I looked at the locked door. And around the room. No landline phone. Hadn't Rick told me to call his desk when I was done? I checked my cell. No bars. I had texted a lot of stuff to myself and the info would be in my sent texts, but still . . . I was locked in. Beast woke and snarled. She did not like cages.
Holding her down, I knocked on the door, and before the second tap, it opened. A wrinkled patrol officer stood there, poorly shaven and overweight. I could have sworn that was powdered sugar on his shirt, like from donuts, or the New Orleans version, beignets, but I figured it was impolitic to ask or stare, and maybe something like racial profiling. Could you do employment profiling? And would it be politically incorrect? Not feeling my usual cop-induced nervousness, I smiled. Beast settled down, tail twitching. Annoyed.
"What?" he said roughly, seeing something in my eyes he didn't like. "You done?"
"Um . . . almost. I need to use the ladies' room."
He shook his head, turned away, and waved me to follow. He took me up two flights of stairs and waited outside while I went in. I pulled the phone and the camera's memory chips, discovered that I had two bars, and uploaded all the photographs to a secure Web site I'd had created last year. It was a fail-safe in case my camera and my notes were confiscated on the way out.
I started to sweat halfway through. It was taking too long. After twelve minutes, the officer opened the door to inquire after my health. That wasn't quite what he said, but it was kinder than his "Hey, lady. I'm not rushing you or nothing, but shit or get off the pot. I got work to do."
New Orleans's finest and best.
I finished, forced myself to relax again, flushed to make things sound right, and walked out. "Not feeling too good," I told the guard, holding my stomach. "Must be the unrefrigerated dinner."
"Yeah," he said. "We got a lot a' pukers in the hospital. You need to go?"
"No. I'm good," I said, doing a mental head shake. I saw the metal detector just ahead and put my hand out for a shake. "Thanks. I can find my way out from here."
The cop looked at my hand, held his to the side, and backed away saying, "No offense, lady, but you just finished being sick in the toilet."
I nodded and dropped my hand. "So I did."
He moved away, leaving me with no witnesses. I didn't see Rick on the way out, but I did set off the metal detector. I pulled my cell out of my boot, held it up to justify the alarm to a cop walking in the door, who shook his head. Feeling a spurt of relieved adrenaline, I jogged out of NOPD and slapped the rain off the bike seat. That was one problem with bikes, even totally cool ones like Bitsa. No protection from the elements. I sat on the wet leather, helmeted up, and started her, heading out into the day. I hadn't had much sleep and I needed a nap.
Back home, the house smelled divine, the scent of slow-cooking beef permeating the whole place. The smell made Beast even more eager to change and hunt. It had been days and she was getting antsy, which made her more likely to try to take control, to play me as she played with her dinner when it was still alive. "Not yet," I said to her. She huffed and milked her claws into me. I ignored the discomfort and she rolled over in a snit.
From my closet, I ferreted out a map of the city and surrounding parishes. Louisiana wasn't divided into counties, but parishes, which amounted to the same thing. With no regard to the smooth purity of the paint job, I tacked it to my bedroom wall. Onto the map, I tacked the young-rogue vamp attacks over the last twenty years. There were three major clusters and, oddly, I had been to two of them. Hot exhilaration shot through me. I downloaded my woo-woo cop photos to my laptop and spent time arranging them into proper files for printing when we had reliable power.
I had cell bars, made a few calls, left messages, and fell into bed as a secondary storm chasing the tail of Ada hit the city. Through half-closed eyes, I watched as the light through the windows darkened and rain lashed the glass like liquid fingers, seeking a way inside. Thunder and lightning rattled through the floor and up through the mattress, sending bright flashes into the room. The lights flickered on and off several times, settling again on off.
Upstairs, I knew Molly was putting the kids down for naps. Nap time in the middle of the day wasn't something new, as I often slept in the daytime after a night spent prowling in cat form. But this formal napping, of an entire household settling in for a snooze, was new and oddly comforting. I closed my eyes and sleep pulled at me, seductive and peaceful.