ShiftingHeat (19 page)

She had her own ideas about that but she needed to research
some before she could put it forward as a definite possibility. Just as well she
was dating someone who knew exactly how to do that research.

After conversation turned to the shocking events of the last
few days, she took a backseat and listened. Yes, the professor’s sudden
turnabout had appalled everyone. But nobody knew about the murder yesterday, at
least no one was talking about it. That room had been shut off with some excuse
about the heating, and the investigating officers had come in the small hours
and done their work.

Later today, Nick would arrive in style and take that office,
or one nearby. A temporary replacement for the position Nordheim, and then
Serena, had left vacant. That should take attention away from Andros and
Serena. Nothing like a roc on the roof to distract people.

* * * * *

After work, Andros came to her office and after a kiss or
two, ones she’d thirsted for all afternoon, they went to her small car. Andros
leaned back and closed his eyes while Faye put his crutches in the back seat. She
took the driver’s seat and strapped herself in then glanced at him, waiting for
him to follow suit. He let out a deep breath and put his hands on his knees,
gripping them tightly. “I hate using my condition like this.” He turned his
head and snared her gaze in his, blue eyes capturing her in laser-beam
sharpness. “It was true, at least some of it. I was in a wheelchair, but I was
close to dying. It was killing Ania to watch me, so I didn’t let her know just
how bad I was. Only one person realized. The person who converted me.”

She searched her mind, but couldn’t recall who that was. She
raised a brow in query.

“Ricardo Gianetti’s partner, Kristen Turner. She guessed but
I made her keep my secret. Later, it was let me die or convert me. I’ll always
be grateful to her, even though she made the final decision on her own.”

He smiled when she gasped. Conversion had to be with the
permission of both parties, not just one.

“I was in no state to speak, but she knew I wanted it. So
now you know about all the important women in my life. Ania, my sister,
Kristen, the woman who saved my life—and now you.” He reached for her hand,
lifted it to his lips and kissed it.

Faye melted. “You don’t know me,” she protested. “You can’t
know if I’m important or not.”

“Yes I can.” He smiled. “Don’t disappoint me. And throw your
cell away. Now.”

“What?”

He grimaced. “Sorry. I got a call from Ann this afternoon,
asking you to do it. She’ll send you a new cell, but you were close to
Nordheim, so she doesn’t want to take any chances with you.”

“Chances how?”

“You can be tracked by your SIM. Mine is protected, and
she’ll send you a similar one. GPS is blocked, unless we choose to enable it.”

“And now I’m an agent, albeit a temporary one, I have to toe
the line?”

“Just get rid of your cell.” He gave her an apologetic grin.

She took out her phone, removed the SIM card and exited the
car to drop the cell in a nearby trashcan. She thought about keeping it, but it
wasn’t an expensive model and it might be better just to make sure. Then she
broke the card into pieces and threw one of the bits away. She’d jettison the others
from the car en route and give an offering to the gods of litter another time.
She hadn’t gone to the lengths she had to be outed by a fucking cell phone.

Back in the car, the moment was lost, for now. And she felt
reluctant to pursue it here, in the unromantic setting of a car lot.

Only when she’d pulled on to Fifth and passed several
streets did he notice they were not going to STORM. “Do we have an errand?”

“No,” she said. “I’m taking you to my place. As far as the
university knows, I live in a tiny apartment in the Village. That’s my official
address, but it’s not where I live.”

“Wow.” He leaned back, smiling. “And you want to take me to
your home?”

“Yes.” Now more than ever.

He watched the scenery as they turned at Washington Park and
headed down toward her real address, in Tribeca. “I don’t know this part of New
York at all.”

“Not surprising. You live and work in the swanky part. This
is different.”

“You have two addresses yourself. I’d call that pretty
swanky.”

“I bought my loft apartment in the early seventies, when it
was still a pretty rough area. It didn’t matter to me, but I got space
relatively cheaply in Manhattan. I got the feeling the place would get popular.
I kept my tiny studio apartment in the Village, at the time worth far more than
the Tribeca apartment. I’d just started to make good money after a few
investments had paid off and I started to make more. Yuppies are history now.
But I was one, for a time.”

“Faye—”

Time he knew something else about her, something she’d been
hesitant to tell him. “My parents were killed in 1933.”

“When you were ten years old. That would make you—”

“Yep. It would.” Hearing the difference between their ages
didn’t appeal to her. “So you’re screwing your grandmother. Or maybe your
great-grandmother.”

He shuddered. “Impossible. She lived and died in Poland.
Aren’t you as old as you feel, or something like that?”

“Sometimes I feel hundreds of years old.” Particularly now.
She took a left, trying to concentrate on the traffic.

“So do I. Especially when I wake in the morning and my body
won’t do what I tell it to.” He gave a short laugh. “One thing’s for sure. I’m
so going to learn to drive when this is over. I couldn’t when I was ill, and
then when I could, I didn’t have the time. And everybody tells me that if I
live in New York, I don’t need to drive. But I might want to go to Los Angeles
again, and it was a pain in the ass not being able to drive there.”

He’d successfully lightened the atmosphere, but he’d avoided
telling her how he felt about her age. But she’d know. She’d know for sure
before the end of the evening. She refused to contact him telepathically and
find out that way because she wanted him to tell her or show her for himself.
Although it was tempting.

The warren of streets around here made it easier for her to
shake people off. But she was sure nobody had followed them tonight. She’d
remained vigilant. She drove into the parking garage around the corner from her
building and parked the car between a Ferrari and a shiny black Range Rover.
That was par for the cars here. Not her little Subaru, a typical university
car. But she didn’t need anything bigger.

They exited the car and she took him up the street to the
entrance. He gazed at the red-brick building with fire escapes lacing their way
up. All painted matte black, like the wrought iron canopy over the main
entrance. “Very nice.”

“This used to be a warehouse for the goods loaded on and off
at the docks. When industry moved out, the artists moved in. The bohemians and
some wealthy arty people. These days we get a lot of hipsters. And here we are.
Prime real estate.” The window frames were painted green now. She remembered
when soot had daubed the buildings, when respectable women didn’t venture here.
That was a long time ago, before she’d thought of buying property here. The
cobbled streets had rung with workmen yelling to each other, turning the air
blue with their colorful curses. Anyone who used “fuck” as a lazy adjective
should have listened to the inventiveness of these guys. A few remained, but
the middle class had bought the big, splashy buildings, the old warehouses and
the stores, and turned them into desirable condos. Faye loved this place. She
led the way inside. “This is my home.” She nodded to the concierge but the guy
kept her gaze. He wanted a word with her. She strolled toward his desk.

“Hi, Raymond. Did you want me?”

“Sorry, Ms. Corrigan.” She cast a guilty look at Andros, who
raised a brow at the new name, but his mouth quirked in a half-smile. He
understood. She turned her attention back to the concierge. “Is there a
problem?”

“Mr. Smith on the third floor complained about the heating
in his apartment.”

She snorted. “Mr. Smith does nothing but complain. Still,
tell him I’m looking into it. And send a maintenance man around in the morning,
would you?”

“Sure.” He grinned. “Thought you’d better know before he
comes knocking on your door.”

Light dawned. “Ah. Yes. Thanks for warning me.” Smith would
call her day or night if he had a complaint.

He touched his fingers to his cap in a mock salute. “You
know me, Ms. Corrigan. Discreet to a fault.”

“What would I do without you?”

She led the way to the elevators and slipped her card into
the slot. “I guess I owe you an explanation.”

“Not if you don’t want to. I know Talents used to slip from
life to life before they came out. I guess you bought this place when you were
a Ms. Corrigan?”

“Yes. Here, I’m her daughter, or rather, I inherited the
place from myself. I didn’t want anyone to track me, so when I took the job at
the university I gave them a new name. This place is mine, it’s special.”

He touched her hand. “I appreciate you bringing me here. You
don’t bring many people here, do you?”

“No, I don’t. I take them to a hotel room, or the other
apartment.” Belatedly, she remembered where they had gone after their first
meeting. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t see m to take offense and she breathed a sigh of
relief.

“You’re making up for it now.” He paused. “So why is what
Smith does your business? Is he bothering you?”

“He thinks I’m a billionaire and he wants to seduce me.
Thinks his appeal will do it. It won’t. He won’t get the message but he doesn’t
harass me or do anything that upsets me too much. Otherwise I’d get him out of
the building.” She cast him another guilty glance. “Because I own it.”

“Shit, Faye!”

The doors slid silently open and she led the way to her apartment.

Inside, she had polished wooden floors covered with Oriental
rugs, soft, broad sofas, bookcases and original works of art. She’d lavished
time and money on this apartment and it was her refuge, her place of safety. She
hoped he liked it, because if he liked it, he liked her. She’d put herself into
this place, her first real home.

Andros wandered around the large room with its equally large
windows. The living area gave way to a breakfast bar and a kitchen equipped
with state-of-the-art appliances. The colors were restful, slate blues and
ivories, with darker accents in the kitchen. There was a flight of stairs at
the other end of the room.

Instinctively he loved it here. “Where’s your office?” he
asked.

She laughed. “You mean where do I keep my computers? I have
an office upstairs, but I only have a good base unit, screen and so on. Nothing
fancy. I do have a widescreen TV, though.”

“So we can snuggle and watch the latest romantic comedy?”

“Or the newest space adventure.”

He gave a rueful grin. She’d caught him out on an assumption
he shouldn’t have made. “I deserved that. Look, I’m a bit overwhelmed. This
makes me feel—” He glanced at the nearest sofa and then at her.

“No, Andros. While you’re here, it’s your home. Please.”

“All right.” He parked his crutches against a sofa and sat.
“Come and tell me about your life. Let me hold you.”

“Sure.” She looked as uncertain as he felt. “This won’t make
any difference to us, will it?”

He laughed. “Don’t be an idiot, of course it will. But what
difference it makes is up to us. I still want to hold you, care for you. Make
love to you. But talk to me now. No secrets, yes?”

“It’s a long story.” She threw her jacket on to another sofa
and went to do as he asked. “Wouldn’t you like some coffee? Something to eat? I
have steak and salad.”

It was then that his stomach decided to rumble. That went
some way toward breaking the ice, since she heard it and grinned. He watched
her shimmy her way to the kitchen. Well, she didn’t really shimmy, but the
swing of her hips reminded him what he enjoyed most about her. “I guess.
Thanks.”

She could work in the kitchen and still talk to him. Which
she did, while he enjoyed watching her deft, sure actions. He guessed she appreciated
keeping an activity between them, a guess reinforced by her dispassionate tone
as she talked to him. Not that any of it would put him off. Even in this
exhausted, pain-racked state he wanted her with an urgency that verged on
desperation.

“I was born in 1923.” She glanced up from the chopping
board, where a selection of salad vegetables awaited her attention. “But you
guessed that, right?”

“I’m generally considered quite good at math.” His
understatement made her smile.

“We weren’t poor but my parents didn’t make a point of
displaying their wealth. Not a good idea in a small town. People resented us,
nevertheless. Some of them. Some were good friends. Mom loved the quiet life,
made friends, but Dad was more restless. He wanted to move on but he stayed
because she loved the life. So I’m your archetypal small-town girl. Except for
the dragon bit.” She surprised a laugh out of him, then started to chop. From
then on she punctuated her narrative with regular, steady chopping and Andros
knew why she didn’t buy her salad ready-made. A good way of getting rid of
frustration. “You know what happened when I was ten years old. My parents
disappeared. So did most of their money, as it turned out. They left it to me
in trust, but someone got there first, forged their signatures on various
documents and got away with the money. That was between them disappearing and
their bodies turning up. They labeled me an abandoned child but I knew they
were dead. My telepathy was pretty good and I couldn’t sense them anywhere.
Blank, gone. But I was ten years old, what could I say to make anybody believe
me?”
Chop, chop, chop
, sure and steady. “When my foster parents dumped
me they made all kind of excuses—they couldn’t afford it, they thought I’d be
better off with my own kind, all that kind of crap, but back in the system,
suddenly they knew about me. Knew I was a freak. And it would have been only a
matter of time before more people knew.”