Sucker Punch

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “I know all that,” I said, and sounded pissy even to me. There was no reason to be angry with Micah.

  “Olaf has been in some kind of military service, a bounty hunter, and now a U.S. Marshal. He’s done things besides be a criminal. It gives him more life skills than just beating people up or killing them.”

  “I’m not sure Olaf was ever in the real military. He may have only been a mercenary or a contractor of some kind, but I take your point.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “But Haven didn’t have hobbies that scare the fuck out of me.”

  “Are you calling being a serial killer a hobby?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “It’s not his hobby, Anita. It’s more his sexual preference.”

  “Gee, Micah, that makes it way less creepy.” He laughed at my tone, but I didn’t laugh with him. “I really don’t think this is funny.”

  “Anita, honey, what has he done this time that’s different? You seem shaken in a way that’s not like you.”

  “Haven almost killed Nathaniel before I had to kill him, and he wasn’t nearly as dangerous as Olaf.”

  “Do you really think he’d try to hurt me?”

  “I don’t want to find out, and I don’t want to have to worry about your safety while I’m trying to keep myself safe while working on a murder investigation.”

  “Has Olaf threatened me?”

  “No, none of you. In fact he’s behaving himself pretty well for him.”

  “And yet you don’t want me there with him.”

  “No, I really don’t. I can’t explain it, and maybe I’m being paranoid, but I love you, and I want us to spend the rest of our lives together. If it’s a choice between Bobby Marchand or you, I’ve already made my choice.”

  “I have good people on the Coalition. Thanks to Nathaniel wanting us home more, I found out that I have some great people that had just been waiting for me to delegate more responsibility to them.”

  “Then delegate this one . . . please.”

  “I’ll miss seeing you, but all right, since you said please.”

  There was an edge of a smile in his voice, and I managed to put some of the same tone in my voice as I said, “I’ll miss you, too, and thanks for listening to me.”

  “Listening to each other is part of being a couple,” he said.

  I laughed then. “If only more people understood that.”

  “It only matters that we understand it.”

  “True,” I said.

  I was smiling, and then suddenly I wasn’t. Something was wrong. I couldn’t have said what, but the hairs on the back of my neck were up. The woods had gone quiet as if everything was hiding. I spoke so low that if Micah had been vanilla human, he wouldn’t have heard. “Gotta go, love.” I pressed the button to disconnect without waiting for a response.

  I stood there in the silent woods, fighting not to tense up, but to force myself to relax against the tree, into the bushes beside it. Tension catches the attention of a predator, and I knew that was what I was sensing. It wasn’t vampire or beast powers; it was the same sense I’d had years ago in the woods with my dad when there’d been a cougar. They weren’t supposed to be in the Midwest, but every once in a while one of them would wander through. You can’t hide from wild animals; they have better senses than you do. So make noise and let them know they can’t sneak up on you. Most ambush predators give up when they realize their element of surprise is lost.

  “I know you’re there, Olaf,” I called out.

  “You did not hear me,” he said from the cover of the woods so close to me that I jumped. I couldn’t help it.

  “You didn’t see me.” He sounded puzzled as he stood and stretched that tall frame upward.

  I wanted to ask him if he’d combat-crawled that close to me but didn’t want to admit I hadn’t realized he was within twenty feet of me. My pulse was in my throat like it would choke me. I couldn’t hide it from him, not this close. He’d smell my panic. So I let my fear turn to anger, because I’d always rather be pissed than scared.

  “What do you want, Ol . . . Otto?”

  “You,” he said.

  And suddenly I wasn’t angry or scared. I was just tired of the games. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

  He frowned at me. “You were frightened, then angry, and now you smell . . . neutral. How?”

  “Even I don’t understand what I’m feeling all the time, so I can’t explain it to you.”

  “That makes no sense,” he said.

  “Emotions don’t make sense most of the time.”

  “It must be terrible to be at the mercy of so much illogic.”

  “Sometimes,” I said.

  “I know I am supposed to want a full range of emotions like everyone else seems to have, but I don’t.”

  “Do you ever wonder what you’re missing?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  I nodded. “Most people do, yes.”

  “Do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Ever wonder what it would be like to be less emotional, to be a sociopath?”

  “Sometimes. I used to think I already was one until I met enough of you, but it does seem more internally peaceful than what the rest of us are doing.”

  “Much more peaceful,” he said, staring at me with the full weight of his attention. “How did you know I was here if you neither heard nor saw me?”

  “Maybe I smelled you.”

  “I’m upwind, not down-.”

  “I sensed you.”

  “You didn’t see, hear, or smell me, and I’m too far away for touch or taste. There is nothing left.”

  “You’re biform now, Otto. You should know better than to just count five senses.”

  He stared at me, and I stared back.

  “You have been afraid of me in rooms full of people, and now we are in the woods alone and you are not afraid. There is no logic to that either.”

  “Witnesses protect us both, Olaf.”

  He frowned at me, and then he smiled. It looked like a real smile, as if he was genuinely happy. “You’re threatening me.”

  “Just explaining.”

  “Do you believe you could draw, aim, and shoot before I closed the distance between us?”

  “I don’t know, but if you run at me, we’ll find out.”

  I stood there and let the breath out of my body until I felt quiet inside. It was like white static inside me, empty and peaceful. It was how my head always used to go when I killed. Lately I hadn’t seemed to need it, but as I looked at Olaf in the quiet trees, I didn’t try to hide what was happening inside my head. I figured if anyone would understand, it would be him.

  “You continue to surprise me, Adler.”

  “Good,” I said, voice low and controlled.

  My hand was hanging loose and ready next to the full-frame .45, and then I realized no, my AR-15 was on a tactical sling. All I had to do was move my body for it to spill into my hand. I could aim and start firing with it at my side. It wouldn’t have been as accurate that way, but I was sure I’d at least wound him before I got the rifle snugged to my shoulder. Once it was there, I was sure I could finish him. The plan helped quiet even the static, so I felt calm inside my head, no fear, no anything. I wondered if that was how it was for Olaf most of the time. It seemed like a peaceful way to go through life, empty maybe, but peaceful. Maybe you couldn’t have peace and give a damn.

  He stood very still, hands spread wide to show he had nothing in them. “It is not time to answer this question between us, Anita.”

  I liked that he used my real name. I hated that fucking nickname, and I hated that I didn’t feel free to tell him so even more. And just like that, the anger was back, and I knew if he rushed me now, I would be a little l
ess quick, a little less focused, which meant it was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

  My voice was almost neutral as I said, “Then let’s head back to the sheriff’s station.”

  “After you,” he said.

  I smiled. “Let’s go together but not too close until we have witnesses again.”

  “Agreed,” he said.

  We started walking through the trees back toward the road, the police station, and the witnesses who would keep us both from doing something the other one would regret. I wasn’t a sociopath like Olaf, or even one like Edward, but I had my moments, because part of me thought about shooting Olaf where no one could see us. If I lied and said he’d attacked me, I could probably sell it. The fact that I even thought that said just how much I wanted to be free of my Moriarty. Fucking nicknames.

  30

  DEPUTY RICO BROUGHT Bobby’s clothes and took over guard duty, so Duke felt he could go home for food and a little rest. Everyone seemed convinced that Rico could hold the fort, even Newman, though he said quietly to me, “Whatever I think of him as a person, he can handle guarding Bobby for a couple of hours.”

  “I thought you didn’t like him back at the house,” I said.

  “He’s one of Haley’s ex-boyfriends.”

  “Oh,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “He cheated on her. He cheats on all of them, but he never seems to run out of women to date.”

  “Fresh meat,” I said.

  Olaf spoke from too far away to have heard our conversation. I’d forgotten about his new supersecret hearing. “I will bet that it is not just women who do not know his reputation.”

  Newman looked startled but didn’t ask how Olaf had heard us. He knew that Otto Jeffries had popped positive for lycanthropy after the case in Washington State. “You’re right, but I don’t understand it. I mean, he’s good-looking, but not that good.”

  “No one is that good-looking,” I said.

  Olaf stalked toward us on those long legs that just seemed to eat up distance. “Most women will believe a handsome man when he lies.”

  “Most men do the same thing for beautiful women, and the same thing goes for the gay community on both sides of the aisle,” I said.

  Olaf nodded as he towered over both of us. “I will concede that beauty distracts everyone.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and meant it. When we’d first met, he’d have been pissed if I’d tried to bring men down to the same level that he thought women deserved.

  “You’re both right. I saw it enough when I was a regular cop. Women believe that they will be the one that a bad man will reform for, that he’ll never beat me like he did his ex-wife or cheat on me like he did on the last girlfriend. The women believe that it’s the other woman’s fault and not the man’s. He just needs the right woman in his life, and that will be them,” Newman said. “No matter how many times he has cheated on others, he will not cheat on them, because their love is true.”

  “Just like some men want to be a white knight for every damsel in distress they meet, because they believe they’ll be the one that can save them from their terrible lives. They will be strong enough to succeed where all the other boyfriends failed,” I said.

  Olaf nodded. “The women take advantage of the men’s good intentions.”

  “And men like Rico use the women they date,” I said.

  Kaitlin came up behind us and said, “Amen to that.”

  We turned to her. “I didn’t know you were one of his exes,” Newman said.

  “It’s all right. He’s charmed most of the dating-age females in the county by now.” She grinned and shook her head, managing to look both embarrassed and genuinely amused.

  “I’ve always believed that if someone was too good at charming me, he’d had a lot of practice, and when he got tired of me, he’d be just as charming to the next one,” I said.

  “Well, you’re right about that.” Kaitlin frowned. “I’ve seen your Jean-Claude being interviewed on TV. He looks pretty darn charming.”

  It was my turn to grin. “It was one of the reasons I refused to date him at first. He’d had six hundred years of practice at being a ladies’ man. He was so smooth that I instantly distrusted his motives.”

  “You were right to distrust him,” Olaf said.

  I frowned up at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You should distrust everyone.”

  “Including you?” I asked.

  He nodded, face solemn. “Everyone, Anita. Distrust them all.”

  “Well, that’s a grim way of going through life,” Kaitlin said.

  Olaf gazed down at her. “It is the truth.”

  She shivered as she looked up at him, as if at some level she’d seen something to make her afraid. Good. Even though she wasn’t his type, I didn’t really want any women too close to Olaf. His idea of fun was just too frightening.

  “I think there are people you can trust,” Kaitlin said, but she looked away from him as she spoke.

  “And that is why you dated Deputy Rico when you knew better,” he said.

  “I guess so, but no regrets. It was totally worth it.”

  “Why?” Newman asked.

  Kaitlin grinned. “The sex was great.”

  That made me laugh out loud. Newman frowned, looking angry, and Olaf just looked neutral. Ordinary sex really didn’t move him much.

  “Great but not great enough,” I said, still laughing.

  “The sex was like the dating,” Kaitlin said. “He had a few great moves that swept you off your feet, but once you’d seen all the tricks, he didn’t have anything to back it up.”

  “A lot of serial daters are like that,” I said.

  “Serial daters—what are those?” Newman asked.

  “It’s like serial monogamy, except you don’t marry them.”

  “I’ve never heard of serial monogamy either,” he said.

  I think it surprised us all when Olaf answered, “The ones who marry and divorce repeatedly.”

  “Yeah,” I said, surprised he knew the term or cared enough to define it out loud.

  “And shit like that is why I’ve never been married,” Kaitlin said. Her phone pinged, and she checked the text. “Livingston texted that he’s got us a table.”

  “I’m surprised he’s the one saving the table,” Newman said.

  “You mean instead of sending me,” she said, smiling.

  “I didn’t mean just you, Kaitlin. There are plenty of other state cops in town. Captain Livingston has a lot of lesser rank to send on errands right now.”

  “Livingston and the owner are good friends. If he’d sent anyone else in to get a table for this many people during their breakfast rush, we’d be lucky to get seated by lunch.”

  “I take it this is Sugar Creek,” I said.

  “Best breakfast in three counties,” Kaitlin said.

  “I wonder if the waitress that’s dating the handyman at the Marchand place is working today,” I said.

  “You thinking of doing a little police work over breakfast?” Newman asked.

  “I was thinking about it,” I said.

  Kaitlin took a deep breath of the air for effect and said, “I smell clues.”

  “I didn’t think about Hazel Phillips being there this morning. I was just thinking about bacon,” Newman said.

  “And that is why you called Anita to help you,” Olaf said.

  “Would you have thought to question the waitress?” Newman asked.

  “That’s not fair. He doesn’t know about her dating the man of all jobs at the Marchand home,” I said.

  “That is true, but it doesn’t matter,” Olaf said. “I would not have questioned her anyway.”

  “Why not? You just implied that you think it’s a good idea,” Newman said.


  “I would have already completed the warrant of execution.”

  “So no reason to question anyone,” I said.

  Olaf nodded.

  Newman looked at me. “Told you.”

  “Told her what?” Kaitlin asked.

  “If Newman had passed on the warrant, it turns out that Otto here was the next closest marshal.”

  “Oh,” Kaitlin said, and looked up at the big man, then back at Newman, and then finally at me. She smiled and put her arm through mine as if we were friends. “Well, then, you would be missing the best pancakes I’ve ever had.”

  “Pancakes, huh?” I said, letting her keep my arm, because women get weird about it when they try to be all huggy-feely and you don’t want to be.

  “Please tell me you’re not one of those people that doesn’t eat carbs,” Kaitlin said, damn near hugging me.

  “I eat carbs.”

  “Great. Pancakes for everyone!”

  “I do not like pancakes,” Olaf said from behind us as Kaitlin moved us to the door.

  She called back, “Then you can have waffles.”

  “I do not like them either,” he said, but he was following us out the door.

  “What do you like for breakfast?” she asked.

  I resisted saying, “The blood of his enemies,” because it wasn’t true. That was Edward’s style and mine. Olaf was much more a blood-of-the-innocents kind of guy.

  31

  SUGAR CREEK RESTAURANT and Bakery was so crowded that the sound of the customers made white noise like crowds at a sporting event or a concert. The waitress at the podium in front said, “We’re at a two-hour wait and longer for large groups. Sorry.”

  Kaitlin said, “Our party is already here at a table.”

  “Name?” the waitress said as if she didn’t believe Kaitlin.

  “Livingston.”

  “Oh, sure. Just follow Mandy. She’ll take you back.”

  Mandy—who was either a second hostess or our waitress; only time would tell—took the menus the first woman handed her, and we followed her back through the tables and booths. The place was a lot deeper than the narrow front had hinted at, so we got to go through several rooms until we finally found Livingston sitting with his back to a wall in the center of a horseshoe-shaped booth. There was a dark-skinned woman in a black suit jacket sitting with him. His arm was across her shoulders, and their faces were so close together that her thick black hair had swung forward to hide her face completely and some of his. Her hand, with its perfectly red nails, caressed the side of his face. What I could see of his face was smiling.