Victoria Nelson - Blood Lines Part 26

She laughed. "Six weeks ago. Actually, six weeks, two days, four hours and," she checked her watch, nearly losing the pile of papers, "eleven minutes. But who's counting. What are you doing way out here?

Where's Mike?"

Obviously, she hadn't heard about Celluci. Fine with him, he was getting tired of talking about it.

"Temporary duty. You know how it is. What about you?"

"Detention's having a little trouble with the OMS. Their computer program," she continued when he looked blank, "the Offender Management System. I've come to try and straighten it out."

"If anyone can do it..." When they'd first met, Hania had been brought in to crunch the data gathered as part of a ma.s.sive manhunt after a homicide down in Parkdale. As far as he was concerned, what she could do with a computer should be filed somewhere between magic and miracle. Even Celluci, who'd been heard to suggest that all silicon should go back to the beach where it belonged, had been favorably impressed. "How bad is it?"

Hania shrugged. "Not very. In fact, I've done my part, all that's left is for someone to enter all this," a nod of her head indicated the printouts she carried, "back into the system."

"Good lord, that'll take days."

"Not really, most of this paper is blank. It's all personal possession lists and not many people book in here with luggage. Well, there are exceptions..." She flipped a page back and grinned. "Listen to this.

Four pens, four pencils, a black magic marker, a plastic freezer bag containing six folded empty plastic freezer bags, a brush, a comb, a cosmetic case containing a lipstick and two tampons, seven marbles in a cotton bag, a set of lock picks in a leather folder, a magnifying gla.s.s in a protective case, three notebooks half full, one notebook empty, a package of tissues, a package of condoms, a package of birth control pills, a screwdriver, a Swiss Army knife, a fish-shaped water pistol, cotton swabs, tweezers, a pair of needlenose pliers, a pair of wrapped surgical gloves, a small bottle of ethyl alcohol, a high-powered flashlight with four extra batteries, two u-shaped nails, $12.73 in a.s.sorted change, and a half-eaten bag of cheese b.a.l.l.s. Now I ask you, what kind of weirdo carries all that in her purse?"

It took Dave a moment to find his voice. "No ID?" he managed at last.

"Not a thing. Not so much as a Visa statement. Probably pitched it just before she got picked up. They do sometimes, but you know that."

"Yeah." They did sometimes. He didn't think they had this time. "Who do they say belongs to all this?"

"They don't. But I can find out for you." She started down the hall. "Come on, there's a terminal in here we can use." He followed blindly. He knew exactly what kind of weirdo carried all that in her purse.

"Dave? Detective-Sergeant Graham? Are you listening to me?"

"Yeah. Sorry." Except he wasn't. He couldn't hear anything over Celluci's voice saying, "Then they've already got her."

"Fitzroy? Celluci. I'm a.s.suming that if you'd managed to find Vicki last night you'd have changed your message to let me know."And if you found her and didn't change the message , the tone continued, I'm going to rip your head off . "Stay put tonight. At least until I call. I'm going to try to get into her apartment and have a look around-no one disappears without leaving some kind of evidence-but after that we need to talk. We're going to have to work together to find her." The last statement landed like a thrown gauntlet even through the tiny speaker of the answering machine.

In spite of everything, Henry smiled.You need my help, mortal man. Time you admitted it .

"Hi, Henry, it's Brenda. Just a reminder that we needLove's Labor Lashed , or whatever you've decided to name it, by the fifteenth. We've got Aliston signed to do the cover on this one and he promises no purple eye shadow. Call me."

"Celluci? Dave Graham. It's quarter after four, Tuesday, November third..."

It was now six twelve, eight minutes after sunset.

"... Call me the instant you get this message; I'll be home all evening." His voice grew strained, as though he couldn't really believe what he was saying. "I think I've found her. It isn't good."

Henry's fingers closed around the chair back and with a loud crack the carved oak splintered into a half dozen pieces. He stared down at the wreckage without really seeing it. This man on the phone, this David Graham, knew where Vicki was. If he wanted the information, he would have to take the message to Michael Celluci.

The police in the unmarked car were easy to avoid. They appeared to have little interest in the job they were doing and paid the s.h.i.+fting shadows just back of the sidewalk no attention at all. As for getting into the apartment itself, well, he had a key. The door opened quietly before him and closed as quietly behind.

He stood silently in the entryway and listened to the life that moved about at the end of the hall. The heartbeat pounded faster than it should and the breath was short and almost labored. The blood scent dominated, but fear and anger and fatigue layered over it in equal proportions.

He walked forward and paused at the edge of the living room. Although it was very dark, he could see the kneeling man clearly.

"I have a message for you," he said, and took a perverse pleasure in the sudden jump of the heartbeat.

"Jesus H. Christ," Celluci hissed, surging to his feet and glaring down at Henry. "Don't do that! You weren't there a second ago! And besides, I thought I told you..."

Henry merely looked up at him.

Celluci pushed the curl of hair back off his forehead with a trembling hand. "All right, you have amessage." His eyes widened. "Is it from Vicki?"

"Are you ready to hear it?"

"G.o.d d.a.m.n you!" Celluci grabbed the lapels of Henry's leather trench coat and tried to drag him off his feet. He couldn't budge the smaller man although that took a moment to sink in. "d.a.m.n you!" he swore again, anchoring his grip more firmly in the leather. "If it's from Vicki, tell me!"

The pain in the detective's voice got through where anger alone wouldn't have and shame followed close behind.What am I doing ? Almost gently, Henry pulled Celluci's hands off his coat.She won't love me more for hurting you . "The message was from Dave Graham. He wants you to call him at home. He says he thinks he's found her."

One breath, two, three; Celluci groped blindly for the phone, the darkness no longer a protection but an enemy to be fought. Henry reached out and guided his hands, then moved quickly to the extension in the bedroom as he dialed.

"Dave? Where is she?"

Dave sighed. Henry heard the soft flesh of his lower lip compressed between his teeth. "Metro West Detention Center. At least, I think it's her."

"Didn't you check!"

"Yeah, I checked." From the sound of his voice, Detective-Sergeant Graham still didn't believe what he'd found. "I better start at the beginning..." He told how he'd run into Hania Wojotowicz and how she'd listed the contents of the purse, how she'd called up the inmate file, how the description had fit Vicki Nelson even though the name had said Terri Hanover. "They picked her up on a skinbeef, Mike, against a twelve-year-old boy. You've never read such a crock of s.h.i.+t. She was on something, they don't know what, so they stuck her in Special Needs."

"They drugged her! The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds drugged her!"

"Yeah.If it's her." But he didn't sound like he had any doubts. "Who arethey , Mike? What the f.u.c.k is going on?"

"I can't tell you. Where is she exactly-now?"

The pause said Dave knew exactly why Celluci asked. "She's still in Special Needs," he said at last. "D Range. Cell three. But I didn't actually see her. They wouldn't let me onto the range. I don'tknow it's her."

"I do."

"This has gone too far." He swallowed, once, hard. "I'm talking to Cantree tomorrow."

"No! Dave, you talk to Cantree about any of this and you'll be a.s.s deep in it with the rest of us. Just keep your mouth shut for a little while longer. Please."

"A little while longer," Dave repeated and sighed again. "All right, partner, how long?" "I don't know. Maybe you should take that vacation time you've got coming."

"Yeah. Maybe I should."

The quiet click as Dave Graham hung up his end of the line sounded through the apartment.

Henry came out of the bedroom and the two men stared at each other.

"We have to get her out," Celluci said. He could see only a pale oval of face in the darkness.I'll do anything I must to get her out no matter how little I like it. I'll even work with you because I need your strength and speed .

"Yes," Henry agreed.The "detention centers" I know are centuries in the past. I need your knowledge. My feelings here are not important; she is .

The silent subtext echoed so loudly between them it was amazing it didn't alert the police watching the building and bring them racing inside.

Chapter Fifteen.

"All right, when the lights go out, you go over the wall, across the yard, in the emergency exit and..."

"Up three flights of stairs and through the first emergency door on my left. I remember your instructions, Detective." Henry stepped back from his BMW and looked down at Celluci who still sat in the driver's seat. "Are you certain you can get near enough to the generator?"

"Don't worry about me, you just be ready to move. You won't have much time. The moment the power goes off, all four guards will move to A Range to start emergency lockup. Vicki's in D; they'll do that last.

You'll also have to deal with the other women on the range; it's just turned eight, so they won't be in the cells yet..."

"Michael."

Celluci started. Something in the sound of his name stopped the flow of words and brought his head up.

Although he knew the other man's eyes were hazel, they seemed much darker than hazel could be as if they'd absorbed some of the night.

"I want her out of there as much as you do. We will be successful. She will be freed. One way or another."

The words, the tone, the man himself, left no room for argument, no room for doubt. Celluci nodded, comforted in spite of himself and, as he had once before in a farmhouse kitchen, he thought that he would be willing to follow...a romance writer . Yeah, sure. But the protest had little force behind it. He wet his lips and dropped his gaze, aware as he did that Fitzroy had allowed it and, strangely enough, found himself not resenting the other's strength. "You won't have much time before the emergency system kicks in, so you'll have to be fast."

"I know."

He put the car into gear. "So, uh, be careful." "I will." Henry watched the car drive away, watched until the taillights disappeared around a corner, then walked slowly across the street toward the detention center. His pants and crepe-soled shoes were black, but his turtleneck sweater was a deep, rich burgundy; no point in looking more like a second story man than necessary. He carried a dark wool cap to pull over his hair the instant he started over the wall as he'd learned early after his change that a pale-haired vampire was at a disadvantage when it came to moving through the darkness.

From not very far away came the sound of traffic, of a radio, of a baby crying; people who paid no attention to the knowledge that other people were locked in cages only a short distance from where they lived their lives.Or perhaps they've forgotten they know . Henry reached out and lightly touched the outer wall, sensitive eyes turned away from the harsh glare of the floodlights.

Dungeons, prisons, detention centers-there was little to choose between them. He could feel the misery, the defiance, the anger, the despair; the bricks were soaked in it. Every life that had been held here had left a dark impression. Henry had never understood the theory that torture by confinement was preferable to death.

"They're given a chance to change," Vicki'd protested when a news article on capital punishment had started the argument.

"You've been inside your country's prisons, "he'd pointed out. "What chance for change do they offer? I have never lived in a time that so enjoyed lying to itself."

"Maybe you'd rather we followed good King Hal's example and chained prisoners to a watt until it was time to cut off their heads?"

"I never said the old ways were better, Vicki, but at least my father never insulted those he arrested by insisting he did it for their own good."

"He did it for his own good," she'd snorted and had refused to discuss the matter further.

Having found the place he'd go over the wall, Henry moved on until he crossed the line between the floodlights and the night, then he turned and waited. He had faith in Celluci's ability to cut the power, more faith he suspected than Celluci had in his ability to go into the detention center and bring Vicki out-but then, he'd had a lot more time to learn to see around the blinkers jealousy insisted be worn.

They were very much alike, Michael Celluci and Vicki Nelson, both wrapped up in their ideas of The Law. There was one major difference Henry had noticed between them; Vicki broke The Law for ideals, Celluci broke it for her.She , not justice, had kept him silent last August in London. It was her personally, not injustice, that drove him tonight- however little he liked what they were about to do.

It probably wouldn't have helped, Henry reflected, if he'd told Celluci that he had attempted this sort of thing before...

Henry had not been in England when Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, had been arrested, and between the time it took for news to reach him and the complications laid on travel by his nature, he didn't arrive in London until January eighth; two days before the execution. He spent that first night frantically gathering information. An hour after sunset on the ninth, having quickly fed down by the docks, he stood and stared up at the black stone walls of the Tower. Originally, Surrey had been given a suite overlooking the river, but an attempt to escape by climbing down the privy at low tide had ensured his removal to less congenial, interior accommodations. From where he stood, Henry could just barely see the flicker of light in Surrey's window.

"No," he murmured to the night, "I don't imagine you can sleep, you arrogant, b.l.o.o.d.y fool, not with the block awaiting you in the morning."

All things considered, he decided there was no real need to go over the wall-although he rather regretted the loss of the flamboyant gesture-and moved, a shadow within the shadows, past the guards and into the halls of the Tower. At Surrey's door, he raised the heavy iron bar and slipped silently inside, pulling the door closed behind him. Unless things had changed a great deal since his days at court, the guards would not bother them before dawn and by dawn they would be far away.

He stood for a moment drinking in the sight and scent of the dearest friend he had had in life, realizing how much he had missed him. The slight figure, dressed all in black, sat at a crude table by the narrow window, a tallow candle his only light, a heavy iron shackle locked around one slim ankle and chained in turn to a bolt in floor. He had been writing-Henry could smell the fresh ink-but he sat now with his dark head pillowed on his arm and despair written across the line of his shoulders. Henry felt a fist close around his heart and he had to stop himself from rus.h.i.+ng forward and catching the other man up in a near hysterical embrace.

Instead, he took a single step away from the door and softly called, "Surrey."

The dark head jerked erect. "Richmond?" The young earl spun around, eyes wide with terror and when he saw who stood within his cell he threw himself against the far wall with a rattle of chain and strangled cry. "Am I so near to death," he moaned, "that the dead come calling?"

Henry smiled. "I'm as flesh and blood as you are. More so, you've lost a lot of weight."

"Yes, well, the cook does his poor best but it's not what I'm used to." One long-fingered hand brushed the air with a dismissive gesture Henry well remembered and then rose to cover Surrey's eyes. "I'm losing my mind. I make jokes with a ghost."

"I am no ghost."

"Prove it."

"Touch me then." Henry walked forward, hand outstretched.

"And lose my soul? I will not." Surrey sketched the sign of the cross and squared his shoulders. "Come any closer and I'll call for the guards."

Henry frowned, this was not going the way he'd planned. "All right, I'll prove it without your touch." He thought a moment. "Do you remember what you said when we watched the execution of my father's second wife, your cousin, Anne Boleyn? You told me that although her condemnation was an inevitable matter of state business, you pitied the poor wretch and you hoped they'd let her laugh in h.e.l.l for you'd always thought her laugh more beautiful than her face."

"Richmond's spirit would know that, for I said it while he lived."

"All right," Henry repeated, thinking,it's a good thing I came early, this could take all night . "Youwrote this after I died and, trust me, Surrey, your poems are not yet read in heaven." He cleared his throat and softly recited, "The secret thoughts, imparted with such trust,''The wanton talk, the diverse change of play,''The friends.h.i.+p sworn, each promise kept so just,''Wherewith we pa.s.sed the winter night away..."

"... That place of bliss,''the graceful, gay companion, who with me shared,''the jolly woes, the hateless short debate...' " Surrey stepped away from the wall, his body trembling with enough force to vibrate the chain he wore. "I wrote that for you."

"I know." He had copies of nearly everything Surrey had written; the earl's flamboyant lifestyle meant his servants often waited for their pay and were, therefore, open to earning a little extra.

"Proud Windsor, where I, in just and joy with a King's son my childish years did pa.s.s...' Richmond?"

Eyes welling, Surrey flung himself forward and Henry caught him up in a close embrace.

"You see," he murmured into the dusky curls, "I have flesh, I live, and I've come to get you out of here."

After an incoherent moment of mingled joy and grief, Surrey pushed away and, swiping at his cheeks with his palm, he looked his old friend up and down. "You haven't changed," he said, fear touching his expression again. "You look no different than you did when you... than you did at seventeen."