Thomas’s eyes widened as he got it. “Boats,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Boats.”
Chapter
Thirty-nine
Thomas rose, glancing around the room, and said in a quiet voice, “She needs fuel. And I’d better talk to Lara about the second site.” But his eyes had drifted over to where Justine now sat by the fire, basking in warmth after our icy dunk and staring at it with a peaceful expression on her lovely face.
“Get moving,” I said. I lowered my voice. “You taking her with you?”
“You kidding? Bad guys have been all over us today. That creep took her right off the street in front of our apartment. I’m not letting her out of my sight.”
“Look, if you leave her here, the building has security that—”
“So does my building, and Cat Sith breezed right past all of it when he came in,” Thomas said. “I’m not letting her out of my sight until this thing is settled.”
I grimaced, but nodded. “All right. Go. We’ll be right behind you.”
My brother arched an eyebrow. “All of you?”
“We’ll see,” I said.
“Did you talk to her?” Thomas asked.
I gave him a steady look and said, “No. Maggie was out trick-or-treating.”
“Right. She’s what? Nine years old? She might as well have vanished into the Bermuda triangle. How could you possibly be expected to find her? Magic?” He gave me a sour look. “What about the other one?”
He meant Karrin. “We’ve both been kinda busy. Maybe later.”
“Later. Bad habit to get into,” Thomas said. “Life’s too short.”
“It almost sounded like you were attempting to enlighten me about bad habits.”
“The path of excess leads to the palace of wisdom,” he said, and turned for the door.
At the exact moment he moved, even though she was not looking at him, and though he said nothing to her, Justine rose from her seat by the fire and started toward the door. The pair of them met halfway there and she slipped herself beneath his arm and up close to him in a motion of familiar, unconscious intimacy. They left together.
My brother the vampire, whose kiss was a slow death sentence, had a stable and loving relationship with a girl who was crazy about him. By contrast, I could barely talk to a woman, at least about anything pertaining to a relationship. Given that my only long-term girlfriends had faked their own death, died, and broken free of enslaving enchantments to end the relationship, the empirical evidence seemed to indicate that he knew something I didn’t.
Keep your life tonight, Harry. Complicate it tomorrow.
Murphy came back in with a pair of EMTs I recognized, Lamar and Simmons. They got Andi loaded up onto a stretcher, and Lamar blinked when he saw me. He didn’t look as young as he had the last time I’d seen him—a few threads of silver in his hair stood out starkly against his dark hair and skin.
“Dresden,” he said. “That you?”
“Mostly.”
“I heard you were dead.”
“Close. It didn’t take.”
He shook his head and helped his partner secure Andi to the stretcher. They picked up the stretcher and toted her outside, with Butters hurrying along beside them, his hand on Andi’s arm.
Once they were gone, I stood in the room with the grasshopper, Karrin, and Mac. Mouse dozed on the floor near the door, but his ears twitched now and then and I doubted he was missing anything.
“Molly,” I said. “Would you ask Sarissa to join us, please?”
She went off to her room, and returned a moment later with Sarissa. The slender, beautiful woman came into the room silently, and didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. Hers were focused in the middle distance, as she tried to keep track of everyone in the room through peripheral vision.
“All right,” I said. “Things are about to hit the fan. They’re confusing as hell and I’m getting tired of feeling like I have no idea what’s going on. There are some unknown quantities here, and some of you aren’t telling me everything, but there isn’t enough time to pry it all out of each of you.” I pointed a finger at Sarissa. “Maybe you really are everything you say you are. Maybe not. But I figure there’re about two chances in three that you’re playing me somehow, and I think you’re way too good at backstabbing to leave you standing around behind me.”
“Everything I’ve told you—” Sarissa began.
I slashed a hand at the air. “Don’t talk. This isn’t an interrogation. It’s a public service announcement. I’m telling you how it’s going to be.”
She pressed her lips together and looked away.
“Mac,” I said. “Much as it pains me to level suspicion at the mastercraftsman of the best beer in town . . . you’re hiding something. That Outsider talked to you as if it knew you. And I don’t think it was an aficionado of your ale. Do you want to tell me who you really are?”
Mac was silent for a moment. Then he said, “No. That’s mine.”
I grunted. “Didn’t think so. I figure it’s more likely that you are an ally, or at least neutral, than it is that you’re a plant for somebody. But I’m not completely sure about you, either.”
I looked at them both and said, “I’m not sure if you’re my friends or my enemies, but I heard something once about keeping them close and closer. So until things have shaken out, you’re both staying where I can keep track of you. And you both should be aware that I’m going to be ready to smack you down if I pick up on the least little hint of treachery.”
“I am not—” Sarissa began.
I stared at her.
She bit her lip and looked away.
I turned my eyes to Mac. He didn’t look thrilled about it, but he nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll be on the lake. There are a couple more coats in the guest bedroom closet. Better grab one.”
Mac nodded and beckoned Sarissa with a tilt of his head. “Miss.”
They went to the guest bedroom, and that left me facing Murphy with the grasshopper hovering in the background. I made a little kissing noise with my puckered lips, and Mouse lifted his head from the ground.
“You pick up anything weird about either of them?” I asked.
Mouse sneezed, shaking his head, and laid it back down again.
I grunted. “Guess not.” I took a deep breath. “Grasshopper, maybe it’s good time to take Mouse for a W-A-L-K?”
Mouse’s head snapped up.
Molly looked back and forth between Karrin and me and sighed. “Yeah, okay.”
“Maybe take those two with you when you go? And have security bring the car around, too. We’ll leave shortly.”
“Right,” Molly said. She collected Mac and Sarissa, now clad in badly fitting secondhand coats, and they left.
It was just me and Karrin.
The fire crackled.
Karrin said, “You picked up Mouse. Did you get to see Maggie?”
“Christ, everyone wants to know about . . .” I shook my head. “She was out.”
She nodded. “Did you get out of the car? Or just wait at the curb?”
I gave her a flat stare. She looked back at me with her cop face. I failed to terrify her off the subject.
“Curb,” I said.
She smiled faintly. “I’ve seen you walk into places that should have killed you seven, eight times? You didn’t flinch. But now you’re petrified with fear?”
“Not fear,” I said, so quickly and with such vehemence that it became immediately clear to me that fear was exactly what I was feeling when I thought of approaching Maggie.
“Sure it isn’t,” Karrin said.
“Look,” I said, “we don’t have time for—”
“My dad said that a lot,” Karrin said. “‘I can’t right now. We’ll do that later.’ He was busy, too. Then he was gone.”
“I am not going to deal with this right now.”