Skin Trade (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 17)

Chapter 22

EDWARD HAD BASICALLY been telling Olaf to stay the fuck away from me. Olaf had been telling him that unless he was fucking me, it was none of his business. Oddly, if Edward had been doing me, then Olaf would have accepted that I was off limits. Apparently, it had never occurred to Edward to lie about that. I was just as glad because I could never have pretended that. Not to mention that if the rumor got back to Donna, she'd be heartbroken, and their son, Edward's stepson, Peter, would never forgive either Edward or me. It was all too weird and Freudian for me.

The good news was that the warrants would be coming soon. Edward had a fax number for the local police. "You really have worked Vegas before," I said.

He nodded.

Something occurred to me that hadn't before, and I felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner. "Did you know the local executioner?"

"Yes." So, Edward, one word, simply yes.

I studied his face and knew that the sunglasses probably didn't hide anything useful in his eyes, but... I had to ask. "Did you like him?"

"He was competent."

"Not good, just competent," I said.

"He had more rules than you and I do. It limited him." His voice was utterly cool, no emotion.

"So, you'd met the dead operators, too?"

He shook his head. "Only Wizard."

"Wizard?"

"Randy Sherman."

I studied his face. "You just saw a man in the morgue who you knew, had worked with, and it didn't..." I waved my hands, as if trying to grab the right word out of the air. "Didn't it move you?" The question was inadequate, but it would have been too stupid to ask Edward if he cared.

"Only a woman would ask that," Olaf said.

I nodded. "You're absolutely right, but I am a woman, so I get to ask. It would bother me more to have looked at a man who I knew in there. It was bad enough as a stranger. I kept thinking about the SWAT guys I'd met earlier, and knew that all the dead in there had been just as tall, just as professional, just as vital, and now it was all gone."

"You'd have cared more," Edward said, "but it wouldn't have stopped you from doing your job. Sometimes you work better when you're upset."

"Do I say thanks?"

"My reaction bothers you, I get that, Anita, but I've seen a lot of men die who I knew. After a while you either deal with it better or get a desk job. I don't want a desk job."

I wanted to yell at him. Yell that I knew he cared for Donna and the kids. I was pretty sure he even cared for me, but his lack of emotion about the men in the morgue reminded me that Edward was still a mystery to me, and maybe always would be.

"Don't overthink it," Bernardo said.

I turned to him, ready to be mad, because being mad at him would be easier than yelling at Edward. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're being a girl, and you need to be the guy I know is in there, or you're going to weird yourself out about Ted here. You need to trust him, not doubt him now."

"I do trust him."

"Then let it go, Anita."

I opened my mouth, then closed it, then turned back to Edward. "I'm not going to get this, am I?"

"No," he said.

I did a pushing-away gesture. "Fine, fine, let's do something useful."

"When we serve the warrant, they'll insist that SWAT go with us. They're very serious about that here in Las Vegas." His voice was still empty, as if his emotions hadn't caught up wth him.

"We aren't hunting them. We're just gathering information. You and I both are pretty sure Max is too mainstream to approve of his people killing policemen."

"One, if we've got a warrant in hand, SWAT goes with us in Vegas. They mean that. Two, Max is well connected, Anita, which means the local cops don't want us walking in on his wife and family with a warrant of execution, and no one watching us."

"Do they really think we'd just go in there and start shooting?" I asked.

Edward looked at me. It was the most emotion I'd seen on his face in the last few minutes.

"Is my rep that bad?" I asked.

Bernardo said, "Most of the police see us as bounty hunters with badges. Cops don't like bounty hunters."

"There are going to be things that I need to say that I can't say in front of Grimes and his men," I said.

"The lieutenant probably won't be coming personally," Edward said.

"You know what I mean, Edward."

"We'll see if we can distract them for you," Edward said.

"If I am not allowed to hurt them," Olaf said, "then I will not be good at distracting them."

"Fair enough," I said.

Bernardo grinned at me. "I'll do my best, but I'm better at distracting the ladies."

"I'll see if I can get you some privacy," Edward said, and frowned at both the other men.

"Hey," Bernardo said, "I'm just being honest, but frankly I think the SWAT team is going to glue itself to Anita."

"Why me?" I asked.

"Deputy Lorenzo is friends with the woman who works in the front office for their SWAT. Did you really do a one-arm curl of two hundred sixty pounds?"

I fought to give him full eye contact. "No."

"Then what did you do?" he asked.

"A two-arm curl," I said.

Edward and Olaf were looking at me now, too. "Why would you draw that much attention to yourself?" Edward asked.

"You've seen them, Edward; if you didn't know me, would you let me serve a warrant with them?"

"You're a U.S. Marshal, Anita. It's our warrant. They're backing us up."

I shook my head. "I needed to prove to them that I could handle myself. The weights were right there. It seemed like the quickest way to settle it."

"How did you explain that you could curl almost three times your own body weight without falling over or busting something?" He sounded disgusted.

"I don't need this from you, Edward, Ted, whatever. You don't know what's it like to be the girl. To always have to prove yourself. You get tired of it."

"What did you tell them?"

"The truth."

He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. "What does that mean?"

"That I'm carrying different kinds of lycanthropy. Grimes had read my file, Edward, it's in there now. The Philadelphia police outed me when I ended up surviving and healing after having my skull cracked."

"You don't have a scar," he said.

"No, I don't, just like I don't have a scar from the weretiger attack in St. Louis. You've seen Peter's scars from the same beastie. It gutted me, remember?" I pulled my shirt out of my pants enough to flash my smooth, untouched stomach. "I can't play human anymore, Edward."