Living with the Dead

"I'm all right," Lily said, misinterpreting Adele's reason for lingering. "But thank you for stopping in. You're a good sister, Adele."

Sister, my ass. If Adele had a sister, she'd be a lot brighter than this twit, who'd thanked Adele for bringing her coffee every morning, never noticing the bitter aftertaste of birth control pills. At the last meeting, when Niko had declared they might need to take the next step to impregnate Lily, Adele had watched the men's faces as they struggled to console Hugh, to act as if resigned to an unpleasant task. For the next year, the kumpania would monitor Lily's cycles and, when her time came, she'd be confined to her room for three days, while the men streamed upstairs to take their turn.

Adele excused herself and backed into the hall. As she turned, she saw Lily's cousin, Bernard, top the stairs, his corpulent frame quivering from the exertion, the crotch of his pants already straining with anticipation. Ah, duty.

"She's waiting for you," Adele said, as he lumbered past her into the room.

Adele's good mood lasted only until she closed her bedroom door and caught a glimpse of herself in her full-length mirror. Thoughts of Lily's impregnation made her consider her own predicament. She pulled her shirt tight and turned to survey every angle. Nothing. She lifted the shirt. Her stomach still looked flat.

Though the book said she shouldn't show for another month at least, it also mentioned that "small" women might show earlier. Adele didn't consider herself "small," but if that was a euphemism for ski

Kumpania living didn't allow the level of privacy she'd need to conceal a pregnancy under oversized shirts. She had to be gone before she was showing.

If she didn't find those photos soon, she might need a backup plan – someone she could point to as the father. Someone in the kumpania. Otherwise, they'd presume she'd been sleeping with an outsider, and the kumpania would kill her for that, as surely as if they saw that photo.

She sat on her bed and considered her options. Her initial plan, if things went poorly with the Nasts, had been to seduce Niko while she negotiated with another Cabal. It would be hard for the phuri to punish her if their leader had chosen to bless her with a child. But now that idea might, ironically, have been thwarted by the unexpected success of her earlier scheme to get Hugh. If Niko got to enjoy Lily, he might not be as easy to seduce.

Her second choice was riskier. Seducing Colm would be easy enough, but Neala wouldn't like it. Still, Adele reminded herself, she had no intention of being around long enough to need this backup plan. She just needed to launch it so that if things went wrong, Colm could say, with conviction, that he was the father.

As she stood, she saw a message pad page on her nightstand. The phone number for Jasmine Wills's publicist. Adele was about to shove it into her drawer. She hoped to be gone before she ever had to produce a photo of Jasmine. But the note bothered her. It was too… convenient.

She dialed the number on her cell phone. After the fourth ring, a harried voice answered with what sounded like "café au lait." Adele paused, letting the woman say it again, the words plucking at a memory. Not "café au lait," but "Café Olé." Adele had stared at that sign for an hour yesterday, its play on words another source of a

Adele crumpled the note. She told herself it didn't matter, she'd already suspected that Robyn knew who she was, but that lead was a dead end anyway. Or was it? Her message had gotten to Adele's home, left with the kumpania leader himself. She could just as easily have told Niko everything. As Adele stared at the paper ball, she realized that's what this was: a warning.

See, I can get to you. I can expose you. I can kill you.

Adele pitched from her bed, her breath coming hot and fast. So Robyn fancied herself a player, did she?

Food and sleep would have to wait. Time to kill two birds. With two brothers.

FINN

Ms. Adams? It's Detective Findlay. Could you please call me back as soon as you get this message?"

Fi

The detective room was empty. At ten on a Sunday morning, it often was. Anyone working was out on the street. Which is where he should be, and where he would be, as soon as he could haul himself to his feet again.

He'd called Hope Adams three times since last night, leaving three messages. He'd started with the simple call me back. Then he'd moved to the mysterious there's been a change in the case I need to discuss with you. Finally, urgent: I have reason to believe Robyn Peltier is in danger. No response.

At 8 a.m., he'd called True News, getting a sleepy editor who'd been there all night and offered to leave a message on Adams's cell phone – the same number Fi

"Still nothing?" Damon said as he returned from eavesdropping on conversations pertaining to last night and the case.

Fi

"I hope she's okay."

Fi

He knew Robyn Peltier wasn't responsible for the deaths and he was quite certain he'd met the young woman who was, but he couldn't leave that on voice mail or it could come back to haunt him in court.

Last night he'd rounded up a few witnesses who'd said they got a good look at the girl who'd killed Margie Damascus – the victim.

"We've got three similar sketches, Fi

To his credit, Balough had put a rush on the ballistic. But the technician had taken one look at the recovered bullet, which had slammed into a stone monument after passing through Margie Damascus, and doubted he could make a viable comparison.

Fi

"So she's walking with an older guy." Damon moved behind Fi

Fi

"That suit." Damon pointed. "Top drawer."

Fi

"Top-drawer suit means a top-drawer executive," Damon continued. "I bet he'd be a lot easier to identify than the girl."

Fi