Human Nature

9

LILY got away from the hotel without drawing any press attention, but she still had an escort. A black-and-white. Daly, damn him, must have sent one of his people to follow her, because the asshole rode her rear the whole way.

At least he kept on going when she pulled up at a small, mud-colored duplex. It was the sort of neighborhood where a parked black-and-white would make people nervous. One side of the duplex was clean and tidy, with pots of cherry red impatiens on the three steps up to the stoop. The other side featured a collection of beer cans and newspapers.

Lily sniffed as she waited after knocking. Someone was enjoying some weed.

The door opened. “Yes?”

Mariah Friar both was and wasn’t what Lily had been expecting. The sweet, scrubbed-clean face didn’t seem to belong to a former pole dancer—or to the daughter of Robert Friar, for that matter. Her hair was bleached blond, short and spiky with lavender streaks, and she liked body adornments. In addition to the nose and eyebrow studs, Lily counted three earrings on one side, two on the other. She wore baggy jeans and a snug, long-sleeved purple tee. No shoes.

She was at least an inch shorter than Lily and maybe ten pounds underweight. Her eyes were a clear Dresden blue. They were also reddened and puffy.

Fragile, Rule had said. Yes, she had that look. “I’m Agent Yu,” Lily said, holding out the folder with her badge. “Mariah Friar?”

“Yes.” She smiled as if pleased that Lily had her name right. “Not that my father will admit it, not the last name, that is. Has he told you that my mother cheated on him, but he forgave her and raised me as his own until I turned on him?”

“There’s something about that in his statement.” Among other things, such as a reference to the legal action he was taking to try to force Mariah to stop using his surname.

“He doesn’t believe that about Mom, but he wants other people to. You’d think I wouldn’t want to claim that relationship, either, but we don’t help ourselves by denying reality, do we?”

“May I speak with you inside?”

“Sure.” She stepped back. “Little Stevie’s asleep, but noises don’t bother him. As long as we aren’t too loud, he’ll be fine.”

Oh, Lord, she’d named the baby after Steve.

Lily stepped across the threshold into one of those shotgun living-dining areas common in small apartments, with the kitchen in an alcove off the dining area. Instead of a table, though, this dining area held a crib and chest of drawers.

There were plants in here, too—a luxuriant ivy on the chest of drawers and a thriving ficus next to the front window. In the living area, the couch and chair looked like they’d come from Goodwill, but their bland beigeness was nearly drowned in colorful pillows—yellow, pink, orange, green. The television was old, its screen dark. What sounded like harp music floated in from behind a barely open door that Lily guessed led to the bedroom.

Baby toys were scattered on a scuffed but scrupulously clean wooden floor. Also a baby. He lay on a pad of some sort where a coffee table might normally be found, a tiny huddle beneath a poofy quilt, with just a patch of dark hair and one teensy hand showing.

Lily stopped, looking at the tiny hand, the dark hair that was utterly unlike Steve Hilliard’s streaky blond.

“I’d move him, but he always wakes if I pick him up, and he’s comfortable there. Have a seat,” she said, plopping down on one end of the couch and dislodging a bright green pillow in the process. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve been crying about Steve. I miss him.”

Lily opted for the other end of the couch, mainly because the armchair was piled with folded clothes. A plastic clothes basket sat next to it. Lily walked gingerly around the sleeping baby, moved a couple pillows, and sat, turning so she faced the young woman. “I’m sorry to intrude.”

“You aren’t.” Unblinking blue eyes met Lily’s. “This is so odd. Well.” She held out a hand. “Let’s get this out of the way first, okay? Then you can ask me questions.”

Lily’s eyebrows lifted, but she wouldn’t turn down a chance to get information. She had to stretch to reach the young woman’s hand.

Mariah’s clasp was surprisingly firm. The magic coating her skin made Lily think of a sun-warmed pond, the kind with a silty bottom your toes squished into.

A distinctive magic. A familiar one. Lily’s heart ached for the young woman on the other end of the couch. “Did Steve know about your Gift?”

“No. At least I don’t think so. I don’t speak of it, you see, not ever.” Her smile was small and sad. “My father trained me well. He said it was for my own good, that people would hate me if they found out. I knew better, of course. He was harsh because he despised and feared me. He feared what people would think of him if they knew, too. You’d think I could set that training aside, knowing it was false, but…” She shrugged. “It was quite difficult to take your hand.”

“You knew that I’m a sensitive. You wanted me to know you’re an empath.” Empathy was one of the most burdensome Gifts. The only one worse was telepathy—conventional wisdom had it that all telepaths were insane. But empaths who managed to function well in a world crowded with people were usually partly blocked. Mariah’s Gift wasn’t blocked at all.

“Yes. It’s strange to have you know. It’s even stranger to sit here with you and not have any idea what you’re feeling, but I like it. You’re…soothing to me. I didn’t think you would be,” she confessed. “I thought you might remind me of my father now that he’s shielded, but it isn’t the same at all.”

“Your father wasn’t always shielded?”

“Oh, no. I think he got someone to do that, to put a shield on him, because he was afraid of me. Adele says that isn’t possible, that he must have done it himself somehow, but it was just suddenly there one day. Wouldn’t it have to grow a little at a time if it came from him?”

“I don’t know. How long ago was this?”

“Three years. No, almost four now. That’s when I moved out. He didn’t do it—didn’t get the shield—to help me, but it did. Once he was shielded I didn’t have to…” She faltered, running her fingertips nervously over the bead in her eyebrow. “Didn’t have to do what he said anymore.”

Lily didn’t have to be an empath to hear the pain in that statement. “Why did you want me to know about your Gift?”

“I have something to ask you. But even before Steve—before he was killed, I wanted to meet you. Steve kept up with Rule, so when you and Rule got together, Steve talked about you being a sensitive. Plus I’ve read about you. You and Rule. I’m fascinated by…Your face looks funny. I can’t tell what you’re feeling, but I think I’m bothering you somehow.”

“I’m a little uncomfortable with your curiosity.”

Mariah nodded. “That’s how Rule felt about me, too. Uncomfortable. Well, he also felt sad because I was a big mess back when we met, so he was very kind and careful, but he’s got a strong sense of privacy, doesn’t he? Maybe you do, too. I think on some level he sensed I could intrude on his privacy. I don’t mean to, you know.”

“I know,” Lily said gently. “Did Steve not sense the possible intrusion? I’m told he cared about you, both before and after the baby was born.”

For a moment, her face glowed. “Steve loved me.”

“I guess you would know.”

She grinned suddenly. “It’s fun, trying to guess what you’re feeling. I don’t mean he was in love with me. He wasn’t. I mean that he loved me. And no, Steve didn’t have a big sense of privacy. A lot of lupi don’t, which is why I like being around them. But Steve really cared about me. He liked me. He liked being with me, both for sex and just for company, and it didn’t bother him if I was with other men sometimes. It truly didn’t.”

“I understand,” Lily said carefully, “that sex is different for empaths.”

Mariah giggled like the teenager she’d been only a year ago. “We’re the easiest of easy lays. I’ve heard that isn’t true for all empaths—some of them don’t like to be touched at all, but maybe they’ve got a stronger Gift than I do or something. For me, well, if someone wants me and he isn’t an asshole, and I can make him feel wonderful, and I know it would feel wonderful to me, too…because it does,” she added frankly. “It feels fantastic, because I experience his feelings, too. So I get caught up in the moment real easy. But Steve didn’t mind. Mostly if men don’t mind it’s because they don’t care about you, but Steve did care.” Sadness swept over her face. “He loved me.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” And ready to admit that Rule was right. This fragile, oddly gallant young woman hadn’t killed the man she loved. She truly wasn’t capable of it. “You said earlier there was something you wanted to ask me.”

“Oh. Oh, yes.” She looked down, toying with the bead in her eyebrow. “Nothing I know because of my Gift is evidence, right?”

“No, it wouldn’t be admissible. Nothing I learn from my Gift is admissible, either, though I’m allowed to consider it in the process of an investigation. Just as I could consider something you tell me, even if it couldn’t be used in court.”

Mariah nodded without looking up. “I guess I’m not sure enough to tell you about this…this thing that’s bothering me. I could be wrong.”

“People tell me things they’re wrong about all the time. It’s my job to sort that out.”

“But it would affect someone else.” She kept rubbing that little bead. “I need to think about it some more.”

Lily tried another tack. “I’ve heard that empaths know when someone is lying.”

“Hey, you’re a good guesser.” Mariah flashed her a smile and tucked one leg up on the couch. “I bet people lie to you all the time, too. You get where you sort of expect it. People do lie a lot.” She shook her head. “That was confusing to me when I was little, especially when they didn’t know they were lying. My father doesn’t always know. He makes himself think something is true when it isn’t, so when I was small I couldn’t tell when he was lying.”

“Can you tell now?”

“Well…not always. People say things they want to be true, or they say things they’re afraid are true, but they don’t know, so I pick up that fear or that wanting. When someone isn’t sure if what they’re saying is true, I can’t tell, either. I just know they aren’t sure. That’s why I told everyone little Stevie is Steve’s baby.”

Lily blinked. “What?”

“That’s what you’re wondering, isn’t it? Why did I lie? Or else, why did Steve lie? Because one of us has to be wrong, yet we stayed together. Or as much together as anyone is with a lupus,” she added practically. “Except for you and Rule.”

“You’re saying that Steve wasn’t sure?”

She nodded. “He said he was. He said he’d know if Stevie was his, but he wanted to be wrong. He wanted that badly, and that’s what I ‘heard’ when he told me Stevie wasn’t his—he wanted to be wrong. He wanted me to prove him wrong. And he could have been, couldn’t he? I used the fertility charm with him, not with anyone else.”

“Why did you use a fertility charm?”

“Because Steve wanted a baby so much, of course.” She glanced down at the sleeping bundle on the floor, her face soft and shining. “Not that I don’t want little Stevie for his own sweet self, because I do. But I guess I wouldn’t have thought of having a baby right now if Steve hadn’t wanted one so much.”

“So you went to your friend Adele—”

“No! Oh, sorry.” She flushed prettily. “I interrupted you. But I didn’t go to Adele. She came to me and offered to make the charm. That way the baby would be a gift from both of us, you see. Because she loved Steve, too.”