Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter #16 - Blood Noir (10 page)

Chuck grabbed a suitcase and tried to get us moving. I was willing, but Jason took my hand. He drew me in against him. I knew what he was going to do before he did it. I said, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“No, it’s a terrible idea.” He said it just before he kissed me. He kissed me, not like he meant it. He kissed me not because he wanted to kiss me, but because it would cause trouble. I didn’t like it, but I knew if I struggled that it would both smear my lipstick and maybe make him try for more of a kiss. He was in such a strange mood that I just wasn’t sure how to handle him. file://L:\Azures L_Disc Shared Dowloads\EBooks\Anita Blake Series 1-17\(Book16] - Bl... 10/18/2009

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Chuck came and shielded us from the camera with his broad back. To the unfamiliar guards, he said, “Get that camera.” To Jason, he said, “Why?”

Jason broke from the kiss and gave the taller man a look I’d never seen before. It was a
look
: part anger, part stubbornness, part just strength and ill will. It was a look more at home on my face than Jason’s.

“I don’t like being told what to do, Chuck.”

“Now you
do
sound like Keith.”

“You have no idea how much like Keith I can be.”

“I don’t need the two of you fucking this week up, Schuyler.”

“I am not one of the Summerlands, Chuck. You don’t get paid to boss me around, so don’t try.”

Jason reached for my hand. I made sure he got the left one. I wanted my gun hand free just in case. Because if looks could have killed, Jason would have been a greasy spot on the pavement. Teasing large armed men was not a healthy hobby, and I’d be talking to Jason about that when we weren’t in public.

The big man’s hands were flexing slowly at his sides, while I think he counted to twenty. If a camera hadn’t been aimed at us, I was pretty sure we’d have seen more of Chuck’s temper than just a little flexing.

The photographer was running toward the sunlight with the guards in pursuit. He was taking pictures over his shoulder the way you’d shoot a gun to slow down your attackers, but not really sure you’d hit anything. But he was aiming at Jason and me, not the guards.

“Carry your own damn bags then.” Chuck said it through gritted teeth.

“Happy to,” Jason said, and his voice was angry. His eyes were very blue, a rich, deep color. I realized it was the color of his eyes when he was angry.

The photographer was out of sight now, and the guards had vanished with him. Jason picked up both suitcases, got the balance of them, and headed for the door. I took the overnight case with all the guns in it and followed him. I kept an eye on Chuck as we moved up the back entrance. He was right about one thing: Jason had deliberately put a rumor into that camera. It would hit the news before anyone thought to ask if it was some distant relative. They’d all believe it was Keith Summerland with a lover going into a hotel just five days before his wedding to someone else. Shit.

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12

WE GOT TO
the room after Jason had proved with his ID that he was not a Summerland. They kept trying to check us into Keith’s room. Jason got overly familiar looks from several of the female staff. One even tried to give him a note while I was holding his hand in the elevator. We finally got to the room, tipped the bellperson, shut the door, locked it, and were alone. Jason leaned against the door.

The room was big, with two different conversation areas complete with couches and chairs. Large windows let in sunshine and a view of the mountains. There was even a four-seat table near one set of windows so you could eat and look out at the view. Big, roomy, but the décor stopped me in my tracks. The couches and chairs were all deep purple and red, but their shapes were vaguely organic. The drapes were heavy as if the sunlight were fighting to get through, and there were paintings everywhere on the walls. Most of them were modern art, which is okay, I own some, but modern art isn’t meant to be plastered on like wallpaper. It was all very artsy and sort of claustrophobic.

“They call it ‘the Gallery,’” Jason said. I looked at him. “Hey, it was either this or the ‘Swinging

’60s.’ It’s painted completely in pink.”

“Pink?”

“Pink.”

“The room’s lovely,” I said.

“Thank you,” he said.

The bed was around the corner. There was a fainting couch near it. I sat down on the edge of the bed and took off the high heels. Maybe if I concentrated on the problem at hand, I wouldn’t keep trying to figure out how many noses the picture in front of me had. “What the hell was that all about?

You begged me to leave the Summerlands alone, especially Chuck, and then you tweak his tail badly.”

“I know,” Jason said. “It was really stupid, and petty.”

“Why did you do it?”

He loosened his tie and flung himself onto his back on the bed hard enough for me to bounce a little where I was sitting. “I don’t know.”

“Liar,” I said.

He turned his head to look at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

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“It means you have some kind of history with these people.”

“They moved away when he became governor. I didn’t know they’d come back here for the wedding. It must be a local girl. God, I pity her.”

“Yeah, I saw how the women on staff were looking at you, like as soon as I turn my back they’ll pounce.”

“Keith looks like me, and I clean up well, but he’s rich, and his dad’s rich. There always seem to be women who want to be close to rich men.”

“And now his dad is governor and about to make a run for president. I think that’s adding to the Summerland appeal,” I said.

Jason nodded, then sat up. He leaned his elbows on his knees and held his head. “I should not have posed for the cameras like that. That was childish, but the twins were the bane of my childhood. We were always getting mistaken for each other, by teachers, girls, guys, strangers. Keith would deliberately do shit and get me blamed. He did the same thing to his brother, too, so I wasn’t so special there.”

“Kelsey, right, the brother?”

“Yeah.”

“Is the brother any nicer?”

“Kelsey was in some of the plays with me. He was quieter, a little shy. As awkward with the girls as Keith was smooth.”

“Sounds like you like Kelsey.”

“I would have, if he hadn’t been a Summerland and Keith’s brother. You couldn’t be friends with Kelsey unless Keith allowed it, and he hated me.”

“Why?”

“I got a few girls who had turned him down. I mean they turned him down, then slept with me, Anita. Think about that.”

I did. “They turned him down not because he wasn’t cute, but because he personally was an asshole.”

“Yeah, and all his daddy’s money couldn’t buy him the girls who knew what he really was.”

Jason got up and went to the mirror, started straightening his tie. “I went to college in St. Louis, and he stayed near the state capital. But I heard rumors that he had a couple of date-rape charges. Dropped, never saw court, but I’d believe date rape for Keith. He never took
no
very well.”

“And his father is making a run to be president on a family conservative ticket,” I said.

“That’s probably why they’re in such a rush to get him married off.”

“Marriage doesn’t cure you of being a bastard,” I said.

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He grinned at me. “Nothing cures you of being a bastard.” He came to me and held his hand out. I took it and let him get me on my feet. “Let’s go to the hospital.”

“I thought we might eat first.”

He shook his head. “If we start taking off more clothes for comfort I’m going to want sex, and as you pointed out we’ll get all messy. I desperately don’t want to go to see him. So that means go now, get it over with.”

“I thought I was the jerk-the-bandage-off type, not you.”

“Maybe years of watching you be brave is rubbing off on me.”

I was sort of embarrassed. “I’m not that brave. I nearly threw up on the plane.”

“Before I knew you, I thought brave was not being afraid. You’ve taught me that bravery is being terrified and doing it anyway.” He drew me closer into his arms, and because of the nearly identical height it had that intimacy that Micah could do. When you aren’t looking
up
, really, but
at
a man.

I studied his face, tried to see the fear he was talking about. “I see more anger in you than fear, Jason.”

“You’re going to ignore the compliment and go straight to the business, aren’t you?”

I shrugged, a little awkwardly, with my arms around his waist and his around me. He closed the almost invisible distance we’d been keeping between our bodies, so we touched from chest to groin and thigh. The closeness made me both uncomfortable and more comfortable. It felt good, and bothered me that it felt good. I never said I wasn’t conflicted about my sexuality. What helped it not be that sexual was Jason’s attitude. He’d gotten closer to comfort himself, not to start foreplay.

Jason gave a smile that was more a baring of teeth. “Yeah, I’m pissed. I’m pissed that the Summerlands ruined my childhood and now are going to ruin my last visit with my dad. I’m pissed at my dad. Pissed that he wouldn’t let my mom call me sooner. Hell, I’m pissed at my mom for not calling me sooner, or my sisters. They could have called me, but they all sat around waiting for the big bully to give them permission.”

“Is he really a bully, or are you just pissed?”

Jason hugged me, burying his face in my hair, as if to breathe me in. “You’ll meet him in a little bit. Judge for yourself. I’ve hated him and tried to love him for so many years I can’t see him clearly.”

I hugged him back, then said, “Let me put the heels back on. Do we call a cab?”

“Yeah,” he said, and reached for the phone.

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13

THE TAXI COULDN’T
get out of the drive in front of the hotel unless the driver was willing to run over members of the press. That would probably qualify as some sort of First Amendment violation, and I’m all about defending the Constitution. Besides, manslaughter sucks, too. The driver turned around. “I can’t get through, Mr. Summerland, I’m sorry.”

“My name is—oh hell!” Jason stared at the crowd that had descended from the road to surround us. Where were the valets who had been at the road earlier? Cameras were exploding everywhere. Reporters shouting questions. “Who is she? Did you break up with Lisa? Is the wedding off?”

“Shit,” he said softly, but with feeling.

The windows were covered by people and cameras. It was suddenly hard to breathe. I forced myself to breathe slow and even, but the press of people around the cab was claustrophobic. Fuck. Finally uniformed security and the spiffily dressed valets appeared in the crowd of press. They began to push them back, an inch at a time. The cab tried to ease forward, but even with the guards and valets we were stopped.

The cabbie turned around and looked at us. “You want to just give up?”

“I think we’re going to have to,” Jason said.

I looked out in time to see a guard and a photographer get into a pushing match.

“I can’t get through this,” the cabbie said.

Jason looked at me. “If I hadn’t done the kiss in the alley I’d say fuck them, but it’s my fault.”

I just looked at him. I mean, what was I supposed to say? He’d wanted to cause a scandal, and he’d succeeded.

A uniformed security person knocked on the window. Jason opened it a crack. The man said, “I think you should come back inside, Mr. Summerland. We need more people to guarantee your safety, and they’re going to follow you wherever you go. It’s not safe.”

“What do you want us to do?”

Another guard pushed in against the window; he stumbled as if he was being shoved from behind. “We can’t clear the road enough for the taxi to move, unless we start busting heads.”

“We don’t have permission for that,” the first guard said. That seemed to imply that with permission they would have happily waded into the press. What kind of guards were they?

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“We’re going to force them back, and then you get out of the taxi. There’s enough of us to form a circle around you both. Stay in the center and it’ll be fine.” His mouth was saying
fine
, but his eyes weren’t as certain.

I leaned around Jason. “We’ll be stampeded.”

“No, ma’am, we’ll protect you. It’s our job.”

“He’ll keep us safe,” Jason said, “because otherwise the governor will be very, very unhappy with him. With all of them. Isn’t that right?”

The uniformed guard licked his lips. His eyes actually showed too much white. He was well and truly scared. Either his nerve was weak, or Governor Summerland was scarier than your average politician. Or maybe it was the whole lose-your-job thing; yeah, that might do it.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

He turned and started shouting orders to the other uniforms.

“You spooked him on purpose,” I said.

“I did.”

“Why?”

He motioned at the mob they were pushing back. “The guard was right; unless we’re willing to get rough, we could get hurt. I don’t want to take another beating for Keith.”

They pushed them back, like a weird version of a football scrimmage line, except with cameras and microphones. The reporters were shouting at us, at the guards, at each other, so that it was noise like a storm, so all the sounds combined into one roar of unintelligible noise. When there was room, the nervous guard opened the door for Jason. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but I didn’t have a better one. He got out and helped me out of the cab. I thought we would go blind from the flashes before we’d moved two feet. I clung to Jason’s hand, trying to shield my vision and wondering what the hell I’d done with my sunglasses. If I’d ever needed them, it was now.