It didn't matter how it came out. Jenks was furious with me, and I deserved it.
David signaled and turned into a cobbled drive. I tugged at my gray skirt and adjusted my jacket. Wiping my eyes, I sat upright and tried to look professional, not like my world was falling down around me and all I had to depend on was a Were who thought I was the lowest of the low. I'd have given anything to have Jenks on my shoulder making wise-cracks about my new haircut or how I smelled like the bottom of an outhouse. Anything.
"I'd keep my mouth shut if I were you," David said darkly, and I bobbed my head, thoroughly depressed. "My secretary's perfume is in the glove box. Give your nylons a good spray. The rest of you smells okay."
I obediently did as he said, my usual hot abhorrence to take direction from someone squelched in that he thought so little of me. The musty scent of the perfume overpowered the car, and David rolled his window down, grimacing. "Well, you did say…" I muttered when the cold air pooled at my ankles.
"It's going to be quick once we get in there," David said, his eyes watering. "Your vamp partner has five minutes tops before Saladan gets angry about the claim and kicks us out."
I held Mrs. Aver's briefcase on my lap tighter. "She'll be there."
David's only response was a muttered rumble. We wound up a short drive that looped about itself. It had been plowed and swept, and the red clay bricks were damp with snowmelt. At the top of it was a stately house painted white with red shutters and tall, narrow windows. It was one of the few older mansions that had been refurbished without losing its charm. The sun was behind the house, and David parked in the shadows behind a black pickup truck and cut the engine. A curtain at a front window shifted.
"Your name is Grace," he said. "If they want identification, it's in your wallet inside your briefcase. Here." He handed me his glasses. "Wear them."
"Thanks." I set the plastic lenses on my nose, learning that David was farsighted. My head started to hurt and I pulled them lower so I could look at the world over them instead of through them. I felt awful, the butterflies in my stomach as heavy as turtles.
A sigh shifted him, and he reached between our seats for his briefcase in the back. "Let's go."
Thirty-one
"David Hue," David said coolly, sounding bored and a little irritated as we stood in the entryway of the old mansion. "I have an appointment."
I, not we, I thought, keeping my eyes down and trying to stay in the background while Candice, the vamp that had been all over Lee on his boat, cocked her jeans-clad hip and looked at his business card. There were two more vamps behind her in black suits that screamed security. I didn't mind playing the meek subordinate; if Candice recognized me, it would get really bad, really quick.
"That was me you talked to," the shapely vampire said around a bothered sigh. "But after the recent ugliness, Mr. Saladan has retired to…a less public environment. He's not here, much less taking appointments." Smiling to show her teeth in a politically polite threat, she handed his card back. "I'll be glad to talk to you, though."
My heart pounded and I stared at the Italian tile. He was here—I could almost hear the rattle of chips—but if I didn't get in to see him, this was going to be a lot more difficult.
David looked at her, the skin about his eyes tightening, then picked up his briefcase. "Very well," he said shortly. "If I can't speak with Mr. Saladan, my company has no recourse but to assume our understanding of terrorist activity is correct and we will deny payment on the claim. Good day, ma'am." He barely glanced at me. "Come on, Grace. Let's go."
Breath catching, I felt my face pale. If we walked out of here, Kisten and Ivy would be headed into a trap. David's steps were loud as he went for the door, and I reached out after him.
"Candice," came Lee's irate, buttery voice from the second-story railing above the grand staircase. "What are you doing?"
I spun, David taking my elbow in warning. Lee stood by the upper landing, a drink in one hand, a folder and pair of wire-rimmed glasses in the other. He was wearing what looked like a suit without the coat, his tie loose about his neck but still tidy.
"Stanley, honey," Candice purred, falling into a provocative slump against the small table by the door. "You said no one. Besides, it's just a little boat. How much could it be worth?"
Lee's dark eyes pinched as he frowned. "Almost a quarter million—dear. They're insurance agents, not I.S. operatives. Do a spell check on them and show them up. They're required by law to keep everything confidential, including that they were even here." He looked at David and tossed his surfer-boy bangs out of his way. "Am I right?"
David smiled up at him with that shared, good-old-boys' look that I hated. "Yes, sir," he said, his voice echoing against the flat white of the open vestibule. "We couldn't do our work without that little constitutional amendment."
Lee put his hand up in acknowledgment, turned, and vanished down the open hall. A door creaked shut, and I jerked as Candice grabbed my briefcase. Adrenaline pulled me straight, and I clutched it to me.
"Relax, Grace," David said patronizingly as he took it from me and handed it to Candice. "This isn't unusual."
The two vamps in the background came forward, and I forced myself to not move. "You'll have to forgive my assistant," David said while he put our cases on the table by the door and opened first his and spun it around, then mine. "Breaking in a new assistant is hell."
Candice's expression went mocking. "Were you the one to give her the black eye?"
I flushed, my hand going to touch my cheekbone and my gaze falling to my ugly shoes. Apparently the darker makeup didn't work as well as I thought.
"You have to keep your bitches in line," David said lightly. "But if you hit them right, you only have to hit them once."
My jaw clenched, and I warmed as Candice laughed. I watched from under my lowered brow while a vamp pawed through my briefcase. It was full of stuff only an insurance adjustor would have: a calculator with more tiny buttons than a leprechaun's dress boots, notepads, coffee-stained folders, useless little calendars to stick on your fridge, and pens with smiley faces on them. There were receipts from places like sub shops and Office Depot. God, it was awful. She glanced at my fake business cards with an absentminded interest.
While David's briefcase got the same scrutiny, Candice sauntered into a back room. She came back with a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, with which she made a show of scrutinizing us through. My heart pounded as she then brought out an amulet. It was glowing a warning red.
"Chad, honey," she murmured. "Back up. Your spell is interfering."
One of the vamps flushed and retreated. I wondered what Chad-honey had a spell for that would turn his ears that particular color. My breath slipped from me when the amulet shifted green, making me grateful that I'd gone in under a mundane disguise. Beside me, David's fingers twitched. "Can we move this faster?" he said. "I have other people to see."
Candice smiled and twirled the amulet on her finger. "Right this way."
With a quickness seemingly born from irritation, David snapped his briefcase closed and dragged it from the small table. I did the same, relieved when the two vamps vanished into a back room following the smell of coffee. Candice headed up the stairs with a slow pace, her hips going as if they were going to gyrate off her. Trying to ignore her, I followed.