The Taken

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Entering the station house, Kit couldn’t help recalling the last time she’d been there, seated in the sterile, fluorescent surroundings, shocked into numbness by her best friend’s murder. She gave the bank of chairs where she’d sat a quick glance, unsurprised to find that a new motley crew inhabited the spot. This place was an ever-revolving door of human drama, with all its folly and thrashing, but at least she wasn’t the one who’d been sideswiped by fate this time.

Of course, Nic’s death still shocked her to her core. The finality and the gross unfairness of it made her wish she could turn back time. So Kit chose instead to focus on its conclusion-Nic’s murderer had been caught. Detective Hitchens wouldn’t see the outside of a cage for the rest of his natural life. The investigation Nicole started had also turned out to be the paper’s biggest headline yet, picked up by a nation that was by turns fascinated, dumbfounded, and repulsed that Caleb Chambers had been running young girls into the ground.

“Nic would have loved it,” Kit murmured, earning a questioning grunt from the man who now walked with her, his hand placed firmly at the small of her back. That was something else that had changed, she thought, smiling up at Grif. This time she wasn’t here alone.

“Come on,” she said, spotting the open door at the end of the large bullpen where Dennis could be seen hunched over his desk.

But Grif pulled back just short of the detective’s office, shoving his hands into his trouser pockets instead. “You go ahead. He’s an old friend, and you trust him, right?”

She frowned, but nodded.

“Then go on.” He jerked his head at the door. “And tell him… thanks.”

A full smile bloomed at that. This man… this reticent, complicated, darkly sexy man could fight off murderers with his bare hands, but was confounded by the most basic of human relations. Well, Kit could help him with that. She had enough communication skills for them both.

Rising to her toes, Kit dropped a kiss on his cheek, as much to feel the stubble against her lips as to make him mumble and blush, then headed in to Dennis’s office. She felt Grif’s eyes on her back, and knew he’d settle himself atop the desk just outside, where he could still see her through the open blinds of the window. It was mildly unnerving-he said he wanted to be sure she remained protected and out of mortal harm-but it was also warming. It’d been a long time since someone had watched out for her.

Rapping on the open door, she stuck her head in the office, though she jerked back when she saw who else was seated there.

“Charlotte.”

Still wispy as a colt, the girl gave her a hesitant smile. Yet she was clear-eyed, like she’d been getting sleep, and… something else, too. Self-possessed. At peace. Almost smiling.

“I can come back-” Kit began, but Dennis waved her in, gaze never shifting from his computer screen. Moving to his side, she put a hand on his shoulder. “I just wanted to stop by and say thank you. You vouched for me with the department and I’ve been able to get some great… What’s that?”

Leaning over his shoulder, eyes also narrowed on the screen, she studied the video before drawing back, blanching when she saw herself appear. “He was really recording it.”

Chambers had intended to capture the last moments of her life. The details of her intended death.

“Of course he was.” Disgust on his face, Dennis paused the video with a rough slap. “But thanks to our budding detective here, that has turned out to be a great mistake.”

Kit looked at Charlotte.

“I know a lot of those men,” the girl explained, voice soft but even. “They came to the house for the… parties. I saw what went on there.”

“Saw,” Dennis agreed, pushing a paper toward Kit. “And told.”

Kit glanced down to find the original e-mail transcript from a young girl… to Nic. Shocked, she looked back at Charlotte. “It was you? You’re the one who found us through the Gregslist ad?”

Charlotte tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I knew it was wrong to send you to the Wayfarer, but I had no one to tell. Who would listen? And if he found out it was me-”

“You don’t have to explain,” Kit said. “I know…” What kind of man your father was, and what he’d have done. “I understand.”

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Charlotte said quickly, and her fragile composure shattered. “I never thought they’d… I mean, I didn’t know…”

Kit knelt before the girl and put her hand on her knee. “Nic would have loved your bravery.”

“That’s not all,” Dennis said, patting Charlotte’s shoulder. “Tell her the rest.”

Charlotte nodded. “Well, I heard things in that house. After my brothers and sisters were sent away, and I was isolated for… for grooming.” She cleared her throat. “Well, you saw my mother.”

Kit straightened. “Go on.”

“So I’d wander. Sneaking, my fa-” She stopped, frowning. “He called it. But I heard him tell Hitchens to kill that man. Your ex.”

“Paul,” Kit said softly.

“I called the police-”

“There’s a record of it in the call logs, and though it was anonymous, the caller mentioned Paul and Chambers by name… prior to Paul’s T.O.D.”

“But I was too late,” Charlotte said, eyes cast down.

Kit shook her head. “Paul was blackmailing Chambers. Do you know what that means?”

Charlotte nodded, but Kit told her anyway. “It means you couldn’t have stopped it.”

“It means,” Dennis corrected, “that we have a credible, viable, very brave witness.”

Charlotte squirmed under the detective’s praise, but lifted her eyes and her chin by a degree. Kit smiled.

“Strange thing, though…” Dennis’s expression upended itself into a frown as he glanced back at his computer screen. “This tape skips a beat right when Jane Doe enters the room. We still have no idea where she came from, or who she really was.”

“That is strange,” Kit said, widening her gaze at Charlotte, before quickly changing the subject. “So do you think they knew what was going on?” she asked, jerking her head at the recording of the men circling the room.

“About the cameras?” Dennis huffed, and shook his head as he ran a hand through his dark hair. “Chambers has been getting away with this for so long I’m not sure they even cared. No one was ever outed before. It was like some big…”

“Rapists’ club,” Kit said, recalling how every head on the video turned her way, yet not one man had lifted a finger to help. Kit shuddered, then put it away, along with the memory of what was supposed to have happened next. It hadn’t happened. And because of her-because of Nic and Grif and Bridget and young Charlotte the Brave-it never would again.

Linking his hands behind his head, Dennis leaned back. He was trying to look casual, but she saw the way his gaze darkened as it passed over the bruises on her neck. “Don’t worry. I intend to identify every last one of them. Including those who were…”

“Hooded,” she finished for him.

“There are other ways to identify a man. Especially with top-notch surveillance.”

“Especially with a damned good friend on the job.” Kit squeezed Dennis’s shoulder, and smiled down at him. “And what about your partner?”

Now his handsome face went dark. “Not my partner. Hitchens was in with Chambers. He’ll go down for murder, attempted murder, and corruption. He’s already confessed to running hookers as a part of his plea bargain. The thing that gets me though, is I knew.” Frustrated, Dennis yanked at his hair. “Not what he was doing, not for a fact, but I could tell there was something off about him. And there was a look he’d get when around women. Around you.”

Though the thought made Kit want to shudder again, she merely bent over and pressed a reassuring kiss on his forehead. “That’s called your intuition, dear. If you were a woman, you’d have listened to it.”

Charlotte giggled next to Dennis and Kit shot her a conspiratorial wink.

Meanwhile, Dennis glanced outside the office. “Yeah, well, right now it’s telling me that if you don’t back up at least two feet a certain someone is going to come straight through that window and over this desk.”

Kit looked over to find Grif glowering. She waved, immediately cheered, but took a step away from Dennis anyway. No sense in pushing the buttons of a charmingly-and authentically-old-fashioned man.

“Anyway,” Dennis said, once he deemed himself again safe. “The good thing is that the women caught in Chambers’s and Schmidt’s ring are now able to talk without fear of reprisal. The Church has even set up a program to get them mainstreamed again.”

“Well, while the Latter-Day Saints clearly aren’t all saints, they’re not all Chambers, either.”

“Don’t have to tell me,” Dennis said. “I was raised in the Church.”

“Shut up,” Kit said, drawing up straight and causing Dennis to grin sheepishly. He’d never mentioned it in all the years they’d known each other. “So should I call you Jack instead of Dennis, then?”

Dennis didn’t laugh. “Believe it or not, this case has made this old Jack Mormon want to go back and visit the fold. I need something to… Well, it’s just not an evil I’ll ever understand.”

And when people didn’t understand something, Kit thought, they often turned to a system, and a group, to help make sense of it.

“What about you?” Dennis crossed his ankles. “All recovered?”

He said it lightly, but Kit saw the worry in his eyes. She shrugged reassuringly. “I rebound quick. Doesn’t hurt that I got a fantastic byline and an exclusive story.”

“Not to mention a guardian angel,” Dennis said, jerking his head Grif’s way.

“Oh, he’s not a Guardian,” Kit replied, with a smile. “Anyway, I have to run. I have an old mobster’s funeral to attend.”

“Ah, yes. Tony the Cobra. Have a pizzelle for me at the wake.”

“Sure,” Kit threw over her shoulder, before pausing at the door. “And listen, there’s a barbecue blowout tonight. The Bender Boys are playing and Eddie Denning wants to show off his new hot rod. I know the girls would love to see you.”

“You mean the weirdoes,” Dennis corrected, and Kit raised a fist in mock attack. He held up his hands and smiled. “I’d love to come. I’ll have to go home and change first.”

“Damned straight,” she said, giving his chambray and khakis a critical once-over. “Wear your creepers and grease that hair. I expect you to take me for a little swing around the block.”

“My pleasure,” he said, picking up a pen and lowering his head over his mounding paperwork. “Now stop flirting with me. Your fallen angel looks like he’s going to come through that window.”

Kit smiled widely, because it was true. Grif was in a smolder. But…

“He’s not fallen, either.”

“No?” Dennis looked up and cocked a brow. “What is he, then?”

Hand on the door frame, she shot her old friend one last grin. “Busted.”

What an absolutely stunning day for a funeral.”

The sun was bright, the spring was draining the snap from the retreating winter, and Kit had apparently decided to be thankful for the Now… even if she was twelve rows deep in a cemetery.

“What?” she asked in response to Grif’s sidelong glance. “You want it rainy and storming just to match your mood?”

He snorted. “Not likely in Vegas.”

And not convenient for the guests at Anthony “the Cobra” Prima’s farewell bash, most of whom were hovering on the brink of their ninth decade, and shakily at that. Yet Grif had watched, baffled, as Kit drew a conversation out of everyone she met-complimenting one elderly woman on her vintage peacock brooch, sharing makeup tips with another-red lips apparently did wonders for any woman-while patting the hand of, and nodding agreeably with, a man who insisted they were related.

Yet even Kit’s relentless cheerfulness couldn’t disguise that most of the people gathered around Tony’s humble grave would soon join their friend, more resigned to that and to saying good-bye to yet another peer than they were sad.

“Just think,” Kit said, after the graveside ceremony was over and they had a moment alone. “Had you lived out your natural life, you might be here, too. Gnawing on your dentures. Hitting people with your cane.”

Grif gave her a fish-eyed stare. “You finished?”

Sighing, Kit shook her head. “I’m sleeping with an old guy.”

“Are you finished now?”

She then gifted him with such a wide smile that he couldn’t help but smile back.

“Good. Then you stay here.” He tried not to feel smug when her smile fell. “Try to pump some of these old-timers for info on Tony’s relationship with the DiMartinos. I get the feeling they were still watching him, but I didn’t get time to ask him about it before he…”

“Went to the old dago deli in the sky?”

Grif pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed. “Just stay here. And remember, you still need to be safe.”

“It can’t get much safer than this,” she said, and Grif had to agree. There didn’t seem to be much to fear in this crowd. Yet he’d seen someone from across the shiny, flower-strewn casket, and he thought it might be someone he knew. Someone from before.

Glancing behind him, making sure Kit hadn’t followed, he approached a wheelchair-bound man who had his back to the dispersing crowd as he gazed out over the expansive green cemetery.

“Joe?” Grif said, coming to a stop at the man’s side. “Joe Pascuzzi?”

The man looked up, eyes thick with cataracts that made his gaze a blurry, diluted blue, but it was Joe all right. Beneath the wispy hair and paper-thin skin was the man Grif had known fifty years earlier-an associate of the DiMartino family, as made as a man could get.

“Who are you?” Joe asked, a frown rearranging his wrinkles into new patterns. “Are you my nurse? Where’s my nurse?”

Grif’s hopes plummeted. Joe’s eyesight wasn’t the only thing that’d gone.

“Never mind, old buddy,” Grif said, though Joe had never been that. He turned away. “Have a good day.”

“That you, Shaw?”

Grif froze. The voice had changed, the cadence and timbre stronger than before, and those watery eyes were suddenly fixed on him.

Grif knelt in front of him, and stared. “Sarge?”

“Who the hell else?” Joe’s lips curled up as he stared down a passing woman. She hurried quickly on, as if she knew who Joe was… or used to be. “Think she’s got a cigar?”

Grif shook his head. “First the bum, then the baby, now the old guy… what are you doing?”

Not-Joe glared back. “And you call yourself a detective? I can manipulate the very old and very young. People with a tenuous grasp on reality. Those closer to the Everlast than life.”

“But Anas-”

“Yeah, I saw what happened to Anas. I ain’t donning flesh just to bring your sorry ass back from this mudflat.”

Grif shrugged. “She didn’t find it so bad. Not in the end, anyway.”

“That’s right. And Anas was there on God’s authority. Obviously, He already knew how it was going to go down with her… and you. His ways are mysterious.”

“So I’ve heard,” Grif muttered darkly.

Joe’s expression hardened at that. “Hey, my job is just to deliver a message. The Host has conferred.”

“And?”

“And it’s unanimous. We have the death we needed on record. It’s not the one we thought we’d get, but considering the good that will result from both Chambers and Schmidt being gone, the scales are again balanced.”

“Which means?”

The milky blue eyes watched him carefully. “Katherine Craig may live.”

Relief flooded Grif so hard and fast, he swayed. He had saved her? He hadn’t killed her after all?

Sarge gave him time to digest that, then said, “We’d still like you to come back, though.”

“That an order?” Grif asked, though from Sarge’s-or Joe’s-responding scowl, he knew it wasn’t. Grif was still wearing flesh. Which, as Anas told him, meant he still possessed the gift of free will.

“I thought you might ask that,” Sarge replied sourly, “and I already brought it up to the others.”

That meant the Seraphim, Cherubim, and the Thrones. All in the first triad of Creation, higher even than the Archangels.

“And?”

“I explained to them all about your nightmares. About Evie. About the girl, too.” Joe’s eyes cut sideways, and Grif knew he was looking at Kit. “I also explained that you now possess some of Anas’s immortality. Have you noticed your headaches are gone? Your breath comes easily? Your senses are stronger than they were the first time you were here?”

Grif had, though he thought it was just because he’d once again acclimated to flesh and the Surface.

Sarge shook his, Joe’s, head. “She transferred Pure energy to you. She won’t say how…” Leaning back, he frowned. “In fact, she’s having a hard time saying much of anything right now-but it’s as clear as a rainbow’s promise. Purity lives in you, Grif.”

Grif shook his head. “But that’s…”

“Unnatural.”

Grif was going to say “impossible,” but the disgust in the Pure’s voice rendered him silent. Sarge then sighed, Joe’s thin chest falling concave. “What it means, Shaw, is that you can stay without the pain caused by cramming your soul into flesh and lungs that don’t fit, even without a limit to your mortal years. You are something… new. You’re an angelic human.”

“So I can remain on the Surface? For as long as I want?”

“On one condition.” He gripped the sides of the chair and leaned forward. “You have to help us in return. You got celestial power, so that means you’re still a Centurion. You come when we call. You don’t argue and you don’t hesitate. We can use you for… special circumstances.”

“How special?” Grif asked, wary now.

“Some souls get lost. Some are so wounded they flee their Centurion guides and hide.”

Grif recalled hearing of the Lost back in Incubation but he’d never encountered one as a Centurion. No one he knew had.

“Let’s just say we may have… use for someone like us on Earth,” Sarge said cryptically before clearing his throat. “Maybe you can treat your Takes a little better now that you remember what it’s like to live as well as die.”

Grif nodded once. Point taken.

“In return, you may use your time on the mud as you please. Just… be careful what you ask for.”

That was fine. Grif didn’t want much. Just Kit. To still learn who killed Evie.

Who killed Griffin Shaw.

Looking away, Sarge inhaled deeply as he considered his surroundings. “Look at the trees, Grif. Look at this beautiful day. Look at the gorgeous woman staring at you right now like you’re responsible for it all.”

Grif did, and the day was immediately more beautiful because Kit was in it. Smiling hesitantly, she gave him a small wave, and his heart leaped at the thought of endless days with her in them. He smiled back.

“You know,” Sarge said, watching them. “People treasure the moments in their lives because they know those times will soon be gone. A normal person like that girl over there focuses on the present because even if she doesn’t acknowledge it, death still looms in her future.”

But not for Grif. He was still angelic, and that made him different. Still, he was being given his long-awaited chance for justice. And though the Everlast had the Forest and the Third to exact punishment for such crimes, he couldn’t just let it go.

“Don’t be surprised to discover there are worse things to despair of than one’s final days. You’re out of sync with the natural world now. That will bring its own set of problems.”

“No,” Grif said immediately. “No, I’m fine with immortality.”

Sarge gave a tight smile. “I didn’t say you were immortal. I just said that you will live on until you, or someone else with free will, decides differently.”

“So don’t go throwing myself into oncoming bullets.”

“Don’t lose sight of why you’re here,” Sarge corrected gravely. “When there’s time for everything, there’s value in nothing.”

But what did Sarge know, anyway? He’d never been born, or even worn flesh. He’d never experienced senses or death. Grif looked away. He’d also never had Kit Craig, girl reporter and newshound and rockabilly weirdo love him with a heart that was as vast as the Everlast. And that was purer than anything that lived in Grif.

“Yeah, well maybe I deserve this,” he finally said, and perhaps that was why the day suddenly looked so beautiful. “She’s the memories I don’t have. She’s the world I never knew.”

She was the part of him he hadn’t been able to access on his own. The part that had been Taken.

He turned back to the Sarge. “Can you understand?”

But Joe’s brows were drawn low, and his mouth hung slightly open as he stared past Grif’s shoulder. “Bring me my goddamned breakfast. I want some cantaloupe.”

Grif sighed. It didn’t matter. Even were Sarge still there, Grif doubted there’d be any understanding. So he patted Joe on the shoulder, and returned to the one thing in the world that did make sense.

Glancing up from where she sat alone, beneath an old oak, Kit dropped the dandelions she’d been fashioning into a halo. “Find an old friend?”

“Don’t know if I’d call him that,” Grif said, offering her a hand up.

She took it, then linked her arm in his once she was standing, as if they’d been walking like that for years. “What were you two chatting about?”

“Life. Death.” Grif shrugged. “Small stuff like that.”

“Oh, sure.” Kit laughed, but didn’t press.

Halting suddenly, Grif shoved his hands into his pockets. “Got a question for you, Craig. How ’bout walking this world with me for a while?”

Kit lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sun, but it couldn’t shield her smile. “Why, I think that’d suit me just fine, Mr. Shaw.”

Grif leaned over so that the brim of his fedora took the place of her shielding hand, and kissed her long and hard, until a passing matron grumpily cleared her throat. Pulling away, Kit sighed contentedly. “My mind is spinning.”

“ ’Course it is,” he said, pulling her again toward the parking lot.

“I mean my world has been upended, too.”

“Nah. Just clarified,” he said, but his mind was spinning as well. “And so has mine.”

“So we still make a pretty good team, huh?” She raised her voice as they reached her car and split. She’d left the top down in deference to the day, so caught his playful shrug.

“When we’re not swinging at each other.”

“Ah, well,” she said, climbing in. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Always gotta be fun with you, Craig?” he asked, as they pulled from the cemetery lot.

“It certainly helps.”

And Grif just smiled as they rocketed away, because she was right. It did.