he said. “I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through. What your family has—”
“It’s just me. Isobel was all I had. Our parents died in the fifties.”
“Can you tell me what happened to her? And I’m asking you as a friend, not as part of any investigation, I promise—”
“I have to go.”
Boone cursed internally—and had to fight not to press her. “I understand. Just . . . if you ever want to talk, you know where to find me?”
When there was no reply, he realized that she had hung up already.
* * *
The thing Butch liked most about the Pit was the people in it.
As he sat down on his black leather sofa, with a bottle of Lagavulin on the coffee table in front of him and a rocks glass with ice-and-asplash against his palm, he smiled over at his roommate. Vishous was behind his Four Toys, the bank of computers and monitors, the kind of thing that could be used to land the space station on the head of a pin in the middle of a hurricane.
Ya know, if you were wicked bored or some shit. And had nothing better to do than save humanity.
He and V had moved into this carriage house when the Brotherhood had taken residence in the great gray mansion across the courtyard. And then, after he had mated Marissa and V had settled down with Doc Jane, its two bedrooms had managed to accommodate everyone.
Plus Butch’s wardrobe.
Okay, fine, the carbon-based life-forms were good to go in their allotted four-wall-configurations. His clothes, on the other hand, had kind of metastasized from his closet out into the hallway. But no one was complaining about the extremely expensive and very classy fire hazard. Yet.
“What’s that grin about,” came a mutter from behind all that computer equipment.
“I’m just in a good mood.” Butch swirled the Lag in his glass. “You know, I’m sure you had one once. It probably scared you, though.”
“Nah, I gave it up for Lent.”
“You’re not Catholic.”
“You infected me.” V leaned back and looked around the monitors.
“Gave me a case of mono-Pope-leosis.”
“That joke is blasphemous, but worse, it’s not that funny.”
“Well, at least I can guess why you’re full of the joys of spring, tra-la. Marissa still recovering in your bed?”
“Wait, wait, I can’t talk right now.” Butch took his heavy gold Jesus piece out of his silk shirt and squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m praying for your eternal soul.”
“Don’t bother.”
“Come on, don’t you want to go to Heaven?”
“I wouldn’t know anyone up there. And don’t get too prissy with that religious bullshit, true? I don’t want to spend eternity without you, so you need to come to Dhunhd with me.”
“Will they have Milk Duds there?”
“Yes, but they’ll all be melted together. And we’ll be surrounded by Yankees fans, televangelists, and no booze.”
“We’ll think of some way to pass the time.”
“We always do.”
Butch took another long draw off the rim of his glass and let his happy glow bloom all over his shit. And yes indeedy, doody, his beautiful shellan was in fact sleeping off a marathon session that had taken them through Last Meal and left Marissa too satisfied to need food. And didn’t that make him feel like he’d been a good husband. Or hellren, to use the vampire word.
Grabbing the remote, he angled the whacker over the foosball table and turned on the flat-screen. No reason to change the channel. ESPN was on so much, it was like it had punched out all the other networks in a bar fight.
V cleared his throat from behind the monitors. “So I made a mistake.”
Cue the sound of tires screeching.
Butch tilted forward so he could see the guy. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“Throwing around the m-word, huh. It must be serious. What happened? Did you try to solve pi to twelve thousand digits and get number eleven thousand nine hundred ninety-nine wrong?”
Those diamond eyes shot over. “I’m being real.”
Butch dropped the bullshit. “Talk to me.”
V typed some things on his keyboard, that diamond stare of his going back and forth as if he were reading something on one of the screens. And as silence grew between them, Butch was content to wait the guy out. The brother was not a big talker to begin with unless he was exercising his constitutional right to be sarcastic. And then he could be downright chatty. But when it came to anything remotely emotional? It was hard for him.
“I ruined that scene down in the club’s storage room,”