When he smiled, Claire had to smile with him. “That wasn’t your heart.”
“Non? Ah, well, close enough.” He took a step back and held out his hand. “Will you help me?”
So much for her speech about change being constant. Claire ripped up her mental notes, stood, and laid her palm against Jacques’, his fingers wrapping around hers like cool smoke. “Of course. When?”
“Now. I have found the courage to face her. I have found the courage to descend into Hell for l’âme, the soul, of Dean, who I do not even entirely like. I think while I have found my courage, I should use him, it, to face what is on the other side.”
“Did you want to wait and say good-bye to Dean?”
“No. You tell him I say au revoir, adieu, bonne chance, and that if he does not use it, it will fall off.”
“Maybe you’d better stay a few more minutes and tell him yourself.”
Jacques shook his head, a strand of translucent hair falling into his eyes. “No, cherie. Now. There has always been—will always be—an excuse to stay. Dean, he will understand. It is a guy thing.”
“A guy thing?”
He shrugged. “I hear it on Morningside.” One hand still wrapped about hers, he laid the other against her cheek. “Thank you for the night we shared. I think I saw heaven a little bit in your arms.”
“You think?”
“I am fairly certain.” He grinned. “When you talk of me, could you perhaps exaggerate a little?” When she nodded, her cheek moving up and down through his hand, he squared his shoulders under the heavy sweater. “D’accord. Then I am ready.”
Claire reached through the possibilities and opened the way. Squinting a little, she stepped back to give him room. “Just follow the light.”
His features almost dissolving in the brilliance, he took a step away from the world, and then he paused.
“Au revoir, cherie.”
“Good-bye, Jacques.”
“Si j’etais en vie, je t’aurais aime.”
And then he was gone.
“If were alive, I would have loved you?”
Blinking away the spots in front of her eyes, Claire tried to focus on the cat.
Austin carefully climbed onto the hassock and sat down. “Not a bad exit line.”
“You’re supposed to be resting?”
“I am resting, I’m sitting.”
“You should go to the vet.”
“No, thank you.” He twitched his tail around his toes and his lip curled under the lower edge of the bandage. “It’s been taken care of.”
“By the mice?”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
Locked in the gaze from his remaining eye, Claire shook her head. “No. Not as such. But if I may point out, I haven’t seen any mice.”
“You haven’t seen Elvis either.”
Claire glanced over at the silent bust. “So?”
“So that doesn’t mean he’s not working in a 7-11 somewhere. Did you take care of Mrs. Abrams?”
“She thinks Baby died a natural death about six months ago, and now that she’s done mourning, she’s going to get a poodle. But while we’re on the subject; how long did you know Baby was a Hell Hound?”
“I knew it from the beginning.”
“Well, why didn’t you tell me?”
Austin snorted. “I’m a cat.” Before Claire could demand a further explanation, he cocked his head. “There’s Dean’s truck. Maybe you’d better go take care of that last loose end.”
“The hotel is yours if you want it.”
Dean paused, one hand on the basement door, and turned to face Claire. “No, thank you. I don’t want it. You’ll be leaving?”
She nodded. “Soon. Tomorrow, probably. Austin says that someone’ll be along.”
“So you pretty much knew my answer before you asked?”
“Pretty much. But I still had to ask. How long…”
“I guess I’ll wait until that someone shows up and play it by ear.”
“Okay. Good. Um, Jacques is gone. He said to tell you goodbye and that you’d understand why he didn’t wait.”
“Sure.”
When the silence stretched beyond the allotted time for a response, Dean nodded, once, and went downstairs.
As the sound of his work boots faded into the distance, Claire pounded her forehead against the wall. That hadn’t gone well. There were a hundred things she wanted to say to Dean, starting with, Thanks for driving Diana to the train station, and moving on up to: Thanks for sacrificing yourself to save the world. Somewhere in the middle she’d try to fit in Maybe you and I…
“Maybe he and I what?” she asked herself walking back to the office and jerking her backpack down off the hook. “Could be friends? Could be more than friends?” Yanking the cables from her printer, she shoved them into the pack. “He’s an extraordinary guy. Not brilliant maybe, but good, kind, gorgeous, accepting…” The printer followed the cables. “…not to mention alive.”
Maybe she’d had that rare chance that few Keepers ever got and for whatever reason, pride or blatant stupidity, she’d blown it.
What happens now?
The site was sealed.
She was leaving.
He was leaving.
It was over.
Folding a pair of jeans neatly along the crease, Dean set them into his hockey bag. He wanted to be ready to go as soon as possible after that someone arrived.
“Austin says that someone’ll be along.”
He’d never be able to look at a cat without wondering. As for the rest of it, well, he knew who he was again, so the rest of it didn’t matter.
A stack of white briefs, also neatly folded, tucked in beside the jeans.
There’d been a lot left unsaid upstairs in the hall. Claire’d been looking sort of aloof and unapproachable, but also twisting a lock of hair around one finger. Dean had to smile at the combination as he added all but one pair of socks to the bag.
Diana had given him continual advice on the way to the station. About half of it, he hadn’t understood.
It didn’t much matter.
Claire was leaving.
He was leaving.
At least she hadn’t offered to rearrange his memories. He’d have fought to remember the last eight weeks.
“What in tarnation have you done to my hotel?”
Claire, who’d been waiting in the office, stared down at Augustus Smythe, opened
