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Two blocks away from Briggs, Fann, and Chisholm’s offices.
Rookwood went home and eyed the Scotch on his desk, put it away.
The Thirst retreated. It didn’t go away, but with Chisholm gone it didn’t taunt his every waking moment. He actually felt halfway decent and could hold down cooked steak and cheese again.
He needed a jolt of the red stuff once a week instead of every day. He prowled his office, and some of the widow’s money went for rent. He was in the clear.
Cases trickled in. A poltergeist on Seventh Street, a collection of dry cleaners being extorted by a gang of werewolves, a man looking for his vanished lover. The last case had nothing weird about it, straight-up breakup work. The lover didn’t want to be found, but Rookwood kept the money anyway.
He kept hearing her in the back of his head. I was bait for you. . . . You don’t understand, Mr. Rookwood. . . . Do they always scream like that? That glossy hair, and the way her lips pulled back from her teeth when she shot Briggs in the head.
It took another rainy night, cars shushing by outside his window and the bottle of Scotch singing from the drawer he’d hid it in, before he realized what her last surprise might be. The newspaper lay open on his desk, the local section barely glanced at before something caught his attention and he froze, staring at the black-and-white print:
“. . . since the closure of Briggs, Fann, and Chisholm early last month, after a fire that gutted their offices.”
The article was about a sudden dearth of criminal defense lawyers and a rash of arson involving their offices. It didn’t take a genius to figure out most of them weren’t on vacation or visiting Aunt Mabel. Of course, the real story wouldn’t be in the papers, but there was enough between the lines to sit him bolt upright in his chair, the taste of copper in his mouth and his pulse racing like a stock car.
Holy shit. His hands turned into fists. She learns quick.
Five minutes later he was out the door, sliding through the wet neon light. He hailed a cab at the corner, sat in a fug of cigarette smoke and fogged windows, and tipped the driver too much as he climbed out on Twenty-third.
The office building was a shell of itself, yellow crime scene tape fluttering. Rookwood stood across the street with his heart in his mouth, staring at the wreckage.
Yes, a quick learner. He wondered how she’d taken care of Fann—the old boy was tricky, and even without his legs he was a formidable opponent.
So formidable Rookwood had been working the best way to get at him inside his fortress-building. The same building that was a charred shell right now.
Goddamn, girl. What did you do?
Of course the widow would have visited the offices during the day. Of course she would know the layout and have her husband’s access to the keypads, the magnetic keys, the state-of-the-art systems. Of course she’d be allowed in as the wife of an almost partner, and she’d get past the daytime bodyguards because of her scent of burning.
She’d probably come back and taken care of Fann early. He wouldn’t put it past her.
There was nothing to do here, but he poked around anyway. The reek of corruption had faded, and the Thirst didn’t tingle, warning him of danger.
He caught another cab back home. Dawn was coming up as he put his key in the lock and paused.
The door was unlocked.
Had she been waiting for him to go downtown? He hadn’t even felt someone watching.
His office held a ghost of perfume. Rich, brunette, with a tang of ash. On his desk, placed precisely in the pool of yellow light from the lamp, was a fat white envelope. He peeked in—five thousand in crisp hundred-dollar bills. And a note, on paper that smelled like her. The same clear schoolgirl hand she’d used to label the map to her husband’s grave.
Mr. Rookwood,
Enclosed please find the remainder of your fee. I hope things are even between us now. I have learned a lot since we last spoke. I think I will be continuing the work.
Sincerely,
Amelia King
P.S.Thank you.
“Goddamn,” Rookwood whispered to his empty office. “Goddamn.”
There was no reply except the rain.
Lilith Saintc
