Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [145]
It was frightening how quickly and smoothly the car went over eighty without me noticing it. There was something about the roads and the way they spilled out and out across the empty landscape that made lower speeds seem like crawling. I kept it at a solid eighty, and Ramirez kept up with me. He seemed to be the only one who believed me. Maybe he felt the urgency, too.
The silence in the car wasn’t exactly companionable, but it wasn’t uncomfortable either. Besides, I had enough problems without playing crying shoulder for one of Edward’s sociopathic friends.
Bernardo broke the silence. “I saw you and that detective getting it on out there in the grass.”
I frowned at him. He was watching me with hostile eyes. I think he was trying to pick a fight, though I didn’t know why. “We were not ‘getting it on,’ ” I said.
“Looked pretty cozy to me.”
“Jealous?” I asked.
His face hardened, thinning into angry lines. “So you do sleep around. Just not with us bad guys.”
I shook my head. “It was a comforting hug, not that it’s any of your business.”
“Didn’t think you were the comforting hug type.”
“I’m not.”
“So,” he said.
“So this case is getting to me.”
“I hear that,” he said.
I glanced at him. His face was turned away, only a thin rim of profile showing through his hair like the moon just before it goes dark.
I turned back to the road. If he didn’t want eye contact, fine with me. “I thought you were avoiding the pictures and forensic stuff,” I said.
“I’ve been here two weeks longer than you have. I’ve seen the pictures. I’ve seen the bodies. I don’t need to see it all again.”
“What exactly did you and Edward quarrel about today?”
“Quarrel,” he said and gave a low chuckle. “Yeah, you could say we quarreled.”
“What about?”
“I don’t know why the hell I’m here. Tell me what or who to shoot, and I’ll do it. I’ll even guard bodies if the price is right. But there’s nothing to shoot at. Nothing but dead bodies. I don’t know shit about magic.”
“I thought you were a licensed bounty hunter that specialized in preternatural critters.”
“I was with Edward when he cleaned out a nest of lycanthropes in Arizona. Fifteen of them. We mowed them down with machine guns and grenades.” He had an almost wistful tone to his voice. Ah, the good ol’ days. “Before that I’d killed two rogue lycanthropes, but afterwards I got a lot of calls for this shit. I took the ones that were basically just hits. The only difference was that the vic wasn’t human. Those I could handle, but I am not a detective. Call me in when the kill is in sight, and I’ll be there, but not this. This fucking waiting around, looking for clues. Who the hell looks for clues? We’re assassins, not Sherlock Holmes.”
He shifted in his seat, and struggled to sit up straighter, arms still holding himself tight. He did the headshake to get the hair back away from his face. The headshake is a very feminine gesture. A man has to be muy macho for it not to be. Bernardo managed.
“Maybe he assumed that since you helped him out with the shapeshifters that you’d be useful with this.”
“He was wrong.”
I shrugged. “Then go home.”
“I can’t.”
I glanced at him. I could see most of his profile, and it was a nice one. “You owe him a favor, too?”
“Yes.”
“Mind me asking what sort of favor?”
“Same as you.”
“You killed one of his other backups?”
He nodded, and had to run his hands through his hair to slide it back from his face.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Why?” He looked at me, and his face, for one of the few times, wasn’t teasing, but serious, even solemn. He looked less handsome without the smile and glow in his eyes, but he also seemed more real. Being real will get me into trouble faster than any amount of charm. “Do you want to talk about how you killed Harley?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“Then