"When I win the lottery," I told her dryly and went back to tightening the belt on the old BMW I was working on. Jesse laughed. "He told me you'd say that." My shoulder was still pretty sore and I limped, but at least I could work now. Zee had taken over the shop for two weeks-he didn't want me to pay him. But he'd saved my life with his vampire kit, I owed him enough. If I was lucky, after paying him I'd still be able to cover the bills, but not much else. It would be a few months before I could afford to even look at replacing the siding on the trailer.
"What are you doing here, anyway?" I asked.
"I'm waiting for Gabriel to get off work."
I looked up at that.
She laughed harder. "If you could see your face. Who are you worried about, him or me?"
"When you break his heart, it'll be me who'll have to live with the moaning." If there was real fear in my voice, it was only because Zee's son Tad, Gabriel's predecessor, had had a very rocky love life.
"When she breaks my heart? If anyone's heart breaks, it'll be hers," Gabriel informed me grandly, from the office doorway. "Unable to resist my charms, she'll be devastated at my callousness when I tell her I must go to college. The loss will cause her to resign herself to a long and lonely life without me."
Jesse giggled. "If my dad stops in, tell him I'll be home around ten."
I gave Gabriel a stern look. "You know who her father is."
He laughed. "A man who will risk nothing for love is not a man." Then he winked. "I'll have her home before ten, though, just in case."
Alone, I buttoned up the BMW and closed down the shop. Stefan hadn't called me this morning before I came to work, so I didn't know if anything had happened with Andre.
There was nothing to worry about. Andre was clearly guilty of creating a monster. Still, there had been a weariness in Stefan's manner last night that made me fret a little. If it was an open and shut case, why had he spent weeks in Chicago investigating?
I had company waiting for me in the parking lot. Warren had lost some weight and still limped, even worse than I did. It hadn't stopped him from wiping the floor with Paul who now cringed whenever Warren walked by. And if there were occasional nightmares, he still looked much happier than he had been.
Much of that was due to the handsome man leaning on the fender of Warren 's battered truck wearing, of all things, a lavender cowboy outfit complete with purple hat. The only good thing that had come out of the Littleton business was that Warren and Kyle were an item again.
"Who ticked you off?" I asked Kyle, who had exquisite taste.
"I was meeting a client's husband and his high-powered Seattle lawyer. The longer they think I'm a lightweight poof, the higher I'll hang them in court."
I laughed and kissed him on the cheek. "It's good to see you."
"We're going to catch a show at my place," Kyle said. "We thought you might like to join in."
"Only if you change clothes," I told him seriously.
The truck rocked a little and Ben stuck his head over the side of the bed where he'd been resting. His red coat was rough and his eyes were dull. He let me touch his face before curling back up in the truck bed.
"When I got in the cab," Warren said, "Adam thought it would do Ben some good to get out. We thought it would do you some good, too."
"He's still not shifting," I asked.
"No. And he wouldn't hunt with us at full moon."
I glanced out the back window, but, although he doubtless could hear us talk about him, Ben didn't raise his head off his front paws.
"Is he eating?"
"Enough."
Which meant that he wasn't likely to lose control and eat me like he'd eaten Daniel-that's what Daniel had been telling me. Vampires, not even vampires possessed by demons, don't eat other vampires.
It surprised me a little that Ben was taking it so hard. He had always seemed to me like the kind of person who could strangle his granny for her pearls then eat a peanut butter sandwich in her kitchen afterwards. Maybe I was wrong-or else eating someone was tougher. Warren had told me that Ben and Daniel had struck up an odd friendship while they were out hunting Littleton. It hadn't been strong enough to save Daniel, but it might be enough to destroy Ben.
We watched Japanese anime, ate take-out Mexican food, and made rude jokes while Ben watched us with empty eyes. Warren drove us both home in the early evening, dropping me at my house first.
There was a note on the fridge from Samuel. He'd been called into work because one of the other physicians was sick. The phone rang while I was still reading Samuel's note.
"Mercedes," said Stefan's voice in my ears. "Sit down."
"What's wrong?" I don't take orders well: I stayed where I was.
"Andre was tried last night," he said. "He confessed to turning Littleton, confessed to everything: the creation of Littleton, the incident with Daniel, setting me up to meet Littleton at that hotel."
"It was about you," I said. "He was jealous of you."
"Yes. It was during a conversation with him that I decided there was something odd about Daniel's experience. He made sure someone told me Littleton had registered at that hotel."
" Littleton was supposed to kill you," I said.
"Yes. He was supposed to kill me-but that was the night he broke Andre's control. Andre thinks that all the killing strengthened the demon so Littleton didn't have to listen to him anymore. Andre couldn't find him after that night. But he wasn't too worried until Littleton started leaving presents on his doorstep."
"Presents?"