Obsidian Butterfly

I heard Edward's boots crunch on the pavement before he spoke. I was facing him, arms crossed lightly over my stomach, which put my right hand nicely close to the gun under my arm. I believed Edward when he said we had a truce on, but … better cautious than sorry.

He stopped by the car one slot over, leaning his butt against it, arms crossing to mirror me. But he didn't have a gun under his arm. I wasn't sure that a bounty hunter's license was enough to get him through an airport metal detector, so he shouldn't have been able to have a gun or large blade on him.

Unless of course he'd picked it up from one of the cars, where he'd hidden it. It would be something that Edward would do. Better to assume the worst and he wrong than assume the best and be wrong. Pessimism will keep you alive, optimism won't, not in our line of business anyway.

Our line of business. Strange phrase. Edward was an assassin. I wasn't. But somehow we were in the same business. I couldn't quite explain it, but it was title.

Edward gave me a pure Edward smile, a smile meant to make me uneasy and suspicious. It also usually meant that he meant me no harm and was just yanking my chain. Of course, he knew I knew what the smile usually meant, so he might use it to lull me into a false sense of security. Or it could mean just what it seemed to. I was overthinking things and that was bad all on its own. Edward was right, I was at my best when I let my gut work and kept my higher functions in the background. Not a recipe for going through life, but a good one for a gunfight.

"We have a truce," I said.

He nodded. "I said, we did."

"You make me nervous," I said.

The smile widened. "Glad to hear you're still scared of me. I was begi

"The day you stop being afraid of the monsters is the day they kill you."

"And I'm a monster?" He made it a question.

"You know exactly what you are, Edward."

His eyes narrowed. "You called me Edward in front of Do

I nodded. "I'm sorry, I caught it, too. I will try but I'm not half as good a liar as you are. Besides, Ted is a nickname for Edward."

"Not if the full name on my driver's license is Theodore."

"Now, if I can call you Teddy, maybe I'd remember."

"Teddy is fine," he said, voice totally unchanged.

"You are a very hard man to tease, Ed … Ted."

"Names don't mean anything, Anita. They're too easy to change."

"Is Edward really your first name?"

"It is now."

I shook my head. "I'd really like to know."

"Why?" He gazed at me from the black sunglasses, and the weight of his interest burned through the glass. The question wasn't idle. Of course, Edward seldom asked any question he didn't want an answer to.

"Because I've known you for five years, and I don't even know if your first name is real."

"It's real enough," he said.

"It bugs me not to know," I said.

"Why?" he asked again.

I shrugged and eased my hand away from my gun because it wasn't necessary, not right this minute, not today. But even as I did it, I knew there would be other days, and for the first time I really wasn't sure that both of us would see the end of my little visit. It made me sad and grumpy.

"Maybe I just want to know what name to put on the tombstone," I said.

He laughed. "Confidence is a fine trait. Over-confidence isn't." The laughter faded and left his face around the glasses cool and unreadable. I didn't have to see his eyes to know they were cold and distant as winter skies.

I pushed away from the car, hands empty at my sides. "Look, Edward, Ted, whatever the hell you call yourself, I don't like being invited here to play monster bait, and find you dating the new age mom of the year. It's thrown me, and I don't like that either. We have a truce until the case is solved, then what?"

"Then we'll see," he said.

"You couldn't just agree to stop being engaged to Do

"No." His voice was small, careful.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I'd need to give her a good enough reason to break her heart and the kids'. Remember, I've been spending a lot of time with the kids. How would it look to just vanish on them?"

"I think her son wouldn't mind. Peter, wasn't it? I think he'd love it if Ted would vanish."

Edward turned his head to one side. "Yeah, Peter would love it, but what about Becca? I've been in her life for over two years and she's only six. Do

Anger tightened my shoulders and traveled down my arms. I put my hands in fists just to have something to do with my body. "You bastard."

"Maybe," he said, "but be careful what you ask me to do, Anita. Just walking out could do more damage than the truth."

I stared at him, trying to see behind that blank face. "Have you thought about telling Do

"No."

"Damn you."

"Do you really think she could handle the truth, the entire truth, about me?" he asked.

I thought about that for nearly a full minute while we stood in the heat-soaked parking lot. Finally, I said, "No." I didn't like saying it, but truth was truth.

"You're sure she couldn't play wife to an assassin? I mean you've only met her for half an hour. How can you be so sure?"

"Now you're teasing me," I said.

His lips twitched almost a smile. "I think you are exactly right. I don't think Do

4

THE CAR BELONGED to Ted, even though Edward was driving it. It was a square and big something between a Jeep, a truck, and an ugly car. It was covered in red clay mud as if he'd been driving through ditches. The windshield was so dirty only two fans of clear space remained where the windshield wipers had washed away the mud. Everything else had dried to a reddish-brown patina of dirt.

"Gee, Edward," I said, as he opened the back hatch, "what have you been doing to this poor whatever it is. I've never seen a car so dirty."

"This is a Hummer, and cost more than most people's houses." He raised the hatch and started putting my bags inside. I offered him my carry-on, and when I was close could smell that new car smell, which explained why the carpeting in back was still nearly pristine.

"If it costs that much, then why doesn't it rate better care?" I asked.

He took the carry-on and put it on the new carpet. "I bought it because it could go over almost any terrain in almost any weather. If I didn't want it to get dirty, I'd have bought something else." He slammed the hatch shut.

"How can Ted afford something like this?"

"Actually, Ted makes a fine living off varmint hunting."

"Not this good," I said, "not off of bounty hunting."

"How do you know what a bounty hunter makes?" he asked, peering around the filthy car at me.

He had a point. "I guess I don't."

"Most people don't know what a bounty hunter makes so I can get away with some purchases that might be out of Ted's price range." He walked around the car toward the driver's side, only the top of his white hat showing above the mud-caked roof.

I tried the passenger side door, and it opened. It took a little bit of work to climb into the seat, and I was glad I wasn't wearing a skirt. One nice thing about working with Edward was that he wouldn't expect me to wear business attire. It was jeans and Nikes for this trip.

The only business thing I was wearing was the black jacket slung over my cotton shirt and jeans. The jacket was to hide the gun, nothing more. "What are the gun laws like in New Mexico?"