“Hindsight is a wonderful thing.”
“And all-hours puking isn’t. Her feeling like hell isn’t helping the situation.” He swirled his drink around in his glass for a moment. “So, why are you here?”
“Because I hate being a bastard.”
Stephan sat on the sofa and crossed his legs. “We’re talking about your treatment of Sam?”
He nodded.
“Then the solution is simple. Stop being a bastard.”
“The solution is simple, all right. You can transfer her to another section. Or another agent.”
“I’ve already told you that’s not going to happen.”
Gabriel met his brother’s gaze. Stephan smiled, though the smile never touched his eyes.
“You work too well together, Gabriel. It’s almost instinctive, the way you two interact, and that’s extremely rare.”
“My partners have a horrible tendency to die in the line of duty. I told you the last time it happened that I will not go through that again.” He downed more whiskey.
“If she is fated to die, it will happen, whether or not she’s your partner.”
Gabriel finished the whiskey and slammed the glass down on the desk. Thrusting his hands into his pockets and unable to keep still, he began to pace.
“It damn well almost happened today.”
Stephan frowned. “I read a report that mentioned her involvement in a disturbance at a nightclub. The owner’s in intensive care.” He hesitated. “Did she put him in there?”
“No. She went there to interview him, as he was apparently Harry Maxwell’s regular Jadrone supplier.”
Stephan’s frown deepened. “Harry was human. Jadrone shouldn’t affect him.”
“That’s exactly what I said. But according to her, Harry was a regular user—and one she’d busted frequently. The only reason he never ended up with a rap sheet was because Frank kept getting the charges dropped.”
“But Frank’s human, and I’m pretty sure his wife is, as well.”
“And according to Sam’s profile, she’s also human, but she was given enough Jadrone to kill an elephant changer and it affected her the way it would affect any changer. The doctors who looked after her have no idea how she actually survived.”
“The fact that she was given Jadrone suggests that whoever did the administering knew she was something other than human. And that begs the question: how? Especially given you, as a changer, should have sensed the changer in her.”
“I know.” Gabriel paused, thinking back to what she’d said. “I think the answer to why she was drugged is simple. According to Sam, she ordered the owner to tell his girlfriend to change shape. Yet the owner hadn’t told her his girlfriend was amongst the other birds flying around.”
Stephan frowned. “But why was she given Jadrone rather than simply being left to die in the fire like the owner?”
“That I don’t know, and I’m afraid she was too loopy from the Jadrone to really remember anything useful about the attack.”
“But you’ll question her when she’s recovered?”
“Of course.” Gabriel walked across to the window and stared at the moon-washed garden. “Something else happened today, though. Something that worries me.”
“What?”
He hesitated, wondering if he was doing the right thing coming here tonight, talking about this with his twin. If nothing else, it would open old wounds between them.
“I was in Melton when the attack on Sam happened,” he said, after a moment, “but I felt the blow to her head, and the pain of the Jadrone burning through her body, as if it were happening to me.”
“Well, well,” Stephan murmured.