is inexcusable.”
“I’ll say what is and isn’t excusable,” I said.
“That is your prerogative as queen, but if anyone had dared to threaten our old queen in such a manner, it would not have been tolerated.”
“Well, I’m queen now, and that is not how I want Olaf handled. He’s a fellow marshal, for the love of God. You can’t just kill him.”
“We will do nothing to him unless he tries to kidnap or rape me.”
“But if you bait him into doing it, it’s like you’re setting him up to be killed.”
“I will not harm him unless he tries to harm me first, and then I will merely defend myself. I am allowed to defend myself.”
“Of course you are.”
“Then if he behaves himself and passes on the bait, he will not get caught and slain,” Pierette said, and she was still too calm.
I wanted to grab her and shake her until she showed the fear she’d let him see. Had it been an act? Was she an even better actor than Edward? If she was, then I couldn’t trust anything she’d ever said or done with me. Damn it, didn’t she understand this would make me doubt her?
Nicky said, “She understands.”
“You read my mind,” I said.
He nodded. “And both Angel and Pierette understood both the danger from Olaf and that it might damage their relationship with you.”
“We all decided the risks were worth it,” Ethan said.
I looked into his soft gray eyes. “It’s wrong.”
“Why, my queen?” Pierette asked.
“What she asked,” Angel said.
I tried to think how to say it and finally said, “It seems . . . dishonorable. If I have to kill Olaf, I want him to know it’s coming and why.”
“If he kidnaps one of your girlfriends, he’ll know why we’re killing him,” Nicky said. Put that way, it made sense, but it still felt wrong.
“I don’t have time to argue about this anymore. We go inside and you prove to me that you’re all assets on this case, or I will by God send you home.”
“As you like, my queen,” Pierette said.
She even bowed at the neck, which was as much bowing as I allowed her in public. In private she’d press her face to the floor like she was abasing herself before something holy. It was incredibly uncomfortable to have people drop to the floor in front of you. I never knew what to do. Did I tell them to stop that and stand up, or just get off the floor, ignore it, help them up? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to break them of the habit.
“Don’t bow to me where the other police can see it.”
“As you like, my queen.”
“And don’t use any of my titles except for Marshal while we’re here.”
“Of course . . . Marshal.”
“We’re sleeping together. I think you can call me Anita.”
“Thank you, my queen.”
I started to correct Pierette, but then just started walking toward the sheriff’s office. I had a crime to solve and a life to save. I wasn’t letting anyone—not Olaf, not my bodyguards, not my lovers, not even my friends with benefits—interfere with this case. If they kept distracting me this badly, I would send them home, even the two women who were willing to fall on Olaf’s serial killer blade. I’d handled him before with just Edward to run interference. I could do it again if I had to. There was a tiny part of me that wasn’t so sure of that, and a very large part of me that knew someday I’d have to kill Olaf or he’d kill me. So why did it bother me so much that we were setting him up to fall back into his old murderous habits? I didn’t know, and I stopped trying to figure it out. Later. I’d think about it later. Crime first, moral dilemmas later. Oh, wait. The case was a moral dilemma, too. Damn it all to hell.
50
WE WERE ALL in the office having more of Duke’s yummy coffee, but none of my new people had been allowed near the cells. The cells were just a door away from us, but they might as well have been on the dark side of the moon. With the hours ticking away before we had to execute Bobby, we were stuck trying to play diplomats. I’d thought Leduc and I had had a “guy” bonding moment outside, and he had forgiven the PDA, but he hadn’t even begun to harp on the fact