“Oh my God,” Jane said. The wiener dog suddenly made a spirited break for it, but I grabbed it by its snout and handed it back to her. “You are the man! You are totally a rock star in the world of balloon animal negotiations! I bow to your superior scare tactics!”
“It’s my gift,” I said with a flourish of my arm and a deep bow. She laughed and hugged her balloons. One of them exploded with a loud pop and she screamed. It was a moment of fright that should have passed quickly, but suddenly tears were running down her face. I moved to put my arm on her shoulder.
“Hey,” I said, “Jane…what’s wrong? What is it?”
People had turned to stare now, including several children, but I figured that was probably just balloon envy. I moved us away from the crowd toward the edge of the street and next to a cotton candy machine.
“God,” she said. I could hear the self-loathing in her voice. “Ihate when I get all small-town spooked.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just try to relax.”
“Youtry to relax!” she snapped. The tears were still coming, but suddenly she was getting angry. “A couple of days ago my life was going fine. Now I’m essentially unemployed, I’ve lost my dental plan, and I flinch at every loud sound because I think it’s a corporate headhunter trying to put a bullet in my brain!”
I was getting upset as well. I wasn’t really a fan of getting yelled at, and especially not when I was just trying to help.
“Look,” I said after counting to ten to calm myself, “I can’t imagine how much this sucks for you, Jane, so I’m not even going to pretend. We’ll figure something out, I swear. I just need time to investigate things the proper way. I hate every moment that you’re at risk. In the meantime, though, I need you to let me do what I came here for. That doesn’t mean I’m going to neglect you. I’m going to do everything I can to help keep you safe.”
I looked her in the eyes, and she nodded.
“Not that you need to be kept safe,” I added awkwardly. “I mean, I’m sure you can take care of yourself, but, well…I’m in the Good business, so keeping people safe is part of what I do. It’s not a chauvinist thing, I swear.”
I felt like a social retard, so I shut up.
Jane softened and said, “I’m sorry. I’m one of the bad guys. I know you’re doing your best. You’ve already gone above and beyond with all this.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said.Gee, thanks?!? Did I actually say that? Why couldn’t I just shut up and take a compliment?
“You’re welcome,” she said, wiping away the tears. “Besides, you probably thought I was all kinds of crazy reacting so emotionally.”
“No, it’s fine,” I lied.
“It’s not fine,” she said gravely. “I haven’t been totally up-front with you. You don’t know the whole story. But I like you and I think you have a right to know.”
“Know what?” I asked.
Jane took a deep breath, exhaled the last of her hysterics, and looked me in the eye. “Their headhunter-Jason Charles, the one I spoke to on the phone the day I was injured-may be a bit more aggressive about finding me than I might have led you to believe.”
“And why’s that?” I asked warily.
“We sorta dated,” she said, her voice trailing off. Her nose crinkled as she braced herself for my response.
“Sorta?!” I asked. I could feel myself turning fifty shades of horrified. I had just started thinking I might be turning the corner with Jane, making some progress with her, but how could I begin to trust someone whodated a professional assassin? “Sorta dated? Ordid date?”
She was fighting to explain it-I could see it in her face-but that didn’t change the feeling of frustration building up inside me.
“I went out with him three times, but that was months ago!” she said as if somehow that excused it. “He seemed nice enough. Well-groomed, business suits every day…but once I realized the type of mentally unstable individual it took to be a hired gun in that creepy little business world of theirs, I broke it off.”
“So how did he take it?”
I wanted to grab her and shake her for her own good. She was a nice girl, but it was becoming increasingly likely that she was going to get both of us killed.
“Well,” she said, “since I worked for the big boss, there was nothing Jason could do to me. So rather than giving me any trouble, he just became inordinately professional in the office and we stopped talking.”
I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “But now you’re fair game. In fact, you’re a target requested by paying customers. Great. Any other little gems I should know about?”
Jane shook her head, but couldn’t raise her eyes to meet mine.
I looked over at the tables full of storage unit leftovers. It was pointless being here. I wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on reading anything. “I have to go,” I said.
Jane looked up. “Where?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Just away for now.”
“But why?”
“Because I need to think,” I snapped suddenly. “I keep forgetting you’re tied into hardcore evil, Jane. It’s beyond me how you could have dated someone who kills people for a living. Connor would freak out if he knew I was helping you, and I just need to sort things out for myself.”
I couldn’t think of anything more to say so I turned away. Was I just upset about her withholding information about the Sectarians, or was I experiencing some kind of odd jealous reaction? I didn’t know.
I walked off feeling angry and confused, but I restrained myself from running back and childishly popping every last balloon Jane was carrying.
26
On the way back to my apartment, I started to cool down. Looking back, I knew that Jane wasn’t the only one who had ever made the wrong choices in life. I knew Jane had been displaced from her apartment,her life. Sure, she’d held a little information back, but she’d come clean and it was no reason for me to have gone off on her. I planned on calling her once I got back home, but all that flew out the door when I stepped off the elevator and headed down the hallway to my apartment.
The lock on my door was busted.
I reached inside my coat, pulled the retractable bat out, and pressed the button. It extended to its full length, and I held it at the ready as I eased my front door open with my foot. My living room was trashed. It had been messy before with all the crates in it, but now everything had been displaced and everything that had been on my shelves had been thrown to the ground. A lot of it looked broken. It was like being in Irene’s apartment all over again and my heart sank.
Knowing my apartment as well as I did, I crept soundlessly across the floor toward the hall, hoping I could sneak up on anyone who might still be here. My plan for silence fell apart when I noticed the door to the White Room was also smashed in.
“No no no no no,” I said as I rushed to it. Everything in the room was overturned or broken, which meant the worst had happened-my inner sanctum had been contaminated by someone else’s memories, corrupting the one place in the world I could turn to as my safety zone. My heart raced and my head swam. I used the bat as a walking stick to steady myself rather than touch anything in the room for balance.
I had never felt so violated, but then I realized that I could find out exactly who had done this. All I had to do was touch anything in the room, use my psychometry, and I would know. I stepped slowly toward the chair on its side in the center of the room and moved my hand to grab it.
“Simon,” a woman said, stopping me. I looked around the room, but there was no one there.
“Irene?” I asked hesitantly.
The plain white of the wall right in front of me crackled with a blue flash of electricity and Irene phased out of it. She was dressed the same as always-the curse of the dead-but her face was a mask of worry.