Nicole Peeler - [Jane True 01] (23 page)

I had no idea how the hell I was going to walk, but I managed to trundle
over to the mirror. The black trousers fit like a glove, and the tight tapering
legs actually made my short legs look long, especially since the pants fell
about halfway down the enormous red heels. The positioning of the belt made my
breasts look amazing, and I had shown off more cleavage in the ten seconds it
had taken to check myself out in the mirror than I ever had in my life.

Iris stood behind me, looking at me in the mirror and making minor
adjustments. I had just realized that most of the adjustments seemed to be
located right around my breastal region, when Ryu said gently, “Iris, we need
to get back to business. Let Jane try on another outfit and we’ll keep
talking.”

I tottered back into the dressing room as Iris thrust a dress at me,
rolling her eyes. “Fine, if we
must
,” I heard her complain as I eased
off the high heels with a sigh. “The goblin called a few days ago, saying that
she wanted to speak to me about Peter, but she never showed up for her
appointment. So I can’t tell you what Gretchen wanted, because I didn’t
actually meet her. So why don’t we concentrate on Jane.” Her voice grew
honeysuckle sweet. “I have some fantastic lingerie in back—”

“As tempting as that is,” Ryu’s dry voice cut in, “I’m afraid we need to
concentrate on what you just said about Peter. You knew Peter?” he asked. “Do
you know he’s dead?”

I was inching my way out of the trousers, understanding what a snake
felt like shedding its skin, when I heard Iris sigh. “Yes,” she said. “He was
such a lovely man. He did this thing with his—”

“I’m sure he did,” Ryu interrupted her hastily, as I bit my tongue to
keep from laughing. “But someone murdered Peter. And now Gretchen, who came out
to investigate Peter’s death, has been murdered as well. All we know about
Gretchen’s investigation is that she was supposed to come see you, and we need
to find out why.”

I slipped the dress Iris had given me over my head with pleasure. It was
a silky material that felt like water caressing my skin, and it was the
loveliest pattern. There were two shades of purple involved, a rich bright pink
and a little white. The pattern itself was vaguely geometric but some of the
lines wobbled so that they lent an organic feel to the whole thing. There was
an insanely long sash that I didn’t know what to do with hanging from the
waist, and if I’d shown off some cleavage before, I was practically an
advertisement for it in this dress. Which was also very, very short.

There was a lull in conversation outside my dressing room, and I could
tell that Ryu was trying to regroup. Iris definitely knew something she wasn’t
telling us; there was a slyness to her prevarications that spoke volumes. But I
was getting the feeling that questioning Iris was like asking obedience of a
golden retriever. You had to interject treats, ball throwing, and belly rubs as
carrots, while the stick would get you nowhere. I’d also figured out that,
under these circumstances, I seemed to make a suitable Milk-Bone.

I stepped out from the dressing room with a flourish. Iris gasped
theatrically, clasping her hands together. Even given his annoyance, Ryu looked
pretty pleased with the effect.

“It’s a kimono mini-dress,” Iris explained, coming over to wrap the deep
purple sash around my waist a bunch of times before tying it into a small knot
in front. The “mini” part was obvious, and the kimono part explained the huge
sleeves. She pulled out another pair of enormous heels. This time they were the
same lighter-purple shade of the dress and they had small triangular cut-outs
coming up from the sole so that they were sort of tiger-striped, with the
stripes being the little cut-out triangles. All the shoe’s edges were lined in
a thin etching of gold. “Platform pumps by Christian Louboutin, as you can
probably tell from the red soles,” she told me, slipping them on my feet.

When she swiveled me around, I had to admit I was quite a sight. The
dress was gorgeous, and in the mirror, at least, I looked tall and elegant. In
reality, I barely came up to Iris’s chin and in those shoes I would probably
walk like I’d just gotten off a horse, but if I kept still I made quite a
satisfying illusion.

Iris was literally purring as she smoothed the material down over my
hips. Then smoothed it again. And then again. I took my chance, and I struck.

“Iris?” I asked, quietly, not wanting to disturb her reverie.

“Yes?” she murmured, pulling the material covering my chest both
slightly tighter and slightly apart, to up the boobage factor even more.

“Tell us about Peter,” I cajoled. “Did he tell you why he was in
Rockabill? He told me he was writing a book.”

Iris looked me in the eyes, and I took another little involuntary step
forward.
This woman is dangerous,
my brain observed while my
irrepressible libido merrily calculated the mechanics involved in catapulting
myself into a lesbian affair.

The succubus laughed, and said, “Oh, he
was
a naughty boy. He
wasn’t writing a book; he was investigating a halfling down in Rockabill.
That’s what he did. Well, that’s all he could do, really. He was practically
human. He’d gotten almost none of his father’s, an incubus’s, gifts. But he
could sense other halflings, for some reason.” She shrugged. “You never know
what you’re going to get when you have a child with a human. Sometimes they’re
just like you, and sometimes they’re just like the human parent. Sometimes they’re
like nothing else at all, and they come out entirely unique.”

Iris untied and re-tied the sash around my waist, slightly tighter and
wider this time. I could see that Ryu was listening intently, but he was
careful not to interrupt us.

“So, Peter was investigating a halfling?” I asked, already realizing
what was coming. “Was it me?”

Iris looked at me with confusion on her face. “Oh, Jane,” she whispered.
Her voice was like candied plums and it nearly broke my heart. “I’m so sorry. I
didn’t even realize until you said that. It must have been you.”

I smiled at her and stroked her golden hair. It was softer than the
fabric of the dress I was wearing. “It’s okay, Iris,” I murmured. “You didn’t
know. And we don’t know what he was doing, maybe it was innocent. Do you know
what he was doing?”

“I only know that he investigated them to start a sort of… inventory of
halflings. He said that his employer wanted to know about the halflings and who
their parents were. And what their powers were if they had any. He said that he
was making a sort of catalog… for future research.” I could tell that Iris’s
concentration was breaking up. She kept stopping and starting awkwardly. She
looked genuinely distressed that I had been the halfling in question.

“Iris,” I interrupted her, getting out the carrot. “Why don’t I try on
something else for you?”

She smiled like dawn breaking through the folds of night. “Oh, yes. I
have just the dress.”

She pulled a silver swathe of fabric from the rack, and her eyes were
back to glowing slightly. “I’ll have to help you with this,” she informed me,
doing a good job of keeping her buttered-rum voice professional.

I sighed.
In for a penny
, I thought, untying the sash around my
waist and pulling the dress I was wearing over my head.

Iris took a moment to surreptitiously check me out before she held the
silvery fabric over my head and pulled it down. She kept me faced toward her so
that I couldn’t see myself in the mirror, which was a nice touch. Between her
sensuality and her obvious sales skills, I now knew why Iris’s boutique did
incredibly well despite its being so far off the beaten fashion track.

As she busied herself settling the dress where it was supposed to be, I
struck again. “Iris? What Peter was doing doesn’t sound very dangerous, and yet
he was murdered. Did he say anything about feeling threatened?”

I couldn’t tell if Ryu was concentrating harder on Iris’s ministrations
or my words, but he nodded at what I’d said.
I’m doing pretty well, for a
sidekick,
I thought.

“There was something odd,” Iris said. “Peter didn’t want to talk about
it, and we didn’t really do much talking when we were together.” She smiled and
reached around me to undo my bra as I stifled a gasp. She ran her hands down my
arms to lower my bra straps and then took a firm hold of the material between
my breasts, whisking my bra away so that it didn’t interfere with the cut of
the dress.

“But he said that there was something fishy going on. That something was
happening to the halflings he was cataloging. He didn’t say what, but it
couldn’t have been good because I could taste that he was scared when he said
it.” I quivered at her casual use of the word “taste” to explain how she sensed
Peter’s emotions, and at her stepping behind me to zip up the dress. She trailed
the fingers of her free hand along my spine, causing me to stand up straight as
she zipped. The dress was snug, but I think that’s how it was supposed to be.

Ryu was gazing at me, fangs ahoy, while Iris stayed behind me adjusting
the halter strap and then sweeping my hair up into a little ponytail to get it
off my neck. The dress must have looked good because he was practically
drooling.

Iris then slipped onto my feet
another
pair of red-soled
ridiculous heels. I got the feeling she was insinuating I needed a little help
in the height department. “More Louboutin’s,” she said. “Slingback sandals.”
They were black satin with a little peephole in the toe and these adorably
large satin bows lounging across the top.

“He also said he thought he had seen somebody who shouldn’t be there,
wherever he was investigating. He wasn’t sure about any of this. He wasn’t sure
he’d seen who he’d seen and he seemed to find it hard to believe that whoever
it was would be there,” she said, confusedly, as I tried to follow her train of
thought. “But he was almost certain, at the same time, that he was right.” Iris
had stepped away to look me over appraisingly, and then stepped forward again
to make a few minor adjustments to the dress.

“And he didn’t admit it to me, but he was frightened. Especially toward
the end,” Iris explained. She chose that moment to turn me toward the mirror,
and even I gasped.

The dress was
incredible
. It had halter straps and a deep
V-neckline that plunged downward toward its empire waistline. There was a large
black carved flower button thingy sort of visually joining together the
waistline and the halter neck. The material was chiffon and there was tons of
it floating around me. I’d never felt so gorgeous in my life. And the crowning
glory was the shoes, which were just
sassy
. All thought of Peter fled as
I turned around, getting the 360-degree angle from the three-sided mirror.
This
isn’t a dress
, I thought
. It’s a gown.

Ryu’s voice was husky, when he finally spoke. “Iris, all of this
information is great. But do you have any idea
why
Peter was afraid?”

Iris turned to Ryu, and her expression was the most serious I’d seen all
night. “No, I don’t, and I knew better than to ask. I’ve not gotten this far in
life asking questions to which I know I don’t want the answers. All I do know
is Peter was genuinely afraid and that was enough for me.” Iris walked away
from me, toward the elegant, ladylike little rolltop desk that was sitting
against the wall near the mirror. She opened a bottom drawer with a key and
took out a large accordion file.

I pulled the long skirt out, fanning the material and letting it fall,
loving the feel of it against my legs. I just couldn’t get over myself.
It
can be yours if you kick off the heels and run
, I thought.
The succubus
will probably catch you, but if you can get the keys to the Porsche you’ve got
a fighting chance…
I told myself quite firmly to shut up.

“So, I haven’t even looked at this,” Iris said, and I finally stopped
admiring my image in the mirror. She handed the folder to Ryu, dusting off her
hands as if glad to be rid of it. “It’s a copy of Peter’s case file. He left it
with me for safe keeping. He said if something happened to him to release it to
the proper authorities.” She eyed Ryu, speculatively. “And I guess that’s you.
I just want it out of my shop.”

I could see Ryu was itching to get into the file, so I knew what I had
to do. With a sigh, I reached behind me and tried to get a hold of the zipper
to take off the gown. Iris saw what I was doing and came toward me to help.

As she zipped down the gown, she seemed to remember something. “Oh,
there is one other thing. Peter did tell me who he was working for.”

Ryu looked up sharply, his eyes as sharp and focused as a wolf’s when
confronted with a pound of sirloin.

“One of your kind,” she said, nodding at Ryu. “Name of Nyx.”

I watched, fascinated, as Ryu turned about six different shades of
purple. And then I watched, less pleased, as he swore like a trooper and tore
my old gray sweater right in half. Which made it my turn to curse.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN