Silver Basilisk - Zoe Chant Page 0,24
you. Always has. Beginning with our first trip. I remember putting the first post card in the mail box myself. He’s never stopped.”
“I got six weeks’ worth of post cards,” she said tightly, her night-black eyes glittering in the light from the street lamp. “I still have them. Then nothing. After I moved out west to look for him, I started writing on his birthday every year. Christmas.”
“He did write. He . . . no, I realize I sound like I’m making excuses. Better for you to talk to him. He’s waiting by the phone, if I know him. Right now. Late as it is on East Coast time. But I promise this, he’s written to you. Addressed to Maria Cordova, which was the name you used when he was small.”
“Maria Cordova was my mother’s name.” Godiva pressed a trembling hand to her forehead. “I put that on the birth certificate for us both, because I made up a fake husband . . . never mind that. I never got any letters after those cards. I used to travel out every chance I could, always at his birthday, until my agent took over for me. She’s checked the box for me the past fifteen years or so, and I’d swear she hasn’t lied to me.”
Rigo shook his head. “I don’t get it. Did you change the box number without leaving a forwarding address?”
“Never. Kept the same one. And I never put in for forwarding, because I moved so often, I was afraid letters would be lost. I figured, only one person had that box number, so it wouldn’t get overstuffed between the times I checked it—and anyway, if there were too many letters, the post office would hold the extras. But there were never any. Ever.”
“By rights that box ought to be stuffed with his letters. And yours.” Rigo sighed. “The important thing right now is, he did write.”
Doubt creased her brow. He knew she didn’t believe him, that she was beginning to doubt everything. So once again he shifted again, and then back.
Her growing doubt vanished to an expression he couldn’t quite read. “Real,” she breathed. Then a little of her heat returned. “Why the hell didn’t you at least tell me about this monster thing, back when we were dating? I can’t promise I would have taken it well, but I sure as shootin’ would rather have had the truth than total silence.”
“Because I didn’t know,” he repeated, then paused. “Shirl. Godiva, you’re shivering. Let’s get you home.”
“No,” she said quickly. Then shook her head. “Right now, I just want to talk. Just the two of us. I can’t deal with anyone else yet.”
“How about we sit in the car? You can have the keys, if it makes you feel safer.”
She shook her head slowly, her white hair gleaming in the starlight. Her fingers trembled as she tucked a loose strand of moon-pale hair behind her ear, then tucked her fingers into her armpits. “Right now I don’t know what to think. But I have to believe that . . . critter. What did you call it, a basilisk? I thought those were strictly mythology?”
“Well, we’re called mythic shifters. There are very few of us in the world. I can tell you as much or as little as you like, but right now you seem to be chilled.”
“It’s reaction more than the temperature,” she said, but when he pointed toward the car, she headed that way. Then gave him a kind of twisted grin, a flash of the old Shirl he’d known back then. “I was sure you’d stolen this pimpmobile.”
“Pimpmobile? My heart, it’s broken,” he said, striving for a lighter tone.
“Well, the truth is, it’s way too elegant for a pimpmobile. Not nearly enough chrome and other bling.”
He laughed. “Alejo found the chassis parked alongside some old farm equipment, put it on a trailer, and brought it home. We worked on it together. It took us ten years to find all the parts, rebuild it from the frame up, and to get it running again. Then, because neither of us cares especially about it being pure vintage, we modified it up to modern standards. My guess is, it’s a lot more comfortable then it was originally. Certainly eats less gas.”
He opened the passenger side, and she hopped in. He went around to the other side, scarcely permitting himself to acknowledge his triumph at having come this far. He was far too aware that he could still screw