The Taste Of Night

29

Less than an hour later I was home-having driven Jasmine to her house and watched her climb a trellis into her second-story window-but home at Olivia’s this time. Home as Olivia, I thought, catching my reflection in the entry mirror, almost surprised to see the cascade of long blond curls coming loose from their underpinnings.

Sighing, I dumped my keys on the console, my bag beneath it, and called out Hunter’s name as I made my way to the kitchen. There was no answer, and just as well. The scent of lovemaking clung to my skin, and I decided to momentarily forgo food for a shower instead. I was pretty sure Hunter knew where I’d been-he’d encouraged it, after all-but there was no need to rub it in his face.

I set the spray to full heat, threw my clothes into the hamper, and was about to climb into the shower when the phone rang. I hesitated. It could be Hunter, and if he had news about Valhalla he wouldn’t leave it on the machine. Then again, it could be Ben. By now he’d probably have woken up alone in a house of ghosts, and might be calling Olivia in a panic to see if she knew anything about my sudden return, and where I might be now.

But it wasn’t either of them. Instead Suzanne’s frothy voice followed my machine’s beep, made even tinnier by her panicked voice. I’d never heard her out of breath before. “Livvy, darlin’, it’s me. Listen, I’m standing at the starting line for the marathon-you know, the one that ends up in Nye county?” She said this like it was a reasonable thing, and I rolled my eyes as I headed back into the bathroom. I’d listen to the rest later. “Anyway, Ian and I were supposed to meet here an hour ago, he’s been talking about this race for months, and I just know he wouldn’t miss this for the world.

“I know the two of you weren’t seeing each other, but I was wondering if he mentioned something to you at the ball about a quick trip out of town, a death in the family, something like that? I don’t know, I’m just worried is all. It’s not like him. He’s been missing work too-”

This is the point where I backed again into the bedroom. “-and that’s not like him either. His bosses say he has a big programming project due soon, and they haven’t heard hide nor hair from him for at least a week.”

I whirled, staring hard at the spot where my sister’s computer once sat, trying frantically to put it all into a neat time frame-the swingers’ ball, Ian’s disappearance, the computer’s-while Suzanne’s voice continued chirping along in the background.

“…so if you happen to hear from him, or talk to him in the next little bit, would you mind giving me a ring, or tell Ian to call me himself? I just want-”

There was a loud explosion that jolted me and I looked back at the recorder, suddenly worried for Suzanne.

“Oops, there’s the starting gun, honey. Gotta run. Literally. Smooches!” And she was gone.

I went back to the bath and shut off the now-steaming shower, then returned to the kitchen, not for food, but for the fingerprinting kit I had tucked behind a basket of cleaning supplies under the sink. After lightly dusting the computer desk with the fine powder, I straightened, wrists cocked on my naked hips, heart pounding as I stared at the dance of prints revealed there. Significant because I didn’t have fingerprints. And neither did Hunter.

Not that I was surprised to see them. I wouldn’t be dusting if I didn’t think a mortal was responsible for the theft. The question was, were they Ian’s? I leaned forward, viewing the desk eye level, like they did on TV. Was there only one set of prints? Or more?

“Think, think,” I told myself, straightening, trying to see the larger view. Ian had been abducted the night Joaquin discovered my hidden identity, and there was a good possibility he’d questioned Ian instead of killing him, or before killing him, trying to find out how much the mortal knew about me, who my friends were. What my habits were.

I kept dusting. I wanted to see if the computer desk was the only thing touched by this intruder, or if they’d been looking for more. By the time I was done, most of Olivia’s bedroom was caked in the fine, silty particles…and I was in even more desperate need of that shower. But I couldn’t move. I stood paralyzed in the middle of the now snowy room, the sun outside beating down on the carpet and my feet while I shivered inside, and that due only in part to the air conditioning and my naked state.

Fingerprints surrounded me. They were everywhere, where they hadn’t been before, and standing back, trying to see the whole picture-where the intruder had gone first, what he’d been looking for, what he’d found-I began to pick up a trail, like a train of ants leading to the nest. I followed it to where the prints grew densest.

“No,” I whispered, lifting the keepsake box from my dresser, running my hands over the oiled wood interspersed with glossy mother-of-pearl. I took a moment to trace the ghostly remains of another’s fingers, then fumbled with the latch until I finally managed to wrench it open. “No,” I said again, but it was too late.

I staggered a bit and found the bed, dropping like the floor had come out from beneath me, like all the breath had left my body and I’d deflated to land there, a poor and pitiful excuse for the heroic woman I was supposed to be.

“Olivia!”

I heard it, knew it was my name, but I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t do anything but stare at the empty desk where Olivia’s computer used to be, where she’d so craftily ferreted out and stored her niece’s identity and location. And I let the box where I’d so lovingly, so meticulously, so stupidly kept all my letters to Ben fall to the floor.

“Olivia?”

The voice was closer, but it was swept away by the screams in my own head, driven back by the howls already ricocheting off the soft tissue, and the pleas I wanted to voice, if only there were someone around, up there, somewhere, to listen.

“God, you’re shivering.” The duvet was up, wrapped about my shoulders, then drawn in front of me, and finally I could focus. Hunter knelt before me, his face a mixture of worry and caution as he took in my nakedness, my room, my catatonic behavior.

“Hunter,” I said in someone else’s voice. “They know.”

“Know what?” he asked, repeating it when I only shook my head harder. “Know about what, Jo?” And the use of my own name, my real name, snapped me out of my suspended state. My face crumpled.

“Everything,” I said, and began to cry. “My daughter…on the computer. My lover…in the letters. Oh my God. Joaquin’s not coming after me. He doesn’t need to. He knows about them all.”

“Who?” he asked, insistently.

“Everyone,” I told him. Everyone who needed to stay hidden the most.

I didn’t stay catatonic for long. I was up, dressed, and ready to barge into Valhalla itself within the hour, except that Hunter wouldn’t let me. At first he tried reason, talking to me about controlling my emotions and timing and planning and a bunch of other stuff I didn’t give a shit about when I thought of Ben in Joaquin’s clutches. Or of the child that might be killed only because she happened, at one time, to be mine.

When reason didn’t work, he sat on me. He used that big, gorgeous body to hold me down while I raged; against Joaquin, against the Tulpa, and especially against him. I told him he was no better than them. I spit on him-stupid, as I was directly beneath him-and acted like a rabid, frothing bitch. I let my bones burn through my skin, not just revealing my Shadow self, but all the rage and hate and venom that I tried so hard to hide from those in the sanctuary.

Hunter merely anchored himself more firmly on my chest, taking in the sharp bones pushing against my flesh, my eyes as black as buffed coal, the hot iron blistering the air between us. “Don’t you get it, Jo?” he finally said. “I’ve never been afraid of your Shadow side.”

And the shock of that statement, the absurdity and frankness of it, and the fucking romance of being accepted in all my ugliness, had me breaking down all over again. My bones sank like quicksand beneath my skin and my black eyes were extinguished by fat tears. Anyone else might have let me up then, but Hunter knew better, and he sat it out, literally. And that’s how we spent the rest of the day. Until noon came and went. Until the sun fell from the sky. Until dusk crept over the valley again, and I finally slept the dreamless sleep of split realities.