Raven's Destiny Read online

  And because I’m a woman, she thought.

  Moon shrugged, unimpressed. “We’ll talk more later. You’re on leave until our medical staff clears you, then desk duty until the investigation into this mess is complete. I’ll handle the urgent stuff on your desk until you get back.”

  Without another word, he turned and marched out the door.

  Raven scowled. No way she was riding a desk. She’d figure out a way to get back to work in a couple of days. Being away from the office with Moon on the prowl could be bad for her health.

  3

  Raven was impressed by the hospital’s grapevine. A staff doctor arrived for a visit no more than thirty seconds after Moon had departed for the D.C. field office.

  “I’m Dr. Ishmael Galvin. I was working the emergency room when they brought you in, but I figure you don’t remember much from our brief visit. Call me Ish.”

  Galvin’s light hazel eyes were a startling contrast against his ebony skin. He was about five-eight, trim, and bald as a doorknob. Well-muscled, as best Raven could determine in his purple scrubs, and he looked to be in his late twenties. His voice was soft and smooth with a distinct Virginia tidewater accent. No wedding ring. She wondered about the dating protocol between doctors and newly concussed patients.

  “I’m Raven. Sorry, Ish, but the first thing I remember is Violet pushing me down the hall. Thanks for taking care of me.” Raven decided to test the fraternization protocol. “Not like me to forget someone as easy on the eyes as you.”

  His smile lit up the room. “Violet is my mama. She seems to have taken a liking to you.”

  Raven didn’t know what to make of his response. You tell a man he’s pretty, and he answers with information about his mother?

  “The guy who just left,” Ish said. “He your boyfriend?”

  Raven laughed. Perhaps the protocol allowed a little more room than she first thought. “Give me a break. He’s old enough to be my father. He’s my boss.”

  Ish held up his hands in protest. “I meant no offense. I’m smarter when I don’t make assumptions. As much as I enjoy flirting, we need to talk business. How’s your head?”

  “Pounding in my temples like a bad hangover, but not too bad.”

  “Are you nauseous?”

  “Nope.”

  “Dizzy?”

  Nope

  “Sleepy?”

  Raven hesitated a second. “We’ve just started to get to know each other, and you ask if I want to go to bed? You’re moving fast.”

  Again with the brilliant white smile. “Answer the question as intended, please.”

  “I’m a little tired, but not especially so for such a long day.”

  He didn’t ask about her chest. She let it go, chalking the pain up to the bruising that would be normal from her fall and collision with Pat.

  Ish’s smile fell away. “I’m very sorry about your partner. Small consolation, but her death should have been nearly instantaneous. She likely didn’t experience any pain. How are you doing?” He hesitated. “I mean other than your injuries?”

  Raven recalled hearing Pat Carpenter’s labored breathing and the bloody gurgle of the air whistling from her lungs. Not her idea of a fast death.

  “I’m not sure how to answer that, to tell you the truth. I think I’m okay. Thanks for asking.”

  It was a question Moon had never bothered with.

  “You’re an incredibly lucky person,” Ish said. The witness who called in the shooting thought you had died as well. So did the first responders. You were covered in blood. There were even a few spent pellets on your shirt, but somehow none penetrated. Amazing.”

  “Pat’s body must have shielded mine.” A voice in the back of her head wondered how that was possible. She was stepping around Pat when the gun went off.

  Besides, her chest hurt like she’d taken the hit.

  Ish nodded. “I guess; I don’t know any other way to explain it. But you used up one of your nine lives.”

  “When can I go home?”

  “We need to keep you for another day to be sure there aren’t any surprises.”

  “Shit.” She wanted out. Now. “I’ll rest better at my apartment.”

  Ish shook his head. “Nope. Tomorrow morning at the earliest.”

  “I could check myself out, right?”

  “Yeah, but if you do I’ll write a note to that nice boss who was such a pain in my ass and tell him you shouldn’t be allowed to return to work for a couple of weeks.”

  “You wouldn’t—”

  “Lots of people have lost money calling my bluff,” Ish said. “I don’t recommend it.” He paused like he was struggling with a decision.

  “What?” Raven asked.

  “I tell you what. You stay put, and I’ll come back later with a nice dinner. Tomorrow I’ll release you for a day of rest at home, followed by a week of light duty.”

  “You’re asking me for a date?”

  Ish looked around like the room had eyes and ears. “Yeah, I guess I am. But let’s not spread that around.”

  Raven smiled.

  We’re definitely outside the protocol, she thought. Which was good with her. Her social life had been non-existent since she kicked her last boyfriend to the curb a year earlier.

  “Counter offer,” she said. “Light duty starts tomorrow, and it’s only for two days.”

  “No deals allowed that intrude on my medical turf. I’ll check you in the morning and make a final call then. That’s the best I can do.”

  “Fair enough. How about ribs for dinner?”

  She worried about her impetuous decision until Ish reappeared late in the day, arms filled with bags of take-out and sporting the same damn smile that had bewitched her.

  The food was great. He brought ribs, greens, and cornbread from a one-smoker shack located in a back alley of the main street in Manassas Park. From the way he described it, the place would never be on the Ladies Junior League circuit. Their loss. Raven ate until she thought her stomach might literally pop.

  Once they’d finished, he cleaned up the debris and shut off the lights. They talked until long past midnight in the glow of the moon streaming through the window next to her bed.

  They moved through the usual tentative getting acquainted crap into an exchange of personal—even intimate—history that Raven had done with few others, men or women.

  She learned he was a surprise baby and that Violet raised him as a single mother after escaping from his physically and emotionally abusive father. They were dirt poor, but his memories of his childhood were untainted by that. He grew up happy and safe. As he got older, Violet had refused to let him work, insisting he focus on school. His eyes filled with tears when he told Raven about their celebration the day he received a letter with an offer of a full ride to the University of Virginia.

  Raven told him about her mother and father, how much they hated each other. The only happy memories she had of her childhood were the infrequent visits to her grandmother, who was the black sheep in the family. She’d gotten pregnant with Raven’s mother and not known the father, or, if she had, was unwilling to tell anyone who it was. Raven remembered her laugh and how she loved saying things that pissed people off.

  Her parents dropped her at her aunt and uncle’s trailer in the Maryland mountains when she was eight, with promises to send for her once they were settled in California. That was the last time she heard from them. The aunt and uncle were no happier than her parents, always criticizing each other and Raven.

  She moved to D.C. to live with another aunt when she was fourteen. School wasn’t easy, but she worked hard and won a Trachtenberg scholarship in criminal justice at George Washington. The day she left to live on campus was the happiest day of her life, and the last time she spoke to any of her relations.

  To see if it would scare him off, she told Ish about her inability to sustain a relationship with men, and how she thought the problem was tied to being abandoned as a child. He didn’t flinch.

  The next morning he didn’t change the conditions of her release: one day at home to be followed by a week of light duty. Then he asked for a real date, his words coming in a rush. In the face of his overpowering smile, she swallowed her knee-jerk reaction to refuse any constraints on how she lived her life.

  She wanted more time with the guy.

  Their second date passed much like the first. Good food at The American Diner in northwest D.C. and a long, winding conversation on the couch in Raven’s apartment.

  The longer they talked, the more it seemed odd to her that neither of them had made a move to get physical. Raven was no prude when it came to enjoying sex with men or even the occasional experiment with a woman. She was unsure of herself with Ish and had no idea why.

  She interrupted him. “Why haven’t you tried to kiss me or take me to bed?” She nodded toward the closed bedroom door.

  He stared at her for several long seconds before answering. “I’m gay.”

  “What?”

  “I like men over sixty. Preferably bald.”

  Raven tried and failed to process what she heard. How could she have missed that? “Bald? What the hell are—”

  Ish’s laugh was a deep bass celebration of delight. He rolled off the couch onto the floor and pulled her down with him. “The look on your face is priceless.” Again a roar of laughter. “I’m kidding, for god’s sake.”

  She sat facing him and punched him in the chest. He grunted. “Clever man. I’m a trained investigator and not thrown off the track so easily. Why haven’t you tried for second base? Or first, for that matter.”

  “The truth is, I didn’t think you wanted me to kiss you and I was a little afraid to try. I’m not sure what’s going on between us, but I don’t want to take any chances with it. Sex too soon might mess it up.”

  For a change, Raven thought before she responded. “Much better answer.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “I agree with you. Cuddling, but no sex until we figure this out or we can’t stand it. Then, watch out.”

  A thought surfaced that had been in the back of her mind for the last couple of days. “Change of subject. I have something medical going on that I don’t understand. Will you keep it confidential if I tell you about it and ask for help?”

  “Absolutely. From a professional and personal standpoint, I’ll never divulge anything you tell me without your approval. What’s going on?”

  She told him about the sparkles and the vision that often accompanied it. How she zoned out and that it had happened just before the shooting. “I’m certain it didn’t affect what went down with Pat, but I’m worried it might be a problem in the future.”

  “No shit,” Ish said. “There are two things I’m concerned about. Your health and your ability to perform your job. What you’re describing could be minor or something more serious, but whatever it is, it isn’t normal.”

  He asked her a series of questions about the manifestation—whether she heard voices, if she was tired afterward, and more.

  He was frowning by the time he ran out of questions. “I’m an emergency room doc, not a neurologist. I’ll set you up with a consult with someone I trust. Meanwhile, take a vacation from work.”

  “A consult, yes,” Raven said. “But no fucking way am I taking time off. If my boss gets a whiff of this, I’m done in law enforcement.”

  Ish glared at her and shook his head. “What if this was a seizure? What if you had another one, only worse, while you were driving? Or when you’re confronting some asshole with a gun? You belong at home until we know what we’re dealing with.”

  Raven shook her head and stood. “Whatever is going on is rare. The sparklies have never—never—lasted more than a second or two, and nothing happens after. I’m not tired, or distracted, or drooling, or peeing on myself. I can live with them just fine.”

  “Then why did you mention it? Why do you want to see a doctor?”

  “Call it curiosity.”

  Ish looked up at her. “You’re kidding yourself, and you know it.”

  She stomped to the door of her flat, opened it, and pointed toward the stairs outside. “Out.”

  As soon as she walked into the office the next morning and tossed her release paperwork on Moon’s desk, he hit her with one of his standard questions. “Who’d you have to screw for that favor?”

  Raven was embarrassed by the question. Not because it was sexist. The idiot assumed men and women traded sex for favors as a matter of course. No, her face turned red because she immediately thought about Ish.

  She shot Moon double birds. “You’re a third-rate asshole. You know that, right?”

  He brayed like a crazed donkey. “I don’t give a goddamn what you think or what kind of permissions you have from the med staff. I’m still your boss, and you’re on desk duty until I say otherwise. I’ve shifted a shit-ton of closed cases to your ID. Run an audit on each one of them and give me a report on anything we need to tie up before we archive them.”

  Raven thought about fighting him and decided against it. It would take too long to find someone with the authority and balls to override his orders. Besides, their case overload would force him to put her back in the field.

  She slammed his door, walked to her desk, sat, and looked around. The room was empty. Six gray metal desks, scarred gray walls, worn gray carpet and her solitary self, invisible in her gray standard-agent suit.

  She took out her phone and dialed Ish’s cell. Voicemail.

  “I think we need another date to see if we can stand each other. Tell me where you’ll be at seven this evening. I’ll pick you up and you can take me to the BBQ joint.”

  She took a deep breath. Careful what you say, she thought. The tired old walls of the FBI office could have ears. “By the way, could you take care of that other matter we discussed? I need to know what’s going on.”

  She hung up. Maybe the good doctor had a point.

  4

  Raven turned on her phone and stuffed it into her suit pocket as soon as she cleared the medical building lobby on the Georgetown campus.

  She was lost in her thoughts and nearly jumped out of her skin when the theme from Nightmare On Elm Street sliced through the air. Her ringtone for Moon. She shivered and glanced around. Had the son of a bitch been following her? She shook her head at her paranoia. He probably wouldn't be calling if he was waiting in the parking lot.

  “Just because I put you on a desk doesn’t mean you’re on vacation,” Moon said. “You can’t just leave any time you feel like it. Where the hell are you?”

  Raven blew a raspberry into the phone. She’d just finished a six pm appointment with the neurologist Ish recommended. “The work day for desk jockeys is long over. Besides, what do you care? Me out of the office is your dream come true.”

  “Some researcher at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History was found dead. I need you to check it out.”

  Her pulse raced. “I’m back on regular duty?”

  Raven wasn’t sure what she wanted Moon to say. The doctor had asked her a thousand questions; an encephalogram showed nothing unusual. Apparently certain conditions took time to manifest themselves. Next steps were a second visit and an appointment with a shrink to “cover all the bases.”

  Raven had lied her way out of the office, promising to return and to see the recommended psychiatrist. She left thinking she was experiencing seizures that were likely to get worse. That, or she was crazy as a homeless junkie. Neither alternative made her good FBI agent material, and she was wondering if she should accept the facts and ask for leave.

  “No,” Moon said. “This is a special one-off that even you can handle without screwing up. I’d send someone else, but we’re swamped with cases that need real FBI agents, and I don’t have anyone I can cut loose right now. The D.C. police are waiting for you as a courtesy since the death went down in a federal building. Go check it out and kick it back to them. Then get your butt back into the office.”

  His insult pissed her off. She wasn’t taking a damn leave of absence until she knew more. “You’re a peach. Who’s my partner?”

  Moon snorted. “No one wants to get near you. Do you think you can handle a grip and grin over a dead body without getting someone else killed? Please tell me you’re not up to it and I’ll get a transfer started to a more appropriate department.”

  Raven was torn between anger and relief. Even a crazy person prone to seizures could handle the assignment. “Give me the address.”

  Her first inkling that the case wasn’t as trivial as Moon had made it sound came when she met the D.C. detectives. She decided to call them Ichabod and Stumpy. She liked to assign nicknames.

  They were both jumpy as hell and kept mumbling about terrorism. She understood why when they showed her the body. The dead man’s face looked like a century-old prune.

  Raven looked around. “Taking your crime scene team a while to get here.”

  “We haven’t called them,” Stumpy said.

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “We decided to wait for you.

  Ichabod cleared his throat. “The Vic’s name is Jeffrey Allen Crane. Age eighty-three.”

  “Looks more like one hundred eighty three,” Raven said. “His wrinkles have wrinkles.”

  “I’m guessing that’s not his usual look,” Stumpy said. “The two guys outside,” he nodded toward the hallway door, “claim that he didn’t look well, but nothing like this.”

  “And check this out,” Ichabod said. He walked over and pointed at the victim’s neck. “Look close. See those fingerprints? They’re mine. I was checking for a pulse.”

  Raven walked over and squatted next to the body. The prints in question stood in sharp relief against the skin around it.

  “I just barely touched the corpse. It’s like the guy’s tissue is soft plastic. I’ve been on the job for twenty-eight years, and I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m thinking a nerve agent. That’s why I called the bureau.”