The_Demons_Wife_ARC (18 page)

She fumbled
for the door handle and opened the door. The cold air slapped her in the face,
invigorating her. She got out of the car and watched as the cruiser and
unmarked vehicle pulled in behind them.

Samael shut
the driver’s door and, folding his arms across his chest, leaned back against
the car, watching and waiting as two patrolmen got out of the cruiser and
Detective Trudeau climbed out of the unmarked car. The patrolmen waited for
Trudeau to join them before they approached Samael.

“Good
morning,’” Samael said, touching his forefinger to his forehead.

Claire
couldn’t hear the slightest bit of strain in his voice, but she shoved her
hands into her coat pockets to hide their trembling.

“’Morning,”
Trudeau said with a sharp nod. His eyes flicked in Claire’s direction, and he
added, “Ms. McMullen.”

Claire nodded,
not trusting her voice to be steady.

“And to what
do we owe the pleasure of a visit from you today?” Samael said.

Sounds like
dialogue straight out of a movie, Claire thought.

“I’d like to
ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind,” Trudeau said.

“Would you
like to come inside? Perhaps have some coffee or tea to warm yourselves up?”

Trudeau eyed
Samael for a second or two.

“Actually, I
was hoping you’d come down to the station with us,” Trudeau said.

Samael eyed
the two patrolmen as if taking their measure. Were they here to help if Samael
refused…or got violent?

“Are you sure
we can’t handle this matter inside?” Samael asked, nodding toward the front
door. He glanced at Claire.

How does he
keep his cool like that? She wondered.

Trudeau seemed
to consider for a moment. Then he lowered his gaze and shook his head.

“I’d rather do
this at the station, if you don’t mind,” he said.

Claire was
really worried now. This sounded like they were going to arrest Samael. She was
relieved in one sense, at least—it wasn’t her. If they’d come here to arrest or
interrogate her, Trudeau would have spoken to her directly by now. She was
suddenly irritated that he was dealing with Samael as if she wasn’t even
there. 

“Could I ask
what this is all about?” she said, surprising even herself with the strength of
her voice as she stepped forward. Samael let a faint smile crease his upper lip
as he glanced at her, but Trudeau looked genuinely surprised.

“This doesn’t
really concern you, Ms. McMullen,” Trudeau said.

“If it
concerns Samael, it concerns me,” she snapped back.

Where is this
coming from…This isn’t at all like me…

Trudeau
appeared to be caught flat-footed. He looked at her with what Claire took to be
a mixture of irritation and bemusement, as if she didn’t have a right to speak.
That irritated her all the more.

“If you have
something to say to Samael, you can say it in front of me.”

More lines
from a movie.

She still had
no idea where this sudden courage was coming from. The brief thought flittered
through her mind that this might be a result of being with Samael…that his
brash confidence was rubbing off on her.

Trudeau
considered for a moment, and then his shoulders relaxed, and he said, “Sure.
Fine. Let’s go on inside, then, shall we?”

~ * ~

By the time
they were inside the house, Claire was genuinely pissed off.

A hell of a
way to see the house for the first time
, she thought, simmering as she walked
next to Samael from the foyer down a long oak-floored hallway to what she
assumed was either a well-appointed den or Samael’s office. The hallway had
some stunning artwork and sculptures along the walls, but the room she entered
with Samael and the detective a step behind was so stunning she stopped in her
tracks.

Two walls, to
the left and right, were covered with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with a
railing running the length of each side with rolling ladders so someone could
get a book from the highest shelves. At the far end of the room was a huge
picture window that looked out over a wide expanse of lawn that ran down a
gentle slope to the shore. The view was a bit dreary today, but Claire could
imagine how magnificent it would be in the summertime. Today, traces of snow
looking like jagged teeth streaked the lawn, especially under the trees and
shrubbery. The ocean was gray and flecked with whitecaps. A solitary lobster
boat tossed about on the waves.

Claire looked
around the room. The desk alone surely cost more than all of the furniture in
her and Sally’s apartment combined. It positively glowed with a smooth,
mahogany finish that was so bright Claire could see herself and the two men
reflected in it. The desktop had a brass lamp with a green glass shade and a
leather-bound ink blotter with a set of expensive fountain pens and a bottle of
India ink. It all looked so formal and old-fashioned, but the laptop to one
side of the desk indicated that Samael had made concessions to the 21
^st
Century.  

“Please. Have
a seat,” Samael said, indicating the plush leather chairs and couch in the
center of the room. The Oriental rug in the middle of the floor had an
intricate pattern with predominantly red and black designs. “Would you care for
a drink?”

“Not this
early,” Trudeau said with a wave of his hand.

Samael nodded
and took a seat on the couch, slouching down and placing his feet on the edge
of the coffee table.

“I could get
us some coffee,” Samael said, and again Trudeau graciously declined while
Claire shook her head. Draping his right arm over the back of the couch and
looking relaxed enough almost to drift off to sleep, Samael cleared his throat
and said, “So, Detective Trudeau. What’s this all about?”

“We have a
problem…with the LaPierre case.” Trudeau’s voice was low and gruff.

Claire
instantly wanted to ask him directly what the problem was, but she said
nothing, letting Samael handle this. Trudeau had told her it didn’t concern
her, but if there was any kind of “problem,” as he put it, with the death of
the man who had attacked and tried to rape her, then it sure as hell involved
her.

“And what’s
this problem?” Samael’s voice was low and casual, but Claire was sure she heard
a catch in his throat. She was sure Detective Trudeau heard it, too.

“Well, you
see…We have video from the surveillance camera outside his condo building.
According to the time stamp, it appears as though you visited him the night he
died.”

“Committed
suicide,” Samael said, correcting him.

Trudeau nodded
but didn’t appear to be totally convinced.

“That’s still
to be determined,” Trudeau said. When he leaned back in the chair he was
sitting in, the leather creaked like an old saddle. “Now that I think about it,
I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee.”

Samael nodded
and, turning to Claire, asked, “And you?”

Biting her
lower lip, Claire shook her head no. She was overwhelmed by the opulence of the
house and couldn’t believe she was sitting in such luxury. And she was still
irritated that her first visit—as Samael’s future wife—had been interrupted by
this unexpected police visit.

Where do they
get off?

But her anger
masked that she felt very much out of her element. She still couldn’t
understand how a poor, underemployed girl from the County could possibly spark
the interest of a man—

Not a man…a
demon!

—as handsome
and wealthy, as obviously successful and powerful as he was.

And he
couldn’t have gotten any of his apparent wealth from doing anything but pure,
unadulterated Evil.

Samael picked
up a tiny silver bell from the end table beside him and gave it a quick jingle.

There goes the
bell idea,
Claire thought.

Seconds later,
the door to the office/den opened. Claire was sitting with her back to the
door, and she didn’t think it would be proper—besides, she was too nervous—to
turn and look to see the servant or maid who had responded to his summons. She
tried not to imagine another demon or, if it was a woman, a temptress in a
sleazy, kinky French maid’s outfit.

“Michelle,”
Samael said. “My guests and I would like coffee.”

“Right away,
sir,” the unseen maid replied, and the door shut with a faint click as Michelle
left.

“So…” Samael
said, drawing out the word as he eased back onto the couch and rubbed his hands
together. “You were saying…?”

“Yes. I was
saying that we have security footage showing you entering and exiting Mr. LaPierre’s
condo on the night of his death. Can I ask what you were doing there?”

Samael cast a
quick glance at Claire, but she wasn’t sure if he wanted her to jump in at any
time or if he was trying to warn her to remain silent, no matter what he said.
She gazed back at him blankly, hoping that if he could read minds, he would see
that she was absolutely lost.

Before anyone
could say more, the door behind Claire opened again, and footsteps approached
from behind her. Claire’s eyes widened when she saw that the maid was an
elderly woman—she had to be in her seventies, at the very least—wearing a
bright red dress that somehow didn’t look out of place in spite of its
formality. She walked over to the marble-topped coffee table and carefully
placed a silver tray down. It bore a silver carafe, delicate china cups on
saucers, a bowl with sugar cubes and tweezers, and a silver pitcher filled with
cream. She had also included a small plate loaded with fancy cookies.

“Thank you,
Michelle. That’ll be all for now.”

Claire noticed
the commanding tone in Samael’s voice, like he was used to ordering people around,
but she also caught a note of kindness in his voice that made her think he was
good to the old woman.

As Michelle
turned to walk away, Claire couldn’t help but look to see if she had horns on
her head or the bulge of a tail beneath the folds of her dress. She caught
Samael looking at her and caught the twinkle in his eyes. She gave him a
rueful, quick smile.

“Cream and
sugar?” Samael asked Trudeau as he poured coffee into a cup.

“Black,
thanks,” Trudeau said, watching Samael intently. Claire was grateful that
Samael’s hand didn’t shake in the least as he handed the cup to Trudeau.

“You sure you
don’t want any?” Samael asked Claire and, again, she shook her head, no. She
was too nervous to drink without spilling it all over herself. So Samael poured
a cup for himself, added cream and a single cube of sugar, stirred, and then
sat back, balancing the cup on his knee.

“You were
saying…”

This was the
second time Samael had said that, and Claire wondered if it was one—of probably
millions—of ways Samael used to control a conversation.

“I’d like you
to explain what you were doing there that night,” Trudeau said.

Samael
appeared to be perfectly relaxed as he leaned back. After staring up at the
ceiling for a moment or two, he let out his breath in a slow, controlled
exhalation. Then he looked at Detective Trudeau and said simply, “I went over
there because I wanted to kill him.”

His confession
struck Claire like a thunderclap, and she didn’t think—not right away,
anyway—to make a distinction between wanting to kill Ron LaPierre and actually
killing him. She looked at him, aghast. For his part, Detective Trudeau
appeared to take it quite well. He rubbed his left cheek with the flat of his
hand, regarding Samael for quite some time before saying, “’S’ that a fact?”

Samael nodded.

“Who wouldn’t
want to kill him?” he said. “Look at the circumstances. A man attacks and
apparently tries to rape a beautiful young woman. It doesn’t matter who she
is—”

It doesn’t,
huh?
thought Claire.

“He violently
attacks a person who is less able to defend herself. Ignore for the moment that
after the incident I…” He glanced at Claire and shot her an enigmatic smile.
“How do I say this without seeming a bit too forward? Following the incident, I
came to realize that I was—let’s say ‘attracted’ to the victim…to Claire.”

Thanks for
finally using my name so I don’t feel like you’re talking about me as if I’m
not here,
she thought.

“And as I got
to know her over the next few days—a handful, really, but enough for me to know
that my interest in her—in you—” He looked directly at her now, his
gold-flecked eyes glowing. “—was so strong that I wanted to hurt…I wanted to
kill the person who tried to violate you like that.”

Claire was
flummoxed. When she looked at Trudeau, who was leaning forward slightly in his
chair as though ready to spring on Samael if he had to, she felt a stirring of
anger at him. His presence here this morning had ruined everything. It was a
crass invasion of their privacy.