Damn Him to Hell (24 page)

It was his turn to snort. “Hell, no. Gloria gave me a job at the plant to shut me up. Told me to snoop around all I wanted, see if I could prove Acme had
anything to do with my mother’s condition. I shut up, learned to play Joe Cool, and almost got fried in the chemical flood a few months later.”

“Intentionally?” I had to ask.

“That’s a question only the devil can answer.”

Typically, he cut off the communication just as it was getting interesting by dropping to the floor next to me. Without warning, he swung one leg over mine and trapped me between his knees. I scrambled to escape; my cushion slipped, and I toppled backward. Milo had the sense to leap for safety before he was squashed by Andre’s weight. Andre had me flat on the floor with his big arms propped on either side of me before I could manage a protest.

Okay, maybe the humming gonads were in control after all. I really liked his crotch pressed into mine.

He planted kisses behind my ear and along my throat, and I shivered in anticipation. So much for my much-touted determination. The man was dynamite. I ached for more. As a diversion from a touchy topic, his move worked much too well.

Not according to plan, Andre propped his weight on his hands and bulging biceps and continued talking, depriving me of more intimate contact. “Paddy pulled me out of the flood. It was a Saturday night. I don’t know what he was even doing at the plant on a weekend. I didn’t know about the Magic lab then, but I suspected it.”

I didn’t scramble away. Torn between wanting sex and his story, I waited.

He bent over and kissed my lips this time, frying
my brain before I could absorb the implications of Andre caught in a chemical flood. I wrapped my arms around his neck and drank in magic sex. Damn, but he was too good. I was hot and ready and so not doing this.

I grabbed his ears and yanked him out of my face. “Why are you telling me now?” I demanded.

Andre shifted upward, removing his ears from the imminent danger of my fingernails. He straddled my waist and cupped my breasts. I nearly creamed my pants until I summoned my damned rebellious self-control and tried to scramble out from under him. When he found the opening to my shirt, I located the pulse point on his arm and applied enough pressure to cut off circulation. Rather than lose use of an arm, he swung off me and leaned against the wall as I’d been doing earlier.

I hurried to sit up again. The battle of the sexes held new meaning when Andre and I went at it.

“We have to get Bill and the others out of Acme’s lab before the place blows again,” Andre announced, as if he’d just said,
Thanks for the quick lay
.

“Paddy can do that if he inherits, can’t he?” I grabbed my cushion and scooted out of his range.

“There will be court battles and power struggles if Paddy tries to take over, but we need to see he has the chance,” he agreed. “It just won’t help Bill right now. I think there’s more going on over there than even Gloria knew. I can’t keep an eye on Acme from a jail cell. Haven’t you felt the rumbles?”

Damn, I’d been afraid those mini-earthquakes
weren’t my imagination. Andre knew damned well I couldn’t abandon Bill to potential disaster. “What can I do?” I asked.

“Be my lawyer,” he said without inflection. “Keep me out of jail so we can stop Acme.”

He might as well have come after me with the bat again. Except I knew how to tumble and roll from a weapon. I didn’t know how to avoid a responsibility so huge I figured it would crush me like a spider under a steamroller. I gaped in amazement, but I doubted he could see me.

“I don’t have one iota of courtroom experience,” I protested, shoving back to lean against the wall. “It’s a murder one rap! I don’t own a law library. I don’t have a defense team of any sort. You’re asking the insane.”

“Not totally,” Andre argued. “No one else will take my case, so you’re a better option than nothing.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, neatly put in my place.

He ignored that. “My father’s available to offer his expertise and experience. He just won’t leave the house, so you have to be his face in the courtroom. He has the library and the contacts. And you have one advantage that no one else does—you understand the Zone and what’s at stake. To anyone else, we’re scum. They have nothing to lose if I go to jail.”

I had enough conceit to entertain the idea with great glee. I could rub Reggie’s nose in my dust. But I’m a realist as well, dammit. “You’re putting your life in feeble hands, Legrande. If money isn’t an issue, we can go outside Baltimore for representation.”

“The Zone needs its own lawyer, Clancy,” he said wearily. “Paddy needs someone to handle the estate’s probate. We need to see that he has full access to Acme. We have problems that no normal lawyer can address. And you have the key to justice.”

He had a point there, possibly in more ways than he understood. I pushed the heels of my palms into my eyes and tried to work around it. The legal system didn’t recognize shape-shifters and snake conjurers like Sarah and Cora. It didn’t understand dollar bills that turned to winking Georges or traffic lights that blinked purple. The law liked black and white and not the shades of neon that existed here.

And once I had enough evidence for a case, I could make my own justice—without court approval. Heady—
dangerous
—stuff. But I wasn’t certain Andre fully comprehended that I could be his judge and jury.

“Julius is on board with this?” I asked, stalling. I’d seen that look Julius and Paddy had exchanged. This was their friggin’ idea. They’d just had to run it by Andre first.

“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise,” he said, as expected. “If nothing else, it will give my father something constructive to do besides mope over what can’t be changed. I wouldn’t ask if I thought you couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t ask if I thought you would move on and have a life. But whatever you are, Clancy, it’s not normal.”

“You’re such a flatterer.” I pushed off the wall and snapped on a light. Andre appeared paler than he should have, but there wasn’t anything wrong with
the rest of him. Giving his bulging trouser front a look of regret, I headed for the kitchen.

“I can set up an office for you across the street,” he called from the front room. “It’s still clear from Zone interference and not too damaged from the explosion. You can have the latest equipment, access to online libraries. I can’t promise you’ll make a living wage.”

Which would mean a huge step up for me, actually. With my own office and equipment, I could make more money than I was as an intern. It would be far more satisfying than serving coffee and answering phones. Although I’d have to answer my own phone. I couldn’t afford a secretary.

I needed to cool off and quit thinking with my hoo-ha, which was twitching with a desperate craving for what Andre had started. I took a couple of cold drinks out of the refrigerator and returned to the parlor. Andre hadn’t moved from the floor. His weird blue-green eyes were light against his dark lashes and regarded me questioningly, but he took the drink and gulped half the can while I settled back on my floor cushion.

He was wearing brown silk tonight, with the buttons half undone. Khaki trousers, so he was going for informal. I had a hunch that T-shirts and jeans represented his old life, and he was making a statement with his choice of business attire. I could dig that.

I sipped my drink and tried to settle my rampaging hormones. He could have taken my ribs out with that bat. He would practically own me if he provided office and equipment. I always looked gift horses in
the mouth. I’d learned a lot of life lessons by watching westerns. I surely hadn’t learned any from my nonexistent father or hippie mother.

“I can handle probate,” I told him. “Traffic court, zoning violations, petty civil stuff, with Julius’s knowledge, sure. A murder case, no way. I’d have to list Julius as senior partner just to keep the judge from throwing me out. The state’s attorney would have to send all evidence to your father, let him make the inquiries we’ll need into the background of the witnesses. . . . I don’t suppose Paddy can give us any insight into his mother’s state of mind or even on the goons she hired?”

Andre almost purred in satisfaction. I had to check that Milo was still asleep in the bay window to be sure they weren’t one and the same. Andre finished off the rest of the drink in a few more swallows, then stood up.

“We’ll set the office up in the morning. Paddy won’t testify for me. He needs to stay neutral so he can have access to the plant. The new and improved senator might say a good word, if you provide incentive. I give you permission to spend whatever you need to investigate Gloria or anyone else. My father can handle the paperwork as long as you make the court appearances. Start with Paddy’s probate, though. I’m still dubious of his new sanity. Let’s get Acme settled before he dumps blue goo or pink fairy dust in MacNeill’s coffee. Two murder cases might be pushing your limits.”

That was the Andre I knew, back to being Boss of
the World and the reason we were not going to get it on. Ever.

I didn’t get up to see him out. I was thinking I’d rather he’d hit me with the bat. Bumps on the skull merely rattled the brains. Andre was rattling my soul to the core.

He honestly asked the impossible. Licensed or not, no way could a law student step out of class and into a courtroom alone, especially on a case like this. I could be a freakin’ genius for all I knew, but I really wasn’t an arrogant idiot.

Except, with Julius as my senior partner . . . He’d been out of the world too long to realize the respect he’d earned in these past years of writing textbooks. His name would open doors.

If I could legally put Paddy in charge of Acme, we could rescue Bill and Leibowitz before the next disaster, knock wood.

I could hope I’d gather enough evidence to justifiably red-rage Andre’s accusers into another dimension.

Damn, I was actually going to do it. I needed my head examined.

Instead, I unlocked my stolen tablet computer. Someone—presumably Andre—had left a charger and Boris’s invoice on the table. I plugged in the tablet and began surfing websites, hoping to find knowledge in my mother’s graduation gift. Looking for evidence that I wasn’t out of my skull was probably a better description.

Computers are only a minor weapon in my arsenal.
I’m no expert. But from my first quick scan, I judged the websites listed on Saturn’s page as amateurish. Themis only had a page advertising her services, with no obvious means of e-mailing her.

Fat Chick’s page was little more than a blog. It contained links to sites containing everything from scientific analyses of obesity to far-left political diatribes to academic-sounding astrological advice. Unlike at Saturn’s site, however, I could leave comments on her blog. Not many people did.

Words are another weapon I know how to wield. I pondered mine carefully.
Thx for the message, sister
, I typed.
Preach on
. I didn’t have a cool tag of my own, so I simply signed in as Justy in D.C. No point in giving away everything, and D.C. wasn’t that far away.

I didn’t have a website—I’d have to hire Boris to set one up for the law office—so I just signed in on Facebook before typing it.

By the time I’d worked through half the sites on Saturn’s page without learning anything except that the participants were as weird, and varied, as I was I had a direct message waiting on my Facebook page:
For real? You got the rule? Friggin’ awesome! You have any for me?

Oh, wow
. I stared in incredulity at the seemingly innocuous words on the screen.

I’d found another Saturn’s daughter? And she didn’t have a rulebook, either?

I didn’t know whether to sob or laugh. Saturn was a deadbeat dad.

T
uesday morning, I’d barely rolled out of bed when my door knocker rattled the dishes.

“Emergency evacuation!” a stranger’s voice shouted.

I froze. Had those earthquakes disrupted gas lines? I waited for the low rumble I feared would blow the neighborhood sky-high.

Nothing.

Milo growled from his nest at the foot of my mattress. Milo’s growl is my paranoia alert.

Thinking on my feet, I jerked on jeans and a hoodie, shoved Milo in my bag, stepped onto my balcony, and shimmied down the support. I know that’s not a normal reaction to a knock on the door, but my few attempts at normality usually got me hurt. After
Andre’s lesson the previous night, I was taking security to new levels.

Hitting the ground, I pondered my next move. I could take the Harley and get the hell out, or satisfy my curiosity and sneak.

I sneaked. Maybe I should tell Fat Chick the next rule is:
Knowledge is power
. We could start a
Rules of Justice
handbook. Or a comic book. That was a pretty cool idea that I could get excited about if I wasn’t always running for my life. Or someone else’s. Which might be why the book had never been written.

I peered through a crack between the fence boards at the back alley. A plain white sedan blocked the nearest exit. If I tried escaping out the opposite end of the alley, I could be spotted and outraced.