Hyde, an Urban Fantasy (5 page)

“And they pay you for that?” She widened her stance as if she was gaining confidence and power right before his eyes. He’d fix that.

 “Correction. You should have said:
We
pay you for that.”

 “Not unless—”

“What are you doing here?” He studied her, visions of their night together mixing with the image she presented today. It didn’t jibe.

“I found this.”

He took a quick glance at the small square she held out toward him, recognizing it. “Static. Where we met. Nice club. Nice napkins. Very sentimental of you, but I don’t collect crap. Is there anything else?”

“I found it in my pocket this morning.”

“Fantastic,” he said with a mouthful of food.

“Do you know who wrote this?” She stepped forward until she was a foot away from his desk.

“Wrote what?” He sighed. “Give it to me.” He put down his burger, wiped the grease off his hands with his own napkin, grabbed the thing from her outstretched hand, and read the scribble. “That’s my phone number, but I didn’t write that. The handwriting’s too girlie. Since I’m guessing you wouldn’t be here asking if
you’d
written it, I’ll go with ‘someone else’. Who knows, perhaps another fine lady jotted it down before you threw yourself at me. I don’t remember. Did you mug her?”

“I found it in a pocket . . . of a jacket I don’t own.”

“I’m confused as how this pertains to me.”

“Look on the back.”

He flipped the napkin over and read aloud, “He’ll know what you are, Eden.” He handed it back to her. “I help lots of people—that’s the kind of guy I am,” he said without a smile. “I don’t know an Eden.”

“I’m Eden. That’s me.”

“I thought your name was Chastity.”

She raised her eyebrows. “
No
. I’m pretty sure it’s Eden.” The tone of her voice was stronger, more confrontational.

He liked that. Damn it, he shouldn’t like that.

“So?” she asked.

“So, what?”

“So . . . do you know what the message means?”

“No idea. Maybe you should ask the girl you mugged.” For some reason, she made him uncomfortable—and Mitch didn’t
do
uncomfortable.

“I didn’t—” She let out a long sigh of impatience, tapping her hand on her thigh. “Geez, and you were so nice to me the first time we met.”

“Oh, so you remember now, do you?”

Her lips came together and she glared at him. “I meant the
morning
we met.”

“I was, wasn’t I? Well, I was even nicer the night before,” he said, smirking.

“And I’m sure it was all very altruistic. I’ve already nominated you for Man of the Year.” She sighed again. “I didn’t come here to argue. Or to discuss your skills in the bedroom.”

“Too bad. I was just about to cancel all of my afternoon appointments.”

She glared at him. “You’re not going to help me, are you?”

“Nope.” He took another bite, praying she’d leave. “I’m going to eat.”

She grimaced and peered over the lid of the Styrofoam box that held his lunch. “What is that?”

He swallowed and looked down, really seeing it for the first time. “Uh, let’s see.” He pulled it apart. “It’s got bread, a couple sad-looking vegetables, and
this
has a slight resemblance to meat. So I’m going with ‘it’s a burger’.”

“I would have pegged you for more of a granola-eating, slave-to-the-gym kind of guy.”

“Why would you think that? You’ve been to my house.”

Her gaze traveled rapidly across his chest to his bicep then to his face as a blush planted itself firmly onto her cheeks. Damn it, it made her even more attractive.

“I didn’t look in your refrigerator,” she said.

“Why would you? Your panties weren’t in there.”

She caught her flinch quickly and looked straight into his eyes. “Do you always push away people who come to you for help?”

How could she get under his skin so easily? What the hell was he doing? Playful banter was one thing—playful banter with someone you’d almost lost yourself to was something too stupid for words.

Alright, little girl, get ready for the real me.
“Of course not. I’d never be able to make a living. I only push away those people I’ve stuck my dick into.” He felt a grin lift the corners of his mouth as her embarrassment grew.

“Wow. You’re a real charmer, aren’t you?” She tossed her head, her hair falling around her shoulders, her eyes narrowing. “Too bad I was asleep through the entire
ordeal
. Does that happen with a lot of your bedmates?”

“Oh, so that was you sleeping, huh? Is that why you were such a shitty lay?” As he watched her eyes get three times larger, he thought how she’d been the most incredible lover he’d ever had. And that connection he’d felt . . .

She stepped backwards and blinked rapidly, tears beginning to pool.

Damn it, another thing he didn’t do—regret his words. “Ugh, stop.” He leaned back in his chair and tossed his napkin onto the desk. “Do you really expect me to believe you were sleepwalking? The whole time?”

The tears went away. “No. I don’t
expect
you to believe anything. But I was.”

How did I get messed up in this?
“Here.” He grabbed a yellow post-it note, flipped through his address file, wrote down a name and number and handed it to her. “Try her.”

She took it from the edge as if she was afraid to let their skin touch. “Who is she?”

“She’s a psychiatrist. I don’t do that sort of thing.”

“What
do
you do?”

 “Well,” he said, popping both eyebrows excitedly, “normally, on Mondays, I serve ice cream to orphans. Wednesdays are my ‘Come in for some quick hypnosis’ days. And the rest of the week”—he dropped the silly act—“I tell people to get off their fucking asses and do whatever the hell it is they want to do.” Mitch dragged his eyes away from her and tried to focus on one of the files lying in front of him. “For $300 an hour. You can pay up front.”

“But you didn’t do anything for me.”

“You are taking up my time and a small amount of space in my office. Tell you what, I won’t charge you for the whole hour.”

“Well, if I’m paying, I’m staying.” She plopped down into a chair and glared at him.

“Suit yourself.” He went back to pretending to work, fighting back his smile—the proof that he wanted her around.
Stay away from her, man. You don’t need this kind of complication.

He shuffled paper and she fidgeted in her seat for ten excruciatingly long minutes.

Thankfully, she broke first. “You’re really not going to help me?”

“Aside from the fact that I’m not the kind of help you need, I’ve worked very hard to get to the point at which I can choose which clients I take on. I do not choose you.”

She stood up, her stance wide. “Fine. Then I’m not paying.” She stormed out of the office and slammed the door in the exact same way she’d left his bedroom.

Was she actually going to pay for the fifteen minutes she was here?
Mitch picked up his cold burger then dropped it, laughing to himself
. Oh, the games people play.

Ten minutes later, a tall, mean-looking SOB walked through the door with Jolie a few steps behind him.

Gotta get that fucking intercom fixed.

“You’re a busy man, Mitch. I couldn’t get an appointment.” He walked into the office as if he owned the place, and Mitch was confident enough in his manhood to admit that the guy took up more space than most. He made Jolie look like someone who’d shop in the kid’s department at the mall. Dark eyes matched his hair, which was not much more than a crew cut.

Mitch didn’t stand. “It’s Mitchell, or Turner, or Mr. Turner. Hell, I’ll even take Señor Turner. But not Mitch.” Only two people had ever gotten away with calling him Mitch, and they were both in the ground now. “And you are . . . ?” Not a client. Which made him either a telephone repairman or the new cop on his sister’s case. Not a tough guess.

Great
. As if his day hadn’t been dramatic enough already.

Jolie stayed close to the man and mouthed, “He’s the cop.” Her eyes darted between the two men, her expression changing from a silent apology at Mitch and a lustful gaping at the cop. Good thing Mitch couldn’t care less. Although she really should be doing it on her own time.

“Detective Landon. I’m here to talk about your sister’s murder.”

“You have a card, Detective?” Mitch motioned to the chair that the little sleepwalker had just vacated.

The cop handed him a business card of cheap, thin stock and terrible lettering.

“What happened to the other detective, Nick?”

The man tilted his head at the use of his first name and claimed the chair, stretching out his long legs in front of him. Jolie took the other seat.

“He retired unexpectedly. I got some of his more colorful cases.” He nodded at Mitch. “Such as yours.”

“You mean, my
sister’s
. Or am I still a suspect?”

“You have an alibi, don’t you?” His smile was more like a sneer. “However, I like to start fresh.”

“Fresh away,” he invited. Mitch usually welcomed a challenge, but he sensed that Landon was a worthier adversary than anyone else he’d crossed. Not to mention that Mitch was, in fact, probably guilty and needed to be careful.

The detective checked his notes. “Your assistant, Jolie Cabot, who I believe is you”—he glanced at Jolie—“stated that you were together the night your sister was killed. Is that statement something you’re sticking to?”

“Yes,” she said. “He was with me, but we’re no longer seeing each other.” She leaned forward, flashing the cop a shot of her cleavage.

Mitch could have caught a swarm of bees in his mouth with the way it dropped open. Why’d she have to offer that last bit of info? Unless . . .  He saw the way she was watching the cop, practically licking her lips. Oh shit, this was getting even more convoluted.

“We went back to his house in the morning and found her body,” she said.

Landon’s eyes went back to Mitch, waiting for his agreement perhaps.

So Mitch gave it to him. “We found her, I flipped out, tried to . . . I don’t know . . . bring her back to life.” He felt his lip start to tremble at the memory and rubbed his jaw to stop it. “But she was already dead.”

“And that’s why you had so much blood on you? Because you tried to resuscitate her?” His questions weren’t really questions, more like statements of facts he didn’t quite believe.

Mitch cleared his throat. “Yes.” Blood,
yes
, there had been heaps of that. Shelly’s blood covering him. He’d wanted it to be his own. Would have given anything to trade places with her.

“Was your sister visiting a common occurrence? At that time of night? Time of death was between, what, three and five?”

“Early riser, and she practically lived there. It didn’t matter what time it was, she’d stop by whenever. She had a key,” Jolie answered for him. Which was good, because at the moment, Mitch was still there on the doorstep, at Shelly’s side.

He’d woken up confused in the upstairs hallway, Jolie’s arm around him, helping him walk. The chains he’d gone to sleep wearing were broken, the door of his cage wide open. There were lines of blood on his chest, almost as if they’d been painted on. Jolie’s panicked voice telling him Shelly was dead. That Hyde had gotten free. He’d shaken her until she told him where Shelly was and then stumbled down the stairs in a fog to find her body. Even as he’d tried to start his sister’s heart again, he’d known that she was gone.

Landon flipped through a few pages in his notebook. “They found the key on her body. Was the house broken into? Anything taken?”