Darkening Skye (Under Covers Book 1) Read online

  "How do you know that?" I asked, too surprised to complain about the fact that my possible temporary undercover partner was not cleared for active duty.

  "We go to the gym together. You'll like her," Katherine said. "She's a fan of yours."

  Fan? Why would I like that in a person? The only people who liked me were those whose dark secrets and desires I understood. My "fans" were bigger weirdos than me, who were grateful that they found someone they could relate to, someone who didn't judge them. Fans. I had gathered quite a few over the years, from deranged murders to disgraced cops.

  Chapter 4 Walker and Woods

  Skye

  I liked New York. I really did. Probably no one could tell that I liked it by the way I was scowling at the grey sky through the tiny window in the Evidence office or the rather violent manner in which I pounded on the stapler. You do one awesome job and you have to schlep all the way to the other coast until the dust settles over Los Angeles.

  After three months of deep cover and fourteen convictions, I got a medal, a raise and a transfer. All that and a gunshot wound landed me a desk job. I had been temporarily reassigned to New York the month before and once autumn hit the city, the atmosphere became so charged up that I felt like jumping out of my skin all the time. Which I promptly did when I heard my sergeant address me.

  "Hey, Walker, the Captain wants you."

  "Thanks, Sarge."

  The guy nodded and walked out. I finished stapling the report, and dropped it on Sgt. Long's desk. I tightened my ponytail and ran the tongue over my teeth and around my lips. I've had a jam doughnut earlier while I watched my favorite show - a Woods and Robinson interrogation. I didn't want to walk into the Captain's office with a strawberry jam crust at the corners of my mouth. Mmm, strawberries.

  That was one thing I liked about my new station almost as much as watching Woods's interrogations. The amazing doughnuts more than made up for the foul coffee.

  I knocked on the Captain's half open door.

  "Come in, Walker," the Captain said. "Close the door."

  He looked tired, but that could be just because of his pale skin. So many New Yorkers looked like ghosts to my Californian eyes. He had wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and some puffiness under them. I remembered reading his name in the paper that morning, in the article about the tourist murders. People were getting restless at the risk of tourists staying away from the Big Apple if they felt unsafe, and the pressure must have piled up on his head. That made Captain Sheridan Jackson an unhappy overworked and frustrated cop.

  "How are you getting on in our fair city?"

  "Fine, sir. Cops are cops even when they're buried in the archives."

  He let out short laugh that sounded like the bark of a big dog. I wondered what dogs had grey hair and red eyes. Rabid dogs probably. Or werewolves. I reigned in my less than cop-like theories. He looked terrible. Poor guy.

  "Your sergeant says you're doing well, but you're itching to get back in the field. "

  "Yes, sir," I admitted. "I am well aware of the importance of evidence and archiving in police work, but I do want to get back out there."

  "Your physical results don't clear you for patrols yet. However, I have something that would get you out of the office."

  I tried not to get my hopes up, but judging by Captain Jackson's amused look, my ears might as well be wiggling with excitement. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and a spark in his eyes shaved some years off the man. That perked me up. I was a people pleaser and nothing made me happier than making someone's day a little bit brighter.

  "It's a surveillance operation. We have a lead about the Tourist Murders but we can't get close to our suspect. Here's his file. Look over it and let me know if you'd be interested in working the case."

  I took the file from him, and at the same time I opened my mouth to say I wanted the job, but he preempted me from consenting blindly.

  "Don't. Read the file first. It's relatively low risk, but nothing is ever without any risks. If we're right, the guy is a vicious killer."

  First thing that popped up was the detectives' names - Woods and Robinson. It was a dream come true. I enjoyed sparring with Robinson every week, but the chance to actually work with her and her partner was beyond my wildest hopes. I was wiggling my toes while reading the file. My enthusiasm tempered a little when I got to the photos. My experience with dead bodies was just theoretical, from the Academy. All my actual experience was working in Vice.

  The victims' photos bothered me. Not just the fact that they were dead bodies, but all the women looked a lot like me. I swallowed hard when I read through the autopsy descriptions. Young, fit, blonde, tanned. Five New York tourists who could be everyone's image of a California girl, even if none of them was actually from the Golden State.

  When I looked up, I saw that Captain Jackson was studying me. I smiled brightly at him and I saw was taken aback. He didn't expect the smile, but I couldn't help it. Smiling had been my go to response for as long as I could remember. I had been a happy child, a well-adjusted teenager and up until the moment I got shot, a lucky cop. This case was a huge opportunity for my career, why wouldn't I grab it with a smile?

  "Dvorak looks good for it. I'm in," I said.

  "It's just surveillance. At most you will strike a conversation with his daughter. I know you've been undercover before and you can play by the rules. Don't make me regret giving you this chance."

  "No problem, sir. Thank you, sir."

  "You will work with the lead detective on this case," he said, and picked up the phone. "Come here. Both of you."

  Nicholas Woods. I was going to work with Nicholas freaking Woods? I'd been nervous as hell around Katherine, but detective Nicholas Woods was a legend. I started watching his interrogations to while away the long boring hours and I ended up in awe of the guy. Maybe the jam doughnuts were not the only good thing about being stuck in Evidence. I kept going back and forth between the top two things I loved about New York. I tried to compose myself and not gush too much around my future partner. It turned out that it was easier said than done.

  Katherine Robinson came in first. She nodded at me with the same distant-friendly demeanor from the gym and I smiled back at her. My smile froze when HE walked in a few moments later. I literally felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I'd only felt that kind of dark energy before a really ugly storm hit Los Angeles.

  His flesh and blood appearance made me realize just how old were those recorded interrogations. After meeting Katherine, I thought that her partner looked tall just because she was petite, and since she looked pretty much the same as in those recordings, I expected Nicholas Woods to be just as unchanged. The man I watched every day on the computer screen was six feet tall, athletic, slender, with broad shoulders and sharp features. He moved in the interrogation room with the grace of a tango dancer. He exuded masculinity and poise. The man in front of me was a turbocharged version. He had an aura of power that made me shiver. His tall frame no longer seemed boyish. I tried to censor myself but one adjective came into my mind unbidden and unwelcome.

  Fuckable.

  Worst word ever!

  Chapter 5 Names and identities

  Nicholas

  I didn't know what I expected, but definitely not a living version of the victims. I had seen six bodies just like hers lie down on the cold slab in the Medical Examiner's office. I had seen doctor Bachman cut open six bodies like the one in front of me. I had looked through the personal belongings of six girls and imagined their lives before they had been cut short by a sick and twisted man.

  Jackson had made the right call. A girl like her would push all the right buttons with Dvorak. She was the right person to incite him, and I was the right person to understand him. This case had landed on my desk almost a year earlier, and while I had cleared other cases, this one kept piling corpses and I kept diving deeper into the killer's mind. I shook her hand, I pretended that everything was fine while saying it was
nice to meet her, and I silently began to worry that I might not function well without Katherine by my side.

  I had to find something that would separate her from the victims. The long blond hair tied up in a ponytail, the tanned skin, the toned body, the bright smile - everything I had seen in the selfies on the victims' cellphones. My eyes caught on her mouth. I ignored the pouty, sensual, kissable lips, focusing instead on the fine trace of white powder on her upper lip. I had noticed that sometimes about Katherine after we raided our favorite doughnut place but I had never felt the urge to wipe the sugar with my thumb. I was getting into a fatherly character far too early with this girl.

  "You both worked undercover before, so I trust you to create a compelling cover story. It's a high profile case so it will take at most a couple of days to go through the red tape. Use this time to work on the story."

  And just like that, we were dismissed. Katherine lead the girl to our desks.

  "Do you want a coffee, Skye?" she asked.

  The girl shook her head and her smile brought my gaze back to the sugar on her lip. Before we got called back to Jackson's office I had looked her up. What kind of a name was Skye anyway? And what kind of parents with the surname Walker would name their child Skye? As if she heard my thoughts, Katherine asked her about her name. Katherine is great at putting people at ease when she wanted to. She was even better at rattling suspects and being the most terrifying five feet two badass.

  "So… Skye Walker. I've always meant to ask about your name."

  She sighed. She probably got that a lot.

  "Yes, I know. My parents asked my brother's input. They were aware of the Star Wars thing but they didn't care it might sound weird. They're kind of hippies," she said as a tentative explanation. "They gave up their corporate jobs when my brother was born and they moved into a commune. "

  "What's his name?" I asked.

  She looked at me with a twinkle in her warm brown eyes the color of old, good whiskey.

  "Jack," she said. " Jack Inigo Walker," she added and I could hear the suppressed laughter in her voice.

  Katherine snorted and I couldn't help but smile.

  "Inigo? Like in Princess Bride?" I asked.

  The girl nodded.

  "What's your full name then?"

  "Joan Skye," she said with a shrug. "I was Joan through high school and college but when I joined the Academy, I decided to embrace Skye to reassure my parents that I'm not becoming a crypto fascist."

  I made a note that she had chosen to go by her weird name. Under all that model police officer façade, she was not a conformist. The Walkers themselves sounded like an interesting but tight knit family. Was she going to have trouble acting like my estranged daughter?

  "You should let them know you will be out or reach for a few days," I said. "And anyone else who might worry if you disappear."

  A shadow passed across her features so fast I wondered if I had really seen it.

  "I will, right before we go dark," she said.

  Go dark. That was an unusual phrase. It didn't sound like the sort of terms used in the Vice squad. It was probably from the movies. She was so young.

  "Let's go talk details," Katherine said. "Interrogation two is free."

  Skye bounced out of her chair. By the time I gathered my notes and packed the file she was already half way across the squad room. Where did this girl get the energy? Her ponytail swung left and right like a metronome, and I began to hum a tune to that rhythm. I got it under control by the time the door closed behind us.

  "We thought that a good cover story would be that you moved back in with your dad after you graduated from Berkeley."

  "I graduated like five years ago. No one will believe I'm 19," she said.

  Katherine and I shared one of our looks that save us from talking in front of suspects. Skye picked up on it.

  "What?" she asked looking from Katherine to me.

  "You can pass for 19, but it's not that important. Let's say you worked back east but you quit your job after your mother died to be with your father," Katherine said and I was grateful. I felt silly enough to realize that I can't judge my partner's age very well, although I actually knew the real number.

  "Oh," she said and sadness fell on her beautiful features.

  My heart shrunk and instinctively I wanted to put an arm around her shoulders.

  "Did it look right? Or I should act all brave to be more helpful with daddy's grief?"

  I reeled at the change. She was good! I'm trained to read people and I bought her sadness. If that was the only revelation, I'd feel a lot better about the mission. Unfortunately, something I didn't want to acknowledge jolted inside me when she said daddy.

  It was too late to turn back now. I was stuck with the mission I wanted, with the perfect partner as bait for one of the most sadistic murderers I had seen in my twenty-year career.

  "You did great," Katherine said. "It will work on Dvorak and his daughter, but make sure you don't do it too often."

  Skye reached across the table and ran her fingers through the documents in my folder. I pushed it toward her but she ignored me. She fished out a photo of Anna Dvorak, and twirled it in her long elegant fingers, looking at it, then turning it toward me, looking at it, showing it to me. I put my hand over hers to stop the motion. She dropped the photo but she didn't pull her hand away. The girl's photo was on the table between us. She looked like the five dead girls and like the ball of energy whose hand I was still holding. I let it go and expected her to pretend that nothing happened.

  "They all look like her. And she looks like me."

  "Yes," Katherine said in the tense silence. "We'll be there. We'll keep you safe."

  "If you want out," I said but she interrupted me.

  "No. It's ok. We have to get this guy."

  She was right, but that didn't make it any easier. In my mind, I was already too close to the killer. On top of that I wasn't going to have Katherine close enough to keep me grounded and I had to take care of a rookie. So what if her file said she had undercover experience? From where I stood, she seemed too young for comfort. Her next words and her whiskey colored eyes brought the pressure on even harder.

  "I trust you."

  Chapter 6 Becoming Sophia

  Skye

  Why did I say that aloud? Maybe it was just for show. I was a little scared but there was no way they would drop the ball with me. Deep cover meant that we were going to spend all the time in character and we'd live next to a killer's house, but we'd still be in contact with the others.

  I had just lied to Nicholas Woods. I didn't trust him with my life. I respected the guy as a detective but I knew nothing about him as a person. Having a partner while undercover was a burden. I learned that lesson the hard way. I did fine for the first two and a half months of my mission and as soon as they sent me someone else, the whole operation blew up. Undercover work and team work didn't go hand in hand in my book. Then again, my book was still short and it had many pages to be written.

  I wondered what they thought about my involvement. Woods and Robinson kicked ass since before I even thought about a career in law enforcement. Having me around might feel like babysitting for them. Well, tough cookies! I was the new generation of kick-ass-ers.

  Whatever doubts each of us had, we tried to make it work. The clock was ticking and we didn't want to give this monster the chance to make another victim. Maybe sweet innocent Anna Dvorak herself was in danger.

  Four hours and more boxes of doughnuts than I cared to count later, we had worked out the saline details of our cover. Woods summarized it aloud, his voice low and rough.

  "The baseline is that you're my daughter. You went to college in California and stayed there but when your mother died I didn't take it well and you came back to look after me."

  He sounded exhausted. Broken. I wanted to help him win against this monster. My heart reached out to him. I didn't want to embarrass myself by giving him a hug. Even in LA, it took them a wh
ile to get used to my hugging ways. When he went on, I congratulated myself for that because he had clearly gone into character. I had studied his interrogations and I guessed that he was using one of his techniques.

  "We sold our flat downtown and got a condo in Gracenote because it's a gated community and I'm obsessed with safety. I manipulated you into giving up your life in California to have you here where I can keep you safe. I'm overly controlling and I constantly check on you. This is how we'll make sure he knows that he can't make a move on you, in case he's tempted."

  I swallowed dryly at the sound of that. At least they were treating me with enough respect to talk openly about the risks. I was everything that monster was hunting for. Of course he'd be tempted to do to me what he did to the others.

  Woods didn't lie to me, but I was lying to them. The shiver that went through me was only partially caused by fear. The other reason was to hear Nicholas Woods say that he was overly controlling in my regards. All my life I wanted nothing more than light vanilla sex and within a few hours of meeting my idol, I was reacting to words like control and obsession. My skin still tingled where he had touched me. I looked down at my hand and I saw that was tracing with my fingers the shape of his hand on my skin.

  Captain Jackson walked in.

  "We got green light from the DA's office. Give your requirements to officer Mayers and get your stuff in order. You'll have everything you need to move in."

  *

  Twenty-four hours after accepting the mission, I was in a car with Nicholas Woods, heading into the killer's lair. We were Mark and Sophia Doyle.

  "You sure you don't want to drive?" he asked again.

  "Nah," I said. I was in character already and Woods trying to treat me as his equal was taking me out of the zone.

  They had talked me into pretending I was nineteen-year-old Sophia Doyle, and she would not want to drive the car if she had her Dad to chauffeur her around. Sophia was a spoiled daddy's princess and the only redeeming feature about her was that she cared enough about her father to give up her volunteer work in LA to be with him. Sophia may have been a pampered Berkeley student, but she was also helping in an animal shelter and living on what her parents sent her every month.