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But even if I did have a year-plus to figure out who they were, I didn’t want to slow-play this any longer. These fucking assholes had killed enough shifters and enough dogs, and I was fucking done sitting on my pretty ass and waiting for someone else to do something about it.
If something happened to Taavi because I hadn’t done anything about it, I would never,everforgive myself.
The elevator arrived at its destination, I adjusted my suit jacket so that you couldn’t see my shoulder-holster, and then I walked into the reception area of Deepwater Hephaestus.
It was decidedly underwhelming.
I’d built up this company as some sort of evil pseudo-Aztec conglomerate that was going to have spears or sacrificial knives or some shit on the walls, maybe dark green marble countertops, or at least some dramatic dark wood laminate.
Nope.
Every fucking shade of beige under the goddamn sun.
Beige tile that leaned a bit toward tan.
Beige walls that were the color everybody called ‘eggshell.’
Beige counters that had a hint of blue, and beige countertops that might have a touch of yellow.
Even a fucking beige macrame tapestry thing that was actually kind of neat, but surrounded by so much beige that it looked like a beige monster had just fucking vomited all over everything.
It couldn’t look more banal if it had tried.
Even the goddamn lettering on the frosted glass wall leading to the reception desk was fucking beige.
It made me want to kill something just to add a splash of goddamn color.
Okay, not really. But at least the blood would have been dramatic, for fuck’s sake.
I really should know better than to think shit like that.
But I was feeling pretty cocky walking through all that beige, as though my own lily white ass wasn’t only a hair lighter than the décor.
I walked up to the reception counter—not desk, butcounter—and leaned on one elbow. “I have an appointment with Mr. Garcia. Name’s Hart.”
The receptionist, an attractive brunette who was wearing more makeup than some drag queens I know, pursed her lips as her long nails tapped on the keyboard, presumably searching Garcia’s appointment calendar.
“Mr. Garcia will be with you shortly, Mr. Hart,” she chirped. “If you could just wait for a few minutes.”
“Sure.” I was about ten minutes early, because I’m a Midwesterner and we’re always early. Also I wasn’t about to be late to an appointment that had been surprisingly difficult to actually get.
So I sat in a pale wood laminate chair with—you guessed it—beige upholstery, resting one ankle on my other knee and pulling out my phone. I’d put a recording app on it so that I could make sure to record our conversation, and I turned it on before slipping it into my back pocket.
Then I sat there and waited, tapping my fingers against the sole of my shoe. Periodically, the receptionist sat up a tiny bit higher to see me over the counter. I smiled at her, making her blush.
I might not be sexually attracted to women, but that doesn’t mean I can’t flirt if I want to—fifteen years ago, and it would have gotten me a disdainful look and a sniff. Now it gets me pretty much whatever I want.
What I wanted now was to make sure she got me in to see Garcia—and that she’d remember me just in case I went missing. I also wanted to make sure that she’d also feel bad for not saying something—and if she thought I was friendly and nice, she’d be more likely to admit that I’d been there.
I felt a little twinge of concern. Just the vague impression that I might be dramatically underestimating the danger I was putting myself in by being here. But that’s why I’d set up the emails and brought the gun. Just in case.
I’d told myself at least a dozen times this morning that it was paranoia.
The longer I sat surrounded by beige, the less paranoid and the more worried I felt.
The receptionist peeked at me again, and I flashed her another charming elven smile. This time, she giggled.
Then the office door—a blond wood that was about as close as wood could get to beige—opened, and an attractive Latino man stepped out, a fake smile spread across his lips.
