He spoke without turning around. “Sorry, I’m sorry, but until I know what Olaf’s intentions are toward you, Anita, I don’t like you away from me.”
I touched his arm, made him look at me. “Are you really more frightened by the idea of Olaf kidnapping me than the . . . Those Who Shan’t Be Named?”
He took in a lot of air, let it out slow, and then nodded.
“They’ll try to let the Wicked Bitch of the World possess my body, Edward. I’ll be worse than dead.”
“But they won’t torture you first, and I trust you to be strong enough psychically that you’ll still be in there, which means we might be able to get you back. If Olaf takes you, Anita, there won’t be anything left to save. You have no idea what he does to his victims.”
“And you do?” I asked.
He nodded. He looked pale through his summer tan.
“You’ve seen it in person?”
He nodded, again. “We’d finished a job, and we were all celebrating. We’d gone to a brothel, and I didn’t know Olaf’s rule that he waits until after a job to indulge.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Another customer was drunk and went in the wrong room, and started screaming. The sound stopped, abruptly. All of us who weren’t drunk came out of our rooms, armed; you just knew the sound of screams being cut off like that.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“The man who had screamed was dead in the doorway. The girl was tied to the bed.”
“She was dead?” I asked.
“No.” He said it softly.
I gave him wide eyes.
“We thought she was dead, but she wasn’t. I wished she were dead when we found them. I would have killed him, but he was standing there pointing a gun at me, at all of us. He bargained with us.”
“Bargained how?”
“We could all die, or we could we all live. We lived.”
“Why would you ever work with him again after that?” I asked.
“There aren’t that many people as good as I am, Anita. He’s one of them. Besides, part of the bargain was that he’d never indulge himself again, if he was working with me.”
“So you made a deal to dance with the devil to keep him from killing more women?”
“Yes.”
“Was Bernardo there?”
“No, he’s never seen Olaf’s work in person. He’d never work with him again if he had.”
“Because he spooks easier than you do,” I said.
“Easier than either of us,” Edward said.
I took the compliment. “What do you want me to do?”
“If you even suspect that Olaf has decided you’re his next victim, kill him. Don’t wait for a clean shot, don’t wait to be sure, don’t wait for no witness, don’t wait at all, just kill him. Promise me, Anita.” He reached out and grabbed my arm, holding tight. “Promise me.”
I could see my reflection in his dark glasses. I said the only thing I could say: “I promise.”
30
LAILA KARLTON LOOKED small in the hospital bed. Her face was very round and with her hair around her face in tight waves, she looked five, an earnest, sad five. The looking small and young could have been because the three men on either side of her were big guys. All three were at least six-four and built big and solid. The two younger men were muscular and fit, their barrel chests fitting into trim waists. The older of the younger men had a flat stomach that promised a real six-pack under the T-shirt. The younger one was softer in every way; though he hit the gym, he didn’t hit it as hard as his brother did. The oldest man looked like a slightly aged version of the younger men. It had to be Karlton’s father and football-playing brothers.
Once I saw the mountain of men in the room, I was glad that I’d left Nicky and Lisandro out in the hallway. Socrates and I were enough to add to the crowd.
“Anita,” Laila said, and her large brown eyes were suddenly shinier, as if tears were threatening. Jesus, all I’d done was come into the room.
“Hey, Laila,” I said, and went toward the bed.
“This is my dad and my brothers.”
“I remember you talking about them, and you vastly underestimated how damn big they all are.” That made everyone smile, which was what I’d hoped for, but I honestly did feel a little dwarfed by the three men. One at a time, fine, but all three were like a crowd of buildings that moved and held out their hands as Laila introduced us.
Her father was Wade Karlton, the older brother was Robert, and the younger was Emmet. Laila called him Em, immediately, as if his whole name were M, but Robert she always called by his full name.
“And this is Russell Jones,” I said, motioning Socrates forward from where he’d waited by the door. Russell was his real name, not the nickname he’d been given when he joined the werehyena group in St. Louis. Their Oba, or leader, gave them names, usually from Greek philosophers or mythological characters. A lot of animal groups had naming conventions for some reason.
Everyone shook hands, but Laila looked a question at me. “Russell used to be a cop,” I said.
She looked from him to me. “Used to be?”
“Until a gangbanger turned out to be a shapeshifter and cut me up.”
She gave him wide eyes, and again there was that shimmer of unshed tears. “You’re a . . .” She just stopped.
“Shapeshifter,” he finished for her.
I felt the three men around me tense, as if his saying it out loud either made it more real or made them feel insecure. They were big guys, used to being big, strong guys, but though Socrates was inches smaller in both height and shoulder width, he was suddenly someone they had to take into account. Shapeshifter meant that you couldn’t just look at him and get a good sense of his physical capabilities. Size wasn’t everything now; it was probably not a thought the Karlton men had to think very often. And then I felt something in their posture, something that made me glance up to see their faces. They looked angry, and the younger brother couldn’t hide that there was fear underneath that anger.
“Jesus, people, you act like Russell is going to shift on the spot and go on a rampage.”
The brothers looked at me and were a little embarrassed, but the father kept his anger and his cool. “It’s nothing personal to Mr. Jones, but he is contaminated with something that turns him into an animal.” I was beginning to realize where some of the problems were coming from for Laila.
I smiled at him. “Mr. Karlton, may I speak with you out in the hallway?”
He looked at Socrates. “I’m not comfortable leaving my children with Mr. Jones.”
“Mr. Jones works with me,” I said. “He’s here to help me catch the person who hurt Laila.”
“It takes a monster to catch a monster,” Wade Karlton said.
“Daddy,” Laila said, “he’s just like me. He’s a cop who got attacked on the job. Do you think I’m a monster, too?”
Wade turned and looked at her, his face stricken. “No, baby, I’d never think that about you.”
“Yes, you do, you won’t even hold my hand.”
He reached out toward her but stopped in midmotion. The pain showed on his face, but he couldn’t make himself touch his daughter. The younger brother, Em, took her hand in both of his, holding her hand up against his body. He glared at his father. His eyes were shiny now, too.
Robert, the older brother, laid his hand on her leg under the sheets, because that was what he could reach. He wouldn’t look at anyone, and I caught the shine of tears as he turned away.
