Stahl was out of his hallucinatory mind! He was a man possessed. As if Harlee didn't already know that. She fumbled with words and ideas. He'd just shot Terrence Linklater, the mastermind of the bank robbery. Had shot him right through his head. Why had he done that! And what had been behind all that mumbo-jumbo double-talk about his hoping she would give their working relationship a chance. No dice.
He was twisted and unstable, a menace. A man she could never fully trust.
As he turned to leave Woz and her, Harlee still felt dazed. Stahl didn't go right away. He paused his departure, turning back to her. A light breeze ruffled a tuft of his wheat-blond hair.
Harlee felt as though he expected her to look at him. She couldn't bring herself to.
"You coming?" He smirked again.
All of this felt like a nightmare from which she couldn't wake up, a terrible, heartbreaking torment that wouldn't fade.
"No," Harlee told him definitively.
He gave her a look, an intense, soul-searching one.
"Suit yourself," he said, then turned away and began leaving for the car parked in the access ramp to this dank, cimmerian place.
This old, long-abandoned warehouse, she'd no doubt have vivid nightmares about from now on. It was cold and foreboding here. In the background, were those pigeons cooing?
"Like I said, you know how to get rid of bodies," Stahl said, meaning Harlee. A smile meant to perplex his lovely pawn contorted his lips.
Woz, still mighty stunned himself from what his nemesis had done to, what was supposed to have been their bargaining chip, gawked at Santos. "Why does he keep saying that?"
An anxious, worried look washed over Harlee's beautiful, distraught face. She shivered involuntarily. Was it conceivable? But how would he have a clue? He was nosing around, trying to find out where her ex was. Could it be possible? Did he know that she'd killed Miguel? At the thought of his face, frozen in death, she shivered even more.
Would it matter to maniacal Stahl that she'd killed the louse in self-defense? Would he believe that?
"Don't know. I have no idea," she whispered. Her lie made her skin crawl. She couldn't help reliving snapping his neck, carting him off to the plot wherein she'd buried him. Was she turning into a sick, cruel whacko? Being pulled apart my vicious, unforgiving pressures?
What she and Tufo had talked about in the car came to mind. Were they the ones far from innocent? Did they care about what was right or wrong anymore? From a moral standpoint, maybe Tufo was right. Were the stealing, lies, extortion and cover-ups justifiable?
Had they become even worse than the perps they went after? Just another breed of ruthless, self-serving criminals?
"Not like your associate needs any pointers in the disposal of the dead either," Stahl commented with his ever-ready smirk drilling holes in Harlee.
She heard Miguel's voice clanging insistently in her throbbing head: 'You didn't have to kill me, querida mia. I just needed to be close with our mija. Cristina is mine! You had no right to keep me from her. You knew that. I'll never let you forget...'
Harlee squeezed her eyes shut. She would never forget how the disease that was Miguel had wanted to rape their child! Pain marched across the bridge of her nose. She wondered if she was going to make it out alive from all of this.
"Harlee..." Woz breathed, a good deal tauntingly, despising her with his eyes. "Clear off. I'll handle this myself."
She looked at Woz as though he'd just told her to go hang herself. Harlee took a step toward him, but he backed off from her. "Go!" he cried, turning his back on her. Going to Linklater's corpse, he began examining the head wound with great interest. The bullet had gone clean through. The blood around the entry point had begun drying.
An odd chill snaked along Woz's spine.
"Do you need an engraved invitation to get out of here?" he bellowed. "Leave-now! I won't tell you again!"
She gaped at him in stunned silence.
And do what? Tag along with Stahl? Enough was enough with her having to endure the bizarreness of this delusional, off-the-wall man who had deviltry in his eyes. And the flaming thing he had for her that went along with his craziness. Harlee would sooner hitchhike with a serial ax murderer. Well, maybe not, but she as sure as confetti fell in a ticker tape parade didn't want to ride back with the thorn in her side, masquerading as a respectable citizen.
"You know what? Both of you can go straight to where you know you belong!"
What she'd said amused Stahl, but angered Woz.
He spun away from the dead body, glaring at her with fire in his eyes. There was malice mingled with hurt in them too. "Get outta my sight-you lousy snitch!"
"My pleasure," Harlee replied as gently as snow falling on a countryside.
Why did these two get under her skin so? Why-why-why? Now she knew full well the meaning of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Woz was the rock; Stahl was the hard place. Both of them, making it harder and harder for her each day to ward off having a nervous breakdown.
Stahl, really making an effort to be civil, as he'd said they should be to each other from now on, extended, "It'd be my pleasure, driving you to wherever you need to go."
"See, Harlee," Woz began taunting, "told you so. I'm right. Can't fool me. He is your new 'boyfriend.'" His laugh was hollow, infuriating.
She wanted to rip Matt's head off where he stood, ridiculing her too. She thought to say something to really shut him up, but she didn't. She kept her cool and smiled. "Night, Woz. Hope you can get a good night's rest."
"I wish the same for you, Harlee. Don't keep him..." jutting his chin at Stahl, "up all night." Woz laughed and laughed, making a sleaze of himself.
Stahl took the innuendo in stride. Did he balk, having been referred to as her 'new man?'
In no way did he look insulted.
Harlee took deeper steps into the Twilight Zone. After she sneered, she began storming away, dismissing them both. The staccato stomping of her feet echoed in the gloom.
Woz went to work, making a call that would facilitate what he needed to do with Linklater.
Stahl, performing some fancy footwork, caught up with Harlee. His entire demeanor changed, and with the change, he offered like a bona fide gentleman, the one he wanted her to see him as, "All business, which includes no funny business aside...I'd be honored if you'd allow me to drive you home, Ms. Santos..."
Something twisted in her stomach as she looked him up and down, thought about it once, then twice, and finally said, "Fine...I accept."
Stahl didn't fawn over her, act the fool, nor say anything snide. He smiled, allowing her to lead the way.
Which she did, all the way back to the car. Once she got in, and then he, he asked her, "Can I buy you dinner?"
Shaking her head, Harlee said, "Let's maintain a strict non-fraternization policy, okay?"
Though her tone was adamant, Stahl could see there might be a little room for some leeway.
Accommodating her, he replied, "Whatever you say, Ms. Santos..."
"Good."
"Good," he rejoined, started up the engine and backed out of the blind alley, content to let Harlee enjoy the ride in peace.