I said, “Looks good, but I’m on a diet.”
“What kind of diet?”
“Liquid diet.”
“Suit yourself, but this is damn good.”
“I’ll remember it for next time. The six-dollar burger that isn’t six dollars.”
He shook his head, reached for some fries. “So, these vents in the bathrooms...you think a woman could fit in them?”
I nodded. “I know I could, but not comfortably, and I wouldn’t want to stay in there long—or at all. But yeah.”
“And, is it safe to assume there was no woman in it now, dead or otherwise?”
“It’s safe to assume it.”
“Any indication that someone had, you know, been in it?”
“Nothing that I could visually confirm. Her fingerprints might be there, though.”
“Yours, too, I assume.”
I didn’t, of course, leave fingerprints behind anymore. To do so implied I had oils on my skin, oils that transferred from my skin to say, metal. No such oils existed in me. No, I hadn’t seen any signs of prints, but that was often hard to tell with the naked eye. Even a supernatural naked eye.
I said, “I was careful not to leave any prints behind. My guess, though, is that she would have cleaned it thoroughly.”
“Why?”
“To leave no sign. To give the illusion that she truly disappeared.”
“Not to mention, she was in a bathroom. She might have had plenty of time to clean up behind her.”
“There’s that,” I said.
“So, what do you want me to do?” he asked.
“You know what to do,” I said.
He shook his head. He didn’t like it. The idea seemed preposterous to him, but he finally acquiesced. “Fine. I’ll send a team over, ASAP. Hell, we’ve got nothing else to go on.” He paused, set down his burger. “Was there any sign of force?”
“No sign of force. No blood that I could see. No scrape marks, no hair, nothing left behind.”
“So, you’re saying she went in there willingly?”
“That would be my guess,” I said.
“This is getting crazier and crazier.”
“I do crazy well.”
“Well, I don’t. I like things neat. I like things explainable. I like things to make sense. This makes no sense.”
“Not now,” I said. “But it might. Someday.”
He sighed and picked up his burger.
I tried not to drool.
Chapter Twenty-one
Kingsley and I were having dinner.
While he ate and I slurped idly at the blood that pooled around my very rare steak, I found myself eyeballing the cute waiter. I wondered what I would say to lure him into the bathroom, since that had worked so well back at the Starbucks. That I still hadn’t felt guilty about attacking him should have concerned me, but it didn’t.
“You’ve got that look in your eye, Samantha Moon,” said Kingsley. He had just bitten into a healthy bite of steak, and so, I had the pleasure of seeing the half-masticated meat in his mouth. He might be a power attorney during the day, but he was all animal at night. At least, around me. Good thing he couldn’t read my thoughts. Most immortals couldn’t.
“I imagine I do.”
“You don’t even hide it now? Tsk-tsk. How far you have fallen.”
“Hide who I am?”
He set his fork down and momentarily paused in his chewing. Then he reached for a frosted glass of beer and drained it. Yeah, the man was an animal. Had we been dining in his spacious home, he would have wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Instead, he used a napkin, and didn’t seem happy about it.
“Well, the Samantha I know and love was a fighter. She didn’t give into the cravings.”
“Well, that Samantha was weak.”
“I beg to differ. She was the strongest I’d ever seen. Which is why I loved her...and love her still to this day.”
The demon within me recoiled at his words. “You’re making me sick.” Had I said those words, or had she?
“The Samantha that I know and love is a mom, a friend, a damn fine investigator, and, most of all, unshakeable in her belief in the inherent good within herself. Within most of us.”
The big oaf was pissing me off now. Royally pissing me off. Who the fuck was he to judge me?
“The Samantha I know would have listened to criticism with an open mind. She wouldn’t be fighting herself, even now, from leaping over the table and strangling me in public.”
“I hate you,” I said.
“No, you don’t, Sam. The creature within you hates me. Hates love. Hates all that is good in your life.”
“You’re not good in my life. You’re not good for me at all. You’re a fucking cheater.”
I had raised my voice. People were staring at us. Kingsley didn’t care. He reached across the table and took my hand. Or tried to. Instead, faster than I had any right to move, faster than even he was prepared for, I flipped my fork around, caught it in mid-air, and drove it down through the back of his hand, impaling him and it to the wooden table.
“Go fuck yourself, asshole,” I said, and got up and left.
Behind me, someone screamed.
* * *
We were in his oversized SUV.
I’d been crying for the past twenty minutes while Kingsley wrapped his meaty arms around me and rubbed my shoulders.
Had he been able to read my mind, he would have known what was going on, why I had lashed out, and why I had impaled his hand to the table. Then he could have explained it all to me, because I still didn’t know what the hell had happened.
When the waterworks were finally done, and I was reduced to a sniffling mess, I heard a curious sound.
It was chuckling.
Kingsley was laughing to himself, even as he continued rubbing my shoulder—yes, with the very hand that I had stabbed, no less.
“What’s so funny?” I asked looking up. We were in the Mulberry Street parking lot, which was part of a bigger chain of parking lots for lots of other local businesses. Many of the cars parked near the restaurant had left quickly over the past twenty minutes.
I suspected I knew why.
“You should have seen the looks on their faces,” said Kingsley, and now he was chuckling louder. “One woman—” and now, Kingsley quit rubbing my shoulders, and retracted his hand. He needed his hands because he was now holding his belly. “One woman fainted right there in the restaurant.” Now, Kingsley was wheezing, fighting for breath.