a dog with both wolf and wolfhound genes, would tolerate being petted or even touched while eating. Quick continued gulping.
He'd seemed fine after the Zombie Cattle Company jamboree. Of course, he was the first of our partnership to exhibit a healing tongue, and I was not about to try mine out again on anyone but Ric. I leaned down to murmur, "Physician, heal thyself," in one big-bad-wolf-large ear. He was too busy wolfing his food to react to my little nothings.
Just then, Ric came out of the bathroom, and I turned to look. A new man, freshly showered, bare-chested and barefoot, contact lens inserted, and jaw shaved so close he must have lost half of his follicles.
"First," I suggested. "I'd get your baby-pink bottoms off that unsanitary motel carpet and into some shoes, then I'd tell me why the super-close shave. I know you had to have one yesterday for your new girlfriend, Mrs. Haliburton, but today?"
"Today, I've got to make the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport in less than an hour to pick up a big gun I had flown in." He frowned at my wrist. "Lost the switchblade. Too bad."
"Yeah, I feel naked without major edged weapons too."
Naked we were not. Quicksilver had a prudish streak for an unfixed dog, but that wasn't why both Ric and I, without consulting each other, had brought along jogging outfits for pajamas. We needed to be action-ready in case something big and bad besides Quicksilver wanted into our motel rooms along the way. Stray supernaturals of exotic ilk were still turning up all across America.
Like us.
"We need to talk about those fast-forward zombies and company," I told Ric.
"Yeah, but not until we settle Mrs. Haliburton's haughty hash. We're not leaving the Child Protective Services building today without more answers than are in your skimpy file."
He was at the tiny closet, donning his one French-cuffed silk shirt. White, that made his Latino skin gleam like a bronze god's.
"I could steam out the wrinkles over a tub of hot water."
"No time, although I'd enjoy watching you be domestic. Wrinkles will ease out with my body heat and won't show under the suit jacket. Trust me, I've traveled before."
"You tempt me with bare cheeks and references to body heat and are ready to bolt out the door. You are sure all business this morning, Montoya."
"Don't whine," he said with a grin. "You'll get yours later. You have anything to do here while I'm gone?"
I gestured at the wireless router I'd bought and installed yesterday beside the small flat-screen TV. "Going to catch up on the local news."
Ric thoughtfully pulled on his suit pants under his shirttails, whether in deference to Quicksilver or me, I wasn't sure. He grabbed his conservative diagonal-stripe tie and bureaucrat-navy jacket.
"You okay with me taking Dolly solo?"
"Now you ask? Guess I gotta be."
"Wear your on-camera suit. We'll have to grab a late lunch after the next assault on Mrs. Haliburton and her minions."
"And you're not going to tell me whom you're picking up at the airport?"
"Whom? Guess," he challenged on the way out the door after snatching Dolly's keys from the dresser top. "I'll honk when I'm back." He flipped the Do Not Disturb sign to the outside knob as he left.
Hmm. He was looking way too polished for Mrs. Haliburton.
Quicksilver finished his loud lapping and came to where I sat on the foot of the unmade bed, remote in hand.
"You want to see where Mommy used to work?"
He made that doggy gacking sound, too conveniently for it not to be a comment on my phony tone.
"I'm looking for anything suspicious about my former newscast co-workers," I told him. "Feel free to add any of your opinions. Gacking is okay."
Actually, I was glad to be alone for this chore. It took my mind off what Ric was bound and determined to do, for my own good: uncover the source of my phobia against lying on my back.
Men can be so singled-minded. It had never occurred to him what I might most be afraid of now, even more than finding myself in my must-not-do sleeping position, a possible memory of rape. Childhood rape. I'd reported on such atrocities, and there was no way the word "survivor" could ever undo the reality of having been a "victim."
"IN OR OUT?" I asked Quicksilver when I heard Dolly's mellow Miss Piggy scream for attention, otherwise known as a horn, ninety minutes later.
He was at the door before me, so out we went, after I'd turned over