Page 39 of Serpentine


  "Yes."

  "Just like that, an unequivocal yes?"

  I nodded. "If it wasn't an unequivocal yes, Captain Tyburn, I wouldn't be suggesting it."

  "How does it work?" Dalton asked. She looked sad and a little pale, but she was doing her job and seemed to be tracking everything that was happening around her. Having been on the receiving end of Rankin's power, I was impressed. I wondered how long he'd been messing with her, but I left it for later. One problem at a time, and right now nothing was more important than finding Denny. Every minute that she was missing upped the chances of her ending up like Bettina. A relative stranger dead was one thing; having one of Donna's oldest and closest friends murdered would probably put a serious damper on the wedding, if we were still doing it tomorrow. There were so many reasons to postpone, or to skip it altogether, but that wasn't my call. Until Edward or Donna called it off, the wedding was still on. Peter wanted them to do it as scheduled even if the doctors wouldn't let him out of the hospital to attend it. We could have done that, but missing the maid of honor? I wasn't sure we could muscle past that, but one problem at a time. First we had to find Denny alive, and as well as possible. We'd worry about everything else after that, including the wedding.

  Tyburn turned to Olaf. "So you and Marshal Blake have done this before?"

  Olaf glanced at me and then back at Tyburn. "I was not the wereanimal that she used to track her victims down."

  I wasn't sure I liked his phrasing about me, tracking my victims down, but since I'd killed the bad guys we tracked down, it was a little awkward to argue. "Marshal Jeffries wasn't a wereanimal at that time, and we weren't working together on the two cases."

  "Are you going to use him now?" Dalton asked.

  I thought, No, absolutely no, but wasn't sure how to say that without possibly offending Olaf. He surprised me by taking care of it for me.

  "No, I am new at being a lycanthrope. I would rather trust this task to more experienced noses than mine, and Anita has more experienced shapeshifters with her."

  "You mean Wyatt and Nathaniel?" Dalton asked. It was interesting that they were on a first-name basis already.

  "And Micah, Morgan, or Nicky, or Bram, yeah," I said.

  "They're civilians, Blake. I'm not sure how I feel about putting them in harm's way," Tyburn said.

  "I'm not crazy about it either, but Nathaniel has done this for me before, and it worked."

  "Nathaniel Graison is your fiance, right?" Tyburn asked.

  "Right," I said.

  "You saw what this thing did to the first victim, Blake. Do you really want to risk getting the man in your life close to that . . . monster?"

  "No, and I really don't want it to be Nathaniel this time."

  "What's different this time?" Tyburn asked.

  In my head, I thought, Ireland, what happened in Ireland, but out loud I said, "I don't know what this creature is. I don't want to risk him with this many unknowns."

  "Nathaniel will want to help," Edward said.

  "I know. They're friends."

  I wanted to keep Nathaniel safe, and instead I was about to take him monster hunting. It seemed like the harder I tried to keep him safe, the more risks he had to take. I knew there was a lesson in there somewhere; I just wasn't sure what the lesson was supposed to be, or maybe I didn't want to learn this particular lesson.

  53

  TYBURN OFFERED US a ride back to the hotel, but with Dalton in the car there wasn't room for all four of us. We started to divide up two and two, but Tyburn said, "We need to talk on the way back to the hotel, Marshals. The drive back to the hotel is probably the only privacy we'll get today."

  "All right, who gets to sit in whose lap?" I asked. I'd meant it to be a joke, but the joke was on me, because Tyburn said, "I'm driving and Dalton doesn't know anyone else well enough to not leave the wrong impression, so that leaves you, Marshal Blake."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Anita, please just do it and don't argue. Tyburn and Dalton want to share information and Denny is running out of time," Edward said.

  I looked at Dalton. "If this was you having to sit on one of your coworkers' laps, would the information be worth it?"

  She looked startled, as if she hadn't expected me to ask that particular question, or maybe she just startled easy. She blinked at me, and for a second I thought I'd have to repeat the question, but she answered, "Yes, the information would be worth it, as long as sitting in his lap wouldn't enslave you to him for years." That last part was very bitter, and suddenly I was willing to sit in someone's lap if she'd tell us all about Rankin.

  It wasn't me who argued; it was Olaf. "You are the groom-to-be. You cannot drive up to the hotel with another woman on your lap without it getting back to your bride. Do you want a second fight with Donna in one day, during a murder investigation?"

  "You know I hate to say it, but I agree with the big guy," Bernardo said.

  "Her maid of honor and best friend is missing. Surely even Donna would let things slide until we get Denny back?" I said.

  The three men looked at me. Edward's and Bernardo's looks were eloquent. Olaf's look was almost blank behind his sunglasses. He rarely showed much emotion around the three of us, because he didn't have to pretend around us. We already knew he lacked a full set of socially acceptable emotions.

  "Well, shit," I said.

  "I'm hurt," Bernardo said. "There are plenty of women who would love to have an excuse to sit in my lap." He even managed a weak version of his usual panty-dropping smile. I smiled back, partly because I was just happy to see him starting to rebuild himself after the breakdown.

  "No," Olaf said.

  "What do you mean, no?" I asked.

  He looked at me and again I could feel the weight of his gaze even through the glasses that hid his eyes. "It means that I will not let you sit on his lap."

  "You don't have the right to tell me who I can and can't sit with."

  "That may be true at this time, but I will only concede ground to . . . Ted and the men already in your life. I will not concede ground to Bernardo."

  I fought not to look at Tyburn or Dalton, because I had no way to explain what was happening that didn't make us all look like romantic idiots. I said, "Give us a little privacy, please."

  They looked confused, but they moved off so I could turn to Olaf and quietly hiss, "I am not sitting on your lap."

  "Then you will be the cause of more fighting and more delays after Donna hears about you and her Ted."

  "Are you really willing to risk Denny's life just because I sit on Bernardo's lap and not yours?"

  "I don't have the attachment to her that the rest of you do, but there's another question you need to ask."

  "What?" I said, and as ridiculous as it sounds, I got closer to him, trying to be "up in his face." With the height difference it probably looked even sillier than it felt, but I was too mad to care.

  "Ask Bernardo if he is willing to fight me for the privilege of you on his lap in the car."

  "You are not going to fight each other here and now," Edward said, like he was certain.

  "No, but there will be later," Olaf said.

  "Jesus, Otto, you are a fucking piece of work," Bernardo said.

  "Does that mean you will fight me later?"

  "No, or not over this. Nothing personal, Anita, but just having you sit in my lap isn't worth fighting him for real."

  "No offense. I agree that it's not worth it."

  "Fuck," Edward said softly.

  "It's just a ride in the car, and we get to know all about how bad Rankin has been to Dalton," I said.

  Edward lowered his glasses so I could see his baby blues. "It's never just a ride in the car with him and you, Anita."

  "Fine, fine, but we're potentially wasting Denny's life by arguing about it."

  "Damn it!" Edward said, setting his glasses back in place and going up to Olaf. "You are going to keep pushing on this until I push back."

  "I look forward to it
," Olaf said.

  "Understand that when he pushes back, so do I, so it won't just be one of us; it'll be both," I said.

  It was hard to tell behind the glasses, but I think he blinked first. "I'd always planned on killing you separately if it had to be done."

  "You fucking psycho," Bernardo said, "you don't tell people you're going to do stuff like that. You just do it. You don't warn people first."

  "That's your only objection?" I asked.

  Bernardo shrugged, as if to say, What did you expect? The answer was, yeah, that was his only objection, but I let it go.

  "Well, Otto, I'd always planned on killing you as sort of a group project," I said.

  He smiled. "I never expected you to fight me alone, Anita. You are too practical for that."

  "If you do anything in the car that is out of line, we will finish this discussion after Denny is safe," Edward said.

  "I will be the perfect gentleman."

  "Fine, then let's do this." Edward said it in the tone he usually reserved for life-threatening moments, but we had all threatened one another's lives in the last fifteen minutes, so I guess it counted.

  54

  TYBURN PULLED OUT into the small cross street where police and emergency vehicles had blocked traffic. It took some maneuvering, but once we were out of the mess, Tyburn picked up speed, weaving through the small streets. I'd have preferred fewer stops and starts and less weaving through traffic since I was perched on Olaf's lap and couldn't fit a seat belt around both of us. Dalton seemed perfectly good with how he was driving from the passenger seat, where she rode shotgun, but then she was buckled into her seat. The four of us filled up the backseat of the car. We'd all have preferred for Olaf to ride in the middle so he'd be pinned, but he was too big to sit comfortably there. I wouldn't have given a damn about his physical comfort, but sitting him directly behind the driver meant that Tyburn could not see to drive. What I did give a damn about, what bothered me more than anything, was that I couldn't wear a seat belt. Since my mother died because she hadn't been wearing her seat belt and was thrown through a windshield, I was a serious stickler about wearing one myself. I usually wouldn't even start driving a car unless everyone had their seat belts on, and yet here I was sitting in the lap of the last man on earth I wanted to touch, and not wearing a seat belt. This day had so much suck on it.

  Edward was physically the smallest, next to me, so he was in the middle--pressed hip to thigh with Olaf and the same with Bernardo on the other side. I didn't usually think of Edward as small, but wedged between them like that, he seemed farther away from six feet than usual. I had to sit across Olaf's lap with my back to the door because his knees were wedged into the back of the driver's seat. Tyburn was the second tallest person in the car, so his seat was back accordingly, which meant that Olaf was wedged into place like a long-legged sardine. It also meant that my legs trailed in front of Edward's, because they had to go somewhere. If I'd stretched my legs out like I was on a couch, my legs would have trailed over all three of their laps. You'd think a man as big as Tyburn would have a bigger car. I wondered if he'd ever had to sit in his own backseat.

  "Everyone comfortable?" he asked as he put the car in gear.

  "You're kidding, right?" I said.

  He gave a little chuckle. Maybe he had been in the backseat. "Forget I asked."

  My pulse was trying to push its way out of the side of my neck. I could keep my breath sort of even but couldn't seem to slow my heart rate, which spiked every time Tyburn proved that he had taken and probably taught a few defensive-driving courses. My fear of riding in cars without a seat belt was not an irrational fear; they improved your chances of surviving a crash, damn it. I just didn't have the confidence in Olaf's lap being as safety tested as the car seats. It didn't help that I was perched across his thighs as if there wasn't more secure lap closer to his body.

  Olaf whispered, "You are afraid, why? I have done nothing." His hands were very carefully at his sides because I'd glared at him when he'd tried to put them where they'd normally go when someone is sitting on your lap, which is around the person sitting on you. It's not even necessarily for cuddling; it's just a more comfortable place to rest your hands.

  I swallowed past my pulse and spoke low, but didn't bother to whisper. "I can't wear my seat belt sitting like this."

  "I had forgotten how strongly you feel about wearing them. You are actually afraid simply from not being fastened into the car."

  "Yes," I said, and hated that the one word was breathy with the edge of panic I was fighting.

  "I had not anticipated how afraid you would be," he said, voice low and careful.

  "Yeah, me either."

  He whispered, breath warm against the side of my face, "Fear makes it harder to control my lion."

  I turned and looked at him from inches away, both of us in sunglasses helping make it a little less intimate than it could have been. "Your fear, or mine?" I didn't whisper.

  He frowned. "I am not afraid of you," and he didn't whisper either.

  "Your oversight," I said, and didn't fight the little smile that I got sometimes when it was more threat than humor.

  "Do you two need some privacy?" Tyburn asked.

  "No, but I'd love to know what was so important that I'm risking life and limb without a seat belt in a car, Captain."

  Tyburn and Dalton exchanged a long look as he pulled out onto U.S. 1, which I learned was the only main route to pull out onto. Under other circumstances the long look might have been romantic, but I thought it was more Where the fuck do we start? than Hey, baby.

  "It's complicated," Tyburn said with a laugh. He put the pedal to the metal as soon as he could, and suddenly I was worrying about speed and the fact that there wasn't much on either side of the road except water--ocean on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other--but either way, I didn't want to go into the water in a car. Did I mention I almost drowned in a diving accident once? So, yeah, I'm phobic of water, too. Today was just turning out to be full of some of my least favorite things. When I'd been safely buckled into a seat on the drive here, I'd been able to admire the view. Water that looked like melted turquoise and sapphires was pretty amazing, but now it was just one more possible disaster waiting to get me. Phobias aren't about logic; they're about fear.

  I didn't even care that I sounded cranky as I said, "We figured it was complicated or you wouldn't have packed us into the car for a little cloak-and-dagger."

  "Captain Tyburn, Officer Dalton, the drive won't last forever, so whatever you need to say to us, we need to get started," Edward said, and he sounded much more diplomatic than I did. I wondered if he'd sound as even-keeled if he was the one sitting on Olaf's lap.

  Tyburn said, "Rankin is one of my best people. He closes more cases and gets more confessions than any interrogator I've ever met."

  I started to say something about Rankin's interrogation techniques, but Edward touched my leg and shook his head. Let the man talk, he was saying, so I stayed quiet and let the man talk.

  "He had the same sterling reputation in Los Angeles, where he first became a cop. He left there for Arizona, wanted a place with a yard that he could afford in a nice neighborhood, and on a cop's salary that's hard in L.A., so I'm told. He continued to do impeccable work in Phoenix. I was shocked that a detective with his rep wanted to move to a smaller and much less prestigious force like here. Rankin said he wanted his son raised around his family, who are mostly here. It made sense, and I felt damned lucky to have him.

  "Two years ago, I got another top-pick detective from a bigger city when Detective Dalton wanted to leave New York and come here."

  Dalton chimed in. "All of us that had been hired and promoted faster because we were psychic were being scheduled to move to different cities now that they felt the program had proven itself enough. If I didn't pick, they would assign me somewhere. I was tired of snow and thought a few years of sunshine would be a nice change. I'll be honest and admit that there was an ex-bo
yfriend on the force, and it was making things awkward. I'm adding that because I now believe that my broken heart"--she made air quotes around the phrase--"opened me up to Rankin's psychic abilities. He seems to specialize in knowing what you want most that's missing in your personal life, and he offers it to you, and I'll even admit that he delivers on the promises, up to a point. After two years of public dating, I'd started to want a husband and family of my own, and he couldn't give me that."

  "Because he's already married," I said.

  "Yes, but understand that his wife knows. Hell, I come to dinner and family events. I'm on the list to pick up his son at school if there's an emergency."

  "Very progressive and polyamorous," I said.

  Tyburn added, "I thought it didn't interfere with their jobs, and if Rankin's wife and family were okay with him dating Dalton, I didn't see it was any of my business."

  "You don't have to justify it to me, Captain. I'd be the last one to throw stones at a complicated love life," I said.

  Dalton turned in her seat to look at me. She'd taken off her sunglasses, so I could see the big brown eyes with their very subtle but well-done liner and mascara. There might even have been pale eye shadow, but I lowered my gaze before I could be certain, because when a psychic takes off her sunglasses in blinding-bright sunlight and stares really hard at you, you don't make eye contact; you just don't. Maybe Dalton was just being sincere, but I'd already been psychically messed with by one of the local cops; I didn't really want to make it two.

  "Thank you for letting the men in your life help break me free of Rankin."

  "You're more than welcome," I said.

  We'd entered a section of road where the water was hidden by bushes and a fence. Tyburn had to be going at least sixty, maybe seventy, and there was a stoplight coming up. He seemed confident that it wouldn't turn red. Well, at least if we wrecked now, we wouldn't drown. I missed the view, though, as if no matter what, today I wasn't going to be satisfied.

  "How did you keep him out of your head, Marshal Blake?" she asked.

  "I didn't completely."

  "But you didn't fall under his power. How? How did you fight him off?"

  I opened my mouth to answer but saw a car coming out of the road that was perpendicular to the stoplight. I yelled, "Car!" I wasn't the only one who yelled a warning of some kind.