Windfall

This had turned out to be one hell of a jog.

It was a long night. Kevin went to the Emergency Room, who diagnosed anemia and said he was ru

We managed, somehow, to avoid the press, who were scurrying all over the story of sinkholes on the beach. IS YOUR CHILD SAFE? Film at eleven… by the time we made it back to my apartment, I realized that my life was well and truly out of control. Bad enough there was the whole job situation, but now there was Sarah and her boyfriend, and Lewis, and Kevin, and the Dji

And my feet hurt like hell.

Rodriguez insisted on coming in and checking out the apartment. Eamon and Sarah were not in immediate view, but her bedroom door was closed. I didn’t, ah, inquire.

“Right,” I said, and looked at my little flock. “Kevin, Lewis—sit down before you fall down.”

Lewis was already lowering himself to the couch, but he shot me a grateful look.

Rodriguez leaned against the door, arms folded, and frowned at me. Kevin, who should have been out on his feet from the painkillers, shuffled around the apartment, ragged black jean hems dragging the carpet, and fondled my stuff. Ah, yes. I remembered his great respect for personal boundaries. Even his brush with death hadn’t dampened his enthusiasm for that.

I sucked in a pained breath as I put my feet up on a battered hassock and let myself relax, just a little, for the first time in hours. “I don’t suppose you have anyplace to go,” I said to Lewis. Who shook his head. “Fine. You’re staying here. Kevin, you too. Um…”

Detective Rodriguez arched his eyebrows. “I have accommodations.” Yeah, the White Van Hilton.

“Thank you,” I said.

“For leaving?” He sounded amused.

“For staying when you didn’t have to. When things didn’t make any sense.”

He shrugged and gave me a wintry smile. “I’m just saving my interrogation for later. Tonight, I’m just having a drink and trying not to think about it.”

“Good plan,” Lewis said. “I could use a beer.”

I took the hint, went into the kitchen, and popped two Michelob Lights, carried them out along with a Coca-Cola, which I handed to Kevin. Who gave me a filthy look.

“Underage,” I said. “And way too unpredictable to give beer to, anyway. And do we need to talk about painkillers and alcohol?”

He kept glaring.

“Take it as a compliment that I don’t still want you dead.”

He didn’t, but he drank the Coke anyway. I held up another Michelob for Rodriguez’s inspection; he accepted without a word. I went for a glass of white wine. Sarah had left a bottle chilling in the fridge.

“So,” I said, and sat down on the floor to mournfully consider my aching, pink feet. “How screwed are we, exactly?”

Lewis tipped back the beer bottle. His throat worked. He considered everything carefully before he said, “If we were any more screwed, we’d be having a cigarette and enjoying the afterglow.”

Rodriguez choked on his beer. Nice to know he had a sense of humor. I’d been starting to wonder.

“Why are they after you? No, wait, back up. Who are they?”

“Wardens.”

“Yeah, obviously. But… ?” Lewis pressed the cold bottle to his forehead and cast a quick look at Rodriguez. I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I’m telling him everything. No way around it at this point; besides, he’s Qui

“The whole truth?”

“Yep.”

Lewis shook his head, obviously not convinced of my sanity, but let it go. Got back on the subject. “The Wardens are breaking apart. I knew it was coming; they just don’t have enough structure left to keep it in place. They’re breaking into factions. This one caught the rumors about the Dji

“Why the hell would they come after you?”

“They’ve been told that I’m on a crusade to free all the Dji

I looked at him for a second. “Hmmm. Are you?”

“Separate issue.” Oh, boy.

“Lewis—”

“Drop it, Jo.”

“Okay, fine, so you’ve been preaching freedom for all Dji

“Yep.”

“And I think some of those Wardens may be…”

“Demon-marked? Makes sense, they’re certainly powerful enough. Rahel’s been trying to keep them off my back, but they’re like wolves. I can’t shake them for long. It’s going to come down to killing, sooner or later.” He seemed depressed by that.

“One of them—Shirl—she was a protégée of Marion’s,” I said. “I’ll call Paul, find out if Marion still has some kind of control over things…”

“Marion’s in the hospital,” Lewis said flatly. “She was hurt. Car accident. I just heard from Paul an hour ago.”

I stopped worrying about my feet. “They’re targeting us. This isn’t random.”

“They’re going after the most powerful senior Wardens. That leaves gaps to fill. It’s a coup, or at least they think it is. From Ashan’s perspective, he’s just dismantling the Wardens altogether.”

“What about Paul?”

He shook his head. I tried to stand up and felt my knee give a sharp enough twinge that I had to stay down. I looked over at Kevin, who was fondling my minuscule DVD collection. “Hey. Walking wounded. Put Mel Gibson down and step away.”

“Lethal Weapon rocks.”

“Yes, it does. Go get me the phone.”

“Get it yourself, b—”

“Kevin,” Lewis said softly. “Look at her feet. She can barely walk. Shut up and get the damn phone.”

Kevin flushed—unattractively—and glared at him, but ducked his head and put the DVD back on the shelf. “Where is it?”

I nodded toward the kitchen. Kevin shuffled off in that direction. Lewis’s eyes followed him. “He’s not a terrible kid,” he said. “But he needs somebody to tell him when he’s a fuckup.”

“He should be lying down.”

“Trust me, he will. Right now, he’s scared half to death. Let him walk it off.”

I was afraid that the light in Lewis’s eyes might be fondness. As if he was seeing something of himself in Kevin. Which was ridiculous, of course. Lewis had never been anything like Kevin, in any way.

“Lewis—he’s a sociopath,” I said, “and don’t you forget it, or you’ll end up with a knife between those nice broad shoulders, and I’ll be very sad.”

Rodriguez finished off his beer in one long, expert gulp and said, “Okay, that’s it for me. Entertaining as this little fairy tale is, I’m going to get some rest. Don’t you do anything stupid. I’ll know.”

I had no doubt. He probably had motion sensors or something set up, or maybe had hired a second line of private eyes to keep track while he was catching shuteye.

He was the thorough type.

“I won’t go anywhere,” I told him. “Oh, except to work. I’m due at the studio at six.” Which made it barely worth trying to go to bed, at this point.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “you and me, we’re going to sit down. And you’re going to explain this. Right?”

I saw no way around it, really. “Right.”

He nodded, glanced at Lewis by way of a cop’s good-bye, and let himself out.

Tapped the door significantly. Lewis got up to click the dead bolts—both of them—shut. Not that they’d do much good against the Wardens, or the Dji