“They woke him up to ask that? In the middle of his night? After he’d been bitten by a giant dragon? And he said no? Gee, wonder why?”

“You wake up snarky.”

I raked my fingers across my scalp and through my hair, catching on snarls, which hurt. But it was marginally better than belting the Kid. “Tell Eli to get the security team to walk around the lower levels that are accessible to them. If they spot something, Derek can deal with it. And tell Eli to get home and get some sleep. We’ll ask Leo about the subbasements tonight.” I started to push the door closed but the Kid stuck his hand in the way. “What?”

“You got a text.” He handed my cell through the crack in the door. “It’s from Rick.”

I froze, holding the official cell, the bullet-resistant one, with the titanium lid and Kevlar cover. I could feel the tiny devices the Kid had loaded into the fancy cover. Stuff I had never used. They were hard and rounded beneath my fingertips.

“I know it’s none of my business, but Bruiser loves you,” Alex said, sounding terrified but determined. “He sends you presents. He waited on you when you wouldn’t let Rick go.”

Cold, air-conditioned air hurt the back of my throat. My fingers closed on the cell phone. It was frigid, and I remembered dropping some of my clothes in a heap in the foyer, beside the air-conditioning vent, the cell on top.

“You need to let Rick go,” Alex said, his voice a distant, muffled roar inside my skull. “I know broken hearts take time to heal and all that sh—crap, but you’ve waited long enough. You need to start living again. And stop being such a little girl.” The door closed in my face and I stood there holding the cell. The cover was open, the blinking red light telling me that I had a text.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a little girl,” I said to the closed door. “Sometimes it keeps me safe. I know a lot of big macho men who’d still be alive if they’d been a little more like a little girl.” That didn’t seem like enough, so I shouted, “That was sexist!”

“Deal with it!” Alex shouted back.

Holding the cell as if it were a bomb—and maybe it was—I crossed to the bed and sat in the pile of tangled sheets. After a moment I activated the screen and opened the text. Hey, darlin’. Checking in. I’m on sabbatical from PsyLED. Am in mountains in national park. Am okay. Will call you soon.

On sabbatical. In the mountains, where his black were-leopard mate could hunt and roam in cat shape. Where he could do the same if she had managed to free him of the magic that kept him in human form, unable to shift into his were-cat. His mate . . . And he had called me Darlin’. Again. So much in that short text, and so little. And . . . why would Rick even think I’d care where he was? Rick had always been a player, too good-looking for his own good. A chick magnet. And he likely always would be. I considered my heart, my once-broken heart. And it was fine. Not broken anymore. How ’bout that?

Fingers cold, I deleted the text and closed the cell. Set it on the bedside table. I rolled back on the mattress and closed my eyes. Overhead I heard the shower start, Stinky/Kid/Alex taking a shower. He was growing up, and his advice, while unwelcome, was on target.

•   •   •

Sunset was only two hours away when I woke again. I lay on the bed, looking out through the cracks in the blinds, seeing a tourist couple walk by hand in hand. I got only fractured glimpses, but her head was on his shoulder. Their quiet laughter came through the window. They sounded happy.

A spike of jealousy shafted through me. I wasn’t sure what happy felt like. I knew for sure I had never wandered through a tourist town with my head on a man’s shoulder.

Tourists . . .

Not many tourists rambled this far away from Bourbon Street except during Mardi Gras and New Year’s, when they roamed drunkenly all over the French Quarter. And the Garden District. And most of the rest of New Orleans. They relieved themselves on every street corner and passed out in every alleyway and threw up everywhere. They had sex on street corners and in bars and in bathrooms. Most of the locals made a point to be out of town during the holidays and I had heard it was often dirty and stinky and horrible, but I had never spent the holiday in town, despite some intense dream sequences that suggested otherwise. I had taken a vacation of sorts while Fat Tuesday took place this year; during New Year’s—the next-biggest shindig—I’d been working a case, and through a case of depression. I lived in the party town of the nation and I’d never participated. Go figure.

And now I had Bruiser. And I didn’t know what to do about him.

I rolled over, trapping my hair, again, and checked my cell. I had more text messages, including one from Derek. Electrical system. Scorched places on walls on all accessible lower levels. Opened wall with hammer. Old copper wires shorting out. Have called in electrical service, owned by blood-servant family. Security will stay on them, same method, Otis people.

I texted back a short reply and rolled out of bed—again—feeling stiff and sore, and spent half an hour stretching and pulling at muscles that felt tense and all wrong. Odd, considering that I’d been in my Beast form before dawn and that usually left me feeling smooth and toned and svelte, like a cat. It couldn’t be from keeping vamp hours (up all night and sleeping all day) because that was Beast’s natural state, and I’d lived that way for decades at a time. But it could be because I wasn’t getting enough sleep, period. I wasn’t Superwoman. I checked my sternum, and at least that part of me felt good.

I dressed for HQ, with more insight than I’d used the night before. I wore leggings, a tank over a jog bra, and a hoodie over that.

In the main room, I found the Kid bent over his tablets, hair straggling over his eyes, shoulders hunched, making a point not to look up at me. “Hey, Kid,” I said, trying for offhand and casual. “You smell better. And thanks for the boyfriend pep talk. Skip what I said about no pizza; I’m sending out for Mona’s. You want something?”

Mona Lisa’s on Royal Street was, arguably, the best Italian place in the Quarter. And they delivered. Alex relaxed his shoulders. “Deep-dish meat lover’s?” he asked.

“Sounds good.” I called it in and added the eggplant parmesan for Eli. He was a meat lover, but not one of high-fat, pork-based foods.

When I got off the phone, Alex, said, “Check the door, wouldja? Someone knocked a few minutes ago, but I haven’t had time to see what it was. Delivery of some kind.”