Keeper of the Moon

chapter 6



The first thing Sailor did upon waking was think about Declan Wainwright. Specifically, about kissing him.

The second thing she did was check the bathroom mirror. Her eyes were still scarlet, a fine color for underripe plums but disturbing in a human face. Other than that, she was okay. Her wound looked uninfected, and she decided to leave the bandage off. She was sore, no doubt from being hauled around, but it was no big deal, and she’d slept nearly four hours, enough to restore her to functionality. But she’d left Barrie’s colored contacts at the Snake Pit, so she would have to wear sunglasses until she could get them back from—

Declan. She caught her breath. So many things had happened in the past twelve hours, and so much needed to be done in the next twelve, before her next waitress shift, but all she could think about was him.

Had she really spent much of last night driving around L.A. with him? And kissing him? She looked again in the mirror and watched herself blush, as if he were there watching.

She studied her naked body. Would he find her pretty? Stupid question. Straight guys of all species tended to like unclothed girls. And how would he look in the nude? Wonderful. Some things you could just tell, even hidden under jeans and a T-shirt.

Where would his birthmark be?

She turned profile to look at her own, a perfect oak tree on her left hipbone. Strange to think that everyone in the Council meeting today would have that same oak tree somewhere on their bodies. That they all shared DNA.

That disturbed her. To know the blood coursing through her veins distinguished her from other humans, from her own mother— Was this who she was? Was this her identity, as indisputably her as the family she was born into?

No. In a week or two this crisis would be behind her, and her mind would be on headshots and auditions and hunting for an agent. But for the moment she was a Keeper, and that was what had awakened her after four hours of sleep.

That—and Declan. And what would he be to her once this crisis was over? What was he even now? What had that kiss meant last night?

He was attracted to her at least. Amazing. She’d always felt like a presumptuous teenager around him from the first time she’d seen him in his club, when she had in fact been a presumptuous teenager, underage and easily intimidated. But years had passed since then, years in which she’d moved to New York, gone to college, grown. She’d returned to Los Angeles a different person in so many ways—except one. When she’d walked into the Snake Pit eight years had fallen away and she’d once again been a gawky teen, this time with a chip on her shoulder.

But last night had changed all that.

And maybe her value to him really was about the pathogen coursing through her, but this was a chance to do more, to prove herself as a Keeper, his equal. Time to get to work.

She threw on jeans and a sweatshirt, and spent an hour on her laptop doing internet research on the four dead women, then went downstairs, pausing on the landing to touch Great-Aunt Olga’s glass window ornament. It was the tree symbol. The tree trunk itself was actually a man and woman, limbs intertwined, naked. She and her cousins had found that nakedness hilarious when they were little. “It’s the symbol of the Ancients,” Aunt Olga would tell them reprovingly.

Now their nakedness looked beautiful to her.

In the kitchen she fed Jonquil, plugged in her cell phone and checked her answering machine. Charles Highsmith’s assistant had called confirming, in code, the time and place of the meeting that afternoon. Sailor had to pause to find her decoding notes, hiding under a stack of bills, before listening to her last message. This one was from Darius Simonides’s assistant, asking her to return his call.

Sailor grabbed the phone.

Darius Simonides was arguably the most powerful talent agent in Hollywood, head of the biggest agency—and a vampire. He was also Sailor’s godfather.

She cleared her throat several times and mentally rehearsed what she would say, hating her desperation to please this man. When the assistant answered, she said, “This is Sailor Ann Gryffald, returning—” before being interrupted.

“Mr. Simonides would like to see you in the office this morning at eleven-twenty.”

“I’ll be there,” Sailor told her.

* * *

Global Artists’ Alliance, or GAA, as it was known, occupied a good chunk of Wilshire Boulevard in the heart of Beverly Hills. It was a light salmon-colored slab of concrete that put Sailor in mind of an upscale penitentiary, and she wondered if the agents’ assistants saw it like that, the young MBAs and MFAs so underpaid and overworked they were nearly indentured servants. For those aspiring to be represented by GAA, however—and Sailor was of their number—the pale peach prison was Shangri-la.

Keeping her sunglasses on, she gave her name to an astonishingly attractive receptionist at the front desk and was directed to the third floor, where another headphoned beauty directed her to a hard couch. On a coffee table were trade publications. Both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter had headlines referring to the dead celebrities, but she read the articles as an insider—a Keeper. She caught a few errors that she assumed had been fed to the trades by the publicity machine that operated in the world of the Others. Did the Elven have their own PR firm? Why hadn’t her father filled her in on this?

The fact was, Rafe Gryffald hadn’t expected to be appointed to the International Council. He’d figured on working in L.A. for years, letting his daughter live her life, see the world, pursue her artistic aspirations. Which, up until yesterday—

“Ms. Gryffald?” a woman said. “This way, please.”

Sailor followed her down the hall. The woman wore a silver wrap dress that hugged her perfect, fat-free body and indicated an intriguing absence of underwear. Her gray heels were very high, making her ability to walk an art in itself. She showed Sailor to an anteroom and asked if she wanted coffee, water or Diet Coke. Apparently no actor in the history of GAA had requested regular Coke. Sailor wanted to compliment her on being so sexy, but she had a dim idea that this might not be taken well and it might be best to say nothing, even though she felt really chatty all of a sudden. And hot. Damn. Here we go again.

The assistant moved off, and a man approached, elegant and grave, introducing himself as Joshua LeRonde—a higher class of assistant, as he was allowed a name—and told her that Darius would see her, if she would please follow him.

And on they went, to the inner sanctum.

The office was like a hotel suite, tasteful and spacious, with a wraparound view of both Century City and downtown. The view was obscured at the moment, windows shrouded with translucent curtains, protecting Darius from the piercing sunlight he found so unpleasant.

He wore a white shirt and pressed black pants with a snakeskin belt, and a Ulysse Nardin watch. Sailor had never seen him in anything he couldn’t wear to officiate at a wedding or a funeral, and she’d known him her whole life. He was taller than she was, with dark hair with a touch of gray, beautifully cut, very pale skin and extraordinary hands, with long, graceful fingers. He looked fifty, but of course he was far older.

“Here you are,” he said, coming from behind the desk to kiss her on both cheeks in the European way.

“Godfather.”

He smiled. “Godchild.” He peered at her, still within kissing distance, which made her as wary as if his fangs were extended, and then he removed her sunglasses with the gentleness of an optician. It was an intimate gesture. She felt a stirring inside. How could she be finding Darius so appealing? Handsome, aristocratic, yes, but good grief, he had at least a hundred and fifty years on her. Plus he was her godfather.

“Ah.” His hazel eyes stared into her own. “What have we here?”

“I had a—an incident. Yesterday. An encounter.” She gestured to her chest, but she was wearing a dress that buttoned nearly to her neck, and she wasn’t about to unbutton it. It was very bad form to do that with a vampire, unless you were inviting him to feed.

“Really? Have a seat and tell me.” He tucked her sunglasses into the pocket of her dress, another gesture she found intimate and almost erotic. He then moved behind his desk as though ascending a throne, which in a previous century had probably been the case.

She told him of the attack, of being found by Alessande. She left out the part about the shapeshifter posing as Vernon the stockbroker, because that would make her look slow.

“But no lasting effects, other than your remarkable eyes?”

She reported the sharp vision that occurred every few hours, the visual beauty of everyone she encountered. “It happened just now, in fact,” she said. “And then there’s sleepiness. If Alessande hadn’t given me síúlacht, I wouldn’t have made it off her sofa.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Would that explain your passing out some hours later at the Snake Pit?”

“Okay, that wasn’t actually—how did you hear about...”

Darius half smiled. “Have you any idea how many people are employed by this agency? Young people, with after-hours habits similar to yours?”

“Which they discuss with you the morning after?” She tried to picture the receptionists chatting him up over cheese Danish in the GAA kitchen.

“My business is my clients. Knowing their predilections, who’s capable of sustaining a TV series or six months on location, who needs rehab. Useful information, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I suppose.” Were the assistants on the clock after midnight as spies?

“And why do you think I invited you to come and see me today?” he asked.

“Well, in light of what you’re telling me, I’m guessing that you were worried about me.”

“That would be incorrect.”

She felt as if this was a job interview and she was flunking. “Okay, to be honest, I was hoping that you were interested in representing me. As an actress.”

“I am not.”

That stung. “You know what, Darius? You could be a little kinder.”

Once again the eyebrows went up. “Why?”

She hesitated. She’d painted herself into a conversational corner. “Okay, never mind. I have no idea, my esteemed godfather, why you’ve asked me here today. I am all ears.”

He smiled. “That’s better. There is, I believe, a Council meeting of the Elven Keepers scheduled for today.”

“Yes.”

“Time and place?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I do, but I want to make sure that you do, after your all-night adventures.”

“Three o’clock this afternoon, at the home of Charles Highsmith.”

“Which home? He has several.”

“Lake Sherwood.”

“Yes, his ranch. Do you know how to get there?”

“I can operate a GPS, Darius. Even hungover. Which I’m not, by the way.”

“Thank you for sharing,” he said, dryness creeping into his voice. “This will be your first closed Council meeting, if I’m not mistaken?”

“Yup, first one.” Now that she knew there was no chance that her godfather would become her agent, her best behavior was slipping.

“May I offer you a piece of advice, my dear?”

“I’ll take several pieces, if you’ve got ’em.”

Darius frowned. “First, in Council meetings, as regards talking, less is more. Unless you’re using it for misdirection, or to encourage others to speak about themselves, talking gives away information, when the objective is to acquire information.”

“Okay, makes sense.”

“In other words, Sailor, keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. Strive for a ninety-five-to-five ratio of listening versus talking. Anytime you’re tempted to speak to impress someone, don’t. Your fellow Keepers have been at this a long time and are, generally speaking, cleverer than they look. You will not be the smartest person in the room. Try not to be the most stupid.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Darius.”

“I have a great deal of respect for your father, what in a normal man would be called affection. I’ve always found it curious that I was his choice of godfather to his only child. Rafe put a lot of store in the position.”

“Yes. You’re supposed to oversee my spiritual development.”

“But not your professional development, which is why I have thus far resisted your requests for representation.”

The words thus far raised her hopes. “You could make me a star, you know. If you chose.”

“Stardom would do nothing for your spiritual development.”

Hopes died. Sailor stood. “Okay, then. Talk less, listen more, make it through the meeting without displaying my ignorance. I think I’ve got it.”

“Sit.”

She sat.

“You understand the power of alliances?”

Sailor thought of the pact she had with Rhiannon and Barrie. And Declan. “I do.”

“Good. There will be more to this meeting than Robert’s Rules of Order. Observe alliances. There are two major players on your Council, Highsmith, and a woman named Justine Freud. They loathe each other. Everyone else will line up behind one of those two. See if you can figure out the teams. That should keep you from falling asleep. If all else fails, amuse yourself by determining who’s sleeping with whom. Finally, make your own alliances. Base your decisions not on pleasantness but usefulness. You’re friendly by nature, but this is business, so there must be a quid pro quo.” He reached for a pen. “I’d like a full report by the end of the day.”

“Excuse me?” Sailor said. “I’m to report what goes on at a confidential meeting?”

“Yes. Will that be a problem?”

“Yes, that could be a problem. It’s confidential.”

“You’ll find a way to reconcile things with your conscience,” he said. “These are exceptional times for your species. You’re walking proof of that.”

“And one of the dead girls was a junior agent here.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Did you know her?”

“I don’t socialize with junior agents. The question is, how badly do you want to find the killer of your Elven, and what are you willing to do? There are those who would consider me a powerful ally, arguably more valuable than anyone on the Elven Council. Perhaps you’re not one of them.”

“No, I am. Of course. But—”

“But?”

“But what’s the quid pro quo? What’s in it for me?”

At last, a slow smile from her godfather. “The satisfaction of knowing you’re in my good graces,” he said. “And that is preferable to the alternative.”

He stood, walked to a mahogany-paneled door and opened it, and pulled out a jacket. “And now, my dear, I have a lunch date and you may go.”

“One moment, please,” she said. “Why is it so important to you that I do well in the Council meeting?”

He looked at her, his eyebrows raised. “You’re my godchild. Your performance reflects on me, whether you do well or poorly. So far, it is the latter. You are twenty-eight years old, and you have to date exhibited no interest, no ability and no real understanding of what it is to be a Keeper. In short, you are something of a disgrace, Sailor.”

She felt ill.

“Fate has tossed you an opportunity,” Darius continued. “Thanks to your encounter with the Scarlet Pathogen, you’ve got people’s attention. Members of the inner circles. The question is, what will you do with this opportunity? You may choose to waste it.” He shrugged. “If so, I wash my hands of you.”

He turned his back on her by way of dismissal.

Sailor stood, put her sunglasses back on and left. She tried not to feel envious of the people on the hard couches she saw on her way out, actors who came here to meet with their agents and not their godfathers. Godfathers who had the ability to make them feel very small.

* * *

Sailor had been driven to Beverly Hills by Barrie, who’d offered to pick her up, as well, but Sailor chose to walk to the Snake Pit. It was less than two miles and a typical Los Angeles lunch hour, which was to say perfect. The temperature was seventy-two degrees, the sky cloudless, and she hoped that movement would somehow dispel her feeling of shame.

Because of course Darius had a point. She had been a poor excuse for a Keeper. She couldn’t blame it on her inexperience, because Barrie and Rhiannon were in the same boat, and they were pulling it off. Rhiannon had dealt masterfully with a recent crisis, saving Sailor’s life, among others, and earning the respect of the entire Otherworld community. Barrie loved being a Keeper, and even her choice of a civilian career—journalism—was in service to her work with the shapeshifters. Compared to both her cousins, Sailor was a slacker.

Or had been a slacker. She could change. She had changed. And she would change more.

She walked faster, heading north on Santa Monica Boulevard. A car honked at her, whether because she was on foot, which was unusual in L.A., or because she’d dressed with care today. She wore a white sundress, backless, but high in the front to hide her damaged chest, with a patent leather shoulder bag, and a pair of cinnamon-colored sandals with ankle straps that had set her back two nights’ tips. They were not only beautiful, but she could actually walk in them. She’d picked up the New York City pedestrian habit in college and found it funny that in her own hometown, with the world’s loveliest weather, so few people walked anywhere unless dressed in athletic gear or exercising a dog.

Another car honked at her, which annoyed her. But when it happened again two blocks later she found it less annoying. Her temperature was rising, and suddenly Beverly Hills looked postcard-beautiful, palm trees swaying, the purple of a jacaranda just beginning to bloom. It was a full-on Scarlet Pathogen moment, she realized, recognizing the wave of sensual energy and, with it, a pressing need to connect to people, express herself, maybe even burst into song. She checked her watch to track how long the wild feeling lasted. Dr. Krabill would be interested in that. Another car honked, and this one actually pulled over in traffic, twenty feet ahead of her. Sailor approached, feeling reckless, and then realized it was the spaceship, Declan’s Lamborghini Aventador. Heart racing, she bent down to look in the open passenger window.

“Get in,” Declan Wainwright said.

“Hey, there,” she said.

“Get in,” he repeated.

“What are you doing here?”

He laughed. “Holding up traffic. Get in.”

Sailor looked at his face, his lovely black hair, his unshaven, raffish quality, his absurdly blue eyes, and got in. Her heart was thumping wildly, but even as she clicked her seat belt she could feel her temperature drop. She checked her watch. Two minutes, forty seconds, and this wave of whatever it was had abated. She looked around and, sure enough, the world looked ordinary once more.

Except for Declan Wainwright, who still looked extraordinary.

As he eased back into traffic, she asked, “How did you find me?”

“Barrie. She said you’d be either at GAA or else on your way to the Snake Pit. On foot. I thought she was kidding. How many hours of sleep did you get?”

“Four, five, something like that. I feel fine.” She paused. “Or at least I did until a half hour ago. I had a meeting with Darius.”

“Darius Simonides is also your agent?” he asked.

“No—not that I’m bitter—he was giving me a godfatherly...talk. About the upcoming Council meeting.”

“How are your eyes?” He glanced at her, and she removed her glasses. She saw a softening in his expression as he looked at her, and she felt herself melting, the bad feelings washing away. She wanted to kiss him. She wished he would kiss her. But maybe it was too early in the day for kissing, because now he was looking businesslike again.

Oops. She was too transparent, gazing into his eyes at this range. She turned her attention to the car’s upholstery. And, just peripherally, his black jeans, then his white T-shirt, which revealed a great set of biceps.

“I’m eager myself to hear what goes on at that Council meeting,” Declan said.

“Uh...”

He looked at her. “‘Uh,’ what?”

“Well, it’s confidential. Right? Isn’t that the whole point of a closed meeting?”

“Yes, but I’m your partner.”

“Okay. But ratting out my fellow Keepers, that wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Actually, it was,” he said. “You told me last night I needed a friend on your Council. That was part of your offer. What else would you mean by that?”

Damn. She’d forgotten. “I guess I meant—I don’t know. A friend. In a general way. Not a spy. Not ‘Oh, here you go, here’s the full transcript of this very confidential meeting.’”

“Afraid I’ll sell information to the L.A. Times?”

“No, that’s not the point. Do you plan to tell me what happens in your shifter Council meetings?”

He shrugged. “It wouldn’t be useful to you. What happens in the Elven Council today will affect all the species.”

“But it’s an Elven issue, the victims are Elven, I’m an Elven Keeper, I’m not supposed to be blabbing confidential information to everyone and his dog!” Her voice was rising, and she abruptly stopped talking. It wasn’t Declan she was mad at, it was herself. Declan wanted a report, and Darius wanted a report, her cousins would probably want a report, and she’d just made a promise to herself to turn herself around as a Keeper and do the right thing. She stole a glance at Declan. He met her look, then turned away once more, keeping his thoughts to himself. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s not your fault. I’m having a professional crisis. I keep discovering just how lousy a Keeper I am.”

“‘Lousy’ is a strong word. You haven’t been at it long enough to be lousy.”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

“What do you suppose your father would do if he were here?”

“I’ve been asking myself that very question,” she said. “And the answer is, I don’t know. On the one hand, I think he’d say that confidential means confidential. On the other hand, Darius is expecting a full report of what goes on at my Council meeting. And my father trusts Darius.”

“And then there’s me. Who your father doesn’t know well enough to trust. Or not trust. Just like you.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that I—”

“Stop. No lying, remember?” He looked at her and smiled. “Yeah, you like kissing me, that’s true. And you’re happy to work with me—to a point. But you’re not sure you trust me, and that’s okay. I have a tough skin, I can handle it.”

“All right,” she said, unnerved by his reference to kissing. And how well he could read her. “Do I have to give you an answer about the Council meeting right now?”

“No, but you realize your value as a partner is dropping.”

“Well, that’s harsh,” she said.

“True. But other than your blood samples, to put it bleakly, what have you got?”

“Research,” she said, pulling a notebook from her bag. “The girl from Cal Arts who died, the acting student? She was Cyffarwydd, and her name was—”

“Ariel MacAdam,” he said. “She came into the Snake Pit a few times. My bartender had to card her. She looked about fifteen, but very Lolita, if that reference means anything to you.”

“Yes, I’ve read Nabokov.” She opened her notebook. “And the fourth victim, the agent from GAA. Did you know her, as well?”

“Yes. She was Rath.”

“And beautiful.”

“Very.”

“How well did you know her?”

He threw her a look. “Well enough. You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.”

Well enough? Did that mean he’d been intimate with her? A pang of jealousy shot through her, sharp and unpleasant. Get over it, she told herself. Because his list of intimate “acquaintances” is a long one. She flipped a page in her notebook. “The first two victims, our celebrities, Charlotte Messenger and Gina Santoro...aside from the usual PR blather, here’s what I found. They both got around. Lots of ex-lovers. Of course, that means nothing if the sex with their killer was nonconsensual.”

“Well, which was it? Consensual or non?” There was a challenge in his voice.

Sailor sighed. “All right, I’ll try Brodie.” She took out her cell and a moment later was talking to her soon-to-be cousin-by-marriage. Thirty seconds later she ended the call. “Yes, they were murdered. No, they weren’t raped. Yes, they both had sex with the same man before they were killed. The case was just reassigned to Robbery/Homicide, as we expected.”

“Looks like Brodie trusts you with confidential information,” he said. “And no one’s calling him a blabbermouth.”

“All right, point taken. But Brodie said not to make a habit of asking.” She looked at her notes. “As for their recent boyfriends, Gina had just been dumped by Alexander Cavendish, last year’s Sexiest Man Alive. Charlotte is—was—dating Giancarlo Ferro up until her death.”

“Your sources?” Declan asked.

“Who’sDatingWhom dot-com. But both of those men are mortals, as far as my cousins and I can tell, although either one could be a shifter. Barrie’s never met either in person.” Shifters were notoriously difficult to spot if they didn’t want to be spotted.

“I have,” he said. “They’re not shifters.”

“Okay, so we cross them off the list,” she said. “What this tells us is that whatever common lover the two women had, it was secret. Which suggests he’s the murderer.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Sure it does.”

Declan shook his head. “Plenty of men have could have slept with Charlotte and Gina without ending up on some website run by fans in Iowa. Your reasoning is flawed.”

“No, though my research is limited. But I had only fifty-five minutes to devote to it. Anyway, never mind. It seems reasonable to me that Gina and Charlotte’s mutual secret lover infected them with the Scarlet Pathogen, then went on to seduce and murder the other two victims.”

“Huge leap in logic,” Declan said. “First, we have no idea whether the other two victims had sex before dying, let alone a common sexual partner. Second—”

“Hey, it’s a theory,” Sailor responded. “How else do you solve crime?”

“Go on.”

“Okay. First, Gina Santoro. Very talented actress—in my opinion underrated. Just back from Romania, where she was shooting Technical Black, a big action-adventure popcorn movie, which explains the theory reported in Variety that the Scarlet Pathogen was picked up overseas. Technical Black is back in town shooting in a mansion in Malibu Canyon, where Gina died last week in her trailer. They’re finishing the film without her, and I want to get onto that set.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes,” Sailor said. “Charlotte Messenger, she’d been filming a romantic comedy at Metropole Studios as well as on location around town, but she’d just wrapped before she died, lucky for them. The film’s got another week of shooting, so I want to get onto that set, as well. As for Charlotte herself, what can you say? A-list. A-plus, even. Gorgeous, but overrated.”

“In your opinion.”

“Of course my opinion. No range whatsoever and dreadful at accents—did you see that Restoration swordfight thing she did two years ago? No. Because it was unwatchable. I looked at some scenes this morning, but it hasn’t improved with age. Okay, now as to tribes, Charlotte’s Déithe, trying to look Cyffarwydd with the nose job and the cheek implants. Like I said, the true Cyffarwydd is Ariel MacAdam, the acting student. Her school’s up north somewhere. Fresno, Bakersfield, someplace. Her Facebook page is heartbreaking.” Sailor’s throat tightened.

“What?” Declan said.

“Nothing. The girl was a knockout. There was a YouTube thing, she was doing Cordelia in King Lear, and—” Sailor stopped again.

“It’s okay to get upset about the deaths,” he said. “Cry if you want.”

“I don’t cry.”

“Ever?”

“They made me work on it in acting school so I can if I have to, but it’s very difficult. Something about my tear ducts. The Elven never cry. Ever see an Elven cry?”

Declan had pulled into a gas station. “I can’t say I ever noticed,” he said, getting out of the car.

Sailor got out, too, and kept talking. “You haven’t and you won’t. If Gina or Charlotte cried in a movie, the ‘tears’ were glycerin, artfully applied by their makeup artists between takes. So, anyhow... Last, we have Kelly Ellory. I took this from GAA twenty minutes ago.”

She produced a flyer announcing a memorial service, with a photo of a huge-eyed woman with a short bob. Declan paused at the gas pump and looked at it. He nodded. “That’s Kelly. Pretty girl.”

“Beautiful,” Sailor replied. “The receptionist gave it to me when I asked her about Kelly. Hard worker, loved being an agent, loved live music and avant-garde theater, had an MBA from Berkeley. Quintessential Rath, with eyes like that and the high cheekbones.” She picked up the squeegee from the water trough and started to clean the windshield. “So, all Elven, but different tribes. All in show business, but different levels, different jobs.”

“And then there’s you,” Declan said. “And you’re not Rath, or Cyffarwydd or Déithe. Or Elven. But you were attacked. And you didn’t die.”

“I know. I fit the pattern, and then I don’t fit the pattern. But I am in show business—at least, I’m in show business when not squandering my life away in the food service industry.”

Declan smiled. “You don’t have to clean my windshield, by the way. You’re not my servant.”

She moved to his side of the car, feeling his eyes on her. “It’s not every day I get to squeegee a Lamborghini. I bet you do have people who wash your cars for you.”

“Yes.”

“What else do people do for you? Everything, right?”

“Not quite everything.” He caught her by the hand as she went by and pulled her close. And once more he was kissing her. It lasted only three or four seconds, but it left her weak, her arm limp by her side, the squeegee dripping water onto her sandal. Weak, and ridiculously happy.

“You should always do that particular chore yourself,” she said. “Keep up your skills. Because you’re very good at it.”

“You have a lot of talent yourself, Sailor Gryffald,” he said, and gently removed the squeegee from her hand. “You’re a very distracting business partner.”

“Maybe you’re just easily distracted,” she said, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him again, very lightly.

He smiled, wiped a smudge of soapy water from her shoulder and set about cleaning the other windows. “If you’re convinced we’re looking for a common lover among the victims,” he said, “you’re overlooking an obvious point. How many lovers have you had that were either Keeper or Other?” When she didn’t answer, he turned, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m counting,” she said, and laughed at his expression. “Come on, you can’t be serious. You want to discuss my sexual history?”

“Only the nonmortals,” he said.

“That winged thing that attacked me yesterday was not an old boyfriend, I promise you,” she said.

“Unless, of course, it was a shifter. But if you’re correct, there goes your theory.”

“On the subject of sexual history, weren’t you and Charlotte once—” She stopped. It was the wrong thing to say. They’d been in a bantering mood, and this was anything but.

“Long ago,” he said, but in a quieter voice.

Sailor could have kicked herself, and there was nothing to say except, “I’m so sorry.”

“Forget it,” he said. But the moment of playfulness was over. There really was something tough about him. Tough and unapproachable, and she wondered if that was the real Declan Wainwright, if the one who was flirting with her, the one who had twice kissed her, was a facade. A persona he could put on and off like a change of clothes.

The thought filled her with dismay. But what do you expect? she asked herself. He’s a shifter. Or close enough. And a player—a notorious one at that—and only a fool would expect anything lasting from Declan Wainwright. And she was no fool.

So why did she feel so blue?

* * *

They didn’t speak much the rest of the way to the Snake Pit, which was, in any case, close by. It was unfortunate, he thought, her reference to Charlotte, but it appeared to bother her more than it bothered him. For him, it was just a reminder that no matter how captivated he was by Sailor, their job was to find a killer.

He did need to know what went on at the Elven Council meeting, but he would deal with that later. There was more than one way to extract information from a woman, and intimidation was rarely the best tactic.

At the Snake Pit he retrieved her purse and keys, then walked her to her Jeep. “When your Council meeting is done, call me,” he said. “Don’t go running off to Fresno or Bakersfield or God knows where. Blood test first. Among other things, I want to know whether you’re getting better.”

“For the record,” she said, “I have no intention of going to Fresno, ever, in this lifetime.”

He watched her drive off, thinking how fetching she’d looked in that sundress, with her bare shoulders and back, her golden skin making him want to touch her, feel the warmth of her, run his hands down her spine.... He wondered how many men she would encounter in the next few hours who would be thinking along similar lines. The degree to which this bothered him bothered him.

Declan was used to women fawning on him. Along with a reasonable amount of money, looks and an accent that for some reason Americans drooled over, he knew he had charm. Even when he’d been living on the streets, there had been women, even when he was too young to know what to do with them. Eventually he’d done everything with them—except marriage. That was the shifter in him: the concept of “settling down” held little appeal. He was always clear about that to the women he got involved with, that he wouldn’t be giving up his freedom. Most were fine with it. The innocents weren’t his type anyway.

But now there was Sailor Ann Gryffald, and he didn’t know what to make of her or the feelings she aroused in him, or how far he should let those feelings lead him. He’d originally written her off as—well, as she’d once described herself—an actress-slash-waitress, a commodity as common in Hollywood as the lemons falling off trees and rotting on sidewalks. And yes, an innocent. He was revising that opinion. She might look like a starlet, but her ambitions ran deeper. She was waking up to her destiny as a Keeper and seemed determined to educate herself. And by the time they got through this crisis, he reflected, she might not have much innocence left.

That bothered him, too.

He took his cell from his pocket and phoned Harriet. “Cancel my calendar for the day, love. And get Darius Simonides on the phone. And Antony Brandt, the coroner.”