Assuming the pair had strung dead skunks around their necks under their coats.
Jo blinked her eyes and rubbed her nose again. God, she’d never smelled anything so awful. It was like baby powder and roadkill—
All at once, her headache came on with a vengeance, her skull pounding with pain. Clearly, the stink was the trigger.
Nope. Not gonna do this for two hours, she decided. No matter how rude it is to move.
Grabbing her backpack, she got to her feet and shuffled up to the next car in line—and thank God that whatever the smell was didn’t carry into the other space.
Just as the train bumped and started forward, she sat down at a new window seat and massaged her temples. As the agony continued to build, she refused to submit to it. For some reason, she had the feeling it was trying to distract her. Get her off some kind of thought trail.
Even though that was crazy talk. Anthropomorphizing a migraine? Really?
Still . . . that stench. What about the stench—
Even as the vise cranked down harder on her skull, she probed further the conviction that she had smelled that horrible stink before. Sometime recently. Very recently . . .
Going into her phone, she went to her call log. Without knowing what she was looking for, she checked what had come in on, and gone out of, her phone over the last couple of days. Lot of calls back and forth with McCordle. Then there was Dougie looking for money. Telemarketing bullcrap—
Jo sat up.
What the hell had she been doing, talking to Bill at ten p.m. A number of times?
She’d been home at the time. Or should have been. And yet she had no memory of speaking to him then. Sure, they regularly chatted about their little extracurricular hobby with the supernatural—but not after ten o’clock on a proverbial school night. And not over and over again within such a short period of time . . .
No, wait, she thought. She’d been out somewhere. She had gone in search of . . . something.
Yes, in her car. It had been raining—
Moaning, Jo shut her phone down and had to let her head fall back against the seat rest. As she breathed in a shallow way, she vowed to find out where the hell she had gone and why she had called her friend.
She was done with the knowledge holes in her life.
At least a simple mystery like where she had been when she had spoken with Bill had to be solvable.
It just had to be.
Thirty minutes after nightfall, Butch parked the R8 in the downtown garage—and this time, he did not expect to meet with anyone. Not Mel. Not his roommate. Not his roommate’s estranged mother.
Yup, he wasn’t interested in crossing paths with anybody.
And FFS, it sure would be handy to dematerialize.
Instead, he hoofed it. Stepping out of the garage, he popped the collar on his leather jacket, ducked his head, and started making time. The rest of the Brotherhood were still back at the mansion, doing a weapons check—something he technically should have been involved with. But whatever. He needed a little personal time before—
As his phone started going off, he took it out and killed the vibration without bothering to check to see who was calling. This wasn’t going to take long, and as soon as he was finished, he’d hit the home team up, pull a mea culpa, and proceed with the regularly scheduled program.
It took him six minutes to get to his destination, and as he stared up at the twenty-story office building, it occurred to him that he had no memory of how he and Mel had gotten inside the night before. She must have had a key. Had it been through the front entrance? That seemed unlikely given that there were revolving doors that had been locked in place because it was after hours.
Around back?
Unease prickled up the nape of his neck, and he palmed one of his guns as he went down the side of the building. In the middle of the block, he found an unmarked entrance, but it was bolted closed with no wiggle room whatsoever.
Hell, the damn thing didn’t have a lock to pick or even a card reader. Had to be an emergency exit.
Rounding the far corner and facing off at the back of the property, he hoped for a receiving dock in the shallow parking area—and had his prayers answered. But that was as far as the good news went. He couldn’t get into anything. Not the bay doors that were all rolled down tight, and not the three regular doors with their electronic key readers for which—duh—he had no pass card.
He went around the footprint of the building. Twice.
Before he caved.
Taking out his phone, he was cursing as he hit send on the call. No reason to go into his contacts to find the number. The fucker in question had been the last person who had called him. Three times in a row. In the last three and a half minutes—
“Where the fuck are you?” V snapped.
“That’s not important. I need a favor—”
“Oh, it’s not important. I’m on lockdown here—with Lassiter, P.S., who’s going to make me watch The Munsters all night long—”
“—I need to get into a locked facility—”
“—when I’m an Addams Family kind of male—”
“—and it’s got these card reader thingies—”
“—and more to the point, you’ve clearly skipped weapons inspection—”
All at once, they both stopped and barked, “Will you listen to what the fuck I’m saying!”
Then, also at the same time:
“You’re watching TV with Lassiter?”
“You’re trying to break into a building?”
Butch fought a wave of exhaustion. “Look, it’s not for business. I just need to get into this place, and you’re the only person who can help.”
“Where are you? And if you say not important again I’m going to punch this angel because he’s the closest thing to me.”
“Not important—”
Over the connection, there was a muffled OW! What the FUCK, V!
“God, that was satisfying,” V murmured. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Butch looked over the loading dock, locating the security cameras that were mounted on the corners of the bays and above each of the three doors. There was also a refuse bin the size of a railcar and an Iron Mountain records storage unit. Neither of which were going to be helpful.
He cursed. “Don’t you have a universal card or something? I don’t want to set off any alarms.”
There was a rustle, like the brother was getting off a sofa. Then, in a softer voice, V said, “What are you up to, cop?”
“It’s not about the war or anything.”
“Okay, hold on.”
Butch exhaled in relief—then jumped back as V materialized right in front of him. The brother was in leathers and shitkickers—great— except without a single weapon on him. Unless you counted his acid tongue, which was only material in an argument.
Then again . . .
Plus that hand of his. But still.
“What the hell are you doing out here?” Butch snapped into his phone.
“Oh, sure,” V said bitterly into his own, “it’s fine for you to be in danger—”
“Get back home!”
“I thought you needed help, asshole—” V paused. Took his phone from his ear. Ended the call. “So, yeah, we’re face-to-face now. How ’bout we scream and yell at each other in person.”