Sucker Punch

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  I don’t know what I would have answered, because a rental SUV pulled up, and it was Edward.

  38

  I WAS RUNNING toward him before I’d thought it through. I had time to see that he was wearing blue jeans and well-worn cowboy boots but was missing the cowboy hat that usually covered his short blond hair. The whole outfit including the brown leather bomber jacket was so not Edward, but perfectly Ted Forrester. I wrapped my arms around his waist, because I knew Edward was in there somewhere. He hugged me back, but I felt that moment of hesitation in his body, because in all the years we’d known each other, I had never greeted him like that. The hesitation made me start to pull back, but he held me tighter, and whispered into my hair, “What happened? What did he do?”

  We both knew who he was. I pulled back enough to see his face. His blue eyes were already starting to fade from bright to winter sky blue. That was the color his eyes were when he killed. I didn’t want him to do anything unfortunate just because my nerves had gotten jangled. If we ever pulled the pin on the grenade that was Olaf, I wanted it to be for something real.

  “Nothing. He’s actually behaved himself well.”

  Edward moved us so that no one in the sheriff’s office could see his face, and then he stopped pretending. The face was still the same face, but the expression on it was cold and matched the winter sky eyes. “Tell me the truth, Anita.”

  “I swear to you that Olaf has behaved himself. We’ve actually had two good conversations where he was reasonable and compromised.”

  His eyes narrowed. You didn’t have to know him well to read the expression. He didn’t believe me.

  “My word of honor, Edward—Ted—that he has done pretty good, far better than I expected.”

  He settled his arms more comfortably around me and raised an eyebrow at me. I started to try to back out of the hug, but he held his arms in place. “You can get out of the hug when you explain to me why we’re hugging in the first place. Are you lying about what he did so I won’t go in there and shoot him?”

  I frowned at Edward, my arms still around his waist. If he was holding on, then it was the most comfortable way to stand. “Well, if I actually thought you were stupid enough to kill him like that in front of witnesses, I might, but no, I’m not lying.”

  He gave me cynical eyes and raised the eyebrow again. “So why run into my arms for the first time ever?”

  That was a good question. I tried to think of a good answer. You always seem to have more good questions than answers in life. I stared off into the distance rather than meet his eyes while I tried to put it into words. “I think maybe because he is being so reasonable.”

  “You realize that makes no sense, right?” he asked.

  I nodded and looked back at Edward’s face. “When we started letting him think I was or would be his serial killer girlfriend, I thought it was just a delay tactic until we had to kill him because he stepped over the line.”

  “It was,” Edward said.

  “But he’s really being reasonable, Edward. I mean, like therapy reasonable, couple reasonable. I didn’t think he was even capable of that, even to pretend.”

  “He’s as good an actor as I am, Anita. Don’t be fooled.”

  “You mean the way you fooled Donna?” I asked.

  “Donna knows as much as she’s comfortable knowing about who I am.”

  Since I’d been in their wedding and spent quite a bit of time around them and the kids, I could only agree. “Fair enough, and I’m sorry if I put you in the same category as Olaf, but he seems to really be trying.”

  “Trying how?”

  I told Edward about the hand on the knee at breakfast and me reading Olaf the riot act. “And just now he asked permission before he touched my face.”

  I actually didn’t want to admit that Olaf had asked for a kiss and I’d said yes. I was embarrassed or scared or something. The moment I realized just how conflicted I was about the last few minutes with Olaf, I knew why I’d run to Edward like some damsel in distress.

  “You look calmer,” he said.

  “I think we can stop hugging now,” I said.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because I figured it out.”

  He let me back out of the hug and then asked, “What did you figure out?”

  “I’m not upset because Olaf behaved badly. I’m fucking freaked out because he’s behaving so well.”

  “You said that already, and it still makes no sense.”

  “Yeah, it does, if you’re inside my head.”

  Edward actually smiled at that. “Well, I’m not, so say it out loud.”

  “I’m trying to explain it.” I stared up at him, frowning. “You once told me that Olaf agreed to try vanilla sex with me, which was the first time you knew of him being willing to try that with anyone.”

  “I remember.”

  “I can’t remember if you encouraged me to just let him think I’d have sex with him or to have sex with him.”

  “Both at different times, I think,” he said.

  “Okay. Where are you on the question right now?”

  “No real sex. Just play along.”

  “Good, but I can’t keep pretending, Edward. Olaf is actually doing what I ask him to do so we can get to a point of going out on a date.”

  “No, Anita.”

  “I don’t mean sex but dating, like doing something together to get to know each other better.”

  “He won’t understand what that means, Anita.”

  “I agree, but if he’s working this hard to try to meet me halfway, then it seems shitty that I won’t go through with it.”

  “Run that by me again slowly,” Edward said, studying my face.

  “If I won’t actually date him, then it’s shitty to let him keep believing that I will.”

  “I told you, if he ever thinks you aren’t his serial killer pinup, he will put you in the victim box. He’ll probably kill me first, quick and efficiently, because he knows what I would do to him if he didn’t. But then you would die, Anita, but it wouldn’t be quick. It will be long and lingering and more terrible than you can imagine.”

  “I know you’ve seen what he does to women.”

  Edward grabbed my arm, and there was anger in his eyes, but there was also fear. Edward was afraid of almost nothing. “I have, and I never want to see it again. The thought of him doing that to you makes me want to go inside and kill him, witnesses or no witnesses.”

  I swallowed, because my mouth was suddenly dry. “Which is why the fact that he just asked, as polite as I’ve ever had anyone ask before, if he could kiss me scares the shit out of me.”

  “You ran out without giving him an answer? He won’t like that, Anita.”

  “I gave him an answer,” I said.

  “He’ll hate you saying no.”

  “I didn’t say no.”

  “What did you just say?”

  “I didn’t say no.”

  Edward stared at me.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Edward. I feel bad enough.”

  He blinked, and I watched him fight to process it all. “So, you agreed to kiss him?”

  I nodded.

  “Anita, he’s going to expect you to make good on that.”

  “I already did.”

  “What?” He looked shocked. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him look quite that much at a loss.

  “I said yes, and he kissed me.”

  Edward just stared at me for a few heartbeats, and then he finally asked, “What am I supposed to do with that, Anita? Do I ask how it was?”

  “Gentle.”

  “What?”

  “It was gentle. The kiss, the touch to my face—they were both gentle.”

  “He’s not gentle. Don’t let him fool you the way I’ve seen him fool other vi
ctims. You of all people know what he is.”

  I nodded a little too fast. “That’s just it, Edward. I do know. So how the fuck do I tell if he’s just pretending and setting me up for the kill, or if he’s as sincere as he’s capable of?”

  “He is not capable of having a normal relationship, Anita.”

  I nodded again. “I think you’re right.”

  That seemed to settle Edward down a little. It was rare to see his calm broken so badly. Once I’d lived for moments when I could make him drop his cool, but not now, not about Olaf.

  “Good. Then we’re still on the same page.”

  “Yes, but I’m not good at pretending things I don’t feel. I will not be able to keep up this act for much longer, Edward. We’re getting too close to me having to put up or shut up with Olaf, and I don’t know what to do.”

  He took in a lot of air and let it out slow, as if he was thinking about our options because it wasn’t just my life on the line. Yes, metaphysically the people tied to me might die if I died, but that wasn’t all. Edward was right about Olaf probably starting with killing him. Olaf thought we were lovers, so if he was going to kidnap, rape, torture, and kill Edward’s girlfriend and live through it, then he had to start by killing Edward. It was just logical, and underneath the pathology, Olaf was cold, dispassionate, and logical, just like Edward and me. Practical, we were utterly practical about survival most of the time. Of course, it wasn’t logical for Edward to have tried to pretend to be my lover so Olaf would back off. It hadn’t been logical of me to play along, or to keep talking to Olaf as if any change on his part would make him datable for me. It wasn’t practical or logical that Olaf had been willing to compromise and grow as a person to get to a point where I’d been willing to agree to a kiss.

  “I thought he’d cross the line with you before it got this far, Anita. It never occurred to me that he’d try this hard.”

  “Me either, but he is, so what the fuck do we do now?”

  Edward shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Newman’s voice rang out far louder than it should have for what he said. “Yes, Duke, Marshal Ted Forrester just arrived. Blake is filling him in on the case.” Newman was telling us that the sheriff was about to get us in his sights. We weren’t doing anything we didn’t want him to see, but Newman didn’t know that. Bless his heart, he was a good wingman.

  I whispered fast, “What do I do when we go inside?”

  “Did you kiss him in front of everyone?”

  “No, of course not. Told him no romance in front of other cops.”

  “Then act like nothing happened and stay in sight of other people until we figure something out.”

  I might have said more about the mess of it, but I could hear the sheriff’s feet crunching across the gravel of the parking area. He was almost here; we’d have to talk about the personal mess later. We had to put our cop faces on and catch the bad guys.

  39

  WE MOVED OUT from the SUV so that we were walking toward Leduc as he came rolling toward us.

  “Newman and I have been on the ground since the start of this case, Marshal Forrester. We can fill you in on things that Blake wasn’t here for.” Leduc managed to sound belligerent and helpful, as if he was ready to cooperate or fight. The choice was ours or, rather, Edward’s.

  Edward went into full Ted mode, with a big grin, a hearty handshake, and an accent that was so down-home Texas, or what people thought cowboys from Texas would sound like, that it seemed over the top to me. “Well, that’s mighty kind of you, Sheriff. Just let me get my hat.”

  He reached in and pulled out a cream-colored cowboy hat that matched the rest of the outfit. I refused to call it a white hat—it was off-white at best—but it was well-loved and well-worn, the brim shaped just so by his hands. Molded to his head by years of use, the hat fit him perfectly. The first time I’d see him wear it as Ted Forrester, I’d thought it had been going too far. He kept it even when everything else he wore was black. When he’d been just Edward, he hadn’t even liked hats, and if he had, it would have been a black one. Edward was not a white hat, but strangely Ted was, as if the hat was to him what the glasses were for Clark Kent and Superman.

  Ted patted the sheriff on the shoulder and got him talking and walking toward the office. Leduc opened up to him, answering questions about the area, though nothing about the crime. Ted was putting him at ease before we got down to crime busting.

  Newman fell into step beside me. “I didn’t know that Forrester had that kind of charm in him.”

  “Ted’s full of surprises,” I said.

  Newman just nodded.

  Ted and the sheriff went through the door, and Olaf came out of it. There was a small traffic jam as Edward and he shook hands, but then Olaf pushed past and came out on the small porch. He was suddenly between us and the office area. He was also between me and Edward, and I didn’t like that one bit.

  I stopped moving forward. Newman stopped when I did, glancing from me to the big guy. He ducked his head and spoke low to me. “Do you want me to stay out here with you or go inside?”

  I patted his arm. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want you to be part of my beard.”

  “Beard?” He seemed to think about it and then said, “Oh, that kind of beard.”

  He walked with me to the porch, but when I stopped on the steps, he tipped his hat to Olaf and kept going into the office. Edward hadn’t come back out to check on us yet, and I was suddenly torn about if I was happy about that, but if we’d reached a point where I couldn’t stand beside Olaf in public view, we were past the point of no return. We weren’t there yet.

  I did stay on the steps leading up to the porch for a moment, which made the height difference between Olaf and me even more ridiculous. I realized that part of what made me not want to step up was that I’d said yes to a kiss once. I didn’t want him to ask again, because I didn’t want to give the same answer, and I wasn’t sure no was wise. It was like a weird game of sexual harassment, except that one of us would lose a hell of a lot more than just a job if we lost.

  I finally made myself get on the porch, keeping the opening between the posts between us by leaning a shoulder against one of them, all casual-like. It also put my right hand closer to my main handgun at my side. It was probably overkill, but if it wasn’t, seconds counted. I wasn’t sure why the one gentle kiss had upped my anxiety this much, but I’d learned that I didn’t have to understand my feelings. I just had to acknowledge them. My pulse was steady and slow, but I was more anxious around Olaf than I had been before the kiss.

  He’d put his sunglasses on, so I couldn’t see his expression. His face showed nothing. “Adler.”

  “Moriarty,” I said, using the ridiculous nickname, and even that concession made me angry.

  “I had begun to wonder if you and Ted had lied to me about being lovers. Attracted, yes, but in Florida at the wedding, I began to see how much he cared for Donna. It made me question whether he would betray her even with you.”

  I wished my sunglasses weren’t inside the building, because I could feel my expression sliding away from blank. I decided I’d go for anger, always a good refuge for me. It was better than fear. “I don’t understand what he sees in Donna either, but he loves her to pieces.” I realized that, because I was talking to a serial killer, that might have been an unfortunate phrase, and just thinking that made me laugh. I think it was a stress reaction, but Olaf had never liked being laughed at.

  His anger flared to life. “Do you think that is funny?”

  “No, I mean . . .”

  His anger burned hotter, and I felt the first stirring of his beast tickling along my skin. It made me tell the truth, because I couldn’t think of a good lie. “It was my comment about him loving her to pieces. I just had a moment of thinking that was maybe an ironic phrase to use with you.”

  I fough
t not to rub at my arms where the goose bumps ran with his power, and the first stirring started deep inside me as my lioness woke to his energy. She was just a glimpse of golden fur in the dark sanctuary down inside me, where nothing should have been but me.

  “Do you think that is how I like my women, in pieces?” Olaf said, and his voice was a few octaves lower. I wasn’t sure if it was his beast getting stronger or if something had excited him. I was kind of hoping for his beast in that moment, though logically I should have wanted it the other way.

  I sort of shrugged. “I know you like to cut the bodies up, so maybe it’s not technically pieces.”

  “There is no fear when you say that.”

  My lioness flashed her amber eyes at me as she seemed to gaze up that long dark well that was my visual for where the beasts lived. She put one big paw on the ground that just suddenly appeared as part of my visualization. One of the ways you stayed sane with an inner menagerie was to have a visual that your human mind could understand, so my beasts always walked up a path toward me. It helped me keep them as their own separate beings and not deal with the fact that they were inside me like my tonsils or appendix, except that the beasts couldn’t be removed, and the tonsils couldn’t cut their way out of my body.

  “I’ve watched your face while we cut up bodies together, Otto. I know that it excites you.” That thought quieted my anger and my nerves so that the lioness hunkered down on the path, but didn’t vanish back into the dark. She was waiting. We both were. We just weren’t sure for what.

  “Doing it together with you excites me, Adler.”

  “Come on, Moriarty, doing it on your own flips your switch, too.”

  He nodded. “I enjoy my kills very much.” His voice was even deeper as he said the last two words.

  “We’d better get inside before Ted runs out of charming things to say to Duke,” I said, trying for casual even though my pulse had sped up. I pushed away from the post to move toward the door.

  “I believe that you and Ted are more than friends now.”

  “Good,” I said, and reached for the door without taking my eyes from him.