Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson #5)(28)
Author: Patricia Briggs

I looked at him and glanced at the bookstore as I cruised past it on the way out of the parking lot. The woman was back behind the counter going over something that looked like an account book.

Coincidences happen a lot less often in real life than they do in the movies.

"Sam," I said, "are you staying out of sight of a fae? One that smells like all the elements at once?"

He raised his chin and dropped it.

"Is she one of the good guys?" I asked.

He made a gesture that was neither yes nor no.

"Trouble?"

He snorted affirmative.

"Damn it."

I pulled over at a gas station, parked the car, and called Warren, Adam’s third in the pack and my friend.

"Hey, Warren," I said when he answered. "Does Kyle have a safe in that monstrosity he lives in?" I could put the book in Adam’s safe – and if it weren’t fae who were looking for it, I’d feel relatively confident with it hidden and surrounded by werewolves. But Warren’s human boyfriend’s house would be a much less likely spot to leave it and nearly as safe.

"Several." Warren’s voice was dry. "I’m sure he’d be delighted to loan you one. You storin’ blackmail material now, Mercy?" There were noises in the background of his phone, people and the kind of echoing you get in a really big building.

"Wouldn’t that be something," I said. "How much do you suppose Adam would pay to keep an X-rated video of him off the Internet?"

Warren laughed.

"Yeah," I said sadly, "that’s what I think, too. So no riches in my future, and no blackmail either. Can you or Kyle meet Sam and me at Kyle’s house sometime soon?"

"I’m on guard duty right now, but I bet Kyle is home. He doesn’t always answer the house phone. Do you have his cell number?"

Warren worked for his boyfriend – I know, it’s an awkward thing, but Warren hadn’t exactly been making rent at the Stop and Rob he’d worked at before. Kyle’d shaken a few trees, bribed a few officials (probably) and maybe blackmailed more, and gotten Warren a private detective’s license. Warren guarded clients and did quiet investigations for Kyle’s law firm.

"I have it," I told him. "Are you at Wal-Mart?"

"Nope, grocery store. Wal-Mart was an hour ago."

"Poor baby," I said sympathetically.

"Nope," he said, his voice soft. "I’m doin’ something useful. This lady deserves to feel safe – though lots of folks seem to think I’m responsible for her black eye."

"You’re tough," I said unsympathetically. "You can handle a few nasty looks." Being a g*y werewolf for a hundred years gave Warren a skin so thick it might as well be armor. Not much ruffled his feathers except for Kyle.

"I’m kinda hoping her soon-to-be-ex shows up," he said softly; I thought so she wouldn’t hear him. "I’d like to get the opportunity to introduce myself to him."
* * *

KYLE BROOKS’S HOUSE IS IN THE WEST RICHLAND HILLS, where the rich folks live. Huge and yet somehow delicately designed, it settles in among its neighbors like a sly cat among poodles. The size is right, but it’s more graceful and comfortable in the desert light than the rest of them. Divorce lawyering, at least in Kyle’s case, pays very well.

I parked the Rabbit on the street, let Sam out, and got the book . . . and the walking stick that was lying beside it.

"Hello," I told it. It didn’t do anything magical or warm in my hands, but somehow, it felt smug.

I bumped the Rabbit’s door closed with a hip and trotted all the way up to Kyle’s front door. The significance of the book had just entered a whole new dimension, once the old woman at the bookstore had mentioned it. So I held it with both hands and tucked the walking stick under my arm.

When I got to the front door, I couldn’t ring the bell.

Sam saw my dilemma and caught the doorbell with a gentle nudge of one claw. Kyle must have been right by the door, as he’d promised when we talked, because when he opened the door, he was face-to-fang with Sam.

He didn’t even flinch. Instead, he cocked a hip, made a kissy face, then smiled seductively, turning an ordinary pair of jeans and a purple wifebeater into brothel-wear.

"Hey, darling," he told Sam. "I bet you’re gorgeous in man shape, hmm?"

"It’s Sam," I told Kyle dryly. And even though I knew it would just stir up trouble, I had to warn him again because I really liked him. "You need to be careful about whom you flirt with among the wolves – you might get more than you bargain for."

Kyle could sometimes have a real chip on his shoulder – getting disinherited, then living in a conservative community has had that effect on more than one g*y man – and Kyle could take flaming (and bitchy) to an art form when he thought it would make someone who disapproved of him uncomfortable. Luckily, he chose to take my warning in the spirit it was offered.

In an entirely different kind of voice, he said, "Love you, too, Mercy." He dropped the flirtatious act with a speed and completeness that many an Oscar winner would envy. "Hey, Samuel. Sorry, didn’t recognize you with all the fur." He looked at what I held. "You want to put a towel in my safe?"

"It’s a very special towel," I told him as I ducked around him and into the house. "Dried Elvis’s hair on the day of the last concert."

"Oooh," he said, stepping back so Sam could follow me. He shut the door and, almost as an afterthought, turned the dead bolt. "In that case, you certainly need it someplace secure. You want the big safe with all the electronics or something better hidden?"

"Better hidden would be cool." I didn’t think that electronics were going to work against the fae.

He led the way through the house, up the stairs, and past his library – one side filled with beautiful leather-clad law books, the other with tattered paperbacks that included Nora Roberts’s complete works. I took two steps and stopped, backed up, and looked in the library again.

If the fae were after the book, and they had some way of tracking it – certainly they would already have it. Instead, it had spent the better part of two days in my Rabbit wrapped in a towel.

Kyle came back and looked at the library, too. "It’s a book, is it? You’re thinking of hiding it in plain sight?" He shook his head. "We can do that, but if someone is looking for a book, the first place they’ll look – after the big safe – is the library. I have a better idea."

So I followed him to a bedroom. It was painted dark blue with black splatters, and the twin-sized bunk beds had comforters with Thomas the Tank Engine chugging around on his track – not exactly something I expected to ever see in Kyle’s house. I knew that he never had family visit, so it couldn’t be for a nephew. Kyle continued into the bathroom so I did, too. Sam’s claws clicked on the slate floor.