I smiled, switching the phone to my other ear. “Aww, kitten. She won’t mock it. She’ll love it because it’s something thoughtful from you to her.”
Rohan growled in frustration. “Fine. I’ll write her a song.” His voice was warmer when he said, “You’re good. I will be exploiting you further.”
I had a flash of Rohan bending me over the nearest surface and exploiting me until stars exploded overhead. I shivered. “I’m sure that sounds more intriguing than it will be.”
“Perhaps it will be precisely that intriguing.”
His cocky tone made my nipples harden. I screamed silently into my pillow. “What is that on the international intrigue scale?” I said.
“Hmmm. Halfway between mysterious and illicit.”
“That sounds positively naked.”
“That’s your smutty mind,” he said in a prim voice. “I was only talking about help with gift options.” He yawned. “I should go.”
“Okay.” I snuggled deeper under my blankets, my eyes falling shut. “Hang up.”
“Ladies first.”
“So I could keep you on the line all night if I refused?” I teased.
His “you could,” made me catch my breath.
“We can talk about Prague,” I said. “If you want.”
“I want.” His words were only in relation to this mission and not us.
A pang speared my chest.
I want, too.
The line went dead. Uh, okay.
Two minutes later there was a soft knock at my door. “Nava?”
I sprang out of bed like it was on fire, placing my palm against the wood as if I could feel Rohan on the other side, but I didn’t open the door. “What?”
“You said we could talk.”
My eyes darted to my bed. The one that Rohan had never been in and wasn’t going to sit on now. After Cole and I self-destructed, I’d had a shit time sleeping because I had all these memories of him on my bed: goofy, sexy, and just hanging out being a best friend. It had taken me forever to uncouple him from that place.
It was all too easy for me to picture Rohan sitting there, taking up space and acting like he belonged there, like he belonged in my life.
“Acting” being the key word. “Now?” I gripped the knob, holding it fast, not that he was trying to open the door.
“Yes, now,” he said.
“It’s really late.” I yawned loudly, the doorknob still in a death grip.
“Oh. Yeah. I guess it is. Tomorrow?”
I rested my forehead against the door. “Sure. Buy me lunch at Lotus.” Lotus was one of the most expensive and insanely delicious sushi restaurants in the city. I’d only been once but dreamed of going back many times.
“Isn’t that kind of public?” he said.
Exactly my intent. Years of tap performances had taught me how to keep a brave face in front of an audience. The attacks on me and Gelman in Prague were too bound up with all the other baggage that had gone down between Rohan and me. Given some of the things I expected to hear, I wouldn’t be able to keep it together if we were alone.
Or say “no” if he wanted us to try being an “us.” Unless, of course, that position was already filled by Lily.
“It’s private enough,” I said.
“Lotus it is.”
“Good-night, Rohan.”
“Good-morning, Nava.”
Right. Technically it was Sunday. The day that the two of us would have our talk. The day that could definitively settle things between us one way or another.
I cracked the door to watch his back disappear down the stairs, wrapping my arms around myself to hide my trembling hands, even though there was no one there to see them.
9
Ari and I headed out for Mara’s place at the ungodly hour of 7AM. There was a chill in the air and I bundled into my coat, shivering and sipping my steaming café latte until both the car and I warmed up. Whoever had bought this over-roasted crap needed to pony up for a better quality of bean because sour java and cow juice was stomach turning. Desperate times.
Ari hadn’t come up with any kind of brilliant strategy beyond arming us with bug catching nets and a zapper fly swatter, but to be fair, neither had I. My chat with Rohan had kind of fried my brain. All that was forgotten, however when we pulled up to her aluminum-siding bungalow in a modest neighborhood and found an ambulance parked outside.
Ari and I exchanged glances. “Did she kill someone at her house?” I said.
“Do we have a folder or envelope or something?” he asked.
We found a glossy UBC course catalogue of Ari’s that had slid under the front seat. Ari grabbed it and strode over to a small knot of bystanders.
I followed him.
“Did something happen to Mara?” he asked a blonde woman rolling a stroller back and forth.
“Are you a friend of hers?”
“We work together at the clinic.” He held up the catalogue, his thumb covering the mailing label with his name on it. “She left this at work and called me last night asking me to swing by before my shift.”
Her face crumpled. “I’m so sorry. Mara passed away.”
“What?” His shock wasn’t faked. Neither was mine.
“Heart attack.”
“Holy sh–” I swallowed the curse in the face of the mom’s disapproving stare.
“Are you a coworker, too?” She popped the soother back into her fussing baby’s mouth.
I nodded. If Mara wasn’t the demon, then who was? And why was the clinic the common factor between Davide and Mara when none of the other victims had ever frequented it?
“Is any of her family here?” Ari asked.
“No. But that’s her roommate.” The woman pointed out a shell-shocked man of Asian heritage in his late-twenties, standing on the concrete front steps with a paramedic. “Daniel.”
“Thank you.” Ari and I walked toward Mara’s front sidewalk.
“How do you want to play this?” I asked. “The roommate might have met Mara’s colleagues before.”
“Tell him you’re here to pick up the gift for Dr. Alphonse that Mara was arranging. See if you can get into her room. Search for anything out of place.”
“What are you going to do?”
Ari glanced at the paramedic, now walking back to his ambulance. “Have a little chat.”
“Good luck.” I headed up the walk, catching the roommate before he shut the door. “Daniel?”
He looked at me with red-rimmed eyes. A couple of inches taller than me, his fitted black T-shirt reading Policing with Pride showed off his hella tight biceps. “Yes?”
“I’m Alison. I’ve been doing a practicum at the clinic.”
He screwed up his face. “Was work notified already?”
“No. I came to pick up Dr. Alphonse’s gift. For the surprise party?” I wrung my hands together. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“I got back from my swim, and…” He brushed a hand over his hair plastered in wet strands to his scalp. “I don’t know about any gift.”
“That’s okay.”
Daniel nodded distractedly, swaying on his feet. He gripped the front door frame. “They gave me a shot.”
I touched his hand. “Do you want to sit down? Have some water or something?”
“Tea.” He smiled faintly. “Mara drank gallons of the stuff.” He shuffled into the house, lowering himself into a chair as I filled the electric kettle.
A clanking noise vibrated up from the basement. “Water tank,” Daniel said, seeing my puzzled look. “It’s old.”
I gestured at his T-shirt. “Are you a cop?”
He nodded. “Serve and protect.” His pride was evident even through his grief.
“This is such a shock,” I said. “She was so young. Was there any history of heart trouble in her family?”
“Diabetes but not heart problems.” Daniel toyed with the spoon in the bright yellow ceramic honey pot that matched the walls. “The paramedic said it co
uld have been an undiagnosed condition or just brought on by stress.” He directed me to the appropriate homey wooden cupboards.
I pulled out a mug covered in painted sunflowers, its cheeriness a slap in the face to how awful I felt. I filled it with boiling water, then let it steep, keeping an eye on him. Pretending to have known Mara, known her personal history and be exploiting it during this tragedy to further the investigation, was one of the ickiest things I’d done as Rasha.
“Was there anything going on at work? Mara didn’t say anything but you know how cheerful she was. Never complained.” Daniel was starting to slur his words.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” I said.
Daniel slumped further down in his chair. “How could Mara be here one moment and gone the next?”
I dumped the soggy tea bag in the sink. “When did you last see her?”
“This morning. She was asleep. I mean, I thought she was, except the paramedic estimates that’s when the heart attack happened.” He buried his head in his hands. “What if I could have saved her?”
“There was probably nothing you could have done.”
He shook his head almost violently. I wished I could tell him the truth, though learning about demons would hardly be a comfort.
I placed the mug down in front of him. “Here. Drink your tea.”
He shot me a grateful look. I squirmed, wishing he’d denounce me as a liar instead of acting all indebted when I’d entered his house under false pretenses and was about to go snooping in his dead roommate’s stuff. Fighting the good fight could be such shit. “Can I use your bathroom?”
He gave a slow wave behind him. “First left.”
I tiptoed down the hallway, peering into doors until I found Mara’s room since I doubted Daniel was the one with the fanatical love of Daenerys cosplay. Not that I’d judge, but his shoulders were too broad for the costumes hanging on the wall rack. Each outfit was neatly stored in its own plastic garment bag, with long blonde wigs arranged on Styrofoam manikin heads. There was no handy demon evidence, unfortunately, though her swirly green bedspread was really cute.
When I returned the kitchen, Daniel was slack-jawed and asleep, his head on the table next to the mug.
Ari was checking his breathing. “Find anything?” He shot Daniel one last sidelong glance as we left.
I elbowed my brother. “Quit macking on the mourner. How inappropriate.”
“I was making sure he was okay.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
“Well?” He edged me out of the way to claim the driver’s side.
“Other than a deep Mother of Dragons obsession? No. You?” I walked around the front bumper to the passenger side.
Ari filled me in as he drove. “Mara had a symbol drawn on her in felt pen.” He retrieved his phone from the cup holder and tossed it to me. “Took a photo.” The symbol looked like a distorted small “w” with a dot underneath the left side. “It’s the Arabic word for love,” he said.
“We didn’t see anything like this on the other vics.”
“Not like we have full nudes of them. This was drawn on the back of Mara’s neck, hidden by her hair. We need to see other bodies.”
“Is that possible?”
“Maybe. I need to make some calls.”
I poked his arm. “And then fill me in immediately.”
“Yeah, yeah.” That sounded so believable.
Well, at least this morning’s shock hadn’t left time for me to obsess over my impending lunch. After going home and armoring up in a form-fitting raspberry knit dress and my favorite sparkly purple nail polish, I drove over to Lotus. I arrived at noon on the dot, the soothing noise of the water feature inside the front door making me breathe easier. The interior was elegant, minimalist, and smelled like fresh linens.
Servers flitted about, attentive without hovering.
A lithe waiter in all white showed me to a table. My lunch date wasn’t here yet so I took the seat that would allow me full view of Rohan’s arrival. I was idly perusing the menu, the thousand volts thrumming through my veins undercut by a sharp curl of dread, when the other patrons shifted in a rippled wave.
If Rohan was aware of the electric jolt his presence charged the room with, he gave no sign of it. His stride past the well-heeled crowd, their hungry eyes feasting on his progress, was leisurely and self-assured.
My greedy little heart chanted “mine” almost loud enough to drown out the stutter of my brain’s grand mal seizure at the sight of him.
Rohan wasn’t dressed flashy. In fact, in a slim, black suit tailored to his frame and silver cufflinks winking discreetly at his wrists, it was his very understatedness that packed a punch. There was a certain beauty about a man clad in a sharp suit during daylight hours, dressed to impress.
I curled my fingers into my palm, scared I’d reach for his ear-length dark curls that were raked back in wavy locks. And then almost drew blood when I looked at the face I’d saved to savor last.
He’d shaved his scruff into a mustache-goatee combo. It made him look so wicked that when he smiled that pirate smile, I almost came in my seat. Hot disappointment rushed in, filling my chest. This wasn’t about gaining my approval. My adversary had chosen his initial weapons with calculated brilliance.
I would not underestimate him again.
He strolled toward me, hands in pockets. “See something you like?” Nodding his thanks to the waiter, he eased into his seat across from me with fluid grace.
I tilted my head, studying him. “I’ve never noticed before, but in this light, you’re not bad looking.”
He grinned, picking up a menu. “I get that a lot. Order whatever you want. They’ve got my card on file, and you’re easy when you’re well-fed.”
Sadly, around Rohan, I was easy most of the time. Had been easy. I snapped my menu into submission.
We decided to share a number of dishes, from tuna tataki to salmon sashimi and an assortment of nigiri. The waiter took our menus, promising to return with our drinks.
“How’s your training going?”
“Okay. Not as good obviously without Tree Trunk.” Baruch Ya’ari was the Brotherhood’s weapons and fight specialist. He was the first Rasha I’d met when they sent him to take charge of me and train me in fight moves to keep me alive until the Brotherhood decided whether or not they wanted a sister. An official decision had yet to be handed down but Baruch had been recalled to HQ in Jerusalem while I was on assignment in Prague. Huh. Maybe that was the decision, though it was a toss-up whether they trusted me enough to stay alive on my own, or they didn’t care if I died.
Regardless, I missed him with a fierce ache.
Polite small talk continued through our tataki appetizer. It was excruciating. I poured some soya sauce into the dish, which was adorned with tiny ink brush outlines of fish swimming under a crackly glaze, and cast around for my opening gambit. Something blasé to ease into the topic of the gogota.
“You kissed Lily.” I jabbed wasabi into the soya sauce. “Twice.”
Damn it!
Rohan nodded. “I did.” He didn’t bother rationalizing that for at least one of those kisses Dr. Lily Prasad, that sweet, beautiful physicist, had kissed him.
“I get it.” To be clear, I meant that in the literal logistics way involving facial muscle movement and not with any emotional understanding known to mankind. “Lily was your first love. The original lightning girl.”
“And yet you claimed I’d written the song for you.”
The waiter set down our first platter of nigiri sushi.
I cooed appreciatively. Each of the pieces presented on individual flourishes of daikon were such sumptuous works of art that it was almost sacrilege to eat them. I silently thanked the sushi for their sacrifice to the greater cause. “Please. I said that for the mission.”
“Are you sure?”
“Obviously. Since I’m the one who said it.” Fresh and light, the fish melted in my mouth. This sushi was gonna rui
n me for all other sushi. I eyed my companion and snorted.
“When Logan body-switched us, and Lily came to see me about getting back together, you could have wrecked things.” He mixed a smear of wasabi into his soya sauce, his chopsticks clattering faintly against the ceramic as the bright green blob dissolved into the dark liquid. “Lils had no clue she was speaking to you. But you didn’t. How come?”
“It wasn’t for me to wreck. Besides, I like Lily.” Enough that I’d saved her from a demon’s clutches. Though I’d sort of put her there so that might not tally in my “go Nava” column.
Rohan nodded. “You were kind to her. I appreciated that.”
“Is that what our kiss was? A thank you? Because gratitude doesn’t usually involve tongue.” I pried my fingers off my blue lacquered chopsticks, folding my hands in my lap and away from the pointy projectiles.
A muscle jumped in his jaw but he didn’t say anything.
Amazing how provoking him brought my appetite roaring back. “Regardless, there was no reason for Lily to get hurt.” I dipped a piece of mango-wrapped salmon in the soya sauce, eyes seemingly on my meal, but watching Rohan through my lashes. “We’re off topic.”
“Have you heard from Gelman?” Rohan asked as the waiter placed a small carafe of warm sake and two tiny jade green ceramic cups in front of us.
“No.”
“Is that why you and Ari have been targeting specific demons this past month?” he asked in his Southern-Cali drawl, all velvet curls and smooth baritone. His gold eyes, on the other hand, had the predatory gleam of a jungle cat.
“Yeah. I was hoping they’d lead me to some local witches who would in turn get me to Gelman.” There was no point lying to him. He’d been with me when the gogota attacked me and when I found Gelman’s trashed hotel room with no sign of her.
“Did they?”
“No. I’m not pursuing that avenue anymore.” I sipped some sake, wrinkling my nose at the taste.
Rohan leaned in. “Why not?”
The memory of Ari’s utter conviction that the witches had to be the bad guys flashed in my head. I opened my mouth, shaping my lie, when Rohan added, “Don’t even think it.” In a rumble that sent shivers up my spine and had Cuntessa willing my knees to spread-eagle.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Need (Nava Katz Book 3) Page 10
