Stolen (Otherworld 2)

"That won't be necessary," I said.

"The phone's right here." She lifted the receiver so I could hear the dial tone. "Would you like me to move it closer? I'm pretty sure Pittsburgh has nine-one-one services."

Okay. Now she was making fun of me. Stupid little twit. Probably one of those airheads who parked in deserted underground lots at night and bragged of their courage. The impulsiveness of youth, I thought, with the maturity of someone almost two years into her thirties.

When I didn't reply, Paige said something about making tea and vanished into the adjoining room of the suite. I was in the living room part, which contained a small table, two chairs, a sofa, a recliner, and a television. A partly open door led into the bedroom. Through it, I could see suitcases lined against the side wall and several dresses hung on a rack. By the front door there were three pairs of shoes, all women's. No sign of a male occupant. So far the Winterbournes seemed to be aboveboard. Not that I really expected some guy with a semiautomatic to leap from behind the door. I was suspicious by nature. Being a werewolf does that to you.

As I sat at the table, I eyed the platters from the tearoom. Sandwiches, cookies, and pastries. I could have devoured all three platefuls as a snack. Another werewolf thing. Like most animals, we spent a large part of our lives engaged in the three Fs of basic survival: feeding, fighting, and ... reproduction. The food part was necessity. We burned calories like fire burns kindling--without a constant supply, our energy fizzled out. I had to be careful when I ate in front of humans. It wasn't fair. The guys could down three Big Macs and no one batted an eye. I got strange looks if I finished two.

"So this information you're selling," I said as Paige returned. "It's as good as the Phoenix case, right?"

"Better," she said, setting the tea tray on the table. "It's proof that werewolves exist."

"You believe in werewolves?"

"Don't you?"

"I believe in anything that'll sell magazines."

"So you don't believe in werewolves?" Her lips curved in an annoying half-smile.

"No offense, but it's not my thing. I write the stuff. I sell it to magazines. People like you buy it. Ninety percent of the readers don't believe it themselves. It's harml

ess fantasy."

"Best to keep it that way, isn't it? Harmless fantasy. If you start believing in werewolves, then you have to admit the possibility of other things, witches and sorcerers and shamans. Not to mention vampires and ghosts. Then there's demons, and that's a whole can of worms you don't want to open."

Okay. Now she was definitely making fun of me. Did someone stick a big "mock me" sign on my back? Maybe I was taking this more personally than it was intended. Look at it from her point of view. As a believer, she probably looked on nonbelievers the same way nonbelievers looked at her, as a pathetic ignoramus. Here I was, ready to buy information to perpetrate a myth I didn't even believe in, selling my integrity for next month's rent. A journalistic whore. Didn't I deserve a little mockery?

"Where's the information?" I asked, as politely as I could manage.

She reached over to the side table, where a folder lay. For a moment, she leafed through it, lips pursed. Then she took a sheet and laid it between us. It was a photograph showing the head and shoulders of a middle-aged man, Asian, a pinched nose and dour mouth softened by doe-like eyes.

"Do you recognize him?"

"I don't think so," I said. "But it's a pretty ordinary face."

"How about this one? Not quite so ordinary."

The next photo showed a man in his early thirties. He wore his dark red hair in a long ponytail, a fashion statement that didn't suit anyone over the age of twenty-five. Like most guys who continued the hairstyle past its prime, he seemed to be compensating for a hairline that had already receded farther than the Bay of Fundy at low tide. His face was paunchy, once semi-handsome features vanishing as fast as his hair.

"Now, him I recognize," I said.

"You do?"

"Of course. Come on. I'd have to live in Tibet not to recognize him. Hell, even journalists in Tibet read Time and Newsweek. He's been covered by them, what, five times in the last year? Ty Winsloe. Billionaire and computer geek extraordinaire."

"So you've never met him personally?"

"Me? I wish. No matter how many interviews he's given, a Ty Winsloe exclusive would still be a career breakthrough for a no-name reporter like me."

She frowned, as if I'd answered the wrong question. Instead of saying anything, though, she fanned both pictures in front of me and waited.

"Okay, I give," I said. "What does this have to do with werewolf proof? Please, please, please don't tell me these guys are werewolves. Is that your game? Put one decent story on the web, lure some dumb journalist down here, then weave a whopper about werewolf billionaires?"

"Ty Winsloe is not a werewolf, Elena. If he was, you'd know it."

"How ...?" I shook my head. "Maybe there's some confusion here. Like I said in my e-mail, this is my first werewolf story. If there are experts in the field, that's a scary thought, but I'm not one of them."