folders labeled Important, Really Important and Russell Will Kill You If You Don’t Finish This. The last was stuffed to bursting, and Margrit shuffled through more papers from the table, sliding them into the appropriate folders.
“Hello, how are you, it’s nice to see you, too, and what’d you tell him, anyway, Cam?”
“Just that the mayor came looking for you personally to head you off on the Delaney case. You know-” Cam looked over her shoulder with a grin “-the truth, and that sort of thing.”
“We lawyers try to stay away from that,” Margrit said, mock severely. “Anyway, you’re the one who told me I was bullish in my acquisition and destruction of targets, Cole. If you want me off it, you should probably be telling me to go for it gung ho. Do not,” she added, “suggest that path to my parents. It’d probably fool me if they tried pulling it.”
“Eliseo Daisani and Mayor Leighton and who knows who else…” her friend murmured. “Are you sure you’re not in over your head, Grit?”
“Not at all. Fortunately, it’s my head. Besides.” Margrit leaned on the table, making it wobble threateningly. Cam put a hand out for balance, looking alarmed. “Besides,” Margrit repeated, “for one, it’s just starting to get interesting. For two, there’s no way to see if I’m in over my head without going for it, right? And for three, if I win this case I am going to be like unto God.”
“Or dead.” Cole turned to face her worriedly, while the oil gave a sudden pop. “Margrit, I’m wondering if you being hit by that car wasn’t an accident.”
“Dear Lord,” she exclaimed. Her pulse accelerated and she grinned faintly, oddly relieved to be talking with a mere human and not to Janx. Then she almost laughed at herself. A mere human. How quickly she’d become accustomed to the impossible. “Now I’ve got hit men after me? Cole, are you sure you’re not turning into my mother?”
“God, I hope not,” Cam said fervently. Margrit laughed and Cole cracked a grin that faded quickly.
“I’m just worried, Grit. Eliseo Daisani is big guns.”
“Ah, but I’m faster than a speeding bullet.” Margrit looked at her abused feet. “Well, usually, anyway. And chicken’s almost the only thing you actually fry. Usually you bake stuff. If I peel potatoes will you make homemade french fries?”
“I’m not getting across my sense of urgency to her, am I,” Cole said to Cam.
She laughed. “Try again after dinner. You know how she is about food.”
Margrit glanced out the kitchen window. “Better hurry, if you’re trying again after dinner. I’ve got a date.”
“With Tony?” Cam and Cole chorused the question, both turning to gawk at her.
Margrit blinked. “Yeah. Because things are going really smoothly with us right now, what with him picking me up for murder and all.” She pressed her lips together, then muttered, “Shit. The Superbowl’s tomorrow.”
Cole and Cameron exchanged guilty looks. Margrit snorted. “You guys should go. I just don’t know that I’ll be joining you, under the circumstances.”
“The circumstances might be exactly why it would be good to go,” Cam suggested.
Margrit shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe if I talk to Tony. I don’t know if I bend that far. Besides, I’ve got a lot of work to do, especially with missing Friday because of the concussion.” She lifted a hand to press her palm over her goose egg, wincing mildly. “So don’t worry about it.”
“Mmm. Who’s the date with, then?” Cole turned back to his oil, rolling flour-breaded chicken into it.
“Oh, you know.” Margrit sighed. “The usual. Alban Korund with the knife in the bookstore.”
CHAPTER 17
CAMERON, LAUGHING, DUG out the Deluxe Edition Clue game, and between fried chicken and home fries they determined it was really Miss Scarlett in the library with the rope. Margrit slipped away to her date-coffee with a coworker, she’d finally ended up claiming, since neither of her apartmentmates would believe the truth-a couple of hours after sunset.
Huo’s On First was startlingly busy, with a book signing and reading going on in its crowded foyer. The bells on the door rang as Margrit pushed her way in, apologizing in murmurs to both the author and the people there to see her. Chelsea waved from atop a bookshelf-apparently it was her natural habitat-and nodded toward the back room. Margrit edged her way through the stacks and brushed the beaded curtain aside as quietly as she could.
In the prosaic yellow light of reading lamps, Alban seemed larger than she remembered him. He sat in an armchair meant for someone smaller, his shoulders overflowing it as he leaned to one side, head braced against his fingertips. He looked, Margrit thought, exhausted and terribly human. Suddenly at a loss, she hung back in the doorway, watching him. It was long moments before he lifted his head, and she saw his eyes dilate with surprise before she smiled crookedly. “Hey.”
“You came.” Relief filled the gargoyle’s rumbling voice. “I thought-”
“I might not have, if I hadn’t found a cabbie who knew what Huo’s On First was. I was thinking, What’s on second? But I’m here. I’m here, and I’ve got an awful lot of questions, Alban.”
“Yes.” He closed his eyes again, sinking into the chair. “I’m sure you do. This-might not be the best place for us to stay, though.”
“Somebody might’ve followed me?” Margrit teased. Alban lifted his gaze again, no humor meeting her question. She swallowed, remembering her own cynical thought that Tony might’ve let her go just for that purpose. “Yeah. Okay.”
“There’s rooftop access from here. If…” Alban hesitated, lifting his pale eyes to her. “If you trust me.”
Margrit let go a breath of laughter, averting her gaze. “I’m here, aren’t I? Maybe it’s good I didn’t get a chance to say so last night. Running off with you would’ve convinced Tony I was guilty, and now he just thinks I’m a victim.” She winced as she glanced back at Alban. “A potential victim.” She winced again. “That’s not coming out right.”
“But you,” he said. “You don’t think so?”
Margrit held her breath and the gargoyle’s gaze before letting both go with an explosive sigh. “I think you’re not the one killing women in the park, anyway. It’s not your style.”
“My-” Alban broke off, staring at her with dismay. “Do I want to know why you think I have a style?”
“Probably not, but if we’re going to get through this, you’re going to have to hear it. For what it’s worth, Alban, I’m on your side.”
He came to his feet slowly, with the massive grace Margrit was beginning to recognize in him. “It’s worth a great deal,” he murmured. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Who’s Biali?” Soften him up, Margrit thought, and then hit him when he’s not prepared.
Alban gave a start, like a cat being jolted out of sleep. “Biali is-where did you hear that name? He’s an old…acquaintance.”
“To be forgot?” Margrit asked, her tone deliberately light, though it did little to mask the sharpness. “I got the name from Janx.”
What color there was leeched from Alban’s skin, leaving him paler than new ivory. “Janx?” He barely whispered the name.
“I’ve been busy since you saw me.” Margrit pursed her lips, judgmental and not hiding it as she studied Alban’s pallor and the surprise in his eyes. Now or never, Grit. She pulled her gaze away once more and looked around the room, taking the calm beat of her heart as the Richter scale to judge her fear by. “So where’s this rooftop access?”
“This way.” Alban offered a hand and Margrit slid hers into it, momentarily struck by the size and strength of the fingers enveloping hers. Aside from dancing together, it was the first time he’d really touched her, and that… hardly counted. She hadn’t known his secrets then; hadn’t known what manner of man held her. She hadn’t known how his appearance would change her life.
Alban led her through a back door in Chelsea’s tiny apartment, both of them silent as they climbed the stairs
