Guilty Pleasures

I didn’t look in the mirror again. I walked back past the coffin and hesitated. I had an urge to knock on the smooth wood. Anybody home? I didn’t do it. For all I knew, someone might have knocked back.

Phillip had the woman on the couch. She was leaning against him, boneless, panting, but the crying had almost stopped. She flinched when she saw me. I tried not to look menacing, something I’m good at, and handed the rag to Phillip. “Wipe her face and put it against the back of her neck; it’ll help.”

He did what I asked, and she sat there with the damp rag against her neck, staring at me. Her eyes were wide, a lot of white showing. She shivered.

I found the light switch, and harsh light flooded the room. One look at the room and I wanted to turn the light off again, but I didn’t. I thought Rebecca might attack me again if I sat beside her, or maybe she’d have a complete breakdown. Wouldn’t that be pretty? The only chair was lopsided and had yellowed stuffing bulging out one side. I decided to stand.

Phillip looked up at me. His sunglasses were hooked over the front of his tank top. His eyes were wide and careful, as if he didn’t want me to know what he was thinking. One ta

“I told her why we are here. I told her you wouldn’t hurt Jack.”

“The coffin?” I smiled. I couldn’t help it. He was a “jack in the box.”

“Yes,” Phillip said. He stared at me as if gri

It wasn’t, so I stopped, but it was something of an effort.

I nodded. If Rebecca wanted to shack up with vampires, that was her business. It certainly wasn’t police business.

“Go on, Rebecca. She’s trying to help us,” Phillip said.

“Why?” she asked.

It was a good question. I had scared her and made her cry. I answered her question. “The master of the city made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

She stared at me, studying my face, like she was committing me to memory. “I don’t believe you,” she said.

I shrugged. That’s what you get for telling the truth. Someone calls you a liar. Most people will accept a likely lie to an unlikely truth. In fact, they prefer it.

“How could any vampire threaten The Executioner?” she asked.

I sighed. “I’m not the bogeyman, Rebecca. Have you ever met the master of the city?”

“No.”

“Then you’ll have to trust me. I am scared shitless of the master. Anybody in their right mind would be.”

She still looked unconvinced, but she started talking. Her small, light voice told the same story she’d told the police. Bland and useless as a new-minted pe

“Rebecca, I am trying to catch the person, or thing, that killed your boyfriend. Please help me.”

Phillip hugged her. “Tell her what you told me.”

She glanced at him, then back at me. She sucked her lower lip in and scraped it with her upper teeth, thoughtful. She took a deep, shaky breath. “We were at a freak party that night.”

I blinked, then tried to sound reasonably intelligent. “I know a freak is someone who likes vampires. Is a freak party what I think it is?”

Phillip was the one who nodded. “I go to them a lot.” He wouldn’t look at me while he said it. “You can have a vampire most any way you want it. And they can have you.” He darted a glance at my face, then down again. Maybe he didn’t like what he saw.

I tried to keep my face blank, but I wasn’t having much luck. A freak party, dear God. But it was somewhere to start. “Did anything special happen at the party?” I asked.

She blinked at me, face blank, as if she didn’t understand. I tried again. “Did anything out of the ordinary happen at the freak party?” When in doubt, change your vocabulary.

She stared down into her lap and shook her head. Long, dark hair trailed over her face like a thin curtain.

“Did Maurice have any enemies that you know of?”

Rebecca shook her head without even looking up. I glimpsed her eyes through her hair like a frightened rabbit staring out from behind a bush. Did she have more information, or had I used her up? If I pushed she’d break, shatter, and maybe a clue would come spilling out, then again, maybe not. Her hands were tangled in her lap, white-knuckled. They trembled ever so slightly. How badly did I want to know? Not that badly. I let it go. Anita Blake, humanitarian.

Phillip tucked Rebecca in bed, while I waited in the living room. I half-expected to hear giggling or some sound that said he was working his charm. There was nothing but the quiet murmur of voices and the cool rustle of sheets. When he came out of the bedroom, his face was serious, solemn. He slipped his glasses back on and hit the light switch. The room was a thick, hot darkness. I heard him move in the ovenlike blackness. A rustle of jeans, a scrape of boot. I fumbled for the doorknob, found it, flung it open.

Pale light spilled in. Phillip was standing, staring at me, eyes hidden. His body was relaxed, easy, but somehow I could feel his hostility. We were no longer playing friends. I wasn’t sure if he was angry with me for some reason, or himself, or fate. When you end up with a life like Rebecca’s, there should be someone to blame.

“That could have been me,” he said.

I looked at him. “But it wasn’t.”

He spread his arms wide, flexing. “But it could be.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. What could I say? There but for the grace of God go you? I doubted God had much to do with Phillip’s world.

Phillip made sure the door locked behind us, then said, “I know at least two other murdered vampires were regulars on the party circuit.”

My stomach tightened, a little flutter of excitement. “Do you think the rest of the…victims could be freak aficionados?”

He shrugged. “I can find out.” His face was still closed to me, blank. Something had turned off his switch. Maybe it was Rebecca Miles’s small, starved hands. I know it hadn’t done a lot for me.

Could I trust him to find out? Would he tell me the truth? Would it endanger him? No answers, just more questions, but at least the questions were getting better. Freak parties. A common thread, a real live clue. Hot dog.

Chapter 21

Inside my car I turned the air conditioning on full blast. Sweat chilled on my skin, jelling in place. I turned the air down before I got a headache from the temperature change.

Phillip sat as far away from me as he could get. His body was half-turned, as much as the seat belt would allow, towards the window. His eyes behind their sunglasses stared out and away. Phillip didn’t want to talk about what had just happened. How did I know that? Anita the mind reader. No, just Anita the not so stupid.

His whole body was hunched in upon itself. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said he was in pain. Come to think of it, maybe he was.

I had just bullied a very fragile human being. It hadn’t felt very good, but it beat the heck out of knocking her senseless. I had not hurt her physically. Why didn’t I believe that? Now, I was going to question Phillip because he had given me a clue. The proverbial lead. I couldn’t let it go.

“Phillip?” I asked.

His shoulders tightened, but he continued to stare out the window.

“Phillip, I need to know about the freak parties.”

“Drop me at the club.”

“Guilty Pleasures?” I asked. Brilliant repartee, that’s me.

He nodded, still turned away.

“Don’t you need to pick up your car?”

“I don’t drive,” he said. “Monica dropped me off at your office.”

“Did she now?” I felt the anger, instantaneous and warm.

He turned then, stared at me, face blank, eyes hidden. “Why are you so angry at her? She just got you to the club, that’s all.”

I shrugged.

“Why?” His voice was tired, human, normal.

I wouldn’t have answered the teasing flirt, but this person was real. Real people deserve answers. “She’s human, and she betrayed other humans to nonhumans,” I said.