“Lucky for him I don’t feel like being a traffic cop today,” he muttered under his breath.
“And lucky for all involved you have a demon’s reflexes,” I said, my heart thumping from yet another near-death experience.
We resumed our normal pace, and I rolled Adam’s suggestion around in my brain for a bit. I understood where he was coming from, but still …
“The people who are after Lugh want him dead, not stuck in a heartbroken host. If gathering dirt on my supposed relationship with you is meant to be a strike against Lugh, then it’s pretty feeble. Besides, if the bad guys knew I still had Lugh, we’d be fending off assassins right and left.”
As far as Dougal and his people knew, I had transferred Lugh to another host when the shit hit the fan. I still had a target on my back, seeing as I might be a bread crumb in the trail leading to whoever was hosting Lugh right this moment, but so far, Dougal didn’t seem to think questioning me was a high priority.
He knows I’m not stupid enough to stay in whoever you transferred me to, Lugh’s voice said in my head. I’m sure he figures I’ve gotten far away from you by now and it’s not worth his effort to question you. Besides, we’ve already established that time is on his side.
Yeah, because eventually, I would die of natural causes—if I was lucky—and send Lugh back to the Demon Realm so he could be trapped in a new host and killed. I could have done without the reminder.
“Thanks for the update,” I muttered under my breath. Adam raised his eyebrow at me, but I got the feeling he knew I wasn’t talking to him.
“It does seem to be a strange way to attack Lugh,” Adam conceded. “But I don’t think we should dismiss the possibility. I’ll check and see if Hillerman has any known ties to the Spirit Society. And don’t forget the little gift you got in the mail.”
The fact that I actually had forgotten all about that showed just what my life had been like lately. “You have any updates about that?” I asked, trying to act like it had been preying on my mind all morning. I doubt I fooled Adam, but he didn’t call me on it.
“Nothing that’s going to lead us to who sent it, unfortunately. The only fingerprints on the bubble wrap were yours.”
I swallowed my gorge as I remembered feeling that dead flesh against my skin. “And did you find out where the hand came from?”
He nodded. “My guess was right: it was embalmed. When we polled the local funeral parlors, one of them came up with a corpse missing a hand.”
At least no one had been killed specifically to spook me. “Do you think Barbie had anything to do with that?”
He thought about that a moment, but quickly dismissed it. “Nah. If she’d done something that dangerous, she’d have been a lot twitchier when we talked to her. Breaking and entering is one thing, but grave-robbing and then sending something like that through the U.S. mail… That’s a whole different league.”
“But Hillerman could still be behind it.”
“I don’t know. It seems too violent to fit his MO. I wouldn’t rule it out, but I’d say it’s unlikely.”
“Are we going to confront him?” I asked.
“Hillerman?”
I rolled my eyes. “No, Elvis Presley.”
Usually, my smart-ass comments seemed to piss Adam off, but this time I could have sworn he was suppressing a smile.
“We don’t have enough information to confront him yet,” he said. “The only evidence we have to tie him to any of this is Barbie, and that’s just not enough.”
I knew he was right, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. “So we just wait to see what else he’s going to do to make my life miserable and hope he screws up enough that we can prove he’s involved?”
“Basically, yes.”
I felt like punching the glove compartment, but this was a sturdy car, and with the way my life was going, I’d probably end up with a broken hand.
“Remember, Barbie’s looking into the origins of the photo, and I’m going to check for Spirit Society connections. It’s not like we’re doing nothing.”
“It’s like I’m doing nothing,” I countered. “I can’t do my job because of the damn suspension, and I can’t work on rebuilding my house because the insurance company’s got its thumb up its ass. I can’t look into what Hillerman has against me…” I shook my head violently. “If I have to sit around and do nothing, I’m going to go crazy.” And sink into a black pit of depression, but I didn’t feel like mentioning that.
“You can work with your attorney to try to defend yourself against the lawsuit. That ought to take plenty of time and energy.”
I turned to look out the side window. I don’t know what my face must have looked like at the reminder that I was now beholden to Adam for my legal fees. I think the only person in the world I’d be less happy to take money from was Raphael. But Lugh had ordered him to do it, and he would always follow Lugh’s orders to the letter.
We didn’t say anything else for the remainder of the drive back to my apartment building. I refrained from pointing out to Adam that, although I could, indeed, spend a lot of time and energy working out my legal problems, I wasn’t scheduled to see my lawyer again until the day after tomorrow. Which meant that as soon as Adam drove away, I officially had nothing to do.
I had once again forgotten about my “bodyguard,” so when I stepped into my apartment and saw Saul sitting at my dining room table chowing down on some Chinese takeout, I nearly had heart failure. He raised his eyebrows, his only indication that he’d noticed my gasp of terror, then shoveled another bite of food into his mouth. I could have sworn I saw one of those sadistic dried red peppers they used to spice up Chinese food on his fork—you know, the kind of peppers you’re not supposed to eat if you know what’s good for you?
When I approached the table, trying to figure out how to act around my unwanted guest, I took a closer look at his plate and another sniff of the air. I decided it wasn’t Chinese food after all; it was Thai. And if there’s any culture in the world that makes hotter food than the Thais, I don’t want to know about it. But Saul was putting away those dried red peppers like they were candy.
He grinned at me through a mouthful of food. “I’d offer to share, but I think you might find this a little too spicy.”
I shook my head. “Isn’t that going to give you an ulcer or something?” Stupid question, of course. Demons don’t get ulcers—or, at least, if they do, they can heal them so fast they don’t matter.
“There’s another carton of Thai green curry in the fridge,” he said. “I wasn’t sure whether you’d be home for lunch or not, but it’ll probably still be hot enough to eat. It’s only been in there about five minutes.”
“And is this green curry going to eat a hole through my stomach lining?”
He shook his head. “I asked for it extra mild. I didn’t know if you liked spicy food or not.”
I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. The smell of food was making my stomach rumble, and all I’d had for breakfast was coffee. But still…
“You don’t have to feed me, you know,” I said.
Saul shrugged and put his fork down, leaning back in his chair. “I know I don’t have to. I also know you want me here even less than Adam wants me at his place, so I figured I’d make myself useful.”
I pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, not sure what to say. I’m sure my face showed my surprise at his bald statement.
Saul picked up his fork again, but he merely used it to stir the food around his plate. “It’s kind of funny, if you think about it. Adam, Dom, and me, all acting like we have no idea there’s anything wrong, when we all know perfectly well what’s going on.”
I didn’t know Saul well enough to figure out whether that sound in his voice was bitterness, or just resignation. “Are you okay?” I asked, my current heartache making me more sensitive to romantic troubles than usual.
Saul dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. “I’m fine. Nothing’s really changed since I last walked the Mortal Plain. Remember, Dom and I were in the same body for a long time. I’ve always known that he loves Adam. And I’ve always known that if he had to choose between the two of us, he’d choose Adam.” Saul’s smile was wan. “But when Dom was my host, he didn’t have to choose.”