“Don’t be mad at me,” Fran said. “I had to. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Two bedrooms off the kitchen, a bathroom between them. The first bedroom belonged to Fran. He paused at the bathroom door, eased it open. Shower. Head. Sink. No place to hide.
“Zach’s really nice,” Fran said. “And he’s super-cute, too. He’s going to help. He promised.”
The second bedroom door was only partly closed. As he neared it, he could hear the girl breathing. The sound was ragged with fear.
“I’m coming in, Angel.” He carefully eased the door open. Their eyes met, hers as wild as a trapped animal’s. “Angel,” he said again, softly, “I’m here to help—”
In the next instant she was on him, scratching and kicking. He stumbled backward, head thumping against the doorframe. He saw stars and before he could right himself, she flew past him, heading for the front exit.
He righted himself and followed, envisioning Micki wrestling the poor kid to the floor, cuffing her hands behind her back.
But instead, he found them both on the floor, Micki’s arms around Angel, holding her while she sobbed, her gun still tucked snug in its holster.
Zach shook his head, bemused. He thought he had a bead on Mad Dog Dare; turned out he might still have a little to learn.
*
Just over an hour later, he and Mick sat in her living room, watching Angel suck down a frozen coffee drink called a Mochasippi. They’d decided they couldn’t take Angel to the Eighth—no way to explain why she was there—and his place wouldn’t be appropriate. So they’d settled on Mick’s.
He looked around. The house was a work in progress. Floors, windows, walls—all either being replaced or restored. And all very comfortable and homey in a way she would never be.
“Feel better?” Micki asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Definitely from the south, Zach thought. Deep south, old time manners.
“You gave us a scare, you know that?”
“No, ma’am.” She looked up at her. “How so?”
“We were worried something bad had happened to you. A bad man had your ID card. When we went looking for you to return it, Fran told us you’d disappeared.”
A bad man? Zach wanted to chuckle. Where had this softer, gentler Mad Dog come from? He felt as if he’d landed in an alternate universe.
Angel captured the frozen drink in the straw, then tipped her head to suck it out. “Who had it?”
“A man named Martin Ritchie.”
Zach stepped in. “He was a drug dealer, Angel.”
“I don’t do drugs.”
“Of course not.” He said it deadpan, realizing with surprise that he was playing the bad cop in this scenario.
“I don’t!”
“And a pimp, Angel.”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t . . . I never did that!”
“He’s dead now.”
“Oh.”
“Any idea how he got your ID?”
“No.” She frowned. “I just knew it was gone.”
“Tell us about your birthday,” Mick said softly, coaxing. “What happened that night?”
“I went to a party with Fran. She ditched me to go off with some guy and I didn’t know anybody. They thought I was weird. Everybody does.”
She said it simply. A lifetime of truth in her words. Zach understood. He had been there.
“So I left.”
“Just like that. You didn’t try to find Fran or tell anyone?”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t feeling well, either. My side hurt. Real bad.”
Micki stepped in again. “Fran’s worried about you. She thinks you may need a doctor.”
“It’s just my ink.”
“Your ink?”
“My tattoos. They do that sometimes. Hurt. Burn.”
Mick looked concerned. “Where are they?”
She twisted slightly and lifted her shirt, revealing her left side and back. Several tattoos. Black and white. A smattering of color. “The new one’s been bothering me the most.”
Micki looked at him. The tattoos looked fine. But there were a lot of major organs in that area of the body and persistent pain there could be a symptom of something serious.
Zach refocused on the sequence of events the night of her birthday. “You left the party. What happened next?”
“I cut across the Tulane campus. I thought I’d catch the streetcar downtown. Then I started hearing things.”
“What kind of things?”
She hesitated. “Like someone was stalking me.”
He searched her gaze. “You mean, sounds like someone was following you?”
Angel stopped sucking on her straw, face pinched in thought. “At first, maybe. I even thought a couple of those stupid frat guys might have followed me. You know, to mess with my head. But after the shadow started to grow—”
“Shadow?”
“Never mind. It sounds crazy.”
“Tell us, Angel,” Micki said. “We’re going to believe you.”
She seemed to consider that a moment, then shrugged. “A shadow from the statue at the center of the Quad. Like it was reaching for me. A voice in my head told me to run. So I did.”