Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (54 page)

I was about to hit the top step when I had a light bulb moment. Ok, it wasn't a bright light bulb, maybe a 40 watt, but compared to my other ideas, it was fucking brilliant. Instead of joining Chapel
and Batten's heated resumption of their argument in the office, I spun on my heel and went down into the cellar again.

Rummaging through the basement storage closet for possible supplies yielded Carrie's small octagon fish tank with coils of old aquarium hose, a circular BBQ grill, an empty gas tank, some chicken wire. (Why the hell did Carrie have chicken wire next to crumbling mildewed boxes of dried tulip and hyacinth bulbs?) Bags of peat and manure and black earth to amend the tricky soil in the Denver area, and a rusty shovel. I gathered some choice goods and started piling them near the stairs.

Next step: get Batten and Harry out of the cabin. They'd never approve. Wes wasn't awake to care; he hadn't adjusted to nocturnal living and still wanted to sleep after dark. Chapel wouldn't approve either, but now that I had him by the short and curlies (feeding a revenant, mister Supervisory Special Agent? Ask ask) I was pretty sure I could handle his objections.

Getting Batten, however, to go anywhere with a revenant was going to take some finesse: not my strong suit. I found Harry's keys in his top drawer with two dozen pairs of argyle and angora socks and no underwear; my immortal Commando. I slipped Harry's car key off a giant key ring that looked like it should belong to a dungeon master, and put it in my back pocket.

When I found my Cold Company, he was with Batten in the living room, in his wingback chair, one long leg slung over the arm in his usual reading position, holding a big floppy trade paperback. The cover said: Fire Fighter Prep.

I yanked it from his hands with a “Nope,” opened the door to the woodstove and tossed it in.

Harry stared at me, unblinking. “They have a night shift. I'd be in fire resistant apparel, my pet.”

I ignored that; it was beyond ridiculous. Instead, I addressed a very grumpy FBI agent on the couch who looked like he was about to snap.

“Good evening, Mark. I need you to do me a favor.”

“I've been known to do favors.”

“Great. Drive into Ten Springs to the all-night grocer to get me some female stuff.” I smiled winningly, complete with fluttering lashes. “Harry knows which ones, he can go with.”

Batten's eyebrows pinched together. “Why can't you go?”

“PMS makes me a danger to the general public.”

“That's not the only thing,” he pointed out. “Let Harry go get your stuff.”

“Harry makes the night cashiers nervous. They end up ringing the silent alarm and trouble ensues. Just go.”

Batten asked Harry, “Why do I get the feeling she's trying to get us out of here?”

“Fine.” I gave an exasperated sigh. “Want the truth?” I dug deep. “I'm in love with Gary Chapel and want to be alone with him. That's right, I said it.”

Batten's stunned blink was followed by a disbelieving smirk that he fought unsuccessfully. “Since when?”

“Well, lately I've noticed that…” I planted my hands on my waist, cocked my hips to the side. “Nerds are sexy.” I mentally scrounged for more believable justification. “The way he stares at me over the rim of his glasses really turns me on.”

Harry groaned, swinging his leg down from the arm of the chair. “I do not think I shall take pleasure in watching this farce much longer.”

“She's gotta be the worst liar ever,” Batten agreed, pained. “What do you figure she's up to?”

“Quite certainly it will be something neither one of us will enjoy. Do be honest, my pet. If it is privacy you need—”

“Yes, that's it,” I said, surprised I didn't think of it right off the bat. “It's Masturbation Monday and you guys are throwing off my routine.”

Mark rubbed his forehead creases as though they caused him pain. “Don't think that bird's gonna fly either.”

“My darling,” Harry admonished. “If this is the case, should we not take Agent Chapel away from the house?”

“I might need him!” I blurted.

Harry nearly coughed up a mouthful of o-neg from his goblet.

I hurried on. “For protection. If the ghoul comes while I'm…y'know. Would you just go, please!”

Batten shrugged. “I could use some fresh air. You got the tires replaced on the Kawasaki, right? Mind if I drive?”

The revenant looked horrified by the idea of another man piloting his bike, glancing at me with dismay. “Is there something in this for me?”

Batten shrugged. “I'll tell the cashiers you're a wealthy bachelor looking for a new wife.”

“Not entirely a falsehood.” Harry's eyes lit with humor. “The helmets are in the mudroom.”

*   *   *

I waited for them to put their boots on and trudge out the front door before collecting my materials and hustling them up the stairs. Chapel was upstairs, recovering from his steamed fight with Batten and his draining feed of two immortals. But for my shifting things around, the house was mausoleum-quiet. The back yard was as Leviathan's abyss, without the faintest scrap of starlight above, bringing to mind Hell's yawning black maw. Another winter storm rolled in slow on dead air, pushing heavily at the tops of the trees. I left the light on over the kitchen sink, and remembered my mother when I did so. She always said to leave a cheery circle of light to come back home to. Just doing so made me feel a touch warmer, and in a rush I missed the times before Harry, when my mother still wanted me around.

Keeping one eye out for Chapel, I passed the office mirror and checked to make sure the reflection was just me. The black-watch spell had not encountered any new intrusions; the mirror showed only my own freshly-screwed but careworn self. I had to admit, sex had put a fetching glow in my cheeks. Sadly, I also had a nice set of pimples blooming on my chin, probably from me resting my chin in my bare hands too much out of exhaustion.

I shrugged into my parka and hauled my materials out the back door, slogged through the snow, scanning for any other footprints. Ajax was sleeping with his new friend in the closest Aspen; they had reached some sort of tentative peace, the way two housecats will
after fighting for dominance. Ajax didn't stir when I strolled past, and neither did Wesley's unnamed debt vulture. Under cold, crisp white stars, Shaw's Fist was dark and mysterious like Batten's deep blue eyes, with the same unknowable depths.

Digging a hole in the dirt floor of the boathouse had sounded like a good idea in my head, but then a lot of things do: driving to rescue my mortal enemy, sleeping with a heartless jerk, scarfing a whole box of Oreos in less than ten minutes. Reality is usually far less feasible, full of unconsidered problems. The boathouse, for one, was unheated; it was no more than thirty-three degrees in there. The ground on the far side of Harry's covered sports car was hard as a rock, frozen stiff. I had to put my Keds on the shovel and jump my full weight onto it with each dig. I got about two feet deep before I ran out of space to put the excess dirt, and had to haul it down to the end of the boathouse where an old canoe with faded paint lay on its side.

The smell of fresh-turned dirt blended with unused life jackets gone musty over time. A cockshut melody of pre-storm wind pressing bodily against the old building harmonized with the constant clunk-chink of my digging and the low electric hum of the chest freezer. My breath fogged in front of my face, and before long I was sweating under my clothes and aching everywhere. Under my gloves I felt blisters forming on the heels of my palms. Pretty soon I was on my knees, scraping and struggling to make the hole deep enough.

Finally, shivering with the now bone-deep cold, I tossed the shovel aside and slid the BBQ grill and long butane lighter under the car in the darkest shadow behind the back driver's side wheel. I found a long-handled fishing net and a Timberline fishing knife in Carrie's tackle box, on the back bench.

I turned off the car alarm, unlocked the gas cap and tucked the aquarium tubing into Harry's gas tank. Tentatively putting my lips to the clean end, prepared to suck, hoping I was right that Harry's obsessive need to keep things “as they should be” would extend to keeping his precious toy topped-full of fuel. I gave an inhale through my pursed lips to start the gasoline flowing up toward my mouth.

“What the hell are you doing?”

My heart kicked. Choking on gas, I spat on the ground then tucked the running end of the hose in the cold pit. It sounded like someone piddling in the corner.

Batten's shadow in the doorway was waiting for an answer, so I said, “Taking a whiz?”

“Try again.”

“Huffing gas fumes?”

His faceless shadow crossed its arms.

“You won't like the real answer, so why ask?” I stood, crossing my arms too. As he moved forward and the work light washed his face, something hard in his eyes made me cringe. I could tell by his all-brought-up-to-speed tone that he knew I'd gotten laid. Did he know it all? The shackles? The devil's footsteps? How could he? “Why are you still here? I thought you were leaving.”

He came deeper into the yellow glow, his eyes tracing the car's shape under the tarp. He lifted one corner of the stretchy fabric cover and then, as though not believing what he was seeing, peeling the tarp back further and further, his excitement demanded that he strip the car, had to throw the whole thing back. The tarp rustled against itself as it fell aside. Batten's breath whistled out.

“Holy fuck,” he whispered, adding white clouds next to mine. “Do you know what this is? This is a Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4 Sang Noir.”

“Whatever. It's a car.” I discretely wiped my tongue clear of gas taste on the sleeve of my puffy pink parka.

“Is this yours?”

A sharp laugh shot out of my gut. “Yeah right. Like I need something like that.”

“Something like… don't you know what this is?”

“Yeah, it's Harry's baby. Whatever you do, don't—holy hell!” I yelped. “You're touching it.”

I didn't think he could help himself, though. One muscular hand drifted in mid-air, landing softly. Mark stroked the car's super high-gloss piano black finish with reverence, a slow, almost affectionate caress, like he was applying oil to the length of a swimsuit model's taut belly. This went on for some time, while the trickling sound filled his stunned silence and the smell of gasoline swam in the boathouse's close quarters. Finally, he got to the Bugatti's windows,
pressed his nose up against the glass, cupping his hands. A nervous, excited laugh escaped him. He sounded like a little boy in front of a candy store, except for the swearing.

“Look at that fuckin’ interior. Fuck me, Jesus. He doesn't drive this?”

“Not in the winter. Never in the winter.”

“Why the hell are you driving that shit Buick if he can afford this?”

“Hey, what's wrong with the Buick? I like the tank, don't disparage the tank.”

I knelt on the clumps of churned frozen dirt and put the gas cap back on, wiped up spill down the side with the rag. Batten was still heavy-breathing on Harry's Bugatti like a sex addict at a strip joint. “Do you have any idea how much this thing costs?”

“Nope, nor do I care. You were going now?”

“Marnie, the tires alone for this car cost twenty-five grand.”

“Oh, come on. What kind of maniac would pay twenty-five thousand dollars for…” The rest of that sentence was pointless: Harry would. Only the best for Harry. It was almost as much as he paid for the cabin.

I studied Batten, wondering if he had wood. He certainly looked near-orgasmic. His bottom lip was quivering, caught under the straight white clutch of a hard bite. I had never considered Harry's fondness for expensive sports cars to be much more than a shiny hobby. Certainly I'd never become aroused by the sight of one. Batten's reaction was fascinating; I wondered what he'd say if I suggested…

“You know, if you promised to feed Harry every day,” I breathed in my most devilish voice, “he'd buy you one of your very own.”

Batten hand clutched his middle like he'd been shot in the stomach with the Surprise Cannon. He cut his eyes at me over the Bugatti's roof, noted my Cheshire smile, and visibly wilted. “Very funny.”

“Sorry. He's not even gonna let you ride in it. Don't ask him. Pretend you didn't see it.”

“Why have it if you won't share?” he said, and again he reminded me of a young boy raging about the unfairness of life. I frowned, wondering if he just meant the car, my nose getting slightly out of joint.

“It's not mine. I don't make the rules.”

“You could make him share,” he wheedled.

I laughed, amazed. One of his big hands went up to massage his temple, like the sight of the car was causing his brain to go on the fritz.

“Zero to sixty in two point four seconds,” he told me, as though it mattered. “Top speed two hundred and fifty-three miles per hour.”

“Kinda silly, since the speed limit around here's fifty-five. You wanna get a speeding ticket for eighteen thousand dollars?”

“That's not the point,” he informed me so seriously I had to laugh a second time. He squinted into the interior again, and I tossed my rag at him.

“Wipe off the saliva or he'll know you were out here. I don't drool on cars.”

“Any possible bribe you can think of to get him to let me sit in it?”

“Maybe if you lube up, bend over and grab your ankles?” I suggested, grinning from ear to ear. A confused grimace tore down his eyebrows only for a moment, then he wilted some more.

“I'm serious, Marnie.”

“I'm not. He ain't interested in your orifices. Hot blood and insane speeds are Harry's only weaknesses, and he doesn't trust you enough to let you get close to him or the car.”

“What about…” I could see him racking his brain for anything he could possibly offer. When I shook my head mock-sadly, still grinning, he swore and buffed the breath-fog off the windows, shining the glass with the reverence usually reserved for altar boys preparing the Eucharist. “I don't think I can handle being this jealous of Harry. I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight knowing this monster is out here, just sitting here, waiting to roar.”

I chortled. “It's a car.”

“It's not a…” He reigned himself in, resigned to a life without Bugatti. “Fine. We're on our way out. What are the chances that you're going to accidentally blow yourself up in here?”