Charming Blue (13 page)

“So go,” Jodi said. “They might know who is doing this.”

“I’m sure they know,” Tank said. “But getting them to tell me is another matter. Have you ever talked to the Fates?”

“No,” Jodi said.

“More rules than a fairy tale princess,” Tank said. “And to say that they speak elliptically is an understatement. I’ve gone to them before, and their advice then boiled down to
Solve
it
yourself
.”

“Greee-at,” Jodi said.

“We’ll work on this one,” Tank said, “and if we need them, we’ll send Blue.”

“Blue?” Jodi said.

Tank shrugged. “I always look at it this way: let the person with the most at stake deal with those women.”

“So you don’t have to.” Jodi smiled tiredly. She had that philosophy about her own business. “Has he gone to them before?”

“Are you kidding?” Tank asked. “He thought he was a mass murderer. Do you think he’d go to the law?”

“Good point,” Jodi said. Then she fell backward on the bed. “What’s going to make him believe us now?”

“I don’t know,” Tank said. “But he’s got to. There are a lot of lives at stake.”

Jodi propped herself up on her elbows so that she could see Tank. “Gee, Tank, you sound like you actually care.”

“I’m not the heartless fairy,” Tank snapped. “Her name is spelled differently.”

“What is this with you and Tink?” Jodi asked.

“None of your damn business,” Tank said and flew away.

Chapter 15

Tank came back ten minutes later. By that time, Jodi had all the lights on and had changed into a pair of jeans and a white blouse. She was still barefoot, but she felt a bit more in control now.

Except that she knew she couldn’t sleep.

She went into her in-home office because she wasn’t comfortable anywhere else. She loved her kitchen, but there was no quick exit out of it. The dining room was too formal, and the front door in the living room made her nervous.

The office, like her bedroom, opened onto the pool. In fact, when she bought the house, the office had been the master suite—not that 1920s houses had master suites. It had been the biggest bedroom, and it had had a small window that looked out over the pool. She had replaced the window with sliding glass doors so that she had a good view of the pool and the backyard.

A soothing view—one that still managed to soothe.

“There’s no one outside,” Tank said, as if that was news, as if she hadn’t left because Jodi pissed her off.

Tank was sitting on the edge of Jodi’s desk. The desk here was glass with steel legs. Tank had walked across the glass to get to the edge, leaving tiny footprints on the polished surface.

“It’s okay, Tank,” Jodi said tiredly. She was sitting in her desk chair, but she wasn’t getting any work done. She wasn’t even sure what work there was to do, which made her realize just how rattled she was. “You don’t have to stick with me. I’ll be fine.”

“No, you won’t,” Tank said. “Right now, all we have to go on are those Fairy Tale Stalker reports and all the versions of the Bluebeard fairy tale. And while that doesn’t give us a lot, it does give us one thing: we know that these women were always alone when they were attacked.”

“They were alone except for that image or projection or whatever that thing was in my bedroom.” Jodi shuddered. She was still creeped out by this. She wondered if she would always be.

“Well, it depends on your definition of alone, doesn’t it?” Tank snapped. “I’m not even sure that thing is alive.”

“But it can kill.”

Tank made a loud exasperated noise. “We don’t know what kills the women. We just know that this thing—this image—is the first sign. And we know it shows up when women, the
victims
, are alone.”

Jodi narrowed her eyes. She was not a victim. Or, at least she wasn’t going to be. Victims screamed and cried and ran helplessly through dark streets.

She hadn’t screamed or cried, but she had run out of her bedroom, somewhat helplessly.

She banished that thought from her brain. She had
escaped
, that was all.

“My point,” Tank was saying, “was that these women were ripe for the pickings. Easy targets. Vulnerable.”

She rolled the words through her mouth as if they were specially designed to irritate Jodi.

“I’m not an easy target,” Jodi said.

“I think anyone would be an easy target if they were alone,” Tank said.

Jodi looked at her for a long moment. For once, Tank wasn’t trying annoy her. Tank was worried about her.

“Thanks,” Jodi said. “I really appreciate it.”

Tank nodded, then waved a hand. “Do whatever it is you do. I’ll keep an eye out.”

And then she wove a circle of fairy dust around the room, slipped down onto one of the easy chairs, and fell sound asleep.

Chapter 16

They left the house a few hours later.

Jodi called Ramon’s office line and got his voice mail. (She had a tiny hope that he would come in early, but this was
really
early.) She said that she had an unexpected meeting that morning, and he should reschedule everything she had for that day to later in the week. Then she drove to the rehab center with Tank so that they could arrive by the beginning of visitor’s hours.

Jodi had called ahead, just to let Dr. Hargrove and Bluebeard know she was on her way. They were halfway there when she remembered the anti-Tank wards.

Tank waved a hand, which was clearly her don’t-sweat-it gesture. “I’ll just wait for you outside.”

And after Jodi parked, Tank sat on the dash as if the car had been designed for her. True to form, the guard didn’t even notice. He just gave Jodi her name badge as if they had become old friends and escorted her inside.

Bluebeard was already in the meeting room. As she walked toward it, Jodi’s stomach did one lazy flip. Since Tank had accompanied her the entire way, Jodi hadn’t given these next moments any thought. For some reason, she thought Tank would have her back, and of course, Tank wasn’t even here.

Jodi straightened, tugged her purse over her shoulder, and headed toward the room. Before she had left the house, she had taken a long, hot shower and changed into an all-black business suit. She found that clothes—particularly dress clothes—made her feel stronger. And she had a hunch that she would need to feel strong today. But she felt grimy just the same. Part of it was the exhaustion, which was stalking her like a tiny but relentless demon.

She resisted the urge to touch her hair or check her makeup. This Bluebeard problem was a job she was doing for Tank—even though she wasn’t quite sure how or even if Tank would pay her.

It was hard to keep her professional attitude, though. The bottom line was that someone had hated Bluebeard enough to put this horrible, horrible curse on him, and now somehow, she had been sucked into it as well.

She pushed the door to the meeting room open and stopped, surprised to see him sitting down. His hair was wet, like he had just gotten out of the shower, and it dripped along the back of his white shirt. The shirt was untucked, and he wore a ripped pair of blue jeans. His feet were bare, and the room smelled faintly of chlorine.

“Hey,” he said, still not looking at her. Instead, he had the papers she had brought him spread out over the coffee table. They were in little bundles. “I thought you were going to call. I didn’t expect to see you here. When Dr. Hargrove told me you were coming, I was surprised.”

She didn’t respond right away. Instead, she remained beside the door, purse in hand, and looked at his aura.

It was blue, like it had been the day she met him, but the blue had faded. It was diluted with disorganized magic that snaked and sparked around the edges, almost like heat lightning in a clear sky.

Unlike heat lightning, though, an amber light surrounded and contained his aura, puncturing it and damaging it.

She wondered if he could feel the change.

“Everything all right?” he asked, looking up. His gaze met hers so briefly that if she hadn’t been watching for it, she wouldn’t have noticed it.

“Actually, no,” she said.

He blinked, looked down, then moved his head to the other side, as if he didn’t quite know where to let his eyes settle.

“It’s okay,” she said as she came farther into the room. “You can look at me.”

“No, I explained—”

“I know,” she said, “and you were right.”

This time he did bring his head up, and on his face was an expression of such naked pain that it almost hurt to see it. “What happened?”

She could hear the panic in his voice, so she smiled at him. This was what she did: she fixed distress.

“Tank and I,” she said, “we figured out what’s going on.”

“Oh,” he said and immediately looked away. He clearly thought she meant with the Fairy Tale Stalker.

“With you,” she said.

He frowned, then shook his head. “I’ve know that for centuries,” he said.

“No, you haven’t,” she said. “What happened to you isn’t what you think. It’s a curse.”

“No kidding,” he said.

“A
real
curse,” she said. “And it’s destroyed countless lives. And now it’s starting again.”

“With this guy,” he said softly, his hand moving across the papers.

“No, Blue,” she said, deciding to use his nickname. “With you.”

Chapter 17

Blue propelled himself out of the couch and backed away from Jodi as quickly as he could. He scrambled around the couch, putting it between them.

“I didn’t do anything, did I? I was awake all night. I was
here
. I couldn’t have done anything, could I?”

He sounded like an ass. He
was
an ass, but that was the least of his worries. He had hurt someone, damaged someone, maybe had been hurting or damaging all along.

Or killing them. God, what if he had been killing people without realizing it?

Again.

What if he had been doing it again?

But Jodi hadn’t run away. She hadn’t fled to the door; she hadn’t done anything.

Except sit down.

She set her purse on the floor beside her chair and folded her hands in her lap.

Like a counselor would, waiting for the patient to calm down enough to talk to.

But she wasn’t a counselor. She was a chatelaine or the daughter of chatelaines, and she’d transferred that to Hollywood somehow. She had called herself a fixer. She fixed things. That was why Tank had gone to her.

At least, that was what she had said.

“How come you’re not scared?” he asked. “Yesterday you were scared of me. You were disgusted by me. Today you’re not.”

She sat straight, hands clasped together. She was wearing black, and it accented her auburn hair. She looked perfect. She looked calm.

She looked beautiful.

He couldn’t notice how beautiful she was. He didn’t dare.

“I’m not scared or disgusted,” she said, “because I know what’s going on now.”

His heart was racing. He gripped the back of the couch so hard that his fingers were digging into the fabric. “You’re what, psychic now? How can you know?”

“You’re not going to like what I tell you,” she said. “Why don’t you sit down?”

He was too panicked to sit down. Too frightened. Not of her. But of himself.

“Just tell me,” he said.

So she did.

And it was hard for him to listen to her. He had gone to her house, to her bedroom, he had woken her up like he had done every other woman he ever hurt, and he hadn’t spoken. His fiancée—his first one—she had thought it seductive, seeing him, thought he was teasing her, and she had joked about it the following day. And it had gone on for a few more days before… before…

“Are you listening?” Jodi asked.

He nodded. “That last part,” he said. “I was in the room, right?”

“That’s what I thought,” she said, “and truthfully, I ran. I was afraid of you, Blue.”

He nodded. He could barely breathe. Dammit, it was happening again. To this woman. He
liked
her. He didn’t want to hurt her.

He didn’t want to hurt anyone.

“You should be afraid of me,” he said sadly. “Everyone should.”

He was.

Then the door opened. Dr. Hargrove peeked in. His curly hair was mussed, and he had a fresh coffee stain on his shirt. He’d clearly hurried here from somewhere else.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Blue had forgotten: the staff had been watching everything on a security feed. They saw his panic, saw Jodi act calm, saw how distressed he was.

Blue didn’t even have a plausible lie.