in his empty voice now, something I couldn't quite place.
"I fainted a couple of times, and threw up, okay? Now let's concentrate on the current crisis. Did they actually arrest Jason?"
"I could not get a good sense of that, but I think not. They did take him away in restraints, though."
"That's standard with any known, or suspected, lycanthropes," I said. I pushed myself up, so I could sit on the seat instead of lying across it. The front of a Jeep just wasn't made for lying across. "You do know that if they didn't arrest him then he's free to walk out of questioning at any time?"
"It is a pretty theory, ma petite," now he sounded tired.
"It's the law," I said.
"Perhaps for humans," he said, voice mild.
I couldn't keep the indignation out of my voice. "The law applies to everyone, Jean-Claude, that's the way the system works."
He gave a soft laugh, and for once it was just a laugh with nothing otherworldly about it. "You are not usually so naive, ma petite."
"If the law doesn't apply evenly to everybody, then it doesn't work at all."
"I will not argue this with you, ma petite."
"If Zerbrowski picked him up, I know where they took Jason. I'm not that far from RPIT headquarters."
"What are you going to do?" he asked, voice still holding the soft edge of his laughter.
"Get Jason out," I said, buckling on my seat belt, and trying to pin the phone against my shoulder enough to start the Jeep.
"Do you think that is possible?" he asked.
"Sure," I said, and nearly dropped the phone, but I got the Jeep started. I seemed to be having a little trouble coordinating everything today.
"You sound so confident, ma petite."
"I am confident." I was, the fluttering feeling in my stomach wasn't. "I've got to go."
"Good fortune, ma petite,I hope you rescue our wolf."
"I'll do my best."
"Of that, there is little doubt. Je t'aime, ma petite."
"I love you, too." We hung up, at least we'd ended with I love you. It was better than screaming at each other. I dropped the phone on the seat beside me and put the Jeep in gear.
One emergency at a time. Save Jason, contact some people I knew to see if they knew anything about Heinrick, then prepare for the big banquet with Musette and company. Oh, and figure out how to keep the mess with Asher from driving a permanent wedge between Jean-Claude and me. Just another day in my life. This was one of those days when I thought that maybe a new life, a different life, wouldn't be so bad. But where the hell had I put the receipt, and could you return something that was over twenty years old? Where do you go to get a new life when your old one has you so puzzled you don't know how to fix it? Wish I knew.
Chapter 39
39
No one stopped me at the door. No one stopped me at the stairs. In fact, people kept saying, "Hi, Anita, how you doing?" I wasn't an official member of the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team, but I'd worked with them all for so long that I was like the office furniture, something that was there, accepted, even expected.
It was Detective Jessica Arnet that finally said something to me that wasn't just, hi. "Where's that cutie you always have in tow?"
"Which one?" I asked.
She laughed at that, and blushed a little. It was the blush that got my attention. She always flirted with Nathaniel, but I'd never thought much about it, until I saw her blush.
"You do seem to have more than your share of cuties, but I meant the one with violet eyes."
I'd have bet money that she knew exactly what Nathaniel's name was. "He stayed home today," I said.
She laid the stack of folders down on a desk, not her own, and pushed back her hair from her face. There wasn't enough of her dark hair to push back. It looked like an old gesture from when she'd had longer hair. The short, barely below-ear-level cut really didn't flatter her face. But the face was still good, triangular, with delicate bones that framed her smile nicely. I'd never really noticed, but she was pretty.
Did Nathaniel ever want to date, just date? Not the dominance and submission stuff, but like dinner and a movie. Someday I'd have the ardeurunder control and wouldn't need a pomme de sang,right? That had been the plan. So Nathaniel should like--date. Shouldn't he? If I