Windfall (28 page)

The anchors clapped. So did the stagehands, who were all giving me—not Marvin—a big, double thumbs-up.

Marvin did a
back-to-you,
and the newscast resumed. They were about to interview a 110-year-old man from Coral Gables who had a pet tortoise nearly his own age.

The red camera light flicked off, and Marvin lunged at me. I danced back through the sand, stepped off the narrow ledge onto the cold floor of the studio, and mouthed at him,
Want to see my ass?

And then I turned, pointed to it, and walked away, head held high. Put my arm around the squishy mass of Cherise's costume, and walked her toward the door. I tossed the bathrobe over my shoulder on the way out and made sure that I was doing a full model's sashay, the entire time.

When I looked over my shoulder, Marvin was doing a silent dance of fury, right in the director's face. The stagehands were convulsed with silent laughter.

So endeth my career as Weather Girl. Sad, really. I was just getting to like it, in a perverse, kinky kind of way.

 

It occurred to me, on the drive back, that I had a lot to worry about. Jonathan's threat was still in force, and although he'd temporarily forgotten about me, he was almost certainly going to come reinforce his point anytime now. And whatever wistful hopes I had to repair the damage to David were now officially dead, buried, and had grass growing on their graves.

David was an Ifrit, and I didn't know how to get him back without human blood and the Ma'at. I was dangerously willing to get the human blood. The Ma'at, however, were notoriously not easy to convince, and with the Djinn in the middle of political warfare, that wasn't even vaguely an option.

When Jonathan showed up, I'd have to do what he said. I wouldn't have any choices left.

I felt such a crashing wave of anguish that it left me breathless, tears cold on my cheeks, and I pulled into a strip mall parking lot to let it pass.

It didn't pass. The waves kept coming, battering me, releasing more and more pain. It was as though a dam had broken inside of me, and I couldn't stop the flood.

I found myself hunched over, head against the steering wheel, hands over my stomach. Protecting my unborn child, my child who was just an idea, a possibility, a spark.

David was already gone, but he wasn't dead. He'd told me he had to die for the child to live. Probably.

I tried to sense something, anything, from her, but like the bottle that contained David in thick, obscuring glass, my own body refused to grant me a connection. Was she still there?

Please,
I thought to her.
Don't go.

It took me an hour to dry my tears and feel up to facing what was waiting for me at home.

When I arrived, Lewis and Kevin were gone. That wasn't totally a surprise; Lewis never had liked hanging around waiting for trouble, and he'd be thinking of Kevin, too. I wondered why the Ma'at weren't rallying to protect him. Yet another thing I should have found the time to ask.

I wished I hadn't missed Lewis, but at the same time, I was relieved. He'd have taken one look at my reddened eyes and known what I'd been crying about, and I wasn't really sure I could stand the sympathy just now.

When I closed the door, I heard Sarah banging around in the kitchen. By
banging
I mean cooking, with punctuation. I saw Eamon standing in the living room, sipping coffee, and raised my eyebrows; he raised his back and nodded toward the source of the noise.

“I think she's a bit unhappy,” he said. “Considering that she walked out of the bedroom thinking she'd be alone in the house and, well, she wasn't.”

I blinked. “That was a problem?”

“It was the way she walked out of the bedroom.”

“You mean she was . . . ?”

“Naked as the day she was born,” he said with careful gravity. “I think the resulting shriek woke half your neighbors.”

I was going to hell for the fact that this actually
cheered me up
. I tried to be a dutiful sister. Tried very, very hard. “I'm sorry. I should have warned you, but you guys were asleep—”

“Oh, believe me, it's not me you have to convince. I thought it was a lot funnier than she did,” he said. “By the way, your friend—Lewis?—said to tell you that you looked great this morning.”

Eamon's tone had just a bit of a question in it. I felt a blush coming on again.

“On television,” I clarified. “He said he was going to watch me on television. Not like rolling over in bed and saying I looked great or anything.”

“Ah.” Eyebrows up and down. “Of course.”

Hurricane Sarah was making omelets, apparently, with lots of agitated chopping of mushrooms and onions and peppers. Ham had already suffered the same fate. When I came into the room, she pointed the chef's knife at me and said,
“You.”

“I surrender. I throw myself on your mercy. Please don't mince me,” I said, and sat down at the table. There was a pitcher of orange juice out, so I helped myself to a glass. Tart and pulpy, just the way I liked it. I sipped liquid sunshine and waited for the storm to break as Sarah went back to her chopping.

And waited. And waited. She just kept chopping. Finally, I ventured, “So you're mad, then.”

“Oh, you think?”

“Look, Lewis needed a place to stay for the night. It was late. I didn't want to wake you—”

“Yes, all very logical, but you're not the one who wandered out here
naked
and got ogled by that—lecher!”

“Lewis?” I blinked in surprise. Not that Lewis
wouldn't
ogle—he was a guy, after all, and highly aware of women—but he was usually a lot more subtle about it.

“No, not him. The other one. The kid.”

Oh. Kevin. Of course. “Um, right. Sorry about that. Don't take it personally. He's a teenager. He's constitutionally lecherous.” I edited out the response that began,
If you weren't so focused on shagging Cute British Guy, you might have thrown on a robe, and damn, I'll bet it was funny. . . .
“Are you really mad?”

The chopping paused for three long seconds, then resumed at a slower pace. “No,” she admitted. “I'm embarrassed. First of all, Eamon and I—well, we got carried away. I mean, it was rude of us to stay here, in your home, and—do—what we did. I don't know what came over me. I'm usually a lot more reserved than that.”

“Hey, I wasn't even here. Unless you got carried away and had incredible sex in my bed or something. . . .” Oh,
man,
I didn't like that silence. “Sarah? Tell me it wasn't in my bed?”

“Just the once,” she murmured.

I'd thought it looked more than usually rumpled when I came back, but I'd been exhausted and traumatized and distracted.

“I think that makes it a dead heat on insensitivity,” I said. “Speaking of which, thanks for asking me how work went. I got fired this morning. No more Weather Girl.”

“What?” she blurted. “But—how are we going to pay the bills?”

Typical Sarah. Not,
Oh my God, that's awful, are you okay?
I eyed the feast she was cooking up. “Well, I did get a decent severance check, mostly because they were afraid I'd sue, given the bikini-snapping by a senior staff member. But I think we'll have to economize on the haute cuisine. And the couture is right out. Also, anything else with French derivations.”

A quiet cough from the door. Eamon was standing there, looking sober and remarkably self-possessed for a guy who'd appropriated my bed for illicit purposes. “I know you don't want charity, but I'd be more than willing to offer a loan. Purely to tide you over until you find something else. No strings attached.”

Sarah's face lit up. Eamon, however, was watching me. Very wise of him.

“No,” I said. “Thanks. It's a nice offer, but honestly, I can't accept it. We'll just figure it out for ourselves.” I didn't want Sarah to jump from being taken care of by Chrêtien to being taken care of by Eamon. Especially since she barely knew him, for God's sake. Not that I disliked him—in fact, I thought he was pretty cool—but the pattern bugged me. “Okay, Sarah?”

More agitated chopping. No answer. I sighed and sipped orange juice.

“Were you fired because you were right and that idiot with the hair problem was wrong?” Eamon asked.

“No,” I said. “I was fired because I was right while I was on camera. Plus, I wouldn't let him snap my swimsuit with impunity.”

Sarah laughed. Eamon didn't. He just watched me with those cool, quiet eyes, as if he understood everything.

“Good for you,” he said. “You deserve better than that. I heard you give the forecast. It was very clear you deserved his job, at the very least. I doubt they could ever afford your talents, if they understood what you were worth.”

He wasn't delivering that in a tone of flattery, or admiration—just a dry, brisk, undramatic statement of fact.

I exchanged a look with my sister. She smiled.

“See?” she asked.

I did. I approved. Not that I'd ever admit it, of course. I was, after all, the bratty one.

“So,” I said. “What's on your schedules for this morning, beyond the best breakfast of our lives?”

“I have some work to do,” Eamon said. “However, after that, I thought I might take you lovely ladies out for a bite of dinner. Would that be acceptable? Someplace nice. Help you forget your troubles for a bit. It's really the least I can do, after . . . imposing on your hospitality.”

Sarah got that smile. That secret, glowing smile of Really Good Sex. She gave him a smoking look from under lowered lashes, and I controlled a weary flash of petty jealousy, because I wanted David, I needed him, and I was grieving for him, all at the same time. Sarah might be living her idyll. Mine had crashed headlong into the real world, flamed out, and was plummeting toward earth at Mach One.

I got lost in those waves of sadness again. Luckily, they'd lost a little of their force, and I only got a little hot prickle in the corners of my eyes instead of the full, embarrassing breakdown.

“Jo?” Sarah prodded. “Are you staying here today?”

It was a very good question. I wanted to sit and grieve, but sitting and waiting for all of my dizzying array of enemies to come and take their shots sounded really, really dumb. Much as I wanted to hang out and pretend to have a normal life, that possibility had gone out the window last night on the beach. “I've got some things to take care of, too. Will you be all right on your own for a while?”

“Sure.” She gave Eamon another one of those little looks that promised to drag him off to the bedroom. “I've been thinking of cleaning up around here. As a thank-you to you, Jo. If that's all right.”

As long as it kept her busy and preferably not spending any of my dwindling bank account . . . “Okay. But I want you to keep the phone close, okay? That friend of mine, Lewis, he had some trouble. There may be people looking for him. They wouldn't hurt you, but it doesn't hurt to be careful. Don't answer the door if somebody shows up asking for him, and if you get in trouble, call me.” Eamon made that quiet coughing noise again. “Or, okay, call Eamon. Right?”

“Sure.” Sarah abandoned the chopping and turned to the beating of eggs, which she did with amazing skill. “I can take care of myself.”

I knew she believed that. I'd just never seen any real evidence of it.

But she did make one hell of an omelet.

 

The first stop on my list of things to do was to have that heart-to-heart conversation with Detective Rodriguez, whose van was still conveniently located downstairs. Avoiding him wasn't going to get it done. I'd rather finish the conversation, amen, and at least have one fewer potential gun aimed at my head.

It wasn't quite as hot as it had been, although it was way too muggy—the clouds overhead, which had started out thin and cirrus, sliding like white veils over the sky, were thickening to cotton clumps. Cumulonimbus. I couldn't feel the tingle of the energy building, but I could read the sky about as well as anyone, and there was definitely rain on the way. The wind had shifted.

I knocked on the van's window, waited, and finally got a sliding door opened in the back for answer.

I don't know what I expected from the Good Ship Surveillance, but it was clean. Really, really clean. There was a neat little bed, made up so crisply it probably would have passed a drill sergeant's inspection. No food wrappers or loose papers or detritus of a normal life. Near the back was a closed metal locker that probably held necessities like toothpaste and changes of clothes and spare ammunition.

He had video running. Video of all of the entrances to my building, plus a pretty good view through the patio window into the apartment. Some kind of wireless cameras. Good God.

“Good morning,” Rodriguez said, and nodded me to a chair. It was bolted down to the floor, but it swiveled. Kinda comfy, too. I settled in as he slid the door closed behind me. “Coffee?”

“I'm already soaking in it,” I said, and held out a cup I'd brought with me. “Here. Fresh orange juice. My sister got enthusiastic and pulped half the state's cash crop for breakfast.”

“I know,” he said, and gestured toward the monitor that showed the view through the patio door. Sarah was at the sink, washing dishes. Eamon was rinsing and drying. They were so much in each others' spaces it was like watching something a whole lot more intimate, with a whole lot fewer clothes.

“Remind me to pull the shades later,” I said. He leaned over and took the OJ, but he didn't drink, just set it aside. “What? You think it's poisoned?”

“I'm careful,” he said. “No offense.”

“Fine. Your loss. Are you taping all of this? The video?”

“Yes.”

“Is there anything embarrassing I can use on my sister?”

I got a very faint smile that didn't reach those impartial eyes. “Privileged.”