Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [105]
From the way Callie handed them the menus, she wasn’t the only one to think that.
“Nice place.” He shook out his napkin, placed it on his lap. Horn-rimmed glasses made him look like a college professor, or a politician playing the academic side.
“It is. Don’t think about coming here on your own.”
“No, I think not,” he agreed easily. “Our waitress might poison me.”
“Probably,” Wren agreed, not even bothering to look at the menu. This guy was hard to dislike. Anyone that smooth, that easy to talk to, Wren didn’t trust on principle. And when you added in what Sergei had said…
Suddenly, she wanted very much not to be here. Not even for a free meal.
“My partner doesn’t like you.” Might as well cut to the chase.
“Is that you meaning me, or you meaning the entire organization?”
“Yes.”
Felhim closed his eyes, visibly gathering himself. “I did walk directly into that one,” he admitted. “Are you going to take his dislike for your own, or make up your own mind?”
Wren snorted. “You really don’t know me well at all, do you? For all your snooping and your spying—oh yeah, I know you’ve been following me, harassing my partner—you don’t have a clue about me, Wren, the person, as opposed to The Wren, lonejack.” She bit at her thumbnail, thinking, then looked directly into his eyes. “Learn this right now, and everything will go a lot smoother. You tried manipulating me via Sergei. It didn’t work. You won’t be able to manipulate him through me, either. We’re partners. So if he doesn’t like you, or your organization, I’m going to assume that there is a good and logical reason to not like you as well.” She saw a faintly surprised look in his eyes. “Neither of us is exactly even-tempered, not when it comes to people trying to headcase us.”
“We’re all a team now, Genevieve.”
“Ms. Valere. You don’t get to call me by my birth name until I say otherwise.” Casual acquaintances could call her Jenny. And only family and total strangers got to call her Wren. She waited to make sure he’d gotten it. “As for teamwork…don’t assume. Ever. I haven’t signed on any dotted line yet, and I may not ever. I’m a lonejack, remember? I don’t play well with others.”
“Your partner excepted.”
“My partner excepted,” she agreed.
Seeing he had closed his menu, she gestured Callie over. Andre ordered a salad and the fish. Contrary, Wren decided on the spur of the moment to have the hanger steak. Callie almost dropped her pencil in shock.
“Never think you know someone,” was all she said as she walked away. Wren was pretty sure Andre had gotten the point.
“So tell me about the Silence,” she said after Callie had delivered their salads. “Your take on it, not the official PR brochure.”
“We don’t have any PR,” he said. “We take our name rather seriously.”
Okay, no real sense of humor about the organization. Noted.
“Not the official line. You want me to make my own opinion about the Silence? Accept the fact that I’m not impressed by Ideals and tell me what really goes on.”
He put his fork down and considered her across the table. His skin was slightly mottled over one cheek, she noted; the light played on the faint tracings of lighter skin, as though there had once been markings there.
“I always feel as though I’m channeling Men in Black when I say this, but…we are the court of last resort. Not only because we’re the only ones who can deal with certain cases…but because oftentimes we’re the only ones who know about it.”
Pretty much what Sergei had said. And she got the feeling they were both leaving things out, each for their own reasons.
“Sort of like a multinational Star Chamber, huh?” She sniffed at his surprised look. “Again with the assumptions. Okay, only an Associate degree. But I do read, you know.”
“I apologize. My surprise was unwarranted.”
“Damn straight.”
No need to tell him that Sergei had typed the phrase into a search engine and let her read up on it that night in his apartment. Another difference to keep in mind when she was looking for someone to get mad at. Felhim wanted to woo her over by sheer force