“What… did Reuben Fishkiller tell you?” I asked, fighting Lass who screamed in my head about dogs and snakes and monsters. “I only remember something big… from the fog… and trying to drive it away.”
“Mr. Fishkiller says”—Solis paused to snort in derision—“a monster attacked you all. Throughout this investigation I hear ‘a monster came from the sewer.’ Now its a monster from the fog.”
I shrugged, one-sided, tilting my head and raising my eyebrows. “That’s what it was!” Lass blurted through me. I pushed him back down, feeling sweat start on my face. “But maybe… a dog?” I added. “Or a bear? A bear ran amok in the University District last year…”
Solis snorted. “Where is the body if you shot it? Why is it that where your cases touch mine, hell breaks loose and the mysterious becomes common?”
I shrugged, choking Lass’s shrieks of terror.
“Bad karma,” Quinton suggested.
Solis retrained his gimlet stare on Quinton. “Is that your explanation, Mr. Lassiter?”
Quinton shrugged also. “Don’t know. Maybe its just that Ms. Blaine attracts strange things.”
Solis nodded and looked sour. “Indeed. You were there? You saw this monster from the fog?”
Quinton shook his head. “No.”
“What did you see? You were there when the Medic One unit arrived.”
“Nothing—there was nothing to see.”
Solis shook his head in disgust. “Why were you all in the marsh to begin with?”
“My fault,” I croaked. “Following…” I cast a look at Quinton and hoped I was guessing right—and could keep Lass quiet long enough to finish. “Purlis.”
“Who is Purlis?” Solis snapped.
“The dead man. I think,” I added. “Identity was clouded. The link you wanted… may have been him.”
Solis calmed and the fire that ringed him banked to a tight, hot gleam. “Clouded… You’ll say he was part of an investigation, no doubt.”
“A tangent. Mucking in your sandbox, Solis. Sorry.”
“What do you know about him? How did he connect to this?”
I felt exhausted from my aches, from restraining the dead man raging in my head, and from trying to keep myself in the normal. “Present at the crimes. Ran when asked about them. No more than that.”
“No background?”
I shook my head; sweat stung my eyes. “Broken, blocked. Government-sealed files. Why I wanted to talk to him.”
Solis grunted to himself, the colors around him shifting more to yellow and away from furious red. “I am to turn this case over to a federal officer,” he said, as if to himself. “Classified. None of Homicide’s business.”
I wanted to tell him to leave me alone if that was the case, but I kept my mouth shut.
“I wish I knew…” he muttered, and fell silent for a long moment.
“Am I under arrest?” I asked at last.
He had seemed distracted but snapped back to a ferocious focus on me as he answered. “Not yet.” He leaned over and unlocked the cuff from my wrist and the bed. Then he straightened again. “But if Benjamin Danziger dies, its you I will come for first—Federals or no.” He looked at each of us, his eyes narrowed. He saw something that satisfied his scrutiny and left the room without another word, tucking the handcuffs into his coat pocket as he went.
I slumped into the bed, feeling Lass fall back down from his fighting and clawing now that there was no one to cry to. The Grey was thicker and more present than usual and I hoped Lass was as exhausted as I. I glanced at Quinton.
“You changed files?” I whispered.
Quinton watched Solis leave. “Yes. If they check, its officially J.J. Purlis who’s dead. I hope Fern will let it go, not try to convince someone I’m still out here. It’s the easy way out for her and once she’s retired, she may not care, so long as I never turn up to embarrass her. And I don’t plan to.” He looked at me and frowned. “You look horrible.”
“Thank you. Lass… fights.”
“Its bad, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “The sooner I’m rid of him, the better.”
“We have to get out of here. They didn’t know what was wrong with you, so they said shock. I think you can check yourself out, now that Sol is has removed the handcuffs.”
I let Quinton help me get up and get dressed. He pressed a kiss against my temple as I leaned on him. I was tired and rubber-legged, even as we crept down to Critical Care to check on Ben. It wouldn’t matter to me if Solis could hang me on a felony murder hook; if Ben died it would be my fault and I’d wish I was already dead.
We came out of the elevator and headed for CCU. I stopped cold at the sight of a figure in a black coat swishing into the CCU nurses’ station. I caught Quinton’s arm and pulled him back behind the corner to listen out of sight.
“Yes, dear. Has Detective Solis come down to look in on Mr. Danziger?”
“Naturally, it’s Laguire who’s stepping on Solis’s toes,” I muttered. I couldn’t hear the nurses reply as more than a mumble, but I’d recognized the coat’s owner, even from the back. Quinton’s face went stiff and white at the sound of Laguire’s voice.
“Really? Well, thank you, dear. I’ll look for him upstairs. And I understand the morgue is also in this building…?”
“Always tasteful, Fern,” Quinton muttered. “The coroner’s fingerprint check sent up a flare. Don’t know why I thought she’d be slower off the mark.”
“She wants to see your supposed corpse,” I hissed.
“She won’t recognize it, since she hasn’t seen me in years. It’s not a great patch—it may not hold—but for now, the file swap will keep her off me and might convince her bosses to consider me dead. They’ll recall her to Fort Meade for now whether she likes it or not. Fern may not buy it, but she can’t argue that the body doesn’t line up with the file info—Lass was actually a decent match, once they scrub off the filth. She couldn’t tell us apart if I walked up and kissed her.”
“Kiss that icicle and all bets are off.” A shudder of the ghost thrashing ripped across my frame and almost brought me to my knees. I guessed Lass didn’t like being a decoy. I could feel him trying to crack me open and escape and I didn’t think I’d enjoy the process if he did. I gasped from the twisting pain. “We need to get out of here and get rid of Lass.”
CHAPTER 21
We evaded Laguire and escaped from the hospital to a taxi that took us to my condo in West Seattle. The temperature was nearly normal for Seattle in winter, and it wasn’t until we were outside I realized it was Wednesday—I’d been in the hospital overnight. Laguire hadn’t been as fast to respond as I’d thought.
At the condo, the ferret huddled in her nest and refused to have anything to do with me, twitching her head and backing away as if I smelled bad when I offered her a hand. Couldn’t blame her—me smelling of ghosts and monsters, carrying an angry spirit that lashed at me and screamed continually. I had to let Quinton take care of her while I took a shower. Chaos didn’t seem to mind that—being fond of him and his many interesting pockets.
Once I was out of the shower, Quinton tried to put me back to bed.
“You need some rest.”
“Not as much as I need to get rid of Lass,” I countered.
He made a face. “You don’t look good. You shake, you twitch… and you’re not too solid all the time.”
“All the more reason to get this ghost out. We need to find the string Lass mentioned—the leash—and take her pet back to Qamaits.”
“How do you expect to find one piece of string in Pioneer Square—whatever it looks like?”
“Lass will help—if he knows what’s good for him.” Lass writhed and kicked, sending pains through my legs and shouting obscenities in my head.
“You can’t rest even until it’s dark? I could go to the Women in Black vigil and come back for you.”
“There’s no way I could rest. Not without drugs—and anything strong enough to knock Lass out will take me down for another day.” Lass didn’t seem to mind that idea, cooling his ire for a moment in contemplation of a fix. “Besides, if the undergrounders are at the memorial and Solis and the Feds are busy at the hospital, they won’t be in our way in Pioneer Square. If I can find the leash, I think I can control Sisiutl and put paid to this whole sorry mess.” The boiling fury inside me shrieked and struck in terror at the thought. I stumbled and had to sit down. I pretended it was just to put on dry shoes.