Bitter Black Kiss Read Online Free PDF Page A

to blackmail him.”
    “Alvarez? How are they connected?” Vasquez didn’t ask how he got Amy to confess.
    “She worked over at The Wolf’s Den, Stone’s strip joint.” He wished he could go back and change things. “It was just one of the titty bars Alvarez frequented. He met her there.”
    “And the blackmail?”
    “Amy was in bad withdrawals when Stone dumped her. Alvarez just happened to be the right guy at the right time. They hooked up and found that they both had a connection to Stone. Alvarez gets BST from Stone’s people then distributes it. They thought they could skip the middle man, make a lot of money. Only, Stone wasn’t so easy to push around.”
    Vasquez pursed her lips. “That’s a lot of speculation. You’d better be damned sure.”
    “You want to hear what she told me or not?” He narrowed his eyes, daring her to say more. “When the attempt to blackmail Stone fell through, Alvarez tried to distance himself from it. He fingered her as the brains of the whole scheme.”
    Vasquez wrote at a furious pace. “Did he know she fingered him as her dealer? Maybe he confronted her, and it got ugly.”
    “I have no idea. Can’t ask them since he’s dead, and she’s missing.” He leaned back in the chair. “I went to her apartment, but she was gone. I managed to follow her trail a ways, but lost it near Old Town.”
    Vasquez regarded him a moment. “Did Alvarez have the L-virus?”
    Brody scrubbed a hand across his chin. “We’ve already gone over this.”
    “The anonymous caller claimed someone else was in Amy’s apartment. The caller indicated that they were in wolf form. We found a clump of hair at the top of the stairs, and it appears to be from an animal.”
    “Anything else?” Brody pushed the chair away from the metal table.
    “I assume you went to Alvarez for his side of things?” Vasquez tapped the pen against the folder. “Did he give you the wrong information, Brody? Is that why you beat him to a pulp?"
    “Don’t be stupid.” He glared at the two-way glass. Someone behind it cleared their throat. “I could share my suspicions, but we both know the department will look the other way. Just like always.”
    Vasquez gripped his sleeve and hauled him to his feet. “That’s the kind of talk that got you canned. We’re done here. I’ll walk you out.”
    On the street, the fading sunshine did not cheer him. Not even the roller-skating blonde in the red hot pants could raise his spirits. They moved down the block toward the parking garage. “That’s not why I got fired and you know it. At least, it’s not the only reason.”
    “It’s all in the past.” A fat uniformed officer with a mustache waddled past. He held a drink tray and a greasy, rolled up bag from the burger stand across the street. Once he had passed, she said, “Just let it go.”
    Brody scowled at their reflection in the shop windows. His lanky reflection looked ragged around the edges. He traded his dress clothes in favor of a faded t-shirt and jeans. He did it out of comfort, but also in an effort to fit in, to blend with the crowd. It tended to make the job go a lot smoother if you didn’t stand out.
    Vasquez was his complete opposite. She was all business in her conservative suit and sensible shoes. Her skin was darker than his, her Hispanic blood-heritage there for all to see. His blood-heritage hid just underneath the surface, yet it was always waiting for him to set it loose.
    Let it go, Vasquez had said. She had no idea how impossible or how dangerous her request really was.
    He noticed that she led him to the adjoining shopping center’s parking lot.
    “Why are you parked out here?”
    She grinned and clapped him on the back. “When they said they were going to question you, I beat it over there so I could do it myself. They think you had something to do with Amy’s trashed apartment.”
    “Me?” Indignation sputtered through him. “Over a few misplaced fingerprints?”
    Vasquez’s face