Ivy was silent as she took another swig, leaning against the counter with her ankles crossed. I felt her eyes rove the kitchen, landing on the kettle shining dully on a back burner. “Is Ceri coming over?” she asked.
Nodding, I looked into the damp garden, shadowed into an early dusk from the clouds. “She’s going to help me with my calling glyph.” I glanced at her, my spoon still circling. Clockwise, clockwise … never widdershins. “What’s your schedule tonight?”
“I’m out and won’t be back until almost sunup. I’ve got a run.” In a motion of powerful grace, she used one hand to ease herself up to sit on the counter.
“You going to take Jenks?” I asked, wanting him here with me, but my scaredy-cat fears came in second after a real job.
“No.” Ivy ran her fingers up through the downward spikes of her shorter hair in a show of nervousness, telling me she was doing something for Piscary, not her bank account. She was the master vampire’s scion, and that came first—when it didn’t involve me. “Do you think that ugly statue is what that demon was after?”
“The focus?” Running a finger over the spoon, I licked it and set it in the sink. “What else could it be? Ceri says if Newt knew that David had it, she would have shown up at his apartment, not here, but I’m going to bring it back anyway. Someone in Cincy knows it’s surfaced again.” My gaze went distant, and a nasty feeling of betrayal settled into my belly. Besides Ivy, Jenks, and Kisten, the only person who knew I still had the focus was Nick. I couldn’t believe he would have betrayed me like that, but he had sold information about me to Big Al before. And now he was pissed at me.
The water was boiling, and I shook in enough macaroni for three. Leaning, Ivy dragged the open box of pasta to her. “What did Glenn want?” she asked, crunching through a dry piece.
Breaking apart the clumps of macaroni, I turned the flame down. “My opinion of a Were murder. It was Mr. Ray’s secretary. Whoever did it tried to make it look like a suicide.”
Defined eyebrows high, Ivy’s gaze went to the calendar pinned to the wall beside her computer. “A week from the full moon? No way was it a suicide, and the I.S. knows it.”
I nodded. “I don’t think they expected the FIB to take an interest. She had pressure marks from restraints and needle marks. Denon was covering it up.”
Ivy’s reach into the box for another piece of pasta hesitated. “You think it has something to do with the focus?”
“Why not?” I said, exasperated. Damn it. I’d only had the ugly statue for two months, and already word was out that it hadn’t been lost going over the Mackinac Bridge. Tucking a strand of hair out of the way, I stirred my pasta and tried to remember if I’d gone to see or even called David in all that time. Apart from the night I gave it to him, I didn’t think I had. He was my alpha, but it wasn’t like we were married or anything. Crap, this wasn’t safe. I needed to get it back from him, like today.
“I can ask around if you want,” Ivy said, swinging her boots up onto the counter to sit cross-legged with the box of pasta.
My thoughts jerked back to her. “Absolutely not,” I said. “The less I dig, the safer I’ll be. Besides, we’ll never get paid for it if you do find something.”
She laughed, and my mood eased. Ivy didn’t laugh often, and I loved the sound of it.
“Is that why you’re thinking about Nick?” she asked, shocking me. “You never make pasta in Alfredo sauce unless you are.”
My mouth dropped open in protest, then snapped shut. Crap. She’s right. “Mmmm,” I said, peeved as I stirred the pasta. “Glenn gave me his file today. It’s four inches thick.”
“Really?” she drawled, and I frowned. She hadn’t liked Nick from day one.
“Yes, really.” I hesitated, watching the steam rise. “He’s been at this a while.”
“I’m sorry.”
I forced my face into a bland expression. She hated Nick, but she was genuinely sorry he had cracked my heart. “I’m over it.” And I was. Except for the part about feeling used. He’d been selling information to Al about me for favors before we broke up. Ass.
NIN’s “Only” went soft, and I wasn’t surprised when Skimmer came into the kitchen, probably wanting to know what we were up to. I felt more than saw Ivy’s posture shift to a more closed mien when Skimmer’s jeans-clad dancer’s body breezed in.
Ivy was as open with me as she was with Skimmer, but she wasn’t comfortable letting Skimmer know that. We three had an odd dynamic, one I wasn’t keen on. Skimmer flatly loved Ivy, having moved here on the promise that if she got Piscary out of prison she’d be accepted into his camarilla and could stay. I was the one who had put him there, and the day he got out, I’d probably find my life not worth troll farts. Ivy was a large part of why I was still alive, which put her in a hard spot whose pressures slowly built with each court success.
Skimmer would do what she had to do to stay with Ivy. I would do what I had to do to keep my body and soul together. And Ivy was going to go quietly insane, wanting both of us to succeed. It would’ve helped if Skimmer weren’t so darn nice.
The perceptive vampire clearly recognized that she’d interrupted something, and, tucking her long, blond, severely straight hair back behind an ear, she settled herself into Ivy’s chair at the table. From the corner of my sight, I saw her features scrunch up for a moment when she and Ivy exchanged a look, but then she smoothed them, her small nose and chin easing into a pleasant expression. Beside Skimmer’s delicate features, I thought my strong jaw and cheekbones looked Neanderthal. Though sharp as a cracked whip and at the top of her game, the woman looked innocent with her blue eyes and West Coast tan, a trait that probably stood her in good stead in her profession when the competition underestimated her.
“Lunch?” she said brightly, her pleasant voice showing a calculated hint of distress.
“Just white pasta,” I said, going to drain the macaroni. “I’ve got enough for three if you’re interested.” I turned from the sink, finding that her vivid blue eyes had a shrinking iris of blue to make them even more striking. Her eyelashes were thick and long, accentuating her delicate features. I wondered what they’d been doing in the sanctuary. There was more than one place to bite someone—and most of them were covered by clothes.
“Count me in,” she said, glancing at her watch with its diamond-chip numbers. “I’ve got an hour before I need to be back in the office, and if I’m not there, they can damn well wait for me.”
That was cool—seeing as she was the boss—but my blood pressure started clicking upward when she went to the fridge, reaching above it for one of Ivy’s Brimstone cookies. God, I hated those things, and I lived in worry that one day the I.S. would have an excuse to search my kitchen and I’d be dragged off.
“Why don’t we make it a real meal?” the vampire said, clearly aware I was upset but determined to forge ahead. “Ivy has a run tonight, and I’ve got to get back to work. It won’t take much to make it a sit-down lunch right now.”
If my pasta isn’t enough for you, then why did you say yes? I thought nastily, but I stifled my first reaction since I knew that the offer had been made out of a genuine attempt at camaraderie. I glanced at the clock, deciding there was plenty of time before Ceri came over, and when Ivy shrugged, I nodded. “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
Skimmer smiled. It was obvious she wasn’t used to having anyone dislike her, and it wasn’t that I hated her, but every time she came over, she did something that rubbed me the wrong way through no fault of her own. “I’ll make garlic bread,” she said brightly, hair swinging