Robert Asprin's Dragons Run (25 page)

“He did?” Griffen asked, surprised.

“Yes,” Malcolm said, with an austere smile. It was the most relaxed Griffen had ever seen him. “You have always displayed a preternatural knack for self-preservation. I assumed it would extend to your clientele.”

“Of course,” Griffen replied, just as blandly. Douglas slapped his knees.

“Nice ruse, telling them you were here for a rendezvous. I can’t wait to tell the fellahs back in Vegas. They’ll howl!”

Griffen went to the bathroom door and knocked. “Brenda, it’s safe. They’re gone.”

The dealer poked her head out. She emerged, clutching the rack of chips and the bank box in her arms.

“That was a close one,” she said. “Kind of like the old days. When Mose was running things.”

Griffen made a face. “I didn’t know you missed them.”

“I don’t!”

She sat down at the table and began to set things up. Griffen broke his own rules and went to the bar. He poured a glass of red wine and set it down at Brenda’s elbow.

“Just this once,” Griffen said. “You deserve it.”

“You bet I do,” she said, flipping open a new deck and cracking the cards into an arch. “That was a good save, Griffen. Mose would be proud.”

“It was great!” Douglas said. He turned to the young man behind the catering table. “Hey, Marcel, you were right! I never have had an experience like this one. You’ve got a permanent customer! I’ll play with you fellahs anytime I’m in town.”

“You’ll be welcome,” Griffen said. “Who’s on the button?”

“You are,” Brenda said.

She flicked cards to each of the players in turn. Malcolm reached for his tentatively. His eyes met Griffen’s.

“I believe we will have to conduct an interview in the morning,” he said. “With the Queen of Spades.”

“Yes,” Griffen agreed. Malcolm turned to their guest.

“Well, Douglas, do you ever have surprise visits from the Health Department? I believe they enjoy appearing on-site without previous notice.”

His conversation remained effusive, but his game became more cautious than before.

Griffen could hardly blame him.

Val
stared at Henry eyeball-to-eyeball. No matter how much she shouted at him, the blond man’s face maintained all the emotion of a wax mannequin. She took a step back from him and inhaled deeply.

“What do you mean, I can’t go out?” Val asked. “I have a date! Mike is going to pick me up at six.”

“It’s not safe,” Henry said. “We found a prowler on the grounds late last night.”

Val blinked her eyes blearily. She glanced at the clock. Seven. Normally she would have been awake by then, maybe even swum her laps, but not after a late night like the one she had had. She tried to react more like a responsible adult. The estate was out in the middle of nowhere. Break-ins had to be a genuine concern.

“Did he get in?”

“No,” Henry said. “He tried, though. He attempted to break in through your window. When we looked over the site, we saw a lot of the same footprints in the same place over several days. Have you seen anything suspicious?”

Val couldn’t help but feel guilty, remembering the missed meeting with her unknown note-writer.

“No,” she said, tossing her head. “In case you forgot, you kept me up until three doing accounting.”

“Come with me,” Henry said. He took her by the arm and escorted her firmly toward the stairs.

“Where are we going?” Val asked, bumping down the steps beside him in her slippers. She grabbed for the banister to steady herself.

“The security center,” Henry said. “This way.”

On the ground floor beside the sweeping staircase, he took her to what looked like a plain wall with a large portrait of an eighteenth-century ancestor of Melinda’s on it. He placed his hand against the white plaster. Val was deeply impressed when the whole panel swung out to reveal a corridor with carpeting on all four sides. Henry drew her into the tunnel. The door swung shut behind them, but they weren’t left in the dark. Lines of tiny blue lights came on near their feet. In no time at all, Val’s eyes had adjusted.

“I didn’t know this was here,” Val said. Her voice sounded muffled because of the padding on the walls.

“That, my dear, is the entire idea.”

At the end of the hallway, they stopped at a plain door painted solid black. It opened to one side like the doors on the U.S.S
. Enterprise
, but silently.

“How does it know it’s you?” Val asked.

“It doesn’t. They do.” Henry swept a hand forward.

The room before her was low and fairly small but jammed to the ceiling with racks of machinery studded with bright LEDs and video screens. Three men and women, all about her age, sat at the consoles, glancing from screen to screen, tapping on keyboards or adjusting knobs. The temperature was uncomfortably warm from all the electronics. Cool vents near the ceiling tried in vain to regulate the heat. The employees wore thin, short-sleeved white shirts, but they still looked hot. The room seemed to pulse with energy.

“Freaky,” Val said. “Like the nerve center of a spy operation.”

Her weariness faded away as she walked around the small room, trying to guess what all the devices were for. The center had cameras pointing to every part of the house. She peered at each screen, trying to see if there was one in her bedroom. To her relief, though there was a lens aimed at the hallway just outside it, none of the views showed the interior of any of the sleeping quarters.

Henry guided her to a seat at the end of the widest console beside a young woman with black hair pulled back from a broad, walnut-colored face with a high forehead.

“Pull up the footage from camera sixteen from last night,” he ordered her. She tapped at a few keys, then slid her chair to one side to allow Val to get in front of the screen.

Val leaned in close to look at the black-and-white image. The edge of the pool was in the foreground. The water danced with tiny pinpricks of light, making it look like it had waves tossing. She remembered that it had been raining hard overnight. Beyond it, the ground sloped down toward the left, leading to the front of the house. In the background she saw a window. It had to be her room.

A stocky figure entered the frame. It approached her window. It raised a hand to feel along the frame. Then the figure leaned toward it, cupping a hand to help it see inside.

In the lower-left-hand corner of the screen, a set of white dot-matrix-style numbers ticked off, showing the time as 23:15:04 when Val first started watching. At Henry’s direction, the woman reached over to tap another key. The video jumped slightly. The rain was heavy enough to be visible now, backlit by the faint illumination coming from the window. The figure approached several times to look inside. In the last instance, time-stamped 02:47:15, the person, hunched against the rain, raised a hand with something white in it and tucked it into the window frame.

At the right bottom of the screen, red letters burst into view:
ALARM! INTRUSION WINDOW 16
.

The dark shape moved away from the window and moved to the left. It walked more awkwardly than it had at first. Val wondered if it had hurt itself. The video stopped.

“What do you know about this?” Henry asked.

“Nothing!” Val said. “When that alarm went off, I was in the lounge with you. Those bells were so loud that my ears are still ringing. You just jumped up, said ‘You’re safe in this room,’ and locked me in. I just sat there. I think I heard dogs barking and people yelling. I’m not sure how long it was before you came back and took me up to my room. That’s all.”

“And you remember nothing else?” Henry asked.

“No,” Val said. “I didn’t think I could sleep, but I dropped off as soon as I fell into bed. The first thing I remember after that is your pounding on my door to tell me that I can’t go on my date.”

Henry made a gesture, and the woman reversed the video. The dark figure reappeared near her window.

“You’re sure that you don’t know who that is?”

Val peered closely. “I can’t make out any distinguishing characteristics, but he seemed to walk oddly.”

“He? Do you know who he is?”

“No!” Val protested. “Of course not. I don’t know anyone around here. I don’t even know where I am,” she added bitterly.

“Then how do you know it’s a man?”

“He walks like a man,” Val said. “That’s what always gives away the female impersonators in the French Quarter. You can tell the ones who haven’t learned to swing their hips yet.”

“True,” Henry said, thoughtfully. “Yes, it was a man.”

“Do you think he’ll try again?” Val asked.

“I doubt it,” Henry said. “He had a rather bad accident when he ran into our . . . dogs.”

Val’s eyes widened. “A bad accident? How bad? As in killed?”

Henry looked sorrowful, but his voice was flat.

“Alas, yes. But we don’t know if he was working alone. Our security is very tight, and we mean business. That’s why I dissuade you from taking a walk around the grounds at night without letting one of us know. Marcella or I can arrange it so you will have nothing to fear. Please, don’t go out after dark. Melinda would have my head on a pike.”

Val trembled so much Henry had to help her out of her chair. She made herself walk through the black door into the carpet-lined corridor. Could she have been responsible for a man’s being killed? How horrible! She wanted to go home more than ever. She was trapped in this monstrous house.

Henry hung back for one moment to speak to the employees.

“We are on lockdown until further notice. Melinda will be home tomorrow evening. If you have any questions, call my number. Don’t bother her.”

“Yes, sir!” the three said.

Henry caught up with Val and tucked her arm into his.

“It’ll be fine, dear,” he assured her.

“How can it be? That man is dead! I want to go back to New Orleans!”

Henry pulled her into the light and looked deeply into her eyes as he stroked her hand.

“Darling, don’t be so hasty. That man’s unfortunate end has nothing to do with you. It could have happened last week or next year. We’ve had to deal with intruders many times. You’re too precious to risk, you know. Melinda really has faith in you. And you’ve completely won over the staff. They all love you. They would all be very sad to see you leave.”

“But . . .” Val started to protest.

Henry’s gentle voice was like a calming drone in her ears. “At least wait until you have talked with Melinda before you take any hasty steps. Then, I promise you, if you still want to go, we will put you on first-class transportation back to New Orleans. But you won’t want to. You’ll see. There are too many opportunities here for you. Of all kinds.” A twinkle appeared in his eyes, and Val couldn’t help smiling in response. “In the meanwhile, please feel free to confer with Marcella and the chef about a menu for your dinner with Mr. Burns tonight. Enjoy yourself. Everything in this house is at your disposal.”

Almost against her will, Val felt her misgivings ease. That man
had
been trying to break into her bedroom window. He looked as if he were waiting for her. She could have been hurt or killed herself. Henry was right. They were only trying to protect her.

For a moment, she stood still, trying to decide what to do next.

“Why don’t you go upstairs and have your swim and some breakfast?” Henry suggested. “You need to be ready for your day. Your swimsuit has been laid out—your new one. The old one wasn’t big enough for the two of you. Go on. Meet me back in the lounge at two. We’ll go over some of the corporate records. I promise I will leave you plenty of time to get dressed. Go on now!”

“All right. Henry, thanks,” she said. “I feel better.”

He smiled at her. “Just doing my job, darling.”

“Firing
people,” Val said, sprawled on her back on a lounger in the sitting room of Marcella’s quarters, “is awful.”

“It is,” the housekeeper said. She sat cross-legged on a huge soft ottoman with a load of music CDs on her lap. “Did you have to let someone go today?”

“Yes,” Val said. She shifted to one side. Her growing belly seemed to slosh over when she moved. The baby had gone to sleep during a mellow blues recording by Leadbelly. The jazz horns that replaced it had a rapid tempo but kept on a low volume so as not to stimulate him or her into a kicking frenzy. Val had already been to the bathroom four times since dinner. “I hated it, but he literally wasn’t doing the job he was hired to do. The records go back for months. Half of the other people in his section were covering for him. He seems like a really nice guy, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“Couldn’t you demote him or lateral-shift him to another part of the company?”

Val shook her head. “There aren’t any openings at the moment. I asked Henry a bunch of times. He would need more experience. He has no computer skills at all.”

“An older man?” Marcella guessed.

“No. Thirty.”

“Then he can get hired elsewhere. The market is terrible for older workers above fifty.”

“The market’s terrible anyhow,” Val said. She sighed and threw an arm over her eyes. The music made her feel as if she ought to be doing something, dancing or walking, but she was too tired to get up. “Thank God I don’t have to look for a job myself anymore.”

Marcella smiled. “It’s good that you have empathy for him.”

“When I can’t feel sorry for someone in trouble, I hope that someone will shoot me in the head, because I won’t be . . . human anymore.” Val hesitated. After all, she wasn’t human, but she had been brought up to think she was. Did dragons really think and feel differently than people? She’d have to think about that later, when she was alone. “Of course, he was too upset to care that I did feel sorry for him. Ugh! Let’s talk about something else! Your rooms are really nice.”

“Not as nice as yours,” Marcella said. “But I was able to choose my furnishings and color scheme—subject to Melinda’s approval, of course. If I had wanted to paint the room black with neon sculptures, she might have had something to say.”

Val scanned the low tables and smooth, porcelain lamps. The walls had been painted a faint sandy peach color, with the rest of the room in colors that reminded her of a beach sunrise. It was all very contained. The housekeeper’s style was as neat and minimalist as her dress sense.

“Do you have to clean for yourself, do your own laundry and things?” Val asked, curiously.

“No. It would be a poor use of my time. I even have call on the stylist. You get priority, naturally. Like last night.”

“What a waste
that
was!” Val said. “I hope your dates go better.”

“My work is my life,” Marcella said. “When I’m ready to move on, I’ll start thinking about a relationship.”

Val nodded. She’d heard many similarly dismissive statements over the bar.

“Bad breakup, huh?”

Marcella smiled sadly.

“The worst.”

“Did you enjoy your dinner last evening?” Marcella asked. “You are dating such a dishy guy.”

Val wanted badly to know if Marcella or anyone else in the household was a dragon but couldn’t bring herself to use the
D
word. She suspected Henry was one of them. Marcella might not know. Or she might assume that Val knew which ones were what. It was weird not having a clue. She was happy to change the subject to Mike.

“He’s amazing. I never thought I’d go out with anyone like him. He’s classy, generous, funny, well educated, and not at all stuck-up.”

“And a serious hunk.”

“Totally. It’s too bad we were marooned here last night. It was that all-important fifth date. I was seriously considering jumping him.”

“You could have. You have privacy in your own quarters,” Marcella assured her.

“Everyone would have known what was going on!” Val complained. “Talk about crimping my style.”

“How did he feel about it?”

Val let the corners of her mouth drift upward.

“Oh, come on, he’s been ready from day one. I think he knew.”

Mike had been willing to wait until she was ready. That he let her take the lead was one of the traits that she found attractive in him. That, and that he was still interested in her in spite of her blooming body. Lately, when she had looked in the mirror, she had been appalled by her reflection. Accustomed to her usually athletic form, she found the growing bulges unsightly. But Mike found it sexy and found plenty of ways to show her without saying a word. When he helped seat her at the table laid in the small sitting room, instead of the huge and empty dining room, he had caressed the inner curve of her arm. He held her hand across the table and played with her fingers, drawing his own fingers over them until the tingling drove her crazy with desire. The shame was that one of the estate’s employees was always just at their elbows, ready to pour drinks or clear the dishes.

“You could have asked us to go away,” Marcella pointed out. “That’s what Melinda does when she has a serious date here for dinner.”

“TMI!” Val exclaimed. The mental picture of the gruff, aggressive Melinda pursuing a man around the table made her cringe. “No, that would have been too awkward. Next time, when we can go somewhere private.” She smiled reminiscently. “We’re starting to think about some things at the same time, like finishing each other’s sentences. Weird.”

“What’s so weird? It sounds pretty normal to me. You two sound really compatible. Do you think it might work out to a permanent relationship?”

“Marriage?”
What would be so bad about marrying a guy like Mike anyway?
Val thought. He was her intellectual equal though far more experienced than she was. As he pointed out to her, she didn’t need assertiveness lessons. Val believed that he liked having a woman who stood up to him. One of the things that held her back from really committing to a relationship with him was that it would give Melinda too much satisfaction to choose one of the men with whom she had set Val up. “I just can’t believe he’s not married already.”

“Another one who is wedded to his job,” Marcella speculated. “I think that politicians have to be more than a little selfish. They’re on show all the time. Even potential spouses have to fit into what they think is the right public profile, the one they want to show.”

“Well, I wouldn’t settle for half of someone’s attention,” Val said firmly.

“When you go for a high-powered man like that, you might have to.”

“No, I won’t.”

Marcella smiled slyly. “I think he’s in for a shock.”

“Maybe he is.” The baby woke up and kicked her. Val put her hand on her belly. “Ooh. That one was right in the bladder.” She looked at the clock. “I’d better go to bed. If Melinda is due back, I bet she’s going to quiz me on what I’ve been doing. I had better get some sleep.”

Marcella rose when she did.

“That is a good idea. And Val? If you do stay, I would be very happy. None of us would resent anything that you accept from Melinda. We know you aren’t out to bilk her.” The grin grew broader. “You might even shake her up a little.”

Val smiled at her, feeling as if she had made a new friend. She put her hand on Marcella’s arm. “Thanks.”

When Val went up to her room, most of the lights in the house were out except for a few strategically located wall sconces. Everything felt so homey and warm. She felt amazed that the angst she had felt the day before had gone away. She could have a future here, a pretty nice one.

Her room glowed with soft golden light. One lamp, beside her bed, was lit. One of the house-elves doing turn-down service, Val thought, with a little grin. She reached for her nightgown and felt a slight draft of cool air. The window must have been left ajar.

Memory of that first mysterious note came to her. Automatically, Val felt along the window frame. There was no note, but the sash rested a hair higher in the frame than it should have. She felt the breeze coming from underneath and shoved it down again.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” a voice said behind her. “Now you’ve engaged the alarm system on the sash. That was my only way out.”

Val spun, balling her hands into fists. Her women’s self-defense training from college flooded her mind in a split second. Unfortunately, the bulk of her abdomen kept swinging farther than her feet, throwing her off-balance. So did the sight of the other person in the room.

“Mai!” she cried.