Trixa waved her hand in dismissal, scattering all that like scarlet butterflies. Huh. In a way, that’s what she was—a bright red-and-gold butterfly but with a lethal bite. That made me think. I dug in my pocket. I’d worn these jeans yesterday and they’d still passed the sniff test this morning—it should be there. Triumphant, I pulled out a crumpled paper butterfly from Chinatown. Forget that in Vegas it was a strip mall, Chinatown was still Chinatown. The butterfly was a bright shade of red with gold foil around the edges of the bent wings. I handed it to her. “I know you like red.” I scuffed my sneaker against the concrete. “And things that fly.”
She looked at the small bit of paper in her palm, shook her head and gently took a handful of my own red hair, bending my head to place a kiss on my forehead. “All is forgiven. But no more government workers, Kit. That’s attention you don’t want, okay? Remember that. Be sneaky like the fox you are. We’ll pay this guy off. He can’t disappear. His supervisor has his schedule. The police would know this was the last place he didn’t make it into or out of, so to speak. And I like you guys in Vegas where I can keep an eye on you. I don’t want you on the run.”
“Pay him off?” I growled. “Griffin said: murderer, adulterer, child abuser, cat kicker, and nosy asshole. He’s the one who has to pay.”
She cupped a hand and whispered in my ear, “He will, Kit. His name is on my list, and in a few months when this is mostly forgotten and he’s burning through the money, I’ll pay him a visit. I’ll show him the error of his ways, teach him the lesson he deserves.”
As Trixa’s trickster lessons were almost always lethal, I could settle for that. She straightened the wings of the butterfly and put it in her hair. It caught immediately in the wild explosion of curls. She always looked like she was standing in a wind machine or had a fork stuck in an outlet. I liked it. It gave you the same feeling as unscheduled fireworks, wild and unexpected. “I won’t ever lose this, Kit. I simply can’t stay mad at you. I can’t get mad at you, you thinking of me like that, sugar.”
Then she got into the truck, and its engine purred as it went down our street to disappear around the corner. Griffin watched it go silently before saying mildly, “Was that the piece of trash that you found stuck to your shoe in the car after we ate in that Chinatown restaurant yesterday?”
“Yeah. They make a lot of girly drinks there. Think it came off one of them. Kind of lucky it was red.” Red being Trixa’s favorite color. The only color that existed, as far as she cared. I gave him a grin. It didn’t have to be sly. He could feel the emotion bubbling in me as I could hear his laughing thought of “I’m doomed” in his head.
“You out-tricked a trickster. If she ever finds out, you won’t have an ass left to kick.” He swatted mine in emphasis. “Everyone, even me, underestimates you sometimes.”
I scuffed my foot again, this time on the empty space where our garbage can had been. You could bet Leo wouldn’t bother to bring it back. Great. Now we had to buy a new one, and I was going to get a few of my own lessons. At least Griffin’s weren’t lethal…not when it came to me. “And sometimes they overestimate. I should’ve thought about the cops.”
“But not the garbagemen?”
“Nah. I’ve been reading their thoughts for years now. They would’ve been good to go on making the extra bucks.”
Griffin gave me a shove back towards our small house. “And that doesn’t make them murderers? As much in need of punishment?”
“More like subcontractors,” I clarified. “The punishment is just. Doesn’t matter who carries it out.”
“No?” He opened the door and we were inside. It was a cave at first. All Vegas houses are. Blinds down, small windows, anything to keep the eye-searing, air-roasting light and heat out.
I dumped the sunglasses and flopped on the couch. “You’re saying no, but you’re thinking yes. You’re thinking it matters a lot. And I don’t know why.” I never knew why. I didn’t know if I’d ever learn. Depressed, I flopped farther from sitting to lying with my knees dangling over the arm rest. “I guess I am stupid after all. Crazy and stupid just like Eden House labeled my chart. Maybe I need a T-shirt to label myself. Batshit Crazy and Stupid as Hell.”
I heard the refrigerator open and the distinct clink and whoosh of two ice-cold beers being opened. Griffin came back, handed me a beer, and used his free hand to lift my head up. He sat down and took the first swallow of his own beer as he lowered my head to rest in his lap. “You’re not stupid and you’re not crazy.” I winced, expecting the flick to my temple or ear I usually received when I said those things. Griffin was determined I think as much of myself as he did of me.
Which was impossible. I could comprehend Heaven and Hell, but what Griffin thought about me, felt for me, that I’d never understand. He deserved someone better, the best there was, and I didn’t come close to being normal, much less the best. I rolled the beer bottle between my hands. “Are we significant others?”
“We are,” he said and instead of the flick to the ear I expected, he slowly and carefully twisted a strand of my hair around his finger.
“What’s that mean?”
“That we’re together and we love each other.” This time he combed fingers through all my hair.