Heat Stroke

“Patrick?” I asked. His too-blue eyes flashed to me, and then away. He looked uncomfortably guilty. “What’s up?”

Lewis was up off the couch, now, too, clearly wary. He didn’t like drop-in visitors any more than I did, especially not right now, when things were so… weird.

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said. “You see, I had a preexisting commitment.”

“Sorry…?”

“A business partner,” he said, and indicated the woman, who was still studying the Mondrian with her back to me. “We have something of a barter arrangement. I owe her something.”

She turned, finally, and it took me a few seconds before the memory ball dropped. Yvette Prentiss, from my funeral. She was out of uniform—no lace dress—but the skintight jeans with lace insets on the sides and the tight lace shirt, no bra in evidence, made a definite fashion statement. The statement said, Hi, I’m a total slut, climb aboard and ride me like a rented pony. Bear in mind, this is coming from a girl with a finely honed appreciation for trashy outfits. I once spent two hundred bucks on a pair of thigh-high patent leather boots, just to say I owned them. But there are limits.

Her eyes widened, and kept on widening. On her, that looked sexy. Her pouty, collagen-enhanced lips parted. “Oh,” she whispered, low in her throat. “I know you.”

“Yvette?” Lewis had stepped into the conversational gap. He took a couple of steps closer, and extended his hand. “We met at the—”

“Memorial service,” she supplied, looking past him at me. “For her.”

Lewis turned and looked, too, as if he’d forgotten all about that. “Well… yes. She’s—”

“—Dji

Patrick cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Yes. Well, another small problem… she’s already been claimed.”

Yvette’s smile died a fast, ugly death. Her prettiness had a hard edge to it, I found, like a razor blade under velvet. “This isn’t what we agreed.”

“I know.” He helplessly indicated Lewis. “There were… considerations.”

Her green eyes locked onto Lewis’s face and held there. The smile came back, but I didn’t trust it. I couldn’t tell from Lewis’s bemused expression if he was even paying attention to anything but the generously revealed swell of her chest.

“Of course,” she said. “Well, I’m flattered to meet you again… sorry, I didn’t catch your name…?”

“Call me Lewis,” he said. She was pretty much the last person I’d pick to know who he was, but I could tell he didn’t feel the same way. “You were looking for a Dji

“Well, yes.” She looked sad-clown distressed, but not enough that it made her look less than stu

Lot of that going around. I folded my arms and tried to look threatening. Neither of them paid the least bit of attention. Patrick wouldn’t meet my gaze, either. The kid was roaming the room, checking out the stuff. He looked back over at Yvette, who nodded slightly, and went back to messing with movables, picking them up and putting them down. Checking for price tags? Jeez.

“I’m afraid she’s booked up,” he said. “But maybe there’s something I can do for you.”

Her eyes raked him up and down. Blatantly. “I’m sure that’s perfectly true.” She giggled.

He laughed. I hadn’t heard Lewis laugh in—well, I don’t think I’d ever heard him laugh. Not a yuk-it-up kind of guy, generally. His humor was quiet, his sexuality—well, until now, I would have thought it was kind of subdued.

“Nothing I can do to change your mind?” she asked, and looked up at him from under thick lashes. Moved closer. “You look like you’d drive a hard… bargain.”

I rolled my eyes, thought about picking up the phone. Hello, Central Casting? Are you missing your Seducto-Bitch stereotype? Surely he could see it was an act.

“I’ve been known to… bargain,” he said, and smiled at her. Was that a leer? Was he actually flirting with Miss Artificial Intelligence of 2003? “Maybe later we could—”

She arched against him like he was a pole and she was the stripper. “How about a little negotiating session now?”

This time, I did find my voice. “Ah, excuse me?”

She put her hands in his pockets, pulling him groin to groin for a vertical lapdance. He was trying to step away, but not really putting any effort into it. More of the token I’m-a-nice-guy-but-I-can-be-persuaded sort of resistance. I knew, because I’d done the female version of it often enough. And hey, once with Lewis.

David hadn’t liked her. Not at all. And I was more than willing to go with David’s instincts, especially when mine were screaming bloody murder.

“Not now,” Lewis said absently to me. Which was not quite an order, but had the definite aroma of one. And I didn’t like that at all.

“Hey!” This time I put some lung power into it. “Lewis! Use the big brain. What the hell does she want? And if you think that for one minute I’m going to work for this cut-rate road show temptress…”

Her hand came out of Lewis’s pocket.

She was holding the small perfume vial in her hand, and a small plastic stopper. My bottle. I felt a lurch, as if gravity was shifting, and felt a sickening sense of despair close over me. Oh God…

Lewis pulled free and shoved her back. His eyes went wide. He reached out for the perfume bottle, grabbed hold of her wrist…

… and the kid, who’d been examining a heavy glass bowl, lunged forward and hit him in the head with it. Lewis staggered and went to his hands and knees. The kid—tall, gawky, pale, his knuckles white around the edges of the leaded glass—raised it for another blow.

“Stop!” I yelled, and reached out to give him the most powerful whammy that I still had at my command.

“No, you stop. Right there.” Yvette’s cool, southern-smoothed voice. I jerked to a halt. Utterly, completely out of control. No, in her control. She was holding my bottle, and that meant she was holding me, too. Body and soul.

“Now, is that really necessary?” Patrick asked weakly, and waved at the boy and Lewis. “You have what you want. There’s no need for all this violence—”

“Shut up, Patrick,” Yvette snapped. Patrick winced and turned away, shoulders hunched. He raised his hands in surrender.

Lewis was still trying to get to her, crawling slowly now, blood dripping out of his hairline to spatter the flesh-pale carpet. His voice was weak and deep in his throat. “Jo, go, get out—”

“You. Do not move,” Yvette said, precisely. Nailing me in place as the boy with the glass bowl advanced again, skittishly, aiming for another swing at Lewis’s head. “Kevin. Do it.”

“No!” She hadn’t made me stop talking, just moving. I screamed it as the boy lifted the heavy bowl. I reached desperately for power…

But Lewis got there first.

The bowl shattered into sharp-edged, spi

He kicked Lewis in the head, taking his anger out on the nearest and most helpless target. Lewis went down. Stayed down. I couldn’t see him from where I was, pi

Patrick rounded on them, shouting, “That’s enough! No more!”

The boy stopped, panting. His face was corpse-pale, shining with sweat.

“You pla