to keep my good eye on him, not wanting to lose him under the visual noise of the Grey.
He took a step forward, raising the baton, and said, “I can tell you’re going to be trouble, Harper Blaine.”
It was the voice as much as the dark brown hair and the slim, athletic build that put the pieces together for me. I hadn’t seen him in almost a year, and then it had been fleeting as he’d shoved me down in my own living room and bolted out the door. He still looked essentially like Quinton—a similarity he had enhanced at the time with hair dye, clothes, and facial hair. Now he had let his natural gray thread through his hair and had shaved off the beard. His voice was as colorless as air and chill-neutral. Now I understood why his aura looked the way it did. “I’m surprised it took you so long to figure that out, Papa Purlis,” I said.
His energy flushed red. For a moment the bands of his control flexed under the strain of his anger and I had the strong impression that he hated me but wasn’t going to give in to it. He feinted forward, but I didn’t take the bait and flinch. Behind me was a train of cement trucks and I knew better than to go toward them. He swept the baton at me—not very seriously, but I still had to turn aside to avoid an unpleasant contact.
“Now, now,” I chided him. “If you break me, Quinton will be very upset with you.”
“Then he might stop playing games and do what I tell him.”
I snapped a hand at his face. He caught it and pulled me to him. I dove forward as he pulled and rammed my shoulder into his chest. I heard him gasp and his grip on me loosened. I ducked and rolled my shoulders down, hoping to pull him under me. Instead, he let go, rolling to the side and scrambling back to his feet. He was quick, had great instincts, and was in fantastic condition for a man in his late fifties. I suspected he didn’t spend much time behind a desk. This wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d hoped.
I swept one booted foot under him and he hopped to avoid it. I spun with the movement and came back up, grabbing and turning him with me to put my back to the plywood barrier while nearly throwing him into traffic. He clutched my jacket and shoved one leg between mine, using my own weight and momentum to trip me up.
I got a heel and a hand on the ground to break the fall and we both went down in a heap. A cement truck roared past, inches from our heads, blowing its horn. I tried to keep hold of him, but he had retained the baton and rapped hard on my knuckles. I let go and scampered backward, rising to my full height against the tilting barrier. I was taller than he was, but that wasn’t necessarily an advantage.
He glared at me, his eyes almost glowing with ire, then pushed the emotion away and straightened up, taking a step back and sideways out of my reach. Standing still, contained and focused, he looked very much like his son. Except that I loved Quinton and I felt no such thing for his father.
“Why have you been following me, Purlis?”
“I just want to know what J.J.’s been up to—and who he’s been sleeping with.” He looked me over as if I were an insect caught crawling on his dinner plate.
The sneering didn’t bother me, but I wasn’t used to anyone calling Quinton by his initials—or his real name—and it threw me off for an instant before I said, “Just fatherly concern, then. Nothing about trying to get him to return to the fold and play spy with you.” Quinton claimed that misplaced hero worship was what had gotten him into government work to begin with, but I had never been sure there wasn’t a good dose of naive delight in cracking codes and solving problems all day involved as well.
“He talks a good game, but J.J. knows what he needs to do. If I have to remind him what’s best for him— and what’s not—I will,” his father said, his voice dead calm.
“You’d better think hard before you do him any harm, Pops.”
He laughed and it wasn’t a pretty sound. “It’s not my son who’ll get hurt first.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Absolutely. Persuade J.J. to stop fucking around and get with my program and we’ll get on fine. But if you get in my way, or hold him back, I will go through you.”
“I’m a lot harder to get through than you think.”
“Everyone has soft spots.”
I gave him a cold smile. Then I lunged and snatched him by the shirt, yanking him toward me. He pushed and we hit the barrier behind me. The baton swung around again and I ducked as the plywood crashed down into a pit behind us.
I shook him and pushed him off me, backward toward another of the endless line of cement trucks. “Piss off, Purlis.”
He caught himself, just out of my range, eliciting another horrified screech from the nearest truck’s horn. “Or you’ll shoot me, like Bryson Goodall?”
I laughed. If he had any idea what had actually happened the night Goodall died, he would never let me out of his sight again. “I won’t need to shoot you. You would be wise to stay out of Quinton’s life and out of my sight.”
“Oh, you won’t be seeing me again. I know what I need to about you.”
“I don’t think you do,” I said, starting forward one more time.
SEVEN
Someone started shouting from behind the downed barrier. “Hey! What are you two idiots doing? Get the hell out of here!”
I turned around, letting James Purlis slither away—I would have other chances to make my point to him and find out what he was up to with the vampires. I was pretty sure I’d have no trouble finding him when I was ready.
A slim woman with curling auburn hair pulled back into a serviceable ponytail was jogging across the city block–sized wasteland of dirt and machines toward me with two big guys in hard hats and safety vests coming along behind her. “What’s the idea? This is a restricted area—it’s dangerous. We have an open excavation down here!” she shouted at me.
“I’m sorry. I was looking for the tunnel site and I stumbled into the barrier. Those trucks are really close.”
“Next time walk on the sidewalk side. What are you, suicidal?”
“No, just lost.”
The woman sighed and turned around to wave the construction workers away. “It’s just a tourist, guys. I’ll take care of it.” She turned back to face me. “What were you trying to find?”
“The initial bore site for the tunnel project.”
“The launch pit. Well, this is it. Thoroughly unexciting. Why are you looking?” she asked, wiping her hands on her coveralls and then resting them on her hips. She was petite and had the sort of elfin features that had probably been called “cute” often enough to gall their owner to fury. Her coveralls, work boots, and mud smears only added to the impression that she was a visiting sprite trying to pass for normal.
“I’m trying to find the location where Kevin Sterling was injured,” I said.
“Who?”
“He’s a tunnel engineer. He was on the project until a few months ago when the tunnel collapsed on him.”
“Oh. That. Well, yeah, this would be the place, then. The official digging ceremony was really just for show and that’s the section of pit wall that collapsed. We’ve been doing everything right, I can assure you.”
“I’m not sure I follow you,” I said.
She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You don’t just dig a tunnel. I mean you do, but not just like any old hole. You have to do all sorts of soil tests and structural analysis, ground stabilization, water removal, staging-area creation . . . and, of course, archaeology. Which is where I come in—or rather the Washington State Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation.”
“I’m still not sure I’m following you. Look, I’m a private investigator and I’m afraid I don’t know anything about tunnels or how you build something like this, so I can’t understand what happened to Mr. Sterling and I thought I could get a better idea if I came down here and saw the site.” I offered her my hand. “My name’s Harper Blaine.”
