“Legs,” he added, without looking at me. “Thanks. I needed the head slap.”
“Not the tough talk?”
He pursed his lips to keep from grinning. “Eh. I mighta needed that too.”
“Talk to Leo. Or I’ll slap your head again.”
“You need me to hurt Leo for what he did to you?”
This time I smiled, feeling all mushy inside. Derek might not be family—yet—but in his own way, he was a friend and that was good enough for now. “Nah. He gave me a big honking boon when he asked for forgiveness.”
Derek’s eyebrows did that soldier-micro-twitch thing that Eli’s did when he was surprised. “He asked your forgiveness? For real? Leo?”
I shrugged with my eyebrows. Turnabout was fair play.
“A big honking one, huh? Not bad, Legs. Not bad.”
We sat in the sun for a while until Derek’s phone rang. “It’s parked down the street, bro,” Mannie said on speakerphone. “I zoomed in and got the plate. Sending it to you now. Also a shot of the driver, but it’s not too good through the glass.”
“I’ll send it to the Kid,” Derek said to me. “I gotta get back to work.”
“Later,” I said.
We bumped fists. I pulled out of the driveway, passing and waving to Mannie, and then passing the empty SUV. No driver. Or rather, a driver lying down in the seat. That. Because an SUV appeared behind me a mile or so later. I lost him by taking a back road, one that was sinking below the water table in this alluvial landscape. Two turns later, I was free to go where I wanted. People were so stupid sometimes.
CHAPTER 6
Carrying a Vamp Head
Hours later, I looked at myself in the mirror on the closet door. I was wearing one of the first outfits I had bought when I got to New Orleans, clothes purchased because it was too hot for my mountain wear, and because they were colorful and beautiful. Now I knew enough about clothing to recognize that they were made of inexpensive fabric, with inferior workmanship. I knew that the seams were sewn cheaply, the drape wasn’t quite right, and the skirt would likely last only a few washings before it lost its shape entirely. Dumb, stupid stuff to know, of no value in a world where my most important bit of knowledge should be how sharp the blade, how well it was balanced, and how true the sights on the gun. But I’d bought the clothes with my own money and with my own taste. I’d worn the outfit on the first night I’d gone dancing in New Orleans, my first week here.
The silk, calf-length, asymmetrical skirt was patchwork, a dainty, flared, delicate confection of tiny, two-by-four-inch patches of teal and purple, a skirt for an impoverished princess. The hem flipped when I danced and the elastic waist rode low on my hips if I wanted it to, or higher, on my waist. I’d put on a few pounds of muscle since I bought it, but most of that was in my shoulders and thighs and the skirt still looked good on me. Rad, as the salesgirl had said.
I wore the skirt low on my hips, paired with a peasant top with a drawstring neckline. The blouse was made of a paler fabric, ocean-teal shading to lavender. The amethyst-and-chatkalite necklace I’d bought with the outfit hung with my gold-nugget-and-puma-tooth necklace on its doubled gold chain, between my cleavage. And that was something else new. I had cleavage. Well, sorta. At least a valley, if not a crevasse, thanks to all those extra pounds, a very tiny percentage of which had landed as fat on my boobs. I slid my feet into a pair of purple sandals, with ankle straps for dancing.