“You’ve done some scary things since I met you,” he volunteered after a moment. I snorted.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t start rising from the dead until after I met you. Maybe you have that effect on people. There’s no reason for you or anybody, especially Morrison, to be scared of me. He’s hated me for ages, anyway. He’s not afraid of me.” Scowling, I started back down the hallway. “Where are you parked, anyway?”
“Visitor parking. Gotta leave through the main lobby. You don’t gotta get so huffy, Jo. There’s lots of work for scary people. Bodyguarding, for example.”
“Bodyguards look like professional wrestlers.” I eyed Gary. “Don’t you dare say I do.”
Gary held up his hands and wisely didn’t say a thing. I waited, then nodded, satisfied. “Okay. Can I go home now?”
Gary not only brought me back to my car, but followed me home afterward. I couldn’t decide if he was overprotective by nature, or if he was one of those strays that moves in and takes over your life. I made coffee and logged on to the computer. There were three more spams, something from one of the online political organizations I belonged to, and a note from Kevin Sadler saying, It was nice to meet you. Adina would want me to help you learn anything you can. If I can even be a sounding board for you, let me know.
“He likes you,” Gary said cheerfully.
“Please. His wife was just murdered. I don’t think he’s hitting on me. And I don’t need you setting me up with every guy I come across, jeez.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, Gary, I’m sure.” I frowned at him, then at the screen and hit Reply. Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate the offer. Some bizarre stuff happened today. Want to get together for lunch and hear about it? I can probably spare an hour tomorrow.-Joanne.
“What am I?” Gary demanded. “Chopped liver?”
I grunted and sent the message, then fidgeted impatiently for several minutes, hoping for a reply. “It’s eleven at night,” Gary finally said. “He’s probably in bed.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I yawned myself, eyes tearing, which reminded me to go take my contacts out. I came back into the living room wearing my glasses and still yawning. “I hate not being able to see.”
“Least you’ve had time to get used to it,” Gary said. “I hit about fifty-five and all of a sudden my arms were too short to read.”
“Maybe you should stop writing on your arms.” I grinned at his expression. “You did okay with my magazines and the computer screen.”
“Takes a while for a headache to set in,” Gary said. “How long’ve you worn glasses?”
“Since I was nine. You want to know the horrible thing? I felt like it was a big secret, that I couldn’t see, and I figured everybody’d point and stare when I came to school with glasses. Nobody even noticed. I’d spent all that time psyching myself up for the trauma of being teased. The trauma of not being noticed was worse.”
“Kids are self-centered.”
“Humans are self-centered,” I corrected. “Don’t let kids have all the credit.”
“How’d you get to be so cynical so young?”
I snorted. “I’ll introduce you to my dad sometime.”
“That would be interesting,” Gary said so neutrally I thought I should be offended. I frowned at him for a minute while he maintained the careful neutrality. I finally looked away.
“Don’t you have to be at work in five hours?”
Gary looked at his watch. “Six and a half. I’ll be fine.”
I grinned. “What makes you think I’m worried about you? I’m worried about your passengers. You’re terrifying to ride with even when you’re awake.”
“Hey, you’re alive, aren’t you?”
“No thanks to you,” I said happily, and Gary laughed.
“I didn’t get you stabbed,” he pointed out.
“Details, details. Where’s that sword, anyway?”
“At my apartment. Couldn’t keep it in the back of the cab while I was working. You want it?”
I thought about that for a minute. “Yeah, I think so. Can you bring it by tomorrow?”
“Before or after work?”
“Um.” I sucked on my teeth. “Before.”
“Okay.” Gary stood up. “I’ll be by around five-fifteen.”
“Gah. I’ll try to be awake.”
“You’re young. You can survive on a few nights of not much sleep.”
“Easy for you to say. You haven’t been fatally wounded twice in two days.”
Gary’s bushy gray eyebrows shot up. “Twice?”
“Um.” I rubbed my hand over my stomach. “The second time was at the hospital. It didn’t exactly happen on this plane of reality.” I winced as I said it. Gary’s eyebrows remained elevated, but he didn’t say any of the sarcastic things Morrison would have said.
“I got myself knotted into a couple of other people’s lives,” I mumbled. “If I hadn’t been able to fix them, I think I’d have been dead when you came back with the coffee.”
“Richard the Second,” Gary said, in that carefully neutral voice again.
“Yeah.” I scowled defensively. “He put Herne the Hunter to death.”
“Herne the Hunter.”
“Yes.”
“The one we read about on the computer.”
I nodded. Gary spread his big hands and shook his head. “What’s he got to do with anything?”
“It was Herne at the school today,” I said impatiently. “I borrowed Mrs. Potter’s memories and Herne dragged me into his playing field.” I was sure I’d told him about this already. From his expression, my mind was playing tricks on me.
“Borrowed?”
I sat down. “She was telling me about what happened at the school and I wanted to help her get through the bad memories. Something happened. I shared her memories, like we had some kind of hive mind thing going. And then Herne dragged me out of her memories into his own. And I got all caught up in something that happened hundreds of years ago. It was like I was really there.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
Gary was very quiet. I looked up to find him frowning at me. “Why didn’t you tell your captain any of that?”
“I-” I broke off, my forehead wrinkling. “Didn’t I?”
“No,” Gary said. “You didn’t.”
“Oh.” I considered the question for a minute. “Because he’s a sanctimonious asshole?”
“I get it,” Gary said sagely. “You like him, too.”
“For God’s sake. Go home, Gary, you’re getting delusional from lack of sleep.” I remembered thinking Morrison was close enough to kiss, and groaned. “Go home,” I said again. Gary finished his coffee and put the cup in the sink, looking at me with what I was beginning to recognize as his expression of concern. It looked a bit like a polar bear with indigestion.
“You gonna be all right here, Jo?”
“I’ll be fine,” I promised, absurdly touched by his worry. “I’m just going to read for a while and then go to bed. No crazy antics. I promised Morrison.” I made a face.
“No, you didn’t.”
Damn. “I don’t think he noticed that.”
“Don’t count on it. I’ll be by around a quarter after five,” he reminded me. “Lock the door.” I nodded and followed him to the door to lock it behind him, then stood there for a full minute, waiting for another shoe to drop.
