Windfall

I remembered Qui

“He was also a murderer and a torturer and a rapist,” I said. “But you know, nobody’s ever just one thing.”

I was walking away, digging for my car keys, when Rodriguez said from behind me, “Hold up. You said was. Past tense.”

I kept walking, cold settling in between my shoulder blades. I heard the creak of metal, heavy footsteps on wet pavement behind me, and I had time to think oh, shit just before he grabbed hold and shoved me forward into the wet, slick finish of the Viper’s passenger-side door. The breath puffed out of me; partly shock, partly the impact, and before I could even think about resisting he had both my arms behind my back, gripped in one huge hand, and the other hand holding my head down, pressed painfully against the roof of the car. My hair had fallen in a black curtain over my face, and it puffed in and out with my fast, scared breathing. I was off balance and shocked and my arms felt like they were about to be ripped right out of my sockets.

I felt myself reflexively reach for the air and water around me, and forced myself to let go of it. I had bigger problems than Detective Rodriguez.

“Settle down,” he growled at my ear. Another jerk on my arms. “Settle.”

I wasn’t even aware I’d been fighting, and it damn sure didn’t matter anyway; there was no way I was breaking free. I had no leverage at all. I forced myself to relax, and the pain in my arms reduced to a dull throb. I couldn’t fight with supernatural means. For all I knew, the Wardens were parked across the street, monitoring my every move.

“You’d better listen to me,” Rodriguez said. “I’m not playing with you. You know what happened to Tommy; you’d better tell me right now or I swear, I’m going to toss you in the back of that van and we’re going to go someplace we can talk in private a really, really long time. You got me? I can make you hurt. Believe it.”

“Okay,” I whispered. Metal felt cold against my cheek, the raindrops as warm as tears. “You don’t want to know this. I’m not kidding you, you really don’t. Let him be who you think he was. Let his family remember him that way. I can’t do anything to make it any better—ah!”

That last was a sharp cry, just short of a scream, ripped out of me when he wrenched up on my wrists and dug a knee into my ass to grind me harder against the car. Nothing sexual about this; it was all pain. He didn’t care that I was a woman. I was just a suspect, and I had something he wanted.

Just then, a car turned the corner and slowed down to pull into the parking lot.

Not one I recognized. Not Cherise’s flashy little chickmobile; this was a conservative black sedan, with rental plates. Two people in it, that was all I could make out through the veil of my hair and the tears in my eyes.

It screeched to an abrupt halt, and the driver’s side door flew open.

I felt a sudden, visceral rush of relief as Armando Rodriguez let go of me. I collapsed against Mona’s sleek finish, knees wobbling, and clawed hair out of my eyes to look over my shoulder.

The cop walked quickly but without panic back to his white van, got in, and gu

A strong pair of hands gently closed around my waist and helped me steady myself. I smelled expensive cologne. “All right?” a low, liquid voice asked. I managed to nod. “Do you know that man?”

I looked up to see my rescuer, and for a panicked second I didn’t recognize him.

Then all the pieces clicked together. Slightly shaggy brown hair, beard, mustache. Warm British voice.

Eamon.

I didn’t have either the breath or the time to answer his question. “Oh my God! Jo, are you all right?” Sarah’s shrill voice ratcheted a couple of octaves higher with fright. She hit me in a flying rush, hugging me, and I winced when I felt strained muscles creak.

And then I hugged her back, grateful for the unquestioning love and concern in her embrace.

Eamon stepped away and watched the two of us, blue-gray eyes bright in the morning light. After a moment, he put a hand on Sarah’s shoulder.

“It’s all right, she’s safe now,” he said in a steadying voice. “Joa

I shook my head and pulled back from Sarah’s hug. “No, no, I’m all right. Thank you.”

“We were coming to see if you wanted to go to breakfast,” Sarah blurted. “Oh my God, Jo, that man—that was the same van! He was—was he trying to abduct you? Did he—”

“I’m okay,” I interrupted. “Really, Sarah, I’m okay. He was just trying to scare me.”

Eamon, apparently reassured that I wasn’t bleeding profusely or otherwise horribly injured, took a step away and looked at the street where Rodriguez’s van had disappeared. His eyelids dropped slightly, hooding the hard light in his eyes. “Looked like more than a scare to me, love,” he said. “Looked like he was really trying to hurt you.”

“As big as he is, if he’d wanted to hurt me, I’d be hurt,” I said, which was pure wishful thinking; actually, I was hurt. My arm ached like a son of a bitch.

I didn’t want to move it much. “Besides, he’s—” A cop. I don’t know why I didn’t say it. Years of concealing things. Old habit. “—He’s gone.”

“And what if he comes back?” Eamon asked, reasonably enough. “Seems persistent.”

“I can take care of myself.”

He turned that look full on me, and I felt something inside both shudder and jump at the force of it. “Can you?”

I straightened and nodded.

“Well, then,” he said. “I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“But—” Sarah frowned.

Eamon took her hand in his, and she went quiet. Well, I would’ve, too. There was something gentle and persuasive in the way he did it, not a shut up kind of gesture, but something reassuring. Comforting. “Let’s talk over breakfast,” he said, and led her back to the rental car. Handed her into the open passenger side door with an old-fashioned grace, then turned to me as he shut it. He was wearing a dark shirt today, top two buttons undone, and a freshly pressed pair of dark pants. Long, thin shoes—I was no expert on men’s couture, but the shoes looked vaguely like Bruno Magli. Expensive. Maybe even custom.

He sure didn’t look poor. Not at all.

“Coming?” he asked me, and quirked his eyebrows.

I took a deep breath. “Sure.”

He opened the back door and held it for me like a gentleman while I slid inside.

Interlude

For something so powerful, a storm is oddly vulnerable. This one—born out of the heat of water and a whim of air—is no different. All it will take is a powerful west wind from the middle latitudes to cut the top off its clouds, stall it in place to starve and die. Or maybe it avoids the west winds, but it moves into cooler waters, which would slow it down. It might find drier air that would leave it tired and weak, blown apart by the first little challenge.

But none of that happens.

It advances at the rate of about ten miles an hour, sometimes slower as it encounters small patches of cooler water; it captures the cooler air it finds and wraps it around—insulates itself, keeping its energy-producing warmer air inside. Clouds find resistance at higher elevations, and pile up like soldiers storming a wall. The fluffy, blunt-headed anvil thunderheads are its war flags.

As it pushes forward—an army on the march—inside the huge, thick mass of clouds there are bright blue-white pops of energy as the generator bleeds off excess.