Black On Black (Quentin Black Mystery #3) (19 page)

“Nick...” I practically stuttered his name.

I’d been so focused on why I brought them here, what I’d wanted to talk about. Then the thing with Black I’d seen in my head, what might be happening even now in some dungeon on the other side of the world. Now Nick laying this on me.

Truthfully, my mind was blank as I returned his gaze.

I felt completely sideswiped.

“Look.” He held up a hand, then laid it on my arm, his eyes serious. “Doc...
 
kiddo. Don’t freak out. I’m not trying to scare you. I’m not trying to put you on the spot, either. I just wanted you to know. I want us to talk about it...
 
but later. After you’ve had a chance to think about it. Okay?” He paused, still studying my face. “You’ve got options, Miri. And I’m willing to wait. If you’re still not over that...” Nick’s jaw tightened. “...That guy. Black.”

I still could only stare at him really. After an awkward pause, I laid my hand on Nick’s where it remained on my arm.

“I’m still with him, Nick. I’m still with Black.”

Nick frowned, his expression darkening. “He’s been gone for months, Miri.”

“We’re still talking. We’re still together. I’m still
with
him, Nick.”

Nick’s face didn’t move, but I could feel the anger coiling around him now. “Why?” he said. “Why are you putting up with this bullshit from that asshole?”

I shook my head, sliding my arm out from under his fingers.

I leaned back in the booth. “Nick...”

“No, seriously. What hold does this fucker
have
on you? You never would’ve put up with this shit from Ian. I’ve never seen you put up with crap like this from
any
guy. Why are you putting up with it from that...” His face darkened more. “...That fucking
murderer?”

“He’s not a psychopath, Nick,” I said, sighing. “I know you think he is. But he’s not.”

“You know people said that about Ted Bundy, right?”

I rolled my eyes. “He’s not Ted Bundy.”

“Not yet.”

“Nick,” I said. “I’m a psychologist...”

“Psychologists defended Bundy, too. I think he was sleeping with one of them.”

I sighed, knowing he was right about Ted Bundy but completely wrong about Black, but too tired to argue the point.

Even so, his words actually made for a better segue into what I wanted to bring up with him than anything I’d come up with on my own. I’d been rehearsing ways to raise the topic for days, and Nick just dropped one on my lap.

“You’re not completely wrong though, Nick,” I began, hesitant. “Not about all of it. There
is
something different between us...
 
between me and Black, I mean.” I watched his eyes. “You asked what kind of hold he has over me? Well, that’s what I want to talk to you and Angel about. There’s something, well,
unusual
about our relationship...
 
but it’s not what you think.”

“If you’re trying to tell me you’re planning to marry that fucker, then spare me, Miri.”

“Jesus.” Wincing, I glared at him in spite of myself. “Nick...
 
no.”

“Well, you’re not pregnant.” Pausing, he frowned, his dark brown eyes flickering over me. “You’re
not
pregnant...
 
are you? Please don’t tell me that piece of shit got you pregnant before he bolted town...
 
after getting you half-killed in Thailand?”

Grimacing, I shook my head. “I’m not pregnant, Nick.”

I refrained from telling him it would have to be the immaculate conception if I was, at least for Black to be the father.

Leaning deeper into the leather booth seat, I folded my arms.

“I’m telling you, there’s something different about Black.” Hesitating, I watched Nick frown. “...And about me. The thing that’s different about him is also different about me, Nick. That’s what I need to talk to you and Angel about. Me and Black...” I took a breath. “We’re not like normal people.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed.

I saw a glimmer of the cop flicker in his expression, assessing me.

Before he could say anything, someone else spoke.

“Well, anyone could have told you that, doc,” Angel drawled, bending down over the table with two shots, a margarita on the rocks and a Cosmo balanced somehow in her two hands and between various fingers. I knew she’d been a bartender once, but her skill at carrying drinks without spilling a drop and without a tray still blew my mind.

She set all four drinks down carefully in the middle of the table.

Only then did I notice she also had two unopened bottles of beer under her arms.

I laughed when she opened them one by one, using the edge of the table and a sharp, precise hit with the side of her hand. She set one of the newly opened bottles in front of Nick, then another closer to her side of the table.

“Did they offer you a job?” I said, smiling.

She grinned back. “I got asked on a date. A few of them, actually. I guess hot black women juggling large quantities of alcohol is now a thing.”

“When wasn’t it?” Nick grunted, saluting her with his new beer.

“Well, I politely declined,” Angel said, sliding into the seat next to me. “And not only because Anthony would whup my ass for even considering it. Some of the boys in here are just...
 
well, they’re
boys,
darling,” she said to me, lifting an eyebrow archly.

I laughed, clinking my margarita glass against her beer bottle in agreement.

When I glanced at Nick, his expression had hardened.

Angel took a long drink of her beer, her eyes now on Nick. “So what’s with this big confession of yours, doc? About you and Black being freaks?”

Angel smiled wider, that drawl still audible in her voice. I’d often noticed that the remnants of a Louisiana accent she’d gotten from her mother grew more prominent when she drank.

Still cocking her eyebrow, she glanced at Nick then back at me.

I knew she felt the tension there.

I also knew she was trying to disperse it.

“...Not like that’s any kind of news to either of us, is it, Naoko, dear?” Winking at Nick, she smirked at me. “You want to
surprise
us, you need to explain how you and Black are normal, doc...
 
just like any other couple going for a nice Sunday stroll in the park.” She burst out in laugh as she seemed to be considering it. “Does Black
stroll,
doc? I’m finding that hard to picture for some reason. Unless he’s carrying an automatic rifle while he’s doing it...”

When I glanced at Nick, he wasn’t smiling.

Exhaling with more trepidation that time, I took a long drink of the margarita Angel just brought me. Long enough that both of them were staring at me by the time I’d finished. Long enough that my new drink was half-gone and I verged on brain-freeze.

Without pausing, I took my shot of tequila too, throwing back my head without bothering with either the salt or a lemon wedge from Nick’s half-filled bowl.

When I set the empty glass back on the table, both of them were looking at me, and at each other. Usually I wasn’t the big drinker of us three.

Usually I was the lightweight.

“Okay,” I said, wiping my mouth. “Forget Black for a minute. I’m going to tell you both something about myself, okay? Something I’ve never told either of you. Something I’ve never really told anyone. Not outside of my family...”

My voice trailed.

I swallowed, even as a dense panic started in my chest. That panic felt nearly as old as I was, colored by every childhood fear my father ever hammered into me.

I hoped to God I wasn’t making a huge, horrible mistake.

I hoped to God Black would forgive me for this.

I looked at Nick and at Angel, and wished I had another shot.

Of alcohol, that is.

I considered taking Nick’s, then didn’t.

“I’m not even sure my mom knew, to be truthful...” I trailed again, glancing between the two of them. “I mean, she must have known, right? Maybe she was just in denial. Or maybe Dad and her had some agreement not to acknowledge it. I don’t remember my dad ever telling me to keep it from her, not directly, but the message was there. My sister and I both knew not to talk about it in front of her...”

Both Nick and Angel were watching me seriously now, their expressions interested, maybe with just the slightest thread of misgiving. Both were listening attentively though; neither looked ready to interrupt me any time soon.

I swallowed again.

“...My sister knew,” I added. “It’s part of why we were so close. She was like me. Zoe and I...
 
we were the same.”

Impulsively, I reached over the table for Nick’s shot.

Plucking it off the scratched hardwood in front of him, I tilted my head back and downed it in one go, gasping a little as it burned my throat. When I set the empty shot glass back on the table and looked up, both of them were gaping at me.

I did my best to ignore it, focusing on where my fingers toyed with the empty shot glass.

“My dad knew,” I said with a shrug, still looking at the glass. “...Obviously. He had to know. And I didn’t realize it back then, but he talked about it without
really
talking about it the whole time we were growing up. Black thinks Dad actually taught me to
hide
it, although I never thought of it that way at the time. He was really strict with us though...” I glanced up. “With me, especially. He was kind of crazy with me when I was young. Really adamant about how I behaved, about me not being too visible.”

Swallowing, I shrugged, still thinking aloud.

“He wanted me to be grounded. That’s what he called it...
 
‘grounded.’ But what he meant was he wanted me to control myself. He was kind of nuts about it, honestly. He had fits whenever I lost my temper. He was way more intense with me than he ever was with Zoe...” I let my voice trail, then shrugged again. “I honestly don’t know why. Even now. She and I were the same. I always thought we were, anyway...
 
we seemed the same.”

I wiped my mouth again, then my forehead, feeling suddenly too hot. I knew it might be from the shots, but it didn’t feel like it.

“I know how this will probably sound...” Trailing, I realized that wasn’t true. “Hell. I have no fucking idea how this will sound to either one of you. I really don’t. But probably nuts.”

I looked up, then between them, biting my lip.

They both just waited, their mouths pursed in faint frowns.

Then I just said it.

“I’m psychic.” I swallowed, my fingers clenching on the glass. “I can read people’s minds. Like for real.”

THERE WAS A silence after I said it.

Then Angel laughed. It was a nervous laugh.

“What?” she said. “All that build-up was for that?”

I felt my jaw harden.

Reaching for my margarita glass, I took another long swallow and grimaced at the tartness, setting it down on the table.

I didn’t answer her.

I glanced at Nick instead.

His expression held more of what I’d expected to face from both of them.