Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [829]
I had to turn away from what I saw in his face. “Does anyone have a bag that I can carry this in?”
Someone finally found an empty equipment bag and let me spill the heart into it. The policeman told me I could keep the bag. He didn’t want it back.
No one offered Olaf a bag, and he never asked.
63
THEY FOUND MY GUNS in the chest with the rest of the weapons, though the holsters were missing. I just couldn’t keep a holster intact on this job. But I stuffed the guns down my jeans. The knives weren’t in the chest. Ramirez drove me personally to a crematorium so that I could see the heart and head burned down to ash. When I had two little containers of ash, it was almost dawn. I fell asleep in the seat beside him, or he’d have had a fight about taking me to the hospital. But he insisted that the doctors check me out. Amazingly enough, none of the cuts were even deep enough for stitches. I wouldn’t even have any new scars. Miraculous.
One of the men had given me a jacket that said FBI on it to cover my nearly naked upper body. Several of the uniforms and most of the hospital staff assumed I was a federal agent. I kept having to correct people, and I finally realized that the emergency room doctor thought my denial meant I had a concussion and didn’t know who I was. The more I argued the more concerned he got. He ordered a series of head X-rays, and I couldn’t talk him out of it.
I was actually sitting in a wheelchair waiting to be escorted to X-ray when Bernardo came up. He touched the FBI jacket. “You’re moving up in the world.”
“When the nurse comes back, he’ll be taking me down to X-ray.”
“You okay?”
“Just precautionary,” I said.
“I just came back from checking on the invalids.”
“Olaf said Edward would live.”
“He will.”
“How are the kids?”
“Peter is okay. They put Becca in a room. She’s got a cast to her elbow.”
I stared at his cast stained a dirty brown. “That thing is going to start stinking with all that blood dried into it.”
“The doc wants me to get a new cast, but I wanted to check on everyone first.”
“Where’s Olaf?”
Bernardo shrugged. “I don’t know. He disappeared once the monsters were all dead and Ramirez had you in his car. He said something about the job being done. I guess he went back under whatever rock Edward found him under.”
I started to nod, then remembered something that Edward had said. “Edward told you that you couldn’t have a woman because he’d forbidden Olaf to have women, right?”
“Yeah, but the job’s over, babe. I am headed for the first open bar.”
I looked at him, nodding. “Maybe that’s where Olaf is.”
He frowned at me. “Olaf’s at a bar?”
“No, he’s out getting his ashes hauled, his way.”
We both looked at each other, and there was a moment when horror dawned on Bernardo’s face, and he whispered, “Oh, my god, he’s out killing someone.”
I shook my head. “If he’s just out killing at random, there’s no way to find him, but what if it’s not random?”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember how he looked at Professor Dallas?”
Bernardo looked at me. “You don’t think. . . I mean he wouldn’t . . . oh, shit.”
I got up out of the wheelchair and said, “I’ve got to tell Ramirez what we’re thinking.”
“You don’t know he’s there. You don’t know he’s doing anything wrong.”
“Do you believe he just went home?” I asked.
Bernardo seemed to think about that for a second, then shook his head.
“Neither do I.”
“He saved your life,” Bernardo said.
“I know.” We went to the elevator.
The elevator doors opened and Lieutenant Marks was standing there. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
“Marks, I think that Professor