Tooth and Nail (26 page)

“Got anything for me?”

I let out a breath. Great. Here came the two of the one-two, and I stood right in its way.

“No,” I said. “How the hell did you get my cell phone number?”

“I’m just good,” Greg Mahoney said into my ear, his voice cracking on the suave word choice.

Along with the bile, I tasted fear in my mouth. I still didn’t know what or how much Mahoney knew about me. “Well, to answer your question, the only thing I’ve ‘got’ for you is a hang-up.”

“Why won’t you work with me?” he coaxed.

“What makes you think I have any information about anything? I don’t even have a job right now. I’m the least interesting person you ever met.”

“You know what I’m looking for,” he said. “You know what I’m after. We can break the story together,” he added in a rush. “If you want to share the spotlight, I’m willing to consider it, work out a deal. But if you don’t want to go public, at least give me whatever evidence you’ve got so I can.”

He kept asking the same thing.
Tell me something, give me something, talk to me.
He was on to me, but not completely. What piece was he missing?

“For the last time,” I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, weirdo. Leave me alone and go away.”

“Give me something.” Mahoney’s voice turned hard and angry, as if
I
were the instigator in this back-and-forth. “Give me something or I’ll find something on McCormack, I swear. I’ll be in touch.”

He hung up, and I threw the phone down hard. It bounced off the other one on the floor. Then I screamed as loud as I could.

Hot pain in my back overpowered the sharp pain in front, and my wings burst out, hitting and dropping a framed watercolor of peaceful lilacs.

I’d already removed my shirt to assess my deranged-dentist damage, so at least I didn’t ruin another shirt. I stepped into the dry tub, and lowered myself onto the cold porcelain. I leaned over with a groan, grabbed the Fae Phone off the floor, and pressed a few buttons.

“Nilsen.”

I didn’t bother with niceties. Not that we ever exchanged any. “What did you get on Greg Mahoney?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Listen,” I said, “I’ve not had a good day.”

“What happened?”

“Some other time. Right now, I need to know what you learned about him.”

Svein paused, and I was about to scream a second time when I realized he hadn’t hung up. I heard him shuffling papers. “Greg Mahoney is the D.C. Digger.”

“Old news.”

“Home schooled until eighteen, Boston University grad, bookkeeping day job. He doesn’t live far from you. He’s over by Rosslyn station. He does his writing from home, but he takes to the streets to find his dirt. He’s got regular hangouts. Bars popular with politicians, fundraisers, press conferences. He goes out walking at night to smoke and walk his dog. And he’s spent more than one late night in the past week watching your building.”

“Are you kidding?”

“If you weren’t already off the collection rotation,” Svein said, “I’d have recommended it after finding that out. Political blog or not, I’m pretty sure it’s not Avery he’s watching for at 1 a.m.”

“He knows
something
about me. He told me at the fundraiser that he saw me with a tooth.” I paused. My heartbeat was slowing, as rationalization and reason took over to calm me. “He called me.”

“Just now?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“The same. I didn’t let on that I had any idea what he was talking about. Then when he realized I wasn’t caving, he threatened again to slander Avery and hung up on me.”

“He’s certainly charming,” Svein observed. “Online and in person.”

“I just can’t figure out why he hasn’t confronted me directly. Blackmailed
me
. Why say, ‘tell me something and I won’t go after Avery’ when he could instead say, ‘tell me you’re a tooth faerie and I won’t expose your sparkly ass’?”

“Because the D.C. Digger hasn’t dug up the full story. I’m sure when he’s got it, he will.”

“You know,” I said, “Avery caused me to rethink my previously cynical view of politicians. But I haven’t met a journalist yet that I liked.”

“Ditto.”

Something quickly occurred to me, and I couldn’t believe I didn’t remember it sooner. “I couldn’t glamour him.”

“Who?” Svein asked.

“Mahoney,” I said. “That night at the fundraiser. I glamoured everyone at the party. But it didn’t affect him at all.”

“Interesting,” Svein said, and he did sound like he thought it was.

I sighed. I wished the tub was filled with warm water, but it seemed too much effort to lean over and turn on the water. I propped one elbow on the tub rim and dropped my forehead into my hand. “Listen,” I said. “I have something that I think is actually something.”

“I’m listening.”

“You know that school shooting not too long ago?”

“Right.”

“There’s a kid who was just in the paper for arson and a bunch of other stuff. Trey Sawyer. Can you find out if those two kids went to the same dentist when they were of tooth-losing age?”

“You’re kidding,” Svein said, but I didn’t need to say I wasn’t. “That would mean Clayton’s been at this a while.”

“And that the kids are getting more and more messed up as they grow up. This is more than losing innocence early and missing out on a nicer childhood. You should have seen Trey. He got kicked out of the gym the other day for acting violent.”

“That would mean whatever’s in that toothpaste is having long-term effects.”

“Or…” I thought about Trey’s cold, dark fae eyes. I refused to say that out loud because I hoped I wasn’t right.

“Or what?” Svein asked.

“Nothing. But could you find out?”

“Yes, but that would be quite the coincidence,” Svein said. “Every kid in this city can’t be going to this dentist.”

“I could be wrong.”

“Probably, but I’ll look into it,” he said, sounding unconvinced. Again, I hoped his skepticism was justified.

“So,” I said. “What was Mahoney’s address again?”

“I didn’t give it to you.”

“Really? I’m sure you did,” I said. I stretched both legs out in front of me.

“No. Why would I?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“I’ll give it to you,” he offered, “if you’ll agree to one very short flying lesson.”

“No.”

“Well, then…”

“Well, then,
nothing
,” I said. “Look. I have a job to do and I don’t need your permission or your trust to do it. I could find Mahoney myself but let’s not waste time. Just fork over the address.”

He sighed. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

I decided to not bring up the events of my day so far. I
would
tell him. Later.

When I disconnected, I had the information I needed.

My wings retracted, so I lay back against the puffy bath spa pillow and thought about what I had to do next.

I leaned over one more time, dropping the Fae Phone and picking up my regular cell phone again. This technology was out of control. Couldn’t anything be normal anymore?

“Hi,” I said when my mother answered. “I think I might have met a blast from your past. Do you know anything about a man named Riley Clayton?”

Her intake of breath, then silence, was all the confirmation I needed.

I arranged to meet her in the morning at a bistro near the museum, then hung up. I’d invite Svein and Frederica to sit in on that summit as well. I felt like the answers were out of reach. Together, maybe we could clear some of the dust. I chucked the phone on the floor and lay back again.

But I needed something now. After what had just happened with Clayton, I was afraid that if I just gave up and went to bed tonight, I would wake up with a changed mind, ready to get out of this whole thing. For that to not happen, I needed to end this day in control, with some kind of victory.

I turned on the water jets and waited both for the tub to fill up and for the pain reliever to work.

I’d just gotten beaten up by a big bully. So I was about to do what any attacked kid in a playground would do to save face—find someone smaller than me, and become
his
bully.

Greg Mahoney
, I thought,
hand over your lunch money
.

Or I’ll knock your teeth out
.

>=<

Lingering among the trees lining the huge parking lot and monitoring the brick apartment complex, I thought about how very little time it had taken for me to transform from a law-abiding citizen to a person with an undocumented record of assault and battery, breaking and entering, petty larceny, loitering and stalking.

Should I have waited until the next workday? Yes. Because then I could get in there knowing for sure Mahoney wasn’t home. But I was dead set on tonight. I knew what I was up against on one side with Clayton. I needed to know, right now, what I was up against on the other side. Besides, every day that Greg Mahoney was left alone at his computer was a day he drew another bull’s eye on a politician’s back.

As twilight darkened, I thought,
I’ve got Avery’s back
.

Well, the only way to tell if Mahoney was in his hideaway was to lure him out. I pulled out my cell, and scrolled on the screen to find the last number that called me. I would tell him to meet me somewhere with a promise I would talk. Of course, when he got there and realized I’d stood him up he’d be pissed, but it wasn’t as if he wasn’t already after me. If he really had anything scandalous on me or Avery, I was quite sure he’d have published it by now. He was slick, but shock journalists like him didn’t tend to sit on a story they could verify, however tenuous the source.

I was mentally rehearsing my invitation when the front door to the right apartment tower opened and Mahoney stepped out. He paused, looking into the distance, and I pulled in tighter behind the tree. My gut ached and I cursed the pharmaceutical company for their inferior over-the-counter pain reliever, but I kept my eyes tracking Mahoney. He was wearing a long-sleeved gray T-shirt, jeans with ripped shreds at the knees, and thick-soled black shoes. From this distance, he looked almost cool. It was probably just his nemesis status that made him so, because the first time I saw him he just looked like a dweeb.

He pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, puffed a few times, shoved his hands in his pockets, and took off down the street.

Well, I was due a little luck, and here it was. I waited until he rounded the corner before I jogged to the door. It was open, and I slipped into the vestibule with three long rows of mailboxes. I already knew his apartment number, and thankfully it was on the first floor because cardiovascular step exercise was not high on my list of things I wanted to do right now. After a quick glance around to make sure I was alone, I intended and walked through the main door.

I turned right and traversed the carpeted hallway, passing a few doors. I smelled simmering tomato sauce and I heard a woman yelling at someone who clearly had no inclination to yell back. Maybe she was on the phone.

When I reached apartment A-16, I nearly stepped through the door when I stopped myself short. Presumptuous, was I not? Mahoney could have a roommate, or more than one. Or a woman masochistic enough to be his girlfriend. Either way, someone could be in there, waiting for him to return.

I closed my eyes, and watched for gray shadows pulsing, indicating breathing life.

Nothing. Blank.

I hesitated again, but I summoned up the courage of my ancestor warrior fearlessly entering the home of her enemy. I opened my eyes.

I stepped through the closed door.

And a bomb hurled itself onto me.

A furry, spotted beagle bomb.

Barking, barking, barking.

Learn a new thing every day, I thought. Seemed the shadow trick was only to detect humans. I intended, and blinked into formlessness. He kept barking, jumping around me, wiggling his tail, stepping on my toes. I wasn’t fooling him. He saw me, he wanted to play with me. Animals must have fallen into the category of those who could see me—the innocent.

So I bent down and stroked his head. He stopped barking, and instead panted happily. I crouched and rubbed both his sides vigorously and he fell on me in ecstasy, licking my hand. I reached for the tag on his collar and turned it over to find Mahoney’s phone number and the dog’s name. “Canine.”

As in dog. Or, I supposed, as in canine teeth. Maybe I’d find a hamster named Molar.

Having become Canine’s best friend in less than fifteen seconds, I took a look around. The living room was nothing special. Standard beige apartment rug. Affordable couch. Cheap, self-assembled coffee table.

Keeping up my blinking, and with Canine trotting after me, I moved past a bathroom—very male, with shaving cream and a bath mat and little else—and entered Mahoney’s bedroom.

D.C. Digger Central.

The computer was humming with several different windows open: news sites, blog sites, weather. A Word document was minimized on the screen—probably his current Digger draft. Two televisions sat side by side on an arm’s-reach shelf, one turned to CNN and the other to the baseball game (Nationals up by four). An iPod cooked in its charger on the desk. A pack of matches sat in a glass ashtray. An oscillating fan blew dusty air around my head. Books and newspapers were open and scattered all over every surface of the tiny room.

Mahoney had created his own Situation Room. He was a current events junkie. He was plugged in.

I instantly realized two things about him. One, with all his equipment on, he wasn’t planning on being gone long.

And two, he knew full well about tooth faeries.
Fae
.

Over his bed, on the wall, were sketches. Dozens of sketches, in charcoals and colored pencils, of faeries.

Or, I noticed, inching closer, one fae. Drawn over and over and over.

Lithe and toned, she wore a halter top—a red one, I realized from the color pictures. Her jeans were skintight and encircled with an embroidered belt. Her feathered black hair fell around her neck, and her eyes were wide and blue. A stack of gold bangle bracelets ran halfway to one elbow.

Her wings were blown out behind her, large and—if my personal experience was what I went by—realistic. He’d drawn them delicately, with fine lines.