Boundary Lines (16 page)

“I wish I could help you with all of this,” Quinn said, sounding a little forlorn. He raised my hand and kissed the palm. “I never missed the daylight until I met you.”

It was an offhand comment, but it touched me, and I raised my head to give him a gentle kiss on the lips.

“Will you stay here, with me?” he asked.

“Mmm-hmm.” I settled back down and closed my eyes.

“Good.” But then his body tensed a little. “Lex,” he warned, “in the morning, I’ll be . . . out.”

I opened my eyes, but didn’t look at him in case the fear showed on my face. We’d never really talked about what happened to him during the daylight hours. “Dead?” I asked.

“Not exactly. I won’t rot . . . I won’t even look dead. I’m told it looks sort of like sleeping, but I don’t breathe or even have a heartbeat.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding against his chest. “I can handle that.”

He kissed the top of my head again, and I began to drift away in earnest. “Quinn?” I mumbled before I was all the way out.

“Hmm?”

“Is your first name really Arthur?”

His quiet laughter followed me into sleep.

Chapter 26

I slept hard, but had to get up around four to pee. When I returned to bed and crawled in next to Quinn, I realized he was breathing again. I reached out and pressed my palm against his cheek. His skin was as warm as mine.

At my touch, his eyes opened. He turned his head and kissed my palm. “Hi.”

We were face to face, inches apart, and in the dim light from the hallway I could see that his color had returned. As my eyes adjusted, I couldn’t help but notice he was still shirtless, and his chest was no longer bandaged. I put my hand against it, feeling only a tiny ridge where the injury had been. “You’re better.”

He nodded. “I went out and got something to eat,” he said lightly.
“I hope you don’t mind.”

I thought about that for a moment. Did I mind? I didn’t really care about him drinking someone else’s blood, but in the movies vampire feeding was always about sex, and the idea of him sleeping with someone else definitely bothered me. Then again, he’d fed from Simon and Lily, and that hadn’t been sexual.

Well, if I wanted to know, I was going to have to ask. “Did you, um . . .” I blushed, not sure how to phrase it.

His eyes narrowed in confusion, and then he made a sort of chuckling/snorting sound. “Sleep with her?”

“Well, yeah.”

“No. I didn’t even do that before I met you. It’s true that feeding is intimate, but so is therapy or a prostate exam,” he told me. “Sometimes we press people to think they had sex, because it explains the slight amount of bruising.”

“Oh.”

“What I usually do is press someone not to feel pain and then bite or cut their wrist and drink. When I’m finished, I press them again not to remember what happened.” His voice was matter-of-fact, clinical, like he was explaining a root canal. “It’s a transaction, more than anything else.”

“Oh.” I searched for the correct response to that, but all I could think of was, “Does it bother you?”

His hand drifted up to play with a lock of my hair that had spilled forward. He twisted it around his finger, thinking. “It used to. It used to really scare me.”

That seemed like an odd word choice. “Why scare?”

“It’s . . .” he paused for a moment, searching for words. “This sounds kind of weird, but have you ever been addicted to something? Cigarettes or whatever?”

I smiled ruefully. “I never smoked, but when I was overseas I got really into those horrible energy drinks, the ones that are all chemicals and caffeine. I won’t say how many I was drinking a day, because the number shames me, but let’s just say it was too many.”

“Yeah, but remember how good that first one tasted in the morning? How much you looked forward to that?”

I remembered. “It has a kind of power over you,” I said. “Not just physically—I would get withdrawal headaches—but emotionally, too. You think about it all the time, the next one, where it comes from, how good it’ll be . . .”

He nodded. “That’s what blood is like for vampires. An addiction that never goes away, never gets better. There’s no twelve-step program for something you need to survive. And the fact that you have to victimize someone else to get your fix . . .” His eyes were troubled. “At the same time, it’s impossible to keep
feeling
that, every single time you feed. You become numb to it. And, slowly, most of us become numb to everything else, too. But I don’t want that to happen to me.”

Without thinking about it, I inched forward and closed the gap between us, my lips meeting his. The kiss started out gentle, but then it was like a switch flipped for both of us. He shifted on top of me at the same time I shifted beneath him, like we had coordinated it beforehand. The skin on his chest was warm, but his fingers were cool as they traced the waistband of my jeans, tickling my sides. Effortlessly, Quinn scooted downward until his face was near my belly, and lifted the hem of my T-shirt just a few inches. He kissed my stomach, his fingers dancing at the buttons on my jeans. I writhed with pleasure as he opened the fly and kissed lower, his mouth heating up the fabric of my panties as he tugged the jeans off. His fingers brushed against the raised scar on my thigh, and I felt him pause for a moment, considering whether to stop and ask me. I really didn’t want that conversation right now, so I decided to distract him instead. Squirming, I pulled my shirt over my head, and he made a little interested noise, his mouth moving higher to explore. I laughed breathlessly as his lips traced a straight line up between my breasts. I thought he’d stop there, but he kept going until our lips met again. This kiss was more urgent, forceful, and soon I was so lost in it that I gasped when his hands found my breasts, cupping them through the thin fabric of my bra. With a growl, I rolled Quinn over so that I was on top. He grunted appreciatively, and just to mess with him I scooted down his body until I was straddling his crotch, his erection pressing against me. Grinning wickedly, I wriggled my hips, and saw something new on his face: a very human, very urgent expression of lust. Moving vampire-fast, he rose to meet me, his fingers tearing at the front of my sports bra, and after that we lost ourselves.

I managed to set Quinn’s alarm clock before I fell asleep again, lying on my stomach with Quinn half-draped over my back. When it went off at seven, I automatically reached over to hit the snooze, but by the time I opened my eyes enough to look for it, I had also realized that behind me, Quinn’s body had just sort of hit pause: no breath, no heartbeat, no more warmth.

I wanted to be cool and well-adjusted about the whole sleeping-with-a-vampire thing, but in actuality it felt pretty icky now, like being covered by a corpse. I scooted quickly out from under him and off the bed, letting the blanket puddle on the floor, and backed up until my naked shoulder blades hit the wall. Then I made a surprised noise of pain and realized that my whole body ached from the fight with Tony and the fall in Chautauqua. Great.

I got up, my movements stiff, and threw the blanket back over
Quinn—not because he was cold, but because he looked so vulnerable
lying exposed in the bed. I looked around on the floor for my clothes,
intending to take a quick shower. That was when I noticed that at
some point in the night, Quinn had brought the folding chair in from
the kitchen. My jacket was still slung on the back, but he’d added a folded towel. I went and picked it up, uncovering a little packet of paper that had been set out underneath. He’d written my name on
it,
and drawn a little bow. A present. Smiling, I picked up the towel and wrapped it around myself, then unfolded the sheets of paper.

The pages were newspaper clippings and bits of text culled from Wikipedia and Google books, all on the topic of Colorado madam Nellie Evans and her brothel, the semi-notorious House of Shadows. Quinn had used part of his night to do research for me, knowing I wouldn’t have a lot of free time today.

I looked back over at where he lay on the bed, wishing I could thank him, but he was . . . damn, I didn’t want to say “dead to the world,” but the bad puns just kept popping into my head. I sat down and began to read.

The House of Shadows had been built nearly a hundred and thirty years ago as a lovely Victorian home in downtown Denver. When the city’s red-light district began to spread, however, the owners found themselves alarmingly close to the ladies of the evening. They eventually gave in and sold the house to a woman named Nellie Evans, who turned it into one of the city’s nicer brothels. Nellie never achieved the fame or success of noted Denver madams like Mattie Silks, but she had a reputation for mischief that the newspapers of the time adored. There were stories of her and her protégé, a younger woman named Pale Jennie, racing horses and buggies through Main Street and dressing up in nun habits to sneak into a society party.

Nellie’s House of Shadows prospered until 1895, when both she and Pale Jennie abruptly vanished. There were rumors that they’d gone west to ply their trade in the California mines, but Nellie had left behind her beloved cat, which everyone said was out of character. The general consensus was foul play, but the police barely bothered to investigate. No one much cared when prostitutes disappeared out of the red-light district.

Huh. Reading between the lines, it was easy to draw a connection between Maven and this Pale Jennie. She had been great pals with Nellie for a while, which fit with Maven’s story—not to mention the complicated connection between vampires and boundary witches. Then Nellie had “killed” Pale Jennie, only to learn she was a bloodthirsty vampire. It was interesting that Maven had gone to the trouble of cutting off her head rather than drinking her blood to kill her, which might not have worked very well on a boundary witch. That implied that Maven had known what Nellie was, but not the other way around.

After Nellie’s disappearance, the House of Shadows changed hands over and over, more often than any other building in the neighborhood. It quickly gained a reputation for being creepy, even making a number of “Haunted Denver” lists over the decades. Go figure.

The house’s history took another turn in 1972 when an entrepreneur named J. J. Parks decided to buy the former brothel and turn it into a mini museum dedicated to the history of prostitution in Colorado. Denver was already the home of the Molly Brown House Museum, and I guessed he figured history buffs would be interested. It seemed reasonable, but the House of Shadows Museum only ran for a couple of years before complaints started filtering in from visitors: drafts that had no origin, bad smells, mustiness that couldn’t be aired out no matter how many windows were left open. Attendance plummeted.

In 1979, Parks closed his museum and put the building up for sale,
but it remained on the market for years, sliding into decay. Every now
and then, according to a “paranormal investigations” webpage about the location, Parks would get an offer from someone who wanted to buy the property, tear it down, and put in a commercial business.
Somehow, these plans always fell through. Since then, the only real vis
itors to the House of Shadows had been ghost hunters, including
sev
eral from reality television shows, who found the usual: EMPs, cold spots, creepy sounds. The same haunted-house stuff they found at any number of locations, except this time I knew they were dead on.

Damn. Stupid puns were everywhere.

I refolded the pages and set them on Quinn’s dresser. I didn’t want to bring them with me to the police station in case Keller decided to search me. I took a shower and dressed in the same red shirt and jeans, which were rumpled as hell, but reasonably clean. I had to go without a bra, though, because mine had been shredded down the middle. I couldn’t help but smile a little when I saw it. No, I definitely didn’t have a problem with attraction to Quinn.

As I swung my jacket on, I felt a weight shift in the left pocket of the jacket. I put my hand in slowly and pulled out my own cell phone, last seen skittering into the shadows at Chautauqua. He’d gone back to the park to find it for me. I smiled at it for a second. Quinn wasn’t exactly a “chocolate and flowers” kind of guy, but he knew how to show feelings where and when it counted. And he knew
me
, at least well enough to guess what gestures would mean the most to me. “Thank you,” I said to his still form, just in case he had some knowledge of what was happening. I was kind of glad he couldn’t see the stupid sappy smile on my face.

As I walked over to the car, I called Elise, who owed me a favor, and got her to agree to look after the herd on the way home from her watch-three patrol shift. Then I set my jaw and drove to the Boulder Police Station, promising myself that
this
time, I would not let Keller get to me.

Yeah, I know. Keep dreaming, Lex.

Chapter 27

The police station was already bustling when I arrived just before eight. It was shift change, and cops were rushing in and out, hurrying to clock in on time or hustling home to see their families. I saw Elise leaving, but she was engrossed in a conversation with another patrol officer and I didn’t interrupt them. If she knew I was there to talk to Keller, she’d just worry about me, or worse, try to get herself involved.

I gave the receptionist my name and went to wait on one of the black leather benches, keeping an eye on the people moving in and out
of the room. A couple of the patrol officers recognized me as Elise’s
cousin and gave me cool professional nods, which is how cops greet all civilians who may or may not be at the station willingly. After a while,
it appeared that Keller’s plan was to make me cool my heels. Typical of him, but I needed to be in Denver at nine thirty to pick up the thaumaturge witch from the airport, so after fifteen minutes, I went back up to the receptionist and told her very politely that I couldn’t wait, but I would return when my attorney was available to join me.

That
got Keller’s attention pretty fast. In short order, I was admitted to an interview room, which was just like the ones you see on television, but smaller, with nice walls made of that burlap-like wallpaper. There was no one-way glass, either, but a video camera was mounted in one corner, and other detectives monitored from another room. I sat down in one of the chairs, and Keller bustled in a moment later holding a stack of manila file folders. Stevens followed on his heels, carrying a small notebook. They took the chairs across from me.

“Good morning, Miss Luther,” Stevens began. “We brought a little visual aid to show you this morning.”

“All of these cases,” Keller growled, holding up his short pile of file folders, “are the ones that are either unsolved, or were just opened recently.” He held up the folders one at a time like a game-show host. “First we have a botched kidnapping, six weeks ago.” He slapped a file folder down, out of my reach. It was well-thumbed, more than half an inch thick. “Then human bones turn up at Chautauqua”—he put down another file—“and, of course, a college student goes missing.” Another file. “They found another one of them pellets last night, with bones and clothes inside. Meanwhile, I find myself needing to open up a vandalism case for one John Wheaton.” He dropped the last file carelessly on top of the others. He didn’t mention the death of Billy Atwood or Simon’s injuries, but I figured that was because Quinn had pressed everyone at the scene into truly believing the whole thing was some kind of farm accident. “Funny thing is,” Keller went on, “you’re connected to all of them.”

I raised my eyebrows. “How do you figure? I’m connected to John and Charlie, of course, but I had nothing to do with these . . . what did you call them? Pellets?”

He glowered at me. “You brought Dr. Pellar to the police station to examine the first pellet. I saw you myself.”

I shrugged. “Simon’s a friend. I gave him a ride.”

“How did you meet Dr. Pellar?” Stevens spoke up.

I had gotten so sucked into Keller’s bit with the folders, just as he’d intended, I’d almost forgotten she was there. “Ma’am?”

“You said you and Dr. Pellar are friends,” she prompted. “How did you two first meet?”

Oh. I gave her the same story I’d told Elise—that I’d visited one of Simon’s classes because I was thinking about auditing. “When was this?” she asked, pen poised over her notebook.

“Sorry, I can’t remember. Early September sometime.”

“What was the name of Dr. Pellar’s class, the one you attended?” she pressed.

Damn. I had kind of hoped this woman would be my ally, but if this was her version of “good cop,” her bad cop might be worse than Keller’s. I spread my hands wide. “Sorry, I don’t recall.”

“Is the relationship romantic?” Stevens asked.

“No, ma’am,” I replied. “Simon has a girlfriend. We’re just friends.”

“That doesn’t make sense to me,” Keller broke in. “Two people in their thirties with nothing in common, no romantic attachment, suddenly spending all this time together?”

I gave him a look. “So your theory is, what, that the two of us are forming a gang of local hooligans who break windows and eat people?”

“How
do
you explain your relationship with Dr. Pellar, Lex?” Stevens asked kindly. Ah,
there
was the good cop. Too late now, lady.

“How do you explain your partnership with Keller?” I countered, pointing a thumb at the other cop. “You lose a bet? Transfer in from somewhere else?”

They both ignored me, taking a moment to shuffle their papers and scribble notes I couldn’t see. With her eyes glued to her notepad, Stevens said in a casual tone, “Dr. Pellar is a fairly well-respected professor. His supervisors say he’s brilliant, but he has a little trouble with time management. Doesn’t publish much.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“He also has a lot of contacts in other countries,” Keller said pointedly. “Contacts who might be able to get him a big snake or even a Komodo dragon.”

Now Keller was accusing
Simon
? “Maybe he does,” I allowed. “But you guys came to him, not the other way around. Elise was the one who—” I cut myself off, but it was too late: Keller pounced.

“The one who wanted to call in Pellar? We know. We also know that
you
were the one who told her to do that.” He gave me a thin smile. “So you see, Ms. Luther, once again a suspicious situation can be traced back to you.”

“Are you ready to tell us who you were with last night?” Stevens said, her voice innocent.

“I was with Simon and his sister Lily,” I said, but my voice didn’t sound as strong as I’d have liked. We’d planned the alibi when I was walking them out to Lily’s car, but that was before I knew the police considered the Pellars my co-conspirators.

There was nothing to do now but stick to the story. “Lily was really upset over a breakup, so she asked Simon and me to come over and spend time with her. When I left last night, I told her to call me if she needed me to come back, and shortly after I arrived at John’s house, she did call.” That much was true—she’d called my cell to let me know the buzzer on Quinn’s apartment building wasn’t working. “I was worried, so I headed back as soon as I could. We stayed up late talking and watching movies at Lily’s house, and I ended up crashing on her couch.” I tugged at the front of my wrinkled shirt. “I haven’t even been home yet this morning.”

Keller started to bark something, but Stevens subtly signaled for him to wait. “Why didn’t you just tell us this last night?” she asked me.

“Because I didn’t want to tell you my friend’s secrets without her permission,” I said, trying to sound casual. “But I spoke to her this morning and she said it was okay.”

“And we can confirm all of this by checking your cell phone records?” Stevens asked mildly.

“No, you may not.” Both of their eyes narrowed at the same time, but I just shrugged again. “You would need a warrant for that, and I have a right to my privacy.”

Keller made a skeptical grunt in the back of his throat. “Riiiiiight,” he drawled. “So you’ve got this flimsy story, and we have no way of proving that any of it is true. How convenient.”

“You’re welcome to speak to Simon and Lily,” I said. I kept my tone even, because I am a grownup, and I wasn’t about to give in to the tiny voice suggesting I give Keller the finger. “Although of course I’d prefer that you not waste your time on me when you could be finding the real vandal.”

Keller and Stevens exchanged a look. She gave him a barely perceptible nod, and he turned to face me, looking angry. “Here’s what we’re thinking, Ms. Luther,” he said. “You came home from Iraq a hero, but then a few years passed. Now you’re in a dead-end job, no real friends, no romantic attachments because you’re in love with your dead sister’s husband.”

“John and I aren’t—” I began, but he cut me off.

“You act out a little bit, get arrested a couple of times, then finally, you get an idea: You’ll stage a kidnapping. Get even more attention and glory for yourself, and your brother-in-law’s gratitude, to boot.”

Even though I’d figured it was coming, I still felt like I’d been slapped. I could tell by Keller’s smirk that it showed on my face. “But eventually the hubbub from all
that
fades too,” he went on, “and suddenly you’re bored and alone again. So you and your new pal Pellar cook up another, more exciting plan, kind of a fun
Strangers on a Train
twist: You help him get some exotic snake-thing and let it loose in Chautauqua. You hook him up with Elise, making him look like a big important police consultant, which makes him look good to his bosses at the university and helps balance out his lack of publishing. And in return, he helps you trash your brother-in-law’s house. Was it like a revenge thing, because he’s with another woman?”

“Simon’s walking with a cane,” I pointed out. “His doctors can confirm that for you.”

Stevens jumped in. “He doesn’t actually have to be the one who destroyed the house,” she remarked. “Maybe he stood watch, or kept an eye on John while he was on his date.”

I felt my temper heat up. The worst part was that their whole theory had terrifying little bits of truth in it. I
had
acted out after the army, not to get attention, but because I was all twisted up with fury and frustration and had nowhere to put it. And there was a time when I’d been a little bit in love with John, but I was certain that was over now. I loved him, but it was because he was family. Because he was Charlie’s dad. But how could I prove
that
?

One of my bigger problems here was that I couldn’t point them toward Quinn as either my alibi or my “boyfriend,” not that I’d use that term anyway. If they managed to find him before the sun set, he wouldn’t exactly be a credible witness. In fact, that would just set
off a giant pile of new and more dangerous problems.

On the other hand, I was starting to get a bit nervous that they were actually going to arrest me for vandalism and maybe manslaughter-by-giant-lizard.

They were both staring at me expectantly, and Keller had begun
to tap a pen on the table, trying to unnerve me. Ignoring him, I took a slow breath, in and out. “Your theory is full of problems,” I said, as calmly as I could. “If I had planned the whole kidnapping, do you really think I would have let myself get hurt enough to actually
die
several times in surgery? If my whole goal was to attract attention and hero worship, why did I turn down interviews from every newspaper and news blog within five hundred miles? Pick a major paper, and they called me the week after the thing at the Depot. You can verify that too.”

Keller started to retort, but now it was my turn to talk over him. “You have absolutely no evidence connecting the break-ins to the kidnapping, and even if you did, there’s no evidence connecting those crimes to the pellets, or the pellets to me. All you know is that I gave Simon a ride. You’re just fishing.”

I saw the glint in Keller’s eyes, and knew the emotional attack was coming before he opened his mouth. “You tore up that little girl’s room,” he said softly, dangerously. “I saw her crib, after someone ripped it apart. It takes strength to do that, real strength.” His eyes flickered down to the sleeves of my hand-me-down jacket, where my biceps strained against the leather. “It takes a messed-up brain, too.”

“It’s not your fault, Lex,” Stevens put in, her voice dripping with sympathy. “A lot of people came home from the war with wires crossed. We can get you the help you need.”

“Before you hurt anyone else,” Keller added. “Like that little girl you claim to love so much.”

For reasons I will never fully understand, I felt stinging tears flood into my eyes. I cursed myself inwardly. I was making everything worse by crying, goddammit. I had known he was going to take a cheap shot, so why did it sting this much?

Because I
was
afraid of getting Charlie hurt. That part was real. But it wasn’t because I thought I would hurt her, not directly. I worried I wasn’t going to be good enough, strong enough, to keep her safe from the whole Old World. And that terror suddenly flooded my body, sharp and crippling.

There was a long, terrible silence, while I struggled for control of myself. Stevens’s and Keller were looking at me with expectant faces—Stevens’s was kind, and Keller was obviously trying to mask his glee. Before I could speak, however, the interview room door flew open and a woman walked in. She was about fifty, with that silvering blonde hair that looks great on middle-aged women. Her strong, competent features gave her a commanding appearance, which was further emphasized by her blue tailored business suit and the thunderous look on her face.

“Chief!” Stevens jumped to her feet, with Keller right behind her. “What are you—I mean, how can we help you, ma’am?”

The woman ignored the both of them and beelined for me, holding out her right hand for me to shake. “Ms. Luther. So good to meet you. I’m Kim Bryant, the chief of police.”

Uncertainly, I stood up and shook her outstretched hand. She had a strong grip. “Um, hello.”

Only then did Bryant turn her attention to Keller and Stevens, who were busy exchanging identical mystified looks. I was guessing that the police chief probably didn’t storm into interview rooms all that often. “Can one of you two please explain to me why in the hell you’ve brought this young woman in here?” Bryant demanded.

“Uh . . .” Keller hastily picked up the pile of case files from the table. “She’s been linked to a number of recent crimes—”

“Because she’s a
victim
,” Bryant snapped. “Not to mention a decorated war veteran and the daughter of an extremely prominent local business owner.” She gave me a sincere look. “Thank you for your service, Ms. Luther.”

My jaw dropped open. I never know how to respond when people say that to me, but this moment was so bizarre that I just sort of nodded my head. She’d mentioned my father—had he set this up? Had he sent his eight hundred-pound gorilla of a lawyer in to . . . no, that didn’t make any sense, either. My dad had a little pull, probably enough to get me some nice manners at a questioning, but he had no idea I was here. Even if John had told him, he wouldn’t have called the chief of police; he would have sent the lawyer. I wasn’t sure he’d ever had a conversation with Bryant, let alone an interaction that would give him this amount of sway.