Page 34 of Pure Killers

They're in my pocket, despite my protestations to him. They weigh heavy, offering something we might otherwise never find. "I'm going to turn them into evidence."

"Sure. Listen, if you are going there, wait for me to get out of hospital. I don't like you going alone after what just happened here."

"Come on," I say, dropping any pretence that I'm still intending to do the right thing. "Like you said, everyone involved is dead. What are the odds of two incidents in a row, besides?"

Dirk’s lips thin. "I'm fine. They've bandaged me up. I can go with you…"

"Don't be a shitty patient. You need to go to the hospital or Tawill will shoot you herself and you know it.”

“It’s a scratch! If anything, my car is the real patient.”

I glance back over my shoulder at Dirk’s poor car. One tyre blown, the front windscreen a mess of cobwebbed cracks, and acouple of bullets buried in the upholstery. I can hardly disagree that it’s in worse shape. “Well…”

“El, I really don’t think it’s a good idea to go alone…”

I click my tongue. “I'll be fine, mother hen. I need to get there before people hear about the political partner too and start stomping around his office. Don't worry."

Dirk sighs through his nose. As the attendant pulls him further back into the ambulance, he goes, all the while muttering about bloody paperwork. "Don't go after dark!" he calls out as the doors close and the siren comes on.

"I know, I know," I call back, though I can't say whether he could have heard me.

***

I go after dark.

It’s not that I mean to, but by the time I get to leave the manor in one of the extra cars brought by the forensics, the sun is going down, and I hit Tregam's infamous traffic on the way back in. I drop the car back off at the station, figuring it best not to draw attention considering where I’m about to go, and catch the subway Downtown. By this hour, the subway is mostly empty. A thick-set older woman with wispy grey hair who stares at me long enough that I have to figure she’s seen me on TV gets off at the same stop, but when I look behind me on the next street, there’s no sign of her or anyone else.

By the time I'm standing on the street, the dark building is made more oppressive by the fact that most of the lights are off. The clouds beyond are lit up by light pollution, but the daylight is long gone. This building is old for a skyscraper, having made the news several times because the thin glass of the windows has allowed for a number of accidents, not to mention the fewbusinessmen and office workers who decided to take a dive on purpose. But replacing them has never happened, regardless.

Unease creeps up my spine, and I glance both ways up the street, toward the lights of the main road around the corner. I don't see anyone, but the feeling of being watched is becoming familiar to me lately.

Probably just Needler, I think, then take a moment to consider the 'just' in that sentence. How did that become my norm?

I put it down as a problem for another time, muttering, "Sorry Dirk," and head on in.

I pass no one else in the elevator or the dimmed light of the hallways. The office, up on the fourteenth floor at the end of a cream-walled hallway, is what I'd expected, a velvet couch, a round rug under an oak desk, and a display cabinet with an authentic-looking collection of antiques which, upon closer perusal, are somewhat mismatched. A long window takes up the back wall, looking out at the other skyscrapers.

Leaving the door open to make it to the desk without stumbling in the dark, I switch the desk lamp on and start going through the drawers. Did Needler come here? If he did, what did he find? We have to assume he was sure before he made the hit, and this seems like a good place to find evidence. And there’s what he said to me; ‘going places you can’t or won’t’. Well, I guess this at least is proving him wrong on that point.

But at first glance, there’s little of interest. I'm idly thumbing through a sheaf of papers, wondering what I'm even looking for, when something tumbles out in the hall. The office door is just slightly ajar, letting little extra light in to join with the dim glow of the lamp. I put down the binder, stepping towards the corner of the desk. I thought I’d left the door more open.

I’m just about to step out from behind the desk and towards the door, to open it again, when I catch the movement in thecorner of my eye. Before I can turn fully, the shape lunges off the couch and collides with me.

I cry out as we tumble awkwardly, bumping into the office chair on the way down to the floor. My attacker is on top of me, and the only thing I know for sure is that this isn’t Needler.

My hands wrap around thin wrists as fingers reach for my face, but they’re using their weight to push something down against my lips. Whipping my head side to side, I buck my hips once and violently so that whatever they were trying to press into my mouth tumbles under the desk.

"You're gonna eat it, bitch,” a woman’s voice grates at me, accompanying the words with a heavy strike across my temple, which snaps my head to the side. I see then what tumbled under the desk. A pill, but one I recognise. In pictures from the Talisof case. A cyanide pill.

She hits me again, one of my wrists pinned under her knee, and I taste blood this time. She doesn’t seem or look big, but she's strong, a kind of weight lent by being a bit crazy and willing to kill. "You took my Greg away!" she shouts, and I register her reaching for her pocket again. Knowing that means she's got another pill, I writhe, trying to get free. My head pounds, my hand throbbing where she's digging her knee into it.

Her nail scrapes my chin. I feel the pill brush the corner of my mouth and clamp my teeth shut. That’s when she punches me hard in the stomach and my vision blackens. Pinning my other hand, she clamps her hand on my jaw, squeezing, nails biting. When she leans down, I can see her face, eyes alight with something like ecstasy as she tastes victory. My eyes go wide. It’s the woman from the subway, though now crazed. It wasn’t Needler following me this time at all.

The pill is coming towards my mouth, her hand like a vice on my jaw holding me from wrenching to the side. This is it. She's going to drop cyanide down my throat. I wish I knew how long itwill take after that. I need to tell Dirk it's not his fault. Maybe I'll have time.

When her face cracks into a wide grin, coming closer and closer, like she wants to watch every moment, all I can see is her. I don't see him behind her.

She freezes suddenly, her grip tightening on my jaw, scraping skin away as her head whips back. Suddenly her weight leaves me, and she's drawn up onto her feet, the leering grin replaced by a sneer of pain as she reaches back to where he's got her by a fistful of hair.

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