“Don’t?” Dessa asked.
Before I could answer her, Eleanor was floating between us. Ghosts can occupy the same space as people, so even though you couldn’t have fit a first grader between Dessa and me, Eleanor hovered there just fine.
Eleanor lowered her hand toward my crotch and raised one eyebrow.
“No. No,” I said. “Do not touch me.”
Dessa took another step away, obviously reassessing my level of crazy.
Eleanor did not pull away. She cupped my junk like a doctor. Then wiggled her fingers around a bit more just to make sure she had covered all the ground.
Her ice-cold touch ended all my happy-sex thoughts, and not in the good way.
Bitch.
“You weren’t complaining just a minute ago,” Dessa said.
“It’s . . . Jesus.” I scowled at Eleanor. Took a deep breath and tried again.
“It’s not you. Listen, love. I’m all for the sex-as-bribery thing. A fan of it, really. But if we’re going to trust each other enough to actually do anything about this killer of yours—not that I’m agreeing to help, let’s just assume I’m entertaining the idea—you have to untie me and tell me the details of what I might—might—be agreeing to.”
She hesitated. I didn’t blame her. But what she wasn’t seeing was that my head was finally, for the first time since before the bar, completely clear.
Maybe it was from the ghost clutching my junk. More likely whatever she’d slipped in my drink had worn off.
I could break out of these ropes and suck all the binding bits out of the wooden chair and free myself, Void stones or no Void stones. But it was my turn to see if she really wanted to negotiate. Really wanted to trust me.
“Set me free and we can bribe each other like adults,” I said with a smile.
Her eyes flashed, then settled into a deep smolder.
She walked slowly around me. “Do you think I don’t know how dangerous you are?” She paused at my back. I wondered if she was reaching for her guns. Wondered if I’d have a bullet in my head.
“Do you think I’m going to trust you enough to just let you go?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I do.”
She was silent for a second or two. Then she bent down and her voice was warm against my ear, sending a fever across my skin. “You’re very good, Shamus.”
A hard, sharp jerk at my wrists. The rope cut free and fell away. I pulled my hands apart and rolled my shoulders.
“What about my feet?” I asked, hoping for another chance at her, on her knees in front of me, and me, with my hands free this time.
“You can handle that, can’t you?” She dragged her fingers up the back of my neck then tugged on my hair.
I arched my head back, eyes closed, neck bare. Wanting her touch. She let go.
Damn.
I bent and took some time untying the ropes around my ankles, fingers thick and numb.
Then I stood.
I’m not going to lie. I was sore and bruised. I didn’t know how long I’d been crammed in that trunk, nor if she’d gone through the trouble to beat me with a tire iron before tying me up. Or I could just be hurting from whatever it was she’d dosed my drink with.
Still, it wasn’t the worst date I’d ever had.
“So, what exactly did you poison me with?” I turned.
She was shrugging into her shirt—a button-down that was not buttoned.
She looked over her shoulder, and her lips curved at one corner. “Just a little something I have and you want.”
“Mmm,” I said, not paying a lot of attention to her answer.
She must have picked up on that. She bent and, holding my gaze, took her time pulling her jeans up her long, smooth legs and over her hips before she tugged on the zipper.
I swallowed to get my tongue working again. “So we’re going to bargain and blackmail over every last detail? Is that any way to build a relationship?”
“Look at it from my perspective,” she said. “Having the upper hand with you is the only way you and I can have a relationship. Plus, it’s a lot more interesting that way, don’t you think?”
I could lie. I didn’t.
“Yes,” I said, rubbing at my wrists and the ache there. “Much more interesting. I don’t suppose you’d like to kiss on it to seal the deal?”
She started buttoning her shirt. “We have a deal?”
“We do if you tell me who killed your brother. And before you refuse, listen to me, love. There are certain people in this world I will not kill. Will not. No matter what manner of horror they have committed.”
That seemed to speak to her. She nodded.
“I don’t know his name,” she said. “But he was a member of the Authority. Dangerous then. More dangerous now. I have information that says he might be in the Portland area.”
“Why? Do you know what he’s doing here?”
“No. My guess is he’s planning to kill more people.”
“Or he’s visiting his dear old gram for all you know. So far, I’m not seeing a lot to go on. Do you know why he killed your brother?”
“My brother was . . . mixed up with the Authority. I didn’t know it then. He never . . . said anything to me.”
“There’s only one way to keep a secret organization secret,” I said.
“I didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t even find out about it until I pulled his files. He worked for the group in Seattle.”
“Do you know what style of magic he used?”
It used to be a big hush-hush that there were more styles of using magic than Life, which doctors tended to use, or Faith, that teachers liked to use. We’d pretty safely kept Death and Blood magic out of the public notice, although there were just enough Blood spells leaked to the public to keep the druggies and thrill seekers happy.
“He was a Closer. I don’t know what that means.”
“Well, that means you have a possible motive for revenge. Closers were magic users who took people’s memories away. Magically,” I added. “So the secrets of the secret organization could remain secret.”
“Jesus,” she said.
It was still strange to me that people were so surprised by that. I’d been born and raised in the Authority. Since before I could talk I’d known the price for stepping too far out of line—and getting caught—was having your memories wiped.
“He must have known something,” she said.
“Or he was part of Closing someone’s memories and they decided they didn’t like it much.”
“Enough to kill?”
I slipped my fingers in my jacket pocket, digging for cigarettes. Found them, lit up without asking her opinion on it. Sat on the edge of the bug-infested bed. She really had chosen a shit hole of a motel. I wondered why.
“Closers could take memories away,” I said. “Change lives. Make a person forget those he loves: spouse, children, siblings, parents. Give a person an entirely new past. A new identity. Make it so he could never use magic again.” I took a drag on the cigarette, exhaled. “So, yes. I’d say someone could be angry enough at a Closer they’d want him dead.”
She grappled with that for a bit, which stalled her in buttoning her shirt and jeans. I did not mind the view.
“How did he kill him?” I asked.
“What?” she said. Okay, she was a little more shaken by her brother’s past as a Closer than I’d expected.
“How did your brother die?”
She seemed to pull herself together. She shook her head. “I don’t want to say. Not yet. But I can show you.”
The cigarette had almost burned down, so I took the last drag to kill it. Looked around for an ashtray, didn’t see one. I flicked it on the carpet with the other cigarette burns and wiped my boot over it.
“It would be a start. But I’m not saying I’ll hunt anyone down for you.”
“He was a good man,” she said. “Had a wife and a baby girl.”