a tiny, dusty entryway leading into a long hallway lined with doors and apartment numbers. “Well?” I said, relieved to have her off the street and out of sight.
Liv reached into her pocket to feel the bloody sock again. Then she nodded toward the staircase, and I followed her up the first flight of stairs. On the second-floor landing, she reassessed, then started down the hallway, eyes half-closed, obviously letting the energy signature pull her.
She had told me once that the blood pull was really more of a feeling than a scent, and though I had little blood-tracking skill myself, I knew she was right. But as she worked her way down the hall, she sniffed the air softly, like a real bloodhound, though she didn’t even seem to know she was doing it.
About halfway down, she stopped and turned to me. “It starts to fade here….” She stepped back toward me, then stopped, closed her eyes and nodded, as if she was sure of something. “And it’s strongest here.” She stood directly between two apartment doors. “Is that 208 or 210?”
I glanced at the end of the hall, toward the first door, then followed the pattern to where we stood. “Two-ten,” I whispered, and reached for the doorknob. But then her hand landed on my arm, warm against my bare skin.
“Let me,” she insisted. “Men are still less threatened by women than by other men. I’ll have a better shot of getting in there without causing a scene.”
I nodded and stepped back from the door, not because I agreed with her—I didn’t—but because I could still feel her hand on my arm, and the surprise of being touched by her again had yet to fade.
She may not have looked scary, with her big blue eyes and jacket that hid her gun but not her curves, but Liv could track better than any man I’d ever met, and if word on the street could be believed, Rawlinson had turned her into a damn fine fighter. Over the past six years, living and working in this city had turned the funny, charismatic girl I’d loved with every cell of my body into a jaded, hard-edged loner I still couldn’t look at without catching my breath.
I’d never felt more alive, watching Liv prepare to charm—or maybe force—her way into some stranger’s apartment. Olivia was a wire wound too tight, always about to snap, but she lived on excitement and thrived under pressure. Being with her was like holding a bomb in both hands, watching the numbers tick back toward zero. I knew she’d eventually explode, and this time it might kill me.
But it was hard to care about the potential for collateral damage when just being near her again felt so good. So I pressed my back against the wall to the right of the door, gun drawn and ready in a two-handed grip. Liv’s gun was still concealed, but I had no doubt she could get to it in a hurry. She knocked on the door, but no one answered. There was no sound from inside.
Liv knocked again, but again got no response. “The pull’s still strong, which means he’s home but not answering. Or, he’s lying unconscious and near death from whatever wound Shen managed to inflict before dying.” She glanced up at me, brows raised in question. “Plan B?” she whispered, and I nodded.
B always stood for breaking and entering.
She stepped aside and pulled her gun while I holstered mine. I took the doorknob in both hands and twisted sharply. The lock broke with a metallic snap that seemed to echo much louder than it should have. But the door didn’t swing open.
“Dead bolt,” I said.
“Is that a problem?”
I gave her a disappointed look. “It’s like you don’t know me at all…. Step back.”
She stepped away from the door hesitantly as I dropped into a deep squat to stretch—which is when she figured out what I had in mind. “Wait, don’t …!” she whispered, but I was already in motion. My foot slammed into the door just beneath the knob and wood creaked loudly. Liv cringed over the noise, then shrugged. “May as well finish it now….”
I kicked again, and the interior frame gave way with the loud splinter of wood. Maybe not the most subtle entry, but definitely the fastest.
The door swung open, and I lurched to the right, watching her from across the doorway with my gun already drawn. For one long second, neither of us moved.
I couldn’t break Cam’s gaze, and my own breathing was heavy in anticipation. We shared that single, taut moment of expectancy until we realized that if the target was in there, he wasn’t coming out.
Finally, I nodded at the ruined door, reluctantly impressed by the damage, and lifted both brows in question. Cam gestured for me to go first. Which I liked.
I rounded the door frame and into the living room, gun aimed at the floor, scanning the room with my gaze and the entire apartment with whatever sense it is that feels the pull of blood. That pull was still there, but not as strong as it should have been. Not as strong as it would have been if the target were in the apartment, even if he wasn’t bleeding.
Cam came in behind me and pushed the front door closed, but it swung open a couple of inches again, because of the busted lock. I heard him checking behind doors and under furniture while I opened all the kitchen cabinets big enough for a man to crawl into.
“I think it’s clear,” I said, flicking the safety on my 9mm. But I kept the gun out, just in case. “Damned if I understand it, though.”
“Maybe he just left.” Cam kicked open the bedroom door and glanced beneath the bed, then in the closet, checking both potential hiding places gun first. “He is a Traveler, right? So he probably just stepped into a shadow and out of the apartment the minute he heard us.”
Which was why tracking a Traveler could be a real bitch. The only way to catch one was to trap him in a room with no shadows big enough for him to walk through. And that’s a lot harder than it sounds. Kori was a shadow-walker, and her grandmother had given up on grounding her when she was fourteen.
But.
“That shouldn’t matter,” I said. “So long as he’s alive, his energy signature should lead to him, not to his apartment.” Which Cam would know if he were a bloodhound—name-tracking works a little differently, and Cam was no better with blood than I was with names. “But the pull still feels like it’s coming from …
here.”
“Here … where?”
I closed my eyes and clutched the sock in my pocket again, through the plastic bag. The energy signature was fainter now, as the sock continued to dry, but I could still feel it. Eyes still closed, I turned until I faced the direction of the pull, and when I opened my eyes, I found myself staring at the open bathroom door.
“There.”
Cam crossed the room in a heartbeat. He pushed the door open all the way with one hand, then scanned the interior with his gun aimed and ready. He’d had training. The same kind of training I’d had. And he was good.
For a moment, I wondered if he was a cop. Was that why Anne had wanted us to work together? Was Cam actually using his criminal-justice degree, while I’d let my B.A. in philosophy rot in a drawer?
And if not, how was he making a living?
A second later, he took two steps into the bathroom and pulled the shower curtain back in one swift movement. It rattled on the rod, but revealed an empty—if
