by Sarah Zettel
O’Grady came by too. Lots. I made what felt like a year’s worth of statements, and I signed reams of paper. I’d be testifying in court against Adrienne, Henri, and Trudy too when they caught her, if he had anything to say about it. Apparently, Scott Alden had three law firms on retainer trying to make sure he didn’t. My money was on Little Linus.
Chet came by on the night shift. Jacques did too. Jacques was hurting and a little shaky, having made the break with his blood family, but Chet said he was doing okay, and I found myself in the very unusual position of being willing to take my brother’s word for it.
The person who did not visit was Anatole. My second night in the hospital, though, the aide brought in a bouquet of red roses with a note printed in clear, tidy letters.
I leave you in capable hands. Yours, Anatole
I swore until I ran out of modifiers, and I fumbled with my smartphone. It’s no small trick to get one of those things to work with bandaged hands. But I did finally get Anatole’s number punched up. For all that, what I got was a recording.
The number you are trying to reach is unavailable or has been disconnected. Please….
I hung up, and I discovered a store of adjectives and insults inside me that I hadn’t yet tapped. Because it wasn’t his fault. It was the poison and the Maddox magic that had made him turn on me. He ought to know that.
Except he did know that. And the reason he’d been there at all was because he’d thought he could protect me. Instead, he’d wound up endangering me. He would have killed me. Because of that, he was gone, and I wouldn’t have the chance to tell him to stuff the pride and undead testosterone. The only part of what had happened that was his fault was what was happening now, because he was being a stiff-fanged idiot.
I wiped the tears out of my eyes before anybody could see them.
Getting out of the hospital is a long, uncertain process, even if you are able to stand on your own two feet. You have to be checked out by a half-dozen people, and they all have to hand you different sets of papers and instructions. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, kicking my one working heel and wondering what would happen if I tried sneaking out my window with the bulky boot I had to wear on my broken and still-throbbing ankle, when the door opened. I turned, praying for the doctor with my final release papers.
But it was Brendan, smiling a little grimly. He stepped aside so Deanna could walk past him. I stood, slowly.
She looked pale and thin, as though she hadn’t been eating. She was rubbing her arms and not looking at me. Her T-shirt had a scoop neck, and I could see the scars on her neck, almost but not quite healed up.
“Hi,” she said, and swallowed.
“Hi.”
“I…um…I wanted to say…Brendan told me you tried to help. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I met Brendan’s eyes. He shook his head. She saw the gesture and grimaced.
“I’ve had the antidote,” she told me. “So has Gabriel. He’s seen O’Grady and he’s…” She bit her lip. “He’s gone. I don’t know where.”
I tried to imagine what was going on inside her. She’d been head over heels in love, only to find out it was the result of magical manipulation on the part of her mother, to break up a scam her now-dead sister had been using her for. And then the guy who’d gone through it all with her had proven his true worth by running away.
I suddenly felt a lot less sorry for myself. I had a home to go to. I still knew who I was and what my life was, and that, if I stopped to think about it, was a whole hell of a lot.
“I’m sorry,” I said. She shrugged. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”
She glanced up at Brendan. “She’s going to stay with me for a while,” he said. “We’ll figure something out.”
“What’s your grandfather say?” I was prodding, and I probably shouldn’t have been. There are some things you just can’t help.
The question did raise a little smirk from Deanna. “Not much he can say. I’m still heir to the Arall, and he’s got a whole lot of damage control to take care of before he can even get round to me.” She wandered over to my bouquet of roses and touched the petals gently. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. I reached out and took Brendan’s hand and squeezed it. He returned an answering pressure, and the tension inside me eased a little.
“I feel like this is my fault,” Deanna said to the flowers. “I don’t even know why.”
“You got used,” I told her. “It’s the kind of thing that makes you feel really stupid. But it’s not your fault. You were just convenient.”
“I guess. Maybe.” She took a deep breath and lifted her head. “But, it’s over now, right? Here’s where we get to start over.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what happens now.” I said, and I meant it.
She said her good-byes and left us there. Brendan closed the door behind her and came to sit next to me on the bed.
“I got a message from Anatole,” he said.
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. He told me to take good care of you.”
“Or he’d come find you?”
“It was a little more graphic than that, but yes.” Brendan ran his thumb over my bandages, very, very gently. “Are you okay?”
I knew what he was asking. He wanted to know if I was okay with Anatole’s leaving. I decided I would misunderstand, because I had no answer for that.
“Mostly.” I trapped his restless thumb under the palm of my other hand and held it there for a moment, feeling his warmth and strength and understanding. It was too much. I had to set it aside. “I’ll be better when I can get out of here.”
The twist Brendan gave to his smile said he knew exactly what I was doing, but he was going to let me get away with it. “As soon as you’re cleared, I’ll take you home,” he said.
“I’d rather you took me to Nightlife.”
Slowly, Brendan bowed his head into his hand. “You’ll go anyway, won’t you?”
“Do you need me to lie? For plausible deniability or anything?”
“No, don’t bother,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll take you.”
He did too. Brendan had a regular car service, and the driver knew the shortcuts to Nightlife’s back alley. I felt like Frankenstein’s monster limping in the stupid boot, but Brendan walked me in the door at five o’clock, straight into the steam and the shouting and the thudding of the knives.
“Heads up!” shouted Zoe from the expediter’s station. “Chef in the house!”
All my people turned and faced me. All of them cheered and whooped and applauded and swore, raising a cacophony that rattled the dishes on their racks. Suchai and Robert came through the doors from the dining room, leading the wait staff to add to the noise.
I couldn’t see straight. My eyes had gone into open rebellion, and the tears were already trickling down my cheeks. “Yeah, yeah, all right,” I said. “Back to work, all of you!”
“Yes, Chef!” chorused my people, and I knew I was well and truly home.
“I’ll be round at ten to pick you up,” said Brendan as my people settled back to work. I opened my mouth. He tucked his hand under my chin and shut it for me. “Ten,” he repeated, holding my bandaged hand up in front of my face to emphasize exactly how little I was going to be able to do in terms of cooking tonight. “Or I will drag you out of here straight back to the hospital.”
“I’d like to see you try,” I muttered through clenched teeth.
He just grinned and kissed me, and left me there without trying to say good-bye. I let him go, because I knew he’d be back at ten. And he’d take me back to my apartment, and we’d talk, and whatever happened after that…it would happen and it would be okay.
I dropped my purse on my desk and my butt in the chair. There was a stack of mail, mostly bills, of course. I gritted my teeth as I sorted through them. But in the middle of the stack was a yellow envelope with a handwritten address in tidy, printed letters.
Anatole? I tore the env
elope open and pulled out a card decorated by an artsy watercolor of a rustic cabin surrounded by a field of daisies. Inside someone had scrawled a brief note.
We’re coming back. Save us a table.
Love ya,
Melody
The card toppled slowly out of my bandaged fingers. I knew only one person in the whole world named Melody. A little fidget of a sixteen-year-old girl, she was the one responsible for my brother’s extreme reactions to things such as sunlight and garlic.
Oh.
Shit.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Zettel is the award-winning author of over twenty novels spanning a whole range of genres: science fiction, fantasy, romance, and now mystery. When not writing, she’s practicing yoga, playing the fiddle, cooking, and reading, although generally not all at once. She lives in Michigan with her rapidly growing son and her husband, Tim, who is a lecturer and aerospace engineer at a certain large public university.