The two Hunters took off running.
Ian never got a chance to comment about how he knew Kingsley from afar. Kingsley was across the street and snatching two of them by the necks at least five steps ahead of him. “Damn,” Ian said aloud when he witnessed the move.
One of the women screamed.
Ian loved it when he encountered the Sangsue wearing ties. Ties made such nice weapons. He grabbed his two by their ties and attempted to bang their heads together. It was a move he’d seen the Pale Fox do, and he figured it would have looked cool had it worked for him. It didn’t, but it choked one of them enough for him to fall and attempt to crawl away.
“They weren’t bothering us,” one of the women cried.
“They would have killed you,” Kingsley shouted back.
“Call the police, Molly,” one of the women said.
The Blood Sucker who was crawling stood up and ran. His partner tried to pull away from Kingsley too.
“I don’t carry my dagger anymore,” Kingsley shouted at Ian in Dogon.
As much as Ian hated for anybody to touch his dagger, he produced it without thinking and handed it to the retiree. Kingsley stabbed the guy he was holding in the neck, and it pixeled away.
“Oh my God, oh my God! Did you see that?” It was one of the women.
Kingsley immediately handed the dagger back. He knew it was a big deal to touch another Hunter’s weapon. While Ian had the dagger in his hand, he stabbed the one he was fighting. He didn’t hit the right spot on the bony body, and the Sucker fell, but he didn’t die. They heard the sirens. The two who were still on their feet grabbed the one Ian had stabbed and pulled him away. Kingsley kicked one as they escaped into the night.
“Ladies,” Kingsley said to the women. “We were pleased to be able to chase away those purse snatchers for you.”
“Purse snatchers,” both women repeated. “Thank you for running them away,” the younger of the two said.
The two Hunters started calmly walking toward the restaurant.
“I’ve seen Fox wash without touching, but that was the first time I’ve ever seen one of us do it. Impressive,” Ian said.
“Get him to show you how to do it. Actually, it’s easier than the touching wash.” Kingsley said and then laughed. “Damn, that brought back memories.”
Ian stopped walking and shook Kingsley’s hand again. “I’ve got to say, my brother, you’ve got mad skills out there. I know Fox must have hated to see you leave.”
Kingsley laughed. “Who knows what Fox thinks?”
“Where are you parked?” Ian asked.
“Over there, but I’m going to this restaurant right here.”
Ian stopped and looked at him. “You’re Nesta’s father, aren’t you?”
“You know. . . okay, you’re the client from California?”
They both laughed.
“That damn Fox! I talked to him twice today, and he never once said anything about having a Hunter in town,” Kingsley said, smiling.
“I actually saw him earlier today, and he said nothing about you either. Maybe we give him too much credit. Maybe these things never line up in his mind.”
“Don’t kid yourself, little brother. I love him like a brother, but that fool always knows exactly what’s happening.”
They entered the restaurant. “My daughter doesn’t know too much about most of this.”
“I understand,” Ian said, but the thoughts running through his mind were almost overwhelming.
“Did you two get in a fight?” Nesta asked.
Ian didn’t think either of them looked any the worse for wear, but he dusted off his lapel with the back of his hand.
“Not with each other,” Kingsley answered. Dot looked at him and then back at Ian. Ian could tell by her expression that she was able to put two and two together. He could not tell if she liked the answer.
“What happened?” Nesta asked once they were seated.
“Nothing much. We ran off some punks.”
“Daddy, you can’t keep doing things like that. You’re not a young man anymore.”
“Your father can take care of himself, Nesta.”
“I know, Mama, but he can’t take care of the rest of the world.”
“Well, luckily I had your young client here with me.”
Nesta smiled at Ian, and he sensed that her mother was again doing the math. He was afraid to listen in to Dot’s thoughts, but her face said volumes.
“So tell me about that accent, Ian.” Dot asked.
He told her about some of the places he’d lived before Sacramento. Dot asked questions like she was interviewing him for a job. Nesta was happy when Rosa appeared to take their order.
“Ah, the men are back.”
“Yes,” Dot agreed.
“My husband tells me I have a firm grasp of the obvious. Shall I bring you a carafe of our limonade first?”
“Yes, please do.”
“I was going to have a glass of wine,” Dot told her daughter when Rosa walked away.
“It is wine, Mama—sangria, you’ll like it.”
“You were drinking and driving last night?”
“I had a half a glass, and Rosa gave us a bottle to take back to our rooms.”
Ian almost laughed from the emphasis she put on the word “rooms.”
Rosa returned with the wine and the stem ware. “Are you all ready to order?”
“I need just a little more time,” Nesta said.
“Honey, I’ll order for you.”
“How can you do that, Mama, when I don’t even know what I want?”
“What’s with women and their daughters?” Kingsley asked Ian.
With the look that Dot gave her husband, Ian decided to stay out of it.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Rosa announced.
“So Ian, how many times a day do one of those lashes get caught in your eyes?”
“Mother!”
“Look at them, Nesta—women would kill for those lashes!”
Nesta mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”
“Actually, they do tend to get in my eyes quite a bit. Thank you for noticing.”
Dot looked at her daughter and gloated.
Nesta gave Ian another apologetic look; when he smiled back at her, the expression on her face softened. The next expression on Nesta’s face spoke so much raw passion for him, he hardened.
The men ordered tapas, and Rosa took the appetizer order to the cook while they decided on their dinner orders. Dot wanted to try the swordfish, but she had to check with Kingsley to remember if she liked swordfish.
“One of us got an upset stomach the last time we had it, but I think it was me,” Kingsley said.
“Where were we?”
“In Jamaica.”
“No, we were in the Bahamas, and it was you.” Dot smiled and nodded as if it had been decided; she would order the swordfish.
Ian had to pinch himself to keep from laughing, but then he made the mistake of looking at Nesta. The pained look on her face was too much. He laughed.
“Go ahead and laugh, little brother—your day is coming,” Kingsley said, smiling.
“What’s funny?” Dot asked, which caused Nesta to join Ian in laughter.
“I’m truly laughing with you,” Ian tried to explain. “I look forward to the day I can rely on somebody to keep up with my upset stomachs.” He heard the words come from his mouth, but until he said them he wouldn’t have owned them. Am I really looking forward to that?
“I really wouldn’t mind trying the Paella Marinara, but it’s a meal for two,” Nesta said.
“Order it—I’ll share it with you,” Ian volunteered.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely, or you can take the rest back to your room and have it later.”
Kingsley felt his wife kick him under the table, but he didn’t know what it meant. Why is my wife kicking me under the table? Kingsley mentally asked Ian. Am I missing something between you a
nd my daughter?
Ian coughed and then wiped his mouth with his napkin, but it wasn’t enough of a stall to form a thought.
No sir, I have no idea why she’s kicking you.
“What’s your impression of Sacramento?” Dot asked.
“I like it a lot. The only thing I had no way to anticipate was the weather. I was told it was hot there, but I never expected it to be as hot as it is. After coming from South America, I figured I could bare the heat, but I relocated in the spring and it was hotter than I expected.”
“UC Davis is one of the medical schools I’m looking at.”
“Is it really?” Ian asked.
Nesta nodded.
It was brief, but Dot saw the joy in Ian’s face. “This is a nice area to live in,” Dot said. “I notice that the winters aren’t as cold as they were when I was a kid.”
“Global warming,” Kingsley said, and Dot nodded.
“I forgot to warn you that my parents have strange conversations. I find it’s best just to nod and smile.”
Ian laughed.
“Ian, we embarrass her by just showing up. Tell her how lucky she is to still have her parents.”
“Mama, I know that. I know I’m lucky.”
“Of course she does,” Kingsley said.
“Do you have a big extended family?” Ian asked.
Nesta noticed he directed the question to her mother, which was odd because she was the only one who had brothers and sisters. Her father didn’t have any living relatives.
“Not what you would call large, but I have two brothers and two sisters and my mother is still alive. Kingsley has friends he’s had forever who are as close as brothers, but he doesn’t have any living relatives.”
Ian nodded.
“What about you?” Nesta asked. “Big family?”
“No, I’m like your father. I get to choose my relatives too. What movie are you going to see?” Ian figured it was time to change the subject. Conversations about family can make normal people suspicious. It’s not easy to find two people with absolutely no relatives.
“What was the name of that movie, Kingsley?”
“I don’t know. The one with that comedian in it. Something about fire in the title. It’s playing at the theater next to the motel.”
Nesta nodded. “I know which one you’re talking about. I wanted to see that too.”
“Why don’t you and your mother go? I can drive Ian around.”
“That’s a great idea,” Dot agreed.
“Wait a minute. I can’t just turn the car over to you.”
“Yes, you can. I’m your boss.”
“He is?” Ian asked.
“Technically yes, he is, but only because he manages the company that owns the limousine service I drive for.”
Ian didn’t know when he’d been more tickled. Every layer of Nesta life seemed to peel away to a funnier layer. “I wouldn’t mind hanging out with your father for a few hours. Go see the movie with your mom.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am. Go, have fun.”
Nesta didn’t know how she should feel about his offer. A part of her wanted to feel hurt that he could so readily replace her, but what if he was making a sacrifice for her? That was it, she decided. He was making a sacrifice for her. He didn’t know her father; spending time with him would have to be awkward for him. She smiled. “Thank you, Ian. I will take you up on that.”
Nesta looked at her father, her hero. She figured by the end of the night her father would win over Ian just as he did everybody else. They already seemed to have a good rapport.
Dinner was fun; even Nesta had to admit it. It would go down as one of the best meals she’d ever eaten. Having her parents there made it a perfect evening. All of her friends enjoyed hanging out at her house because of her parents and, for the first time, she saw it herself. She couldn’t help but wonder what the same evening would have been like if the person seated across from her father had been Andre.
Before they left the restaurant, Dot took a small digital camera from her purse and had Rosa take several pictures of them.
The exchanging of partners went much smoother than Nesta would have predicted. Her father gave her his keys, and she gave him hers. They agreed to meet back at the motel in two and one half hours.
Judging by the barrage of questions Dot had as soon as Nesta was seated behind the wheel, Nesta was thankful Dot had restrained herself as much as she had during dinner.
“What did he say about his background?” Dot asked.
“That’s the second time you asked me that. Why is that so important?”
“Backgrounds are important.”
“Okay, Mama, I know that, but why are you asking it like you would expect him to lie?”
Dot had been turned in, facing her daughter, but she sat back. “I didn’t mean it like that. He seems like a very nice person.”
“Yes, he does, but the truth of the matter is what difference does it make? He lives in California.”
“You are looking at schools out that way.”
“Mama, he’s just a client. Just like all the other clients you never met. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Okay, what are you going to tell your uncle when you see him tomorrow?”
Out of the frying pan and into the fire. “I really don’t believe he’s going to ask me to serve, as you and Daddy call it, but my understanding was I didn’t have a choice if he did.”
“Will you ever forgive us for not telling you earlier?”
“I can understand why you wouldn’t want to burden a child with that information growing up. I just wish you would have said something before now.”
“It’s a good life in many ways, but it can become very lonely because you’re eventually on your own in the world. Just you and your fellow Hunters.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to think about that part of it. And anyway, there’s other people in the world without relatives. Look at Ian.”
It was dark in the car, and Nesta couldn’t see her mother’s smile. “Yes, Ian is a good example of that. He seems like a happy enough young man. The two of you look good together.”
“Don’t go there—he’s just a client, and he’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
Dot started singing loudly a song her daughter had never before heard: “What a difference a day makes—twenty-four little hours.”
The older she gets, the stranger she gets.
Chapter Ten
Kingsley loved being able to converse in his native language. The men didn’t get very far after the women went to the movie theater. They decided to walk across the street to check out the two neighborhood bars first.
A Hunter Kingsley had worked with in Austin had recently been killed in Sacramento, and he wanted to know everything Ian could tell him about his old friend’s final hours. Ian had been present, but he skipped over gory details in deference to the sadness he felt welling in the retired Hunter. “To a glorious death,” Kingsley said as he raised his drink to their fallen comrade. Ian clicked glasses with him.
“Tell me about retirement,” Ian said. “Is it as wonderful as I suspect?”
Kingsley took another drink. “There’s only two kinds of Hunters who’ll ask that question. Which one are you—lonely or in constant physical pain?”
Ian laughed. “Are those my only two choices?”
“The only two I’ve ever known to long for retirement.”
Ian thought about his headaches and how the frequency seemed to be increasing. “I’ve been getting overload headaches.”
“Have you tried yoga?”
“No, but you’re the second person to suggest that.”
“I knew a Hunter in St. Paul who was a strong psychic; he had horrible headaches. A healer wasn’t even able to help him, but yoga did. Speaking of healers, isn’t Ife in Sacramento?”
“I don’t know anybody by that name.”
“That’s odd, I heard she was at that restaurant the night R
o died.”
Ian recalled the name of everybody who had been there.
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