Industrial Magic (17 page)

Nice to see she'd recovered from her traumatic experience at the hospital. I'd begun to suspect "traumatic" was an overstatement. Mildly disturbing maybe, on a par with realizing you'd left the house wearing brown shoes with a black dress. Nothing that couldn't be cured with a few Cosmopolitans and some wicked thumping bass.

"Excuse me," I said. "I need to—"

"Use the little girls' room?" he said, and laughed as he slid from the booth.

"Hold on, boys," Jaime said. "The ladies need to freshen up."

"Uh, no," I said as she extricated herself from the booth. "I'm leaving."

"Leaving? Already? I haven't finished my drink."

"That's okay. You stay, have fun."

She clutched my arm, more for balance, I think, than to keep me from going. "You're abandoning me? With these three?"

She cast a leering grin at the men. Dale blinked, then staggered to his feet.

"Hey, no, babe," he said, bleary eyes fixed in my general direction. "I'll drive you."

"Oh, I bet you'd like to," Jaime said. "But Paige already has a guy. A friend of mine. And you don't want to mess with him." She leaned into Dale's ear. "He's connected."

Dale frowned. "Connected?"

"Like the Kennedys," Jaime said.

"More like the Sopranos," I said.

Dale sat down.

"You stay and enjoy yourself," I said to Jaime.

"No can do. I told Lucas I'd look after you in the big bad city."

"Uh-huh. Well, I appreciate that, but—"

"No buts. My prodco got me a room way the hell out in the burbs and I am not going all that way tonight. I'm getting a room at your hotel. So come on, girl."

She started to steer me from the table. One of her companions leapt up.

"Can we give you a lift—?"

"Ooops, sorry about that. I might not get to finish my drink, but I can't forget my nightcap." She turned and sized up the two men. "Decisions, decisions."

The blonde grinned. "Two-for-one special."

"Tempting, but I'm too old for that shit. One per night." She looked them over. "Hmmm, this is tough. Only one way to do it." She pointed at the dark-haired one. "Eenie-meenie . . ."

***

Once out of the taxi, and away from Jaime and her "date," I called Lucas, but only got a cellular service recording saying he was out of range. Odd. I left a "call me" message, then phoned Adam and filled him in on the case. By that time, it was nearly midnight even in California, and Robert had gone to bed. It didn't matter. Getting that list of necromancers was no longer high priority. Whatever Jaime's personal shortcomings, she'd done her job with Dana.

***

I hadn't slept since arriving in Miami, and my brain seemed to protest this lack of rest by making sure my sleep that night wasn't sound. I dreamed of being back in the hospital room, watching Jaime release Dana back to the realm of the dead. She dropped the hand she'd been holding, letting it fall back to the sheets. I stared at that hand, expecting to see chewed fingernails and a frayed braided bracelet. Instead the hand was plump and wrinkled, and bore a familiar gold watch.

"Mom?"

"She doesn't want to talk to you," Jaime said. "You lost the Coven. She handed it to you on a silver platter, and you still screwed up."

"No!"

I shot from my chair, stumbled, and fell into a bed smelling of hotel laundry soap. I pushed into the pillow and moaned. Suddenly, the bed tilted and I grabbed with both hands, struggling to stay on. I saw Lucas sitting on the edge. He had his back to me, and was peeling the label from an empty champagne bottle.

"One month," he said. "You knew what I meant."

He stood and the bed tumbled into a yawning pit of black. I started to scream, but the sound turned to a happy shriek.

"Cortez! You're getting champagne—get that bottle away from the bed!"

The scene cleared. Another hotel room. Three months ago. We were crossing the country at a snail's pace, with nowhere to go, nothing to do but enjoy the trip. The day before, Maria had wired Lucas the insurance money from his stolen motorcycle, and tonight he'd insisted on using part of it to get us a room with a Jacuzzi tub, a fireplace, and an adjoining suite for Savannah.

We were in bed, where we'd been since arriving late that afternoon. Room-service plates littered the floor and, from somewhere in the mess, Lucas had pulled out a bottle of champagne, which was now frothing onto the sheets . . . and me. As I laughed, he shook the last bits of foam onto me, then grabbed glasses, filled them, and handed me one.

"To one month," he said.

"A month?" I sat up. "Oh, right. One month since we beat the Nast Cabal and saved Savannah, an act which we may live to regret. Technically, though, you're a few days early."

Lucas hesitated, face clouding for a split second before he nodded. "I suppose I am."

The memory fast-forwarded a few hours. I was nestled in bed, champagne still singing in my head. Lucas's warmth pressed against my back. He stirred, mumbled something, and slid his hand between my legs. I shifted and rubbed against his fingers. A drowsy laugh, then his finger slipped inside me, a slow, soft probe. I moaned, my flesh tender from the long night but the slight ache only accentuating another deeper ache. He pulled his finger out and tickled a fingertip across the top of my clitoris. I moaned again and shifted my legs apart. He started a slow, teasing exploration that made me clutch the pillow.

"Lucas," I whispered.

Another laugh, but this one clear, no signs of sleepiness. I forced myself to shift from sleep to waking, and still felt a warm hand stroking me from behind.

"Lucas?"

A low laugh. "I should hope so."

I started to flip over, felt his hand disengage, and reached down to grab it.

"Don't stop," I said.

"I won't." He leaned over my shoulder, and slid his finger back inside me. "Better?"

"God, yes." I arched my back against him. "How—how'd you get here?"

"Magic."

"Mmmm."

"A good surprise?"

"The best."

He laughed softly. "Go back to sleep, then. I have everything under control."

"Mmmm."

***

As for falling back to sleep, naturally I did no such thing. Afterward, I propped myself up on Lucas's chest and grinned.

"These surprise visits are getting better all the time."

He returned a crooked smile. "I take it my unexpected arrival isn't completely objectionable, even if I did disturb your sleep?"

"Disturb away. It is a surprise, though. What happened with your case?"

"It ended this afternoon. Once the prosecution confirmed that its new witness resided in a cemetery, they decided to move straight to closing arguments."

"A definite advantage to working in a human court. They never subpoena dead witnesses."

"This is true. So, I'm here to help, if you want me."

"Hell, yes," I said, grinning. "In every possible way. So you're staying?"

"If that's all right with—"

"It's great. I can't even remember the last time we spent more than a weekend together."

"It
has
been a while," Lucas said softly, then cleared his throat. "My schedule lately has been busier than I anticipated, and I realize this isn't an ideal arrangement for a relationship—"

"It's fine," I said.

"It's not what you expected."

"I didn't expect anything." I flipped off him and sat up. "No expectations, remember? Take it one day at a time. That's what we agreed."

"Yes, I know that's what you said, but—"

"It's what I meant. No expectations, no pressure. You stay for as long as you like."

Lucas pulled himself up. "That's not what—" He paused. "We need to talk, Paige."

"Sure."

I felt Lucas watching me in the darkness, but he said nothing.

"What do you want to talk about?" I asked after a few moments.

"About—" He held my gaze for a moment, then looked away. "About the case. What happened tonight?"

"Oh, God." I thumped onto the pillow. "You have some strange friends, Cortez."

A quarter-smile. "I wouldn't classify Jaime as a friend but, yes, that's one way of putting it. So tell me what happened."

I did.

A Theory

At seven, still talking, we moved the conversation from the bed to the restaurant downstairs. Dining that early meant we got the best seats, a table in the corner of the atrium.

By nine, the tiny restaurant was full, with a line at the door. We were on our third cup of coffee, breakfast long since done, which earned us plenty of glares from those waiting at the hostess station, but not so much as an impatient glance from our server, probably owing to the size of the tip Lucas had tacked onto the bill.

"Nasha?" Lucas said when I told him the name Dana's attacker had invoked. "It doesn't sound familiar."

"I passed it on through Adam to Robert, to get his opinion. I'd called him yesterday to ask—uh, about some council stuff."

"And a list of alternate necromancers, I presume?"

"I—uh—" I inhaled. "I'm sorry. I know you said to trust you, and I really tried . . ."

A smile tickled his lips. "But gave up somewhere between Sid Vicious and the private strip show. Either of which, understandably, would strain the bounds of the deepest trust."

"Actually, it was
after
the striptease."

His smile broadened. "Ah, well, in that case, you outlasted any reasonable expectation of faith. I'm flattered. Thank you."

"Still, I should have listened to you. You were right. Jaime did just fine."

"She is very good, though sometimes I think she'd prefer otherwise. Have you ever heard of Molly O'Casey?"

"Of course. Top-notch necro. Died a few years back, didn't she?"

Lucas nodded. "She was Jaime's paternal grandmother. Vegas is Jaime's stage name."

"I thought it might be. She doesn't look Hispanic."

"She isn't. Her mother chose the name when she started Jaime in show business, as a child. As Jaime tells it, her mother was a flaming racist, and had no idea Vegas was Spanish. To her, 'Vegas' meant 'Las Vegas,' a good omen for a child with a stage career. Years later, when she found out the name's origin, she almost had a heart attack. Demanded Jaime change it. But, by then, Jaime was eighteen, and could do as she liked. The more her mother hated the name, she more determined she was to keep it."

"There's a story there," I said softly.

"Yes, I imagine there is."

We sipped our coffee.

"I thought you were in Chicago," said a voice above my head.

I turned to see Jaime pulling an empty chair from a table behind us. The trio at the table looked up in surprise, but she ignored them and clattered the chair down beside me, then dropped into it. She was wearing a silk wrapper and, I suspected, little else.

"Isn't this romantic," she said, snarling a yawn. "The happy couple, all brushed, scrubbed, and chipper." She dropped her head onto the table. "Someone get me a coffee. Stat."

Lucas swept a lock of her hair off his muffin plate, then gestured to the server, who stopped mid-order and hurried over with the pot. Jaime stayed facedown on the table.

"Is your, uh, guest joining us?" I asked Jaime.

She rolled onto her cheek to look up at me. "Guest?"

"The guy? From last night?"

"Guy?"

"The one you took back to your room."

She lifted her head. "I took a—?" She groaned. "Oh, shit. Hold on. I'll be right back."

She stood, took three steps, then turned.

"Uh, Paige? Did I get a name?"

"Mark—no, Mike. Oh, wait. That was the blonde. Craig . . . or Greg. The music was pretty loud."

She pressed her fingers to her temples. "It still is. Greg, then. I'll mumble."

She staggered across the atrium.

I turned to Lucas. "Interesting lady."

"That's one way of putting it."