Greywalker - Kat Richardson [17]
“I’ve got a little information, but now that I have this, I should be able to get along faster.” I offered her an envelope containing the pictures of Cameron that she had lent me. “I’ll let you know as soon as something comes up.”
She gave me a cool, professional smile and wished me well, then turned away. I got out of there before someone asked her who I was.
I had almost two hours to kill. I craved a cup of coffee or anything mundane and anchoring: comfort food, bad TV, something like that. I decided to try a little shopping. Coffee and lunch and department stores in suburban Bellevue. Not a shadow-thing in sight. I was done and on my way back to Seattle by three fifteen. If I was fast enough, perhaps the strangeness couldn’t catch up to me.
I was even feeling a bit smug when I parked near the Danzigers’ house. I was ten minutes early. I locked up the Rover and walked toward the pale blue house.
It was one of those square, half-brick, half-clapboard houses from about 1900. It had a deep, railed front porch overhung by the second floor. A favorite-grandma house. A pleasant, if slightly wild, garden overran the yard above a short flight of stone steps and a vine-grown wooden arch.
Closer to, the house glowed, golden and beckoning as a cheery fire. It should have made me feel welcome, but the hair on my neck prickled.
SIX
The door popped open to my knock. Ben Danziger was over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, bearded, and blue-eyed. His wavy black hair stood from his head in electrified tufts, and he looked like either a mad scientist or a terrified rabbinical student.
“Hi! You must be Harper Blaine,” he exclaimed. “Come in, come in. Excuse the way I look. I’ve been doing the laundry and the static from the dryer always makes me look like a mad poodle.”
He held the door open and I stepped inside.
The house did not glow as brightly inside, but it contained a low hum like the contented purring of a cat.
He turned and ducked through another doorway on the left. “Would you like a glass of tea?”
I followed him into the kitchen, dazed by his bouncing energy. “Yeah, sure.”
You could have filmed commercials for Grandma’s Old-Fashioned Something in there, among the rubbed hardwood floors and polished copper pots on racks.
Danziger excused himself to pop into the back room and toss a pile of clothing into a wicker basket. He paused and called out, “Honey, our guest’s here!”
A voice came from a bulge in his chest pocket. “Start without me, darlin’. The baby’s being stubborn.”
He bounced back in and rattled around, piling objects on a wooden tray. He swept it up, then put it back down on a huge table and looked at me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t ask if you prefer your tea over ice. Do you?”
I was too surprised to say I had assumed that he meant iced tea when he mentioned glasses. “I don’t care one way or the other.”
“Ah. Good. I like Russian tea. Mara’ll join us in the study.”
Toting the tray, he led me up the staircase and around the landing to a small door. “Open that for me, will you?”
I opened the door and followed him up a last narrow flight of stairs into what used to be the attic. A large skylight had been installed on the southern slope of the roof, making a bright, comfortable small office—if you didn’t mind ducking a lot. Wall sconces bounced more light up against the sloping walls and ceiling. Bookshelves stood wherever the walls rose over four feet. The lower, darker corners were stacked with boxes.
Danziger’s desk was built of four wooden file cabinets and a wooden door. An old leather swivel chair stood on one side and an old leather couch on the other. He elbowed a clear space in the books on the desk and set down the tray.The soft, aged leather of the sofa squeaked and settled around me as I sat down.
Danziger began tinkering with teapots and tall, metal-caged glasses. “Water?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“Hot water in the tea? It’s really strong, otherwise,” he explained.