High Stakes Trial

by Mindy Klasky

  But now we were on my turf. James was the one who needed to do the explaining. I almost succeeded in keeping my voice even as I asked, “Richardson ordered you over here?”

  James’s anger was immediate, unmistakable, and glacial. “Richardson doesn’t order me to do anything.”

  But I’d seen his rage before. I didn’t flinch. “So you’re willingly working with him.” When that statement didn’t goad him into a reply, I said, “You acted on your own volition when you drugged Angelique Wilson.”

  “I didn’t dr—”

  “You or that miserable excuse for a vampire hacker. I don’t see a lot of difference.” I didn’t bother squelching the reflex to cup my fingers around my bruised throat. “Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with getting him into the courthouse.”

  James glared. “It’s complicated.”

  “Try me,” I shot back. “Over the last two years, I’ve gotten pretty good at complicated. Start with the phone you left for me at the courthouse. Where did you get a million bucks and a Bitcoin account?”

  “The money was mine. I could use it any way I wanted.”

  “So you chose to do a little breaking and entering?”

  I didn’t realize how shrill my voice had become until he answered with a voice as dry as Sekhmet’s desert. “Nothing was broken.”

  “What the hell are you doing here, James? What do you want from me?”

  “I told you last night. I want to bring you to Richardson.”

  Last night, the thought of going to Maurice Richardson had terrified me. In fact, I was still frightened. I’d felt his cold fangs on my throat before. I knew he could kill me without a flash of guilt.

  But now I knew that Richardson had been buying up lots of Egyptian treasure, searching for Sekhmet’s Seal. And then, he’d stopped. I had to believe he’d found the goddess’s token. And I’d do a hell of a lot to learn exactly what it was. Even if that meant taking a few risks.

  Okay. A lot of risks.

  But I wasn’t inclined to make things easy for James. Not after he’d broken into my house and scared the living daylights out of me. “You told me a lot of things last night. You said you were going to rip my throat out because I executed Judge DuBois.”

  His jaw tightened. Another woman might not have seen it, might not have realized he was swallowing an emotion. But I’d spent almost a year with James, learning how to parse every one of his expressions. In our time together, he and I perfected the art of silence, carrying on entire conversations without exchanging a single word.

  My belly swooped, traitorously reminding me of some of those conversations. I couldn’t keep from glancing down the hall, toward the bed we’d shared as we’d refined our…unique style of communication. Blood rose in my cheeks, a blush hotter than any sphinx—or unknown imperial or whatever the hell I was—should have allowed.

  Of course, James saw.

  He was a predator, and I was flashing every sign of being prey. “I’m not going to rip your throat out,” he said, as if that had anything to do with what I was thinking.

  “Pro tip,” I snapped. “If you want to talk to a woman, don’t break into her apartment in the middle of the night. Try knocking on her door like a civilized person.”

  “Acknowledged,” he said, with all the compassion of a computer.

  “And you might let her wounds heal before you jump her again.”

  “Strictly speaking, no one jumped anyone,” he pointed out, with a wry glance at my abandoned skillet. His amused tone sparked another rebellious swoop beneath my waistline. My mind was doing its best to play the cold, calculating imperial. My body clearly had a completely different agenda.

  “And,” James continued. “It’s not exactly the middle of the night.”

  He was right. It was nearly daybreak.

  But he was wrong about everything else. I didn’t know what he was doing with Richardson. I didn’t understand why he’d enabled the attack at the courthouse. I really couldn’t say why he’d saved us with his burner phone.

  I shouldn’t be standing in my living room talking to him. I certainly shouldn’t be curling my fingers against the trembling in my belly, shouldn’t be thinking about my bed down the hallway, about all the times James and I had…

  I should be at Chris’s house that very minute.

  But Chris had explicitly refused my company for the day.

  And James was shooting his cuff. He was working the pearl buttons on his sleeve with a precision that would be the envy of any sphinx. He was holding my gaze, a gaze I hadn’t realized he’d snagged, as he extended his wrist toward me.

  “Say the word, Sarah, and you can drink.” His lips pulled back, and I realized he was waiting for me to answer before he expressed his fangs.

  One sip of his vampire blood, and my wounds would be healed. The scabs he’d inflicted on me when he attacked the night before. The bruises from Richardson’s man. Hell, one good gulp of vampire blood, and my tired arches would feel like they were ready to slip into dancing shoes.

  “Sarah…” James said, and I heard an entire conversation in my name.

  He was apologizing for wounding me the night before. He was justifying his presence in my home now. He was asking me to trust him, one more time.

  I stared into his blue eyes. If he’d wanted me dead, he could have waited just inside the door. He could have slashed my throat before I’d realized he was anywhere in the vicinity. He could have drained me dry before I had a chance to fight.

  I collapsed onto the couch, pretending my legs were trembling because I was tired after a long day of work. I slipped off my shoes and pulled my knees to my chin, wrapping my arms around the backs of my thighs to press my skirt close, preserving some vague semblance of modesty.

  “I don’t want to drink,” I said.

  He nodded and lowered his arm, finally breaking the stare that had bound us. He paid too much attention to his sleeve as he fastened his buttons.

  I let my head loll back, ignoring the fact that the motion stretched my neck, spreading a veritable buffet before a bloodthirsty monster. Not that James was particularly bloodthirsty. Not that he was a monster.

  Staring at my ceiling, I said, “I’m sorry.” I blinked, and I could see the marble plaza in front of the Jefferson Memorial. I could see Judge DuBois’s withered husk in the moment before James carried away the corpse.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I wish none of it had ever happened—Judge DuBois and Elena and the sphinxes. I wish I’d never trusted them. That I’d never tried to be one of them. I wish we could go back to the way everything was before, when you were the Director of Security and I was the Clerk of Court, and all we had to worry about was whether a handful of mundanes might try to have a motion heard after midnight.”

  “I don’t,” James said.

  I sat up straighter, looking at him over my knees. “You don’t what?”

  “I don’t want to go back that far. I don’t want to give up what we had, you and me. Before DuBois… Before the end.”

  This time, he was the one who looked down the hallway.

  I shook my head. “You left. Even before the judge… You… I… Chris…” That’s what I had to tell him. That was the truth I had to speak. “Chris and I—”

  “I don’t want to hear about you and Gardner.”

  “But we were—We are—”

  “I don’t want to hear about you and Gardner.”

  The second time, I heard more than his words. I heard his tone. I bit off one last try at explaining. I wasn’t sure what I was trying to say, myself. I’d never succeed in putting my thoughts into words.

  I waved my hand, dismissing my half-fledged sentence.

  “Thank you,” James said, as if my cowardice was a gift.

  Coming from any human, those would have been throw-away words. But vampires didn’t say thank you. They didn’t like the implied sense of obligation.

  James was offering a true connection. He was giving me a ch
ance at achieving a deeper bond. I did him the honor of not shoving aside that gift. “You’re welcome,” I said.

  “Come on,” he said, extending his hand. “Let’s go before it’s full daylight.”

  “It’s practically full daylight now. You’re not going anywhere.”

  “My car has tinted windows.”

  “I figured that out already. Tinted windows aren’t enough.”

  “I’m parked right out front.”

  Of course he was. The fire hydrant at the curb had never meant anything to him. He’d perfected a vampire’s lack of respect for rules and obligations, for order.

  “You want me to see Richardson, right?” I tried to pretend the thought didn’t spark panic somewhere deep in my lungs. “But he has to be asleep by now. He’s not going to risk third degree burns, just to meet with me.”

  Frustration twitched across James’s lips, but he didn’t argue. He couldn’t. I was right.

  Besides, the sun was beginning to exercise its relentless pull over James. His throat tightened with a close-mouthed yawn. His pupils were dilating again, the same reaction to daylight I’d seen inside his sanctum.

  “Okay, then. We’ll sleep.” His words started to slur. “And we’ll go tonight. Wake me an hour before sunset.”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Sarah—”

  “No!” I repeated, more sharply than I’d intended.

  I’d lied to Chris, by omission at least. I wasn’t going to lie to James as well. But I wasn’t going to let him make my decisions, either.

  “No,” I said a third time, in a carefully modulated voice. “I promised Allison I’d see her tonight.”

  “Allison!” Even in his sun-drugged state, James’s disdain was transparent.

  “She’s my best friend,” I said defiantly. “And I’ve ignored her for too long. I’m seeing Allison tonight.”

  “After that—”

  “After that, I’m going to work. Trying to clean up the mess you caused. You and Richardson, and that asshat who jumped me in the Old Library. You can take me…wherever you’re going to take me, tomorrow night.” It would be Saturday. At least my job wouldn’t hang in the balance. Only my life.

  James wouldn’t endanger my life. He’d had ample opportunity to kill me, if that was what he wanted. I had to believe that. Otherwise, I had to regret everything, every second of our entire relationship.

  Nevertheless, the thought of seeing Richardson face-to-face made my all-too-sphinx-like blood run cold.

  “Sarah…” James said, but he never finished the sentence.

  This time, I didn’t have to summon the strength to carry him up a flight of stairs. My bedroom was just down the hall. I could easily have maneuvered him that far, could have settled him on the comfortable mattress, slipped a down pillow under his head, spread a warm duvet over his body.

  But that would be one more mistake I’d have to confess to Chris. One more secret I’d have to share. And I had a feeling it would be difficult enough to make him understand all my other choices, the ones that had led me to this juncture.

  For the second night in a row, I brought James a pillow. A pillow and a blanket, despite the fact that his vampire body didn’t have a clear sense of warmth or cold. Once again, I removed his shoes, loosened his belt, and resisted the urge to do more.

  I didn’t have the right to do more. Not any longer. That part of our lives was over. Abandoned. Lost.

  Tonight, I’d see Allison. And after that, I’d go to work. I’d call Chris, and I’d make things right.

  And then, only then, would I master my fear and let James take me to Richardson.

  20

  I didn’t sleep well.

  Maybe that was because my vampire former lover was conked out on my couch. Maybe it was because my sphinx current lover was making it very clear he didn’t want to see me. Maybe it was because I was plotting what to say to the woman who’d been my best friend for years, in a final, last-ditch gamble to regain the camaraderie that had come so easily before I found out I was a sphinx. An unknown, unknowable imperial. Whatever.

  If those weren’t reasons enough to toss and turn, I could always lapse into hopeless musing on my deteriorating relationship with my boss, my mystifying bond to the ancient Egyptian goddess I called mother, and my so-far-fruitless search for the vampire kingpin who was tracking down an ancient treasure that I’d been tasked to find.

  And I could toss in the mystery of my father—and my apparently unique supernatural nature—just for good measure.

  Viewed that way, it was sort of a miracle I slept at all.

  By mid-afternoon, I gave up punching my pillow into submission. After confirming that James was still sun-comatose on the living room couch, I headed into the bathroom for a bracing shower, purposely turning the hot water to icy cold three times in quick succession, all in an effort to clear my foggy brain.

  I took time to dry my hair, using a round brush and an indecent amount of expensive hair care product to make my waves lie flat. I chose a jet-black pencil skirt that always made me feel competent. I took my time with make-up, holding my mouth in a perfect O as I applied a double coat of mascara to my lashes.

  Allison had told me to come over “Friday evening” before I went to work. I didn’t want to get there early and disrupt her telework routine.

  I recognized the twisted voice of my internal lies. I was delaying because I was nervous. Because I was afraid Allison would throw me out of her house before I had a chance to knock down the wall I’d built between us. Because I wasn’t sure we’d still be friends if she sent me away one more time.

  Standing in the living room, I looked down on James’s deadly still body. Lost in whatever passed for vampire dreams, he hadn’t stirred during the day. The blanket was exactly as I’d left it, spread across his chest, draping down to the floor.

  My fingers twitched as I considered straightening its already immaculate corners. I thought about lining up his shoes, which were in perfect order beneath the coffee table. I debated setting out a coffee mug, a cereal bowl, a shiny stainless steel spoon, or at least an array of clean towels.

  James didn’t eat breakfast. I knew that, from all the nights we’d slept together. He didn’t eat breakfast, he didn’t toss and turn in his sleep, and he knew full well where to find the linen closet if he needed a washcloth.

  Enough. It was time to head to Allison’s home. To what might be our last-ever conversation.

  Sucking in a sharp breath against that realization, I grabbed my favorite denim jacket and stepped out the front door, taking care to turn the lock behind me. I fast-walked to James’s Prius, three blocks away. Once settled in the driver’s seat, I resisted the urge to fiddle with the radio, delaying until I could find the perfect station. Finally, irrevocably, I maneuvered into traffic.

  Only as I stood on Allison’s front porch did I realize I should have brought something—flowers or candy or even a greeting card. A box of miniature Cake Walk cupcakes would have been the perfect ice-breaker. We could have put off real conversation for an hour or more, playing Cupcake Tarot, drawing squares of paper and selecting corresponding treats to represent our past, our future, and our present.

  Too late now.

  I knocked.

  Allison opened the door, wearing yoga pants and an over-size sweatshirt that hung to her knees. Her hair was twisted into a messy bun, with an uncapped Bic pen holding it into place. “Sarah,” she said, her voice perfectly level.

  “Hey,” I said. Not Thanks so much for letting me come over. Not I’ve really been looking forward to talking to you. Not Can I tell you I’m sorry a million times over, in a way that finally makes sense so we can be done with all of this, and we can go back to being friends?

  At least she stepped back and let me come inside. I followed her into the family room, a cheerful space scattered with toddler toys. A ream of paper was spread over the couch, but Allison quickly shoved her work into a single messy pile. My fingers
twitched, wanting to tap the pages into order. I didn’t dare follow through on the compulsion.

  Allison gestured toward the recliner where her ex-husband used to sit. She waited until I perched on the edge before she said, “So. You think you were adopted.”

  Okay. She wasn’t offering me coffee or tea or anything resembling a snack. But at least she’d started the conversation.

  I cleared my throat. “I think… Maybe… Yeah.” With a gift for rhetoric like that, it was hard to believe I’d dropped out of law school.

  Allison’s eyes narrowed. “You never mentioned anything before. Did you find something in your mother’s stuff?”

  Allison knew full well my mother had died seven years ago. I wasn’t likely to have discovered new documentary evidence recently. I said, “Not exactly.”

  “Then she said something to you before she died?”

  The question was reasonable enough, but I heard the challenge behind it. I squirmed. “Not really.”

  Allison frowned. “I’m not following you here.”

  There was a reason for that. I wasn’t exactly making sense.

  The truth was, I’d asked to speak to Allison about adoption because I wanted an excuse—any excuse—to talk to the woman who used to be my best friend.

  But I was trying to figure out my feelings about Sekhmet and Sheut, about being different from every other imperial I’d ever met. That was sort of like being adopted, wasn’t it?

  I tried again. “I never knew my father.”

  “That doesn’t mean you were adopted, though,” Allison pointed out quite reasonably. “I’ve seen the photograph on your nightstand.”

  Of course she had, in the days when she used to visit my apartment, before I’d painted over the windows with sage-green paint. Nestled inside a heart-shaped brass frame, there was a photo of my mother holding me, her wrist encircled with the white plastic of a hospital band. I was only a few hours old, swaddled in a pink blanket with a matching fleece hat pushed back just far enough to show the tiny strawberry birthmark at my hairline.

  When I didn’t answer quickly enough, Allison said, “You knew your mother. You loved your mother. And she loved you too.”