A black car screeched to the curb near the ambulance. Gardner emerged and I could have sworn that for a split second her face registered complete panic. The emotion was quickly doused as she put on her cop mask. She flashed credentials to the firemen working the scene and beelined for Morales and me.
“Everyone okay?” Her hawkish eyes moved over the streaks of watery blood running down my arms.
“It’s just flesh wounds,” I said. “We’re all okay.”
Her shoulders lowered a fraction. “Good. Now what the fuck happened?” She said this to Morales, who as ranking agent had been in charge of the raid.
“Mez found a bomb in the oven. Best guess it was a booby trap left by Dionysus, but”—he sucked in a deep breath, as if bracing himself—“we found evidence that Aphrodite Johnson might have tossed the apartment before we got there.”
Gardner’s eyes widened. But before she could comment on that revelation, her phone rang. She looked at the screen and cursed. “Shit, it’s Eldritch. Be right back.”
She put the phone to her ear with as much enthusiasm as if it were a gun. “Captain—Yes, I—No, that is absolutely not—” By that point she turned away to take the rest of the ass chewing in private.
“What a shit show,” I said.
Morales nodded sagely. “Totally FUBAR’d.”
The med wiz applied a bandage to the back of my neck. “I’m going to dose you with some saline intravenously just in case.”
I nodded my consent. The pinch of the needle paled in comparison with the thrum of pain behind my eyes. “So our next step is to go get Aphrodite, right?”
Morales’s head tilted. “Correction: My next step is to get Aphrodite. You’re going home.”
“Like hell—”
He held up a hand. “Don’t even try it, Prospero. Go home and get some rest.”
He probably hadn’t meant the comment as judgment, but I was raw as an exposed nerve. “Don’t pull that fragile-woman-needs-protecting crap with me, Morales. I’m fine.”
He looked at me like I’d stepped in dog shit. “This has nothing to do with you being a chick, Prospero. I need you in fighting shape for the Blue Moon.”
I deflated. “Sorry.” Rubbing my temples with my hands, I closed my eyes. “Jesus Christ, this case.”
“We still have a week until the Blue Moon. We’ll get him.”
I opened my eyes and looked my partner in the eye. “Of course we will. I just hope we can do it without getting blown up, shot, or poisoned.”
Morales’s smile was weary. “Just another day in the MEA.”
Chapter Eighteen
When I arrived at Pen’s apartment that night, I took a deep breath before exiting the car. The last thing I wanted to do was walk into her place with the weight of the day hanging around my shoulders.
Even after a shower and some grub, I still felt like shit warmed over. It didn’t help that I’d forgotten Danny had a sleepover at his friend Aaron’s house that night. I’d tried to follow Morales’s orders to relax, but after half an hour in that silent house I’d been ready to punch myself in the face just for something to do.
That’s when I decided it was time to visit Pen again. I knew Baba had her weekly romance novel book club at the senior center that night and Lavern was working night shift, so Pen would be alone. Didn’t call ahead because I knew she’d tell me not to bother.
Grabbing the bag of food I’d brought, I exited the car and jogged across the street to the building. The building’s facade was the color of a rotten peach. Back during Prohibition, the Mundane gang bosses had stashed their mistresses in the tiny apartments there. Pen loved it because she said she enjoyed living someplace with a scandalous history. As I climbed three stories of stairs—no elevator—I wondered what she’d think about the history once she was mobile and had to navigate those steps with her healing injuries slowing her down.
I used my key to enter the apartment. The living room was clean and held the lingering scent of Baba’s aromatherapy oils. I turned right and took the bag of sandwiches to the table in the pass-through that pretended to be a dining room. The galley kitchen was also clean. I briefly eyed the cabinet where I knew the bottle of rye waited to be violated, but decided to hold off until I found Pen.
A tiny hallway jutted off to the left from the kitchen. I ducked around the corner, expecting to find Pen asleep in her bed. The double mattress took up almost the whole room, but it was empty.
“Pen?” I called softly. A quick look confirmed the bathroom behind me was also empty. I stayed calm because I knew panicking never helped anyone. Moving quickly, I went back through the living room to the bedroom on the other side of the apartment. Pen had converted this room into a sort of office/closet. Guess the mobster’s dolls hadn’t had much use for clothes, because the apartment only had a tiny linen closet near the bathroom for storage. Besides the large portable clothing racks lining three of the room’s walls, there was a tiny writing desk wedged next to the door leading to the apartment’s balcony.
I was about to duck back out the room and go call Baba when I saw something move out on the balcony. Frowning, I went to investigate. While the rest of the apartment was roughly the same square footage as a shoe box, the balcony was surprisingly spacious. It formed an L-shape that stretched from one bedroom to the other.
I opened the door and poked my head out. At first, all I saw was a red-winged blackbird sitting on the railing. When I burst through, the damned thing didn’t fly away or move in surprise. Just turned those black-bead eyes on me as if I’d disturbed it.
My heart sank as I realized Pen wasn’t out there, either. But then a soft cough reached me.
Turning, I finally spied a bundle of blankets huddled on a chair over by the other balcony door. “Pen?”
The bundle froze, and then a hand emerged to push the blankets back from Pen’s face. I blew out a relieved breath. Rushing over, I knelt beside her. “What are you doing out here?”
I looked her over, as if expecting to find new wounds. But all I saw was the same neck brace and the cast on her arm. The bruises on her face were less puffy and mellowing into a dull yellow instead of the green they’d been a few days before.
But it wasn’t the bruises around her eyes that worried me—it was the eyes themselves. Her pupils were dilated as hell, and when she looked at me her gaze was glassy and unfocused.