had a difficult relationship, and we were talking about killing people-killing more people-based on nothing but faith. Sitting in the dark at the kitchen table listening to the air conditioner hum, my mind kept circling back to prod at things.
Was it more likely that spirits from outside reality snuck in and took people over, or that people went nuts sometimes? Or got involved with cults? Was it more likely that I had magic superpowers I'd never known about, or that I'd had a hellish adrenaline rush and the people I was fighting weren't actually all that competent? Was it more likely that Midian was two-hundred-plus years old, or that he was a disfigured guy in his fifties with a lousy set of coping skills? Aubrey seemed kind and sane and good, but I'd known a lot of men who seemed just the same and believed in things that I didn't. God, for instance.
I looked at the window, and the darkness had made it a mirror. Here was a woman on the trailing edge of twenty-two with no friends left. No family left. A shitload of money from nowhere, and the man who'd given it to her-who, judging from the way he'd put her name on everything, had always meant for her to have it-had been murdered.
I looked the same. Same dark eyes. Same black hair. Same mole I'd always told myself I'd have taken off as soon as I had the tattoo removal done. But I wasn't the same. And if everyone I'd met that day-Midian, Aubrey, Jake, Ex-was insane or deluded, I wasn't sure it changed anything. Uncle Eric was dead. Someone had killed him. And I was going to find out who. Randolph Coin was the best lead I had. So that was the lead I'd follow.
A sound caught my attention. The click of metal against metal in a slow, almost meditative rhythm. It was me. Without even noticing, I'd taken the key ring out of my pocket and was tapping it against my thigh. The key to the doomed apartment, and two others. Storage facilities. I lifted the keys, running my fingers over their teeth.
"Yes, little tomato," I said to the key ring. "I'll check you out too."
Chapter 5
Five
I was asleep when the others arrived. I woke up to the sound of voices and the smell of fresh coffee. I pulled myself together: quick shower, fresh clothes, and out to the kitchen. Midian, his ruined face seeming oddly comforting only because it was familiar, stood at the stove wearing a buff-colored apron. Ex and Aubrey were sitting at the table where the lawyer and I had been just the day before. Chogyi Jake smiled at me in greeting while he poured coffee into a black mug.
It was like walking into someone else's home. The four of them all seemed perfectly at ease. It was like they all belonged there and I was the intruder, awkward and out of place. I hadn't bothered with shoes. The kitchen tile was cool against my soles, and the coffee almost too hot to drink.
"I was wondering if you were going to get up," Midian said. "You aren't Jewish or Muslim or anything fucked up like that, are you?"
"Excuse me?" I said.
In answer, he held up a package of bacon, his desiccated face taking on a querying expression.
"Yes, I'd love some bacon," I said. "Thanks."
"We were just going over strategy," Aubrey said. "How to proceed from here."
"The...um..." I said, gesturing vaguely with the coffee.
"No one's finding those bodies," Midian said, slapping several slices of bacon onto a hot skillet. He raised his voice over the sudden violent sizzling. "Say what you will about these boys' moral systems, they're effective when it comes to hiding evidence."
Ex shot an angry look at Midian. Chogyi Jake seemed more amused. I had the sense from Aubrey that the morning had been going pretty much along these lines. I hopped up on the counter. It was the sort of thing that would have made my father crazy, and even in these surreal circumstances, I felt a little rebellious doing it. None of the men present had any objection.
"Well, I have some things I need to do," I said. "I have to take Eric's death certificate to a couple banks and fill out signature cards and things, unless you guys plan to buy all my food and stuff."
"Everything does go better with money," Midian said, nodding his approval in my general direction. "Eggs with that?"
"Sure," I said.
He moved