He opened up the file and read the message.
I trusted you and you sent the Mental Health Team after me.
‘Oh shit,’ Striker said.
He immediately thought of Bernard Hamilton from Car 87, and anger rose in his chest. He looked at Felicia, then showed her the message. ‘What did I tell you – she thinks we sent the Mental Health Team after her.’
He typed back:
Not true. They were there on their own separate call. We never knew till later.
He sent the email and waited. But there was no immediate response. He added:
Where are you? We will meet you.
He hit Send. But again, there was no response. And he waited for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, just when he was about to close the email program and stuff the phone back into his jacket pocket, it vibrated again. He opened the email, read the screen and was disheartened by the words:
I trusted you, Jacob.
After that, nothing else came back. And after another long moment, Striker knew the discussion had ended. He closed off his email program and put his cell away. He leaned back in the chair and felt like screaming. Partly because he was frustrated, but partly because of the guilt. What Larisa had written was not entirely untrue. She had trusted him, reached out to him, and he had failed her.
‘She won’t listen to me now,’ he realized. ‘The trust is gone.’
Felicia nodded. ‘I’m not surprised. Don’t forget, Jacob, she’s paranoid right now. She thinks the whole world is out to get her. We need to ping her number and find out where she is.’
‘That’s the problem. She’s not sending it from a cell phone; she’s at a computer terminal somewhere. Using email. Who knows where?’
‘I have a contact with Shaw and some other service providers. Let me see if we can trace it for an IP address. Then maybe we’ll get a location of that terminal.’ Felicia grinned and stuck out her hand. ‘Come on, baby. Give momma the phone.’
Striker hesitated while looking at the message. After a moment, he relented and handed the cell to her. Felicia opened up the email program, pressed the Details button, then looked at the email sender’s address:
L.Logan@gmail.com.
‘It’s a Gmail account,’ she said. ‘I have a contact there.’
Before Striker could reply, Felicia was on the phone to her contact. Striker spent the time going over the prints with Noodles one more time, making certain there was nothing they had overlooked. Ten minutes later, when she finally hung up, she had a smirk on her face. She said nothing.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘Whenever you need something, you just come to momma, baby.’
Noodles laughed at this; Striker did not.
‘Come on, Feleesh. What you got?’
‘She’s at a coffee shop in the Metrotown Mall. A place called Arabic Beans.’
Striker swore. That was Burnaby. ‘We’ll never get there in time.’