Guilty Pleasures - Laurell K. Hamilton [51]
I released her arm, slowly, and stepped back out of reach. I hoped she didn’t attack again. I didn’t want to hurt her, and I didn’t want her to hurt me. The scratches were beginning to sting.
Rebecca Miles wasn’t going to try again. She huddled against the door, thin, starved hands locked around her knees. She sobbed, gasping for air, “You . . . can’t . . . kill him. Please!” She started to rock back and forth, hugging herself tight as if she might shatter, like weak glass.
Jesus, some days I hate my job. “Talk to her, Phillip. Tell her we didn’t come here to hurt anyone.”
Phillip knelt beside her. He kept his hands at his sides as he talked to her. I didn’t hear what he said. Her shuddering sobs floated after me through a right-hand doorway. It led into the bedroom.
A coffin sat beside the bed, dark wood, maybe cherry, varnished until it gleamed in the twilit dark. She thought I came to kill her lover. Jesus.
The bathroom was small and cluttered. I hit the light switch, and the harsh yellow light was not kind. Her makeup was scattered around the cracked sink like casualties. The tub was nearly rotted with rust. I found what I hoped was a clean washrag and ran cold water over it. The water that trickled out was the color of weak coffee. The pipes shuddered and clanked and whined. The water finally ran clear. It felt good on my hands, but I didn’t splash any on my neck or face. It would have been cool, but the bathroom was dirty. I couldn’t use the water, not if I didn’t have to. I looked up as I squeezed the rag out. The mirror was shattered, a spiderweb of cracks. It gave me my face back in broken pieces.
I didn’t look in the mirror again. I walked back past the coffin and hesitated. I had an urge to knock on the smooth wood. Anybody home? I didn’t do it. For all I knew, someone might have knocked back.
Phillip had the woman on the couch. She was leaning against him, boneless, panting, but the crying had almost stopped. She flinched when she saw me. I tried not to look menacing, something I’m good at, and handed the rag to Phillip. “Wipe her face and put it against the back of her neck; it’ll help.”
He did what I asked, and she sat there with the damp rag against her neck, staring at me. Her eyes were wide, a lot of white showing. She shivered.
I found the light switch, and harsh light flooded the room. One look at the room and I wanted to turn the light off again, but I didn’t. I thought Rebecca might attack me again if I sat beside her, or maybe she’d have a complete breakdown. Wouldn’t that be pretty? The only chair was lopsided and had yellowed stuffing bulging out one side. I decided to stand.
Phillip looked up at me. His sunglasses were hooked over the front of his tank top. His eyes were wide and careful, as if he didn’t want me to know what he was thinking. One tanned arm was wrapped around her shoulders, protective. I felt like a bully.
“I told her why we are here. I told her you wouldn’t hurt Jack.”
“The coffin?” I smiled. I couldn’t help it. He was a “jack in the box.”
“Yes,” Phillip said. He stared at me as if grinning were not appropriate.
It wasn’t, so I stopped, but it was something of an effort.
I nodded. If Rebecca wanted to shack up with vampires, that was her business. It certainly wasn’t police business.
“Go on, Rebecca. She’s trying to help us,” Phillip said.
“Why?” she asked.
It was a good question. I had scared her and made her cry. I answered her question. “The master of the city made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
She stared at me, studying my face, like she was committing me to memory. “I don’t believe you,” she said.
I shrugged. That’s what you get for telling the truth. Someone calls you a liar. Most people will accept a likely lie to an unlikely truth. In fact, they prefer it.
“How could any vampire threaten The Executioner?” she asked.
I sighed. “I’m not the bogeyman, Rebecca. Have you ever met the master of the city?”
“No.”
“Then you’ll have to trust