Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #27) - Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,171

sheriff’s station. Then I realized what he’d done.

“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked.

“Back to the sheriff’s station,” he said, eyes on the road, big hands at nine and three on the steering wheel, which thanks to airbags are the new safe positions.

“I didn’t say the location out loud.”

“I heard Edward say it on the phone.”

“Did you hear both sides of the conversation?”

“Yes.”

I looked back at Nicky. “Did you hear it all?”

“Yep.”

“I have some of the special abilities of a real lycanthrope, but I wouldn’t have heard the entire conversation.”

“Perhaps the fact that you are only a carrier for the disease but do not change forms limits your secondary abilities,” Olaf said.

“Probably. Even your hearing isn’t as good in human form as it would be in lion.”

“I have not tested it. Most people do not talk on phones around me when I am in lion form.”

“I’ll bet they don’t.”

“I would think people would treat all the lycanthropes in their lives the same way.”

I didn’t really like his putting himself in the same status as the other shapeshifters in my life, but I let it go. Sometimes you pick your battles with an eye to winning the war. “Actually, we talk on the phone around everyone in whatever form.”

“Then their control of their secondary form must be perfect indeed for the rest of your people to treat them so normally.”

“We’ve all been lycanthropes years longer than you have. It takes time to master your inner beast,” Nicky said.

“I have been told that my control is admirable for one so new.”

“It is. I was impressed with your control in Florida the last time we worked together,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“Praise where praise is due,” I said.

“Do you want to have children?”

“We aren’t going to talk about the case or speculate on what evidence may have shown up?” I asked.

“We will know soon enough, and we will do nothing but speak about the case when we arrive back at the station, so I would speak of other things.”

“I really didn’t think you and I would ever talk about babies, Olaf.”

“Nor I, but I saw you with the baby, and something harsh in you softened. I hadn’t expected to see that.”

“It surprised me, too,” I said, and that was honest.

“You talked to the woman in a way that surprised me as well.”

“You mean Brianna?”

“Yes.”

I said, “She surprised me because she named her kids after characters in her favorite book. I really didn’t see her as a reader.”

“She was different as a child. You heard her. She found boys, and books were forgotten,” Olaf said.

“If they were forgotten, she would have named her twins something else,” I said.

“That was unexpected,” he admitted.

“I know. I thought she was just some sexy airhead, but there’s depth in there if you get her talking about something besides strip clubs and her friends.”

“She would cheat on her husband,” Olaf said as if it was just true.

“You don’t know that.”

“I believe I could seduce her.”

“I noticed you putting some effort into flirting with her.”

“Did it bother you?”

“I wasn’t jealous if that’s what you mean.”

“I am jealous of you.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I ignored it and said, “She fits your victim profile, except for being a little too tall, so when you started flirting with her, instead of being jealous, I was more worried that you were going to see her as a potential target.”

“So your concern for her safety overrode any jealousy issues?”

“Yes,” I said. I thought, I don’t think I would have been jealous over you, but that was probably a fact best kept to myself.

“Why do you care about her? She is not your friend. She is nothing to you.”

“Brianna’s a person, Olaf. I held her baby and enjoyed it. I know what her favorite book from childhood is and that she named her kids after it. I know that her mom and mother-in-law are buying so much stuff for the babies that she’s trashing her living room to try to get them to stop. I know she’s probably a voyeur at the clubs. She’s real to me now, and the thought that she’s not real to you in the same way is disturbing.”

“I am a sociopath, Anita. I do not feel empathy. You know that.”

“Intellectually I know it, but that doesn’t help me understand it.”

“As I do not understand your sympathy for the woman we just left.”

“I guess we just agree to disagree,” I said.

“You are being very quiet, Nicky,” Olaf said.

“I’m