“You pretended to call the cops, didn’t you?”
He gave me a “who-me” look, which meant I was right.
“You took their check. The house check.”
“Anita, even I wouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah, you would, if you thought you could get away with it.”
His eyes thawed to their usually level of insincerity. “They’re coming back, just smile and agree with me.”
“Bert, either you tell me what you did, or I’ll blow it all to hell.”
He took hold of my arm, which he never does, and smiled over my head. “Ms. Blake needs a little more persuasion to agree to our deal.”
“Oh, please, Ms. Blake, please, don’t press charges. I don’t want it in the papers that I’m crazy. Our daughters have seen enough bad publicity about us.”
I turned and would have said something, but Bert whisked me into his office and closed the door. Unless I was going to put up a fight, I had no choice but to let him manhandle me a little.
He stayed by the door, with his back against it, as if he were afraid I’d bolt. “Anita, this is fair.”
“What is fair?” I said, and my voice was already warming up, ready to be pissed.
“We could press charges against them,” he said.
“But we’re not going to,” I said.
“But we could.”
“Bert, either tell me the truth, or get away from the door.”
“A bonus, Anita, for them beating the hell out of you. What’s wrong with that?”
“How much?” I said.
He looked uncomfortable.
“How . . . much?”
“Ten grand,” he said, and then went on hastily, “he owns his own contructuion firm. He can afford it, and they did go way over the line.”
I shook my head. “Bert, you bastard.”
“The wife offered me the check for the refinancing of the house when I started to talk about pressing charges. I didn’t take it. So I’m not quite as much of a bastard as you think I am.”
“You can’t take money not to press charges. That’s illegal.”
“I didn’t say outright that that was what the money was for. Hinted at it, maybe, but I know better than to say something specifically. Give me a little credit.”
I stared up at him. “You get as much credit from me as you deserve, Bert. If they calm down and tell the cops what you did, what will you say the money is for?”
“A retainer,” he said.
“I can’t raise their son, Bert, or his girlfriend.”
“Can you at least talk to the detective in charge of their case?”
“So you can keep the money?”
“I was thinking more that you might offer your expertise to the police.”
“I am not a specialist in murder, Bert, not unless there are monsters involved.”
“Does a serial killer count as a monster?” he asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“Their son and his date were the first, but not the last. He killed a couple the year after.”
“Are they sure it was the same person?” I asked.
He shrugged. “You’d need to talk to the police on the case, and for that you’ll need the permission of the parents, since as you pointed out it’s not a crime that you have jurisdiction over.” He almost smiled.
“I’ll make you a deal, boss man. I’ll talk to the cop in charge. If they think they know who it is, but don’t have proof, then I can’t help, but if they’re lost, then I have one idea.”
Bert smiled full out. “I knew you would.”
“But if my idea tanks, and they get nothing out of it, you will write them a personal check for ten grand.”
“Anita, I’ll just give back the money.”
I shook my head. “No, your personal check for ten grand.”
“You can’t make me,” he said.
“But I can start a vote to kick your ass out of here. You don’t know shit about raising the dead, or crime, or vampires. You’re the money man. But you’re not the only money man in the world, are you?”
“Anita . . . you really mean it,” he said, and he sounded surprised.
“You just cheated these people out of ten thousand dollars, Bert. It makes me wonder what else you’ve done. Makes me wonder if we need an audit of the books.”
He was getting angry, it showed in his eyes and the tight line of his mouth. “That is out of bounds. I have never cheated anyone in this company.”
“Maybe, but if a man will cheat in one way, he’ll cheat in another.”
“I cannot believe you would accuse me of that.”
“I can’t believe I haven’t wondered about it before,” I said.
His face was darkening with his effort not to explode. You could watch his blood pressure rise. “Audit and be damned.”
“I’ll make you a deal, Bert. I’ll settle for you giving them back their check, instead of a personal check from you, but you have to stop this shit. We make enough money, Bert, you don’t have to cheat people.”
“They offered the money. I didn’t ask for it.”
“No, but I bet you made it so they’d think of it. Nothing said outright, like you said, but you put it out there, somehow, you made them think of it.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, then leaned back against the door. “Maybe I did, but, Anita, they made it so easy.”
“You just couldn’t resist, could you?”
He let out his breath in a long shoulder moving sigh. “I lost my head, a little.”
I shook my head and almost laughed. “No more losing your head, Bert, okay?”
“I’ll try, but I can’t promise. You wouldn’t believe me.”
I did laugh. “I can’t argue that.”
“Do you want me to tear up the check now?”
I watched his face for the signs of pain that parting with money usually cost him, but all I saw was a resignedness, as if he’d already given the money up for lost.
“Not yet.”
He looked up, hope showing momentarily in his pale eyes.
“Don’t get excited. It’s a slender little hope, but if it helps lead to something that can help the police then we’ll have earned some money. If it doesn’t, then we can return the money.”
“Do I want to know what your plan is?” What he was asking was, was it illegal, and did he not want to know so he’d be able to deny it later. Bert knew that I stepped over lines that wouldn’t just get jail time, but an execution notice. I knew that he was just this side of a con-man, a swindler, but he knew, or suspected, that I was just this side of a cold-blooded killer. There were bosses that couldn’t have handled that doubt, or that almost knowledge. We stood and met each other’s eyes, and we had an understanding, Bert and I.
“I’m going to see if the cops will bring down some of the boy’s clothes for Evans to look at.”
“The touch clairvoyant that tried to cut his own hands off?” He made a face when he said it.
“He’s out of the hosptial,” I said.
He frowned. “But didn’t the paper say that he tried to cut off his hands so he wouldn’t see murders and violence every time he touched something?”
I nodded.
“Anita, I never thought I’d say this, but leave the poor guy alone. I’ll give back the money.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. Was he being nice to fool me? Did he mean it? Out loud, I said, “Evans is feeling better than he has in years. He’s taking active clients again.”
Bert looked at me, and it wasn’t an entirely friendly look. “This man has tried to kill himself to keep from seeing these things, and you want to take items from a serial killer case where he cut up a nice teenage couple. That’s cold, Anita, that’s truly cold.”
“Evans put himself back on the market, Bert, I didn’t. He’s married now, and he’s a lot more relaxed than he ever was before.”
“Love may be grand, Anita, but it doesn’t cure everything.”
“Nope,” I said, “it doesn’t.” What I didn’t try to explain to Bert was that Evans’s new wife was a projective psychic null. She negated most psychic abilities within yards of her. Evans was a lot calmer around her. She truly had saved him.
His small pale eyes narrowed at me. “That man out there, the boy, he’s your boyfriend.”
I nodded.
“Just your boyfriend?” he made it a question.
“What else could he be, Bert?” And it was my turn to have the innocent face.
He shook his head. “I don’t know, but the noises from your office were a hell of a show, and that was without any visuals.”
I didn’t blush, because I was working too hard at keeping control of my face and eyes. “Do you really want to know, Bert, or do you want deniability later?”
He stood there for a moment, thinking, then shook his head. “I don’t need to know.”
“No,” I said, “you don’t.”
“But you’d tell me the truth, if I wanted to know?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Why, why would you tell me?”
“To watch your face,” I said, and my voice was soft, and not altogether pleasant.
He swallowed hard and looked just a little paler than his untanned face had a moment before. “It would be something bad, wouldn’t it?”
I shrugged. “Ask and find out.”
He shook his head again. “No,” he said, “no.”
“Then don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,” I said.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” he said.
I nodded, again. “Exactly.”
He gave that roguish, I-know-something-you-don’t smile. “But we get to keep the ten grand.”
“For now. If Evans agrees to see the evidence, we’ll need a bankroll.”
“Is he that expensive?”
“He risks his sanity and his life every time he touches another clue. I’d make people pay for that, wouldn’t you?”
A light came into Bert’s eyes. “Does he have a business agent?”
“Bert,” I said.
“Just asking, just asking.”
I had to shake my head and give up. Bert had a real genius for making money from psychic gifts that other people thought of as curses. Would it be so bad if he could help Evans make more money? No. But I wondered if Bert understood that Evans was one of the most powerful touch clairvoyants in the world. That to brush against another person with his fingertip told him more about that person than most people would ever know. Bert would probably offer to shake hands, and the deal would be off. I only suspected what Bert was. One touch, and Evans would know for sure. In a way, if Evans didn’t run screaming it would be reassuring for me. I would never offer to shake hands with Evans. One, you never offer your hand to a touch clairvoyant, just bad form. Two, Evans had brushed up against me before, by accident, and he hadn’t liked what he saw. Who was I to throw stones at Bert, when he might pass Evans’s radar unscathed, and I knew that I would go down in bloody flames?
32
THE REST OF the afternoon appointments were damned boring compared to the Browns. Thank God. Nathaniel sat, quietly, in a corner of my office through all of them, just in case. Bert didn’t argue now. I’d had two appointments with lawyers to discuss wills and other priviledged material. They’d objected to Nathaniel, but I’d told them that legally the conversation with me wasn’t priviledged, so why did they care. Legally, I was right, and lawyers hate for a non-lawyer to be right. Or at least the ones I meet get cranky about it. So then, they’d wanted to know who he was and why he got to sit in on their meetings.
I told the first one, do you want this meeting, or don’t you, and he let it go. The second one didn’t let it go. My fingers hurt where I’d torn off the nails. My face hurt even if it was healing. My pride was hurt from having sex in the office. I was not happy, so I told the truth.
“He’s here in case I have to have sex.” I smiled when I said it, and knew that it didn’t reach my eyes, but I didn’t care.
Nathaniel had laughed and done his best to turn it into a cough.
The laywer, of course, didn’t believe me. “It was a perfectly legitimate question, Ms. Blake. I have every right to protect my client and his interests. You don’t have to insult us with ridiculous lies.”
So I stopped insulting him with lies, and we got down to business.
Every client, or group of clients, had to ask about Nathaniel. I told them he was everything from domestic help, to lover, to office boy, to personal assistant. Nobody liked any of my answers. I stopped caring long before I stopped seeing clients. I actually started telling the truth again, and the two new groups that I told it to got insulted. Insulting lies, they called it. Try to tell the truth, and no one believes you.
What I’d wanted to talk about all afternoon had been my beast. I had a lycanthrope right there, and we didn’t get five minutes of peace to even begin the discussion. I had so many questions, and no time to ask them. Maybe that was why I was so grumpy to the clients. Maybe, or maybe I’m just grumpy. Even I wasn’t sure sometimes.
It was seven o’clock by the time we climbed into the Jeep. Bert had passed my 7:30 cemetery appointment on to Manny without me having to ask. He even apologized for overbooking me. He always overbooked me, and he’d never apologized before. I think the realization that I could call a vote and get his ass kicked out had made him a better boy. Or maybe it was just the realization that I knew that any one of us could call a vote and kick him out. If Bert had any weakness in business it was assuming that those of us without a business degree didn’t understand business. A little fear isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, it can be downright therapeutic for some people. I didn’t expect for the nicer version of Bert to last, but I’d enjoy it while I had it.
I’d actually turned off onto Olive in the direction of the city. I had just enough time to drop Nathaniel off at Guilty Pleasures and be only about fifteen minutes late for what was now my first outside appointment of the evening.
“Where are you going?” Nathaniel asked.
“Guilty Pleasures,” I said.
“You need to eat first.”
I glanced at him as I slowed for a stoplight. “I don’t have time to eat.”
“You know how when you don’t feed one hunger the other hungers get worse?” His voice was so gentle when he asked, but I’d begun to mistrust that particular gentle tone. It usually meant he had a point to make, and he was right, and if I’d only accept it, I’d see that he was right, too. It usually meant that the argument was lost before it had begun. But I never considered defeat a reason not to put up a fight.
“Yeah, I know. If I deny the ardeur the beast wants meat more, or the vampire wants blood. I know all that.”
“So what happens if you don’t feed your human stomach, you get hungry, right?”
The light changed, and I eased forward. Saturday night traffic on Olive was always fun. “Yeah,” I said. I was looking for the trick, and didn’t see it.
“So if your body gets hungry for normal feeding, then doesn’t that make all the other hungers worse?”
I almost hit the car in front of me, because I was staring at him. I had to slam on my brakes and endure much horn blowing, and, if it hadn’t been so dark, I’m sure I’d have seen some hand gestures. “What did you say?”
“You heard me, Anita.”
I sighed and started paying better attention to the traffic. But inside I was kicking myself, because it was so simple. So terribly simple. “I don’t eat regularly when I’m working, and that usually means that I’m running home with the ardeur riding me every night.”
“Sometimes twice a night,” he said. “How much do you eat on those nights? Real food, I mean.”
I tried to think, and finally had to say, “Sometimes nothing.”
“It would be interesting if you kept a food diary to see if there was a correlation between starving your human body and the othe
r hungers rising.”
“You talk like you know this already,” I said.
“Haven’t you noticed that lycanthropes cook and eat?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.” I thought about it. Richard cooked, and had always been either taking me out to dinner or wanting to cook for me. Micah cooked, though Nathaniel did more of it. We usually had a house full of wereleopards for at least one meal a day.
“You mean there’s a reason that all the lycanthrope men I’ve dated have been domestically talented?”
He nodded. “We need to eat a nice balanced diet, heavy on protein. It helps keep the beast at bay.”
I glanced at him, and in the near dark of the streetlights, he was mostly in shadow. His lavender shirt was the palest thing about him. “Why didn’t someone mention this to me before?”
“We’ve been treating you like you’re mostly human, Anita. But what I saw today . . .” He seemed to be searching for words. Finally he said, “If I didn’t know that you were human and couldn’t slip your skin and be a leopard for real, I’d think you were one of us. The way you felt, the way you fought, the way you smelled, everything was shapeshifter. You did not come off like a human. Turn into the parking lot here,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because we need to talk.”
I did not like the sound of that, but I turned in to the strip mall that had Culpeppers at one end. I parked in the first space I found, which was far away from any restaurant. Most of the stores were dark and closed. When I turned off the engine, the world was suddenly very quiet. The traffic on Olive was still snarling by, and in the distance was music from one of the restaurants, but inside the Jeep it was quiet. That silence that you get inside cars after dark. With one switch of a key, the space inside a car becomes private, intimate.
I turned to face him, having to work against the seat belt, but I wasn’t comfortable taking if off until I was ready to get out of a car. “So, talk,” I said, and my voice sounded almost normal.
He turned in his seat as far as his seat belt would allow. He knew my thing about seat belts. He faced me, putting one knee up to prop himself against the center panel. “We’ve been treating you like you’re human, and now I’m wondering if we were right.”
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15 Page 82