Blue Moon Page 3

Chapter 5~6

  5

  The outside of the cabins were white and looked sort of cheap. The interiors weren't honeymoon cabins, but they were amazingly roomy. There was a queen-size bed in the one I was given. There was a desk against one wall with a reading lamp. There was an extra chair in front of a picture window. The chair was blue plush and comfortable. It sat on a small throw rug that looked homemade and was woven in shades of blue. The woods were hardwood and polished to a honeyed gleam. The bed's comforter was royal blue. There was a bedside table, complete with a lamp and a phone. The walls were pale blue. There was even a painting over the bed. It was a reproduction of Van Gogh's Starry Night. Frankly, any of Van Gogh's work done after he started going seriously nuts creeps me out. But it was a good choice for a blue room. For all I knew, the other cabins had matadors done on velvet, but this was okay.

  The bathroom was standard white with a small window high over the bathtub. The bathroom looked like standard motel issue except for a blue bowl of potpourri that smelled like musk and gardenia.

  Verne had informed me that this was the largest cabin left. I needed the floor space. Two coffins take up a lot of room. I wasn't sure I wanted to have Asher and Damian in my room permanently, but I didn't have time to argue. I wanted to go see Richard as soon as possible. We could always argue about who got the vamps as bunk mates after I saw Richard.

  I made three phone calls before we went to the jail. The first was to the number that Daniel had given me, to let him know we were in town. No one answered. The second call was to Catherine to let her know I'd arrived safely. I got her machine. The third call was to the lawyer that Catherine had recommended, Carl Belisarius. A woman with a very good phone voice answered. When she found out who I was, she was sort of excited, which puzzled me. She forwarded me to Belisarius's cell phone. Something was up, which was probably bad.

  A deep, rich, male voice answered, "Belisarius here. "

  "Anita Blake. I assume that Catherine Maison-Gillette told you who I am. "

  "Just a moment, Ms. Blake. " He pushed a button and there was silence. I was on hold. When he came back on the phone, I could hear wind and traffic. He'd stepped outside.

  "I am very glad to hear from you, Ms. Blake. What the fuck is going on?"

  "Excuse me?" I said, tone less than friendly.

  "He won't see me. Catherine gave me the impression that he needed a lawyer. I traveled to this godless piece of real estate, and he won't see me. He says he didn't hire me. "

  "Shit," I said softly. "I'm sorry, Mr. Belisarius. " I had a thought. "Did you tell him that I hired you on his behalf?"

  "Will that make a difference?"

  "Truthfully, I don't know. Either it'll help, or he'll tell you to go to hell. "

  "He's already done that. I am not cheap, Ms. Blake. Even if he refuses my services, someone has to pay for the day. "

  "Don't worry, Mr. Belisarius. I'll take care of it. "

  "Do you have that kind of money?"

  "How much are we talking about?" I asked.

  He mentioned a fee. I did my best not to whistle in his ear. I counted slowly to five and said, calmly, "You'll get your money. "

  "You have that kind of money? I took Catherine's word for a lot of things on this. Forgive me if I'm starting to be suspicious. "

  "No, I understand. Richard's giving you a hard time, so you're giving me one. "

  He gave a rough laugh. "All right, Ms. Blake, all right. I'll try not to pass the buck, but I want some assurances. Can you pay my fee?"

  "I raise the dead for a living, Mr. Belisarius. It's a rare talent. I can pay your fee. " And I could, but it sort of hurt to do it. I wasn't raised poor, but I was raised to appreciate the value of a buck, and Belisarius was a little outside of outrageous.

  "Send word to Richard that I hired you. Call me back if it makes a difference. He may refuse to see either of us. "

  "You're paying a great deal of money, Ms. Blake, especially if I take the case. I assumed you and Mr. Zeeman were close in some way. "

  "It's a long story," I said. "We're sort of hating each other right now. "

  "A lot of money for someone you hate," he said.

  "Don't you start, too," I said.

  He laughed again. His laugh was more normal than his speech, almost a bray. Maybe he didn't practice his laugh for the courtroom. I knew he practiced that rich, rolling voice.

  "I'll send the message, Ms. Blake. Hopefully, I'll be calling you back. "

  "Call me even if he says no. At least I'll know what to expect when I come down to the jail. "

  "You'll come down even if he refuses to see you?" Belisarius asked.

  "Yeah," I said.

  "I look forward to meeting you, Ms. Blake. You intrigue me. "

  "I bet you say that to all the girls. "

  "To very few, Ms. Blake. " He hung up.

  Jason came out of the bathroom as I hung up. He was wearing the suit. I'd never seen him in anything except T-shirts and jeans or leather and less. It was odd to see him standing there in a navy blue suit, white shirt, and a thin white tie with a tastefully small design running through it. When you looked close, the tie was silk and the print was tiny fleur de lis. I knew who had picked out the tie. The suit was a better cut than most off the rack, but Jean-Claude had ruined me for off the rack no matter how nice the fit.

  He buttoned the first button on the jacket and smoothed his hands through his blond hair. "How do I look?"

  I shook my head. "Like a person. "

  He grinned. "You sound surprised. "

  I smiled. "I've just never seen you look like a grown-up. "

  He fake pouted at me, lip pushed out. "You've seen me nearly naked and I didn't look grown-up?"

  I shook my head and smiled in spite of myself. I'd changed my clothes in the bedroom while he changed in the bathroom. I found a few dark spots of blood on the red blouse. As it dried, it would turn black and look even worse, which was why the blouse was soaking in the sink. Red shows blood no matter what people say.

  The black jeans had escaped unstained as far as I could tell. A few spots of blood are hard to find on black. Black or navy blue hides blood best. I guess a really dark brown would work, but I don't own much brown, so I don't know for sure.

  The fresh blouse was a pale, almost icy, lavender. It had been a gift from my stepmother, Judith. When I opened the box at Christmas and saw the pale blouse, I assumed she bought me yet another piece of clothing that would look better on her blond ice princess body than on my darker one. But the pure, clear color actually looked pretty spiffy. I'd even been gracious enough to tell Judith I was wearing it. I think it was the first gift in ten years that I hadn't exchanged. I was still 0 for 8 in the gift department for her. Oh, well.

  Black dress pants with a belt wide enough for the Browning and wider than was fashionable, black flats, and I was ready. I'd added just a touch of makeup: eye shadow, mascara, a hint of blush, and lipstick. I tried not to think why I'd dressed up. It wasn't for the local cops. Jason and I were probably both overdressed for the locals. Of course, if we'd shown up in jeans and T-shirts, we'd have been underdressed. The only really good thing to wear to meet police is a uniform and a badge. Anything else and you are not in the club.

  There was a law being discussed in Washington, D. C. , right now that might give vampire executioners what amounted to federal marshal status. It was being pushed hard by Senator Brewster, whose daughter had gotten munched by a vampire. Of course, he was also pushing to revoke vampires' rights as legal citizens. Federal status for executioners, maybe. Revoking vamps' legal rights, I didn't think so. Some vampires would have to do something pretty gruesome to give the antivamp lobby that much push.

  In March, vampire executioners had been officially licensed. It was a state license because murder was a state, not a federal, crime.

  But I understood the need for federal status for vampire executioners. We didn
't just kill, we hunted. But once we crossed out of our licensed area, we were on shaky ground. The court order was valid as long as the state we crossed into agreed to an extradition order. The extradition order was then used to validate the original order of execution. My preference was to get a second order of execution every time I crossed a state line. But that took time, and sometimes you'd lose the vamp to yet another jurisdiction and have to start all over again.

  One enterprising vampire crossed seventeen states before he was finally caught and killed. The general run, if they run, is maybe two or three. Which is why most vampire executioners are licensed in more than one state. In our own way, we have territories, sort of like vampires. Within that territory, we kill. Outside of it, it's someone else's job. But there are only ten of us, and that's not a lot for a country with one of the largest vampire populations in the world. We aren't constantly busy. Most of us have day jobs. I mean, if the vampires had been bad enough to keep us hopping, then they'd never have made legal status. But the more vamps you get in an area, the higher your crime rate. Just like with humans.

  Having to stop every time you left your licensed area made it harder to do our jobs. Having no real status as a police officer made it impossible to enter an investigation unless invited. Sometimes we weren't invited in until the body count was pretty damn high. My largest body count for a vampire was twenty-three. Twenty-three dead before we caught him. There had been higher body counts. Back in the fifties, Gerald Mallory, sort of the grandfather of the business, had slain a kiss of vampires that took out over a hundred. A kiss of vampires is like a gaggle of geese; it's the group name. Poetic, ain't it?

  The phone rang. I picked it up and it was Belisarius. "He'll see us together. I'll try to have something to tell you by the time you get here. " He hung up.

  I took a big breath in through my nose and let it out in a rush through my mouth.

  "What's wrong?" Jason asked.

  "Nothing. "

  "You're nervous about seeing Richard," he said.

  "Don't be so dammed smart. "

  He grinned. "Sorry. "

  "Like hell," I said. "Let's go. "

  We went.

  6

  The drive to Myerton took longer than it had to because I was driving an unfamiliar van on very narrow roads. It made me nervous. Jason finally said, "Can I drive, please? We'll get there before dark. "

  "Shut up," I said.

  He shut up, smiling.

  We did finally drive into Myerton. The town consisted of a main street that was paved and looked suspiciously like a two-lane highway with buildings hugging the edges. There was a stoplight with a second, much smaller gravel road spilling red clay dust across the blacktop. The town's only stoplight made you notice the two fast-food restaurants and a mom-and-pop diner that actually had a bigger crowd than the Dairy Queen. Either the food was good, or the Dairy Queen wasn't.

  Jamil had given me directions to the police station. He said to drive down the main street, turn right. You can't miss it. Whenever someone says that, it means one of two things. Either they're right and it's obvious, or it's hidden and you'll never find it without a detailed map where X marks the spot.

  I turned right at the stoplight. The van hit a pothole and rolled like a great beast treading water. I wished I had my Jeep. The gravel road was the true main street of the town. Buildings with a raised wooden sidewalk in front of them lined one side of the street. I spotted a grocery store and a woodworker's shop selling handmade furniture. They had a rocking chair out in front that still had rough grey bark on parts of the wooden frame. Very rustic. Very nifty. Another shop sold herbs and homemade jellies, though this wasn't the time of year for it. Houses lined the other side of the street. They weren't the newer Midwestern look that has taken over large parts of the South. The houses were mostly one story on cinder blocks or red rock bases. They were covered with side shingles running strongly to off-white and grey. One yard had a herd of ceramic deer and a crop of lawn gnomes so thick, it looked like they should be selling them.

  There were mountains at the end of the street and trees like a thick, green curtain. We were about to drive back into the forest, and I hadn't seen anything that looked like a police station. Great.

  "It has to be right here," Jason said.

  I checked my rearview mirror, no traffic, and stopped. "What do you see that I don't?" I asked.

  "Shang-Da," he said.

  I looked at him. "Excuse me?"

  "On the porch at the end of the street. "

  I looked where he was looking. A tall man sat slumped in a lawn chair. He was wearing a white T-shirt, jeans, no shoes, and a billed cap pulled low. His tan stood out strongly against the whiteness of the shirt. Large hands held a can of soda or maybe beer. Just an early-morning pick-me-up.

  "That's Shang-Da. He's our pack's second enforcer. He's Hati to Jamil's Skoll. "

  Ah. The light dawned. "He's guarding Richard, so the police station has to be nearby. "

  Jason nodded.

  I looked at the slumped figure. He didn't look particularly alert at first glance. He almost blended into the scene until you realized the T-shirt was spotless and new. The jeans had creases as if they'd been ironed and you realized though he was tanned, the skin coloring wasn't just from the sun. But it wasn't until he moved his head very slowly and looked straight at us that I realized just how good the act was. Even from a distance there was an intensity in his gaze that was almost unnerving. I knew we suddenly had his full attention and all he'd done was move his head.

  "Shit," I said.

  "Yeah," Jason said. "Shang-Da's new. He transferred in from San Francisco Bay pack. No one fought him when he came in as Hati. No one wanted the job that badly. "

  Jason pointed across the street. "Is that it?"

  It was a low, one-story building made of white-painted cinder blocks. There was a small, gravel parking lot out front but no cars. The van took up most of the parking lot. I parked as close to the side as I could, hearing the soft swish of tree branches along the top of the van. There was probably a police car out there someplace that would be parking beside me. I think they had room.

  There was a small wooden sign, elegantly carved, hanging beside the door. It read, Police Station. That was it, the only hint. Couldn't miss it -¨C Jamil had a sense of humor. Or maybe he was still pissed that I'd cut him. Childish.

  We got out. I felt Shang-Da's gaze on me. He was yards away, but the power of his attention crept down my skin, raising the hair on my arms. I glanced his way, and for a second, our eyes met. The hair at the back of my neck stood to attention.

  Jason came to stand beside me. "Let's go inside. "

  I nodded, and we walked to the door. "If I didn't know better, I'd say Shang-Da doesn't like me. "

  "He's loyal to Richard, and you've hurt him -¨C badly. "

  I glanced at him. "You don't seem mad at me. Aren't you loyal to Richard?"

  "I was there the night Richard fought Marcus. Shang-Da wasn't. "

  "Are you saying I was right to leave Richard?"

  "No. I'm saying I understand why you couldn't handle it. "

  "Thanks, Jason. "

  He smiled. "Besides, maybe I have designs on your body. "

  "Jean-Claude would kill you. "

  He shrugged. "What's life without a little danger?"

  I shook my head.

  Jason got to the door first but didn't try to open it for me. He knew me better than that.

  I opened the mostly glass doors. I guess the doors were also a clue. Everything else on the street had doors like you'd see on a house. The glass doors were modern business doors. The interior was painted white, including the long barlike desk across from the door. There were some wanted posters tacked to a bulletin board to the left of the door and a radio system behind the desk, but other than that, it could have been the reception room for a dentist.

  The guy s
itting behind the desk was big. Even sitting down, you had a sense of size. His shoulders were almost as broad as I was tall. His hair was very short and still curled in tight ringlets. He'd have had to shave his head to get rid of the curls.

  My executioner's license is in a nice fake-leather carrying case. It had my picture on it and looked damned official, but it wasn't a badge. It wasn't even a license good in this state. But it was all I had to flash, so I flashed it. I went in, holding the license out in front, because I was bringing a gun into a police station. Cops tended not to like that.

  "I'm Anita Blake, vampire executioner. "

  The cop moved just his eyes; his hands were hidden behind the desk. "We didn't call for an executioner. "

  "I'm not here on official business," I said. I stood in front of the desk. I started to put the license away, but he held his hand out for it, and I gave it to him.

  He studied the license while he asked, "Why are you here?"

  "I'm a friend of Richard Zeeman. "

  His grey eyes flicked up then. It wasn't a friendly look. He tossed the license back on top of the desk.

  I picked it up. "Is there a problem, Officer . . . " I read his nameplate, " . . . Maiden?"

  He shook his head. "No problem except that your friend is a damned rapist. I never understand why the meanest son of a bitch in the world always seems to have a girlfriend. "

  "I'm not his girlfriend," I said. "I'm exactly what I said I was: his friend. "

  Maiden stood, and he looked every inch of his six-foot-plus frame. He wasn't just tall; he was bulky. He'd probably been a wrestler or a football player in high school. The muscle had started to melt into a general bulk, and he was carrying about twenty pounds around the waist that he didn't need, but I wasn't fooled. He was big and tough and used to it. The gun around his waist matched the rest of him. It was a chrome-plated Colt Python long barrel with heavy black custom grips. Good for hunting elephants, a little much for scaring drunks on a Saturday night.

  "Who are you?" He pointed a thumb at Jason.

  "Just a friend," Jason said. He smiled, trying to look harmless. He wasn't as good at looking harmless as I was, but he was close. Beside Officer Maiden we both looked sort of fragile.

  "Her friend, or Zeeman's?"

  Jason gave a big, good-humored smile. "I'm everyone's friend. "

  Maiden didn't smile. He just looked at Jason, giving him a cold, hard stare out of those dark grey eyes. Maiden didn't have any better luck staring Jason down than I did. Jason kept smiling. Maiden kept staring.

  I finally touched Jason's arm ever so lightly. It was enough. He dropped his eyes, blinked, but the smile never faltered. But it was enough for Maiden to feel he'd won the staring contest.

  Maiden lumbered out from behind the desk. He moved like he was aware that he was big, like in his own ears, the earth trembled as he moved. He was big, but he wasn't that big. Of course, I wasn't going to point it out to him.

  A second man came out of a small door to the right of the desk. He was wearing a pale tan suit that fit him like an elegant glove. The white shirt was ribbed down the front, and he had one of those string ties with a hunk of gold at his throat. His eyes were large, black, and surprised when they saw me. His hair was cut very short, but stylish. The hand he extended for me to shake had a diamond pinkie ring and a college class ring on it.

  "Could this vision of loveliness be the infamous Ms. Blake?"

  I smiled before I could stop myself. "You must be Belisarius. "

  He nodded. "Call me Carl. "

  "I'm Anita, and this is Jason. "

  He shook hands with Jason, still smiling, still pleasant. He turned to Maiden. "May we go see my client now?"

  "The two of you can go, but not him. " Maiden jerked another thumb at Jason. "Sheriff said let the two of you in. No one said anything about anybody else. "

  Jason opened his mouth. I touched his arm. "That's fine. "

  "And the gun stays out here," he said. I didn't want to give up the gun, but it made me think better of Maiden that he'd spotted it.

  "Sure," I said. I pulled the Browning out from under the jacket. I hit the slide and spilled the clip into my other hand. I jacked the gun open to show the chamber was empty and handed the whole shooting match to Maiden.

  "Didn't trust me to unload it for you?"

  "I figured the Browning might be too small for your hands. Requires fine motor skills. "

  "You giving me shit?" he said.

  I nodded. "Yeah, I'm giving you shit. "

  He smiled then. He looked the Browning over before he put it in a desk drawer along with the clip. "Not a bad gun if you can't handle anything bigger. " He locked the drawer -¨C another brownie point for Maiden.

  "It's not size that counts, Maiden. It's performance. "

  His smile widened to a grin. "Your friend still has to wait out here. "

  "I said that was fine. I meant it. "

  Maiden nodded and led the way back through the door that Belisarius had come out of. There were two doors in the middle of the long, white hallway. One said, Ladies, the other, Men.

  "I'd hoped you coming out of this door meant you were visiting Richard. "

  "I'm afraid not. Mr. Zeeman has not relented. "

  "Relented," Maiden said, "relented. Now, that's a nice lawyer word. "

  "Reading improves your vocabulary, Officer Maiden. You should try it sometime. Though I suppose you can get by with just looking at the pictures. "

  "Ooh, I'm cut to the quick on that one," Maiden said.

  "If you cut us, do we not bleed?" Belisarius asked.

  Maiden shocked the hell out of me by giving the next line: "If you tickle us, do we not laugh?"

  Belisarius clapped softly. "Touche, Officer Maiden. "

  "Big and well read," I said. "I'm impressed. "

  He pulled a chain out of his pocket with keys on the end of it. "Don't tell the other cops. They'd think I was a sissy. "

  I looked up at him, all the way up at him. "It's not reading Shakespeare that makes you a sissy, Maiden. It's that damn gun. Only pansies carry that much hardware. "

  He unlocked the door at the end of the hallway. "Got to carry something big, Ms. Blake. Balances me out when I run. "

  That made me laugh. He opened the door and ushered us through. He locked the door behind us and went down a long white stretch of hallway with two closed doors on either side. "Wait here. I'll go make sure your boyfriend is ready to see you. "

  "He's not my boyfriend," I said. It was becoming automatic, like an involuntary reflex.

  Maiden smiled and unlocked the door at the far end. He vanished through it. "You and Officer Maiden seem to have hit it off, Ms. Blake. "

  "Cops dish out a lot of shit. Trick is, don't take it personally, and dish back. "

  "I'll remember that next time. "

  I looked up Belisarius. "It might not work for you. You're a lawyer, and you're wealthy. "

  "And I'm not an attractive woman," he said.

  "That, too, though that can work against me with policemen. "

  Belisarius nodded.

  Maiden stepped back through the far door. He was smiling like something had amused the hell out of him. I was betting I wasn't going to think it was funny. "I told Zeeman that for a fucking pervert, he had a cute girlfriend. "

  "I'll bet that's not what you said," I said.

  He nodded. "I asked him why, with a nice piece of ass like you for his girlfriend, he had to go out and rape somebody. "

  "What'd he say?" I asked, face as blank as I could make it.

  "He said you're not his girlfriend. "

  I nodded. "See, I told you so. "

  Maiden opened the door wide and motioned us through. "Ring the buzzer when you want out. " We stepped through, and he said, "Enjoy," as he locked us in.

  They must have gotten a deal on white paint because the entire room was white, even
the floor. It was like standing in the middle of a blizzard. Two bunks, one on top the other, the bars on a small window, even the toilet and sink were white. The only color was the bars that formed a three-sided cage. Richard sat on the other side of the bars looking at us.

  He was sitting on the lower bunk. His hair fell in thick waves, nearly hiding his face. In the stark whiteness of the overhead lights, the hair looked darker than its normal honey brown, almost chestnut. He was wearing a pale green dress shirt untucked, sleeves rolled back over muscular forearms. His dark brown dress slacks were wrinkled from being slept in. He unfolded his six-foot-one-inch body from the bunk. The dress shirt stretched tightly across his shoulders and upper arms. He'd bulked up a little since last I'd seen him, and he'd been pretty muscular to begin with. Once upon a time, it would have been my great pleasure to have peeled that shirt off and seen what was underneath, to have run my hands over that lovely chest and those strong arms. But that was then, and this was a whole new ball game, one that I really couldn't win.

  Richard came to stand at the bars, hands wrapping around them. "What are you doing here, Anita?" His voice wasn't as angry as I feared it would be. He sounded almost ordinary, and some tightness in the center of my body relaxed.

  Belisarius stepped away from us. He sat at the table outside the cell and began spreading papers out of his briefcase. He tried to look very busy and give us as much privacy as he could. It was a nice gesture.

  "I heard you were in trouble. "

  "So you came to rescue me?" he made it a question. His solid brown eyes stared at me, searching my face. His hair had fallen into his eyes. He smoothed it back from his face in an achingly familiar gesture.

  "I came to help. "

  "I don't need your help. I didn't do it. "

  Belisarius interrupted. "You've been charged with rape, Mr. Zeeman. "

  I turned and looked at Belisarius. "I thought it was attempted rape. "

  "I've been reading the file while I was waiting. Once I had Mr. Zeeman's permission to act as his lawyer, I got access to the records. The rape kit was negative for semen, but there was evidence of penetration. Penetration is enough to constitute rape. "

  "I never had intercourse with her," Richard said. "It never got that far. "

  "But you did date her," I said.

  He looked at me. "Yes, I did. " There was a little anger in his voice now.

  I let it go. I'd probably be grumpy, too, if I were in jail on trumped-up charges. Hell, I'd be grumpy even if I had done it.

  "The problem, Mr. Zeeman, is that without semen samples, you can't really prove conclusively that you didn't violate Ms. Schaffer. If this is a frame, it's a good one. You dated the woman more than once. She went out with you and came home beaten up. " He paged through one of the files. "There was vaginal bruising, some tearing. If she wasn't raped, it was still very rough. "

  "Becky said she liked it rough," Richard said quietly.

  "When did how rough she liked sex come up in conversation?" I asked.

  He met my eyes, no flinching, ready to be angry if I was angry. "When she was trying to get me to go to bed with her. "

  "What exactly did she say?" Belisarius asked.

  Richard shook his head. "I don't remember exactly, but I told her I was afraid I'd hurt her. She said if I liked it rough, she was my girl. "

  I walked away from him to stand looking at the closed door. I didn't want to be here for this. I turned around, and he was already staring at me, already meeting my gaze. "Is this why you wanted to see both of us at once? So I'd hear all the details?"

  He gave a harsh sound, almost laughter, but bitter. A strange look passed over his face. Once I could have read his every thought on his face, in his eyes. Now I didn't know him. Sometimes I thought I'd never known him, that we'd both been fooling ourselves. "If you want details, I can give you details. Not about Betty, but there's Lucy and Carrie and Mira. Especially Lucy and Mira. I can give you details on them. "

  "I heard you'd been a busy boy," I said. My voice was softer than I wanted it to be, but normal. I wasn't going to cry.

  "Who told you to come down here, Anita? Who disobeyed me?" That first prickling roil of energy crept through the room. Sometimes you could forget what Richard really was. He was better at hiding it than any lycanthrope I knew. I glanced at Belisarius. He seemed oblivious. Good, he wasn't sensitive to it. But I was. The power crept over my skin like a warm wind.

  "No one disobeyed you, Richard. "

  "Someone told you. " His hands flexed on the bars, rubbing over and over. I knew he could have ripped them out of the floor. He could have knocked a hole through the back wall if he wanted to. The fact that he was still in this cage was only because he didn't want out badly enough to blow his cover. A mild-mannered junior high science teacher could not bend steel bars.

  I leaned close to the bars, lowering my voice. His otherworldly energy breathed along my skin. "Do you really want to discuss this now, in front of a stranger?"

  Richard leaned in so close his forehead pressed against the bars. "He's my lawyer. Doesn't he need to know?"

  I leaned in so close I could have touched him through the bars. I wanted to touch him. He didn't seem quite real this way. "You really are a babe in the woods on this one, aren't you?"

  "I've never been arrested before," he said.

  "No, that was always my job. "

  He almost smiled. Some of that energy leaked away. His beast sliding away inside that perfect camouflage.

  I touched the cool, metal bars, sliding my hands just below his. "I bet you thought you might be visiting me like this someday, but not the other way around. "

  He gave a small smile. "Yeah, and I'd bake you a cake with a file in it. "

  I smiled. "You don't need a file, Richard. " I slid my hands over his. He squeezed my fingers gently. "You need a good lawyer, and I brought you one. "

  He stepped away from the bars. "Why do I need a lawyer when I'm innocent?"

  Belisarius answered, "You've been charged with rape. The judge has refused you bail. Son, if we can't break her story, you're looking at two to five years, if we're lucky. The pictures are in the file. She was beat up pretty bad. She's a pretty little blond thing. She'll come into court dressed like everyone's favorite second grade teacher. The one you had a crush on that smelled like Ivory soap. " He stood up and started walking towards us as he talked. "We'll cut your hair -¨C "

  "Cut his hair?" I exclaimed.

  Belasarius frowned at me. "Cut your hair, dress you up nice. It helps that you're handsome and white, but you're still a big, strong-looking man. " He shook his head. "It's not you we have to prove innocent, Mr. Zeeman. It's Ms. Schaffer we have to prove guilty. "

  Richard frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "We have to make her look like the whore of Babylon. But first, I'll file a motion that no bail is excessive for a first offense. Hell, you don't even have a traffic ticket. I'll get you bail. "

  "How long will it take?" I asked.

  Belisarius looked at me a little too hard. "Is there a time limit I'm not aware of?"

  Richard and I looked at each other as if on cue. Then he said, "Yes," and I said, "No. "

  "Well, which is it, boys and girls, yes or no? Is there something I need to know here?"

  Richard looked at me, then said, "No, I guess not. "

  Belisarius didn't like it, but he let it go. "Okay, kiddies. I'll take your word for it, but if this piece of information that I don't need to know comes up and bites me on the ass, I will not be amused. "

  "It won't," I said.

  He shook his head. "If it does, I will leave Mr. Zeeman high and dry. You will be finding yourself a new lawyer faster than you can say penitentiary. "

  "I didn't do anything wrong," Richard said. "How can this be happening?"

  "Why would she cry rape on you?" I asked.

  "Somebody did it," Belisarius said. "If not
you, then who?"

  Richard shook his head. "Betty dates a lot. I know of at least three other men, myself. "

  "We'll need their names. "

  "Why?" he asked.

  "Son, if you are going to argue with me every step of the way, this won't work. "

  "I just don't want to drag anyone else into this. "

  "Richard," I said, "you are in trouble here. Let Carl do his job, please. "

  Richard looked at me. "You dropped everything to ride to my rescue, huh?"

  I smiled. "Pretty much. "

  He shook his head. "How'd Jean-Claude feel about that?"

  I looked away, not meeting his eyes. "He wasn't thrilled, but he wants you out of jail. "

  "I'll just bet he does. "

  "Look, kiddies, we don't have a lot of time here. If you two can't curb the personal stuff, maybe Anita here should leave. "

  I nodded. "I agree. You're going to have to tell him details about Ms. Schaffer that I don't want to hear. And you need to be able to talk freely about her. "

  "Are you jealous?" Richard asked.

  I took in a deep breath and let it out. I would have liked to have said no, but he could smell a lie. I'd been doing okay until he'd made that crack about Betty being his girl for the rough stuff. That had bugged me. "I have no right to be jealous of you, Richard. "

  "But you are, aren't you?" he asked. He watched my face while he asked it.

  I had to force myself to meet his eyes while I answered. I wanted to dunk my head, and I couldn't stop the rush of color up my face. "Yeah, I'm jealous. Happy?"

  He nodded. "Yes. "

  "I'm out of here. " I wrote the phone number of the cabin on Belisarius's notebook and pressed the buzzer to be let out.

  "I'm glad you came, Anita," Richard said.

  I kept my back turned to the door, hoping Maiden would hurry. "I wish I could say the same, Richard. "

  The door opened. I escaped.