Hero Stalker

Part Thirty-Seven

 "I hate this kind of party," whispered Selena Colvin as I grabbed a champagne flute off her tray. She and I were the only two black women in the room.

"Least you get to wear pants." I spotted the top of Dan's head poking out of a knot of people by the string quartet. "Excuse me."

Dan had an assortment of uneaten sushi rolls on his tiny paper plate and the sleeves of his jacket were fraying at the tips. I hooked my arm through his and shifted my weight to take a little pressure off my aching feet.

"Hi!" A smile broke across his face. "You look beautiful tonight!"

One of the women standing next to him snickered. I ignored her. "I love that tux on you." I didn't even have to lie about that, like I had to Jake Mulberg at prom.

"Did you manage to sneak away from the Sushi Queen?"

"She sent me away so she could flirt with David Randolph."

He threw his head back and laughed. "Those two deserve each other."

"Can't blame her for trying," said a burly white guy with a shaved head and a crooked nose. "Hell, I'd tap that guy if I could. Even his maids drive Ferraris." His date shot him a weird look, and he shrugged. "What? I'd go gay for ten billion dollars."

Dan sighed. "Gloria, this is my friend Ed Mann. He's with Harbor Control."

"He's an NSWAT officer," Ed's date said in a nasal voice. She smelled like hairspray. "He's so brave. He was one of the officers who took down Cracken."

You mean, while Femme Fatale mesmerized him and Slasher cut off his continuously regenerating tentacles? With the ability to sprout razor-sharp tentacles and create whirlpools, Cracken had been voted The Worldley Fewe's top supervillain for 2010. Conspiracy theories about his origin flourished across the internet. His powers stood out, even for a supervillain. He'd died of supposed heart failure after only two days in prison, so no one would ever know the answers . . .

And now I was thinking like a psi-nerd again, after everything that had happened to me. Pathetic.

"Hey, I was also on the NSWAT boat," Dan said. He smiled and punched Ed in the side. "Course, my dad isn't the police commissioner. No hard feelings."

"Hey, I'm the one who pulled Hartley out of the whirlpool." He laughed. "Christ, I hate these stupid parties. Look at my dad and the mayor. My old man loves that dickwad." He pointed at an older-looking version of himself, who was laughing uproariously at one of the mayor's jokes.

"Gloria!" Valerie strutted over and grabbed my arm. "I've called your name three times already. You have to pay attention when you're on the clock!" Her breath smelled like champagne. She thrust Needles's bag into my arms. "He's got to poop, can't you see it? Take him up to the roof and let him down in the bushes."

"I can just take him downstairs."

"Don't bother. That's too far down. Slip Housekeeping a sushi roll and they won't care." She lowered her voice. "The rolls are under Needles, so they'll be warm, but there's not much I can do about that. And no snacking. They're for Housekeeping only."

She sauntered off, not wobbling one bit in her six inch heels. Ed's date tittered. I wished I could melt into the floor.

"Gloria." Dan reached for my arm, his voice full of concern.

"I'm fine." I gulped back a sob and ran for the stairwell, clutching the dog bag to my chest. My own purse swung on my shoulder. The weight of my Centurion gear pressed against my back. It should have belonged to a woman who'd tell Valerie Lavoie to go fuck herself.

No one from Housekeeping bothered me as I climbed the stairs and ducked through the open access door. A cool breeze drifted across the roof. Goosebumps popped up on my bare arms. I lowered Needles in a planter full of giant shrubs and waited for him to pee.

You could have seen all of Bayton from there if RandolphTower hadn't blocked the view to my left. The lights of Orignal glowed like stars below me. The towers of the financial district ran in long lines along Wilson Parkway. A shining circle marked Ward Stadium, even though football season hadn't started yet. If you squinted, you might have been able to see Wolf Street on the northern edge of the city, where James and his partner Frank lived when they weren't gallivanting around the Caribbean. Headlights and streetlights lined the streets, but you couldn't make out a single individual soul underneath them.

"Nice view, ain't it?" Dan's arm snuck around my shoulders.

I flinched. "What are you doing up here?"

"I wanted to check on you. You seemed upset."

"I'm fine!" I wiped my face with the back of my arm, hoping my eyeliner hadn't run. At least the tears had stopped before he'd shown up. "It's just . . . work, right?"

"You don't have to be embarrassed." He turned to face me and took my hands in his own, which were warm and callused. "Is that what this is about? Getting called out like that?"

"One night," I said. It ended up sounding like a sob. "That's all I want. One night without Valerie ruining everything. One night where I can go on a date, look sexy, be cool—"

"Cool?" He smiled. I heard Needles peeing behind us. "You are cool. You're real. You're not one of those rich assholes. You don't think you're better than other people. You work hard."

I worked hard. So why did I keep screwing up? Why wasn't I more like Amanda? "Dan, I have only two hundred bucks in my bank account. I still live with my mom."

"That's okay." He released one of my hands. Slowly, lightly, he ran his fingertips across the edge of my face. "It's okay not to be perfect. You're honest about who you are. That's more important than anything. That's what I like about you."

That was what I'd needed to hear for a long time. Impulsively, I leant in and kissed him. He drew a sharp, sudden breath and kissed me back. The pressure of his lips was light at first, like he was afraid of breaking me, but I'd already been broken in a bunch of different ways and I didn't care.

I pressed my tongue against his lips and felt them open. His arms slid around my back and pulled me so close I could almost feel his heartbeat. Suddenly, the breeze didn't seem so cold. I don't know how long I stood there, my poor battered heart sucking in happiness like a dried-up tomato plant sucking in water, but the kiss didn't end until Needles started clawing at my back.

"I don't want to go back down there," I whispered, stuffing Needles back into his bag and securing it next to my own purse.

Dan smiled sadly. "Me neither. But we gotta go do our jobs. We've got the rest of our lives . . ."

"To make out on roofs?"

"Just pick out the building," he said, without a hint of hesitation in his voice. I felt like I'd just won the lottery and flipped off Valerie.

Then the gunshot sounded.