The Taste Of Night

Xavier looked like he was going to argue some more, but a bell tone caused him to glance down at his desk, and he picked up his BlackBerry instead. The other two men turned back to me…and missed the expression of relief passing over Xavier’s face.

“Your whereabouts, Miss Archer?”

“I was-”

“She was with me,” Xavier said, flipping his BlackBerry back on his desk and coming around to stand in front of it. “We had dinner in my steakhouse and then came up here for drinks afterward, so we could talk privately.”

Both officers looked at me. I nodded vigorously.

Solomon turned back to Xavier. “I trust there are tapes of you both entering the restaurant and the executive offices later?”

“Of course,” Xavier said, dismissively, and stubbed out his cigar. Whatever message had been relayed on that BlackBerry had certainly bolstered his confidence. “Anything else?”

“Not if you can provide tapes confirming your whereabouts, no,” Solomon said, flipping his notebook shut and standing. “We’ll want additional surveillance of all the exits and entrances for that evening, of course, but-”

“I have a question,” Carson interrupted, angling his head in Xavier’s direction. “What were you talking about?”

“What were we talking about?” Xavier repeated, unibrow drawing down as if he didn’t understand the question.

“Yes. When you came up here. For privacy,” he said, ignoring the way his partner cleared his throat. Ambitious, this one. “What was so important you had to leave the comfort of your public dining room, in your hotel…in a city most people say you own?”

“My sister’s death,” I said immediately. “It’s been over six months since my sister Joanna died, but we still mourn her. If that’s okay.”

Solomon looked at his partner like he was a total idiot. Xavier lifted his chin and folded his arms over his chest. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d pawed at the ground and charged.

“Of-of course.” Carson reddened over the starched collar of his blues, then cleared his throat and backed up a step. “Well, we’re very sorry to inconvenience you. Both of you.”

Solomon put a hand on his shoulder, ushering him to the door. “We’ll just wait for those tapes and then we’ll be on our way.”

Xavier nodded curtly. “They’re already waiting for you on my secretary’s desk. I trust you can find your own way out?”

“Yes. Thank you.” He bobbed his head again. “Miss Archer.”

The younger officer mumbled good-bye, but didn’t look at me. I breathed a sigh of relief as the door shut behind them. For a moment, neither Xavier nor I moved.

“What were you doing there?” he whispered next to me.

I pivoted to face him, not meeting his eye. “But Daddy, I wasn’t-”

“I saw the tapes of you and Cher entering the building,” he said, louder than necessary. I flinched, as I knew Olivia would. His voice softened, but remained clipped. “Now I’m going to ask you again, what were you doing there?”

“You saw the tapes?” I asked, looking into his face. Still ignoring the question.

“Don’t worry. Gonzales has doctored them.” And now the relief flooded his face. God, I thought, he truly loved Olivia. This emotion was real. What was next? Pigs flying? “A woman like you is seen entering alone. Cher and her mother are nowhere in sight.”

I sighed, relieved, then bit my lower lip, feigning regret. “I was just…slumming.”

He gave me a hard look, square jaw jerking high. “Slumming?”

I shrugged. Poor, silly, helpless me. “We thought it’d be fun to see what went on at those things. Sorry.”

“Olivia.” He drew the name out on a weary exhalation and rubbed a paw over his face. I tried hard not to gape because he almost looked human. “You have a reputation to maintain. A responsibility to the family name.”

And that kept me from going all soft and mushy. The name was what he cared about most. “I know, and I’m sorry.” The contriteness burned in my throat, but I managed to choke it out. “Cher was just trying to cheer me up. I was so down and she thought doing something crazy would keep my mind off of…you know.” I studied him for a reaction, annoyed that I still cared enough to seek it, but old habits died hard.

Xavier turned away to face the window. “You mean Joanna.”

Despite the censure in his voice, I joined him because I knew Olivia would. “Yes.”

“Over six months. It’s gone so fast,” he said, his voice a mere whisper. I watched his Adam’s apple bobble as he swallowed, but I quickly looked away when he glanced at me. “You miss her, don’t you?”

“Oh.” I sighed, taken aback by the directness of his gaze. He’d never looked at me that closely. Olivia, sure. But not me. “Terribly.”

He put his arm around my shoulder then, and I stiffened reflexively, before relaxing into him. I knew the tenderness wasn’t meant for me, but I couldn’t help reacting to it. I’d sought his approval for so long, the impulse to pretend, just for the moment, was too great.

“I was too hard on her,” he said, surprising me with how close he’d come to my thoughts, and I immediately wondered why he hadn’t said this when he thought I was alive. I glanced up at him, but he continued to stare out over the city he ruled. “I wish-”

“Yes?” I prodded, heart thumping in my chest.

But he shook off the thought, removing his arm so quickly I swayed. “It doesn’t matter.” I looked down at my feet to hide the disappointment in my face. Meanwhile he opened the top drawer of his desk and cut a cigar, lighting it before speaking again. “All that matters is that you’re protected. Even if it must be from yourself.”

“Yes, Daddy,” I said meekly, without turning around. I lifted a hand to the cool pane of the window and traced the image I saw there. My fingertips, of course, left no marks.

Having regained his composure, Xavier shook his head, puffing on his cigar. I saw his reflection in the window. I could kill you, I found myself thinking. I could kill him because he was a prick and because he was the Tulpa’s lackey, but also just because. I could kill him. I had that power.

Snuffing out a life is power amplified.

I shook off Joaquin’s voice and turned from the glass wall to find Xavier closer than I thought. “Just think from now on, Olivia. Use your head. You can’t do things other people do. Maybe…maybe ask yourself what Joanna would do. You know, if she were in your position. It might…help.”

It was the first compliment he’d ever paid me. He’d never before acknowledged that I had any qualities he’d found admirable. I just nodded, swallowing hard, unsure how I felt about it. Xavier needed to remain as he was, one of the bad guys, the man who made my young adulthood hell, the one I’d sworn would pay for it with every crooked dime he’d ever made. I couldn’t open up my heart to him now just because he recognized a strength in me after he thought me dead. Not when he had never spared me a kind word in life.

And not because he looked tired and almost…old. I hardened myself to the thought, kissed his rough cheek, and quickly left the room. That wasn’t my problem. Being a pawn used by the most evil being ever created would do that to you.

In the days that followed, I wandered in and out of realities like revolving doors, searching for Ian. For Joaquin. For anyone. The paranormal world was a ghost town. With all the agents of Light in seclusion, and all the Shadows content to pull the strings from behind the scenes, there were no Technicolor streaks to light up the gritty, one- dimensional terrain.

The mortal reality wasn’t much better. I walked from the Stratosphere past Mandalay Bay to Valhalla, without once getting jostled or having to veer from my path. I retraced my steps on the other side of the Boulevard, and found myself alone on the sky tram, a recorded voice telling nonexistent passengers to watch their step as they exited equally deserted platforms.

I took a calculated risk driving by Joaquin’s house again, and though it looked abandoned, I wasn’t about to risk another run-in with his paranormal pooches. After that, all my leads dried up. If the Shadows had still been active in some way I could have busied myself tracking one of them down, picking a fight, getting answers. But they’d left me with nothing to rail against, and that was when I was at my worst. Without an opponent, it was all too easy to turn on myself.

How could I have put Ian in such danger? What if it had been Cher who’d come after me? How could I have so