Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [135]
Mary looked at my torn nails. “Does that hurt as much as it looks like it does?”
I never know how to answer questions like that. Hell, yes, or how should I know? “It hurts,” I said.
She handed me a small bottle of alcohol. “Take this and soak your hands in the bathroom until they stop bleeding.”
I looked at her. “Hell, no.”
She gave me the parental look. “You’ve ripped off most of the nails on both hands. Do you want to get infected?”
I thought about telling her that I couldn’t get an infection, but we didn’t know that for sure. I wasn’t truly a lycanthrope, and while I’d gained their ability to heal, I had no way of knowing if I’d gained all their abilities to keep healthy. It would be a bitch to ignore Mary’s advice, and then lose a finger to gangrene or something. But damn, it was going to hurt.
The door to Bert’s office opened before I could run off to the bathroom. His face was very solemn, though there was something in his eyes, some flicker, that I didn’t trust. Not supressed laughter, but something.
“Anita, do you want to press assault charges on the Browns?” He said it straight-faced, in a serious voice. He spent a great deal of effort making me take all kinds of shit from clients and never before suggested we press charges.
I studied his face, trying to read where this was going. “No, I don’t think that will be necessary.”
Steve Brown showed at the door first, with his arm around his wife. “We are so sorry, Ms. Blake. Really, I don’t know what came over us. It was . . . inexcusable.”
“Thank you for not pressing charges, Ms. Blake,” Barbara Brown said. She’d been crying, and the last of her makeup had worn away. She looked older than when she’d entered my office, and it wasn’t just the lack of makeup. It was as if what had happened had sucked a little more of her life away.
“We just need our son’s things, and then we’ll go,” he said. He looked horrible, too. Not that they shouldn’t have looked horrible, but something else was going on. I didn’t know what, but something wasn’t right. Something beyond just grief and embarrassment, and fear of the cops.
“Mary will escort you into the other office for your things,” Bert said.
Mary couldn’t keep her opinion completely off her face, but she led them into my office. When they were out of earshot, I stepped up to Bert and said quietly, “What are you up to?”
He gave me innocent eyes, which meant he was lying.
“What did you do, Bert? You know I’ll find out eventually, so just tell me.”
He kept giving me that innocent blank face of his, with that false sincerity that was still in place for when the Browns came back out. I had an idea. But the act was so low I didn’t think even Bert would have tried it.
“You pretended to call the cops, didn’t you?”
He gave me a “who-me” look, which meant I was right.
“You took their check. The house check.”
“Anita, even I wouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah, you would, if you thought you could get away with it.”
His eyes thawed to their usually level of insincerity. “They’re coming back, just smile and agree with me.”
“Bert, either you tell me what you did, or I’ll blow it all to hell.”
He took hold of my arm, which he never does, and smiled over my head. “Ms. Blake needs a little more persuasion to agree to our deal.”
“Oh, please, Ms. Blake, please, don’t press charges. I don’t want it in the papers that I’m crazy. Our daughters have seen enough bad publicity about us.”
I turned and would have said something, but Bert whisked me into his office and closed the door. Unless I was going to put up a fight, I had no choice but to let him manhandle me a little.
He stayed by the door, with his back against it, as if he were afraid I’d bolt. “Anita, this is fair.”
“What is fair?” I said, and my voice was already warming up, ready to be pissed.
“We could press charges against them,” he