Labyrinth (Book 5) Read Online Free PDF Page A

of my truck.
    By the time we were done, I barely had the energy to shower. Lucky for me, Quinton was willing to help with the soaping up and so on. He was sweet to me—sweeter than I deserved, perhaps, but I was grateful he was there, as always. As much as I tried to go it alone, I knew I was better with Quinton than without him. We were good together, and not just at the horizontal bop. It was nice to have someone to give up to once in a while, to show your weaknesses and not fear injury. It frightened me a little: Weakness and dependence are dangerous. I worried that he might be hurt by my need, by my relying on him, hurt the way Christelle had been. She’d worked for my dead father and for her loyalty and proximity had come to some still unknown, but probably horrible, end. Thinking of it, I fought an impulse to cry, feeling it in my throat like a lump of clay that even the soothing touch of hot water and soap had difficulty washing away.
    We got into bed about one a.m. while Grendel snored outside the bedroom door. Quinton would have liked to do something a bit more athletic than just sleep, but my energy was shot, and we curled together like exhausted puppies. I sank into a dreamless torpor as he pulled me tight against his body. The snowfall-flutter of moths under the streetlamp outside was the last thing I saw as my eyelids closed and the world fell away at last.
    Too few hours further into the morning, Detective Rey Solis rang through from the front door until I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I cursed the dogged policeman and his sunrise-loving ways. At this rate, I thought, I might get some decent sleep sometime after Satan opened an ice skating rink.
    I’m sure I looked like something that had been extracted from under a thorny bush when I answered my door in dirty jeans, a Noir City Film Festival T-shirt, and bare feet. Grendel the pit bull completed the ensemble, gluing himself to my leg and staring at the detective as if measuring him for a side order of fries.
    I glanced at Solis from between puffy eyelids. The man isn’t very tall or very wide, and he looks like he’s made of gouged and pitted leather, but he projects a quiet solidity that gets a lot of suspects talking just to fill the silence and get out from under those unblinking black eyes. I’d have liked to wait him out on principle, but I didn’t have the patience. “Don’t say Rick died.”
    “No. Your neighbor is doing well this morning. He requests that you look after his dog.”
    I pointed at Grendel. “Got it. And Rick’s all right?”
    “Yes. He should be released tomorrow.”
    “So what . . . you got demoted?”
    “Eh? No.”
    “Then, what brings a detective from Homicide to my door if the guy who got shot is fine?”
    Solis made a small shrug, his round, impassive face remaining blank while his close-clinging corona of energy flickered yellow and gold. “Courtesy call.”
    “Bull.”
    “May I come in?”
    The living room gave ample evidence that something was up, piled as it was with bug-out bags and Quinton’s electronic and computer gear. I didn’t want Solis to start speculating but I didn’t want to have a conversation about what had gone down the night before while standing in the hallway. I didn’t want him to catch sight of Quinton either, whom he had known as Reggie Lassiter ever since our run-in with a monster on Foster Island. Complex as the situation already was, I wanted to avoid any additional conversational land mines, like . . . “Why are you still hanging out with that guy from the marsh?” or “Seen any monsters lately?” No matter what I did, this was not going to go well. . . .
    I made up my mind and stepped back to let him walk past me. “Sorry about the mess. I just got back from a business trip last night and I haven’t put anything away except for shoving stuff the dog might eat into the closet.”
    Solis grunted. “Ah. Where had you gone?”
    “London.”
    The detective looked at the pile