The elevators in my building are ancient and slow. I sagged against the back wall as we inched upward toward my apartment. As if we were strangers, we were all staring at the glowing numbers above the door.
“I’m thinking of moving to Tibet,” I commented in a vain hope that it would break the tension. No one answered. Worse, no one even cracked a smile. So much for my comic relief.
When we got back to my apartment, I flopped onto the couch and propped my feet up on the coffee table. I didn’t feel too freaked out. I was just… tired. The numbness that Lugh had helped me shake off this morning was threatening to come back. And really, would that be such a bad thing? Because if I let myself feel everything, it might be time to call in the boys with the white coats.
Adam sat on the other end of the couch, and Saul took the love seat. I didn’t look at either of them.
“So, did you find anything?” Saul asked when I failed to repeat my earlier question.
“Nothing the regular cops wouldn’t have found,” Adam replied. “But I have been putting some thought into the big picture.”
I felt his eyes on me. Probably I was supposed to show some interest. “And what did you come up with?” I asked, because if I didn’t, he’d probably start psychoanalyzing me or something.
“Based on our conversation with Barbie earlier, it seems like Jack Hillerman has something against you personally for some unknown reason. It seems like he’s using Maguire’s death as an excuse to take up his personal grudge with you.”
I huffed out a frustrated breath. “It doesn’t make sense for him to have anything against me personally! Remember, I’ve never met the guy.”
Adam pulled a four-by-six photograph from his back pocket and handed it to me. A slightly overweight forty-something guy with a pathetic comb-over smiled out at me. I shook my head and gave Adam a blank look. He took the picture back.
“It was worth a shot,” he said. “It was possible you really had met him and just hadn’t known his name.”
“Sorry, but I don’t recognize him. Did you have a chance to find out if he has any Spirit Society affiliations?”
“Yeah. No connections that I can find.”
I threw up my hands. “Then what’s his problem?”
“I don’t know,” Adam said. “But I’m beginning to rethink my position on whether Hillerman is behind the threats or not. What are the chances two separate people would a) hold you personally responsible for what happened to Maguire, and b) be crazy enough to start this kind of vendetta? I mean, I’d think if anyone would take the heat for this, it would be Maguire’s ex-girlfriend.”
Adam was referring to the ex-girlfriend who’d pressed charges on Maguire for apparently having beaten her up. He’d always proclaimed his innocence, and it was her testimony that put him in the hot seat.
“Or how about the judge who ordered the exorcism?” Adam continued. “No one seems to be targeting her. Even if you swallow the idea that it’s two different people, you’d think at least one of them would have chosen a different scapegoat.”
It made sense, if anything could be said to make sense these days. “Okay, I get your point,” I said. “But seriously, can you imagine someone like Hillerman breaking into a funeral parlor and chopping off a corpse’s hand? And hell, he looks like he’d die of a heart attack before he could do that kind of damage to my car!”
“He hired Barbie. Maybe he hired someone else to do the less subtle work. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to ask Barbie to do some surveillance on Hillerman, see if we can find any other shady characters he’s hanging out with.”
Since when had Adam cared if something was all right with me? I’d have liked to object in this rare instance when he was actually giving me a choice—or at least appearing to give me a choice—about something, but I couldn’t see a good reason to.
“Go for it.” I frowned. “But why Barbie? Can’t you use your resources?”
He raised one shoulder in a shrug. “We don’t have enough evidence against him to launch anything official.” He met my eyes. “Besides, it’s possible this investigation could lead us to something we’d rather keep off the books.”
Once again, I had to agree with him, though I didn’t like it. If this all blew up in our faces, the fact that we hadn’t told the police the full story would come back to bite us in the ass.
“I am going to drop by to visit Maguire’s girlfriend tomorrow,” Adam said. “If she was shacked up with Maguire, and if Hillerman really did launch his little terror campaign out of some weird, overblown grief at the death of a client’s son, I might be able to suss out a reason.”
“And my assignment is still to sit around doing nothing?” I asked sourly.
Adam had no sympathy. “Considering the damage this guy did to your car, I think keeping your head down would be a good idea. He’s escalating, and it seems logical that the next strike will be actual violence against you.”
“Hold on a sec,” I said, thinking furiously. “We’re beginning to think Hillerman is behind everything, right? I mean the lawsuit, the letter to Brian, the psycho stalker—they’re all supposed to be him.”
“Right,” Adam agreed.
“If he’s planning to kill me, why the hell would he waste the time and energy to talk Maguire into suing me? And why would he bother ruining my relationship with Brian?”
“Part of his escalation pattern,” Adam said, but he didn’t sound as sure of himself as usual.
I let the subject drop, but I had my own theory now: Hillerman didn’t want me dead. He wanted me alive and miserable. I still had no idea why, but I felt pretty sure my psycho stalker wasn’t going to be escalating any further.
When I woke up the next morning, I felt marginally better than I’d felt yesterday. Saul had made coffee again. It was still strong enough to put hair on my chest, but with a little extra cream and sugar, it was drinkable. We sipped our coffee in what felt almost like a companionable silence.
During the night, I’d come to the conclusion that I was sick and tired of sitting on the sidelines of my own life. I was confident—to a point—that I wasn’t going to get myself killed if I nosed around a bit, and I knew I’d feel better if I was out doing something than if I was sitting around the apartment playing house with Saul.
I also knew that after last night’s brutal attack on my car, Saul wasn’t about to let me leave my apartment without an escort. One thing all the demon-possessed men in my life had in common was a protective streak the size of Texas, and I doubted Saul was any different from the rest. Not that it was unjustified—I was hosting their king, after all, and if I died, he’d be forced back into the Demon Realm, where Dougal and his supporters could get their metaphorical hands on him. But for what I wanted to do today, I had to forego the pleasure of Saul’s company.
My first plan was to slip out while Saul was in the bathroom, but with my building’s slow and cranky elevators, I’d probably still be standing in the hallway pushing the elevator button repeatedly by the time Saul caught up with me. My second plan was to make my getaway when I went down to the front desk to pick up my mail, but my unwanted bodyguard came with me even for that small task. Plan C was to send him to the deli around the corner to pick up some sandwiches for lunch, during which time I would “wait for him” in my apartment. I think he saw through that one, though, because he insisted on ordering delivery.
That was when I decided subtlety just wasn’t going to work. It was the frontal assault or nothing. Anyone surprised I chose the frontal assault?
While Saul was finishing up the enormous hoagie he’d ordered for lunch, I casually picked up my purse, rooting through it as though looking for something. As I shuffled junk around, I armed the Taser that was my constant companion and made a surreptitious check of its charge level. It was good to go, so I drew the Taser out of the purse and pointed it at Saul.