Doppelgangster - Laura Resnick [107]
Max said, “Hieronymus’ rooms on the third floor are vacant, if you think you would be comfortable there.”
“Hieronymus.” I grimaced.
“The accommodations are modest, but adequate for your temporary needs, I think.”
I thought about it and gave an involuntary shudder. “Oh, I don’t think I want to sleep in a bedroom that was recently inhabited by a demented young wizard who would have wound up killing half the city if we hadn’t, er, sent him away.” Remembering what we had done to Hieronymus made me think of Lopez again, which made me feel anxious and weepy. “My nerves are frayed enough as it is, Max. I’ll just sleep on your couch.”
He nodded. “Nelli usually sleeps on the couch, but I feel certain that she would be pleased to relinquish her usual place to you, given the circumstances.”
“I’m wiped out. I think I’ll go straight to bed.” I stood up. Nelli, who’d been sitting nearby, rose to her feet, too, and yawned. I asked Max, “Are you coming upstairs now?”
“In a little while,” he said. “I need to meditate and focus my strength to ensure this building is well protected for the rest of the night.”
I nodded, turned, and walked to the back of the shop. Nelli followed me. I opened the stairwell door so we could ascend to Max’s sparsely furnished apartment on the second floor. I’d only been there once before, but I knew where the bathroom was. I went in there, turned on the light, and conducted a quick and very basic nighttime toilette. Then I poked gingerly around the apartment for a few minutes in search of a blanket. I found a worn but clean cotton quilt that was folded up and lying in a cedar chest in Max’s monklike bedroom. I took it back into the living room, turned out the light, and lay down. I would sleep in my comfortable knit dress. The couch sagged a little, but was relatively comfortable. Unfortunately, though, only days after her arrival in this dimension, it was already redolent of Nelli. I would definitely need a shower in the morning.
Nelli didn’t seem to mind my being in her usual sleeping place, but she mistakenly thought the couch was big enough for two. Without warning, she cheerfully climbed on top of me and started settling herself into the cushions with contented little snuffles, impervious to my attempts to shove her off. After a brief argument which didn’t seem to faze her a bit, I decided that as long as I could breathe, I was too exhausted to care about retaining feeling in my legs. And although I thought at first that her snoring would keep me awake all night, it wasn’t very long before my own fatigue overcame the noise. I sank into oblivion and slept like the dead until late the next morning. I didn’t even hear Max come upstairs and go to bed, nor go back downstairs again to resume his work sometime after sunrise.
And as is so often the case, getting enough sleep for the human brain to function effectively made a tremendous difference. The following day, I woke up knowing who the killer was and why Lopez had been targeted.
20
“The Widow Giacalona?” Max said when I confronted him in his laboratory with my revelation.
“Yes! I was so exhausted and upset last night, I couldn’t see it at the time.” The truth had hit me within minutes of waking up. I had raced downstairs without a shower, my hair in a rat’s nest and my clothes stinking of Nelli, to put the facts before Max. “And it’s probably a good thing Lucky’s not here. I don’t think he would listen to reason. He’s in love with her, you know.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Who hates the Corvinos and the Gambellos enough to kill men in both families? Elena Giacalona. Why? Because a Gambello killed her second husband, and a Corvino killed her third.”
“I can see how that might stoke vengeance