Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter #16 - Blood Noir (9 page)

“I wish we could stop. I’d like to see my old teachers again.”

If it had been our limo, or rather Jean-Claude’s, I would have said
stop
, but we were borrowing. It would be the height of rudeness to ask.

“We can come back,” I said.

He nodded and pointed at a small mom-and-pop grocery sitting just doors down from the studio.

“I would have thought Siglier’s would have gone out of business. I got my first cigarettes there.”

“You don’t smoke,” I said.

He turned and gave me a grin that filled his eyes with laughter. “I don’t smoke, but everybody tries them at least once.”

Something on my face must have shown, because he scooted closer to me. “You never tried to smoke, not once?”

I shrugged, and moved a little in my seat to try to keep the gun in a comfortable spot. I was beginning to remember why I seldom wore a gun there. It made sitting down harder. “I had a couple of cousins who were bad influences.”

“So you did smoke.”

“I tried cigarettes, not the same thing as smoking.”

“So you weren’t completely pure when Jean-Claude met you?”

I frowned at him. “I’d tried cigarettes, Jason; that didn’t really prepare me for Jean-Claude.”

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Jason was suddenly solemn again. “No, I guess it didn’t. It’s hard for me to believe that you’d only had sex with one other guy before Jean-Claude.”

“Why?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to know the answer.

“I told you, I slept with just about anyone who would have me. I can’t imagine turning down all the guys who must have asked.”

“Trust me, Jason, there weren’t that many.”

He looked at me like I was joking. “Come on, Anita, I have eyes. You are sooo hot.”

I squirmed in my seat, which ground the gun into my back, which made me cranky, and the conversation had already made me cranky.

“I won’t debate that with you. You know that sometimes I can see it, and sometimes I can’t. There were guys attracted to the packaging, but they didn’t want what was inside.”

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“I had at least three guys in college say something along the lines of,
If only your inside matched
your outside
. Or one of my favorite first dates, who told me I was perfect until I opened my mouth.”

Jason stared at me. “I know you’re serious, but damn, how stupid were these guys?”

I smiled and patted his hand on the seat. “That’s sweet, but I’ve always spoken my mind. I’ve always been independent. That is not the trait that draws men to pretty, petite, delicate-looking women. They want to protect and coddle, and do stupid shit like that.”

“You intimidated them,” he said.

I nodded. “I know that now.”

“I like strong women,” he said.

I smiled at him. “I’ve noticed.”

He flashed me the real version of the smile that parted women from their money at the club. If they thought the fake version was something, they should have had the full weight of the real deal. It was enough to turn a girl’s head. Or make them blush, damn it.

“You’re blushing,” he damn near chortled. He bounced in the seat. “I love that you do that.”

I covered my face with my hands. “I don’t.”

His hands on my wrists were the first clue I had that he was so close beside me again. I let him draw my hands away so he could look into my eyes.

“I love that I’m one of the men you react to, Anita. I was like invisible to you. I mean, I’m not in Jean-Claude’s league, but there are women who would do a lot to be with me, and have,” he said, with a look to the side that tried for humble and almost made it.

“I’ve seen the fans at the club, and the women going in and out of the Circus.”

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He took my hands in both of his and rested his chin on our joined hands. He wasn’t exactly looking at me. More at the memory in his head.

“But you never saw me like that. I was a responsibility first. Someone else you felt you needed to keep safe, and then I was your friend.” He looked at me with that mischievous grin. “You’d seen me buck naked and you didn’t react to my body. That was a real ego bruiser, let me tell you.”

I blushed again and looked away from his face. “You were my friend, Jason, you don’t look at friends that way.”

“You don’t, but I did. I thought I wasn’t up to your standards.”

“The homes are really nice here,” I said. They were. The more narrow road was surrounded by lovely, older, expensive homes.

“You’re changing the subject,” Jason said.

“Trying to, yes.”

“I don’t want to change the subject.”

I pulled at my hands. This conversation was too intimate for me. I’d forgotten one thing Jason did that made me the most uncomfortable. He had a penchant for in-depth soul-searching talks. When I needed one, it was great, if sometimes painful. But I could not spend the next two days being analyzed; it would drive me mad. I kept staring out at the beautiful houses nestled into their green yards and trees. It was still pretty, but no amount of pretty was going to make up for being analyzed for days.

He kissed my hands gently, then let me pull away. “You know that wasn’t it, Jason.”

“I know you were trying to hold on to what virtue you felt you had left.”

I nodded, still not looking at him. “Can I ask you a favor, Jason?”

“Sure.”

“I’m not up to you analyzing me on this trip, okay?”

“I wasn’t—”

I held up a hand. “Just don’t poke at my wounds too hard. I’m supposed to be here to support you; if you make me face my demons too head-on, I won’t be as good for you here. Do you understand?” I looked at him at the last.

He was solemn again, but he nodded. “I have trouble when I realize something about someone, some secret thing I didn’t know before. I want to know why, or what the other person was thinking, feeling.” His face went from solemn to pained. “I’ve always been that way.”

Something about the way he said it made me wonder what truth he’d pushed for as a child that he hadn’t wanted to know. If our roles had been reversed he would have asked me, but it was me, and I was already out of my depth.

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Alone with Jason for a few days, I’d thought the sex and his problems with his family would be the awkward bits. What I was realizing now, far too late, was that Jason himself was the danger. It was too intimate, this visit. I had trouble keeping my emotional boundaries up once sex was involved. What the hell had I been thinking?

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11

THE NARROW, TWISTING
road was edged by evergreens, and other trees, but mostly evergreens. There were still a few nice older houses, and some newer expensive houses dotted along the road, but mostly trees. We were climbing, though. Climbing out of the valley that most of Asheville sat in. The rich always seem to live up.

The first hint we had that the hotel was ahead was the cluster of news vans blocking the road. The curving drive that led between the trees and the vans was being kept clear by men in uniform. Not police uniforms, but really nice valet uniforms. They kept the photographers, reporters, and cameramen at bay long enough for the limo to slip by.

The gently curving driveway spilled out among yet more trees, and suddenly we could see the Grove Park Inn.

The setting in the hills was lovely, but the building helped make it lovely. It was all stone and sort of pseudo-Bavarian, as if men in eighteenth-century clothing should come striding into view with dogs and servants. It should have looked overdone, or silly, but it didn’t. The inn looked like it had sprung up from the rocks and trees around it, perfect in its setting, organic and right.

“I’ve loved this place since my parents brought us here for Mother’s Day when I was seven.”

“I see why you want to stay here,” I said, and I did.

The window between the driver and Chuck and us whirred down. Chuck turned and said, “You saw the media out front. There is no way they will let you explain, or believe, who you really are. If you go in there, it will be all over the news that Keith Summerland is cheating on his fiancée days before the wedding.”

“What did the publicist want us to do about that?” I said, and my voice wasn’t friendly when I said it.

Chuck’s eyes flicked to me, then back to Jason. “If you would change hotels, we’d pay for your stay as long as you are in town.”

“I can pay for my own hotel,” Jason said.

“I can see that, but you see the problem from our end, right?”

Jason sighed, and settled back in the seat.

“Look,” I said, “we need to check into the hotel and get to the hospital today.”

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“How about if we drive you to the hospital? We’ll wait outside. You visit with your dad, and we’ll drive you back to the airport. That way there’s no confusion with the media.”

The limo had stopped a little short of the front of the building, where more well-dressed valets waited. We idled at the side of the parking lot.

I stared at him. “Are you telling us to get out of town?”

“No,” Chuck said, but his eyes were all on Jason.

“I’m not sure one hospital visit will do the job, Chuck,” I said, getting angry and not caring that it showed.

“Mr. Schuyler,” Chuck said, voice soft, almost deferential.

Jason shook his head. “No, I’m sorry; tell the governor that I don’t want to be a problem. But I haven’t seen my dad in three years. We’re estranged, that’s why he wouldn’t let them tell me sooner. Now he has weeks to live and I’ve got to try and make up with him. He’s a bastard, and always has been, and I’ve got a few days to try to get that Hallmark moment.” He looked at Chuck. “Tell the governor I’m sorry, but one hospital visit won’t get the job done.”

“Will you change hotels then?” Chuck asked.

“No,” Jason said, “I’ve earned the right to be here. Not because my daddy paid for it, but because I earned it. I’m not going to slink away because Keith Summerland is a dick. Talk to your publicist, try to figure out a way to do damage control that doesn’t include me being hidden away at some cheap motel.”

“You could stay with your family,” Chuck said.

“No,” Jason said, “I couldn’t.”

Chuck’s eyes hardened. Just a flash of a look, but it was one I’d seen before. He had just put Jason in the problem box. A box that men like Chuck usually took care of in unpleasant ways. Maybe I was overreacting, but he just made my bad-guy radar go off too loud to ignore. I had to repeat Chuck’s name twice to get him to look at me. Even then it was a dismissive look. He, like most of the guys in college, was looking at the physical package and making assumptions.

“Chuck, let’s be very clear with each other. We will do our best to stay out of your hair, and the wedding, but Jason needs to see his dad. It’s bad timing that it happened on the same week as this wedding, but that is not our bad.”

“You are going to give them fodder to trash Governor Summerland’s family in the media.”

“We’ll do our best not to, but if it happens, then Summerland is paying people to do damage control. Let them do their jobs.”

“She always this pushy?” Chuck asked.

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Jason laughed. “If you think this is pushy, Chuck, you have been hanging around with some weak-ass women.”

The driver asked, “Do I drop them off in front of the inn or in the parking garage?”

“You won’t change hotels?” Chuck asked.

“No,” Jason said, “we won’t.” He sounded so serious, so unlike himself, that I touched his shoulder. Almost as if I was reassuring myself it was still him. He could be firm, and strong, but he usually chose not to be. I’d always known that it was a choice on Jason’s part, but for the first time I was seeing just how much strength of will he hid behind that charming smile.

“Drop them off in the parking garage; it’ll slow down the feeding frenzy.”

The limo passed the front entrance and glided into the dimness of the parking garage. There were armed security guards making sure that no one got back there who wasn’t supposed to be there. I’d never seen uniformed security at a hotel before. I wondered who was paying for it. The driver got my door, and Chuck got Jason’s side. I ignored the driver and slid out with Jason. A show of solidarity, yeah, but also that creepy feeling I had. I’d have flashed my badge at Chuck if I’d been certain seeing a federal marshal would have spooked him more. Some professional bad guys react really badly to badges of any kind.

I’d hold the whole badge thing in reserve. This was Jason’s gig, not mine. My flashing my badge when I didn’t need to might undermine his…whatever the hell he was doing. The driver got the bags out of the trunk. Chuck said, “Can you at least not be too intimate in public so they don’t get pictures of you doing the brunette?”

“She has a name,” Jason said.

“I’m sorry; can you please not be up close and personal with Ms. Blake in public while you’re in town?”

One of the uniformed security came close and whispered something to Chuck. “Shit,” he said.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“They’ve spotted a photographer hiding among the cars. I thought we were paying you guys to make sure this didn’t happen.”

Jason looked around, and I followed his gaze. There was a figure crouched between two midsized cars. He had a camera with a huge lens on it.