by Dana Cameron
Meg nodded.
I continued. “I hadn’t seen him for ages, actually; out on the site on Wednesday was the first time in a long time.”
Comprehension lit her face. “I thought you looked edgy.”
I nodded. “And the time before—a long time ago—it wasn’t pretty.”
“And now?” she said. “Does it bother you?”
I fished a bread roll out and began to butter it. “I think it’s more that I suddenly remember the emotions, remember things that I haven’t thought about in years,” I said. And I hadn’t thought about them in years, I realized. “It’s kind of like going back to your hometown, after you’ve been away for ages and things have changed. Buildings go up, buildings come down, new houses and roads are built and there’s suddenly a new mall where there used to be a farm stand and a field. But even though none of it seems even vaguely recognizable, you kinda know your way around, and that’s surprising. And then you remember things, and emotions, and you’re surprised by the fact that they’re still there. I’m startled, I guess,” I corrected, trying to keep myself on track, “that they’re still there. And it’s not even nostalgia, just…”
“Muscle memory. Reflex.”
“That’s it. Habit. You wonder why you feel nothing or you remember something suddenly and why it’s still there and how it’s all connected. It’s a bit existential, I guess,” I said apologetically.
“No, I get it. It’s cool.”
“I’m just surprised, that’s all, that the memories are still there, that they’re as strong as they are. I guess I’ve been sitting on them for a long time.”
She nodded. “And now that you’re looking at them?”
“Curiosity, I guess. It’s a little startling—another life. I can live with it because it really has nothing to do with me now.”
“I can see how it would put you off the notion of intradepartmental romance.” She nodded slowly, then looked at me unblinkingly, the way she did when she was challenging herself. “I’m worried about getting married.”
Holy snappers. Well, I’d brought it on myself, I thought. “Is it just the usual stuff, or something specific?”
“I’m not sure what usual is, but I’m just not sure that I know how,” she said. “To be married.”
“You guys have been living together for how long now? Couple of years, right?”
“Since that first season at Penitence Point. Almost four years.”
“And how’s that been?”
“Fine. Good, even. I mean, Neal’s great, but where there are two personalities, there’s bound to be friction, occasionally. And while I’ve lived with men before—I mean, my brothers and my dad—sometimes, it’s like living with another species, you know?”
I thought about Brian’s blood all over Kam’s basement. “Oh, yeah. So what’s the problem?”
She chewed her bottom lip. “I just don’t know…I’m worried we’ll end up getting divorced.”
“It’s a possibility.”
Meg looked at me liked I slapped her.
I shrugged. “No, it is a possibility, a remote one, maybe, but it exists in the universe of things that could happen. I had the same worry. When my folks divorced, well, it wasn’t like they weren’t better off, but it made me wonder if I was built for marriage. Whether anyone was. I decided Brian was worth giving it a shot. Don’t let the past dictate your future.”
“Yeah, but I’m worried that I’ll change. Or that I won’t change. Or that we won’t be friends anymore.”
It was interesting to see Meg so overtly anxious about anything, but I suspected that everyone who was part of a couple had fears of permanent stasis or of spiraling out of control or leaving their partner behind. “Look, nothing’s going to change. Or rather, it will, but you’ll probably be able to sort it out together. You’ll grow, but you’ll also continue being best friends. Only with sex and joint taxes.”
“Hell, Emma, I didn’t know you were such a freaking romantic.” But she looked happier now, and that was fine with me.
“I am. It’s just not in the fluffy kittens-and-paper-lace hearts mold. Let’s go downstairs and get dessert with the others.”
I got dressed, feeling hugely restored by the shower, food, and rest, and we went downstairs. The banquet was over, but people were still gathered at their tables, talking and laughing loudly. I urged Meg to go join up with the others—I was fine now, thanks to her—but asked her not to say anything about where she might have been.
She gave me a dirty look for insulting her intelligence and then left.
It took me a moment to notice a couple of things. The first was that I realized I was trying to get an idea of who was here, and who wasn’t. Impossible of course, but I just wanted to see whether there were any obvious absences. Sure the cops had said I’d be safe inside the hotel, but that wasn’t going to stop me from trying to improve my odds. I also noticed that as I neared some tables, people tended to clam up when they saw me. At first, I just figured they were wondering about the scratch, and then I realized that Lissa was right: People had been talking, and this weekend had focused a lot of that gossip on me.
I saw a group clustered around one table, each examining the label of a wine bottle minutely. It was the same group who brought their own wine with them every year.
“Hey, that’s a pretty nice merlot,” I exclaimed to the ringleader, Hank.
“You bet your ass, it is,” one of them said, head back, eyes closed in worshipful ecstasy. Hank tilted his chair back onto two legs and opened his eyes. “Emma! Quelle surprise. I had you down as one of the beer-swilling barbarians.”
I smiled. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Well, like I said”—he exchanged glances with the rest of the party, who all suddenly became engrossed in their glasses—“just a surprise, that’s all,” he finished weakly.
I nodded; I got it. “See you.”
As I moved on, I heard a roar across the room. A crowd at another table was intent on Duncan, no surprise there, but apparently he and Chris were engaged in a monumental contest of drinking and storytelling. At one point, Chris climbed on top of his chair and beat his chest.
As I shook my head, I bumped into someone. I recognized the fringe of blond hair and the awful Captain America tie right away; he’d been wearing the damn thing for years, as both a protest and a sop to formality. “Hey, Mickey.” I gave him a buss.
“Emma! Haven’t seen you all weekend!” He gave me a big kiss on the cheek. “Every time I see you, your hair gets shorter. You look completely different, really great.”
I didn’t ask if that meant he thought I didn’t look great before; I knew what he meant. “Oh, it’s not so big a change.”
“Sure it is. Short, jazzy hair. All buffed out.”
“It’s not that different.”
“See? Even standing up for yourself more.”
“I did before,” I said, a little more forcefully. I guess I was tired, no surprise.
“What did I tell you?”
“Huh. I still don’t think I’m all that different. Maybe it’s tenure. Maybe all the racing around has made me a little tougher.”
Mickey shook his head. “Don’t think so. This is more recent.”
“Whatever.” Just let it go, man.
“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. It’s damn sexy, when you think about it.”
I looked at him sideways. “Jeez, tell me that wasn’t a pass.”
He cocked his head. “Well, it could be. Would that be so bad?”
“We’re friends. I like that a lot. I don’t go in for the other stuff.”
“Wouldn’t friendly sex be better than the alternative?”
“It’s just not an option. You’re a friend, and so I’m going to forget this conversation ever took place.”
“See what I mean?” He nodded, satisfied he was right. “Year or two ago, you would have stammered, then run away.”
“Whatever. My answer still wo
uld have been no, thank you.”
As I turned to walk away, he called after me, “Just like I said. Different. No more bullshit.”
“What the hell is going on here?” I muttered.
“The world is going crazy, of course,” Laurel said, appearing at my side. She had a glass of wine in her hand and was brushing the crumbs off her black turtleneck. “You didn’t miss much of a meal.”
“You noticed I wasn’t here?”
“Everyone did. Walk and talk with me, Em. I need to get up to my room, for a moment.”
Laurel’s room was nicer than mine, of course, a corner room with a great view out onto the forested area around the lake. Her heat worked. She had a work area with an extra desk. And that wasn’t all that she had. As soon as she walked into the room, she hit a switch on a small, technical-looking cube in black matte and silver plastic; clear music came out. It was jazz; not one of my favorite genres, but it changed the whole feel of the space.
She plugged in her phone and PDA. “First things first,” she said. “Ever notice that where once it was animals you had to feed and bed down at the end of the day, now it’s the electronics you have to attend to?”
Laurel then brought a small leather travel case, just smaller than a shoebox, into the bathroom with her. Candles were on the nightstand, and I thought about the pretty light they would have cast lit, in the dark with the snow outside. She also had a small refrigerator; she pulled a bottle from it and returned to the bathroom.
“Okay, now I know you didn’t get that into carryon,” I said.
“Pardon?” she called back to me.
“How come you got a fridge?”
“I asked for it. You can usually rent them cheap. Makes life easier.”
Life? At a conference? “The music and candles too?”
“Oh. You never know who you’re going to run into.”
She was teasing—she and Emily had been together for ages—but it struck me that Laurel worked hard at maintaining her quality of life. “So how come you didn’t go to Chicago last year? For the nationals?”
“Didn’t feel like it.” She returned with a martini glass.
“No, really. And where’d you get the glass?”
“I brought it with me, nice little travel kit. I’d offer you one, but I didn’t think you liked vodka. I could do you up a cosmo, if you like. There’s cranberry in the fridge.”
“No thanks. I already had some wine with dinner, and I’m beat.”
“Suit yourself. I happen to believe that martinis are the new tea parties. Rather than balancing hot tea in fragile porcelain cups to show how poised and knowledgeable you are about social rituals, now you have to be able to stand, talk, and not slosh your drink. You have to show you can hold your liquor, literally and figuratively.”
“Interesting,” I said, and I thought of Jay spilling her drink. I was still waiting for her answer.
She shrugged. “And as for Chicago, there’s no point in running up your Visa bill and risking athlete’s foot at a second-rate hotel, if you’re not also going to get a kick out of it. I’d just been to Chicago for another gig, and since I wasn’t giving a paper, and there was no one I wanted to meet, I blew it off. I personally am in it for the intellectual thrills, and it makes it tough if you are the most interesting person there.”
I made a snooty face at her, and she shrugged. “I’m getting too old for posturing, Emma. I can’t be bothered and it wastes my time. I fix up my room the way I like because I see no harm in traveling comfortably.”
She mixed up her drink, and as she did so, she said, “Those cuts on your hand and face look nasty. You clean them up good?”
“Yep.”
“You should be caught up on your tetanus shots anyway, working in the field like you do.”
“Yes, Mother.”
She sat back on the bed with her drink, no trace of anger on her face. “You can be pissy if you want, Em, be my guest. But the sooner you get used to me helping you, the better company you’ll be for me too.”
“Sorry. I’m just fed up. Everyone is strange, what with the thing with Garrison and everything.”
“Everyone is strange.” It could have been agreement on a question.
“Either they’re exactly the same as they’ve always been or they’re totally different. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m irritated with everyone.”
“Your own experiences are probably coloring that.”
“Whatever. The thing with Garrison, I don’t know. I’m worried. I’m worried about who might have been out there today. Shooting at me.” I explained the day’s events to her; she took it all in without a word.
Laurel looked thoughtful. “Huh. Who didn’t you see, when you came into the banquet?”
“I didn’t see Sue. I didn’t see Brad. I didn’t see Scott. I didn’t see you, at first.”
“And yet here you are, telling me all about it.” Laurel was looking out the window now, her face momentarily obscured by her glass. “Why is that?”
“Uh.” I thought about it. “You were in dry clothes; your face wasn’t red or anything, from exertion and cold. And people would have missed you, if you hadn’t been at the center of the party.”
“Interesting.” She set her glass down. “The thing you need to worry about now, Emma, telling the wrong things to the wrong people. I don’t know if you realize that you won’t necessarily be able to speak to people the same way again, if indeed, they’ll feel comfortable with you at all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I say. People might find your choices ghoulish. They might decide that they trust you as a friend, but as a cop—”
I shook my head violently. “I’m not going to be a cop. Far from it—”
“They’ll see you as right next door and they might decide that they have things they don’t want that close to the law. Or they might just think you’ve flipped your wig.” She picked up her glass, sipped her drink, and made an approving face.
“It’s not as bad as that.”
“People don’t like change. You’re leaving the fold—in their eyes, even if not in fact—you’re throwing their decisions to stay in their faces. You’ve got the brass ring, what with tenure and all, and you seem to be saying it’s not enough. It’s not appreciated.”
“It has nothing to do with anyone else.”
“And yet, see how you bridled when I told you I didn’t bother with conferences that didn’t interest me. Same thing.”
“Laurel?”
“Yes, Emma?”
“I’d like that drink now, if you don’t mind.”
Chapter 15
AN HOUR LATER, I WAS DRAGGING MYSELF TO MY room, worn to a frazzle. The hallway was deserted, and as I fit my key into the door, I felt as though I couldn’t get into bed fast enough. The thought that the cops were still bustling down in the lobby made me very happy indeed. The knob turned readily enough, and I stepped just inside, stooping to pick up the fallen room-service request. Then I felt a tremendous blow on my back, and it sent me sprawling forward.
As I hit the floor, the light from the hallway went out. The door to my room swung shut on its security hinge, and I was engulfed in darkness.
I wasn’t alone. I could hear heavy breathing behind me, and I shook off my denial that I’d been attacked: No, it wasn’t an accident, no, I wasn’t dreaming, no, it wasn’t Nolan at the gym. I’d been attacked, and whoever it was had followed me into my room. This was for real, and if I didn’t move fast…
I rolled over as soon as I hit the carpet, bringing my foot up to kick whatever got near me. My head was right at the foot of the bed, so I’d have to shift before I could get to my feet. I couldn’t see anything but blurred shadows—the snow stuck to the window helped block out some of the light from the outside—but I could follow motion pretty well. My attacker moved toward me, lunged, and I kicked out, catching a leg, just above the knee, by the feel of it. I was rewarded with a muffled exclamatio
n inspired by pain and surprise. My shoe got snagged in the trouser fabric and was pulled off as he—it was a man, from the size of him—backed away. I kicked off the other shoe, scootched over, and got up—nice, clean, and technical, swinging my leg around my hand, which was firmly planted on the floor—just in time to realize that my opponent was swinging at the left side of my head.
I muffed the block—I didn’t bring my arm up fast enough—and got caught on the cheekbone with his fist.
Several things happened then.
The blow hurt like hell, but not as badly as I’d feared. I’d had my head tucked behind my shoulder, too. My assailant was wearing gloves.
I took the punch and kept going, loading up my counter. I launched a sweet right cross and caught him square on the side of the head. I felt skin give. If I could have seen better, I might have landed it right on the nose, but was pleased as, well, punch, to land anything at all. I heard another curse, and he backed off a step.
At the same time, I realized that not only was I not hurt so much as I was mad—and I was truly pissed—but also that the guy wasn’t expecting me to fight back. And I was fighting, I understood, with a shock. I had actually blocked a punch, against someone who meant to hurt me. He wasn’t even very good at this, and if I could keep my act together for a few minutes—
He was still between me and the doorway, and with the back of my legs brushing the bedspread, I had no choice but to follow up, bring the fight to him.
He threw another wild roundhouse, and I slipped it. I tried a quick jab, but he was out of range, so I hauled back and let loose with a front kick that connected solidly with his stomach.
With nothing but nylon stockings on my feet, I lost my purchase on the carpeting as I connected with him, and I hit the ground. He went back, hard, slamming into the door, making a sick wheezing sound.
The noise of him hitting the door brought an angry protest and knocking on the wall from the occupant of the room next to mine. This reminded me that there were other people nearby, and as I was getting up again, I did what I should have done in the first place.