“It’s me,” I told him. “Maybe I’m a
Over my dead body was a very real possibility.
9
My old Max would have hugged and kissed and comforted me as I rocked back and forth in horror. Dane/Max hovered helplessly. We both sensed that we were bad for each other in too many weird ways, and until and unless we figured them out, life would be simpler apart.
Nothing like knowing you can’t have something to make you want it more.
“I blame it on the Zone, Justy,” he said wearily, tucking my hair behind my ear. “There’s some weird stuff going down at Acme. I don’t think blue goo and green clouds are helping whatever’s warping you and everything else down there.”
Max knew about winking statues and crowing weather vanes because he’d used me as a spy for months, back when he was an environmental activist trying to find a way to shut down Acme. Or maybe it was just to screw up his family’s income. He hadn’t really explained himself to me at the time.
Fortunately, I’m equally closemouthed and hadn’t told him about the real weirdnesses, like Sarah’s shape- shifting or Cora’s snakes. Just as Andre didn’t know for certain about Max. I was Keeper of the Secrets.
“That’s not what Themis says,” I pointed out, digging my fingers into his fancy leather chair rather than reach out for him. “The Zone has nothing to do with my bizarro shit. She says my asteroids are in the seventh house and Saturn is aligned with Mars or some such garbage.” But Max was totally right that Acme was screwing with the neighborhood. I just didn’t want to tell secrets that weren’t mine to reveal.
“Believing in psychic old ladies could be another chemical reaction,” he warned. “I was there when the tanks first spilled. I was between jobs, working in the office. My family wouldn’t let me go back afterward, but I knew the company had been playing with some dangerous new material. We could both be polluted.”
Dangerous new material, like magic elements. Yeah, tell me about it. Magic or a tool of Satan, which would I rather believe? Pink confetti looked like Disney magic to me. Maybe the devil was filming a show-and-tell on How to Destroy a Planet.
“I bet Dane didn’t work down there,” I pointed out. “So who do you want to believe is polluted, him or you? For all I know, Acme opened a gate to hell.” I didn’t think any environmental scientist in the world could begin to explain the Zone, so I saw no reason to muddy the waters with questions. But I gave him a small bone to chew on. “Paddy says Acme is still experimenting with the new element. Did you know he’s actually sane, or is that a new development?” I cocked my head at him with interest, preferring this topic to my damning hobby.
“With Paddy, it’s hard to tell.” He poured a second glass of whiskey for himself but didn’t immediately drink it. “He’s Dane’s father, Gloria’s only son, but he doesn’t communicate with the family as far as I’m aware. His number isn’t in Dane’s cell phone. Dane’s mother ditched Paddy years ago. Last I heard, she was in France. She’s not in his address book, either.”
Dane/Max shrugged and continued. “Since my—Max’s—grandmother still owns half the firm along with Gloria, she was the one who asked Paddy to hire me, but I’m pretty certain Paddy never contacts the MacNeill side of the family anymore, either.”
The MacNeill side was Max’s side. Paddy’s cousin was Max’s mother. Referring to one’s original self in the third person was a trifle confusing, although it was even weirder for me to hear him refer to Dane that way, since physically, in my eyes, he was now Dane.
“I think I’m too tired for this,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “You have an inside track on the grannies. Why don’t you give them a visit and see if either one spills the family secrets? Let’s blame our predicament on Acme and see how that flows.”
“If we’re going nuts and hearing Dane in flames, it’s Acme’s fault?” he asked with a hint of amusement, almost sounding like my Max. “And you still want to go back to the Zone?”
When he put it that way . . . I stood up and pulled on my jacket. “Yeah. Because even if the people living in the Zone are nuts, they’re nuts in a positive way. They’re good people. I like them a whole lot better than your greedy family. It’s only when Acme steps into the picture that trouble starts. And maybe, just maybe, I’m meant to be there to keep Acme from hurting anyone else.”
He frowned dubiously. I knew I couldn’t ask Max for more help. He was a senator who needed to keep his job.
“You just keep your bimbos from blackmailing you, and I’ll try to keep your family from killing you—again.” I stood on my toes and kissed his handsome cheek, enjoying his solid masculinity in the only way I could. “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown. Talk to the old harpies. Tell them the anesthesia from taking out the bullet messed with your memory and see what they tell you. Let me know if you learn anything, and I’ll return the favor.”
He let me go, although I could tell by his fisted hands that he was having difficulty keeping them off me. Old habits die hard.
• • •
If driving home with the wind in my face was my idea of a Saturday night date, I decided I was better off staying in with Milo.
I’d spent a few miserable weeks the previous May dodging Vanderventer’s security goons. The habit was almost ingrained by now, especially after seeing Dane in person, so to speak. I didn’t take a direct route back to my place. I steered the bike down dark alleys and waited for traffic to flow by. I didn’t spy any tails.
Out of curiosity, I swung the bike behind the empty warehouse across from the town house where I made my bed. I knew a locked chain-link fence protected the entrance to Andre’s lair, but I couldn’t just waltz up to his front door at midnight and expect entrance.
I wanted company, and I wasn’t above climbing a chain-link just to see what happened. Unlike Acme’s goons, Andre probably wouldn’t shoot me on sight.
I really should have gone home to Milo, but it was freaking Saturday night. I’d had a bad day and had spent the evening nobly resisting a hottie, and I was hornier than hell. Bad phrasing, but I wasn’t in the mood to edit my thoughts.
To my surprise, the fence lock opened when I yanked at it. I shoved the gate open a few feet, rolled my bike through, and, keeping an eye on the shadows, closed it again. With Dane’s evilness gone, I shouldn’t have needed to be afraid, but caution had been my motto for long enough to become habit.
My headlight beam caught Andre leaning against the wall of the loading dock, appearing for all the world as if he’d just stepped out of a 1920s speakeasy for a smoke. Except Andre didn’t smoke. So what was he doing out here?
He’d apparently showered off the glitter at some point and donned a loose pale blue shirt and dark trousers. If he’d had a fedora and a coat swung over his shoulder, we’d have had the setting for a film noir.
“Don’t you ever lock your gates?” I chirped, parking the Harley and switching off its light.
“Not when I know you’ll just climb over. Did you get your senator boyfriend out of our hair?” He sounded more bleak than snarky.
Andre owned the world. He had no reason to be gloomy. I climbed up to the dock beside him, leaned against the wall, and admired the few stars visible above the roof lines. They say misery loves company.
“Dane has his own troubles. He doesn’t have time for us these days. And no, I don’t tell him what goes down here any more than I’ll tell you what he’s dealing with. Is there a reason we’re standing outside?”
“Because you won’t go to bed with me?” he asked, back to the usual snark.
“I’m thinking of becoming a nun,” I taunted. “In Clancy’s world, sex is too complicated, especially when the men are sneaky, deceptive, lying bastards.”
“My parents are very much married,” he said gravely.
