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After taking advantage of the facilities and gratefully unwrapping the toothbrush I had discovered packaged in plastic on the edge of the sink. I surveyed myself in this full-length mirror, but every bruise and scrape I had sustained earlier had vanished, leaving my skin perfectly smooth beneath the sheer pajamas. My hair was shiny and clean, despite what had to have been at least a full day or more of sleep while I recovered from my injuries.
I combed it out with the brand new boar bristled brush I discovered on the counter—suspiciously similar to the one I kept in my bathroom—and went back to the closet. There's only one outfit that's mine folded on the dresser in the center of the closet. The rest of the clothing was all my size, tagged, and freshly pressed.
Worry niggled my brain. With only a moment of hesitation for the soft silk blouse I ran between my fingers, I dress in my own clothes as I considered my next steps. The fact remained that Mr. X knows I have the stone claw inside me, and I shuddered as I contemplated it lodged inside my chest.
I placed a hand over my sternum and reached past the steady, if a little fast, beating of my heart to the thrum of magic underneath. There's no mistaking the sensation of wholeness I feel pressing back against my palm.
The artifact resides there, and it is happy in its new home.
Shit.
No wonder Mr. X was furious with me. He paid me to retrieve it, and though I possessed it, I couldn't hand the object to him. At least I was correct about one thing. Kye didn't get his hands on it, and I did find it, as I promised.
I wonder if he'll be any more forgiving when he discovers the artifactwantsto live in my body. I doubt it. Mr. X doesn't strike me as the forgiving type.
Ten minutes later, dressed, cleaned up, and with my breath no longer capable of knocking a full-grown man to his knees, I pulled the double doors. To my surprise, they weren't locked. When I stepped outside, I found no guard, but a sleek hotel with the same industrial accents in ‘my' room. The doors closed behind me, and I stopped short as the latch clicked.
Oh, fuck.
I whirled and re-tried the doors to my room, and thankfully, they opened. I stepped back inside and searched the rest of the room for more of my things, finally discovering my house key, phone, and wallet in one of the island drawers in the middle of the giant closet.
A glance at the phone tells me I've been asleep for almost three days—longer than I usually take to heal. Shit. I was even closer to death than I initially suspected. Maybe long enough for Kye to have moved on from losing the artifact and decided I'm dead. But I doubt I'm that lucky.
My hip bag is gone, possibly torn off in the water or when I was fighting Kye. I didn't think about it when we were both trying to get the magical hand. Realizing it's gone hurts now. It took me months and several lesser bags before I found “Carl, the sidekick side satchel,” and I already feel the loss keenly. The right bag could make all the difference in a job.
I tucked my wallet into my back pocket and my keys into the front and wedged my phone in my bra. It's not ideal, but whoever collected my things didn't also think to grab a pair of cargo pants from my place, so I'm now stuck with the usual girl-sized pockets and the problems they create.
With my pounding heart pulsing at the back of my throat, I exited the room again, this time venturing down the stairs of the balcony and into what I assume will be a lobby, only to find that the decor grows more industrial and less posh on the ground floor. Not a lobby at all, by the looks of things.
The room was half the height of the warehouse, meaning that someone built the second floor by halving the interior space upward. The corrugated steel warehouse walls had been covered by drywall. On second glance, I find the dull beige walls and ceiling were constructed of the much more expensive acoustic board. Smart. No sense in letting Law Enforcement overhear your nefarious conversations. Make them work for it, right?
The floor was polished concrete, like the big box warehouse store, though several oriental rugs of various sizes graced it. I shuddered with an image of dead bodies getting rolled up in whatever rug was handy and dragged to the swamp. Mr. X seemed smart enough not to do his dirty work here, wasn’t he? Still, I suppose, a criminal must be prepared for every contingency.
A single woman wearing a headset sat behind an ebony half-circle desk, and several men with their weapons in clear view stand in the open area. Three more are hunched over a table playing poker. Others loitered outside the building through clouded panes of glass.
The woman barely glanced at me as I approached, and her practiced look of boredom almost seems believable.
“Sleeping Beauty finally wakes up, huh?” she drawled as she typed away at her computer.
I felt eyes on my back and resisted the urge to look toward the men on the other side of the large room. Everybody's pretending to be oblivious, but they know I'm here, too.
Drumming my fingers on the counter, I nodded. “Yeah. Thanks for my clothes and the toothbrush and whatnot. You're the one who went to my apartment, right?”
She finally gives me her full attention. “I did, but how did you know that?”
“Oh,” I paused, weighing the risk of telling her I wasn't technically human over lying and her seeing through it because I'm a terrible liar. “I smelled you on my clothes and in the bathroom. You wear a nice perfume.”
“You could smell that still?”
I shrugged. “It is a nice perfume.” And nice styling products and nice laundry detergent. But I think I'll leave the rest out. At least then, it's not a lie.
The woman blinked as she studied me. Finally, she said, “Well, thanks. You should probably go back to your room, though. I can order lunch if you'd like.”
I glanced toward the door. There's nothing directly between it and me, and no one's pointing a gun at my head or telling me to stay inside. “No, thanks. I'll just run out and get myself something. Am I still in Baton Rouge?”
She nodded. “Still in Baton Rouge.”
“Next question. If I leave, will that stop me from being able to come back?”
