Seven
SPARRING
IT OCCURRED TO me that I’d turned my phone off.
I’d done it before I left my office.
I guess I had been avoiding having to lie to Nick––overtly, at least. Despite what I told myself earlier, I knew he might call, especially if he was on stakeout in front of Quentin Black’s office building and residence.
Especially if he knew I’d been inside. Or that Black had left.
Nick also might do something underhanded, like have Angel call me, which he wasn’t above doing. He’d be even more likely to do that since he’d chewed me a new one that morning and might be nervous about how I’d react to him.
I only remembered my phone being off when I slid into a leather booth overlooking the ocean and a glass of red wine was set in front of me.
We were in the upper floor dining room of the Cliff House restaurant, a city landmark and where Black had chosen for us to eat. He claimed the location worked well, being within walking distance of the Legion without being too obviously close. I wasn’t exactly sure what that last part meant, but I didn’t argue. The Cliff House worked for me since it tended to entertain more tourists than locals given the view and the inflated prices, as well as the long lines from it being a quasi-famous historical site. Not having to fear running into someone I knew appealed to me a lot right then. The last thing I needed was to be seen out dining with Quentin Black, especially with Ian out of town.
Thinking about Ian, I wondered if I should turn the phone back on.
The thought didn’t appeal to me truthfully. I remembered Nick’s not-so-subtle threat that he might call Ian himself. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know if Nick would really do that to me.
“What are you thinking about?” a voice asked softly.
I looked up, startled, to find Black watching me from across the table.
A faint look of frustration lived in his eyes.
I glanced around us, more in reflex than anything. No one sat particularly close. No one appeared to be looking in our direction either, despite our borderline gothic clothes and Black’s strange eyes. Black directed the waitress to lead us to a window table in the corner of the room, which now gradually darkened with the sun setting over the ocean to my right.
It struck me as strange suddenly that Black had given me the corner seat. I would have thought Black to be someone who would want to face the room.
“Mirrors,” he said.
I looked back at him.
Then I turned around to look behind me, and realized that a whole collection of mirrors lived on each angle of the corner where I sat, between the long bay window and the window to my left. The booth really should have held a good four or five people, and not only the two of us. Glancing away from those gold beveled and angel-decorated frames, I looked back at Black, watching as he studied the reflections briefly over my head.
Then he looked back at me, smiling faintly.
“Very discreet,” I told him.
“Most people forget about mirrors,” he said, leaning back.
“With the added bonus that most won’t look at your face in them,” I said, thinking aloud. “Or your eyes.” I studied his face, folding my fingers on the table in front of me. “You could wear contacts, you know.”
“I do sometimes.”
“Your face still would stand out.”
He looked away from the ocean to meet my gaze.
“Should I take that as a compliment?”
“I don’t know,” I said, more or less truthfully.
Black’s gold eyes reflected light from the setting sun. He went back to looking at the sunset... or perhaps he only pretended to look as he studied the room in the reflection of the glass. Either way, the sunset light altered the tint of his irises, making them more of a red-gold than the lighter color I remembered from the interrogation room or his apartment.
“So?” He turned, studying my face equally closely. “What were you thinking about? Just then? Or do you not wish to tell me?”
“Nothing,” I said. Then, shaking my head as I realized I was lying, I pulled out my phone, staring at the dead face of it. “My fiancé, actually. I turned off my phone, and...” I let my words trail, wondering suddenly why I was telling him this. When I glanced up, I saw Black frown, an eyebrow quirked, like he wondered the same thing.
Feeling a glimmer of some other emotion there, I brushed it away, shaking my head again as if to push that from my mind as well.
“I was trying to decide if I should turn it on,” I confessed. “The phone.”
“You do not wish to talk to him?”
“Here?” I smiled wryly, looking up. “Not particularly.”
“You don’t want to lie to him,” Black observed.
“No,” I said, sighing more genuinely. “I really don’t.”
“You are trying to decide whether to lie? Or the size of the lie?”
Feeling my face heat as I realized that was pretty much exactly what I’d been doing, I only shook my head.
“I don’t know,” I said, a little less truthfully.
When the silence stretched, I cleared my throat, glancing around us once more. “They didn’t bring us menus,” I said.
“I ordered for us.”
I pursed my lips, still clutching the phone in my hands. “You did?”
He leaned deeper into his side of the booth, sighing one of those rumbling sighs of his. “I got you grilled salmon with asparagus, doc... medium rare... and a salad. Don’t worry, it wasn’t the Caesar. The apricot gorgonzola. I told them to skip the walnuts... and to put the dressing on the side. I also got us wine. Red for you... even though it will go horribly with the fish.”
My jaw loosened. “How the hell could you have possibly known––”
“Lucky guess?”
My mouth shut with a snap.
He quirked an eyebrow at me. “Don’t be alarmed, doc. It works better for our cover, does it not? That I seem to be the dutiful boyfriend?” His eyes fell to the ring on my finger. “Or perhaps the dutiful fiancé?”
I leaned closer to him, my hands flat on the table. My voice came out low, but even I heard the threat in it. “All right. I mean it. You’re going to talk, Black. Now. Or I’m not going anywhere with you tonight.” Seeing his smile begin, I cut him off. “...Anywhere else, okay? Moreover, if you keep lying to me, I’ll call Nick when I leave here, and tell him everything.”
His smile crept back. “Everything, Miriam?”
“Enough to get you picked up tonight... Quentin.”
He frowned, opening his mouth to speak.
Again, I didn’t give him the chance.
“...Since I’ve already given one of my oldest friends the first real reason to question my word... and my professional integrity for that matter, thanks to you... and I’m now contemplating lying to my boyfriend and soon-to-be husband, I think it’s time you told me the truth.”
Those gold eyes locked with mine. I saw genuine bewilderment there that time.
“The truth about what, Miriam?” he said.
I flinched again when he used my given name.
Then I could only stare at those oddly-opaque gold irises.
Briefly, I saw past the stillness there. I saw enough that I wondered if he wanted me to see it, or possibly even to see more of him. Flickers of emotion reached me through the cracks, despite his lack of facial expression––or maybe contrasting that lack to make those flickers more obvious. Realizing I was listening to him––listening hard, for the first time with anyone in as long as I could remember––I bit my lip, partly in frustration at how little I could hear.
I did feel things though. Not words, but...
Emotion.
A faint vulnerability. It reminded me of those glimmers of nervousness I got off him when he first invited me into his penthouse apartment. He felt strangely more open in those glimpses, but they were so fleeting, so intangible, I couldn’t be sure of anything I felt there, or even if he was planting those impressions on purpose to confuse me.
God, it really felt like...
“You’re wasting your time,” he said softly.
“Am I?” I retorted. “Because I can feel something.”
“Not enough,” he said. “And nothing relevant to what you seem to want to know.”
I stared at him, fighting to think if that felt true. I honestly couldn’t decide.
“Are you letting me feel those things?” I demanded.
“Which ones?” he said, reweaving his fingers on the table.
“Where it almost feels like you...” I stopped, feeling my face heat. Then I just said it. “It almost feels like you’re treating this as a date, Mr. Black,” I said, my voice curt.
“Are you asking if I’m attracted to you?”
“I’m asking if you’re trying to manipulate me,” I said, sharper. “Which isn’t the same thing. At all.”
“No, it isn’t,” he conceded.
Another silence fell between us.
“So are you letting me feel that? That...” My fingers tightened. “Whatever that is?”
“You know, doc,” he said lazily, his eyes giving me a more warning look. “It’s rude to try and read me when you could just ask.”
“I thought I was asking.”
“I have yet to hear a coherent question.”
“Are you deliberately trying to manipulate me right now?”
“Deliberately?” He raised an eyebrow, smiling faintly. “No.”
“But you can’t hear me, either?” I said, my frustration audible.
“Correct.”
“How can you know so much about me, then?”
He quirked his eyebrow once more, but didn’t answer.
“You’re not going to tell me?” I said.
“Clearly.”
“Why did you let yourself get arrested that morning?” I demanded.
He leaned back, unfolding his hands gracefully as he did, a kind of open-palmed shrug. “What makes you think I did, Miriam?”
I gave him a disparaging look, similar to the ones he’d given me a few times that day. “You can convince a victim’s family that they hired you last week, when they’d likely never heard of you before. You can order food without going near a waiter. But you can’t do whatever it is you do to convince a bunch of cops to let you go when they find you walking down the street covered in blood?”
“You’re making erroneous assumptions,” he said, exhaling a bit.
“Which ones?”
“It doesn’t work that way here,” he said. “It doesn’t work here how you’re implying. There are... limitations. Risks. I suspect they relate to living around so few of our kind, but all I have are theories at this point. It could be different rules in this dimension compared to our home world... even different Barrier properties. Either way, I can’t do a lot of the things you think I have done. Not here. Not in this dimension.”
Pausing, he gave me a more penetrating look.
“It’s interesting that you think I can, though, doc. Given that you say you don’t remember anything about how you got here.”
I stared at him. “I never said that.”
He dismissed me with a wave. “It is implied. You don’t belong here. You claim you do. Therefore, you don’t remember how you got here. Whether or not you believe the stories you were told as a child is utterly irrelevant.”
My jaw fell more. “What on Earth is that supposed to mean?”
“Which Earth?” he said, smiling again as he held up his hands. Probably seeing the anger building in my face, he turned his hands into more of a peace gesture. “Relax, doc. Just a little inter-dimensional humor. What I’m telling you is perfectly clear. I can’t do a lot of the things you are implying I can do. Not here. That’s all you need to understand right now.”
“What things?” I said. “With the waiter?”
“I spoke to the waiter by the door,” he said. “While you were giving up your coat.”
“And the Velaquez’s?”
“I had several in my staff talk to them.”
“To threaten them?”
He let out a more impatient-sounding sigh. “No. To offer free services if they were willing to testify that they’d hired me last week.”
“And they went for that?” I gave him a skeptical look. “They didn’t think you were just buying them off because you’d killed their daughter?”
“My people can be very convincing.”
I let out a disbelieving snort. “I’ll bet.” When his expression didn’t move, I sharpened my voice. “So you’re saying you couldn’t push those cops to ignore you yesterday morning?”
He gave a more noncommittal shrug. “I didn’t say that.”
“So you could then?”
“Perhaps.”
“Then why didn’t you?” I said through gritted teeth.
“Perhaps there were too many witnesses.”
“At five in the morning?”
He held up his hands in another of those obvious, if odd, shrugs.
“Or maybe you let them arrest you,” I said. “Maybe you wanted them to arrest you.”
“Why on earth would I want that, Miriam?”
“You tell me... Quentin.”
There was a silence.
Then he sat all the way back in the leather booth, laying his arm on the top of the backrest. His eyes had darkened somewhat during our exchange, shifting to a more predatory slant. In the process of leaning back, he removed both hands from the top of the table, resting the one not on the backrest on the booth’s seat. I found myself watching the way he moved again, if only for the oddness of his mannerisms and how they flowed. Just another of the dozen or so things about him that were wrong, without my being able to explain to myself why they were wrong.
At least, not in a way that made sense.
Adjusting his shoulders and back in the clean but old-looking leather upholstery, he glanced around us at the scattering of other diners, although none of them appeared to be looking at us. Waiters had begun to light candles in the middle of each table as they walked up to take drink orders and dessert orders and to set down plates full of food and refill water and wine glasses. Thinking over everything I’d asked him, and how few of my questions he’d actually answered, I looked out at the sunset, wondering again what the hell I was even doing here.
When I glanced back at him, amusement had returned to his eyes.
“You know, I do intend to train you,” he said. “...Assuming you allow it. But I’m not sure this is the most efficient way to do it, Miriam.” He glanced around us. “Or the most discreet.”
“Just tell me the truth,” I said. “Please. You owe me that.”
“Do I?”
“Yes,” I said, sharper. “You do. I’ve come with you on this little jaunt. I’m trusting you... more or less.” I lowered my voice more as I leaned over the table towards him. “I’m at least trusting that you won’t murder me if I go with you tonight, Mr. Black... which is a lot more trust than anyone I know would place in you. I’ve taken your word that you aren’t really the wedding killer and that this isn’t all just some elaborate ruse to make me your next victim. Although the irony that I would have accompanied you while you cased your next killing floor certainly wouldn’t be lost on Nick... who might get a kick out of chiseling ‘IDIOT’ at the top of my headstone...”
Black blinked at that, his eyes showing real surprise.
“You still think that’s a possibility?” he said.
“Wouldn’t you? If you were me?”
His expression grew thoughtful.
Then he nodded, slowly.
“Yes. I suppose I would.” He studied my face, that predatory glint returning to his eyes, making them look more animal-like again. “Does that mean you aren’t coming with me tonight, doc? Because I confess, that would be... disappointing.”
I watched him look at me, seeing that warier look sharpen.
He still didn’t frighten me though.
Honestly, the realization almost frustrated me.
“I didn’t say that,” I said after another pause, even as I wondered why I wasn’t saying that. I glanced around us before I lowered my voice. “My point is, you say you want me to come... you seem to even mean it. So if I go with you, that makes this a favor, at least in part.”
He lifted his eyebrow. “Does it? I’m not sure I agree.”
“I don’t care if you agree. It’s a favor. And I want a favor in return.”
“Which is... ?”
“Information,” I said tersely. “Why did you let the police pick you up?”
When he didn’t answer right away, I fought with another jaw-clenching rush of anger, intense enough that it startled me, even as the more clinical side of my brain noted how unusual that was for me these days.
I didn’t usually get this emotional. Not anymore. Not even with Ian.
It also made me wonder if Black was doing that to me too, intentionally or not.
Remembering how I’d been as a child didn’t help, or how my father threatened me with a psychologist of my very own if I didn’t learn how to control my violent outbursts.
Zoe helped me with that, too. It was sort of ironic, given what I did for a living now.
I hadn’t thought about any of that in years, though.
I refocused on Black with an effort. “Tell me why you’re really doing all of this... and why you let yourself get picked up for murder, when I’m pretty sure you could have walked away unseen that morning. Even covered in blood.”
He frowned at me again.
That time, however, I could see him thinking on the other side of that frown.
Meanwhile, I was going over my previous words in my head, and realizing some of them sounded a lot more plausible out loud than they had when I’d just been thinking them.
Maybe this museum trip really was just an elaborate set up.
Maybe I really was the idiot Nick thought me to be, at least when it came to Black.
It had already been pointed out to me by both Nick and Black that I fit the wedding killer’s victim profile. Professional woman, twenties to early thirties. Athletic build. Long hair.
Engaged to be married.
Black seemed to feel at least a hint of where my head was going. Making that strange clicking sound, he leaned closer to me, until his gold eyes met mine from only a few inches away. I didn’t flinch back, but it took an effort, if only for the intensity that lived there.
“I’m not here to kill you, Miriam,” he murmured. “On the contrary, I would protect you with my life.”
I studied his expression from up close, a little thrown by the deadly seriousness there.
“...But I realize my saying so probably won’t reassure you,” he added, moving back somewhat. “Especially since I would likely say the same thing if I did intend to kill you.” He studied my eyes again, that frown touching the corners of his sculpted lips. Then he seemed to make up his mind. When he did, he finally leaned all the way back into the booth.
I exhaled a breath I hadn’t known I held.
“I did let myself get picked up,” he said, blunt.
I flinched a third time. Then I pursed my lips.
“Why?” I said.
He exhaled, staring out the window at the now blood-red clouds. The sky was almost entirely dark apart from those splashes of color and an indigo and gold line at the level of the horizon. Looking back at me, he seemed to make up his mind a second time, maybe to go all the way with this. Or maybe only to convince me he’d decided that. I found myself thinking that, in addition to everything else, he might be skilled at throwing out emotions that he may or may not actually feel.
He smiled even as I thought it, right before he made another of those oddly graceful gestures with one hand, resting it back on top of the table.
“There were several reasons,” he said.
“Like what?”
“I was tracking this rogue, as I said. I’d just determined, more or less definitively, that he was murdering humans in a brutal way. And that he was ritualizing it.”
I narrowed my eyes, hearing the emotion in his voice for the first time when he spoke about the murders. He’d sounded genuinely angry.
Disgusted, at least.
“Because of that,” he continued, making another smooth gesture with his hand. “I wanted more information about where the cops were with the case. I considered pushing those beat cops to not see me,” he added more softly, glancing around us as if to make sure we weren’t being overheard. “...But I knew that was risky. Then I thought, why not let them bring me in? It might prove an interesting exercise. And it did.”
“Why not just show up in the waiting area to read the cops as they walked past?” I said. “Or at the corner coffee shop, for that matter? Why bother being arrested?”
He smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes.
Rather, they grew deadly serious again.
“One of the things I will apparently need to teach you, Miriam, is that it is very difficult to find a good reason to sit inside a police station and stare into space for numerous minutes, without responding when people attempt to speak with you,” he said.
He continued to study my face. Briefly, I got the strangest impression he saw himself as genuinely educating me just then, despite the sarcasm.
“...Also, as I have told you repeatedly now, it doesn’t work that way here. In-depth reads take considerably more work in this dimension, Miriam. It is much, much faster to do that work when you can guide the direction of your subject’s thoughts. Or, failing that, when you allow yourself to be interrogated about the very subject about which you require information.”
Leaning deeper into the booth, he sighed one of those purring sighs of his.
“You learn how to hide what you are, when you operate the kind of business I do,” he said. “I can’t hide behind the nonverbal language and deception detection training you can claim as a psychologist. Not nearly as convincingly, at least. Your gender and sexuality probably disarm a number of male humans as well... a valuable tactic, but not a reliable one.”
I felt my jaw harden, but said nothing, in part because I distinctly got the impression that he was trying to get a reaction out of me.
“Further,” he added after that pause. “...I’m tracking a rogue seer, as I said. I don’t know his exact relationship with the human authorities, but it’s not beyond the realm of imagination that he might have an interest in how the investigation is proceeding, particularly on a morning he’d just committed a crime. For all I knew, he had direct connections in the station. Which means, there is some chance he would pick up on me if I spied openly. The same risk pertained to tracking individual detectives. I don’t know what kinds of resources this seer has at his disposal. Or what kind of protection he has. Including psychic protection––”
“Seer?” I interrupted, staring at him. “You said that twice. That’s what you call them?”
“Yes.” His gaze flickered over me briefly. “That is what I call us, Miriam.”
“You said ‘he’ again?” I pressed.
“Statistical probability.”
I let that slide, thinking over the rest of his words. “You don’t want this ‘rogue’ or whatever it is to know you’re following him?” I said.
“Correct.” He made another vague gesture with one hand. “Obviously.” After a pause, he tilted his head in a different kind of gesture. That one seemed almost apologetic. “I was also in need of a forensic psychologist, as I said.”
I stared. Then my eyes abruptly narrowed to slits. “What?”
Sighing a bit, he pulled out his smart phone. Tapping in a few keys and sliding his fingers across the front several times, he turned the screen around then, showing it to me.
Filling the screen was the headline and cover photo of a webzine article. The picture stood beneath blood-red text that shouted “NURSERY KILLER CAUGHT IN SOUTH BAY.” I knew the photo and scowled. In it, I stood behind Nick, wearing a taut expression and a bullet proof vest, my arms folded in front of my chest, my hair back in a ponytail. It was from Nick’s last big publicity case, outside the house of the suspect I’d found for him.
“Nasty piece of work, that one,” Black said, squinting down at the image of me on the small screen. “Little boys, was it?”
My fingers clenched in my lap. “You knew who I was? Before yesterday?”
“Not in the way you mean. But I was... intrigued.”
“And you knew they would bring me in to talk to you?”
“I knew it was a distinct possibility. More precisely, I knew that your boy, Tanaka, was assigned to this case... and that if I was uncooperative enough, he might feel inspired to improvise. I also happened to know your office was located down the street.”
A smile touched my lips, but it didn’t contain any humor.
“You must know how ludicrous that sounds,” I told him.
“Why?” he said, throwing up his hands gracefully. “I was in need of a forensic psychologist. You were being touted as a ‘miracle worker.’ I like to recruit from the best in the field.” He paused, once again looking at the image of me on the screen. “And I may not have known what you were, doc, but I knew you weren’t what you were pretending to be.”
“Which is what?” I retorted.
“Harmless,” he said at once. Glancing at me, he tapped the photo with one finger. “I can see a lot in photos, doc. More than you’d believe.”
“I have office hours,” I said, gritting my teeth.
He shrugged. “I like to assess people in their element when I meet them. Even from just one photo, you struck me as a field worker type... not a clinician. As much as you tried to hide that fact with your posture in this photo.”
“Really? What gave me away?”
“Your eyes. Which are positively stunning, by the way.” He gave me a faint smile. Before I could react, he showed me the image again, and tapped where my hand rested by the edge of the flak jacket. “Oh... and the gun. Did your pal Tanaka know you were packing heat that night? I know he didn’t know you read that pedophile to find the booby-traps he left all over the house... I imagine that took some creativity on your part, to implant that idea without him suspecting.” He gave me a look containing an open flicker of disgust. “That couldn’t have been fun, either. Being inside that particular mind. I’m amazed you didn’t shoot him on sight.”
I swallowed, wanting to argue with him.
I didn’t, though.
He gave another of those graceful shrugs. “What better way to assess your skills than to see what you could make of me? Then I felt you trying to read me from inside that glass booth...” His jaw hardened, right before he gave me an openly heated look. “Gaos, doc... I admit, I got a hard on in about two seconds when I felt that. And again, when I couldn’t get past your shield. I can’t even begin to tell you what a wholly unexpected and welcome surprise that was...”
When I averted my gaze, I heard him smile.
He made another of those shrugging gestures and I glanced back at him, my eyes following his hand and fingers.
“I’m not buying this shy act either, doc... although I might believe the confusion.” He shook his head, smiling as he looked out the window. “...And no, I don’t believe it’s a coincidence, you being here,” he added, softer. “Not with that rogue here. Not with me here, for that matter.” Turning, he met my gaze seriously. “I’m not always here, you know... in San Francisco. Even with my main office here, I’m often... elsewhere.”
That hard, predatory look rose in his eyes as he studied my face.
“You have no idea just how truly rare our kind is in this dimension, doc,” he said. “We’d be on the critically endangered species list... if humans knew about us at all.” He glanced down at my ring finger. “And apart from your race, you fit his victim profile. Which I find... interesting. Just like your friend, Naoko Tanaka, finds it interesting.”
I fought another wave of confusion, again feeling something about him threatening my more clinical veneer. I tried to decide if I wanted to follow him down his whole “other race” rabbit hole. Even though I’d started this, I decided I didn’t. Not here. Not now.
“You really think he’s targeting me?” I said. “The wedding killer?”
He continued to stare out the window, not answering at first.
Then he shrugged, leaning back to level that predatory stare at me again.
“I honestly don’t know.” He exhaled, leaning deeper in the leather booth. “What do you think, doc? Or do you still believe this is all just one big coincidence? An astrological convergence of sorts, with you and I at the center?”
Before I could answer, the waiter appeared with my salad.
The waiter set it down in front of me, along with a full glass of red wine that I hadn’t ordered. Ignoring the salad, I found myself picking up the thin-stemmed glass before the waiter had even left the table with my old one. I took a few good swallows of what turned out to be a different bottle, this time a better than decent merlot. I’d just set the glass down by my plate when my gaze for some reason flickered towards the bar.
Once it had, I did a double-take, then felt myself pale.
“What?” Black said.
I glanced from the bar to him, but he was already focusing his stare on the mirrors hanging on the wall behind me. I contemplated getting up, rising quickly to my feet, perhaps thinking to head both of them off, or maybe to walk to the other end of the bar before the person sitting there saw me sitting in the corner booth with Black.
I was too late, though.
The person at the bar had already seen me.
He was already sliding off his stool and then he was walking directly towards me.
“What, Miriam?” Black said, still not turning around. “Who is that?”
“It’s Ian,” I said, feeling light-headed as I watched my fiancé walk towards our corner booth with a smile on his handsome face.
Picking up my glass, I took a really big swallow of the merlot, setting the tulip-shaped glass down as I rose shakily to my feet.
I found myself conscious suddenly of the borrowed clothes I was wearing.
“He’s here,” I said numbly.
“YOU ARE THE absolute worst person to surprise in human history,” Ian smiled, grasping my elbow as he leaned closer to kiss my cheek. “...The absolute worst.”
I forced a smile. My eyes drifted down to Black as I accepted the kiss. He hadn’t stood up when Ian reached our table and now I found myself noticing the faint air of hostility drifting off Black as he watched Ian kiss me. As for me, I was deeply aware I was probably ten different shades of guilty-looking even as I tried to shake the feeling off.
Whatever I was doing here, it was no threat to Ian.
I desperately wanted to believe that, anyway.
“Sorry,” I murmured, my face still uncomfortably hot. “You caught me on kind of a strange night.” I motioned towards Black, not looking down at him as I studied Ian’s face. “I’d like you to meet Quentin Black,” I said, deciding to tell him part of the truth at least. “He’s a new prospective employer,” I added. “He runs a private investigation and security firm downtown and wants me to consider a possible job with his permanent staff.”
Ian raised his eyebrows subtly, keeping that humor on his face.
Even so, he appeared to be studying my expression more closely than usual. I was about to speak again when he glanced down at Black, barely hesitating before he extended a hand.
“Ian Stone,” he said, smiling.
“You’re British,” Black observed, rising smoothly to his feet.
The way he towered over Ian felt strangely deliberate.
Ian’s hardly short. At roughly six foot even, he’s well above average.
I hadn’t thought to hazard a guess about Black’s exact height until then. Looking at the two of them together however, I thought: Six-five? Six-six?
“Yes,” Ian said, his lips quirking in what might have been amusement as he gazed up at Black’s face, obviously tracking the way he was using his height as well. “This surprises you?”
“No,” Black said at once, glancing at me. “Actually, it explains some of Ms. Fox’s speech patterns. At times she uses phrasing more from your home country than her own.”
Ian glanced at me in another silent question.
Without waiting for my answer, he looked back at Black, right before releasing his hand.
“You are a detective, aren’t you?” Ian teased, his voice still holding mainly friendliness and humor. “I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that you’d notice such a thing. Still, I imagine Miri finds it entertaining... compared to her usual sorts of clients. Most of those are a bit on the boring side, in terms of companies... isn’t that right, darling?”
I smiled, shaking my head. “According to you, all business people are dull, Ian. Which is sort of ironic given what you do for a living...”
“Which is what... precisely?” Black said, narrowing his gaze at Ian.
Ian gave him a wry smile.
“Well, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” he said, causing me to let out an involuntary laugh. “And if you meant to flatter me by implying Miri’s picked up my speech mannerisms due to her fondness for me... or to reassure me perhaps, given that I’ve just caught my fiancée out drinking wine with a man I’ve never met... I have to commend you for being cleverer than most of her clients, too.”
I was used to Ian’s humor, so his words didn’t really surprise me.
I heard the faint edge there, however, which did surprise me a little.
Ian didn’t normally bother sparring with other men in social situations, certainly not over me. Both of us were pretty laid back about the trust thing; we had been almost from the beginning. I hadn’t really seen Ian spar with other men over anything else either, come to think of it... not in a social situation, at least. He tended to reserve that for his work.
Ian was confident, which was one of the things I liked about him.
Even as I thought it, I found myself thinking Ian was measuring Black more closely than I’d ever seen him look at anyone, even at the few work functions of his I’d attended.
Weirder still, he seemed to be trying to hide it.
Was he really threatened? Had he seen me and Black talking and picked up on something? I’d never given Ian a single reason not to trust me, but he was only human.
And Black was...
Well, handsome wasn’t the right word.
But if I saw Ian with a female equivalent to Black, I would definitely be threatened.
Truthfully though, I’m much more the jealous type than Ian is. Maybe it was related to that emotional volatility that I’d struggled with as a kid, but I really had to work sometimes to keep it in check, especially with how often Ian traveled and how secretive he could be due to his job. I trusted my boyfriend, like I said, but I’d always had issues with being possessive.
Ian usually seemed completely immune to such things. He claimed it was because he trusted me absolutely, but I suspected a lot of it was just temperament.
But now? Looking at him, I honestly couldn’t be sure.
I never read Ian though. Never.
Boyfriends were even more of a hard line than friends, when it came to the psychic stuff.
I never violated their minds. For any reason.
Even as I thought it, Black glanced at me, his sculpted lips quirking as he slid his hands into his pockets. His whole energy changed as he did it. Moreover, it was the first time I’d seen him put his hands in his pockets at all. It was a strangely “normal” gesture for him, and kind of threw me since I hadn’t seen him do a lot of normal things in the short period I’d known him.
Watching him interact with Ian, it struck me suddenly that both of them appeared to be wearing costumes.
“Sorry,” Black said, rocking slightly on his heels, another normal-ish thing to do I hadn’t seen him do until then. “The detective thing can be hard to shut off. Miriam told me you were traveling for business? You’ve just returned from Bangkok, am I right?”
I looked at Black again, sharper than I should have.
I had no memory of telling him where Ian had gone.
“Yes,” Ian said, smiling, his own hands now in his pockets.
“Do you like it there?” Black asked politely.
I noticed his gold eyes sharpened slightly after he asked it.
Ian shrugged, glancing at me before he smiled up at Black. “It has its charms. The food is quite good. It has some stunning rooftop views... and I do enjoy haggling in the markets.”
Black nodded, but I found myself wondering if he was even listening.
Further, the nodding, the way he held his body, the hands in his pockets... all of it was throwing me off balance, if only because he came off as a totally different person than the one I’d been sitting with just a few minutes earlier.
Ian seemed to be measuring Black with his eyes, too.
“You need her for long?” he inquired politely. “I’ve only just got back, as I said. I’d hoped to surprise her at her flat, once I finished here.”
I frowned slightly, looking back towards the bar.
For the first time, it occurred to me to wonder why Ian was here.
“Client’s just left, darling,” Ian explained, following the direction of my stare. Smiling, he looked back at Black. “Well? Should I wait? Or is it to be a long night for you two?”
“At least a few hours, I’m afraid,” Black said. “Possibly more. I apologize, given the circumstances, but I’d really hoped to get her to sign a preliminary consulting contract tonight, if possible... and to check out one of the suspects in the case I’m working before he can skip town.”
He gave Ian another strangely business-normal smile, like they were old frat buddies.
“...It really can’t wait until tomorrow,” he added, and I noticed for the first time that the odd, difficult-to-identify accent of his had vanished too, leaving only nondescript American businessman. “I am sorry. But this suspect is a serious flight risk. The window is short.”
Ian’s own smile didn’t waver. “Of course,” he said. “I completely understand. I have a few things I could be taking care of myself tonight, anyway.”
“Why are you back early?” I asked Ian.
Ian glanced at me, and from the look on his face, I wondered if my question was overly blunt. “I missed you,” he said, smiling in a rueful way. “They didn’t need me, and after our conversation yesterday, I thought perhaps I should bow out early if I could.”
I felt my face heat as his words sank in.
“Oh.” My surprise turned swiftly into guilt. “I’m sorry.”
“Completely my fault. I can’t surprise people and change my schedule without telling them, only to be angry when they aren’t available.”
There was a silence between the three of us. It felt dense that time.
Then Ian smiled wider at Black. “Mind if I borrow her for a few? Before giving her up for the evening?”
Black gave a strange sort of bow, but again, something about it carried more of a regular joe business guy vibe than the alien-type body movements of his I’d noted before.
“Of course,” he said. He smiled a 100-watt smile after he said it.
I couldn’t help staring at him, noting the differences, until I felt Ian’s eyes on me. Then I turned, smiling at him as normally as I could.
“Shall we?” I said, angling my body away from the corner booth.
Ian nodded, motioning for me to lead the way, which I did.
When I glanced back, I saw Ian and Black measuring one another a last time before a final handshake. Seeing the flat look in Ian’s eyes, I found myself thinking that my soon-to-be husband was as good of an actor as Black.
I couldn’t decide how I felt about that, truthfully.