Skin Deep

CHAPTER 29

LAURA LET TERRYN unlock the door to the Mariel Tate apartment. She rarely used the place. Mariel had to appear to live somewhere, and the nondescript building where the Guildhouse kept corporate residence suites fit the bill. She turned on the lights as she entered behind him, illuminating the large open studio. If her apartment in Alexandria lacked personality, the Mariel apartment had the bland style of a hotel room.

She dropped her bags on the floor. “Really, Terryn, you had someone do a sweep of all my places yesterday.”

He circled the room with a small obelisk of granite that glowed a steady blue. It was keyed to change color if it encountered other essences. “I’ll remind you that someone managed to get a bomb through security at the FBI building.”

He had a point. She went to the kitchenette in the corner and pulled two bottles of fruit juice out of the refrigerator. She opened one and left the other on the counter. “Whose orders do you think Gianni is following, Alfrey’s or Blume’s?”

He hovered off the floor to check along the top of the wall of curtained windows. “Alfrey’s.”

She pursed her lips. “That was a quick answer.”

Terryn settled to the floor and placed the obelisk on the coffee table. “It’s clear.” He pointed at the juice on the counter. “Is that for me?”

She tossed him the bottle. “Are you changing the subject?”

He drank the entire bottle in one smooth motion. “Blume’s not a fool. He wouldn’t poison you on his own property. I think Gianni is playing Alfrey and Blume against each other. Besides, I recognized the clan tattoos of the Inverni who attacked you in the SUV. He’s from a subclan of the Alfreys.”

She showed him a slight smile. “Terryn, my friend, you forget whom you’re talking to. I’m sensing a subtle evasion in your voice modulations.”

He nodded, staring down at the floor. “Simon Alfrey and his father Skene manipulate the lesser Inverni clans to no good end. Simon’s involvement makes me uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, well, uncomfortable doesn’t quite cover how I feel about someone who’s tried to kill me,” Laura sent.

Terryn sighed and looked up. “It would not be an exaggeration to say I blame the Alfreys for the death of my father.”

Laura’s eyebrows shot up. “You know I want to hear why.”

He shrugged. “The Alfreys stirred the Invernis to challenge the Danann leadership. The Dananns tried to make us slaves-at least that is the story the Alfreys told. As High Chief of the Clans, my father confronted Maeve. Then the Alfreys submitted to Maeve, destroying my father’s support. He died in Maeve’s prison.”

Laura crossed her arms as she leaned against the counter. She knew Terryn was heir to the rule of the Inverni clan but that he refused to take the underKing title to which he was entitled. For years, she had thought it was because he wanted to keep peace with Maeve. Without an invested Inverni leader, the Dananns had no one to rally support against. “You won’t take the title because you don’t want Maeve to say she gave it to you.”

Terryn nodded. “I cannot let her undermine my authority by claiming I rule because she removed my father. The Alfreys think they will take over with her blessing someday, so they do her bidding. Simon Alfrey would not have been involved in a drug raid unless it was really something much bigger.”

She pushed away from the counter and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Simon Alfrey screwed up, Terryn. I can identify him at the scene. Let me do that, and you’ll have one less Alfrey to deal with.”

He placed his hand on hers. “You were glamoured, Laura. The only confirmation you have of that is the macCullen heir and a leanansidhe. That presents a credibility problem.”

She dropped her hand. “And Sinclair.”

Terryn walked to the door. “A second-generation fire giant masquerading as a human also has little weight in a fairy court, even if he were willing. No, we will have to catch Alfrey with stronger evidence.”

“We’ll think of something,” she said.

He bowed as he left. “I appreciate that. Now get the rest that Cress ordered. We have much to do in the days ahead.”

Tired didn’t cover how she felt. Whenever she heard that someone had been admitted to a hospital for exhaustion, the concept baffled her. She tried to imagine feeling more exhausted than she did at that moment and couldn’t. Laura put water on to boil as she pulled down the Murphy bed. She steeped some tea and curled into the corner of the couch.

Staring at her hand, she thought about the raid. She tried to force lines on her palm into a pattern that might trigger a memory. From one angle, the three lines radiating across the palm could be the Celtic ogham rune gort or the German ansuz. A single rune could mean anything, though, never mind the question of why Sanchez-who wasn’t fey-would use a rune to convey a message. Maybe an “F,” she thought. Foyle?

She let her hand fall to her lap. Aaron Foyle was right about one thing: Last words were important. She remembered the look in Sanchez’s face. He’d known he was dying. He didn’t pray or speak a lover’s name. He used his last breath to tell her something-something important enough to use his final moments of life. And she couldn’t remember.

She left the tea on the counter and turned the shower on in the bathroom. She watched herself undress in the full-length mirror. Humans would kill for the body she had at her age, but not the rest. Her hair hung lank. Darkness shadowed the skin under her eyes. Her lips, wiped clean of lipstick, looked thin and colorless. Her eyes unsettled her. She saw the small signs-the faint traces of crystallization forming, the slight recession into the skull, the uncanny depth that intimidated people. Age was catching up with her. Fey age. It appeared in the eyes first with the fey, eyes that had seen much. Sometimes too much.

The hot water beat down on her face. She stood, motionless, letting the heat seep into her, letting it reach deep beneath the skin where she could feel. Drying off, she felt better, physically anyway. The steam from the shower fogged the mirror, blurring her image. For a moment, she remembered what she’d looked like in her youth.

She slipped into bed, feeling the cool, crisp, white cotton sheets, noting the designer bedcover, and taking in the room meticulously styled in tones of soft creams and beige with splashes of maroon and bright yellow. Perfect.

Something had to change.

She turned out the light. With the drapes closed, the studio apartment plunged into darkness punctuated by the phosphorescent glow of the alarm clock. She wondered what she would have done in Sanchez’s position. What would her last words be? A cry of pain? For love? She murmured a sad laugh in the dark. She didn’t know Sanchez or his life, but she knew hers. She was lying alone in the dark in an empty, sterile apartment with no one. She would have done what he had done, tried to complete a mission. It was all she had, pathetic as it was.

The years piled up, the missions, the plans, and, every time, she stepped forward. Every time, she did her duty. For the Guild. For InterSec. Sometimes she had provided the means for great things to happen, only a very few knowing about it. Sometimes she had done those great things herself, with even fewer people knowing. Her life had become a cycle of stress, endless games of subterfuge, and feints. Nothing ever truly resolved. Things got worse. Things got better. It didn’t matter which, because there was always something more to do.

And she never said no. Not during undercover operations. Not during armed conflicts. Not when the Guild wanted one thing, and InterSec wanted another. Whatever the request, she managed to satisfy everyone else.

Everyone ended up satisfied but her. She had people she trusted with her life, who weren’t actually her friends. She had friends to whom she couldn’t talk about her life. At the end of the day, she lay down on many different beds, and home had become not the comfort of an apartment, but a windowless room that everyone else thought was a closet in an office building.

Something had to change. She picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hello?” Sinclair answered.

“It’s me. Are you okay?” she asked.

He chuckled in her ear. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m bunking in an examining room at the Guildhouse until Terryn can decide if I’ll see the light of day again.”

“I didn’t get a chance to see you before I left,” she said.

“You should be glad you’re alive and asleep after what you went through.”

“I am,” she said.

“You’re asleep?” he teased.

She laughed. “No, you jerk. I’m glad I’m alive.”

He lowered his voice. “Me, too.”

She closed her eyes and listened to his slow steady breathing on the other end of the phone.

“You there?” he asked.

“Yes. I just wanted to say good night, Jono.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow, babe.”

She replaced the phone on the cradle. As she slid deeper under the covers, she realized she was smiling and realized it was for herself.

For a change, she thought.