Mercy Blade

CHAPTER 6 You Get to Dress Me

Two hours later, I yawned and looked at the time. It was two a.m. Thursday, and I hadn’t slept since Wednesday morning about this time. “Sorry. I’m not used to vamp hours yet.”

“I’d have thought the new boyfriend would be keeping you up late.”

I leaned back in my chair. From anyone else those words might have sounded jealous. Bruiser’s voice, however, was mild, vaguely curious, faintly amused, as if he knew Rick and I hadn’t seen each other much lately. As if he knew Rick was undercover ... I squashed the desire to ask. “As per our discussion,” I stood, stretched, and headed for the door, “I’ll talk to my guys about providing security for the soiree. During the negotiations themselves, the safety measures in this conference room are sufficient. I want to see the sleeping quarters for the envoy and the assistant, the ballroom, the entrances and exits for the press, the greenroom, the kitchen, and anything else that grabs my fancy while we walk. Then I’m for home and sleep.”

Bruiser didn’t argue; he stood and led the way. The rooms for the were-guests were on the second floor, each with an exterior wall and windows: walls two feet thick, built of reinforced poured concrete, bulletproof glass in the windows. Inner walls were soundproofed. The intercom in each room rang directly to security, the kitchen, or housekeeping. New, secure phone lines were being installed, allowing the envoys to make unmonitored calls, as the walls’ iron rebar reinforcing made sat phones and cell phones unreliable. Both rooms would be swept for electronic monitoring before the guests’ arrival and daily thereafter.

The rooms were really two small suites, one decorated in brown, the other in green. Each suite had a sitting room with love seats, the ubiquitous fireplace, a small table and two chairs, a minuscule desk, and a minirefrigerator filled with drinks of every conceivable kind. The bedrooms were small, the space mostly taken up by queen-sized beds and one upholstered chair. The baths were elegant but not spacious, the closets comfortable but not walk-ins.

There was a sprinkler system in case of fire. An alarm rang if emergency doors were opened, and security cameras monitored them constantly. Static security cameras were set at the ends of all hallways. “Secure Internet for their computers?” I asked.

“Password protected and capable of encryption, if they wish,” Bruiser said. “We have a dedicated antenna dish on the roof, installed yesterday. We’ve tested the alarm system and the intercoms. There are two small rooms across the hall for their bodyguards.” He nodded to the rooms across the way.

“When is the last time the sprinkler system was tested?”

Bruiser’s face ran through a series of muted expressions as he looked up at the ceiling.

“Never, then,” I said. “Get the company who installed it in here to check it out. Make sure the workers are accompanied at all times. Also, electronic monitoring equipment was a lot easier to detect back in the old days. If you have someone who wants to see what’s happening in vamp HQ today, they’d use fiber optics, installing a system separate from any audio or electronic information monitoring. Systems could have been installed at any time, with any upgrade, or even yesterday when your dedicated dish was installed.”

“They might install multiple separate systems?” When I nodded, Bruiser asked, “And how would they go about that?”

I said, “It’s easy to install and hard to locate fiber optics. You just thread the cable conduit through a vent or alongside an existing cable. The conduits can be run quite a distance as long as there aren’t many bends. If there are too many bends, then surveillance would require junction boxes. The boxes themselves are problematic and much easier to detect than the actual cable, and would likely have to be installed during original construction or remodeling, like when this place was wired for cable or when satellite TV was installed.”

Bruiser looked at the flat screen television on the wall of the bedroom. “We had cable until yesterday.”

“And no one pulled the old cable out of the walls, because it’s too much trouble,” I said, making it a statement. Bruiser gave me a nod that said I was correct so I continued. “They just left it in place. Having cables in place for other things makes it difficult to discern what cable is good cable and what cable is spyware. However, fiber optics don’t provide audio monitoring, which is usually a lot more effective in terms of info gathering, but if someone managed to get fiber optics installed, then they probably got audio somewhere too.”

Bruiser was looking at me in unhappy surprise.

“What? It’s what I do, besides hunting and killing rogue vamps. Licensed security expert and PI, remember?”

“I do. And yet, knowing that, I have apparently been underusing your talents and skills. Something I intend to remedy immediately.”

There was a double entendre in there but I decided to pretend I hadn’t heard it. “Lucky me. But since I’m earning my retainer, walk me through the hallways to the ballroom and the conference rooms and anywhere else your guests might be. I’ll talk about the pros and cons of micro-sized audio transmission devices, long distance mikes, heat sensing, and Internet info capture.” Bruiser had thought his security measures adequate. I was sure he cursed under his breath, but I pretended not to notice.

Another hour later, I knew twenty times more about the council building than before. I’d seen the ballroom—holy fancy pants, Batman—and gone over the logistics for the press.

Most people thought that blood-servants were smarter and knew more than an average human, due to their increased lifespans and brains kept healthy with vamp blood feedings. But living longer meant more to keep up with, more to learn, all on an adult’s brain power—the learning centers already hardened into slow-changing patterns. Most blood-servants were behind the times, no matter how hard they tried to keep up. In terms of security measures, Bruiser was stuck somewhere in the last decade of the twentieth century and the business was changing fast.

“One final thing,” I said. “The fixed security cameras installed throughout the building are fine, as long as you map out blind spots and cover them too. If I wanted to disrupt this meeting for political reasons, or kill a were for religious or mental instability reasons, or just make trouble, I’d get the building specs and security specs from whomever installed the system, memorize them, and come in with the guests or the caterers at the party, mill around, and then put an incendiary device in or near the guests’ rooms and set it to go off when a door is opened, or a toilet is sat on or something. You got holes in the system, and if I wanted in, I’d get in.”

“You are a dangerous woman, Jane Yellowrock,” he said, his tone guarded and reserved. “Thank you for the advice and your time.”

“Thanks for the paycheck. See you at the big bash.” Spotting Wrassler, I waved down my escort and headed for the stairs.

“Wear the dress with the yellow jeweled collar, and whatever armaments you deem appropriate.” I looked over my shoulder and Bruiser’s eyes fell from my face to my boots and back up, lingering on my butt in the leathers. Okay. That was different. Warmth spun through me and my toes curled. Beast, who had been unusually silent all day, perked up finally. She liked Bruiser. She liked him a lot. His voice dropped to a low vibration that made my blood heat. “I promise I’ll let you keep your toys this time.”

“You paid for the dresses. I guess you get to dress me.” Which was not at all how I meant to say that. I opened my mouth to correct it but everything that came to mind only made things worse. I snapped my mouth closed. Bruiser laughed in that securely masculine way that made a girl’s heart race. Wrassler was looking back and forth between us in speculation. I turned tail and headed for the stairs before I said anything more stupid.

From behind me I heard Bruiser say, “I’ll be swinging by to pick you up in the limo. Nine o’clock.” The last time we had been in Leo’s limo we had ended up on the floor in a mad make-out session that had stopped way too late. And way too soon. I lifted my fingers to show I’d heard but I didn’t look back. No way. I was a one-man woman, and Rick was that man. Most of the time. When he was available. I remembered the cheek peck and the cavalier adios from earlier with a curious dissatisfaction.

By the time I got home, the itchy feeling left from being near Bruiser had blown off in the warm breeze created by riding Bitsa. In deference to my houseguest, I turned the bike off and walked her the last few feet to the side gate of the house. The house, not my house. It was, by definition and contract, temporary housing. I unlocked the gate, carefully locking it behind me to keep out potential robbers, rapists, or gangbangers looking to make street cred. The paperwork and cleanup after killing a human intruder would be a pain in the butt.

No gates could keep out the really dangerous things; for that I had Molly’s, and now Evangelina’s, wards. With Beast-vision, the magical shield looked brilliant, electric blue in the night, and it buzzed over me, slightly uncomfortable, as it let me through. And this time it sent a static tingle through my fingers that hurt. I mimed a silent owwww and shook my hands. I’d have to ask Evangelina to back off on the power levels. I parked Bitsa against the house on the side porch and went inside. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, I heard Evangelina’s steady breathing, and Beast stirred deep inside me.

Hunt?

“Yeah,” I breathed. Moments later I was standing in the backyard, naked except for the gold nugget necklace that tied me to the mountains I had left only hours before. The gold wasn’t skinwalker magic. It was something darker that my skinwalker forebears would have considered black magic. In an arcane way, the nugget coupled me to Beast, a symbol of the event that had originally bound us together. In ways I didn’t understand completely, the gold made my shifts into mountain lion faster, easier, and helped me find my way back home when in beast form, even if it was a temporary home. Without the nugget, I’d be back to shifting only when I had lots of time to meditate my way into the change, or force it, painfully.

I dropped five pounds of steak, slightly heated in the microwave, onto the grass, fastened a small travel pack around my neck, containing clothes, the throwaway cell phone, my IDs, and money. I sat on a boulder that was still more or less in one piece, wrapped a fetish necklace made of the bones and teeth of a mountain lion around my fist, and curled my legs into a half-lotus position on the boulder. I could shift into Beast without the necklace if I had to, but this was easier. Tonight I was doing everything the easy way.

I relaxed, listening to the wind. Felt the pull of the slender sickle moon overhead. I listened to the beat of my own heart. Beast rose in me, silent, predatory, claws digging into my consciousness. I slowed the functions of my body, my breathing, my heart rate, let my blood pressure drop, my muscles relax, as if I were going to sleep, the ritual motions and meditation of the shift bestowing their own power to the change.

Mind clearing, I sank deep inside, my consciousness falling away, all but the excitement of a hunt. I dropped lower, deeper, into the darkness where the lost memories of my first human life swirled, broken and jagged in a gray world of shadow, blood, uncertainty. I heard a distant drum, smelled herbed wood smoke, and the damp heat of the night beaded on my skin. As I dropped deeper, memories began to firm, memories that, at all other times, were submerged, both mine and Beast’s, memories that had been brought closer to the surface by time in a sweat lodge with a Cherokee elder and shaman, Aggie One Feather. Guilt struggled with the relaxation of the change. I hadn’t been to Aggie’s in a long while. Beast dug in with her claws, forcing me back.

As I had been taught by my father so long ago, I sought the inner snake lying inside the bones and teeth of the fetish necklace, the coiled, curled snake, deep in the cells, in the remains of the marrow. Science had given the snake a name. RNA. DNA. Genetic sequences, specific to each species, each creature. For my people, for skinwalkers, it had always simply been the inner snake, the phrase one of very few things that was certain in my past.

I sank into the marrow hidden in the fetish bones. I reached into the snake and dropped within. It was like water flowing in a stream, a whirling current. Like snow beginning a slow roll down a mountainside, gaining momentum, a tongue of destruction swallowing everything in its path. Grayness enveloped me, a cloud of energy sparkling with black motes, bright and cold, as the world fell away. I slid into the gray place of the change.

My breathing deepened. Heart rate sped. And my bones ... slid. Skin rippled. Fur, tawny and gray, brown and tipped with black, sprouted. Pain, like a knife, slid between muscle and bone. My nostrils widened, drawing deep.

Jane fell away. Night was rich with wonderful scents, heavy and heady and speaking of life. I panted, soft hacks of sound in the back of my throat, and listened, ear tabs twisting left and right. Hum of cars, notes of music, laughter of humans, animals rustling. Good sights, better with cat eyes, brighter, clearer. Good smells, better with cat nose. I hopped from rocks. Sniffed at food. Curled nose and snout. Old, dead, half-cooked meat. Dead prey. Soon would hunt, would tear flesh from bone. But stomach ached. Shifting took much from us. I ate.

Belly full, I stepped to top of rocks, broken and sharp, and leaped to top of tall fence, brick warm and high like limb in sun. Dropped down, into yard. Small dog living there was asleep and safe. Easy prey, but Jane says no. Only opossum, deer, nutria, rabbit. Wild prey.

I padded around house to street. Crouched beneath big leaves of plant, good hiding place. Smelled of Beast spoor. Stared into street. And saw man. Standing in shadows across street. Watching Jane house, her den.

Not Rick, though Rick had stood in night and watched Jane house before they mated. This was man from fight place, man who was man and not man, man with blue and purple magics on his skin. Man who smelled wrong.

How did he find me? Jane asked.

I sent her mind picture of big-cat sniffing spoor.

The son of a gun put a find-me amulet or a tracking device on me or Bitsa. I never even thought to look. I’m getting sloppy.

I sent her mind picture of blue magic on her hands like mist moving on ground.

Gee spelled me, Jane growled, and followed me here. She went silent a moment. The house wards felt it. That was that odd electric pulse.

I hacked in agreement and padded back, to alley, over wall, and up another street. Man-city was never silent or dark, but night was better than day to run through streets and find truck to ride, like claws in hump of bison, into the country. Trucks everywhere, not running in packs like deer or elk cow and young, but each like solitary hunter, going its own way. I chose small one that smelled of bread and fried potatoes and leaped onto top, heading across river.

When I jumped from truck into shadows, I was far from city, and smells were rich and thick as fresh blood, good smells, not man smells. Opossum, wild dog and feral cat, water birds. Wet smell of turtle, frog, rat, dead things stinking. And ... deer scat.

Mouth watered. My territory. Hunting grounds I marked as my own. Good place to hunt. Half a moon since I claimed it. I paced slowly away from street, into woods, marking ground with scent, rubbing musk glands onto brush, scraping bark from trees with killing claws as a sign. Mine. My hunting grounds.

Water smell was everywhere, still and stagnant with dead plants, thick with small moving things. Smell of alligator. Wanted to hunt alligator, but didn’t want to get in water. Alligators big in water, bigger than Beast. Fast. Pelt hard as bone. Deer better. Followed deer scent into woods, heavy with piney smells, summer flowers, trace of skunk on breeze.

Inside forest, on edge of lake, smelled deer, saw hoofprints, two-toed, in mud, from empty-moon-night. Last night. Counted smells and scents. Was more-than-five deer, more than Beast could count. Jane used numbers of more-than-five, not Beast.

But deer had not come to drink tonight. Odd. I crouched and breathed in feel of wind. Touch of moonlight dim under trees. Stars, many overhead, not like man-cities with man-lights on poles and houses. Water dark and deep, with stars in them too. Remembered when kit tried to catch stars in water. Got wet. Good hunter now, left stars in water and followed deer into night.

Later, hoofprints dug deep into ground. Running. Smell of deer in fear. On top of deer track was new scent. I stopped. Tested air, drawing in scents over tongue and through nose, long scree-sound of tasting-smelling. Growled. Hissed. Knew this scent. Wolves. Found prints, wide and big as Beast’s, claws digging deep. Wolves running. Chasing Beast’s deer.

I tightened body, curling shoulders in to protect spine, paws close. Remembered long ago ... Wolves stole hunting territory, stole prey, making Beast hunger, belly hurting. Wolves and man brought hunger times, killed off good things to eat. Hunger times bad, like deep hole with no way out. Remembered. Hissed in anger. My territory! Wolves again hunted on big-cat-spoor-marked ground. Stole Beast-prey. I raised my head and screamed, she-cat sound, echoing back over water, through trees.

Jane was worried, thinking of man-not-man watching her house, her den, and werewolves at Booger’s. You haven’t hunted in a while and this is the closest forest to the city, Jane thought. Is it the same wolves? Werewolves? Here on your hunting ground? Asking human questions, like questions of kit.

Same scents. I tried to show Jane traces, parts of one scent, parts of many, but humans are scent-blind, even Jane; deer scents were too many for her to understand, wolves were too many. I raced into the night, deer hunt forgotten, following wolves. Hit new scent. Strong and rancid. Blood. Much blood. Wolves had killed and feasted, the night before attacking Jane in Booger’s. I growled, hacking displeasure. Kill wolves. Wolves die for this. This time Beast will not run.

I padded to kill-site, blood-stink strong on wind. Meat and bones scattered. Half eaten. Blood soaked into ground. Deer wasted. Stolen. Wolf-stink heavy on air. Fury filled chest and lungs. Pounded in blood and heart. I screamed. My grounds. My deer. Mine!

Soft sound, like breath drawn. Stopped. Listened. Again, breath of wounded prey. Hunched to ground, senses reaching, smelling, tasting, seeing, hearing, feeling of air. There. Padded silently to side of killing ground. Found fawn, injured, laying beside body of doe. Dried blood down haunches. Studied fawn.

She’ll be okay, Jane thought. It’s only superficial lacerations.

Has spots, tiny hooves. Too young to survive alone. Fawn panted in fear and pain. Eyes liquid in dark of night. Anger inside grew. Took fawn throat in killing teeth. Jane hid from death in back of mind. Silly Jane.

I wrenched, tearing fawn throat. Drank hot blood. Ate in fury, tearing meat. Fawn should have been food for winter hunt. Doe gone. Cannot save. Waste, waste, waste! Wolves are waste. Ate in anger, tearing, ripping with teeth.

When stomach was satisfied, anger died. Padded away from kill-site. Sat. Groomed pelt. Thinking Jane-mind-thoughts.

Stood and padded through night, around kill-site, around and around in widening circles. Like dog, hunting for scent. Hacked in displeasure, pausing, staring around at dark forest. Put head down, padded on. Sniffed. Big-cats do not hunt like stupid dogs with nose to ground. Brain not right for scent-hunting like dogs. Big-cats hunt with eye and ear, ambush hunt. But Jane in mind with Beast, made Beast do what other cats cannot.

Found scent of another. Stood, motionless, front paw up. Head to ground, breathed in, drawing air through nose and over scent sacs in mouth, scree, scree. Unknown scent, yet familiar. Big-cat scent.

Another mountain lion? Jane thought, startled like bird in bush, rising up.

Big-cat. Not like Beast. I tested wind. Looked up into trees. Saw moss hanging like dead prey in trees. Tasted moss once. Plant. Bad taste.

No big-cat waited to pounce from trees. Found and followed scent. Tracing back through pines in rows, as man plants forest. Paws in mud showing size, showing claws like Beast’s.

Paws almost as big as yours, Jane said. Retractable claws.

Left prints in wet ground. Not good hunter. I nosed prints, sniffing, thinking. Big-cat had followed wolves. Hidden in trees and scrub, off to side, downwind of wolves. Big-cat was young. Female, like Beast, but not like Beast.

A female cat of another species, Jane thought.

Watching. Tracking wolves. Makes no sense. I followed scent a long way, back along wolf trail to man’s road, hot tar and dead things along its sides. Wolf and big-cat scent disappeared. Not on other side of road. Just gone. Smell of magics faint on air, like mist above stream. Wolves changed into humans here. Got in car or truck. Big-cat maybe travel like Beast, on top of same truck.

Jane thought, So the were-cats know where the werewolves hunt.

Too many predators. Not enough prey, I thought back. I went back to kill-site and sat, looking over dead prey, winter-full-belly wasted to summer wolf-kill. Padded around clearing, smelling, looking. Found more big-cat sign, curls of bark on ground. Looked up, into branches; leaped into tree, smelling cat. High up, was limb good for waiting on prey. Hunched and moved along branch, paw, paw, paw, balanced. Her scent rank and strong here. Downwind of kill-site.

Good place to watch. Smart cat. She marked territory, claws raked along high branch, scent marked on limb, claiming hunting ground. But she let wolves hunt. Cat had watched wolves kill prey she claimed. Now she is stupid cat. Makes no sense. And after wolves gone, cat had not gone down to eat. Wasted more deer. Left hurt fawn. Stupid kit mistake.

All predators are trespassers in Beast’s hunting ground. Anger burned hot in belly, like grief when kits killed, like anger when Jane first steal self, like hunger times come again.

Dawn was gray in sky when I paced away, under low tree, where pine needles were piled deep, and thought of Jane. Gray fog grew up around Beast. Pain pain pain, cutting self deep. Letting her be alpha.

I came to on the needles, breathing deeply, being pricked all over. I didn’t know why, but Beast liked shifting on pine needles, which hurt my much-more-tender skin. As usual, I was starving. I pulled the travel pack off my neck and unrolled the clothes inside. They had been there for two weeks and the wrinkles were set in as if I’d ironed them in. I checked the bars and charge on the cell phone. I hadn’t brought Leo’s phone for several reasons: I didn’t want to ruin it if I had to take a swim (there had been a couple of wet close calls and I’d been lucky), I didn’t want Leo to be able to track me via the GPS device in the phone, and I valued my privacy. Leo didn’t know this number. No one did. So no one could call me.

I dialed my transport while I dressed, pulled on the cheap, thin-soled shoes and tramped out of the forest. I knew where I was, more or less, and which roads were closest. I’d called for a ride before from Beast’s hunting ground.

The sun was just above the horizon when Rinaldo found me, the Blue Bird logo on the yellow cab advertising his part-time job. He pulled over and I got in the front seat. He took in the wrinkled clothes. “There no parties nowhere round here,” he said, his Cajun accent strong, heavy on the verbs—those he used—missing a lot of final consonants. It was his by heritage, but was something he could turn off and on for effect or friendship. For me, it was friendship. Had to be. I wasn’t a tourist, so he got paid the same either way. “No houses, for sure,” he said. “You want to tell me why you keep show up out here in middle of God-forsaken nowhere?”

“Nope.” Rinaldo thought I was a big-time party girl, an impression I did nothing to oppose.

He sighed and did a three-point turn, driving out the way he’d come. “That it? Nope?”

I hid a smile and looked out the window. “Yep.”

“It one a those limousine parties, right? Where a limo take you everywhere and you drink and do some dope and—” He stopped right at the edge of saying we indulged in kinky sex, but I could see the thought in his eyes, appraising, looking over my clothes. “Nope. That don’t do it.” I shook my head, smiling, my gaze on the world outside. “But I figure it out some day. Meanwhile, you want food.”

It wasn’t a question. Shifting required the use of energy, which I replaced with calories, and there was no way to carry enough food with me. I had a surprise for him this time though. “I have a breakfast date. Just drive me by the house for a quick change of clothes and then drop me off at the Royal Street Café. I’ll eat there.” I could walk to the restaurant—nothing in the French Quarter was far from anything else—but I was hungry and I could start with hot tea and a loaf of French bread about ten minutes quicker if I paid for the ride. Plus, it was mid-tourist season, and parking can be problematic, even for a motorbike. Rinaldo shook his head and merged from the secondary road into traffic heading to the city.

I had never seen Rinaldo outside his taxi, but I figured he was about five-seven, one eighty; he had a paunch and smelled of tobacco and spicy food, and he had a bald spot he was trying to hide under the first swatch of a comb-over.

At the house, Evangelina was in the shower, singing some Irish-y sounding dirge, a pot of tea steeping, coffee gurgling, and something mouthwatering in the oven. I peeked. There was only enough for one, more’s the pity, and I had no time for tea. I removed the tea leaves and jotted a note on the magnet-backed fridge pad Evangelina had provided. “No time for tea. Thanks for the thought. I’ll be home for supper. Text if you need anything from the market.”

In my bedroom, I pulled on freshly ironed, beige cotton slacks and a teal silk tank over a tight body-smoother camisole. I slid my feet into sandals and draped on an amethyst necklace with a chatkalite focal stone that hung just above the gold nugget, and a shorter copper chain with a green aventurine arrowhead that Rick had given me. I figured a girl should wear the guy’s gifts on a breakfast date, right? I French braided my hair halfway down and pushed stakes in. Yeah, it was daytime. But I carried the stakes anyway.

Five minutes later I was back in the taxi and Rinaldo looked me over approvingly. As he pulled away from the curb, he said, “You should pierce your ear, wear some nice gold rings in ’em. I got a sister who pierce ’em for you. Won’t hurt at all. She good.”

I just shook my head and didn’t offer clarification. The one time I tried holes in my ears, my lobes came back healed after I shifted. No way to explain that, especially to a guy who wouldn’t know a skinwalker from Shinola.

He dropped me at Royal Street Café, refusing the additional money I offered through the window. “Nah. You a regular customer, and good for a laugh or two. Complimentary.”

I patted the hood and walked into the restaurant. Alan Adcock greeted me, “Jane, it’s good to see you. Your regular table? You alone?”

“Rick will be here shortly,” I said, climbing the stairs to the second story, and sitting at our usual table, on the balcony where we could people watch.

Alan followed me, silent, and finally said, “I don’t think so.” His voice faltered and he looked away, a minor veer of his eyes, as if undecided and suddenly anxious. It was a look I recognized and didn’t particularly want to see on my favorite waiter’s face, not in conjunction with Rick as subject matter. Uncertainly, Alan said, “He ate this morning already.”

I waited a beat, took a breath, and said with a steady voice, “He wasn’t alone, was he?”

Alan’s dark eyes glanced at the walls as if seeking an answer there. “Ah, no. His sister, maybe? A business associate?”

Something weird happened inside me, a sort of shift to the left followed by a quick drop, like an amusement park ride, leaving me feeling a little nauseous. Anger that wasn’t all my own flared up behind it, Beast glaring out through my eyes. Mine, she hissed at me.

Alan took a quick step back at the sight, and I closed my eyes, put a hand on the metal curlicue railing and gripped it, until Beast settled. I pasted a reassuring smile on my face, opened my eyes, and described all four of Rick’s sisters at once, which was exactly like Rick himself, black hair, black eyes, Frenchy-look, and beautiful. Alan shook his head no. I described Rick’s boss at the main branch of NOPD, Jodi Richoux, blond and slightly plump.

Alan turned away and busied himself straightening the utensils and condiments on a nearby table. “No. Uh. Redhead. Sorry.”

Beast hissed, but I clamped down on her reaction. It didn’t make sense. If Rick was cheating on me why bring a girl here? He could have texted me a Dear Jane letter and broken it off if he’d wanted to take the easy way out. Or just not show up for breakfast. But he brought a girl to this restaurant this morning ...

“Soooo. You want breakfast?”

Alan sounded just a bit jittery, and I smiled to settle his alarm, but wasn’t sure my show of teeth had the desired effect. “Sure. Bring me a rasher of pepper bacon cut thick, a half dozen scrambled eggs, and a stack of pancakes with blueberry compote, extra butter, and that blueberry syrup I like. And a whole pot of tea.”

Alan covered his surprise at the quantity of food better than he’d covered his dismay. “You bet,” he said, backing away from the table.

I stared around the balcony, not seeing anything, ignoring the couple seated two tables down, thinking, trying to let the anger of possible betrayal dissipate until I knew more. Ricky Bo might be sending me a message by breakfasting here, though what significance there was to bringing a date to our favorite breakfast spot, and breaking a breakfast date with me to do it, I didn’t know. He wasn’t stupid, so it had to be deliberate, which meant that it had to do with his work, something he was trying to say without saying it. But so many things were out of place in my life all at once, it was hard to see only one piece of the bigger picture. I had to wonder how many of the little oddities taking place were really part of a larger, about to be screwed-up whole.