“I think the jury’s out on that.”
And the smile was back. The devastating, heart-flipping, soul-wrenching smile.
7
The next day we were back on the seventieth floor, and I discovered I had been moved out of my cave and into Chip’s office. The window gave me a momentary emotional lift, followed immediately by a crushing sense of guilt. I had literally gotten this office over a man’s dead body. I also remembered McGillary’s words and attitude regarding Chip’s cases. Don’t get too excited by this, Ellery. This is not a promotion, not really.
For a long time I just sat and contemplated my prospects. I muttered my father’s mantra. “You make your own luck.”
If I could somehow bring Abercrombie to a successful conclusion and then start bringing in some business on my own, this still might work out. I spotted the stack of messages I’d unearthed the day before and decided to ask The Terrifying Norma about the caller.
Norma was a woman in her mid-sixties with white hair that had been coiffed until it looked like a helmet and breasts like the bulwark on a destroyer. At every break she headed for the great outdoors, where she huddled with the other cigarette refugees. The odor of smoke and tobacco hung around her formidable person.
“What do you know about this guy?” I asked as I handed over the messages.
My attention was caught by a tall glass jar sitting on the corner of Norma’s desk. It was filled to the top with Hersey’s Kisses—the gold-wrapped ones, which meant they had almonds in them. I unconsciously reached into the jar, only to have the back of my hand firmly slapped by Norma.
“Uh-uh, buy your own. They keep me from going nuts between smokes.” I stuck my hand behind my back like a naughty child reprimanded by her governess while Norma looked through the stack. Her lips pursed in a moue of disgust. “Finkelstein, dreadful little man. He’s an ambulance chaser. I can’t imagine what he had to say to anyone in this firm, but Mr. Westin would never send him packing.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll call him back when I have a free moment. Could you book a conference room for me on Friday at three p.m.? Marlene Abercrombie and her children will be coming in.”
Norma made a note on a legal pad. It was filled with scribbled notes. I glanced over at her computer. The keyboard was really, really clean. It looked like Chip hadn’t followed the usual pattern in a vampire law firm and dictated his correspondence. Which meant Norma was not accustomed to typing, and she probably wouldn’t want that situation to change just because I’d inherited her. Or maybe she’d inherited me. That certainly seemed to be her attitude.
The next few hours were spent trying to separate the materials relating to the Abercrombie case into organized files. Chip might have had everything filed properly in his head, but out here in the real world it was like a giant tangle of yarn.
Eventually I had everything related to the alpacas rounded up and in its own file. I had a file for real estate. In addition to his home in Virginia, Abercrombie had a house in Portugal, a shooting lodge in Scotland, apartments in Paris and Istanbul, a condo at the Taos Ski Valley (maybe that was where he got interested in alpacas), and a beach house on the Big Island of Hawaii. I could see why the ex was unwilling to accept a lump-sum cash settlement even when she didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning control of the company.
I was holding a copy of the title to the 166-foot yacht and trying to decide whether it qualified as a floating house or if it needed to go into the vehicles file along with the Ferrari, the Bugatti, and the vintage WWII Jeep, when I was interrupted by a knock.
I jumped up, wondering if it might be John O’Shea, and my heart gave this curious little swoop. I squeezed my eyes shut and said out loud, “Oh, no.” I really was getting a crush. But it wasn’t the detective in the doorway. It was Ryan, and he was holding a beautiful calla lily plant. The blossoms were a delicate peach, and the fluorescent light glowed on the leaves.
He gave me the close-lipped vampire smile. “How are you settling in?”
“Okay.” I shook my head. “But it’s not the way I’d want to get a better office.”
“Come on, you’re a lawyer. You need to hone those shark-like instincts.” This time a bit of tooth showed. I laughed, but it felt a little hollow.
“Here’s an office-warming present,” he said, offering me the plant.
“Thank you. It’s beautiful.” I took the pot and set it on a low filing cabinet beneath the window.
“I’m afraid your ficus didn’t survive four days without water. I tried to resuscitate it, but I have a black thumb. That’s why I wanted to get this to you right away.” He gestured at the calla lily. This time my laugh wasn’t so forced. “I’d also like to invite you out to Long Island to ride. We’ve got long days now, and riding near twilight is easier for me.”
I wanted to leap at the chance, but caution about interoffice involvement made me hesitate. “This isn’t a date, right?” I asked.
“No, no, a trade—horses for coaching,” he said.
“Well, in that case … it sounds lovely. Could we do it on Friday? That gives me a little more time to pull order out of chaos.” I gestured at the stacks of papers. “I’m going to meet my clients on Friday, and I have a feeling I’m going to need to blow off some steam.”
“Friday it is. What say we leave from here at 6:30?”
“Sound good.”
“Don’t forget to pack your boots,” he added with a smile, and left.
I found myself thinking less about private detectives and more about a rewarding relationship with a colleague as I plunged back into the mess. I wondered if Ryan had a hostess. Since there were no female vampires, male vampires tended to recruit older human women to fill that role. In addition to arranging social events and overseeing the care of the house, a hostess offered cover to any young woman who might be a guest in a vampire’s home. It was charmingly archaic, but it served a deadly serious purpose. It protected a vampire and a human woman from any accusation that there might be a Making. Vampires and werewolves could associate with human women—sleep with them (though the act was tougher to accomplish for a vampire) and even marry them, as shown by the May file. What they could not do was turn a woman into a vampire or a werewolf. Ever.
I thought back on the two women who had filled the hostess role for Meredith Bainbridge during my childhood. Mattie had been fifty-eight when she took the position, sixty when I arrived. She had held it until her death from breast cancer seven years later. Susan had been next, and she had been sixty-three. She was still managing the Bainbridge household, and at seventy-four she showed little sign of slowing down. I thought about Shade’s hostess—Debra, age sixty-eight.
I decided I would be fine. Ryan probably had a hostess, and even if he didn’t, I’d be mostly in the barn. No problem.
* * *
Marlene Abercrombie looked like an animated and angry strip of beef jerky topped with a shock of dyed red hair. I knew from the files that she was eighty-four years old, but fury had apparently held off the effects of aging. She moved toward a chair in the conference room with the energy of a whirlwind.
Her three children were with her. Andrew and Angela, the twins, were sixty-one. Andrew was fat, with fleshy lips set in a perpetual pout. Angela was plump and sported a perky haircut that was too young for her face. Her hair was dyed blonde. Then there was Natalie, age fifty-five. She had the look of a “lady who lunched.” She took after her mother in that she was whipcord thin, and her eyes had all the warmth of pieces of flint. Her hair had been highlighted by an expert, and her clothes were of a higher quality than those of her siblings. It looked like Natalie had married well.
They got settled, Norma went off to fetch coffee, and I settled into the chair at the head of the table. The four Abercrombies stared at me.
“Aren’t you a little young to take on a case of this importance?” Andrew asked. His voice didn’t match his bulk. It was high and rather reedy.
This case is shit
and a nuisance to boot, and I can tell already that I’m going to hate you all. But I didn’t say that. Instead I said, “I worked very closely with Mr. Westin on this case. I’m confident, and the senior partners are confident, that I can see this through to a mutually successful conclusion.”
“And are we getting any closer to that conclusion?” Natalie asked.
“Well, it was a definite setback when Mr. Meyers died, but I’m hopeful that Mr. Gelb will be able to attest to the conversation.” I took a deep breath and plunged on. “The problem is that time is against us. Memories grow hazy, and people are getting old and dying.” I removed a paper from one of my files. “Have you given any more thought to the latest settlement offer from Securitech?”
“What’s to think about? It’s crap,” Natalie drawled.
“Four million dollars. It’s chicken feed to these people,” Marlene said in a voice like a crow’s caw.
“We have our children to consider,” Angela whined.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have had so many,” Natalie snapped at her sister.
“Just because you’re a dried-up old—”
“Stop it!” Marlene rapped. They subsided.
I cleared my throat and tried to take back control. “However you might feel about the fairness of this offer, we should at least respond. Perhaps we can present something that better reflects your—”
“All of it!” Marlene snapped. “He spent half our marriage overseas, leaving me alone with the kids. And then he abandoned us. He owed me.”
“He did support you quite generously during their minority, and he paid for their educations.” I looked at my notes. “Even when Andrew changed majors three times and took nine years to graduate.”
“Whose side are you on?” Angela asked, while Andrew puffed like an outraged bullfrog.
“Yours, of course, but I’m trying to make you consider the arguments from the other side. It’s unfortunate that Mr. Abercrombie founded his company and made his fortune after the separation, but those are the facts we face. You should be glad he didn’t do it after the divorce. Then you really wouldn’t have a case.” My tone was hard enough to break rocks. “The reason this case was sent to arbitration is because there really isn’t an issue of law at stake. We’re trying to find some grounds for an agreement so you can get on with your lives and stop gnawing at this old injury. Locked in litigation is not a good way to live.”
Marlene stood. Her face was twisted as if she’d bitten into a rotten lemon. “I don’t need psychological counseling from you, young lady. These are his children.” She swept out a ring-bedecked, age-spotted hand to indicate them. “Flesh-and-blood children. Real children. Not some monster conceived in a disgusting act. I was his wife. I washed his socks and smelled his farts and fucked him. I want what’s mine. Come on, kids.”
She swept out of the conference room trailed by her dispirited progeny. I leaned back in the chair and let out an explosive breath.
“And I’m supposed to establish that he loved that,” I said aloud to the empty room.
* * *
Ryan whisked me away early, turning up in my office at barely 4:00. I gestured helplessly at the files and demurred, but he just laughed and told me that he was a partner and arguing was not allowed. I surrendered. A partner’s order was good enough for me, and I had found my first week back to be exhausting and depressing. There were no treasures hidden among Chip’s cases. There was just Abercrombie, and more Abercrombie, and a potentially murderous husband in a low-rent divorce case. We stopped by the break room fridge so I could grab the carrots I’d brought.
“So, you’re of the bribing school of riding?” Ryan asked, his voice catching on a laugh.
“I’m of the spoil-them-rotten school of riding,” I answered as we rode the elevator down.
I had thought we’d take the train, but Ryan had his car and driver. “Which is why I wanted to leave early,” he said as we settled into the backseat. I tucked the bag of carrots on the floor beneath my feet. “Friday afternoon traffic is always terrible.”
“The train—” I began, but Ryan interrupted me.
“Tell me the last time you’ve seen a vampire on public transportation.”
I thought about it. “I guess never. Just too déclassé for you?” I teased.
He smiled back. “Well, that’s part of the reason, but mostly it’s because we can’t pass as human, and we make you uncomfortable. Maybe in another generation the discomfort will pass, but for right now … well, it’s better not to tempt fate. There are still enough people in this country who think we’re devils incarnate, and if violence occurred, somebody would get hurt. Maybe even a vampire,” he added with another smile.
“Hence the fostering program,” I said.
“That’s the primary reason, but don’t discount the medieval tendencies of some of the old white-mustache vampires. It worked in 1260; why shouldn’t it work fine now?” Ryan said in a quavery old-man voice. He shrugged. “They like things to stay the same.” I absorbed that, then laughed. “What?”
“You’re giving me a totally different image of vampires. Instead of elegant traditionalists, I’m picturing you as crabby old men yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off their lawn.”
“Please, don’t include me in that categorization. I’m the very model of a modern vampire.”
“And a man who likes Gilbert and Sullivan, which sort of undercuts your claim,” I said dryly.
“And you are a pearl among humans because you recognized the reference.”
The traffic gods were kind—and aided in their efforts by Stephenson’s aggressive driving—so we reached Ryan’s Long Island house in a little over an hour. Stephenson dropped us at the front door. A maid came down the stairs, gathered up my small case and boot bag, and carried them into the house. There was no sign of a hostess as we walked up the curving staircase to a second-floor bedroom. It was a bit worrisome, but horsey lust had me pushing aside my concerns.
Ryan was waiting at the foot of the stairs when I came out of the bathroom, and damn he looked good in a pair of skin-tight fawn-colored breeches, high black boots, and a white shirt. The lenses of his dark glasses were almost black, and he finished off the outfit with a broad-brimmed Tilley hat.
He gave a whistle as I descended the stairs, and I felt pretty good accepting the accolade. As hard as I try to be chic, I seem to look best in riding togs. I had picked a pair of blue breeches and a sleeveless white shirt with a high collar. My handmade Konig boots made my legs seem longer, which made me seem taller. My helmet swung from my hand. Ryan looked at it.
“You wear a helmet.”
“Yes, because I’m not an idiot.”
“But you’re a good rider.”
“Which makes it more likely I’ll get hurt, because I get stuck with rank horses, young horses, and the worst of all, ponies. Also, I do more difficult things then a beginning rider. So, yes, I wear a helmet. My best asset is my brain; I don’t really want to scramble it.”
Ryan gave me a slow look. “Oh, I don’t think that’s your only asset.”
I could feel the blush crawling up my neck into the tips of my ears. Okay, so it looked like Ryan was interested in something more than a good working relationship. Getting involved romantically with vampires was always risky. The relationships tended to end quickly, often leaving the woman feeling hurt and abandoned and the vampire unable to offer much in the way of comfort, because realistically she was just one in a long line of women across the centuries. Finally, there was the risk that the woman would hook up with the one vampire who, through either an epic lack of self-control or a nihilistic desire to end it all, would decide to turn her into a vampire and then they both would get killed.
I didn’t know how to respond to Ryan’s flirting so I hurried past him. “Hey, let’s go. Time’s a-wastin’.”
The barn was behind the main house and some distance away to cut down on smells and flies. Personally I loved the smell of horses, hay, and man
ure, but I suspected that might be unique to horse-crazy girls. Ryan had tricked the barn out with wood paneling on the six stall doors and brass rather than steel bars. There were nice big runs off all the stalls and huge automatic waterers, a tack-up area, and a wash rack.
I was about to choke with envy. It was a perfect jewel of a barn, and the five heads thrust over the stall doors watching our progress were just beautiful.
The occupant of the sixth stall stood placidly in the cross ties. He was a large black Friesian who had already been tacked up. His ears pricked forward at the sight of Ryan. The groom fished a peppermint out of his pocket and handed it to Ryan, who tucked it in the corner of the big horse’s mouth. A look of bliss filled his liquid brown eyes as he crunched the candy.
“This is Maarten. He’s my big guy.” I reflected that it was a good choice of a mount for a vampire. Friesians were big horses with gentle temperaments, and they would be less likely to be bothered when ridden by a dead guy. Ryan continued, “I thought I’d let you pick your horse.”
He led me down the central aisle of the barn. “This is Widestep, Steppi to his friends. He’s a sixteen-year-old Hanoverian, trained to Grand Prix.” I stroked the horse’s velvet black nose and straightened his forelock so it hung straight down over his white blaze.
“This is Unitario. He’s a ten-year-old Lusitano stallion. He’s a solid fourth-level horse, training to Prix St. George.” Unitario was a dark black/bay, taller and leggier than the usual Lusitano. His liquid dark eyes had a golden circle around the edges, and he had a wary look on his long face. Like most stallions, he tested me by trying to nip me, and got slapped on the muzzle for his trouble.
“This one is Lily. She’s five and a pill.”
“Of course she is. She’s a mare and a pony.” Lily was an Icelandic with a golden coat, black stockings, and a thick mane that blended stripes of black, gold, and white. Just like O’Shea’s hair, I thought. I toyed with riding her just to feel that weird gait that was something between a trot and a canter, but I wasn’t going to waste my chance here on riding a pony, no matter how cute. And you shouldn’t waste your time getting a crush on an Álfar either.
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