The Shadow Guard Read online

  He eyed the tiny lot and tried to remember where Jones had snuck in his wife’s little CRV, the Saturday they’d gone hiking together.

  “Over here,” he decided and headed for the spot. Out of sight from the road, it also offered a glance at the valley floor.

  Astrid obediently trailed him. The heavy mud was slick and smooth, innocent of tracks. It fought them worse than a battery of defense attorneys, clinging to their boots and pulling them down with every step.

  “How many points do we get for crossing this?” Astrid muttered. “It reminds me of Colchis, where we both died twice.”

  Jake was startled into a bark of laughter. Once more, her wit had lightened a quest.

  “We may not find anything,” he cautioned when he could speak again.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she muttered. “You and your famous caution.”

  “Yup, just like that.” They halted at the last parking spot, in the corner—the utterly, completely, totally empty gap in the parking lot. There wasn’t even a shred of tire track to hint that somebody had ever placed a vehicle in this location.

  Icy disappointment swept Jake’s heart into the soul-sucking mud. He’d been so sure there’d be evidence here, the one place the killer could have left something heavy while he did his filthy crime. Astrid would never lead him to proof of her own guilt.

  She slammed her fist into her palm, then spun away, frustration etched bright as flame in her every line.

  Jake started to speak but stopped. She’d see through a platitude in a moment.

  He turned around slowly, to scan every detail and buy himself time before he drove a stiff, unhappy beauty back to Washington, D.C.

  Something shiny winked at him, bright as the underworld’s sky in Argos.

  He ran for it, heedless of the mud’s treachery.

  A black and silver piece of cloth lay under a barren shrub, away from fallen leaves and out of the dirt.

  Could it be a ski mask? Astrid said the killer wore one.

  She was innocent!

  Long habit, not intelligence, brought his camera out of his pocket to shoot a half dozen photos.

  “The mask.” Astrid arrived at his shoulder. She whispered something under her breath that sounded like a prayer.

  Jake forced himself to take down notes about the fragment of cloth. He made sure every important detail was documented, such as the complete lack of footprints nearby, whether man or beast. The mask must have been flung under the bush before the snowstorm, to have left the ground so undisturbed.

  Astrid stayed close the entire time without speaking to him, although she watched that telltale scrap like a prophetess seeking signs of foul weather.

  Finally Jake was free to act.

  He snatched up a broken tree branch and fished for the priceless artifact. It shrank away from the spiked tip, seemingly content to stay in its lair.

  Astrid cursed under her breath in a foreign language, a long guttural string of syllables vicious enough to make a gang leader turn cautious.

  The scrap of wool snagged on the branch and came sullenly free. Jake lifted it into the last rays of daylight like a captured pennant. It hung stiff and still for a moment before a vagrant wisp of air stirred it into motion.

  A Nazi helmet unfurled before their eyes, the faceplate turned into a skeleton’s death mask, hungry as a crematorium’s gaping ovens. For a brief instant, arrogance and confidence filled the little clearing like smoke from a thousand burned villages.

  Astrid gasped and her hand shot out toward the mask.

  Before Jake could stop her from touching it, the breeze disappeared and the ski mask collapsed upon itself. An instant later, it was once again only a sodden bit of black wool with a few metallic markings.

  Jake sucked in his breath and his startled wits, then fumbled for an evidence bag in his back pocket.

  Now he definitely had a witness to his mystery lady’s murder.

  With luck, he’d still have his best gaming friend when this was over, no matter how uncomfortably thorough she found his interrogation techniques.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Astrid stiffened her knees. Even that movement took effort, given the elevator’s man-made metal and steel. If only she could reach a kubri or another sahir to draw power from.

  “Hang on, we’re almost at my desk.” Jake glanced over at her. “You can have some coffee as soon as we get there. There may still be some doughnuts, too.”

  “Ah, doughnuts.” She gave him a shaky smile and shifted the evidence case to her other hand. “Aren’t they a cop’s solution to everything?”

  “Yes, especially when we’re tired.” His eyes saw far too much.

  Warding him and herself against the ski mask during the drive back to town had taken everything she had. She couldn’t remove its malevolent guardianship spells without direct access, an impossibility given how it was locked up.

  Holy crap, she hadn’t seen one of them in over sixty years, not since she’d helped clean out the Nazis’ reeking bunkers. Where this one had come from, she didn’t know—and she was looking forward to finding out. Even inside the case, its vicious power sneered at her warding spells like a Charybdis troll facing a single warrior, instead of a fully armed guild.

  Mercifully, the station’s protections had helped once they turned in to the garage. As a federal courthouse, sahirs had built wards into its foundations to guard against evildoers and their weapons.

  A chime sounded, and the doors glided open to reveal a room full of more cops.

  Lovely. She’d hoped Jake would head straight for the evidence room, where she could snatch a second alone with the mask.

  “What have you got?”

  “Is that the evidence you found?”

  “Do you think it came from the victim or the killer?”

  People crowded around the Plexiglas case to gawk at the mask, their hot hands and breath pushing it back and forth.

  Jake swooped on the case and held it up high.

  “Now, now, folks, you know it’s going straight into the evidence locker.”

  Thank God for some small favors. There were extra wards in there so the mask shouldn’t cause too much trouble.

  She hoped.

  Ten p.m. and the station was muted, noise and movement hanging somewhere between the day shift’s roar and night’s unpredictable bursts of violence.

  Except for the hallway outside Jake’s office. Like fish lured by a lantern, every bachelor in the building crowded around his door, trying to make time with Astrid.

  Sometime during that interminable evening, she’d taken out the clip that held her blond hair. The rippling mass of golden curls tumbled to her waist, tempting the few guys still around to find any excuse to gawk.

  In their shoes, he’d do the same. That didn’t mean he didn’t want to knock their wide eyes back into the Stone Age.

  Damn, she was beautiful.

  Shit, why had the elevator broken down again? Just to raise his blood pressure?

  Jake quickened his step and told himself his guildie needed rescuing. Astrid had spent hours repeating her story to the county police while they cordoned off the crime scene, then again back here at the station. She’d never fretted nor complained once, even when her lips thinned at some of his cohorts’ less veiled suggestions about her motives.

  But those duties were over now and he didn’t need a live witness anymore. Shit, she could leave now.

  He shot a narrow-eyed glare over the lazy fools hanging around her. They stirred and quickly drifted away on a cloud of lame excuses.

  He looked at her more warily. Had she wanted suitors? Or had he correctly read those long glances she kept brushing over him, intimate as a polishing cloth sweeping over a rifle?

  “Hey there.”

  “Hey, yourself.” Pleasure and relief danced in her amazing eyes. She flicked an Argos salute at him, the casual movement suggestive of an ancient Greek helmet.

  He returned it, satisfaction easing into his bone
s.

  Christ, he’d had a long day and tomorrow would be worse. But it had turned out to be a damn fine one, especially because he’d met her.

  “Would you like to sit down?”

  “There you go.” Jake dropped into his chair and slid the statement over to Astrid. “One official witness statement, ready to be signed.”

  “Great.” She held out her hand for the pen and he handed her one without a word. She glanced at the statement barely long enough for decency and signed it, driving the writing implement across the paper like a sword.

  Her hair slid forward to conceal part of her face, like a helmet’s cheek piece. Beneath it, her features were beautiful and determined, a battle maiden battered by another campaign. Her eyes were a startling green from this close, almost the same shade as leaves dancing in a spring forest.

  “Did you get the mask locked away?”

  “Yeah, it’s in the Evidence Room, underneath the new courthouse. We’re all part of the same complex.” He kicked himself back into a trivial conversation and tried not to think about how her gaze lingered on his cheek, and how warm her lips would be.

  “Good. I’m glad to know a little of that killer is safe behind bars.” She slid the page back to him and he dropped it into his out-box. Daria would file it in the morning. “Do you think the forensic techs will find anything on it?”

  He shrugged, unable to think of a lie that might satisfy his old friend’s nimble brain. She had long, slender fingers which could wreck havoc on a man’s anatomy or his libido. If she walked them up his arm or unbuttoned his shirt . . .

  “That bad?” She settled back into her chair, distancing herself from him, dammit.

  “You saw where the brute killed her.” He capped his pen and jammed it into his pen cup with unnecessary force. “Do you honestly think anybody who’d carry out a murder on the one spot where there’d be no forensics would leave a shred of DNA behind?”

  “No. He needed the ski mask for concealment and warmth. But he’d wear a theatrical bald cap underneath to trap every hair, the bastard.” She clenched her hands and looked ready to wield her deadly axes.

  “Hey, I’ll know the minute the techs find anything.” He squeezed her hand in reassurance and heat shimmered into life over his skin, like the first touch of summer sunshine. He gritted his teeth against the urge to grab her and forced himself into cop speak. “Whether it’s a hair, where the mask was made, anything. The lab’s here, too.”

  “Where the new federal courtrooms are?” Her gaze sharpened.

  “Same building. The feds built us a hell of a fine courthouse and police station. We just loan them a courtroom from time to time.”

  Hell, the resulting vault in the evidence room made the courtrooms’ precautions look blasé.

  “And they let you earn overtime.”

  “Exactly.” He pretended to smirk, more than willing to look foolish if it kept her with him.

  “Well, as long as you’re comfortable with the arrangement.” She smiled, genuine relaxation softening her posture.

  “You look a little tired.” He could forget about being a cop for a while and just think about her. “Have you eaten anything?”

  “Lunch before twelve and after that—”

  He frowned at her, appalled she was so careless with her health.

  “I had a half a turkey sandwich from the cafeteria right after we got back here. It’s okay; I wasn’t hungry and I understand why you needed so much time to fancy up my statement and put away the mask.”

  He searched her eyes and saw only gallantry there. Guilt pricked him. Surely he could have gotten her out of the station sooner, somehow.

  “Jake.” She leaned forward and her rich voice drew an intimate braid between them. “Please don’t worry about me. Finding the mask changed everything. I didn’t know that the murder was truly real until I saw something tangible.” Her mouth quirked wryly. “Crazy, isn’t it?”

  “Not really. You’ve been under a lot of pressure for the past few days. Especially since you didn’t know how to come forward.”

  She snorted and shoved her hair out of her face, clearly remembering some of his questions earlier. “Jake, you must be as exhausted as I am. You’ve been pushing yourself for two days on this investigation.”

  Color brushed his cheek and he could have growled. Homicide sergeants were not embarrassed. Worse, they didn’t want to rub their faces against a young woman’s palm like a puppy.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” Jake said roughly. “Before we both congratulate each other too much.”

  Her eyes searched his for a moment before she smiled, laughter running bright and free through her eyes.

  He didn’t say anything else until he picked her up in his car outside the station, on the sidewalk between the police garage and the restored nineteenth-century law offices across the street. The air was cleaner here, full of river mist and the deep solidity of ancient brick buildings and sidewalks.

  She blinked at his battered old Mercedes S430 but sat down and strapped herself in without comment.

  “Did you take Metro or drive?” Did he have to sound as if he wanted her to leave right away?

  “Metro, but they closed early tonight for track maintenance. I can take a cab back to my dorm in Georgetown.” She swept her hair out of her short coat matter of factly, without any evidence of coquetry.

  His chest tightened. For once, he almost wished he had a bimbo in his car; he could lip lock one of those and fuck her into tomorrow without worry.

  Astrid required more consideration. Fellow guildie for six years—hell, she was damn near his best friend.

  His mouth acted before his brain caught up. “Would you like to come over to my place?”

  Her head snapped around to stare at him. Her eyes were enormous, dark, unreadable pools against the station’s brilliantly lit façade beyond his car’s windows.

  His pulse sped up, faster than just before kicking in a door to seize a bad guy. Go for it, man; she hasn’t slapped you. “It’s too late for a restaurant except Duffy’s, which will be full of cops.”

  She pulled a face and he shrugged in agreement, careful to rein himself in.

  “I can make an omelet for each of us. After that, I’d be glad to drive you home.”

  “Thank you.” Her expression made hope sizzle through his bones. “You’re very kind and I’d enjoy eating a real dinner with you.”

  She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. Instinct whipped his head around and he caught her mouth with his.

  He kissed her for a long time, the hot sweet taste of two people learning each other like two teenagers in high school when a kiss means everything and a car is the only place to be together.

  She moaned, yanked her seat belt free, and kneeled up to press closer. He slid his hand around the back of her head, her silken hair caressing his fingers like fire running into his heart.

  More, he wanted more.

  He took her mouth like the first taste of water on a hot summer day, and she opened to him, denying him nothing.

  Honk! A horn blew behind them, close enough to shiver the Mercedes’ massive frame.

  Jake jerked away from Astrid. She landed across his lap and the center console, caught between his chest and the steering wheel, her white skin gleaming under the streetlights.

  “Shit.” He glanced into the rearview mirror. A marked patrol car needed to leave the station.

  He waved politely and hoped the gesture looked more controlled than he felt. His cock was hard enough inside his pants to shift the Mercedes’ transmission.

  Astrid slid back across the seat and into her own. She sat up, her sweater back in place and her hair a tumbled invitation to hedonism.

  Jake somehow managed to get the car started on the first try but he didn’t trust his voice for another block. “Do you still want to come back to my house?”

  “Oh, hell yes.” Her voice threaded anticipation through the darkness like a fiery lure and she t
wined her fingers into his. “How soon can we be there?”

  “Five minutes, tops.”

  “Let’s go, handsome.” She brushed a kiss against his knuckle and anticipation jolted down his spine into his cock.

  He gritted his teeth to hold back a groan and hit the accelerator harder. He knew every cop in Belhaven. Better yet, he knew every back alley and how each traffic light was timed. His car could fly when he wanted it to.

  Like right now.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Astrid allowed Jake to lead her into the old brick house in the staid, prosperous neighborhood. Their fingers were still tightly threaded together as if they were teenagers sneaking in from the barn. The big man beside her stole her breath away until she could look nowhere else.

  At the station his calm and self-confidence had radiated through the other cops and, perversely, deepened her attention. She’d been hypnotized by his voice, ruefully understood when men ran to fulfill his slightest request, and frantic when she couldn’t see him.

  Heat and anticipation ran through her, faster than fire dancing atop a candelabra. She wanted more than stolen kisses in a car or the slow glide of entwined fingers. She needed whoever lay under all that clothing.

  Surely that was only because she’d spent so much of the afternoon and evening protecting Jake from the ski mask’s ensorcelled malignancy, right?

  The door fell back before them and soft lights bathed the kitchen walls under the cabinets the instant they entered, thanks to motion sensor lights.

  The plank floor was original but carefully refinished. Turkish rugs were scattered across it, more for function than to suit a decorator’s eye. All the fixtures were new but chosen to match the house’s age. A battered, antique table and two chairs held pride of place in one corner but the wine cellar looked recent.

  It was the simplest, most effortlessly masculine kitchen that she had ever seen. Astonished by the room’s comfort, Astrid half-stumbled on the uneven floor.