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“Maybe those Suburbans were driving to Montreal.”
“I followed them. They were going a hundred. I was going to get a bonus from our governor, you know. If I’d pulled them over.”
As Lydia and Eastwind went back and forth, Daniel studied the man, looking for his tells, falling back into an old, familiar role of lie detector machine. He didn’t get much of anything. Eastwind’s eyelids were low, like the conversation was boring him, but he was calmly focused on Lydia—his facial features, so bold, so carved, were neutral.
Then again, he was a professional. Professional what… though.
“I don’t buy that story,” Lydia said. “And we did not come here to argue with you.”
“What a relief,” Eastwind said dryly. “I’m also hoping you don’t expect food. I eat at the diner for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The only thing in my fridge is old ketchup and some milk that I’m sure is a solid now—”
“I’ve already been lied to once tonight,” Lydia announced in a grim voice. “It’s not happening again.”
“Aren’t you a force to be reckoned with.”
“I know the truth about you,” she cut in.
“Do you.”
The way she was standing there over the lounger, taking control of the conversation, aggression banked, but right under the surface, Daniel felt a flush of pride—and then an aching, bittersweet relief. When his wolven said she could handle things, it was very clear she could. She was going to be okay without him in the big bad world.
She really was.
“Back in the spring,” she said, “I had to go to the high school to use the computer lab. I went by the display of trophies, the one in front by the office. All those trophies on those shelves… lot of team pictures with them, going back for years. I know you know the ones. Don’t you.”
It was subtle, but Eastwind’s energy changed even as his body remained right where it was, his ankles crossed, his brown leather slippers knocking together in a rhythm that was like a heartbeat.
His vibe just was different.
“You know those images,” Lydia said, “because you’re in one. From nineteen eighty. And here’s the funny thing. You want to talk about magic? You lookexactlythe same as you do now.”
There was a stretch of silence.
“Plastic surgery is good these days.” Lydia shook her head slowly. “But it’s not that good. So no, I don’t think you were waiting in a speed trap, and I don’t think you saw those vehicles, and I do notbelieve you followed them to Plattsburgh. You know what kind of doctor, what kind of man, Gus St. Claire is. If you were in his position, he would help find you if he could. I expect you to do the same.”
Daniel passed a hand down his face as he remembered the hours Gus had spent talking with him, explaining symptoms and test results and drug therapies. And sometimes just shooting the shit, particularly when Daniel was getting infusions.
“Come on, Eastwind,” he spoke up. “The man’s probably dead, but that can’t be how this ends, if you know what I mean. Help us do what’s right.”
Eastwind’s slippers stopped tapping. “Something tells me you’re not talking about jail time, and I’m going to give you a little tip. If you’re considering homicide, I’m not the one you need to come to. Remember, I am an officer of the law.”
“That’s not all you are,” Lydia intoned. “Not by a long shot.”
ELEVEN
GUS WAS NOTfeeling so hot.
As he resurfaced to some muddy version of consciousness, he was surprised he was still alive. For one thing, his wheezing woke him up. For another, there was a dripping sound that he had a feeling was his own blood. And God, his stomach hurt. Actually, he didn’t need his medical degree to know thateverythinghurt—
“You’re awake again.”
The sound of that oddly accented voice activated his adrenal system like nothing ever had. As his body began to shake uncontrollably, his heart pounded and knocked out his hearing—
But wait, he could see now.
His vision was blurry, and he couldn’t lift his slumped head to look around much—but the mask was off his face so he got an eyeful of the pool of blood that was congealing on the concrete floor beneath a wooden chair leg. Lot of blood. Pints of it.
Shit.
