“The app came preinstalled on my new laptop.” That much was true. “It’s probably another prompt to activate the service or something.” That much was… not so true. “I’ll go mute it so it doesn’t bother us again.”
With purpose in my stride, I stalked over to my backpack, unzipped the front pouch, and pulled out the phone. Sure enough, Wu had called me while I’d been out back. Hiding the phone against my thigh, I locked myself in my temporary bedroom before hitting redial. “What’s up?”
“I’m ready for that dinner now,” Wu said without missing a beat.
“You can’t already have the results,” I spluttered. “The lab has only had the material for an hour.”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
“Can we do this tomorrow?” I could still smell charcoal burning. “We’re having a family cookout.”
A smile shadowed his voice. “I can wait until then if you can.”
“Why don’t you tell me now,” I gritted out, “and we’ll go out tomorrow?”
“I’m sorry, Luce, but I don’t know you well enough to take you at your word.”
Right then having world-ending powers sure would have come in handy. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, partner.”
“We don’t know each other yet. I’m trying to remedy that.”
Yeah. Sure. Mr. Altruistic. “When do you want to meet?”
“How about now?”
Goodbye, hot-off-the-grill feast. Hello, gelatinous goo reheated in the microwave.
“Sure.” Defeat rang through the word. “I need to shower and change. What should I wear?”
“Something nice.”
I had one dress hung in the closet, its matching flats tucked under the sewing table, and that was only so I had an outfit ready for church. “This isn’t a date.”
“I never said it was.” That smile was back, and I wanted to wipe it off his face. With my fist. “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
I ended the call before saying something I probably wouldn’t regret but that might make the hour or so I had just agreed to spend in Wu’s company even more onerous. Trudging into the kitchen, I located my aunt and broke the news. Uncle Harold would have to find out through the grapevine, otherwise he wouldn’t let me out the door without giving Wu the third degree. There was no way I could shrug this off as a work thing like I had with Thom earlier. Me flashing ankle on a day other than Sunday would send my uncle into a tizzy.
With that in mind, I rushed through a shower, cursing Wu for the necessity of shaving my legs twice this week. I dressed, wove a French braid into my hair, then sneaked past my sleeping father to wait at the curb. The sizzle of burgers hitting the grill made my stomach rumble, and I pressed a hand over my abdomen like that might quiet its complaint.
Whatever Wu had to tell me, it had better be good.
CHAPTER NINE
Wu arrived seconds before I decided to hell with it and went inside to fix myself a to-go plate. He parked a sleek sedan at the curb and joined me on the sidewalk. He had paired expensive shoes with another white button-down shirt, this one fastened at his wrists and open at the collar, with black slacks. The matching jacket waited on a hanger on a rod strung across the backseat.
I couldn’t have stopped my eyes from rolling if I’d tried. And I didn’t.
“Ms. Boudreau,” Wu greeted me. “You’re lovely this evening.”
Compared to his city slicker good looks, I was dressed in petal pink flats with flecks of mud staining the sides that screamed country girl. The flowy dress was a skosh better. Its floral pattern was a nod to summer, and its gathered elastic waistline modest underneath a braided leather belt. The round, pleated neckline was easy to dress up or down with the right necklace, and the full sleeves fastened with pearl buttons at my wrists.
“What I am is starving.” I cast one last, pitiful glance over my shoulder. “You couldn’t have called an hour later?”
“You would have already eaten if I had.” He opened the passenger side door and held it for me. “I would have missed my chance.”
I leveled a glare on him. “How did you know?”
“I have my ways.”
After he ensconced me in his ride, I waited a full thirty seconds before pouncing on him. “What did you find out?”
A hint of a smile curved his lips. “We’ll talk about it over dinner.”
A smarter woman would have snagged another bacon-wrapped onion ring for the road. “Do you really want to talk about bodily fluids over a meal?”
“You’re a cop. Your father is a cop.” Wu snorted, and even that sound managed a lyrical elegance. “You can’t tell me this would be the first time you discussed a case over dinner.”
He had me dead to rights, but I wasn’t done yet. “That’s different. Dad and I are co-workers. We share a vocation. It’s only normal to discuss work and office politics for us.”
“You and I are partners,” he reminded me. “Both of us have ties to the NSB. Using your own logic, that means we can discuss work, that it’s normal for us.”
“That is future you and me.” A future that was three weeks away, and so distant, so alien from the life I led now, I had trouble imagining it. “Present you and me are barely acquaintances.”
“Then consider this a team-building exercise.”
“Yes. About our team.” I pegged him with a look. “Kapoor seemed downright shocked that I had been assigned to you.”
“Kapoor is not my immediate supervisor,” he said, sounding like this was an argument not worth repeating. “There was no reason to consult him on the matter.”
“So he told me.”
The car accelerated. “What else did he say?”
“He called you a whale.” And promised to harpoon you if you try any funny business.
“Why would he call me a whale?” Wu glanced down at himself as though checking for signs of a blowhole. “That makes no sense.”
The urge to indulge in ocular gymnastics made my eyes twitch. “He meant you’re a big deal.”
Wu nodded in clear agreement. “I am.”
“Maybe what he meant was you have a whale-sized ego,” I muttered.
If he heard, and I’m sure he did, he let the potshot pass uncontested. “Why not ask me your questions?”
“I don’t know you, which means I don’t know if I can trust your answers.” The coterie was aware of Kapoor, they respected his tenacity, which was more than I could say for Wu. “Kapoor, on the other hand, has done me a solid. He has protected my coterie. Multiple times.”
“He protected them at a cost,” Wu reminded me. “He did you no favors.”
“I’m well aware.” I gusted out a sigh. “That doesn’t change the fact that their lives and safety are my responsibility, and I’ve been falling down on the job. Until I can manage on my own, I’m not going to bite the hand that feeds me.”
“You’ve become possessive of them in a short amount of time,” he observed.
“They risked their lives protecting Jane Doe. I had no idea who or what she was, but they did, and they still kept her safe. For me.” Thom and Santiago had almost paid for that protection with their lives. “Thom saved my dad after War revealed herself, and Portia…”
She had risked it all transferring her essence into Maggie in the hopes she could revive my best friend.
The way it had been explained to me was some charun, like Cole and the guys, could manifest their own skins. Others, like Portia, required hosts to survive foreign terrenes and function within those societies. The latter were divided into two groups: viscarre and emocarre, or parasitic and symbiotic.
Portia fell into the latter category, the connection to her host a mutually beneficial one. Otherwise, I never would have entrusted Maggie to her. Not that I’d had a right to bargain with Portia as though Maggie’s life were my own in the first place. Desperate to save her, I had struck the bargain demanded of any host without first asking permission. I wasn’t sure Maggie would ever forgive me that.
“I don’t deserve their loyalty,” I told him, “but I have it. Now it’s up to me to earn it.”
“I expected it would take longer for you to accept them.” He angled his head sharply to one side. “Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me. Some ties run too deep to sever, even the ones you attempt to carve from under your skin.”
There was only one member of my coterie who had taken to self-mutilation to free himself of me.