“Thanks. If he’s guilty then he should be behind bars.”
I didn’t know which he she was referring to. Jodi was a law-and-order, by-the-book kinda girl, so either man, if he looked guilty, would get the benefit of her legal teeth in his leg. She’d be like a rat terrier shaking a buffalo. “I know.” I turned and left the building, taking the stairs down from vamp central, into the morning, my dress swinging and swishing against my legs. As I walked, I called Rinaldo; he was in the Quarter, just finishing breakfast, and promised he’d be with me in ten minutes. I walked on, knowing moving would make me harder to find, but needing the push of heart and lungs, the feel of blood pumping and muscles stretching and contracting.
Rinaldo pulled up beside me shortly and idled his cab, keeping up with my pace as he looked me over. “You look a million bucks, yes? Janie-girl all dolled up, walking from direction of the bloodsucker’s biiiig pa’tay last night?” I ignored him and got in the front seat, closing the door after me. “You look good with knife in one hand, gun in the other. Sexy.” I looked at him, deadpan, and he said, “I work graveyard shift. We keep TV on all night. Saw you on the TV, I did. Some patay girl you are.”
I’d been outted to Rinaldo. If he didn’t know I was the vamp hunter before, he did now. I laid my head back on the seat and closed my eyes. “Yeah. I was there. Take me home, Rinaldo.”
“No trip to the nearest fast food place?”
“No. Thanks.” I kept my eyes closed for the rest of the drive and Rinaldo didn’t pester me, even when we drew up in front of my house. I paid my usual fee, got out, and went inside. The house was silent, chill, with the AC on full blast. I stripped, placed my weapons where I could reach them quickly, showered, and fell into bed. The last thing I did before I fell asleep was check my cell phone.
No call from Rick. No text. No nothing.
I half woke to three quick taps on the front door, rolled over, and pulled the covers over my head. But whoever it was didn’t go away; he kept knocking in three-burst rounds like a machine gun on the wood door. It was 2:22 Friday afternoon when I came awake, with a rush, thinking, Rick! I rolled out of bed and picked up my robe in a single motion, flung my hair out of the way and raced to the door, shoving my arms into the sleeves. I looked out through a clear pane in the stained-glass door window. And saw Bruiser, still knocking.
All the eagerness went out of me and I closed my eyes, leaned my head against the wall beside the door, and blew out a breath. Anger started to build in a quiet, still part of my soul, anger at Rick. He could have called. Even deep undercover, he could have found a way to call. One lousy freaking phone call.
I finished tying the robe’s belt with a yank and opened the door. “You’re lucky the house wards weren’t up, or you’d have singed your knuckles.”
Bruiser met my eyes, his dark with exhaustion, black rings under them. The skin on his face and jaw looked worn and slack, as if he’d aged in the last few hours. His clothes showed the fine wrinkles and relaxed hand of high humidity. I looked at the street. There was no car in sight. And there was a large suitcase at his feet. “May I come in?” he asked, his voice weary.
I stared at the suitcase as myriad thoughts and possibilities fluttered through me like ravens’ wings, none of them happy ones. On their heels came a workable answer. “The cops found a reason to get prints from you. It was your prints on the shell casing in the office and on the cold case brass.” My eyes narrowed. “Leo kicked you out.”
“Yes,” he said, his fatigue more pronounced. “My lawyer and I spent two hours with them, fending off thinly veiled accusations and allegations posed as questions. When they let me go, a police acquaintance slipped me word that the press is staking out my residence.” He seemed to slump as he stood in the muggy heat, and put a hand on the door jamb as if to support himself. “I went to the clan home to find my suitcase packed and waiting for me at the front door. Tyler suggested that I come here. It seemed like a good idea. At the time.”
I stared at the suitcase. It was a big one, the kind on wheels with a handle. It would hold a lot of clothes. “You want to stay here?” My voice didn’t squeak, but it was a near thing. And I was suddenly aware that I was naked under my robe. I pulled my lapels together. “You can’t stay at a hotel?”
“They’ll find me. No one will look here for a day or so.” He closed his eyes as he said the next word. “Please.”
It was the “please” that did it. It was one of those forlorn words that a man asks when he’s down and out and been kicked around a bit. “Did you kill Safia?”
He met my eyes, so I could read the truth in them. “No. But I may not be able to prove it. The tapes indicate that I was away from the ballroom when Safia first disappeared. There isn’t enough evidence just now to charge me.”
“Did you kill the people in the cold case files?”
“I don’t know. There was a time ...” He stopped and swallowed, wavering slightly. I could smell his sweat and his fatigue. Beast was awake and watching through my eyes. “There was a time, decades really, after my mother died, when my anger was so great that I killed anyone Leo wanted dead.” His voice was flat, and he closed his eyes again, hiding the bleak darkness in them. “Some of the locations in the photographs they showed me looked familiar. I would need access to more in the police files to know if I was ... responsible.” He opened his eyes and held mine, a wry honesty in them. “However, even at my most angry, I have never been stupid enough to leave my spent brass beside a body.”