Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [508]
The voice on the phone was cultured, almost too well-mannered for comfort. “Come, Ms. Blake, let us not play games, the two of us. I know what Mr. Zeeman is, and once he’s accused, a simple blood test in the jail will prove me right. He’d lose his job, his career, and perhaps be executed. You have hired an excellent attorney; my congratulations. But if he is convicted, then it is an automatic death sentence. Juries have a strong tendency to convict monsters.”
“I’m listening.”
“Meet me at the diner in town. A public place, so you’ll feel safe.”
“Why do you want to meet?” My voice was growing progressively lower, whispering.
“To beg you one last time to leave town, Ms. Blake. I have no wish to come against you. The spirits say that to come against you is death.”
“Spirits?” I whispered.
“Meet me, Ms. Blake. You and Mr. Zeeman. Meet me, and I promise you it will all be over. You will leave town and all will be well.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“Nor should you,” Niley said. He laughed, deep and rich. “But meet me at the diner, Ms. Blake. I’ll answer your questions. I’ll tell you why I want the land. Once my people have made sure you’re not wearing a wire, I’ll answer any direct question you have. Surely that tempts you.”
“You sound like a man who knows a lot about temptation, Mr. Niley.”
He laughed again. “Money tempts many people, Ms. Blake, and I have a great deal of it.”
I’d been walking slowly away from Henderson. “You going to offer me money?”
“No, Ms. Blake, that is what won a certain officer of the law to my camp—and his men. I do not think money is the key to your soul.”
I didn’t like the way he said that. “What do you want, Niley?”
“To talk, that is all. I would swear to you or promise you your safety, but I do not think you would believe me.”
“You got that right.”
“Come to me, Ms. Blake. Let us talk. After I have answered your questions, then you can decide whether to leave or stay. Now, would you be so kind as to put the sheriff back on the phone?”
I turned back to the waiting men and held up the phone. “He wants to talk to you again.”
Wilkes came for the phone. It was just the two of us by the body when he tried to take the phone. I held onto it. I leaned in close to him and said, “Money doesn’t spend in hell, Wilkes. The devil deals in a different coin.”
He jerked the phone from my hand and walked away into the trees, listening to the voice in his ear. The voice that had offered him money to sell out everything he was or might have been. The motive I understood least of all for murder or betrayal was greed. But damned if it wasn’t a popular motive for both.
34
RICHARD HADN ’T SAID a word since we started the drive to the diner. He’d pulled the rubber band out of his hair and played with it, stretching it wide, letting it relax, open, close, open, close. He didn’t usually have nervous habits. It wasn’t a good sign. I pulled into the parking lot and shut off the engine. Richard was sitting in the middle with his long legs drawn up. He’d wanted me to drive. Something about being more easily distracted this close to the full moon. Shang-Da sat on the other side, his face calm. Every time I looked at him, the horrible claw marks seemed to be smoothing out. By nightfall tomorrow, he’d be clean. It was impressive, and it would mark him in everyone’s eyes who saw him as what he was: a shapeshifter.
We sat there a moment, listening to the engine tick. “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?” I asked Richard.
The rubber band broke with a snap, jumping for the floorboard. “Whatever makes you think that?”
I touched his arm. He looked at me. His eyes were perfect chocolate brown, human, but there was something in the depths of those human eyes that was other. His beast crawled just behind those true, brown orbs.
“Can you sit through this without losing it?” I asked.
“I can.”
“Will you?” I asked.