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Heart of Stone
C.E. Murphy


Okay, so jogging through Central Park after midnight wasn't a bright idea. But Margrit Knight never thought she'd encounter a dark new world filled with magical beings–not to mention a dying woman and a mysterious stranger with blood on his hands.Her logical, lawyer instincts told her it couldn't all be real–but she could hardly deny what she'd seen. . . and touched. The mystery man, Alban, was a gargoyle. One of the fabled Old Races who had hidden their existence for centuries.Now he was a murder suspect, and he needed Margrit's help to take the heat off him and find the real killer. And as the dead pile up, it's a race against the sunrise to clear Alban's name and keep them both alive. . . .










Praise for

C.E. MURPHY

and her books

The Negotiator



Hands of Flame “Fast-paced action and a twisty-turny plot make for a good read…Fans of the series will be sad to leave Margrit’s world behind, at least for the time being.” —RT Book Reviews

House of Cards “Violent confrontations add action on top of tense intrigue in this involving, even thrilling, middle book in a divertingly different contemporary fantasy romance series.” —LOCUS

“The second title in Murphy’s Negotiator series is every bit as interesting and fun as the first. Margrit is a fascinatingly complex heroine who doesn’t shy away from making difficult choices.”

—RT Book Reviews

Heart of Stone “[An] exciting series opener…Margrit makes for a deeply compelling heroine as she struggles to sort out the sudden upheaval in her professional and romantic lives.” —Publishers Weekly

“A fascinating new series…as usual, Murphy delivers interesting worldbuilding and magical systems, believable and sympathetic characters and a compelling story told at a breakneck pace.”

—RT Book Reviews




Author’s Note


Over the past couple of years I’ve had a lot of people comment on my discipline, a mysterious thing that they see as being more self-evident than I do. In most ways, writing is a job like any other: you have deadlines for projects and people get cranky if you don’t turn them in on time. It’s true that if you’re writing without a contract or a publisher (which I was when I wrote the first draft of Heart of Stone), it does take a lot of discipline. It also takes a lot of dreaming, because when you’re writing on spec and hoping for that first sale, the only thing that keeps you going is faith and determination and the willingness to sit down in the chair and apply fingers to keyboard.

This book is the result of more butt-in-chair, fingers-to-keyboard work than I want to think about, and a massive chunk of it was done during an international move. I’m utterly astonished at how that kind of thing focuses the ol’ mind: it’s really easy to be a writer and discover you’ve whiled away your day, effectively creating a situation where you don’t have time to work. (Notice how people with nine-to-five jobs very, very rarely find themselves with a day where they just don’t have time to go to work? I certainly never did.) It would have been extremely easy to not have time to work in the midst of moving across the world. In my case, I have found out I can work through just about anything, if I really have to, and I suppose that’s what people mean when they say they admire my discipline.

Me, I believe pretty much anyone can do the same thing, if they want to. I’d like to think some of that comes through in my stories—not much is actually impossible, if we not only dream, but do. The book you’re holding is the result of both dreaming and doing. I hope you enjoy it!

Catie




HEART OF STONE

C.E. MURPHY






www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


For my Dad, Thomas Allen Murphy,

who likes this one best so far.




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


Normally it doesn’t take an army for me to write a book. This one, though, required a rather absurd amount of feedback. To wit:

My agent, Jennifer Jackson, made me do a major rewrite on the manuscript, then said, “This is much better! Now cut another thirty pages from the first hundred and we’ll really have something here!” You were right. Thank you.

My editor, Mary-Theresa Hussey, made me push the book in ways I wouldn’t have on my own, ways that gave the story more depth and richness than I’d ever imagined it to have. Thank you, too. It would be okay if neither of you ever made me work that hard again….

The art department has once more outdone itself, giving me yet another cover I’m thrilled to have my work judged by. Glowing thanks are due to art director Kathleen Oudit and to artist Chris McGrath. You guys help build careers, and I cannot thank you enough.

Dor and Lisa helped me with New York details, so anything I got wrong is either their fault (!) or I made it up wholesale to fit the world.:)

Tara, Mary Anne and Janne gave me feedback on the third draft, by which time I could no longer see the book for the words, so their comments were invaluable. I believe Silkie and Jai, my usual suspects, read every draft without their enthusiasm flagging, and Trent read it at least three times. Their fortitude astounds me. Rob, Deborah, Lisa (again!), Lydia and Morgan listened to me whine interminably about revisions. Rob, in particular, offered some critical brainstorming sessions that did huge amounts to help me develop the mythology of this world; so, too, did Sarah.

Thank you all.

And all I can say to Ted is that I literally could not have written this book without you. I’ll give you a copy with the bits you helped with highlighted, and you’ll see how true that is. Thank you so much, hon. I love you.




ONE


SHE RAN, LONG strides that ate the pavement despite her diminutive height. Her hair, full of corkscrew curls, was pulled back from her face, bunches jouncing as her feet impacted the asphalt surface. The words feminine and female, less interchangeable than they might seem, both described her well. Feminine, as he understood it, suggested a sort of delicacy, though not without strength. Female encompassed power as blunt and raw as sex. Watching her, neither descriptor would suffice without the other.

Lithe and athletic, she ran nearly every night, usually not long after sundown. Tonight she was late; midnight was barely an hour off, closer by far than the late-January sunset. He watched from his arboreal refuge, hunched high above the concrete paths, protective and possessive of the slender woman taking her exercise in a dangerous city.

There were safer places to run, safer times; he thought she must know that. The park was notorious for nighttime crime, but she threw away caution for something greater. For defiance against an ordered world, and perhaps for the thrill of knowing the danger she put herself in. There was confidence in her action, too; her size very likely precluded fighting off attackers, but the muscles that powered her run would help her outpace any enemy that might approach. It was a gambit, and he liked her for it. It reminded him of other women he’d known, sometimes braver than wise, always willing to risk themselves for others. Such demonstrations made him remember there was life outside the confines he’d created for himself.

So he watched from high in the treetops, protecting her whether she knew it or not. Choosing to make her safe despite the independent streak that sent her running after dark, without taking away her illusion of bold solitude. She would never see him, he reasoned. Her people were predators, and they’d come from the trees. In the primitive part of the mind that spoke of caution, they were the danger that came from above.

Humans never looked up.

He shook himself as she took a corner, careening out of sight. Then he leaped gracefully over the treetops, following.

Air burned in her lungs, every breath of cold searing deep and threatening to make her cough with its dryness. Each footfall on the asphalt was the jolt of a syllable through her body: Ir. Ir. Ir. Ra. Shun. Al. There were slick patches on the trail, thin sheets of black ice that didn’t reflect until she was on them. She slid ten inches, keeping her center as if she wore ice skates, stomach tightening to make her core solid. Keeping control in an out-of-control moment. The action stung her body as vividly as a man’s touch might, heat sweeping through her without regard for sense or sensibility. Then the ice was gone and she was running again.

Eyes up, watching the trail and the woods. The air was brisk and as clear as it ever got in New York. Pathways were lit by lamps that buzzed and flickered at whim. Patches of dark were to be wary of, making her heart beat faster with excitement. No headset. Taking risks was one thing. Outright stupidity was another, and even she knew she ran a thin line between the two already. Her own labored breathing and the pounding of her footsteps were enough to drown out more nearby noise than was safe. That was part of it, too, part of the irresistible draw of the park. She was not safe. Nothing she did would ever make her wholly safe.

It was almost like being able to fly.

“Irrational,” Margrit whispered under her breath. The word seemed to give her feet wings like Hermes, sending her down the path with a new surge of speed. Feet jolting against the ground made echoes in her hips and breasts, every impact stinging her feet and reminding her of sex and laughter and the things that made life worth living.

Risking everything made it worth living. Friends, only half joking, wondered if she was suicidal, never quite understanding the adventure that drew Margrit to the park at night.

The Central Park rapist had confessed when she was in her first year of law school and still wondering if she should have chosen to follow in her parents’ footsteps—either her mother’s MBA or her father’s medical degree—but the headlines that morning had solidified her belief in her own decision. Even now, seven years later, she knew her parents wished she’d chosen one of their professions, or at least a more profitable arm of law than the one she pursued, but thinking back to that day always rebuilt her confidence. Buoyed by the memory, she stretched her legs farther and reached again for the feeling of freedom running in the park gave her.

Minutes later, she skidded to a halt under a light and leaned a hip against a battered bench, putting her hands on her knees. Her ponytail flipped upside down, nearly brushing the ground as she heaved in air. Thirty seconds and she would start running again. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight.

“Good evening.”

Margrit spasmed upward, whipping around to face the speaker. A man with pale hair and lifted eyebrows stood in the puddle of lamplight, several feet away. He was wearing a suit, and had his hands tucked in the pockets of the slacks. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Jesus Christ.” She backed away a step or two, putting even more distance between herself and the man. Caution knotted her stomach, sending chills of adrenaline through her. “Get the hell away from me.” Every muscle in her body was bunched, ready to sprint, but her heart pounded harder with the thrill of the encounter than with the impulse to run. She wore running shoes, as opposed to his smooth-soled leather slip-ons, and had a head start. Caution hadn’t flared into panic or even true fear yet; her confidence in her own abilities was greater than the evident danger.

That degree of cockiness was going to get her killed someday.

Not today, Margrit whispered to herself, and aloud warned, “I have a gun.”

His eyebrows rose higher. “I don’t.” He took his hands out of his pockets and lifted them slowly, so she could see more of his torso. His shirt was lilac in the lamplight, almost glowing against the jacket lining. There was no gun in evidence. “I was just out for a walk.” He made a small, careful gesture to one side. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Yeah, well, you freaking well did.” Margrit edged back another step or two, balancing her weight on her toes. “This is Central Park, asshole. You don’t start up conversations with people here. Especially in the middle of the night.”

He spread his fingers. “Do you normally carry on conversations with people in Central Park in the middle of the night?”

“No.” The excitement of the moment was passing, and so was the high from running. The sense of fun, if that was the right word for the encounter, faded with it. Margrit took one more step back. “I’m going now. Don’t follow me.” He had at least ten inches of height on her, but she had faith in her own speed. Faith warred with confidence, and both lost out to an unspoken admission of arrogance that almost brought an undermining smile to Margrit’s lips.

“I won’t, but—may I ask you one question?”

“You just did.” Margrit curled her lip in irritation. She hated that particular piece of tomfoolery and resented it coming out of her own mouth. “What?”

“Where are you hiding your gun?” The man looked her up and down, more critically than lasciviously. Margrit glanced down at herself.

Tennies. Socks. Running tights with hot-pink stripes that picked up the blue in the streetlamp and radiated neon purple. A snug white-and-green sweatshirt that covered her midriff only if she didn’t move; otherwise, her belly flashed between hems.

There wasn’t really anywhere for a gun.

Margrit looked up again. “None of your goddamn business.” Her breath puffed in the cool air, reminding her that she was dressed for the late-January weather only if she was running to keep herself warm. She bounced on her toes, muscle tightening in her calves. “Don’t follow me,” she warned again.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he murmured.

Margrit raced down the path, putting a dozen yards between herself and the man in a few seconds. When she looked back a moment later, he was gone.

“You’re going to get yourself killed, Margrit.”

Margrit leaned against the open door, doubled over to pull at her laces. Her breath still came in little puffs, and she counted out syllables with each one. Ir. Ra. Shun. Al. The encounter in the park had her repeating the word more often than usual. Irrationally safe. Irrationally foolish. Irrationally defensive.

“Hello, nice to see you, too. My day was fine, thanks, how about yours? What are you doing up this late, anyway? Where’s Cam?” Margrit closed the door and locked it, leaning against the knob with both hands behind her. Her roommate stood down the hall, filling the kitchen door frame. “Cole, I’m fine, really.” She straightened and came down the corridor, brushing past him. His sweater, thick cable knit, touched her arm as she did so, and she added, “Nice sweater,” in hopes of distracting him, before she breathed, “I’m fine,” a final time.

“She went to bed already. 5:00 a.m. client. Thank you,” he added automatically. “Irish wool. Cam gave it to me for Christmas.”

Margrit shuddered. “5:00 a.m. Better her than me. Oh, yeah, I remember. I said I was going to borrow it and she threatened to tie my legs in a knot. It’s a nice sweater. She has good taste.”

“Of course she does. She’s dating me.” Cole offered a brief smile that fell away again as he visibly realized Margrit had succeeded in distracting him. “You’re fine this time, Grit. I’m afraid you’re going to get hurt.” He scowled across the kitchen, more in concern than anger. “You shouldn’t run after dark.”

“I know, but I didn’t get out of work until late.”

“You never do.”

“Cole, what are you, my housemate or my big brother?”

“I’m your friend, and I worry about you when you go out running in Central Park in the middle of the night. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Maybe, but not tonight.” The words lifted hairs on her arms, a reminder that she’d thought something similar facing the pale-haired man in the park. She should have heard him, Margrit thought. Even over the sound of her own breathing, she should have heard his approach and departure. Being careless enough to allow someone to sneak up on her was alarming.

But there’d been nothing of the predator in the man, despite his height. Margrit had defended enough criminals to know when she was being sized up as bait. The man in the park had moved with graceful, slow motions, as if aware his very bulk bespoke danger, and he mitigated as best he could with calming actions. As if she might be an easily startled animal—which she supposed she was. The idea brought a brief smile to her lips.

Margrit leaned on the counter and pulled the refrigerator door open. The appliance was an orange behemoth from the fifties, too stubborn to break down, energy inefficient and with a silver handle that could double as a club in a pinch. Margrit was unconscionably fond of it. She grabbed a cup of yogurt and bumped the door closed, turning to lean against it instead of the counter. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I just really needed to go for a run.”

“There’s this crazy new invention, Grit. It’s called a treadmill. They have them at gyms. Gyms that are open twenty-four hours a day, no less. Like the one Cam works at. She keeps offering you a membership.”

“Bah.” Margrit stuck her spoon in her mouth and turned to open the fridge again, looking for more food. “I don’ like thredmillth. Y’don’ go anywhrr.”

“No, but there aren’t random lunatics in the gym, either.”

“Speaking of random lunatics, there was this guy in the park. Said hello to me.” The memory of the man wouldn’t leave her, lingering around the edges of her mind. His light eyes had been colorless in the park lamps, and he’d had a good mouth. Well shaped without being feminine, even pursed that way as he’d looked her over.

God. She had friends she’d known for years whose features she couldn’t remember that clearly. Margrit shook her head, exiting the fridge with a plate of meatloaf in hand, using its mundanity to push away thoughts of the stranger. “You made dinner. I worship you.”

Cole folded his arms over his chest, frowning. “Flattery will get you nowhere. What guy in the park? Dammit, Grit—”

“He was just some guy in a business suit.” He hadn’t looked cold. Despite thirty-degree weather and no winter coat, he’d seemed comfortable. The silk shirt beneath his suit jacket couldn’t have afforded much warmth, but there’d been no shiver of cold flesh when he’d opened his jacket to show he was unarmed. Maybe the jacket had been so well cut as to hide padding, but Margrit doubted it. The breadth of shoulder and chest had looked to be all his own.

“And that what, renders him harmless?”

“I don’t know. He looked like a lawyer or something. Speaking of which.” Margrit cast a look of mock despair across the kitchen, at the same time feeling relief to have work that would take her mind off the blond man.

The kitchen expanded into the dining room, a solidwood, double-door frame making the rooms nominally separate. Legal briefs and somber-colored binders were piled precariously on the dining-room table, over which hung an enameled black birdcage instead of a light fixture. Two desk lamps fought for space on the edges of the table, bordering a laptop-size clearing. “I should get to work. Two hundred grand in student loans won’t go away if I end up unemployed.”

Cole snorted. “I know better, Margrit. You got through school on scholarships and help from your mom and dad.”

Margrit pulled her lips back from her teeth in a false snarl. “You’ve known me too long. Let me tell myself little white lies, Cole. I like to pretend I’m not spoiled rotten. ‘Mom and Dad paid for school’ sounds so snotty. Anyway, I still won’t have a job if I don’t get my work done, and this place needs rent paid on it just like everywhere else.”

“Did it ever occur to you working for somebody who paid better than Legal Aid might help with that?”

“Only every time I talk to Mom, so don’t you start. That’s what they get for sending me to Townsend. Oaths to make the world a better place stick with you. Legal Aid needs all the help they can get. And I’m good at it.”

“You have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, you know that?” Cole sighed, giving up the argument. “You should cook some kind of vegetable to go with the meatloaf. And go to bed so you can get to work early enough to leave at a decent hour so you’re not running around Central damned Park in the middle of the night.”

“I will,” Margrit promised. “Swear to God. As soon as I’ve finished going over these papers.” She gestured at the dining-room table. “I’ll be in bed by midnight.”

“Margrit, it is midnight.”

Margrit cast a guilty look toward the clock. “It’s only a few minutes after eleven!”

Cole eyed the clock, then Margrit. “You know that going over papers doesn’t mean going into the living room and turning on the TV?”

“Yeah. I’ll be good. You can go to bed.”

Cole drew his chin in and scrutinized her. “Promise?”

“I promise. Scout’s honor.” Margrit held up three fingers.

“Okay. Should I wake you up on my way out?”

“At four-thirty?” Margrit couldn’t keep the horror out of her voice.

Cole shook his head. “I don’t start until seven. Chef Vern’s got a catering event tomorrow night and wants me to do the pastries for it, so somebody else gets to make the doughnuts.”

“No wonder you’re up so late.” Margrit frowned. “When was the last time you made a doughnut, Cole?”

“Christmas,” he said placidly. “You remember. Cam asked me to make them for breakfast.” “I meant for work.”

“Oh. Probably in culinary school. Don’t be difficult. Do you want me to get you up?”

Margrit pulled her hair out of its ponytail and scrubbed her hand through it, fingers catching in springy curls. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Get your work done and go to bed. Night, Grit.” Cole smiled at her and disappeared down the hall.

“Night, Cole,” she called, and waited. When his door clicked shut, she grabbed the plate of meat loaf, a carton of double-swirl chocolate fudge chunk ice cream, a legal brief from the table and a pen from the birdcage, and sauntered into the living room to plunk down on the couch. Soft cushions grabbed her hips, sucking her in with the confidence of an old lover. Margrit spilled her armload onto the cushion next to her and switched on the TV, flipping to the news as she rescued the meat loaf before it stained her paperwork.

She elbowed open her binder and twisted her neck to read it as she ate. The television droned on in the background: a dockworker had drowned and the union was striking; two murder victims had been found in Queens. A note of local interest news was wedged between sound bites of doom and gloom: a 1920s speakeasy, recently discovered hidden behind a collapsed subway tunnel, was being opened to the public on a limited basis. Lest the site opening be considered too cheery, the reporter continued on to solemnly report a Park Avenue suicide. Margrit smiled ruefully at the endless bad news, its dismaying litany unable to deflate the good cheer she felt from her run.

“Irrational creature,” she mumbled, then frowned at the ice-cream carton. “Spoon.” She fought her way out of the couch and brought the meat loaf plate into the kitchen, the binder still in her free hand.

She’d spent enough late nights on the case—a plea for clemency for a woman convicted of murdering a viciously abusive boyfriend—that she could see the annotated pages and carefully printed facts when she closed her eyes. Luka Johnson had served four years of a twenty-year sentence, only allowed to meet with her daughters once a week under highly supervised conditions. The case had been dropped in Margrit’s lap literally weeks out of law school. She’d been Luka’s advocate for the entire length of her incarceration.

Four years. It didn’t seem so long, but Margrit had watched Luka’s youngest daughter grow from a squalling babe in arms to a thoughtful, talkative little girl in that time. The children lived with a foster mother who cared for them very much, but every week that they left Luka behind in prison was a little harder for everyone. The trial judge was sympathetic to their cause; the state coalition against domestic violence had given its support. The governor was expected to hear and make a decision on the clemency within the week. Margrit couldn’t stay away from the paperwork, grooming it for the hundredth time, wondering if she’d missed anything that might cost Luka and her children more years of their shared lives.

Ir-ra-shun-al, a corner of her brain chanted. Margrit smacked her head with the spoon. As if doing so turned up the reception, the TV in the other room suddenly got louder, a female reporter’s voice cutting through the quiet apartment: “…park improvements will have to be delayed…” The sound cut out again. Spoon in her mouth, Margrit went back to the living room and dropped into the couch, juggling ice cream and the remote to turn up the volume as she watched the pink-cheeked reporter.

“This area of the park, scheduled for renovation, is tonight the scene of a crime the likes of which has not been witnessed in over a decade,” the woman said earnestly. Locks of hair blew into her eyes and she tucked them behind an ear with a gloved hand. Margrit sat up straighter, clutching the ice-cream carton. “A young woman was brutally murdered here tonight, just beyond where I’m standing now, Jim. I have with me Nereida Holmes, who witnessed the attack.”

The reporter turned, angling her microphone under the mouth of a petite woman with large eyes and carefully arranged, flat shining curls. She wore a chocolate-brown coat, the collar lined with darker fur. In the hard white light of the TV camera, the fur looked stiff and unyielding, as if it would prick the woman’s chin.

“It looked like he hit her, no?” Nereida Holmes’s words were tinged with a faint Spanish accent. “He was crouched over her, like he was some kinda animal. Growling. There was blood on his hands. And then he saw me and ran away.”

The reporter pulled the mike back, demanded, “Can you tell us what he looked like?” and thrust it toward Nereida again.

“Um, yes, he was a white guy, maybe so tall?” She lifted a hand well above her head, some inches beyond the top of the reporter’s head, too. “He had long legs—you could see that even when he was down low. And he had light hair, real light, and good shoulders. I couldn’t see nothing else, ‘cept he was wearing a business suit, but no winter jacket.” She shook her head. “He musta been cold.”

“Anything else you can tell us?”

Nereida blanched even more. “I heard that girl screaming. It was terrible. I hope they catch that bastard.”

“Thank you, Ms. Holmes.” The reporter turned back to the camera. “Anyone wishing to report seeing a man of this description in Central Park between the hours of 10:45 and 11:15 p.m. this evening, please contact the police immediately. This is Holly Perry, reporting for Channel Three. Back to you, Jim.”

Ice cream slid off Margrit’s spoon and plopped onto her running tights, the chill immediate and sharp against her thigh. She startled, stuffing the spoon back into the carton, and reached for the remote. She turned the television off and sat, silent, staring at the blank screen.




TWO


THE BELLS OF the nearby cathedral counted out the small hours of the morning, warning of the need to retreat before sunlight found him. He watched her window from his high perch across the street, safe on an apartment building rooftop. It would be such a little thing to stand on her balcony, such an easy thing to do. To make himself just that much more a part of her life. A glance inside her world, a moment of intimacy beyond anything he’d shared in more years than he cared to recall….

Such a risk.

Logic dictated he wouldn’t be noticed, not at this hour, when so many lights were off, implying slumber behind curtained windows. It was nothing: half a block, a few floors down. He stretched and flexed as if he might make good the thought.

The danger was that, of all the windows in that row of apartments, hers was the only one with the lights still on. He shifted his weight forward, then settled back again, rumbling with indecision. Surely she slept. There’d been no movement since minutes after he’d followed her home. Surely she slept, and the amber light bathing the balcony wouldn’t reveal him to prying eyes.

Centuries of habit left him hanging back, unable to make the leap. He’d chanced it once already that evening, in speaking to her. Getting close enough to see that her curling hair was browner than he’d thought, that her petite form was even smaller than he’d expected. Close enough to see the strength in her legs and the muscle in her stomach as her shirt shifted against her skin. Soft fabric; softer-looking skin, made sallow by park lights until he couldn’t be sure of its color. He’d never seen her in daylight. He never would.

Close enough to see emotion in her dark eyes. Anger at being startled, defensiveness and caution, but not the fear he’d expected from a woman accosted, no matter how politely, in Central Park after dark. It was the lack of fear that had prompted him to follow her home.

He hadn’t done that in a long time, not in three years. He’d wondered and imagined, but never dared. She lived much closer to the park than he’d thought, west of the unfinished cathedral. He knew from signs posted on the streets that students lived there, paying prices for their postage-stamp apartments that would have bought whole townships in his youth.

There was a man in the apartment with her. His tenor voice had been by turns cajoling and concerned, while she—Margrit. Leaning back, he savored the name, baring a slow, toothy smile. “Margrit,” the man in the apartment had called her, while they’d argued over her safety and her job at something called Legal Aid.

So she was a lawyer. He had no personal experience with lawyers; he tended to think of them as white knights in pursuit of justice, though even he knew from television that the idea bordered on absurd. But still, she was a lawyer, and her name was Margrit. The information was a priceless gift, stolen from the air as their voices carried out through the glass balcony doors. It was more detail about a woman he watched than he’d learned in decades.

He curled his fingers, feeling the heavy scrape of nails against his palms, and dropped deeper into a crouch, his shoulders slumped. Consequences could not be damned. There would be no silent leap through the city night to look in Margrit’s window, not tonight and not any night henceforth.

Winter chill had little effect on his kind, but cold seemed to penetrate his bones as he accepted the truth. He drew warmth around him in a winged cloak, and put a hand down on icy cement, bracing himself on three points as he watched Margrit’s window and waited for dawn to come.

She ran across the Rockefeller Center skating rink, skidding on the ice more dramatically than she’d ever done racing the paths of Central Park. Hundreds of people surrounded her, small and dark-haired, black-eyed and smooth-skinned. None of them reached to help as she slid, but stood apart, watching her with calm wide eyes.

Heat followed her, melting the ice and turning it to water. When she lifted her gaze, the watchers wore soft fur cloaks that repelled the rising flood, while she swam against a current that came from nowhere. Nothing seemed to move them, even her stretched-out fingers pleading for help.

Hot fingers wrapped around hers, a slight man’s solid grasp. He pulled her up with surprising ease, then bowed gallantly. A white silk cravat as long as Doctor Who’s fluttered around him, catching in wind created by burgeoning heat. He whispered something indecipherable, then arched his eyebrows and nodded behind her. Margrit whipped around in a hiss of skirts, her practical running clothes replaced by a gown that she knew, instinctively, suggested a height her petite frame had never seen.

Dancers surrounded her in a ballroom filled with golden light, the small dark people at the skating rink now gliding across the floor with such grace she could only gape, admiration mixed with despair. No one could move so beautifully. Surrounded by them, she felt cloddish and slow, like a lump of earth trying to emulate a star.

Something changed. With a rustle of warning, the crowd parted to allow a tall man entrance. He wore silver, more striking than simple white, and it made him a ghost among the small dark people, eminently dangerous. His pale hair was long and loose, no longer tied back as it had been when she’d seen him in the park. A few strands fell in slashes across his cheekbones, emphasizing a brief and deadly smile.

A weapon pressed against the inside of Margrit’s wrist: a pencil. She acted without considering, leaping forward and slamming the wooden spike into the vampire’s breast.

He brought his hand up, to catch the pieces as the pencil shattered against his chest. Confusion lit colorless eyes as he lifted his gaze to Margrit’s, and she felt fury color hers.

“But it worked on Buffy!”

The last word broke, her voice cracking, and someone shook her shoulder. “Margrit. Wake up, Grit. You fell asleep on the couch. Again!” The voice was fondly impatient. “Wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

She sat up with a gasp, then fell back on the couch, groaning. Papers crinkled under her shoulder. She put the heel of her hand to her eye, rubbing to waken herself, and swung her head to stare blearily at Cole, who crouched beside the couch.

He reached out and pulled the DVD player’s remote control device from under her hair. “You’ve got a bright red impression of this on your face,” he said. “I thought you said you were going to bed.”

“Whutimeissih?” Margrit groaned again and sat up, running her fingers over her cheek. Small indentations marred it, her jaw marked with the recognizable curve of the remote’s oversize play button. She pushed at it without focus, half expecting the TV to come on and a DVD to start running.

“It’s six-thirty.” Cole hung his arms over his knees like a gorilla. “What time did you fall asleep?”

Margrit grunted. “Two? Sunfin like that. Dyhaffa-lookso awake?” She glared at Cole.

“Yeah, I do have to look so awake.” He gave her a fond, if exasperated, smile. “I got up half an hour ago and I’ve showered. Cam’s already gone. I thought you were going to go to bed, Grit.”

“I was.” Memory cleared her mind and she scrunched her eyes shut. “I was, but I turned on the TV—” Cole growled disapprovingly and she raised her voice, ignoring him “—and the guy I told you about seeing last night probably butchered a girl in the park after I came in. I didn’t feel like sleeping after that.” She suddenly recalled her dream, remembering the pale man’s gentle movements and the strength evident in his hands. Neighbors would say he seemed like such a nice man. She shivered, bringing her attention back to Cole’s dismayed question: “Did you call Tony?”

Margrit shifted her gaze away. “No. I didn’t even think of it. It was the middle of the night.”

She could almost hear her housemate grind his teeth. “You’re on the outs again, aren’t you? It can’t be that bad. Come on, Margrit. You met a murderer and didn’t think to call your own personal homicide detective?”

She hunched her shoulders. “He’s not my own personal anything, Cole. You know how things are.”

“Call him, Grit. And promise me you’re not going into the park again after dark. Margrit, promise me.” He forced a little humor into his voice. “How’re we going to pay rent on this place if you get yourself killed? We need you.”

Margrit turned her head to the side, birdlike, to eye him. “Cam’d beat the landlord up if he threatened to throw you out. What’s the point in having a fiancée who’s a physical trainer if you can’t sic her on the bad guys?”

“She can bench-press a Mini, not defeat Chuck Norris in hand-to-hand combat,” Cole said. “So you need to not get killed, okay?”

Margrit leaned to the left, looking over Cole’s shoulder at the VCR clock. “I won’t get killed, and you’d better get going. You’re gonna be late.”

He put his palms on his thighs and levered himself up with a sigh. “Just be careful, Grit, okay?”

“I’m always careful. Go, you’re gonna be late.”

“Yeah.” Cole gave her a brief smile and left. Margrit nearly sank back down into the couch, then growled at herself and shuffled through the apartment and into the bathroom. Cole had left the medicine cabinet door open, and her reflection caught her unawares as she switched the light on.

Dark brown corkscrew curls stood out from her face, deliberate highlights of red and gold catching the light. Her hair had too much body to be ruined by a night’s sleep, but café latte skin was a mishmash of red marks from cheekbone to jaw on the right side. Margrit groaned and ran her palm over them again, serving to redden her face more without having a noticeable effect on the imprint.

“They’ll run you out on a rail, girl.” She skimmed her shirt and bra off, making a pile on the floor. Her legs had narrow lines down the sides from the seams on the running tights, and there were wrinkles on her torso from her shirt crumpling against it. Her toenails glittered gold as she climbed into the shower and stood in the water collecting in the bottom of the tub. Every three weeks she poured a bottle of clog remover down the drain, starting anew the battle against shedding hair. It was almost time to do it again.

Sunday, she promised. Sunday, she would clean the bathroom.

Twenty minutes later, wrapped in a towel and scowling at the uninspiring contents of her closet, she amended Sunday’s plans to include laundry.

“What are you doing here?”

Margrit ducked her head at the greeting, looking up again with a hint of humor dancing in her eyes. “Hi, Tony.” She’d lingered at the Homicide doorway, waiting to be noticed before entering; more than one semi-familiar face had given her a quick smile of greeting while she watched the detective who was, as Cole had surmised, her off-again lover. After weeks apart, as usual, Margrit found his warm Italian coloring and strong features surprising. Rather than making the heart grow fonder, distance made it forgetful, blurring the edges of good looks into something more white bread and bland.

Humor infused the thought. If anything, the man she’d met in the park the night before should be the white bread one, with his pale skin and paler hair, his bone structure so well shaped it might have been carved by a sculptor. Tony, by comparison, was vivacious and alive, especially now, with anger drawing his eyebrows down and bringing more color to his cheeks.

“No.” The detective got to his feet and leaned his weight on his desk, making it less a barrier and more a tool of aggravation. “You don’t get to walk in with a cheerful ‘Hi, Tony’ when you haven’t called for three weeks and I don’t even know what I’ve done wrong this time.” His hair was shorter than the last time Margrit’d seen him, clipped just the wrong length and making his ears look too big for his head. Margrit threaded through gray desks and patches of winter sunlight as he spoke. She reached him and leaned across his desk until their heads were only inches apart, answering quietly.

“You didn’t call, either, Tony. All right? Are we even?”

“No, we’re not.” His knuckles turned white from pressure before he dropped his chin to his chest and muttered, “This isn’t the place to talk about it.” A Brooklyn accent came through strong in the last words, spoken so fast Margrit leaned in another few centimeters to make sure she caught every word. “What are you doing here, Margrit?”

“Official business, actually. I wasn’t just dropping by.” Too late she realized the impact of her phrasing, but the words were spoken. He looked up, only a hint of injury visible in his brown eyes. “Tony—”

“Forget about it. What is it now, another hardened criminal to get off?”

Margrit felt her own knuckles turning white as she leaned too hard against the desk, afraid to allow herself to speak for several long seconds. “This is why it never works, Tony,” she said, all but under her breath. The argument was as old as their relationship, two people separated by the same justice system. “Can we not do this right now? It’s not going to change anything. I’m still going to go down to my job at the Legal Aid offices when we’re done talking, just like I do every day. But right now I need to talk to you.”

“You know, if you want a low-paying lawyer job, you could go work for the D.A.’s office prosecuting these bastards instead of getting them off.”

“Tony!” Margrit brought his gaze up with the sharpness of her tone, then held her breath until she trusted her voice again. “I talked with the guy you want to bring in for the Central Park murder last night.”

Personal insult and injury bled out of Tony’s face, replaced by professional interest tinged with anger and concern. “When?”

“Last night. Right before the murder. I was out running.” Margrit lifted a hand to stop the lecture before it began. “Shut up, Tony, and just let me finish, okay?” She watched him set his teeth together, holding the pose a moment before he gestured for her to take a seat. Margrit did, crossing her legs at the knee and brushing invisible lint off the slacks she’d finally selected. “The park lights bleached enough that I don’t know what color his eyes were. Light colored, blue or green, but they could’ve been yellow. Same with his hair. Pale, practically white under the lights. We talked for about thirty seconds. I can probably give a good enough description for an artist.”

Tony sighed explosively. “I’ll get one. Does Russell know you’re going to be late?” At Margrit’s nod he sighed again and picked up his phone, punching in a four-digit number and requesting a sketch artist before hanging up and turning a dark expression on Margrit again. “Why didn’t you call me last night, Grit?”

She pressed her fingertips against her eyelids, trying not to disturb the makeup she’d applied to hide signs of the nightmare she’d had. “Because I hadn’t called in three weeks,” she muttered into her palms. “Because our conversations always turn into fights. Because I didn’t know what to say. I don’t know, Tony. I didn’t know how to call.”

“Picking up the phone and dialing the number is a good start, Grit, and ‘I just met a murderer’ would have been one hell of an icebreaker. A guy’ll forgive a lot for that.”

“Especially when he’s a homicide detective.” Margrit took her hands away from her eyes, looking at the spots of soft brown eye shadow left on her fingers. “Cole’d already lectured me on running in the park, and I didn’t want more of it. I hadn’t talked to you in weeks. I didn’t know what to say. A bunch of stupid reasons. I guess it was easier to face you in sunlight.”

Tony cast a wry look at dirty, glazed windows and the thin morning light struggling through them. “In that case I’m surprised I saw you before March.”

“Tony.”

“Over lunch,” he said quietly. “Can we talk over lunch?”

Margrit lifted her eyebrows. “Are you going to be able to take lunch?”

Chagrin crossed the detective’s face and he let a shoulder rise and fall in a shrug. “I didn’t say it’d be lunch today. Look—dammit.” The last word came out softly before he stood and gestured past Margrit to a bald man approaching his desk. “Margrit Knight, this is Jason Webster, our sketch artist. You’ll be working with him on describing our suspect. Later,” he added sotto voce to Margrit. “I’ll call you later.”

She’d ducked out of the police station at ten-thirty, well before the promise of “in after lunch” she’d made her boss. Enough time to hurry home and change into workout clothes and take a daytime run in the park. It’d make everyone happy: she would get to run, and neither Cole nor Tony would have to worry.

A compulsive check of her cell phone told her Tony hadn’t called. Not that a couple hours with the sketch artist properly qualified as later, but Margrit checked a second time. As if she’d misread, she teased herself, but the mockery had more sting to it than she liked to admit to. She pushed the phone back into a zip-top pocket on her hip and lengthened her stride again, trying to capture the sense of freedom running in the park usually brought her.

It escaped her for once, her sneakers pounding out the syllables: ir-rah-shun-al. Irrational to expect him to have called already; irrational to hope it.

She went around a corner and splashed through a puddle that would be ice after dark. The whole relationship was irrational, always bordering on disaster, always coming back together. It wasn’t just the sex that kept them coming back for more, although that didn’t hurt. There was some inherent challenge they saw in one another, something unnamed that Margrit wasn’t sure she wanted to label.

What drove them apart was easier to quantify. They stood on opposite sides of a flawed legal system. It made for an endless bone of contention, but never quite enough to keep them apart for good. Some days that seemed important. Today, abruptly, it didn’t. Margrit pulled her phone out again and dialed the detective’s number.

“How about dinner tomorrow?” she asked his voice mail. “I’m sorry I haven’t called, Tony. I want to talk about it, okay?” She hung up, good humor restoring itself, as she darted around other joggers, feeling lithe and quick. Within moments, she was in a flat-out run, focusing on the horizon, nothing in the world but her harsh breathing and the ricochet of her feet against the pavement. Her blood felt hot, burning in her hands and cheeks, as tears brought on by speed blurred the corners of her vision.

Reaching the end of her route brought her to a violent stop, skidding and tripping over her own feet in the spasms of muscles pushed hard enough that they no longer knew how to do anything but continue forward. Margrit walked it off, stopping to flip her ponytail upside down and gasp for air after the numbness faded from her thighs. When she straightened it was with a clear expectation formed. Genuine surprise swept her as the blond murderer proved to be nowhere in sight.

Murderer. That wasn’t fair. He was wanted for questioning, not necessarily guilty. And he hadn’t hurt her. She was sure he wouldn’t hurt her, given a second chance.

She let out a quick blast of hot breath that steamed in the cold afternoon air. That sort of dubious logic would get her killed, if not by the blond man, then by Cole or Tony, whose concern might drive them to frustrated homicide. The sense of expectation lingered, and she frowned into winter browns and greens, searching.

New joggers, the women running in pairs or groups, made their way around people talking on their cell phones and children hauling their parents across paths. Weak light from the low sun glinted through the trees, making empty branches into shimmering sticks. An ordinary morning at the park. The dead girl hardly mattered. The blond man was nowhere to be seen.

Margrit waited, then twisted her wrist to look at her watch, shrugged, and jogged home to change clothes for work.

Something was wrong.

Sunset had come and gone, and there was no sign of his ward. His dark-haired, fearless runner. Margrit. He savored the name even as he glided from one tree to another, searching the routes she ran. She changed them regularly, a sensible self-defensive measure, but he had watched her for years. He knew the paths she preferred, the stretches of park that she defaulted to.

Did her scent linger in the air or was it his imagination? His own hope, prodding him to belief where none belonged? He had wanted to speak with her again. To hear her voice, even colored with caution. Her accusing irritation the night before had woken in him a spark of life so long dampened he was surprised to discover it still existed.

He’d hunched in the cold atop the building across the street until dawn had driven him away. Wondering, from that distance, if he might ever step past the threshold into the warmth of her life, and dismissing the possibility in the same moment.

The kitchen window had been open, wind shifting a curtain enough to allow him to see that the table in the dining room was covered with paper, used as a workspace rather than for sharing meals. Changing light flickered from the room beyond it, a television droning on. His ears had pricked, preternatural hearing picking out words even from across a street filled with city noises. He was unaccustomed to bothering with such focused listening, but last night, having learned her name, having dared as much as he already had, he’d heard stories of trouble in the park. Hardly unusual, but the man described—

He had lost his focus then, catching his breath as he wrapped his mind around the idea that someone had described him as the murderer. Shudders had taken him, despite the fact that he didn’t feel the night’s cold. It was impossible; he only needed to explain.

Explain to Margrit. She was a lawyer. She could defend him when he couldn’t possibly defend himself. And there was no one else. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to remember the last time he might have turned to a human for help. A moment later his eyes came open again and he chuckled under his breath. Over a century and a half ago. Since then he’d had even less contact with mortals than he’d had with his own kind, and he went to some lengths to avoid his own. A faint smile curled his mouth, then faded once more.

To miss her tonight. That, he hadn’t counted on. A chill slid through him, making him flex his shoulders in discomfort. Had she recognized him from the news report? How could she not? But he hadn’t anticipated it keeping her out of the park.

He curled his hands into loose fists and spread his wings, feeling wind catch under them as he launched into the sky. He had to find a way to speak to her.




THREE


“YOU EVER FEEL like you’re being watched?” Margrit’s question came with a laugh and an uncomfortable shift of her shoulders.

Cole, a few yards ahead and escorting Cameron over an icy patch, glanced back with an elevated eyebrow. “Everybody feels like they’re being watched, Grit. Paranoia is part of a healthy New York City lifestyle.”

Margrit laughed again and hurried the few steps to catch up, avoiding the slick stretch. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“It’s because you’re a lawyer,” Cameron said easily. “You think everybody’s out to get you, because they are. First we hang all the lawyers. Cole, I told you we should’ve gotten here earlier. Look at the line.”

“Dinner took longer than I expected,” he answered patiently. “We’ll be inside in five minutes, Cam. It’s fine.”

“Says you,” she retorted. “You’re not wearing heels and a short skirt in twenty-nine-degree weather.”

Cole took a judicious step back, looking Cameron up and down before sighing happily. “Yeah. I know. But you are.”

She laughed out loud and reached for his hand, tugging him over to steal a kiss. “I guess that’s why I keep doing it, too. Charmer.”

“You mean you’re not dressing up for the other girls? I thought that’s what women did.”

“Only if they don’t have you,” Cam said, then widened her eyes and snapped her fingers. “And gosh, I guess they don’t.”

“You two are disgusting.” Margrit tossed off the accusation in a light voice, turning in line to scan the street. There was an itch between her shoulder blades that hadn’t lessened since her run in the park, making her uncomfortable. She was accustomed to feeling wary and watching out for herself, but the lingering sense of actually being followed and watched was new. There was no particular reason or way the blond man from the park might find her a second night in a row, but the idea that he would rode her like a bad dream.

The image of him as a vampire in her dream made Margrit shudder again and turn back to Cole and Cameron. “Cute,” she said with a quick smile, trying to reassert her place in a normal evening with friends, “but disgusting. I’m glad you asked me to come out with you.”

An innocent man wanted for murder would—She let the thought break off, knowing better. Might well not go to the police, for a dozen reasons. Innocent until proven guilty carried little weight, with a brutally murdered woman in the park and an eyewitness stepping forward. Still, there was no reason to expect to see him, and no good reason to want to. One chance encounter did not a relationship make.

Relationship. She wondered at herself for the word, goose bumps crawling over her skin. Cameron, oblivious to Margrit’s mental gymnastics, smiled back. “You haven’t been out with us since Christmas. It’s about time you said yes.”

“It’s about time you were home early enough in the evening to be invited.” Cole wrapped his arms around Cameron’s waist from behind, standing on his toes to rest his chin on her shoulder, and playing up the difference in their height. “I thought I was seeing things when I got home and you were there.”

Margrit laughed. “I told you, I just ended up working from home after talking to Tony. Russell okayed it.”

“Maybe you should see if he’d okay it more often,” Cameron suggested. “Hey, we’re moving.” She nodded at the line. “We might even get in.” They squeaked through the club doors seconds before the bouncer held up his hand and prevented the next wave of hopefuls from entering.

Music washed through Margrit’s veins, as if her heart was driving it. She stopped just inside the club, taking a breath so deep she seemed to be inhaling the sound. She could all but taste it, the throb of life coppery at the back of her throat. It was a welcome distraction from thought, letting her push away images of the blond man, of Tony and of her job with equal ease.

She laughed, soundless under the pervasive beat, and tilted her head back, letting the rhythm prickle her skin. Cameron stopped at her elbow to yell, “You haven’t been out in way too long, Margrit. You look like you just tasted chocolate for the first time!”

“Maybe you’re right,” she shouted back. “You guys want a drink?” She mimed tipping back a bottle. Cam and Cole both nodded. “I’ll meet you in the Blue Room!”

Cole gave her a thumbs-up and, hand in hand with Cameron, slid through the crowd toward the dance floors. Margrit watched them go, grinning, then went the other way, jostling for a position in line at the nearest bar. The club was busier than she expected for midweek, and she cast a wry grin at the crowd. Cameron was right: she needed to get out a little more. At least once a week, she promised herself abruptly. There had to be one night a week when she could get out of work early enough to spend time with friends and in the company of sensually impersonal strangers. All work and no play led to obsessions over apparently murderous strangers in Central Park. There were less dangerous pastimes to pursue.

“Hey,” said a voice at her elbow. Margrit half turned, looking up a few inches at a dark-eyed guy with a bright smile. “You want to dance?”

“Later!” She nodded toward the bar, and he nodded in turn, stepping back. Margrit glanced over her shoulder a few minutes later as she maneuvered through the crowd, two beers and a ginger ale in hand, to find him following at a discreet distance. She grinned and ducked through a doorway.

The Blue Room was the club’s main space and its namesake. Two stories of strobes and spotlights changed the color of the air every few moments, cycling through blue every third change, to emphasize the name. Fog-machine smoke rolled through, the air dry and faintly tangy as dancers made swirls in the haze.

Cameron and Cole leaned against one another and against the metal railing of a landing halfway up to the second-floor balcony. Cam was scouting the room’s entrances, watching for Margrit, and raised a hand when they made eye contact. She lifted the bottles in response and scurried up the grate stairs, handing Cam the ginger ale. Cam accepted, teasing, “Thought you got lost.”

“Just people watching.” Margrit turned to look down into the crowd. “Somebody even asked me to dance.”

“Did you?”

“Nope, I was on a mission. Deliver drinks. He was following me a minute ago.”

“Ooh, creepy,” Cam pronounced. “Maybe he’s your stalker.”

Margrit laughed. “What happened to a healthy city paranoia? I think I just needed to get out and remember what it’s like to have fun.”

Cam chuckled and clinked her bottle against Margrit’s. Cole bonked his against the other two, nodding approvingly. “Do you mind playing drink hawk and saving our spot here while Cam wears me out? Then you can spell me down on the dance floor.”

“Sure.” Margrit collected bottles again and waved her friends down the stairs, then leaned over the railing with her bottle dangling from her fingertips and the other two safely tucked against her arm.

“Is it later enough yet?” The dark-eyed man appeared at her elbow again, smiling. Margrit laughed and shook her head.

“Not now, sorry. Gotta watch my friends’ drinks. One of them’ll be back soon, so why don’t you catch me on the floor?”

He spread his hands, disappointed, then shrugged in agreement as he jogged down the stairs. Strobe lighting made sharp shadows in the muscles of his shoulders. Margrit watched approvingly, then searched out Cole and Cameron on the dance floor. Cole was more graceful than Cam, flowing from one movement to another with elegance. Cameron exuded the raw power of pure joy in letting go, like a drummer in a rock band. They made a nice contrast. Margrit drank her beer, smiling down at them.

Cole had exaggerated his lack of stamina. They stayed on the floor through half a dozen songs, until Margrit’s beer was gone and the music drove her to dance on the stairwell, still holding two bottles. She waved, trying to get Cole’s attention, then squeaked air out through compressed lips, waiting with growing impatience for one of them to tire. As revenge for having to wait, she drank half of Cole’s beer.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Margrit rolled her eyes and turned. “Look, I said—”

The blond man from the park looked down at her quizzically.

“Son of a bitch!” The appeal of encountering him again turned to sour panic in Margrit’s belly, reality of dancing with a devil slaughtering a half-formed fantasy of taming the beast. Margrit threw Cole’s beer upward, foam and alcohol spraying into the blond man’s face. He yowled, hands flung up to protect his eyes. Margrit abandoned the remaining bottle, sending it careening over the metal railing and into the dancers below as she scrambled down the stairs. Her heel caught in the metal grating, snapping and pitching her forward.

An instant later she was on her feet at the bottom with no clear idea of how she’d gotten there. Her broken heel was poking out of the grate of one step at a rakish angle, a lone monument to her presence there.

Cole and Cameron appeared at her side, alarm and concern on their faces. “Margrit? What the hell happened?” Cole took her arm, as if her balance might be questionable.

“It was—he was—didn’t you see? Up there?” She jerked her chin up, staring at the landing above. He wasn’t there.

Margrit shook her head hard, trying to clear it as she gazed in disbelief. “I swear to God,” she said. “He was there. Just a second ago. I swear.”

“Who, Grit?” Cole’s voice was coaxing, as if he was talking to a small child or a puppy.

“The—the guy from the park!”

“Jesus, are you sure?” Cameron bolted up a couple steps, as if to go charging after the man. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure! He was there, just a second ago. Then he vanished! He disappeared last night, too.”

“What do you mean, he disappeared last night?” Cole frowned down at her, eyebrows pinched together.

“He disappeared! I ran about ten feet, looked back, and he was gone, poof, no sign of him. Just like now!”

Cole and Cameron exchanged glances. Frustration born from knowing how absurd she sounded sent a childish wave of anger through Margrit. “I’m not kidding! Guys, I’m serious! Why would I make something like this up, dammit?”

“It’s one way to get back together with Tony,” Cole muttered. Margrit glared at him as Cameron bent to work the broken heel out of the grating, then lifted it between her fingers to waggle it.

“’Cause you really didn’t like those shoes?”

Margrit’s lip curled, her irritation disproportionate to the gently teasing question. “They were ninety-dollar shoes, Cameron. I liked them.” When a hurt expression flashed across her friend’s face, Margrit gritted her teeth, trying to rein in her temper. “Security cameras. The club’s got security cameras.”

Cam and Cole exchanged glances again, Cam’s lower lip protruding as she tilted her head in acknowledgment. “Think they’ll let us look at them?”

“They’ll let the cops, if they won’t let us,” Margrit said.

“How did you get involved in this, Margrit?” The question was delivered through Anthony Pulcella’s teeth, an aside she wasn’t meant to answer. He’d been off duty long enough to arrive at the club in a Knicks jacket and jeans, less formal than the on-duty suit he usually wore. “I got your message. Sorry I haven’t called. They put me on point for this investigation.”

“Congratulations,” Margrit said without irony. “It’s okay.”

“Dinner tomorrow,” Tony continued. “If I can make it, I’d like that.”

Margrit pulled a brief smile. “Another reason we’re always on and off. Incompatible schedules.”

“We’ll talk about that, too,” he said under his breath.

“As soon as we get a chance,” Margrit agreed. “Look, they wouldn’t let me watch the security videos without you.”

“Of course they wouldn’t. You’re not an authority.” The conversation took them from the Blue Room’s front door into brightly lit back corridors, following the club’s tension-ridden manager, a woman in her fifties who clearly wanted to be elsewhere. A reedy, pimply-faced kid scrambled to his feet as she pushed the door open and gestured them into a small room filled with video screens.

“This is Detective Pulcella, Ira, and the woman who saw the suspect. Go ahead and play the tapes for them. Do you need me here, Detective?”

Tony gave the woman an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid I might, if it’s clear he hasn’t left the premises. We may need to close the club down, and I’ll need your cooperation and expertise to make that happen smoothly.” The woman’s expression loosened a little at the flattery, and Tony turned his smile on Ira. “Can you cue the tapes?”

The kid gave Tony a superior look. “Already done, man. You think I been coolin’ my heels all this time? Over there.” He pointed with a pencil toward a small set of four screens shoved into a corner. “Top corner’s the front door. Other three are all angles of the Blue Room.” He jabbed at the bottom of one screen with his pencil. “There’s the landing she was on. Got it?”

“Got it.” Tony shanghaied Ira’s chair and offered it to Margrit, then leaned over her as the videos began to play. Ira stalked out, clearly offended at the dismissive treatment.

“Okay, that’s us getting into the Blue Room. Do we need to watch this? I don’t know how to fast-forward this thing.” Margrit prodded a button, then pulled her hand back. Tony reached around her and hit the fast-forward, sending the video people into convulsive, jerky motion. On screen, Margrit finished her beer and drank Cole’s in epileptic spasms.

“How much have you had to drink tonight, Grit?”

“A couple of bee—Oh, come on, Tony.”

The detective glanced at her. “Nothing personal. Two beers?”

“One beer, and half of Cole’s,” she muttered. “Um-hmm.”

Margrit scowled, then straightened in Ira’s chair.

“There.”

The blond man edged through the dance crowd on the upper level, the video blurring and leaving a trail of dark pixels behind him as he moved. He rounded the corner to the stairs, head lowered to watch his feet, and disappeared from one screen, reappearing in the next. His head was still lowered, hair glowing white in the grainy black-and-white video, face foreshortened and features indefinable. The third camera, facing Margrit, caught him in profile as he trotted down the stairs, stretched-out pixels still following him like mist-obscured wings. “Goddammit,” Tony muttered. “Look up, you son of a bitch.”

The cameras swiveled as if responding to Tony’s command, their sweep of the room offering new angles. The second screen showed the man in profile, the third catching him full-on as he reached out to tap Margrit’s shoulder. He was still looking down; she stood at least half a foot shorter than he was. Tony paused the tape, studying the differences in height. “He’s what, about six foot, or six-one?”

“He’s taller than that,” Margrit said with a hint of impatience. “I told you this morning. He’s six-three or four.”

“Grit, you’re short, and I can see he’s not that much taller than you.”

“I was wearing three-inch heels.”

Tony glanced at her bare feet. “What happened to them?”

“You’ll see.”

He sucked his cheeks in, staring at her a moment, then hit Play again. The video Margrit turned, shrieked silently and flung the beer into the blond’s face. His head reared back, his features visible for barely an instant before his hands covered them and he doubled over in obvious pain.

Tony paused the tape again and looked at Margrit, amused and admiring. “You never did that to me when I tapped your shoulder.”

“You’ve never been suspected of murder.”

Tony flashed a grin and resumed playing the tape. On-screen, Margrit ran two steps down the staircase before her heel snapped. She lurched, executing a roll she hadn’t known she was capable of. Her chin tucked neatly against her chest, her body compacting itself into a ball, while her skirt rode up high enough that the curve of her bottom was revealed. Watching herself, she was perversely glad she’d been wearing lace undies instead of granny panties.

Her spine barely hit the stairs, as far as she could see, and after two complete somersaults she landed, crouched, on her toes, hands spread and balance forward. Tony took his attention from the screen to stare at her. “How in hell did you do that?”

“Pure blind luck,” Margrit said, gaping at her image. The recorded Margrit whipped around and looked up the stairs, reminding them both what they were supposed to be watching.

The man was gone.

“Well, goddammit,” Tony said mildly, and leaned closer to study the other screens briefly. “I don’t see him. Rewind it.” He reached past her and punched the button himself.

In the rewind, as Margrit tumbled up the stairs, there was nothing, then a blur of blackness, and then the man in the space he’d occupied. “What the hell was that?” Tony played it forward, this time both of them watching the suspect.

Margrit threw the beer in his face. He doubled over again, falling into a crouch as he wiped his eyes frantically. His head wrenched to the side as Margrit stumbled, and he made one quick, aborted attempt to catch her, the movement so fast his image blurred again—white this time, the color of his shirt. He missed by a finger’s breadth, frustration contorting his features as he fell back into his crouched position.

Then all his energy seemed to rechannel. He uncoiled like a striking snake, the blur of black pixels that followed him expanding, curving around his body and shadowing him. A streak of brightness—the white of his shirt—etched a line through the blackness as it shot upward, off the top of the screen and out of sight.




FOUR


“WHAT THE HELL was that? Rewind it! Rewind it!” Tony jabbed the rewind button hard enough to bruise his finger, swearing again as the tape zipped backward. The scene replayed itself while he leaned in, nose nearly touching the screen. “Where’d he go? Where’d he go?! Kid! Where’s the camera kid? What’s his name? Ira!”

“Boy,” Margrit said to the screen, all but under her breath. “And I thought my little acrobatic trick was showy.”

“That was impossible,” Tony snapped. “I don’t know what the hell happened there, but the video musta gotten screwed up. That just wasn’t possible. He couldn’t have jumped out of the viewing area, and where the hell’d he leap to? None of the other cameras show him landing anywhere. He’s gotta still be in the building. Gotta be.” His words fell over themselves even faster than usual, rising and falling nasal tones. Margrit found herself smiling at him. “What?” he demanded. “What’re you grinning at?”

“You’re cute when you’re upset,” she said. His jaw clamped shut and color scalded his cheekbones. The door opened with a bang and a sullen-looking Ira came in, dragging another chair.

“You’ve got lousy timing, Grit,” Tony muttered, before rounding on the security technician. “Where were you? Never mind. I need to look at every video in that room at—” He broke off to glower at the time stamp on the frozen video frame. “At 10:19 p.m. I gotta be able to see everything. Margrit.” Spoken with Brooklyn intensity, it came out Mah-grit. “I was gonna ask if I could give you a ride home, but there’s somethin’ weird goin’ on here. I donno how long this’s gonna take, and, well—” he forced a smile and slowed down his speech, accent thinning “—I don’t think there’s much you can do here.”

“Does that mean I’m dismissed, Detective?” Margrit ducked her head, feeling a faint smile of frustration pull at her mouth. The demarcation between her job and his had never seemed more vivid. Rationally, she understood, but emotion was more slippery. “Just when things are getting interesting.”

“Don’t be a pain in the ass, Grit. Not right now, okay?”

“Yeah. Whatever.” She heard the snappishness in her words and laughed, a sound of irritation rather than humor. She knotted her hand, trying to release ire before speaking again. “Look, I’m going to find Cole and Cam, and maybe we’ll keep hanging out. You’ll be able to find me if you need me to ID somebody, or something, all right?”

“Yeah.” Tony was already turning back to the video screens, forgetting Margrit was there. “Go have a good evening. I’ve got work to do.”

Rhythm pushed Margrit around the dance floor, until she was drifting like a leaf on a river’s surface. Strobe lights flashed and she lifted her hands into the air, weaving her arms together as sinuously as she could. The strobe chopped the motions into gorgeously inhuman pulses of motion, impossible to achieve in reality. Fog swirled above her, lit brilliant blue-white by the bursts of light. Steel girders threw soft-edged shadows against the dark paint of the ceiling high above. Stars, Margrit thought. The club needed to put tiny Christmas lights up there, to make stars against the ceiling. Buoyed by the music, she thought she might be able to break away and fly, if there were stars up above.

Dancers jostled around her. Margrit let herself be moved by them, feeling only distantly attached to her own body. Cole and Cameron had gone to the swingdance room. Margrit, content to stay with the ever-changing music in the Blue Room, had waved them off with a smile, knowing they’d find her when they were ready to leave. To her surprise, the dark-eyed man located her and claimed a dance or two. He vanished when she forgot she was dancing with him, and turned away.

An arm encircled her waist, sliding possessively across the silk of her camisole. Margrit returned to her body with a jolt that shot electricity through her fingers and toes. It made a cold knot in her belly that melted to warmth, spilling down to pulse between her thighs, making her laugh with desire. She closed her eyes and wound a hand up and backward, to wrap her fingers around the nape of her partner’s neck. His hands slid to her hips, rucking up the hem of her top, to settle against her suede skirt. He could be anyone. He could be the killer; he could be the dark-eyed man who’d asked her to dance earlier. Not knowing was half the fun.

Irrational, she whispered to the beat of the music, and let herself go again.

He was a strong dancer, very sure of himself, his hands intimate without being obtrusive. The two of them fit together well, despite his height, and Margrit tucked her hips back with a purring smile. She felt the curve of his body as he lowered his head, felt the warmth of his breath against her shoulder, making her shiver. He moved a palm to her waist, then pulled her closer, protectively, as if he could warm her with his own body heat.

Margrit relaxed back into him, grinning lazily, eyes still closed. His breath spilled over her shoulder again, against her neck, and she tilted her chin up, exposing more throat. He hesitated, close enough that she could feel the heat of his mouth against her skin before he murmured, “I didn’t kill that girl.”

Adrenaline crashed through Margrit, leaving her fingertips cold and a twist of sickness under her sternum. She straightened abruptly, the sensation of flight and freedom lost. As if in response, the strobe lighting cut out. Spotlights swept the crowd instead, dancers standing out in brilliant purples and oranges. Sweat and alcohol and perfumes mingled in the air, giving it a too-sweet scent, like oversugared candy. Margrit could hear individual voices, as if the cacophony of music had suddenly died, leaving everyone shouting into silence. She clenched down on the panic in her belly, feeling heavy when an instant ago she’d been soaring weightless among the stars.

“I didn’t kill her.” Beyond the urgency in his voice, Margrit detected a hint of an Eastern European accent that hadn’t been noticeable the night before. She latched on to the detail; it would be something to report to Tony.

A deep breath calmed the fear boiling in her stomach and left behind nervous excitement. If Tony was watching the screens, she might be able to delay the blond man until he arrived. It was a risk worth taking.

She turned in the man’s arms.

Every ounce of intimacy between them was lost. The man stood rigidly, his head shoved forward as he hunched over her. Margrit leaned back from his arms, the muscles of her legs bunched, ready to run. If she were an outside observer, she would judge their relationship a dangerous one, she decided—built on passion and anger rather than romance. Her heart knocked against her ribs even as she studied his face, trying to memorize his features so she could offer a better description to the police.

A spotlight washed over them, turning his eyes vivid violet, then moved away, leaving them green in the predominantly blue lighting of the club. “I didn’t,” he said for the third time, “kill her. Please believe me.”

“Then talk to the cops. You’ll be fine if you’re innocent.” Margrit felt her biceps contracting, tension bleeding out of her body any way it could.

“I can’t. I truly can’t. But I haven’t hurt anyone.”

“I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me who did,” Margrit snapped.

“I would like that very much, but I don’t know.”

“Yeah.” She stepped back. “Right.” The man touched his fingers to her lips, so quickly and gently her exhalation turned into a bewildered laugh instead of the scream she intended.

“Please,” he said. “Don’t scream. My name is Alban Korund.”

“Maagh.” Margrit swallowed the sound, surprised at how automatic the impulse to respond in kind with her name was. Alban smiled, a flicker of understanding and dismay.

“Please. You have no reason to trust me, I know, but I need your help.”

“My help.” She stared up at him. They stood only a few inches apart, unmoving among the sea of bodies, like a couple so lost in one another they’d forgotten to keep dancing. Only the tension between them gave lie to that illusion. “Why would I help you?” she asked. “And why me?”

“Because I’m innocent,” Alban whispered, “and because you’re not easily frightened.”

Margrit’s heart skipped a beat, hanging painfully in her chest a moment too long. A jolt of stress angled through the empty place where the heartbeat should have been, and she gasped, stumbling a step. Alban caught her, a hand around her elbow to steady her, then let go again almost before she knew he’d touched her. “Please,” he repeated. “I don’t have much time. Will you help me?”

“I—”

The attitude of the dancers changed, a sudden switch from casual to disturbed. Heads turned, bodies straightening, as if in response to a silent warning that not all was right with the world. Margrit and Alban looked toward the DJ’s table, the direction the alteration had come from.

Tony pushed his way through the crowd. His clothes didn’t set him apart from a dancer who wanted onto the floor, but the brusque way he moved, full of purpose, did. There was no acknowledgment of the music in his movements.

“Dammit!” Alban cast one desperate look down at Margrit, then disappeared from her side. In almost the same moment Tony grabbed her shoulders, examining her with a critical glare, then released her to continue after his prey. A cobalt spotlight lit Alban’s hair to a fiery blue. Then the strobes popped back on, and Margrit lost them both in the crowd.

He hadn’t kissed anyone in nearly two hundred years.

She was almost as surprised as he was, looking him up and down. “Goin’ slumming or something, buddy?” She was tall and plump, with kohl-rimmed eyes, her hair dyed an unnatural black. In his slacks and button-down shirt, hair pulled back in a long ponytail, he no more fit into the Anne Rice Victoriana Room than anywhere else in the club.

Still, there’d been no choice. Margrit had swept the street with her gaze that evening, watching for someone who wasn’t there. Searching in shadows between alleys and cracks in buildings, not looking up, where he hid among rooftops. He’d followed her from her building after night had fallen, boldness driving him to linger across the street, high in the sky, to wait for her evening run. Instead, she’d left with friends, dressed as he’d never seen her: in a short trench coat thrown on over a skirt no longer than a promise, showing off slender strong legs. Tall heels shaped her calves, her stride as certain in them as it was in running shoes. He’d caught only a glimpse of the camisole she wore, clinging to her ribs and hugging her waist, when she’d slipped her coat off just inside a restaurant door.

He’d quashed the desire to follow her in, an impulse stronger than anything he could remember in decades. He’d protected her in the beginning because her daring nighttime runs woke fondness in him. But a few moments’ stolen conversation had lit embers so long banked he’d never have imagined they might still bear heat. Even that he might have ignored, had the news not borne whispers of impossible things to his ears. Need had arisen in him: a need to prove himself innocent to Margrit; a need to avoid becoming even more of a fugitive from the human world than his people were by their very nature.

With that need came awareness of his own limitations. Margrit’s indignation at being accosted had reflected back the shallowness of his own existence. In all his centuries, he had never found himself or his enduring path to be wanting, but now he was reminded of a vitality so long forgotten he almost wondered if it had ever been. He had not—not!—let himself brush his hands over her arms to feel the softness of her skin, or his mouth over her shoulder before he’d spoken, for all that she’d seemed to invite it. The closeness they’d shared had been heady enough, so extraordinary as to make him risk uncharacteristic things.

Such as kissing this woman now standing before him. “Flirting with a beautiful woman is never slumming.”

A sly smile of disbelief stained her mouth as surely as her lipstick stained his own. A pang of guilt laced through him, already too late. Authorities knew he was in the building, and he could not afford to be caught in their presence come sunrise. The chance to get Margrit away and speak with her had come and gone. The only thing left was his own survival. Nothing else would have driven him to the measure he’d already taken, much less the one he was about to.

He lifted his gaze, examining the room briefly. It was littered with carved vampires and gargoyles, their stone forms making drink holders and seats for the dancers. The walls held mock gaslights and candles, giving off flickering yellow light usually overwhelmed by the dance floor light show. The bar was dark polished wood, the seats covered in red velvet with worn spots, and the dancers were pale and beautiful in their dramatic dark clothing. “I have an idea,” he murmured to the girl. “There are three security cameras…”

“An’ she comes over an’ he goes over an’—” “We can see it, Ira.” Tony waved his hand, silencing him.

On the security screens, the kohl-eyed girl grinned at the camera in the corner and reached up. The picture cut out. In the opposite corner, Alban was recorded doing the same thing, except he kept his eyes and head lowered so the camera recorded only the top of his blond head.

The detective swore and hit the security-room desk with the heel of his hand. The Goth girl had been detained in the hall; Margrit could hear her talking to another cop.

“Man, I thought he wanted to, y’know, like, make out. Get a little down and dirty in the club, y’know? I thought it was cool.” She was pale-faced and sullen, her lipstick so dark red it bordered on black. “That’s all. I’ll pay for the wire, Jesus. But then he was fuckin’ gone, man. Bailed and left me to take the blame. Bastard.”

An air vent at the top of the wall opposite the camera was found with its grate dangling from just one screw. The third camera in the Goth Room had caught Alban frantically untwisting screws after the other two cameras had been disabled.

Tony pounded the desk again. “A full-grown man couldn’t have fit into that vent, goddammit. Especially not in forty-five seconds. He didn’t have time. And nobody saw it happen!” The third camera—hidden behind a bubble in the Goth Room ceiling—hadn’t filmed Alban’s scramble into the vent, but had focused instead on its sweep around the room. “Goddammit. Westing! Anybody find anything in the furnace room yet?”

“No, sir. They’re searching the perimeter of the building, too.” The cop talking to the Goth girl leaned into the security-room door, frowning at Margrit. She lifted an eyebrow brazenly, challenging him to question her presence there. He spread the fingers of one hand in appeasement and focused on Tony instead.

“Keep looking,” Detective Pulcella muttered.

“Yes, sir. What do you want me to do with her?” The cop gestured at the Goth girl. Tony scowled at her, scowled at Margrit and scowled at his coworker.

“Arrest her for vandalism and get all her information. She might end up as an accessory to murder.”

“Murder! Jesus fucking Christ! What the fuck are you talkin’ about? I clipped a couple wires and I said I’d pay for the fuckin’ things! C’mon, they’re not really fuckin’ pressing charges, are they? C’mon! C’mon! Gimme a fuckin’ break here!”

Westing sighed. “Sorry. Come on. I’ll check up on the air-conditioning vents when I’m done.” The last was directed at Pulcella as he escorted the livid girl out of Margrit’s sight. Tony watched the tape one more time, swearing, and stomped out of the security office. Margrit followed in his wake.

“He told me he didn’t do it.” It was the first thing she’d said since they’d finished ushering everyone out of the club, one at a time, past her. Margrit had stood there, shaking her head, unable to identify Alban among the hundreds of clubgoers.

“Of course he said he didn’t do it.” The detective stalked into the Blue Room, his movements deliberate. “If everybody would just come on in to the police and say, ‘Yeah, I did it,’ my job would be a lot easier. Of course he said he didn’t do it. How the hell did I lose him?”

“Desperation makes people do weird things.” Margrit sat on the stairs she’d fallen down earlier, closing her eyes briefly. There’d been no threat in Alban’s touch as he’d danced with her. Even when he’d spoken, soft words lifting hairs at her nape, she hadn’t felt menace. Intensity, yes; enough that the memory made breathing harder, cold and warm shivering through her in equal parts. If he’d meant her harm, he might have taken her from the dance floor, using fear to cow her into behaving. “You watched the tape ten times, Tony. The vent was the only way out. Where else could he have gone?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know!” Tony puffed out his cheeks and glanced over at her. “Look, Grit, it’s three in the morning. There’s really nothing else you can do here. Let one of my men drive you home, okay?”

She mimicked him unintentionally, pursing her own lips, then nodded and dragged herself to her feet, using the stair railing as leverage. “Yeah, all right. I’m sorry I didn’t grab him when he took off, Tony.”

“That wouldn’t have been a good idea. Apprehending criminals isn’t your job.” A faint smile washed over his mouth. “Getting them off is.”

Weariness swept Margrit’s own smile away. “The joke’s old, Tony,” she said quietly. “It was old the first time. Are we ever going to get past that?” She exhaled, looking away to make it clear she didn’t want to pursue the topic just then, and lifted her eyebrows, bringing the conversation back to where it had begun. “The whole heroic citizen’s arrest thing would’ve been nice, anyway.”

“Margrit…” Tony let her name trail off as acknowledgment of the dropped discussion, then sighed. “I don’t need you to be a hero, Grit. I need you to keep yourself safe.” He crossed to her, putting his hands on her waist and his forehead against hers, just briefly. “Go on home, okay?” His voice was quieter. “Take care of yourself. I’ll call tomorrow if I can make it to dinner. It’ll be a last-minute thing if I can. You know how the first forty-eight hours go.”

“Yeah,” she said again. “I know. Just call if you can.” She echoed his sigh and stood on her toes to steal a brief kiss. “Look, I’ll grab a cab. You guys have enough to do without somebody driving me home.”

“Thanks.” Tony let her go and she felt his gaze on her all the way out the door.




FIVE


THE CHORUS IN her head had changed. Feet slapping against the concrete now rang out in time with worse-than-use-less, worse-than-use-less. Margrit collapsed onto a park bench and stared up at the weak noonday sun, heaving for air. She’d slept badly, her dreams haunted by Alban’s strong hands and the blur of pixels that had followed his disappearance from the Blue Room.

Cam’s alarm in the other bedroom had awakened her at four in the morning. After twenty minutes of tossing, she’d gotten up and gone to the office. It was hours before her coworkers began to arrive, the time productive to the point of absurdity. If practicality didn’t demand she be available until five o’clock more or less daily, Margrit thought she might petition her boss to allow her to work the same kind of early morning hours Cole did, just for the joy of getting things done. Practicality, she reminded herself, and the unlikelihood of wanting to get up at four in the morning regularly. As it was, it’d taken a rare cup of coffee to get her through until an early lunch, when she’d pulled on running gear in hopes of shaking off exhaustion with endorphins.

Children ran rampant over the playground equipment across the path from her, as their parents watched. Gleeful shrieks split the air, sounds so sharp they seemed to press the color from the sky. So sharp, too, as to be easily heard over Margrit’s headset. Daytime running allowed her the luxury of exercising to music, a noisy rock beat that helped set her pace.

She pulled one of the earphones out and slid down the bench, eyes almost crossing with fatigue. Children in brightly colored jackets made blurry shapes as her focus wandered. Beyond the jungle gym, kids on swing sets created gaudy arches against the brown grass, Margrit’s imagination turning the scene into surrealist artwork.

Just across from her, a ponytailed girl of about four tried with great determination to crawl up the underside of dome-shaped monkey bars. A bigger kid gave her a boost onto the first rung, and she scrambled up jubilantly, hands and knees hooked over the bars from beneath. She crawled to the top of the dome and hung there, upside down, her breath steaming in the chilly air and a broad grin of satisfaction smeared across her face. Margrit laughed and applauded quietly.

The little girl curled up and wrapped her hands around the bars again, and continued down the other side of the dome, inverting herself entirely. Margrit squinched one eye shut, afraid the child would fall on her head. Instead, when she could reach the ground with her outstretched hands, she unfolded her knees from the lowest bars, executing a brief handstand before she rolled onto her back and climbed to her feet, incredibly pleased with herself.

Margrit grinned again and turned her face back to the sky, imagining a set of monkey bars big enough for her to do that on. The strobe-lit girders in the club flashed through her mind, the spans stretching and meeting at corners like the monkey bars did. Margrit snickered and made claws with her hands, trying to imagine hanging on to bars that big. She’d have to wrap her whole arms around them, and her legs. It’d be no good for acrobatics like the child had performed. What a sense of superiority one would have, though, looking upside down at all the dancers below, spying on them without their knowledge.

The pixilated blur of Alban jumping made a bright line behind her eyelids. Margrit jolted upright, grabbing the bench’s slats. “Holy shit!”

A handful of disapproving parents turned to glare at her. Margrit clapped a palm over her mouth, wide-eyed with guilt, then moved her hand to whisper, “Sorry,” as if a quiet apology made up for blurting a curse at a noticeable volume. “Holy shit,” she repeated, this time in a whisper all to herself.

“He hid in the rafters.” Margrit flung herself into the seat by Tony’s desk with an air of triumph. Tony stared at her, first blankly, then in disbelief. Dark circles shadowed his eyes and lines creased the skin at the corners of his mouth, giving a hint of what aging would bring. On a man twenty years his senior the lines would be distinguishing, giving a handsome face with character and strength. But for the moment, Margrit said, “You look terrible,” without thinking.

He snorted a laugh. “Thanks. You look like you got enough sleep.” He gestured to her running gear. “Enough to exercise, anyway.”

“I’m faking it. Runner’s high. I ran here from work.”

He glanced at a clock. “Early lunch?”

“I got to work at five this morning. Anyway, I told Russell I’d remembered something else about the guy in the park and I had to talk to you. I think he figures getting bent out of shape when I’m trying to help another public service agency is counterproductive. He’ll take it out in blood later. But listen, Tony.” She leaned forward to seize his hand, enthusiasm overtaking her. “He hid in the rafters. In the Blue Room girders. No cameras look up there.”

Tony chuckled, a rough low sound. “I’m sure there’s a nicer way to say this, but you’re out of your fucking mind.”

“I’m not!” She let go of his hand and thumped her fist on a stack of paperwork on his desk. “We saw him jump, right? In the video.”

He tilted his head back and blew out a noisy breath. “The ceiling in there’s thirty feet high, Margrit. Even where you were, it’s gotta be twenty, twenty-two feet.” He lowered his head, eyeing her. “You really trying to tell me you think he jumped twenty feet straight in the air?”

Margrit folded her arms. “You got a better suggestion?”

“No,” he said after long moments. “But it’s just not possible.”

“What if he was on something?” she demanded.

“He didn’t act like he was.”

“Well, maybe it’s something you don’t know about. Maybe he’s an Olympic athlete. I don’t know, but look. We can at least find out if somebody was in the rafters.”

Tony’s eyebrows shot up, challenging. Margrit tossed her ponytail, grinning at him. “Betcha nobody dusts up there.”

His eyebrows drew down, then slowly rose again, his expression clearing. A smile crept across his face and then he laughed. “All right. All right. I think you’re crazy, but he went somewhere, and that’s not a half-bad idea. If you’re right, I might even be able to get prints.” He clapped his hands together and stood up, weariness swept away.

“Do I get to come?” Margrit asked. “C’mon, Tony.” She stood, bouncing on her toes. “It was my idea. I promise I won’t touch anything. Swear to God. I just want to know if I was right.”

He looked at her, still grinning. “How about if I tell you over dinner tonight?”

“How about I go with you and we discuss what we find over dinner tonight?”

Tony laughed. “That wasn’t supposed to be an opening for negotiation.”

“I’m a lawyer, Tony. Everything is negotiation.”

He swung his jacket on, eyeing her sideways. “You won’t touch anything. And if any trouble crops up you’ll do what I say, and get out of there.”

“Scout’s honor,” Margrit promised, holding up three fingers.

He held up two fingers. “I was a Cub Scout,” he told her dryly. “You got it wrong.”

“I was a Girl Scout, Tony, and it’s three fingers for them.” Margrit arched an eyebrow, then tipped her head toward the door. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

Margrit stood to one side of the Blue Room, arms folded under her breasts as she watched a young officer scramble up an aluminum ladder. Tony shuddered faintly and she smiled, edging toward him. “What was it you were doing when you found out how thin air is and how hard the ground is?”

“Playing tag,” he answered in a low voice. “On the roof. You know that.”

Margrit’s smile broadened. “Yeah, but I really like reminding you.”

“Watching McLaughlin is reminder enough.”

“She’s right, sir,” the officer in question called down. “Somebody was up here.”

Tony shot Margrit an incredulous look, growling, “I still don’t see how it’s possible,” before tipping his head back to shout up the ladder. “Think we can lift any prints?”

“We can try.” McLaughlin came skidding down the ladder with a reckless heed for his own mortality. Margrit moved to the side, remembering her promise to not be a nuisance. There were three officers, including Tony, although one was searching the rest of the club in case something had been missed the night before.

The club looked uncomfortably different during the day. Round white fluorescent lights, the bulbs protected by wire frames, had been turned on last night while the building was being emptied, but they seemed uglier during daylight hours. The rooms no longer echoed with remembered music, but stood empty and bare, mirrored walls reflecting a mundane existence that the night pushed away. Footsteps were audible against the hard floors. Margrit could hear water burbling in the pipes.

McLaughlin scaled the ladder again and Pulcella ambled over to Margrit’s side. “It was a good call,” he said. “I still don’t know how he got out of here without us seeing him, and I sure as hell don’t know how he made that jump, but it was a good call. You should turn away from the dark side and become a cop.”

Tension tightened Margrit’s shoulders and she let out a long sigh. “I like to think I’m one of the good guys, Tony. Sometimes I even get to defend innocent people.”

Her cell phone rang from the depths of her jacket pocket. Margrit dug it out with more force than necessary, the distraction annoying and welcome all at once. There was never a good time to talk about it, she thought. Part of the nature of their relationship, and why it was off as much as it was on. “Besides,” she muttered, “it was just a hunch.” She wandered away from the detective, holding the phone to her ear. “Hi, this is Margrit.”

“This is Russell. Are you finished with your business with Tony?” Her boss’s voice was hurried, urgency clipping his words. “The governor’s announcing his decision on the Johnson case this afternoon.”

“What? Sh—!” Margrit swallowed the curse, remembering just in time to be professional. “What time?” She aborted another curse, stalking in a small, agitated circle.

“One o’clock. During a luncheon with the Women’s City Club.”

Margrit clenched her hand in a fist. “God, I hope that’s good news. All right. I’ll be there as fast as I can. Damn!” She twisted her wrist, looking at the bangle gold watch she wore. It was eleven-thirty, and she cast up a prayer of thanks that she’d gotten to work early. “I’ve got to take a shower, Russell. I ran to the police station. I’ll be there in an hour. The office, or are we meeting him somewhere?”

“Office. You and I will be going over together. Just get back here, Counselor.”

“On my way.” Margrit snapped her phone shut and turned, all but running into Tony, whose eyebrows were lifted. “Hot date?”

“Yeah. My clemency case is about to be decided.” Tony’s eyebrows shot up higher. “The Luka Johnson case?”

“Yeah. I’ve—”

“And there you were claiming just a second ago that you were one of the good guys. The good guys don’t get murderers out of jail, Grit.” He was only half kidding, his smile not reaching his eyes.

Margrit pressed her lips together, giving her head one short shake. “It was self-defense, Tony, and I don’t want to get into it right now. I’ve got to go.”

“All right, fine. Look, Margrit, we never would’ve seen him without your hunch.” Tony squinted against the lights, which hung a few feet below the girders, rendering them effectively invisible. “You did good. Thanks.”

She nodded, stepping around him. “You’re welcome.”

“I think I got something, sir,” McLaughlin called down. The detective tilted his head up, squinting at the lights and McLaughlin’s shadow among them. Margrit took two steps toward the door, then turned back, curiosity impelling her to linger.

“Be careful with it,” Tony called, then lifted his eyebrows at her again. “Thought you had to run.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I just…” Margrit’s calves knotted up and she bounced in anxiety.

“I know. You’ve just got to know.” He gave her a faint, comprehending smile.

“I’m being careful,” McLaughlin said, “but there’s something weird.” He looked down over his shoulder.

“Weird,” Tony echoed. “Is that your clinical diagnosis, Officer?”

“Yes, sir, it is,” he replied without a hint of sarcasm. “I’ll be down in a minute and you can see for yourself.” He grinned then, a note of humor in his voice. “Unless you want to come up here, sir.”

“Watch it, Officer,” Tony said good-naturedly. The man on the ladder laughed. His descent this time was much more cautious, and he spoke as he came down the last few rungs.

“I got an index through ring finger on the left hand and a partial thumb and pinky,” he announced. “And I dusted a partial of his shoes. We’ll let the guys in forensics do their magic.”

“His shoes?” Margrit peered up into the lights, remembering the little girl hanging from the monkey bars, and envisioning herself grasping onto the girders with her arms wrapped around them. “How’d he get his shoes up there?” She glanced at her watch again. She could spare another minute. Two, tops.

“Honestly, it looks like somebody perched up there for a while, ma’am. Like he just dropped down from on top and crouched there. I’m guessing he’s left-handed,” McLaughlin said to Tony. “Judging from the fact that his left hand was his third balance point.” He laid the prints out on the DJ’s table, sweeping a finger over the film-covered dusting paper. “He kept most of his weight on the middle three fingers, only brushed the surface with pinky and thumb. But look at the prints, sir.”

Pulcella leaned over the paper, holding his breath as an unnecessary caution. After several long seconds he straightened up, letting his breath out in an explosion. “He must’ve been wearing gloves.”

“He was not wearing gloves,” Margrit said with absolute certainty. Both cops turned to look at her and color flooded her cheeks. “Well, he wasn’t,” she mumbled. “We were dancing. I had my hands over his. He wasn’t wearing gloves.”

Tony’s expression darkened, one part concern and one part jealousy that not even McLaughlin could miss. He looked from his boss to Margrit, then let out an intended-to-be-nonchalant whistle and deliberately turned back to the prints. Margrit thrust her jaw out and met Tony’s eyes forthrightly. After a few moments he lifted his chin and turned his head away, a gesture of defeat Margrit wouldn’t have expected from him.

“All right,” he grunted. “So tell me how you explain this.” He made a short, sharp movement, indicating the prints. Margrit walked forward warily, not quite trusting the invitation to intrude. Neither cop spoke again, preventing her, and she leaned over the prints.

“He wasn’t wearing gloves,” she repeated, less certainly, nearly a full minute later. Tony stood behind her left shoulder; she twisted her head to look back at him. “I mean, what I don’t know about fingerprints could fill a library, but—” She broke off and frowned down at the prints again. “But I’m sure he wasn’t wearing gloves.”

Ridges and swirls of fine black dust marked the paper. Margrit turned her own hand up, examining her fingerprints closely and comparing them to the prints on the paper. The ridges on her fingertips were much closer together than Alban’s, with nearly twice as many swirls. There was a peculiar consistency to Alban’s, as if tiny streams of water had carved them into oxbows. In the spaces between the ridges, there were porous marks, suggesting pumice. “Acid burns…?” Margrit suggested.

“You’re sure he wasn’t wearing gloves?” Tony growled.

Ir-rah-shun-al pounded out in her temples, better than counting to ten. Margrit inhaled and spoke carefully. “I’m sure he wasn’t when we were dancing. I didn’t look at his hands on the stairs, though.”

“I can’t believe you danced with him.” The detective scowled at her abruptly. “What were you, out of your mind?”

“I didn’t know who he was!” Margrit yelled. McLaughlin took two judicious steps backward and found a mote of dust on his shirt to become concerned with.

“Didn’t you?” Tony demanded. “You’ve been very cozy with this whole investigation since minute one, Grit.”

Margrit’s jaw fell open. “What?”

“You’re the best eyewitness we’ve got, someone who actually spoke with him the night of the murders. He just ‘happens’ to show up at the club you’re at last night? You just ‘happen’ to think he might have been hiding in the rafters? Is this some kind of sick game, Margrit?” Anger and suspicion flooded his voice, as well as jealousy. “It’s not an uncommon pattern for an accomplice to provide just enough information to drag an investigation out. Are you pulling some sort of shit like that, Grit? It’s a federal offense!”

Margrit thinned her lips, deliberately spreading her fingers as if she could release tension through them. When she trusted herself to speak, she said, “I’m well aware of the penalties of interfering in a murder investigation, Anthony. If you intend to arrest me, I invite you to do it now. Otherwise, I suggest you put some more thought behind your spurious claims.”

“Or what,” Tony sneered, “you’ll sue me for libel?”

“It’s slander,” Margrit said through her teeth. “Libel is if it’s in print. If you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere to be.” She turned and stalked toward the door, so tense with anger she could scarcely walk in a straight line.

“Margrit! Margrit!” Tony’s shout followed her down the street.

She ignored him, still walking with great precision, afraid if she began to run she would mow somebody down. The detective caught up to her and grabbed her arm, turning her around. Margrit dropped her gaze to his hand and then lifted it to his eyes.

He let go as if she’d screamed, tucking his hands behind his back, then bringing them forward again to twist together. “I’m sorry. Look, I’m sorry, okay? I don’t have an excuse. I haven’t had enough sleep, but that’s not an excuse, and I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me.”

“Apparently what got into you was the idea that I’m a coconspirator in a murder case. A suspect, if that word was too big, Detective.” Margrit’s voice found its courtroom tones, polite and mocking to mask outrage.

Tony blanched. “I don’t think you’re a suspect. It’s just—”

“Just a remarkable series of coincidences,” she said with a pointed smile. “I’m so glad you don’t think I’m a suspect, Tony. There’s something we agree on. If you’ll excuse me,” she said again, and turned away.

Tony grabbed her arm once more and spun her around. He lifted both hands to her face and caught her cheeks, bringing his mouth down to hers for a desperate, intense kiss.

For a few seconds Margrit was too stunned to react. His mouth was warm, hands gentle against her face, despite the ardor of the kiss. Someone walking by wolfwhistled with approval.

Margrit shoved Tony away with all her strength, balled up a fist and threw a punch that cracked her knuckles when it hit.

He yowled in pain and surprise, clutching his nose as he staggered back, tears springing to his eyes and spilling down his cheeks. Pure astonishment mingled with hurt in his expression, half-hidden behind his hands.

Margrit shook her fingers, loosening the injured knuckles as she trembled with fury, staring up at him. “This isn’t the movies, Tony,” she spat. “That kind of bullshit doesn’t work in real life.”

Vibrating with angry energy, she turned on her heel and stalked down the street, leaving the detective behind.

A quick shower and change of clothes before a seven-minute subway ride calmed her temper enough that Margrit managed to not stomp as she came back into the office. Her boss met her a few steps inside the door, giving her a brief, approving once-over.

“I didn’t think you were going to make it.” Russell Lomax was thirty years Margrit’s elder and usually dressed in better-quality suits than most public employees could afford. “The governor’s aide just called. They’d like you to meet them at the City Club. You look good, Counselor.”

“Is Luka going to be there?” Margrit glanced at herself—burgundy skirt suit, cream-colored blouse—and scowled at her right hand, where the knuckles were swollen and the skin broken.

“She is. You’ll be meeting her in the back room and you’ll all three go out to talk to the press together.” Russell frowned at her hand. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” Margrit shook her head. “It’s fine. I hope the governor meeting with us is a good sign. He wouldn’t be such a bastard to pull this kind of big stunt for denying the case, would he?” She scowled at her hand again.

“I don’t know. We can hope not,” Russell said with an easy shrug, then lifted his eyebrows at something behind her. “Someone’s lucky day.”

“Luka’s, I hope.” Margrit looked over her shoulder. A delivery boy with a vase full of yellow roses peered at her.

“Margrit Knight? These are for you. Sign here, please.” The boy thrust the vase at her, and Margrit blinked, taking it and fumbling as she tried to comply without dropping it. Russell, looking amused, came to her rescue, scooping up the vase.

“Secret admirer, Margrit?”

“Not that I know about.” She signed and the delivery boy departed as she pushed aside a bundle of baby’s breath to find the card. A quiet laugh, still tinged with anger, escaped as she read it: “I’m a jerk. Forgive me and keep our dinner date? Call me.—Tony”

Margrit curled the card in her fist and shook her head as Russell looked on curiously. “Tony,” she said. “We had a fight.” Her boss’s expression invited further explanation, but she shook her head again. “We’ve got more important things to focus on. Let’s go see how this thing turns out.”




SIX


“IT’LL BE ALL right.” Margrit offered a reassuring smile, squeezing Luka Johnson’s hand and letting calm suffuse her voice. It was an act, a show of composure that hid the fact that her heart was lodged in her throat. Luka’s dark complexion was ashy, her brown eyes flat from worry; she needed Margrit’s confident manner even more than Margrit herself did. There was a discreet police escort outside the room, keeping the bustle of the hall away from the prisoner and her lawyer.

“But what if it ain’t—isn’t?”

Margrit exhaled shakily and lifted a foot to display her shoe. “These are very pointy heels. I’ll step on his toes if it isn’t.” The door whooshed open as she spoke, and Luka’s eyes widened. “He heard that, didn’t he?” Margrit mouthed, before turning to face the governor.

“I heard that, Ms. Knight.” Amusement colored the man’s voice, no concern for the state of his feet evident. He was tall, with features too heavy for handsomeness, but strong enough to give him presence. He offered a hand first to Margrit, then stepped past her to say, “Mrs. Johnson. I apologize. I should have called you both earlier today, but my planned luncheon was canceled and the City Club asked me to step in when their speaker canceled, as well. It’s been a hectic morning.”

“You could say that, sir.” The words came automatically, despite Margrit’s churning stomach and fluttering heart. Law school had taught her to schmooze through stress, if nothing else. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

He grinned down at her. “You, too. You’ve got a hell of an advocate here, Mrs. Johnson.” He turned back to Luka, the grin tempering into a compassionate smile. “I imagine I’ve got you both sick with worry, so let me go ahead and make myself clear before we go in to the lunch.”

Luka’s hand grasped Margrit’s in a white-knuckled grip.

“Even on my worst day, I wouldn’t pull off this kind of spectacle to break a family’s heart, Mrs. Johnson. Clemency is granted,” the governor said. “You’re free to go.”

He stepped forward to help Margrit catch Luka as her legs went out from under her.

The afternoon passed not in a blur, Margrit thought later, but a roar. Anything the governor said as he helped Luka back to her feet was lost in the pounding of blood in Margrit’s ears and the unprofessionally brilliant grin as she pumped his hand in gratitude. Her eyes stung with tears that overflowed without warning, turning into gasping laughs and hiccups of relief and pride and delight. The members of the City Club literally stood and cheered, their applause cutting through the ringing in Margrit’s ears in quick staccato bursts. She stood with her arm around Luka’s waist, the two of them supporting one another, and when the governor beckoned her forward to speak to the club, she tugged Luka with her.

“Today is the hard-won culmination of three years work,” she said into the microphone, to a hundred beaming faces. “Luka and I are both so very pleased and very relieved. So very grateful, Governor, thank you so very much. This is not the first case in which clemency has been granted to a woman acting in self-defense, but it is still a landmark. There are so many small steps we must take in order to assure the safety of everyone in this great city of ours. I hope that someday cases like Luka Johnson’s won’t be necessary anymore, but today’s decision reinforces our determination to take those steps, to continue moving in the right direction. There is so much I could say to all of you—even if I’m preaching to the choir!—but if you’ll excuse us, I think there are a couple of little girls waiting to see their mother.” Arm still wrapped around Luka’s waist, both of them beaming, Margrit withdrew from the luncheon to the sounds of cheers.

Outside the hall was chaos, the press bunched together like a murder of crows. Flash photography blinded them both as microphones were thrust under their noses, and Margrit shouted out the same words she’d spoken in the hall. Hands lifted, she brought the volume of shouts and questions down as they edged forward, nodding encouragement to Luka when she answered a handful of questions herself. It was difficult to pick any one voice out of the din, and Margrit kept losing her determined expression to a grin as she elbowed reporters aside. Russell waited at the bottom of the steps, vehicle idling. Even when the door closed and cut off the reporters’ voices, the pounding of the ocean stayed in Margrit’s ears.

“…which nobody can deny!”

The roar was still with her, this time in her colleagues’ voices as they lifted toasts to her for… Margrit had lost track of the rounds, which probably accounted for some of the roar, she admitted to herself. It wasn’t nearly late enough in the day to be… “Tipsy,” she said out loud, firmly. Russell, on the bar stool beside her, laughed.

“You passed tipsy an hour ago, Margrit. You passed tipsy when you climbed up on the bar to start giving speeches.”

She laughed with him. “At least I’m not standing on it anymore!”

“Just sitting,” Russell agreed with a nod. “You’re tanked.”

“I am not.” Margrit allowed herself a tiny grin and a shrug. “Okay, maybe a little.”

“Although I wouldn’t normally encourage someone to get drunk in front of her boss, I think this time you’ve earned it. Congratulations, Margrit.” Russell shook her hand for the third time, making her grin yet again.

“Thank you, sir. You should’ve seen the kids,” she added to anybody who would listen. “When Luka came in with me the older girl got so excited she burst into tears, so the little girl did, and then we all did.” Luka had embraced the girls’ foster mother fiercely, promising she’d remain a part of their lives. When Margrit had finally excused herself, the four of them, women and girls alike, had been sitting together in a tight bundle, catching up and holding on. Margrit left feeling as if she was walking on clouds.

“So you decided on no dinner date?” Russell asked.

Margrit squinted at him, eyebrows drawn down in furrows before they suddenly shot up. “Oh, shit. No! Crap!” She slid off the counter to the bar stool, then to the floor, dismayed at how it wobbled.

Russell laughed. “You okay? You’ve had a lot to drink.”

“We all have,” Margrit said with a quick grin. “But I haven’t drunk enough to drown my career in alcohol, sir. I’m all right. I’ll be back in a bit.”

The silence outside the bar was deafening. Margrit leaned against the building, still smiling broadly as she auto-dialed Tony. There was no answer, but voice mail picked up and she said, “I won my case. You’re forgiven. Sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier. Um, dinner tomorrow night, maybe? If we can both make it, anyway. Call me back, Tony. I miss you.”

Margrit heard the note of wryness in her own voice as she ended the call. She missed him when times were good more than when they were bad. Another reason, probably, that they rarely stayed together more than a few months before taking a break. It’d been going on for years now, with too much time invested to walk away, yet too many down moments to consider it a successful relationship.

Alban Korund’s pale gaze, colorless in the strange club lighting, flashed in her memory, a startling counterpart to thoughts of Tony Pulcella and his warm Italian coloring. Margrit shook the image off, muttering “Bah” under her breath as she pushed away from the building wall. Men wanted for murder had no business lingering in her imagination, even when the erratic bond with Tony seemed to be a little more strained than usual.

“Miss Knight?” A woman—a girl, really—appeared out of nowhere, as suddenly as Alban departed. Margrit straightened her shoulders, irritated at the stubborn focus of her thoughts.

“I’m sorry,” she said brusquely. “I don’t have any spare change.” She turned her back, reaching for the bar door.

The girl blurted, “No!” and caught her elbow. Margrit jerked away, turning back in outraged astonishment that made the stranger cringe, though it didn’t stop her tongue.

“I need your help, please. Please, I saw you on the news and I don’t know where else to go.” She shifted a bundle under a gray blanket wrapped around her thin shoulders, the whole motion as smooth and choreographed as a dance, then looked up pleadingly. “They’re going to tear our building down and we don’t have anywhere else to go. Please, Ms. Knight.”

“We?” Margrit asked warily. The girl nodded and slipped the blanket away to show Margrit a contented, tiny baby who blinked sleepily and waved a little fist at her.

“My daughter and I. Please. Can you help us?”

Margrit groaned and let the bar door swing shut again.

Alban stepped back, letting the shadows of an alley swallow him. His hair was too bright, too noticeable, to risk moving farther into the light. The police might see him, but more to the point, the girl might see him. What was she doing there? What were they doing here?

A human couldn’t recognize the slightly too fluid movements. Humans saw inexpressible grace if they noticed anything at all. It took another of the Old Races to see one of their own. The girl moved as if she’d been born to live in water, as if the natural substance around her supported her weight, and gravity had no effect. He’d thought there were none of her people left, the selkies whose attempt at saving themselves had driven them out of the sight and minds of the other remaining Old Races.

Alban folded his arms over his chest, watching the girl, watching Margrit. She’d missed her evening run, but others had been out, stretching their legs and jogging, talking about the day’s news. Talking about Margrit—his Margrit, the lawyer for Legal Aid. He’d leaped from one tree to another, following the conversation. Margrit Knight. She was as he’d imagined a lawyer should be: a warrior, fighting the good fight.

He came downtown over the rooftops, finding her offices on Water Street. Early nights were in his favor for once, allowing him to watch from above as a herd of proud, laughing lawyers swept Margrit out of the building as evening fell. It was the second time he’d seen her in something other than running outfits, and as much poise and taste were reflected in her professional clothes as the soft camisole and skirt he’d touched the night before. He curled his hand, feeling none of that delicacy in his own form.

One of a dozen reasons he ought never to have spoken to her at all. Ironically, it was the same reason that made him want to clear his name with her, though he could hardly imagine explaining that reason to her.

What, then, he wondered, did he intend to do? Without explanations, there could be nothing between them, not even the trust needed for a lawyer to fight for her client. With explanations—

With explanations there could be nothing at all. It was the reality of her people and his. Alban lowered his head, folding his fingers into a loose fist. He’d listened to voices below calling congratulations, until the air around him rang with them. Good-natured arguments over who had the honor of buying the first drink lingered even after Margrit and her compatriots entered the upscale pub they’d chosen.

Half a dozen times he’d thought of following them in, wisdom overcoming the impulse every time. He was wanted for questioning about a murder. Walking into a room filled with lawyers would hardly keep him out of the public eye, and he didn’t dare be detained past sunrise. And now too many years of deliberately staying apart had cost him. Margrit had been alone for a few moments, leaning against the building as she spoke into her phone. There had been time to approach. Two centuries of caution made him too slow, and now the girl had joined her.

The girl. Legend had it that the selkie race had tried to save itself by breeding with humans. The other Old Races abhorred the tactic, and no one had wept when the selkies had faded away, drowned in the cold seas they’d come from. A few, it seemed, survived. Alban shook his head and hunched his shoulders as he stood in the shadows. For all their attempts to preserve themselves, it appeared the selkies were left hiding in the darkness with the rest of the Old Races.

Alban strained to hear the conversation, but the wind carried their words the wrong direction, his sensitive hearing unable to compensate. Moving closer was out of the question, the chances of revealing himself too high.

He missed the weight of wings as he shifted his shoulders, the motion too slight without them. Ironic, to counsel himself to patience now, when it was that forbearance that had lost him the chance to speak with Margrit. He sighed and settled deeper into the shadows, watching the two women. He would take the next chance. He had to.

It would explain everything, Margrit thought, if this girl had been following her since yesterday, working up her nerve to come forward. It would explain her own vague uneasiness and sense of being followed. But she’d said she’d heard Margrit’s name only that evening, and Alban had been at the Blue Room the night before. The idea crystallized briefly before fading away again: he’d found her at the club, too unlikely to be coincidence. There had been something to her paranoia.

Warmth flushed through Margrit, a blush of color that had no business belonging to the idea of being followed. Keeping a dangerous habit was bad enough. Not-so-vicarious thrills at having her own stalker was considerably worse.

Though still, even with the peculiar fingerprints, even with the impossibility of Alban’s leap, what remained was the confidence of his hands on her hips, and the curiosity in his eyes as they’d spoken.

Margrit stifled another groan, this time of impatience at herself, and wrenched her attention back to the young woman asking for her help.

She was pretty in a mournful way, with brown eyes so dark they seemed to have no boundary between iris and pupil. Her cheeks were hollow and the knees of her jeans were pale with wear and age. The hems were ratty and the sneakers had seen better days. She was a picture of betrayed innocence, a good witness, Margrit thought clinically, and dropped her chin in a nod. “What’s your name?”

“Cara. Cara Delaney. Thank you. Thank you for listening.”

Margrit shook her head. “I haven’t done anything yet. You’re not twenty-one, are you?”

“No.”

“So much for a shot to warm you up. It’s fine. Let’s get back to my office, though. It’s warmer there and it’s just around the block.” She touched the girl’s shoulder, encouraging her into motion. “You understand this kind of thing doesn’t just happen overnight?” she asked as they walked. “It takes permits and notices and hearings to tear down buildings, even old ones.”

“There weren’t any. I swear, Ms. Knight—” “I believe that you haven’t seen any. It’s just that it may be a place to start an injunction against the squatters being thrown out.” Margrit glanced at her. “Squatters, right?”

Cara nodded. Margrit followed suit, studying her again. The right clothes would make her the perfect witness: nothing too good, but clearly the best a homeless girl could afford. With her fragile loveliness and large eyes, and a helpless baby on her hip, she’d be a poster child for the poor displaced by the whims of the wealthy. “How old’s your daughter?”

“Three months. Her name’s Deirdre.” The name was gently drawn out, much the way Cara had said her own name.

“That’s pretty. So’s she.”

Cara smiled. “Thank you. It means sorrowful.”

Margrit blinked. “Why would you give her a sad name?”

“My people think a name should do many things. Reflect your circumstances, maybe give you something to stand up for, or fight against.”

Margrit’s eyebrows shot up. “Your people?”

Cara’s cheeks darkened in a flush and she fixed her gaze on her feet. “The Irish,” she said after a few seconds. Margrit pulled her eyebrows back down where they belonged and smiled.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody say it quite that way before. Are you from Ireland? You don’t sound like it.”

“I was born there.” “Are you—”

“My father was an American citizen,” Cara interrupted. “I’m not illegal, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Margrit exhaled, slowing as she nodded at the Legal Aid Society building. “My office is in here. I’m glad you’re legal. That makes things less complicated.” The guard at the door straightened as Margrit led Cara up the steps and smiled at him. “Evening, Mark.”

“Thought you were out celebrating, Ms. Knight.”

“Margrit!” she reminded him for the hundredth time. He was well over six feet tall, and thick-shouldered as a wall, relying on intimidation rather than an inclination to hurt people to get his job done. He’d worked there longer than Margrit had and still refused to call her by her first name. “This is Cara. She’s with me.”

“Miss.” Mark ducked his head politely as he unkeyed the security alarm and unlocked the door. “Call down when you’re leaving, Ms. Knight, so I can turn off the alarm.”

“We will,” Margrit promised. “Thanks, Mark. Come on, Cara. I can at least make a pot of coffee while we talk.”

The security guard keyed the pad again as Margrit and the selkie girl disappeared into the lobby. Alban walked to the other side of the street, casting quick glances at the building as he ducked his head over a cup of coffee that was more for show than to quench thirst. A light came on in an office on the second floor and he let out a sigh that steamed in the chilly air. The guard watched him, caution in his eyes. Alban inclined his head and picked up his pace, letting his feet take him around the corner and out of sight.

Habit made him check the street even as he gathered himself. There were always stragglers in the city, drunks or homeless or late businessmen who might catch a glimpse of him if he allowed himself to become careless. A few times he’d been noticed, springing upward as he did now, a blur of strength and power hesitating on window ledges only long enough to pounce to the next. Fortunately, drunks and homeless were rarely considered reliable, and businessmen wouldn’t risk their reputations with stories of creatures scaling building walls in a single bound.

The ledge he found suited him, close enough to the street to watch easily, but far enough up that he would go unnoticed. Even if someone did see him, they would only be surprised, and uncertain if they’d ever noticed the stonework on the building before. There were risks, and then there were the constants of human nature.

Alban crouched, three points on the ledge and his right elbow draped over his knee. Wings settled around his shoulders, falling like a heavy cloak, and he waited, still as stone, for Margrit or the dawn.




SEVEN


THE LIGHT CLICKED off, sudden darkness across the street briefly incomprehensible. Alban blinked without understanding, then pushed back, hands on his knees as he straightened his spine. Bells from a nearby church had rung the first small hour of the morning long enough ago that he’d begun to think dawn would make an entrance before Margrit Knight took her leave from work, even if wintertime bought him more hours than a summer night would. Sunrise might come late, but he still preferred to be safely ensconced in his home well before it broke. Perching on building ledges during daylight hours made discovery far more likely.

The patient security guard, whose rounds had kept him within Alban’s line of sight all night, pressed a code into the numerical safety box on the building’s side, and a moment later held the door for a tired-looking Margrit. She gave him a weary smile, pulling her coat around herself more tightly against wind coming up from the water. It carried her words and a quiet laugh as she shook her head: “I’ve already called one, but I wouldn’t mind company until it gets here. Thanks, Mark. Did Cara get out safely?”

“Paid for her cab,” Mark replied. “She didn’t want me to, but it’s bad, walking around with a baby that late.”

Margrit flashed a smile and turned her gaze up to the skyline. Hope and fear swept Alban, an unexpected combination of emotion that left a chill behind. For a moment her eyes lighted on him, then went on without recognition or notice. Of course, he thought, though disappointment replaced hope.

“Did you get a receipt?” Margrit asked. “Let me pay you back, anyway. I think Russell will assign somebody to the case, so I can get reimbursed.” She dug into her purse as Mark shook his head.

“Don’t need to, Miss Knight. Didn’t do it just to get my money back. She needed a ride, that’s all.”

Margrit’s smile deepened. “You’re a good man, Mark. Thanks. I didn’t even think of it.” She tugged something out of her purse anyway, palm-size and oddly textured, silver over metallic red, then slid it in her pocket. Alban tipped his head, watching her actions, which were easy enough to be ritual, then brought his attention back to the conversation.

“Been a long day,” the security guard said. “You can’t remember everything.”

“Don’t tell me that.” Margrit walked down the steps, peering up the street for her taxi. “Next thing I know you’ll be telling me I can’t save the world.”

“Wouldn’t bet against you, Miss Knight.”

Margrit grinned over her shoulder at the guard, then looked back up at the sky. “That’s what I like to hear. Thanks.” Her smile faded to a frown. “Mark, was that there before?” She lifted a hand, pointing a gloved finger directly at Alban.

So much for humans never looking up. Stillness was a way of being—not flinching, not moving, requiring no more thought than breathing did. Alban’s heart thudded with the panic of discovery regardless, even as a part of him wanted to laugh at his own fears. His intention was to bring himself to Margrit’s notice. Being found out shouldn’t be alarming, especially when she couldn’t possibly recognize him.

The guard came down the stairs to follow her extended arm. “Musta been, Miss Knight. Don’t remember seeing it, though.”

Margrit dropped her hand slowly and nodded. “I swear I’ve looked out my window a million times at that building and never saw it before.”

“Funny what we notice,” Mark agreed. “Here’s your cab, Miss Knight.” He stepped past her as the vehicle pulled up, and opened the door for her. Margrit gave him a grateful smile and ducked into the car.

A grin, full of unusual wickedness, broke through Alban’s stony expression. He leaped upward, leaving his perch behind, and paused long enough on the rooftop to catch Mark’s bewildered expression when he looked up to find the statue on the ledge gone.

A matter of steps between the taxi and her apartment building’s front door was all the time he had. There’d be no room for prevarication, no chance to back out. He waited on a balcony a few stories up, not wanting the cab driver to catch sight of him and perhaps identify him. Trusting Margrit wouldn’t turn him in was enough of a gamble, though at least it would be difficult for her to catch him, if she was so inclined. The cab pulled away as she scurried up the steps to unlock the front door.

Alban dropped from the balcony, landing in a crouch on the sidewalk a few yards behind her, and pushed to his feet before murmuring, “Margrit.”

She twisted the lock open and stepped inside without looking back. Silver wire glinted at her ear, suddenly resolving: headphones attached to the palm-size metallic-red MP3 player that swung from her wrist. “Mar—!”

The door clicked shut. Alban stepped back with a gasp of disbelieving laughter. No light came on in the front of her apartment. He’d have no chance of catching her in the kitchen without breaking in. He stood staring up at the building, then spread his hands helplessly. “Margrit?”

There was no answer, nor had he expected one. Time held him in its slow grip, watching her window until even he began to feel cold settling onto his skin. Then he shook himself and took to rooftops and sky, returning home in befuddlement.

“You wanted to see me?” Margrit leaned into her boss’s office, trying to look wide-awake and perky. She was getting old. A few days of an upset sleep schedule wasn’t as easy to get by on as it’d been in college.

Russell glanced up and gestured her in. “Yes, come in, Margrit, please. Have a seat. I’ve been looking over the notes you took on last night’s petitioner.” He tapped the pile of paperwork she had left, information about Cara and data regarding building codes and wrecking protocols. Looking at it, Margrit felt a surge of satisfaction; squatters’ rights weren’t in her field of expertise, but she thought she’d put together a good preliminary package. “How late were you here?”

She dropped into one of the visitor’s chairs. “I don’t know. One or two. I sent Cara home earlier than that, but I wanted to get some information together for you to look at. It was almost eight when we got here,” she added to herself. Tony should have answered his phone at that hour. It wasn’t too late to call. Work may have caught him, but she wished he’d returned the call. Even a late night would have been nice to share after a triumphant day.

Margrit pulled her mind back to the topic at hand, shrugging. “I asked her everything I could think of and told her I’d try to get you to assign someone to help her. It’s—” “You.”

Margrit straightened in the chair, enough adrenaline washing through her to wake her up fully. “I appreciate the offer, sir, but I’m really not any sort of an expert on housing situations. I was thinking Nichole—”

“If you need her help, I’ll ask her to do what she can. I spent a while on the phone this morning.” He glanced at the clock, which read a little after ten.

Margrit shifted her shoulders guiltily. “I would’ve been in earlier, sir, but—” she cleared her throat and offered a lame smile along with the unvarnished truth “—but I was still sleeping.”

Russell smiled. “It’s all right. None of us were here bright and early. Maybe a little too much celebrating.” He shook his head. “I didn’t mean to reprimand you. You’ve done a fine job here the past few years. You’re exactly the sort of person we need in Legal Aid. Young, dedicated, enthusiastic.”

Pretty, Margrit thought. There were other words, too, that Russell avoided, as her boss and as a male. Descriptors that would be inappropriate to point out as being among her strengths as a lawyer. She nodded slightly, acknowledging his compliments without speaking.

“You make a good public face.” Russell leaned forward. “Which is part of why I want you on this case. As I was saying, I made some phone calls this morning. This building,” he said, nodding toward the stack of papers Margrit had left, “is owned by Eliseo Daisani.”

The air abruptly weighed heavier on Margrit’s shoulders. “The Eliseo Daisani?” As if there might be more than one, she teased herself, trying to deflate a spurt of panic that ballooned in her stomach. “Then it’s even more imperative, sir, that you have someone experienced in this field—”

“I want you. You’re high profile right now, Margrit, and that’ll only help us. This girl, this Cara, approached you directly. It’s a good story for the press.” He sat back, gesturing at her. “You’ll make a good face as an adversary against Daisani’s corporation. We need that, too. And it doesn’t hurt that—”

He broke off, waiting for her to finish his sentence for him. Margrit studied him silently, her gaze level. It took so little time for him to complete it that only someone who knew he expected the defendant to speak for herself would have heard the hesitation. “—you’re black.”

Margrit thinned her lips, then said coolly, “I’m also white and probably American Indian, Russell. Nobody’s going to be fooled by sending me into the Projects. I grew up in Flushing, for God’s sake. Dad’s a surgeon.” She propped her fingers in a steeple in front of her chest, a posture learned from her father. “Mother is a corporate finance manager. I’m not a Cinderella story.”

“Nor am I going to try to sell you as one. Nonetheless, it’s a card to play and I intend to use it to our benefit.”

“Sir.” Margrit could hear the anger in the clipped way she spoke the word. She folded her hands out of their steeple and found them re-forming it above her lap, her fingertips now pointed accusingly at her boss. “By putting me as lead counsel on this you’re trying to make people think, ‘Look, a black girl who’s done well. Now she’s giving back to the little people she came from. Good for her!’ You’re using me to lie by way of public perception.” A shred of guilt whipped through her as she remembered how she’d sized up Cara’s physical appearance as a potential benefit when she climbed on the witness stand. But Margrit pushed the memory away, meeting Russell’s gaze with her own forthright anger.

“Does that mean you’re refusing the case, Counselor?”

Goddammit. Margrit bit back the words, staring at him. “It means I’d like some time to think about it, sir.”

“I’ll expect a decision by this afternoon. Margrit,” he added, as she stood and stalked toward the door. She turned back, lips compressed. “Your name is already in the news right now. If Cara Delaney or anyone at her building mentions talking to you about this, you may find yourself on Eliseo Daisani’s radar. He’s a powerful man, and information has a way of making its way to the ears of the powerful. Think carefully, but think quickly. If there’s a compelling enough reason behind him wanting this building to come down, you may find yourself with a dangerous enemy.”

“Thank you, sir.” Margrit left his office with her fists clenched, and snatched up her coat on the way out of the building. There was no thinking about her destination; thought might send her in the other direction. She hailed a cab rather than give in to the desire to run her anger out. A dockworker might reasonably show up to an impromptu meeting sweaty and disheveled. A lawyer for Legal Aid couldn’t afford that as a first impression.

Particularly not with the target she had in mind.

Daisani’s personal assistant made heroin chic look like a healthy lifestyle choice. Everything about the woman was thin: her hair, scraped back against her skull into a bun so tight it looked as if it must give her a headache; her eyes, behind rectangle-framed tortoise-shell glasses; her nose, which was pinched enough that Margrit thought she must have a hard time breathing. She was excruciatingly well dressed, but the linen and silk of her suit somehow managed to play up the sharpness of her shoulders and the vicious angles of her collarbones. Margrit, in an ivory suit she’d rescued from the dry cleaners, felt unexpectedly lush in comparison.

“Do you have an appointment?”

Margrit startled, trying not to stare. She’d expected a voice as thin and nasal as the woman, a piercing soprano. Instead she spoke in a warm contralto with bright notes to it, like rich liqueur poured over ice. The tone was professional enough to border on unfriendly, but it couldn’t hide the depth of music in her voice. Margrit’s planned arguments to win an appointment with Daisani were abandoned in favor of a heartfelt, “You have a beautiful voice.”

The thin woman went still for a moment, then flickered a smile that did nothing to relax her features. “Thank you. Do you have an appointment?”

Impatience, Margrit told herself, would get her nowhere. They both knew she didn’t have an appointment, but form had to be met. She proffered a wry smile and shook her head. “I’m afraid not. I was hoping—”

“Mr. Daisani,” the narrow woman said, “is a very busy man.”

“I understand.” Margrit kept the rueful smile, and gestured to one of the lobby chairs. “I’d be glad to wait. I only need a few minutes of his time.”

The woman opened an appointment book of rich, embossed brown leather that complemented the pale wood of the enormous curved desk Eliseo Daisani’s personal assistant was barricaded behind. There was nothing in the office that wasn’t sumptuous. The lobby chairs were antiques, some covered in pale leather, others in rich red velvet that looked so soft Margrit had forced herself not to stop and brush her fingers across it as she entered. The hardwood floors gleamed as if they were polished every night, scuffs removed with prejudice. The walls were paneled wood, as polished as the floors, all of it harkening back to an era decades before Margrit’s own.

Paintings on the walls dated from the twenties, art deco at its finest, with the exception of one discreet portrait of a slim, dusky man behind the assistant’s desk. A woman bearing a striking resemblance to the assistant herself was also in the portrait, her hair cut in a sharp bob that did much more for her thin features than the tense bun this woman wore. Margrit dared a nod at the portrait, asking, “Your grandmother?”

As if she might be surprised by what lay there, the assistant turned to look at the painting. “Vanessa Gray,” she said. “And Dominic Daisani, Mr. Daisani’s father.” The second showing of interest in her, rather than Eliseo Daisani, seemed to thaw a very slender thread within the woman. A note of pride entered her rich voice as she turned back to Margrit. “I was named for her. My family has worked with Mr. Daisani’s family for a long time.” With the slight relaxation, she looked like the before picture of a makeover: there was beauty in her, tightly restrained. Margrit wondered what had made her decide to go the sourpuss route instead of playing up the glamour within.

“She was lovely. You look like her.” The compliments were honest, and Margrit offered another smile along with them, stepping back from the desk. “I really don’t mind waiting. Just a few minutes of his time, maybe?”

Vanessa Gray the younger pursed her thin lips and nodded very subtly toward a chair. Margrit took the victory, smiled again and retreated to await her chance.

“Miss Knight. What a pleasure to meet you.” Eliseo Daisani came around a marble desk that would fill Margrit’s bedroom, and offered her a hand, clasping hers in both of his when she took it. He was barely taller than she was, wiry in build, and his hands were disconcertingly hot.

“The pleasure is mine, Mr. Daisani.” Margrit spoke with a degree of reservation. “I appreciate you sharing a few minutes of your time.”

“When the rising star of the city’s Legal Aid Society comes knocking on my door, I am of course predisposed to discover her mission.” Daisani winked, making fun of himself. He was too thin for good looks, but his grin was disarming and he clearly knew it. Despite herself, Margrit smiled.

“I think you probably know why I’m here, Mr. Daisani.”

“Of course I do. It’s the price of being me. Someone has to be aware of all these details, and I was the best man for the job. Please, won’t you sit down?” He ushered her to a love seat coupled with a couch in front of floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city. “Isn’t the view tremendous?” he asked, sounding as if he’d called it up especially for her. “Some days I don’t get any work done at all, just looking down at the city. Well, between that and the books.” He gestured easily at the far end of the office, which was walled to the ceiling with pale wooden shelves filled with hundreds of books, interspersed with decorative objects. “May I get you some water?”

“Yes, please. Do you mind?” She gestured toward the bookshelves in turn, taking a step or two in their direction. Daisani made a generous, expansive hand wave, inviting her to look as he went to a wet bar at the other end of the enormous office. “I don’t have that problem,” Margrit added as she approached the shelves. “My office is a cubicle in the middle of a building. Is that a Rodin?”

“It is.” Daisani sounded pleased as he joined her, offering a glass that gave a low, subtle ring of sound as Margrit took it. Crystal, she thought, trying not to look as startled as she felt. Of course it would be crystal. Nothing in Daisani’s office was of a halfway measure. “You have an excellent eye, Miss Knight.”

“I’ve never even seen photos of this before. It looks like an early sculpture of The Secret.” Margrit reached out to touch the marble hands, clasped together in silent eternity. “I didn’t know he’d done more than one version. I should be so lucky as to have knickknacks like yours, Mr. Daisani.” She turned her head, studying a pair of soft-looking furs pinned to the wall at the end of the shelves. One was much smaller than the other, and a thread of cool wariness slipped through Margrit. Daisani was a hunter, and apparently didn’t care if his prey was a mother with child. She turned her gaze back to him, keeping her expression neutral.

Daisani beamed at her. “An excellent eye,” he repeated. “I’ll be certain to arrange for a much better view.” Margrit blinked at him and his eyebrows—dark, inquisitive—rose. “In your new office.”

“My what?”

“Your new office.” Daisani’s eyebrows went higher, as if he was surprised it was necessary to explain. “As counsel for Daisani Incorporated, of course. You didn’t think I’d put you in a cubicle, did you? In this building?” He twirled a finger, making it clear the whole building was at his disposal.

“Counsel for what?” Margrit could feel heat building in her cheeks, a distressing indicator that she’d been outplayed and was too startled to react quickly. “I’m sorry, what?”

Daisani smiled beatifically, leaning on his desk as he reached for his own water. He crossed one ankle over the other, his polished leather shoes so bright that they caught Margrit’s attention as easily as they bounced the light. “It’s an excellent, excellent time to make a play for moving up in the world. I absolutely approve. It’s been, what, three, going on four years now, of Legal Aid? A number of minor victories and a few setbacks, though those are to be expected. But now with the Johnson case making headlines, you’ve paid your dues. You may, of course, want to take on one more case, just so it’s not quite so obvious that it’s time to pay off the bills now. Wouldn’t you say? As it happens, I’m delighted to tell you that I have an opening extraordinarily well suited for your skills.”

He leaned forward from the waist, flashing a conspiratorial grin. “And to your temperament, Miss Knight. It’s a noble pursuit, wanting to help those less fortunate than you are, but you needn’t live in near poverty yourself to do it. In fact, your address may be a touch unfashionable. After an appropriate amount of time we’ll certainly want to discuss moving you to, oh, say, the Upper East Side?” He came upright again, his shoulders back and spine straight, the posture of a confident man.

Margrit swallowed, folding her hands around the crystal glass carefully. “I’m a far cry from living in poverty, Mr. Daisani. I’m not here about a job.”

“Of course you are. This is anaudition. You just don’t realize it yet, Miss Knight. The idealists rarely do.” Daisani lifted a finger, then laid it alongside his nose, like a swarthy Santa Claus. “It’s all right. I won’t hold it against you.”

A little bubble of anger heated up inside Margrit’s belly. It stiffened her spine and shut her expression down into something neutral. Daisani saw it, too, and laughed, leaning toward her again. “I’ve offended you.”

“Not at all.” Margrit worked to keep emotion out of her voice. “But I think I’ve learned what I needed to know.”

“Oh, no.” Daisani’s voice dropped, smoothing out like cream and sugar. “No, Miss Knight, I don’t think you have at all.” Magnanimity suddenly splashed back into him and he spread his hands, a welcoming gesture. “But you will, and I’m positively fascinated to see how that turns out. The job offer still stands, Miss Knight. For a little while, at least.”

“At least until I’ve taken that one more case?” Margrit asked, the words coming out thin. “The one that’s for show, so I don’t look like I’m abandoning the cause too easily?”

“At least that long,” Daisani agreed. “Think how pleased your parents will be, Miss Knight. Moving up in the world. Focusing on problems that are really more suited for your intelligence and passion, rather than taking on hard-luck cases for a fraction of what you’re worth. Please,” he added, “do tell your mother hello the next time you speak with her. Delightful woman. Uncanny insight into the fluctuations of the stock market. If she were a shade less ethical you’d be absurdly wealthy.” Daisani tapped the end of his nose, winking again. “And I know from absurdly wealthy, Miss Knight. It’s been a delight meeting you. Let me escort you out.”

“That’s all right.” Margrit put on a quick smile and hoped it warmed her eyes. “I can find my own way, and I think your assistant would take umbrage at the personal attention.”

Daisani laughed and gave a half bow, then waved his hand toward the door. “As you wish, Miss Knight. Good afternoon.”




EIGHT


“I’LL TAKE THE case.” Margrit stood in Russell’s doorway again, clenching her fists into knots and loosening them again. Eliseo Daisani’s cool assumption of her reason for being at his offices rankled, driving her to take a stance she wasn’t wholly convinced she should. Still, the decision was made, and Margrit hated second-guessing herself. “I’m going to need help, Russell. This isn’t my area of expertise.”

“You’ve mentioned that several times today.” Her boss put his elbows on his desk and leaned forward, smiling. “I knew you’d come around. I’ve talked to Nichole about being second counsel, and she’s fine with that.”

“Is she? Or is she putting on a good show?”

“Either way.” Russell shrugged. “You’re going to be very short on time with this project, Margrit. Eliseo Daisani is used to getting his own way, and his pockets run deep.”

“So I’ve seen,” Margrit said under her breath, feeling a fresh wash of insult and irritation. “I’ll get started this afternoon, but I’m leaving on time, Russell. I’ve got a date tonight.” Her phone was still in hand, the call from Tony having caught her on the stairs as she’d reentered the Legal Aid Society building. Still bubbling with outrage over Daisani’s offer, Margrit had had to rein herself in to keep from snapping at the detective and refusing his offer of dinner out that evening. It was dismaying that her comfort with him made him the easiest target to lash out at when frustration took her. They’d gotten back together often enough that she must think it safe, but it wasn’t the way to have a peaceful relationship.

Peaceful. The word made her cringe. It suggested no challenges, which was both unrealistic and inappropriate. But certainly there had to be a degree of peacefulness, to let them continue forward. The danger was in only being a couple when there was peace between them, and that seemed too close to what they had.

“Tony?” At Margrit’s nod, Russell smiled. “Glad things are working out.”

She lifted a shoulder and let it fall, dismissing the question of whether things were working out, then sighed. “I’ll be here twenty-four-seven after tonight.”

“Promise me you’ll at least go home to shower,” Russell said. “Please. For all our sakes.” He tipped his chin toward the hall behind her. “Go on. You’ve got a lot of work to do, and I expect brilliance, Counselor.”

“He actually had the balls to say it, Cole. Russell said I was good for the case because I’m black. He actually said that. And then. Then.” Outrage had her in its grasp again, Cole the unwary mark who’d asked how her day had gone. Margrit stood before her closet, eyebrows knit together so hard her head ached. “Dammit, I don’t have anything to wear!”

Cole leaned in her bedroom doorway, watching her warily as he thumped a wooden spoon against his shoulder. “You could go like that. I’m sure Tony would appreciate it.”

Margrit scowled at him. “I am not going on a date in a sports bra and running tights.”

“You going to take all this moodiness out on Tony? I thought you two were trying to patch it up.” Her housemate pushed away from her door and stepped across the piles of clothes that littered the floor. “I don’t understand how someone with a mind as orderly as yours can live in a room as messy as this one. And then what?”

“A clean desk is a sign of a cluttered mind,” Margrit muttered. She sat down on her bed, surrounded by lumps of discarded clothing, and put her face in her hands. “Then I went to see Eliseo Daisani.”

“You what?” Cole turned away from her closet, spoon lifted like a ceremonial spear. “You what?”

“I went to see Eliseo Daisani,” Margrit repeated. “He knows my mother.”

“How?”

“I have no idea! He offered me a job!”

Cole put his spoon hand against the closet as if he needed the physical support. “Eliseo Daisani offered you a job?”

Margrit looked up through her fingers. “Yeah.” “Did you say yes?” “Of course not!”

“Margrit! He’d pay you half a million dollars a year! What’d you say?”

She snorted and flopped violently onto her back. “And move me to the Upper East Side. What do you think I said?”

Cole shook his head and turned his attention back to her closet, rifling through it. “I think you went back to work and said to your racist boss you’d take the case against Daisani, despite it not being your area of expertise, and despite your fears about how it’ll play to the media. Grit, you’ve got more clothes than Cameron and me put together. How can you have nothing to wear?”

“Those ones are all dirty!” Margrit pointed accusingly at her closet without looking at it. “And those ones are all—wrong!” She smacked the pile beside her, then shoved it away as she scowled. “And that’s exactly what I did. He’s not racist,” she added in another mutter. “He’s playing the advantages he has, and it pisses me off.”

“All wrong…” Cole sounded exasperated, ignoring her defense of Russell. “Where are you going for dinner?”

“I don’t know. Moroccan, I think. He knows I like it. So not dressy.” Margrit picked up a handful of clothes from the bed and discarded them again with an overwrought sigh.

Cole snorted. “You’ve been totally played, Grit. Are you aware of that?”

Margrit frowned at his shoulders. “What are you talking about?”

“’Eliseo Daisani is a dangerous man. You might make an enemy.’ Russell might as well have painted a bull’s-eye on the case and loosed you at it like an arrow, Grit. Either he knows you incredibly well or he’s astonishingly lucky. Here, wear this.” Cole pulled out a gold camisole and a red cashmere sweater, tossing them on top of her. “And jeans. It’s not like you have to make a stellar first impression.”




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