“Works.” Lily made a few notes, talking as she wrote. “While you handle the heavy load, I’m going to be coming at this from another angle—the prototype. If we knew who wanted it so damn bad and why, we’d have a better idea who the players are.” She looked up. “If no one here’s going to miss their kid’s birthday or an anniversary or something, I’d like to order in some food and bat this around while we eat.”
That’s what they’d done. Drummond had reverted to his misty, untalking shape for most of the session, though he had formed up enough to comment now and then. They were useful comments, so Lily had passed them on. And maybe no one came up with any breakthrough ideas, but brainstorming got them farther along. And more invested. It put them on her team. Lily had felt satisfied as she rode down to the ground floor.
Drummond joined her as she stepped out of the elevator in his fully formed version, his usual scowl in place. “What you did—that was creepy as hell.”
Lily glanced around. The lobby was empty except for the security guard, but her back was to him as she walked away, and he was plugged into his iPod, listening to something with lots of bass. That made for lousy security, but came in handy at the moment. If she whispered…“A ghost is telling me something’s creepy?”
“You yelled right in my mind!”
“That’s how mindspeech is supposed to work.” Lily felt a bit smug. Mostly she couldn’t make the mindspeech thing work. She’d been practicing for months now with Sam, but her ability remained so erratic as to be useless. Maybe this was a breakthrough? Can you hear me now?
He winced. “Don’t do that.”
Get used to it. I don’t want people to wonder why I keep talking to myself.
He sighed. “I can see that. I handled it wrong up there, but I was so…why did you hand it off to Bergman? I could have helped. I’m supposed to help, dammit.”
The lobby had revolving glass doors. She could see Scott waiting right out front, as arranged. She glanced at Drummond and shoved on the glass. Because she’s good, and this frees me up to do what I’m good at. Unless you know something against her, she added as she stepped out into a chilly San Francisco night. Maybe Drummond had worked with Bergman and had some reason to object. They were roughly the same age. The age he’d been when he died, anyway.
“No,” he said grudgingly. “Bergman’s competent. But you don’t get anywhere by handing the juicy cases off to someone else.”
“Depends on where you want to go, doesn’t it?” Whoops—she’d forgotten and spoken out loud. She glanced over her shoulder—no one nearby, so maybe no one noticed.
Not even Drummond. He’d stopped dead and was staring at the car with loathing. “I hate it when you go in the car,” he’d said—and winked out.
He hadn’t come back when she called him. Lily was beginning to understand why responsible mediums rolled their eyes when asked about getting supernatural aid from the dead. Ghosts—coherent or not—just weren’t much help.
She didn’t see him at the hotel, either. Marcus and Steve were on duty in the hall when Lily approached the suite trailing her own contingent of guards. She greeted them absently, used the key card, and opened the door.
Joe sailed down the short entry hall to land on his back with a grunt, right at her feet.
TWENTY-SIX
LILY’S gun was in her hand before she even thought about it. Joe grinned up at her. “Whoops. No alarm needed. Rule’s been showing me a few tricks.”
Joe was wearing boxers. Period. Rule was in shirt and dress slacks when he appeared at the end of the short hall. The shirt was unfastened. “Sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair, which was already pretty messed up. Sweat gleamed on his chest. “I should have warned you.”
Lily holstered her weapon. “Or at least thrown Joe the other direction.”
Steve was shamefaced. “It’s my fault. I knew they were working out. I should have told you before you went in. It didn’t occur to me you’d…sorry.”
“No one got shot, so I’ll accept the apologies.” Steve hadn’t been around her much, and he was Leidolf. He wasn’t used to women who reacted the way she did. “Next time you’ll know.”
Rule, however, had been around her plenty, and while she hadn’t shot anyone, she might have. It wasn’t as if he never made mistakes, but this…this had been stupid in the didn’t-bother-to-think sense. That wasn’t his kind of mistake. Lily closed the door and moved on into the room, studying him while trying to look like she wasn’t. “I don’t see any damage to the furnishings.”
“We moved things around to make room.” Absently he began buttoning his shirt.
“Where’s Cullen?”
“Casting his Find spell. Again.”
“It didn’t work?”
“Oh, he claims it worked. He said the spell located the prototype, but it doesn’t know where that location is. Apparently that makes sense to him.” Rule ran a hand through his hair a second time, but this time with fingers spread to smooth it down. He glanced around. “It was a good bout, Joe. Thanks. Everyone on duty, take your posts. Off duty, get some food or sleep or head for the hotel gym.”
The sitting room emptied quickly. She and Rule were as alone as they’d been since she climbed in his lap last night…God, yes, that was only a little over twenty-four hours ago, wasn’t it? As alone as they ever got lately. She walked up to him and put her arms around his waist, leaned her head against his chest, and hugged.
He sighed and hugged back, rubbing his cheek along the top of her head. For a long moment they just stood there, neither of them speaking. He smelled of fresh sweat and the faint, underlying scent that was his alone. Even her poor human nose could identify him from this close. “What do you smell like?”
“Hmm?” He raised his head. He was smiling slightly.
“If I could smell you the way your men can, I mean. What were they smelling when you and Joe were working out?”
His smile fled. “Tension,” he said at last. “I hope they didn’t smell the anxiety. If they’d been in wolf form, they would have.”
“Hence the sudden need to throw Joe around.”
“Hence that.” His smile returned, but didn’t make it to his eyes. “Hence turning suddenly stupid. I thought I was dealing with this better.”
“This” being his unexpected acquisition of a brother? His worry about her? The war? All of the above, she thought, and stretched up and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “You’re dealing okay. You sent Patrick to look out for Beth. If you hadn’t, they’d have gotten her.”
“I didn’t claim to be stupid all the time, but I can’t afford even brief bouts of it.”
“I didn’t shoot.”
“And thank God for that, but—”
“Point being that you aren’t perfect, you aren’t going to turn perfect just because you feel like it’s all up to you, and sometimes you have to rely on other people to do the right thing. What did Scott do when I drew?”
“Shifted to the side so he could leap past you if needed. Todd turned enough to keep both you and the hall in view. Mike…his posture suggested he was ready to take you to the floor if there was a threat. I need to talk to him about that. Standing orders are that they never block your shot. And yes, I take your point, which I gather is something about teamwork.”
He sounded irritated about the whole concept of teamwork, which she gathered had something to do with being a Rho and, therefore, a control freak. The latter condition she understood only too well, so she gave him another quick kiss to tell him that, then simply lingered, held close, and thought about all the questions she’d been saving up for when they were alone. And didn’t want to ask any of them. She didn’t want to talk at all, not with her body stirring and beginning to yearn.