Skin Trade(16)

I picked up one of the big equipment bags and started to reach for another, but Rocco got there first. I let him get it. Hooper reached for the last bag, and I was okay with that, too. It was when Grimes started to reach for the bag I was carrying that we had problems.

“I’ve got it, Lieutenant, thanks.”

We had a moment where he hesitated, and we looked at each other. I finally said, “You can get the luggage if you want.”

He gave a little nod and went for the luggage. I learned that Hooper was Sonny, because he was the one who opened the back of an SUV. The back was full of his own equipment. His assault vest was visible, as well as two different helmets. There was a lot of stuff, but no guns were visible.

He answered as if I’d asked, “Gun safe.” He moved the pile enough for me to see it.

“Aftermarket add-on?” I asked.

He nodded.

“I’ll have to look into that. It would satisfy the new law, as written, and be a heck of a lot more convienient.”

“We have to be ready to roll at any time.”

“Me, too.”

There was enough of his equipment already in there that adding my bags stuffed it full. Grimes joined us with my single suitcase in tow. “The pilot said this is all the luggage.”

“It is,” I said.

“Three bags, longer than you are tall, full of weapons, but only one suitcase for clothes,” Rocco said.

“Yep,” I said.

They all sort of nodded as they worked to find room for the suitcase in the back. I’d learned a long time ago that if you packed like a girl, you lost brownie points with the police. The idea was to try to be one of the guys; that meant you did not bring your entire wardrobe on a job. Besides, it was the continental United States; there’d be a mall somewhere if I ran out of clean clothes.

Hooper aka Sonny got in the driver’s seat. Grimes rode shotgun. Highest rank usually rode in front, or in back. Depended on the officer. Sergeant Rocco got in beside me. The mound of weapons and bags seemed to sort of press in from behind, as if the potential for destruction could leak out of the bags, or maybe it was nerves? I knew I had grenades in the bags. Yes, Mr. Grenade is your friend until you press, pull, or otherwise activate it, but still, boomy and fiery things were fairly new for me to carry. Part of me didn’t exactly trust it; no logic, just nervous. I didn’t like explosives.

We pulled out, and Shaw was still standing there in his ring of uniformed officers. He’d been the one to suggest we get out of the heat, but he was still standing in it, watching me from behind his mirrored shades. I realized I’d never seen his eyes, not once. I guess, to be fair, he’d never seen mine.

“He does know we can still see him, right?” I said as we drove past.

“Yes,” Grimes said, “why?”

“Because suddenly he looks unhappy.”

“We lost men,” Grimes said.

I looked at him and found that the pleasant face had slipped a little. Some of the pain that had to be in there showed around the edges. Pain, and that thin edge of anger that we all carry around with us.

“Nothing I can do will bring them back, but I will do everything I can to kill the vampire that did it.”

“We’re about saving lives, Marshal, not taking them,” Grimes said.

I opened my mouth, closed it, and tried to say something that wouldn’t upset him more. “I don’t save lives, Lieutenant, I take them.”

Rocco said, “Don’t you believe that killing the vampires saves their future victims?”

I thought about it, then shook my head. “I used to, and it may even be true, but it just feels like I kill people.”

“People,” he said, “not monsters.”

“Once I believed they were monsters.”

“And now?” Rocco asked.

I shrugged and looked away. I was seeing a lot of empty land and the beginnings of strip malls. It might have been Vegas, but the landscape was more Anywhere, USA.

“Don’t tell me the infamous Anita Blake is going soft?” This from Hooper.

Grimes said, “Hooper,” in a voice that clearly meant he was in trouble with the boss.

Hooper didn’t apologize. “You’ve told me my team is her go. I need to know, Lieutenant. We all need to know.”

Rocco didn’t so much as move or even wince; he went very still, as if he wasn’t sure what was about to happen. Just that reaction from him let me know that they didn’t question their looie much, if ever. That Hooper did it now showed just how upset they all were about the men they’d lost and the men in the hospital. That moment was Hooper’s way of grieving.

I sat beside Rocco and let the weighted silence stretch in the truck. I was going to follow the sergeant’s lead.