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“Then if he behaves himself and passes on the bait, he will not get caught and slain,” Pierette said, and she was still too calm.
I wanted to grab her and shake her until she showed the fear she’d let him see. Had it been an act? Was she an even better actor than Edward? If she was, then I couldn’t trust anything she’d ever said or done with me. Damn it, didn’t she understand this would make me doubt her?
Nicky said, “She understands.”
“You read my mind,” I said.
He nodded. “And both Angel and Pierette understood both the danger from Olaf and that it might damage their relationship with you.”
“We all decided the risks were worth it,” Ethan said.
I looked into his soft gray eyes. “It’s wrong.”
“Why, my queen?” Pierette asked.
“What she asked,” Angel said.
I tried to think how to say it and finally said, “It seems . . . dishonorable. If I have to kill Olaf, I want him to know it’s coming and why.”
“If he kidnaps one of your girlfriends, he’ll know why we’re killing him,” Nicky said. Put that way, it made sense, but it still felt wrong.
“I don’t have time to argue about this anymore. We go inside and you prove to me that you’re all assets on this case, or I will by God send you home.”
“As you like, my queen,” Pierette said.
She even bowed at the neck, which was as much bowing as I allowed her in public. In private she’d press her face to the floor like she was abasing herself before something holy. It was incredibly uncomfortable to have people drop to the floor in front of you. I never knew what to do. Did I tell them to stop that and stand up, or just get off the floor, ignore it, help them up? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to break them of the habit.
“Don’t bow to me where the other police can see it.”
“As you like, my queen.”
“And don’t use any of my titles except for Marshal while we’re here.”
“Of course . . . Marshal.”
“We’re sleeping together. I think you can call me Anita.”
“Thank you, my queen.”
I started to correct Pierette, but then just started walking toward the sheriff’s office. I had a crime to solve and a life to save. I wasn’t letting anyone—not Olaf, not my bodyguards, not my lovers, not even my friends with benefits—interfere with this case. If they kept distracting me this badly, I would send them home, even the two women who were willing to fall on Olaf’s serial killer blade. I’d handled him before with just Edward to run interference. I could do it again if I had to. There was a tiny part of me that wasn’t so sure of that, and a very large part of me that knew someday I’d have to kill Olaf or he’d kill me. So why did it bother me so much that we were setting him up to fall back into his old murderous habits? I didn’t know, and I stopped trying to figure it out. Later. I’d think about it later. Crime first, moral dilemmas later. Oh, wait. The case was a moral dilemma, too. Damn it all to hell.
50
WE WERE ALL in the office having more of Duke’s yummy coffee, but none of my new people had been allowed near the cells. The cells were just a door away from us, but they might as well have been on the dark side of the moon. With the hours ticking away before we had to execute Bobby, we were stuck trying to play diplomats. I’d thought Leduc and I had had a “guy” bonding moment outside, and he had forgiven the PDA, but he hadn’t even begun to harp on the fact that we’d brought members of the Coalition for Better Understanding Between Therianthrope and Human Communities to his town. Legally, Newman had invited them in, so he could simply show them to the cells, but he had to live here after the case was over, and he seemed to be chasing Leduc’s approval like a black sheep that finally wants Daddy to love him more, or maybe that was just my natural impatience and crankiness talking. Since everything out of my mouth made Leduc angrier, I’d found a piece of wall near the door so I could watch the entire room and all the people in it. Edward had stayed in the diplomatic effort, playing Ted to the hilt to help Newman, Ethan, and Angel persuade the sheriff that he should play nice with us. The rest of us who weren’t as good at playing diplomat were just trying to stay out of the way.
Olaf was in the chair by the smaller desk since Leduc was pacing by his big desk and gesturing angrily between offering refreshments. The sheriff was like a mix of hostess and pissed cop. Ethan was utterly polite, and Angel was that plus an attractive woman who played to it; they both seemed to bring out a hardwired part of Leduc that wanted to play Susie Homemaker.
Milligan and Custer had found a piece of wall to lean against near Olaf. He was studiously ignoring them while they were trying to casually keep an eye on him. It was the alpha-guy equivalent of women who showed up to a big party looking fabulous and wanted desperately to be prettier than the other women, but tried to act like it wasn’t that big a deal. Milligan had cut his white blond hair so short that he looked nearly as bald as Olaf. Custer’s brown hair was finally long enough for a short ponytail. The other three former SEALs who had survived the lycanthrope terrorist cell somewhere classified were giving him a lot of grief for growing it out. Millie was taller at over six feet. Custer was a little under six feet and broader through the shoulders and hips. Why was Custer nicknamed Pud? It was short for Puddin’, which was a play on Custer being Custard. I’m told that some military nicknames stick with you for life. Millie was on the willowy side. All the guys in their unit were of similar builds, regardless of ethnicity. They both gave off that I’m-the-biggest-dog-in-the-room vibe like most of the Team’s guys, but for once they weren’t. Olaf would have towered over everyone if he’d bothered to stand up; that he didn’t bother was an insult. He had nothing to prove to them, because he already knew he was bigger and better. Of course, all the SEALs had had to work on swallowing their egos when they joined our security team, because we had a lot of bigger dogs.
Nicky was staying the closest to me, the way Bram shadowed Micah back home. Nicky didn’t travel everywhere with me the way Bram did with Micah, but when he was with me, he usually assumed the position of main bodyguard for me. The fact that he was also one of my lovers and metaphysically tied to me was almost beside the point for his job. He was probably about the same height as Custer, under six feet, but he was so muscled that he always seemed bigger. He’d removed his sunglasses and tucked them in the front of his shirt. The newly shortened yellow blond hair meant he couldn’t use it to hide the scars that were all that was left of his right eye. When I’d met him, he’d grown his bangs out in a long triangle like an anime character. Of course, he’d had about twenty pounds less muscle on him then, so he’d looked more like a club kid, but a devotion to the weight room had made him too fierce-looking to match the club-kid disguise, so he’d cut his hair. He was looking at the world barefaced. I’d been with him when people gawked or did the fast look away as if they were embarrassed they’d been caught staring. Watching Nicky walk through the world with his scars showing had made me love him even more. Bravery was one of my favorite things.
Olaf wasn’t just ignoring the two men near him; he was also pretending that he didn’t see Nicky as worthy competition, and I knew that wasn’t true. It wasn’t like they had ever discussed it in front of me, but they respected each other as warriors.
Pierette had found a corner of the room away from all of us. I couldn’t even
see her from where I was standing, and neither could Olaf, which I think was her point. She was back to playing would-be victim for him. I still didn’t like it, but I hadn’t absolutely forbidden it either. One disaster at a time. First, I had to get my people in to see Bobby.
Newman extracted himself from the discussion with Leduc to come talk to me. “I’m the one that has to deal with Duke when this is all over, so I have to be here for this part. You go and question one of the women. When you’re done with the interview, text or call me, and I’ll let you know if I can take the second interview or if you get both.”
