Talon rubbed his forehead with his hand. This was so not good. How on earth could he get out of her apartment in the middle of the day with no clothes on?
"You know," she continued, "you really shouldn't cut the tags out of your clothes."
It had been a long time since he had felt real, deep aggravation, but he was starting to feel it now. "Those were custom, handmade leather pants. They never have tags."
"Oh," she said, looking even more sheepish. "I would have bought you some more, but since they didn't have tags in them, I didn't know what size to buy."
"Great. I live to be stuck in strange places, naked."
She started to smile at him, then pressed her lips together as if thinking better of it. "I have some pink sweatpants that really wouldn't fit you, and even if they did, I'm sure you wouldn't want to wear them anyway, would you?"
"No. Did you wash my wallet too?"
"Oh, no. I took it out of your pants."
"Good. Where is it?"
She became quiet again and a feeling of doomed dread consumed him.
"Do I want to know?" he asked.
"Well..." He was beginning to hate that word since it seemed to portend doom for him and his belongings. "I put it on the washing machine at the Laundromat with your keys, and then I realized that I didn't have change for the washer, so I went to the change machine. I was only gone a second, but when I got back your wallet was gone."
Talon grimaced. "And my keys?"
"Well, you know when you wash just one thing it unbalances the machine? Your keys ended up getting jarred off the top of it and they went down a small drain."
"Didn't you get them back?"
"I tried, but I couldn't reach them. I had three other people try, but they're gone too."
Talon sat in stunned disbelief. Worse, he couldn't even get mad at her since she'd only been trying to help him. But he really, really wanted to be mad.
"I have no money, no pants, no keys. Do I still have my jacket?"
"Yes, it's safe. And I saved your Snoopy Pez dispenser from the washer too. And your boots and knife thing are right here," she said, holding them up from the floor by the bed.
Talon nodded, feeling strangely relieved by the knowledge that she hadn't destroyed everything he'd had on him last night. Thank the gods his motorcycle had been left by the Brewery. He shuddered to think what she might have done to it. "Is there a phone I can use?"
"In the kitchen."
"Could you please bring it to me?"
"It's not cordless. I always lose those things or I drop them someplace and break them. The last one I had ended up drowning in the toilet."
Talon looked uneasily at the woman and the faint sunlight in the room. He wondered which one of them was the most lethal to him.
"Would you mind pulling down the shades?" he asked.
She frowned. "Does the sunlight bother you?"
"I'm allergic to it," he said, falling into the lie Dark-Hunters used when caught in similar situations.
Although he doubted if any Dark-Hunter had ever found himself in a situation similar to this one.
"Really? I've never known anyone allergic to sunlight before."
"Well, I am."