I got wheeled out of the ER about four hours after I went in. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for a week. Damon still hadn’t shown up. That surprised me. Worried me more. Had something happened?
“He’s fine,” Jen said. “The police made him hang around. They want to talk to you too. They came by the hospital.”
“Where are they?”
“They took our statements, but we made a fuss about how much you’d been through, and they said tomorrow would be all right for you to talk to them.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“What now?” Stacey asked. “Where do you want to go? You’re welcome to stay at any of our houses.”
I didn’t even consider it. I wanted to go back to the hotel. I didn’t examine that desire too much. I wasn’t sure why I’d rather be in Damon’s bed than with my best friends.
“Could we get a milkshake on the way?” I asked plaintively as we loaded back into the car.
“Rockin’ Rogers?” Lorraine asked.
“Where else?”
We also went to a drive-through pharmacy to fill my prescription. I explained everything Garrett had told me. They were all gratifyingly outraged for me and proud of my escape and the way I’d stopped Garrett.
“You’re pretty badass,” Jen said. “For an antique dealer.”
I slid into one of Damon’s super-soft shirts and crawled into bed after downing one of the painkillers. Ajax curled up against my stomach and propped his head on my hip. The girls closed the bedroom door and settled in the living room to wait for Damon’s return. I didn’t argue about their staying. I wasn’t going to win.
I woke up later, my body throbbing and my bladder demanding that I get moving. I pushed myself up, and the nightstand light went on. Damon sat in a chair beside the bed.
“This scene is awfully familiar,” I said, wincing at the ache in my face.
He looked haggard. “Too familiar. I wouldn’t complain if you didn’t get hurt again for another decade or two.”
My stomach warmed. He planned to be around that long. Or longer.
“Me either. What happened to Garrett? Is Mason okay?”
“The police took Sandrini. I notified the Law Council. They’ve dispatched a team.”
“What does that mean?”
“He can’t stay in prison. At least, not in one that isn’t prepared to deal with holding a sorcerer. They’ll take custody of him and decide his fate.”
“His fate?”
“He may be put to death. He may be imprisoned. Given the power of your families, I’d guess the former.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Sure, he’d killed the Wicked Bitch, but that was more of a public service than not. But then, if I hadn’t stopped him, he’d have killed Stacey, Lorraine, Jen, Damon, and Mason, as well as my parents, plus turned me into a baby factory. Oh, hell.
“Did my parents show up?”
Damon nodded. “They both want to see you.”
“Yippee.” I probably could have sounded less enthusiastic, but I was in pain. “When is this supposed to happen?”
His mouth quirked. “That’s up to you.”
“Somehow I doubt it.”
“I’m not going to let them anywhere near you if you don’t want to see them.”
“Can you stop them? Aren’t they super magicians or something?”
His smile was steely. “It’s possible that I am far stronger than anybody knows. It’s also possible that I am highly motivated to protect you.” His expression turned dark and self-disgusted. “I let that bastard get close to you. I should have stayed and gone into the diner with you.”
“If you’d gone in with me, he’d have dusted you too.”
He rubbed his hands over his face and then dragged his fingers through his hair. “When I think of what he wanted to do—what he nearly managed to do—I’d never have forgiven myself if he’d taken you.” He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees, his eyes intent. “I want you to know that I would have come to find you, no matter how well hidden or guarded you were. I wouldn’t have given up until you were free.”
“I know.”
He kept looking at me as if he didn’t believe my answer and then nodded. “Good.”
“Now I need to use the bathroom,” I said.
I maneuvered myself up onto my feet and went to do my business. As I washed, I got a good look at my face in the mirror. I could have been Quasimodo’s dream date. My left eye was eggplant purple and swollen. My nose was also swollen, and I had a ping pong ball on my chin where apparently I’d bounced after hitting the floor with my face.
No fixing any of that with makeup.
I came back out. Damon still sat in the chair. He stood as I returned.
“Can I get you anything?”
“Water. I need to take another pain killer.”
He nodded and left, returning a moment later with a bottle. He twisted off the cap and handed it to me.
“Is this from the sanctuary pool?” I asked, hoping it was. I’d healed so much faster the last time with it.
He shook his head. “I’ll go get some tomorrow. Unless you want to go with me and take a swim?”
“No. I’m not— No.”
“I get it. No problem.”
He didn’t really get it, but then, I wasn’t sure I did either. I looked at the bed and back at him. “Aren’t you going to get some sleep?”
“I didn’t want to disturb you. I wanted to heal you,” he said and a guilty look suffused his expression.
“Not a good plan. Not with the police wanting to talk to me. They’d want to know if I’d been hit with a miracle.”
“I thought so too.”
“Your hand could still use fixing up.”
He shook his head, looking at it. “The detectives noticed the damage. I’ve got to leave it for now.”
“As for disturbing me, I think I can handle sharing the bed with you. And Ajax.”
I made a face. Or tried. It’s surprisingly difficult to do that when your face is a giant puffer fish. The big wolf-dog thumped his tail at the mention of his name and made a little woofing sound at me. I stepped over and scratched his ears.
“He probably needs to go out,” I said.
“The girls walked him before they left,” Damon said. “He’ll be fine for a few more hours.”
“Okay, so why don’t you put on your pajamas and come to bed?”
Something was bothering him. I noticed the nightstand had a bottle of scotch on it with an empty glass beside it. It appeared Damon had drunk a healthy quarter of a bottle. His face looked haunted. He had a hyper-responsibility complex. He’d probably decided this whole mess was his fault.
“Why don’t you just tell me what the problem is?” I suggested. “Then I can tell you you’re an idiot and to get over yourself, and then we can go to bed. If it wouldn’t hurt like hell, I’d suggest a little light nookie.”
That earned me a slight smile that vanished like a flash of light across water. “Nookie?”
“Kissing, hugging, maybe a little petting.”
“I didn’t find any other properties that your aunt owned,” he said, veering abruptly off the subject. Both subjects. It worked.
“None at all?”
“We could check in the surrounding counties. She might have purchased something there.” He didn’t sound all that hopeful.
“Maybe Mason found some records,” I said. “A rental or something.” I didn’t sound hopeful either. “I still believe Aunty Mommy would want and need them to be close by and would want total control of wherever she stashed them.”
“But where? You already said there’s no place on the estate.”
“I said I couldn’t think of any. I could be wrong. We should at least search. Maybe she used magic to hide a shed or something.”
“Worth a try but not for at least a few days. Right now, you should get back into bed. You look like you’re about to drop.”
I’d s
tarted to sway as the Vicodin kicked in, but I wasn’t ready to head to oblivion again. Not yet. “Something’s bugging you. Are you going to tell me?”
“No.”
“You’re just going to drink in the dark.”
“Seems like.”
I was beginning to get seriously annoyed with his stonewalling. “Fine. Whatever. Enjoy.”
I crawled into bed, making a point of leaving plenty of room for him, though I pointedly called Ajax up to lie next to me. I turned on my side with my back to Damon and closed my eyes. Most of me was hurting pretty bad, and it took a good fifteen minutes or more for the painkillers to overwhelm the pain and sink me into unconsciousness.
I was still feeling pretty irritated when I got up the next morning. Damon had taken Ajax for a walk. I sat up slowly, taking shallow breaths as my ribs seemed to move around in my chest. Ow.
I glanced at the nightstand. The bottle was still there. It didn’t look substantially more empty than in the night. Maybe it was a second one. Had Damon gotten any sleep at all?
The first order of business was a shower and then to get dressed, all more easily said than done. The spray of the shower hit like nails. I adjusted it and found something almost like a fog setting. It wasn’t all that great for washing hair, but it didn’t feel like someone beating me with a sack of oranges either.
I looked worse than at the hospital. The purple around my eye had darkened, and my ping-pong ball chin had turned purplish. The eye bruise had crawled over the bridge of my enormous nose and curved under my other eye. My lips swelled huge and pouty. I probably should have liked that look. All the Hollywood starlets were getting marshmallow lips left and right. I thought I looked ridiculous.
Getting dressed involved sliding on underwear and pulling a maxi dress over my head. I couldn’t have managed to put on a bra if I tried, and even if I had, the pressure around my ribs probably would have made me curl up on the floor and whimper.
The dress covered the bruises on my knees and more on my hips. It did nothing to help with my arms. But then, with the whole rotten-prune face going on, who was going to notice?
I didn’t have my phone. I wondered if anybody had found it in Garrett’s car. It was probably evidence and I wouldn’t get it back ’til hell froze over.
I combed my hair out but didn’t dry it then went out to the bedroom. Ajax lay on the bed, facing the bathroom door. He sat up as I came out, wagging his tail as if he hadn’t seen me in weeks.
I petted him, bending to rub my undamaged cheek against the soft fur of his head. He licked every bit of exposed skin he could. I straightened and headed into the other half of the suite. Damon sat at the table talking to Ballard and Jeffers. They stood as I entered. Jeffers actually winced in sympathy.
“That looks painful,” he said.
“Only when I’m awake. I take it it’s question time?”
“We’d like to get your account of what happened to you yesterday,” Ballard said. I sank into a chair.
Damon went to the phone and dialed. I could hear him ordering coffee and breakfast. Three empty takeout cups from a nearby coffee shop littered the table. My mouth watered as I eyed them.
“Tell us what happened. Start from when Hornsby accosted you,” Jeffers said.
I explained that I’d been going to an employee meeting and that he’d lured me to his car with a promise of a check. I told them he’d blown some sort of powder in my face and that I pretty much could do nothing but listen to his crazy chatter.
“He told me he killed Aunty Mommy,” I said. “He was going to take me off somewhere and rape me.” There was no explaining the contract baby stuff, so I didn’t try. I did make an effort to give some idea of his motivations. Cops liked that sort of thing.
“I guess he thought killing Aunty Mommy would free me to be with him, which was true. I’ve never dated. The Wicked Bitch liked to persecute my friends. I couldn’t imagine what she might do to a boyfriend. Anyhow, he decided he had to take my uncle out too and then hung around in the hopes that my parents would show up so he could kill them.”
“What made him think they would?” Ballard asked.
“And why did he want to kill them?” Jeffers added.
“I guess Mason had told them about the Wicked Bitch and where to find me.” I was totally making shit up now. I hoped Mason’s story would fit well enough. “I have no idea why he wanted to kill them. Maybe he thought they wouldn’t approve of his plan for me. Or maybe he’s just fucking nuts.”
Both detectives were writing notes. I told them how Damon and the girls arrived and that Garrett had seen me kissing Damon before he took me. I told them he flipped out and took a gun to kill them when they came in. The immobilizing drug had worn off enough for me to go after him. I’d struck him on the back of the head with a heavy vase, and then he’d slammed me to the floor and kicked me a couple of times. But by then, Damon had a hold of him, and that was pretty much the end of my tale.
I breathed a small sigh of relief when they seemed to buy my story.
“What did the doctor say?” Ballard asked, eyeing my face with sympathy.
“He said I should stop hurting myself. I broke my nose but not the rest of my face, and I may or may not have broken ribs.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, I could go with never running into a psychotic asshole again.” ’Course, I’d been raised by one, and it was quite possible that the magical word bred them like mice.
“Sounds like you’ve had more than your share,” Jeffers said.
I raised my brows. Or rather, I tried to, but with my face so swollen, they didn’t move much. “Why, Detective, you almost sound like you don’t think I killed anybody anymore.”
He grinned. “Never did.”
“Right,” I scoffed. “You were ready to lock me up and throw away the key.”
He shook his head. “Naw. But you weren’t telling us everything. I had to take off the gloves.” He winked. “Bad cop, you know.”
“And here I thought you were just a giant prick.”
His grin widened. “I may be that too.”
“May?” Ballard asked. “I’d say she’s got you pegged.”
Somebody knocked on the door, and Damon, who’d been leaning against the kitchen counter through all this, went to answer. Two waiters rolled in three carts of food. Damon signed off on the ticket and they left.
“Guess we’d better get out of your way,” Ballard said, rising.
“Stay,” Damon said. “You’ve been up all night. I ordered plenty.”
The detectives exchanged a look and then shrugged.
“Not protocol,” Jeffers said. “But if I don’t eat soon, I might pass out.”
“No you won’t. You’ve got enough gut to keep you going for years.”
Ballard patted his stomach. I chuckled when he slapped at her hand.
“Mind your own business.”
“You are my business, partner.”
Damon uncovered the offerings, and we took plates from the stack the hotel had provided. There were eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, toast, biscuits and gravy, hash browns, fruit, and four different syrups. And two carafes of coffee with a tall pitcher of cream.
I piled my plate and filled my cup, settling in to stuff my face. Eating proved to be a lot more painful than I expected, so I ate slowly. Jeffers and Ballard continued to ask questions.
“That reminds me,” I said. “Garrett said he was the one responsible for vandalizing my shop and loft. He’d come looking for me and when I wasn’t there, he got pissed.”
“Really,” Jeffers said. “I’m going to have some questions for him. Like how he did such damage. Or did he say?”
Oops. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that.
“Afraid not, but if he tells you, I’d sure like to know,” I lied.
“He lawyered up in the hospital,” Ballard said. “Bastard’s not answering any questions. Doesn’t matter. We’ve got solid evidence on kidnapping, false imprison
ment, assault, and attempted murder. With any luck, we’ll find evidence he murdered your aunt. We’ll have time to make the case, though. He’ll be in jail awhile for all the rest.”
I wondered how the magical legal beagles would take possession of him. Inwardly I shrugged. Not my problem, so long as he was locked up far away from me.
Ballard and Jeffers stayed another half hour and then left after telling me that my phone and purse were in evidence but they’d probably be able to get them released to me by the afternoon. That left me and Damon alone. He’d hardly spoken two words since breakfast began. I was getting a little annoyed at the silent treatment, but I wasn’t in the mood to force him to talk to me.
Instead I decided that I really wanted to go for a walk. Actually, I wanted to go shopping for shoes and go running, but my body wasn’t up for that. Again. Plus, I didn’t have any money or ID. I headed for the door, calling for Ajax.
Damon cut me off as I reached for the door. “Where are you going?”
“Out. You want to get out of my way?”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Thanks, but Ajax and I’d rather go alone.”
That haunted look came back. He was strung tight as a banjo string. “The danger isn’t over,” he said roughly, looking away.
“Yes, it is. Garrett’s all locked up.”
Damon scraped his teeth over his lower lip and wiped his hand over his jaw. I’d never seen him nervous before.
“What’s going on?” I asked, trying not to let worms of worry start crawling through my veins.
“You’re still a target,” he said finally, reluctance dragging out the words.
“What do you mean?”
“Anybody who wants to kill your mother and father need only come after you. Two birds with one stone, and you’re the stone.”
As soon as he started talking, a headache began throbbing behind my eyes. I’d already figured out this little revelation. Didn’t mean I was going to go into hiding.
Putting the Fun in Funeral Page 31
