Speak of the Devil (16 page)

“Would you like me to get you a pole?” I asked Adam. Then I slapped myself on the forehead like a character in one of those V8 commercials. “Oh, wait, you already have one.”

Saul snickered, and Adam straightened up to look at us. He seemed genuinely puzzled, though I could have sworn he was purposely teasing Saul and me. I guess he’d been looking for evidence after all.

He figured out my comment after a brief glance at Saul’s face, and he rolled his eyes. “Get your minds out of the gutter.”

I decided to just pretend I hadn’t said anything. “Did you find anything interesting?”

“Let’s go upstairs to talk about it, shall we?” he suggested.

“Good idea,” I agreed. I was sick to death of looking at the ruin that had once been my car. I had a feeling my car insurance company was going to drop me. My last car had been destroyed by the fire at my house, and now here was another one ruined in less than two months.

The elevators in my building are ancient and slow. I sagged against the back wall as we inched upward toward my apartment. As if we were strangers, we were all staring at the glowing numbers above the door.

“I’m thinking of moving to Tibet,” I commented in a vain hope that it would break the tension. No one answered. Worse, no one even cracked a smile. So much for my comic relief.

When we got back to my apartment, I flopped onto the couch and propped my feet up on the coffee table. I didn’t feel too freaked out. I was just… tired. The numbness that Lugh had helped me shake off this morning was threatening to come back. And really, would that be such a bad thing? Because if I let myself feel everything, it might be time to call in the boys with the white coats.

Adam sat on the other end of the couch, and Saul took the love seat. I didn’t look at either of them.

“So,
did
you find anything?” Saul asked when I failed to repeat my earlier question.

“Nothing the regular cops wouldn’t have found,” Adam replied. “But I have been putting some thought into the big picture.”

I felt his eyes on me. Probably I was supposed to show some interest. “And what did you come up
with?” I asked, because if I didn’t, he’d probably start psychoanalyzing me or something.

“Based on our conversation with Barbie earlier, it seems like Jack Hillerman has something against you personally for some unknown reason. It seems like he’s using Maguire’s death as an excuse to take up his personal grudge with you.”

I huffed out a frustrated breath. “It doesn’t make sense for him to have anything against me personally! Remember, I’ve never met the guy.”

Adam pulled a four-by-six photograph from his back pocket and handed it to me. A slightly overweight forty-something guy with a pathetic comb-over smiled out at me. I shook my head and gave Adam a blank look. He took the picture back.

“It was worth a shot,” he said. “It was possible you really had met him and just hadn’t known his name.”

“Sorry, but I don’t recognize him. Did you have a chance to find out if he has any Spirit Society affiliations?”

“Yeah. No connections that I can find.”

I threw up my hands. “Then what’s his problem?”

“I don’t know,” Adam said. “But I’m beginning to rethink my position on whether Hillerman is behind the threats or not. What are the chances two separate people would a) hold you personally responsible for what happened to Maguire, and b) be crazy enough to start this kind of vendetta? I mean, I’d think if
anyone
would take the heat for this, it would be Maguire’s ex-girlfriend.”

Adam was referring to the ex-girlfriend who’d pressed charges on Maguire for apparently having beaten her up. He’d always proclaimed his innocence, and it was her testimony that put him in the hot seat.

“Or how about the judge who ordered the exorcism?” Adam continued. “No one seems to be targeting
her
. Even if you swallow the idea that it’s two different people, you’d think at least one of them would have chosen a different scapegoat.”

It made sense, if anything could be said to make sense these days. “Okay, I get your point,” I said. “But seriously, can you imagine someone like Hillerman breaking into a funeral parlor and chopping off a corpse’s hand? And hell, he looks like he’d die of a heart attack before he could do that kind of damage to my car!”

“He hired Barbie. Maybe he hired someone else to do the less subtle work. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to ask Barbie to do some surveillance on Hillerman, see if we can find any other shady characters he’s hanging out with.”

Since when had Adam cared if something was all right with me? I’d have liked to object in this rare instance when he was actually giving me a choice—or at least
appearing
to give me a choice—about something, but I couldn’t see a good reason to.

“Go for it.” I frowned. “But why Barbie? Can’t you use your resources?”

He raised one shoulder in a shrug. “We don’t have enough evidence against him to launch anything official.” He met my eyes. “Besides, it’s possible this investigation could lead us to something we’d rather keep off the books.”

Once again, I had to agree with him, though I didn’t like it. If this all blew up in our faces, the fact that we hadn’t told the police the full story would come back to bite us in the ass.

“I
am
going to drop by to visit Maguire’s girlfriend tomorrow,” Adam said. “If she was shacked up with Maguire, and if Hillerman really did launch
his little terror campaign out of some weird, overblown grief at the death of a client’s son, I might be able to suss out a reason.”

“And my assignment is still to sit around doing nothing?” I asked sourly.

Adam had no sympathy. “Considering the damage this guy did to your car, I think keeping your head down would be a good idea. He’s escalating, and it seems logical that the next strike will be actual violence against you.”

“Hold on a sec,” I said, thinking furiously. “We’re beginning to think Hillerman is behind
everything
, right? I mean the lawsuit, the letter to Brian, the psycho stalker—they’re all supposed to be him.”

“Right,” Adam agreed.

“If he’s planning to kill me, why the hell would he waste the time and energy to talk Maguire into suing me? And why would he bother ruining my relationship with Brian?”

“Part of his escalation pattern,” Adam said, but he didn’t sound as sure of himself as usual.

I let the subject drop, but I had my own theory now: Hillerman didn’t want me dead. He wanted me alive and miserable. I still had no idea why, but I felt pretty sure my psycho stalker wasn’t going to be escalating any further.

When I woke up the next morning, I felt marginally better than I’d felt yesterday. Saul had made coffee again. It was still strong enough to put hair on my chest, but with a little extra cream and sugar, it was drinkable. We sipped our coffee in what felt almost like a companionable silence.

During the night, I’d come to the conclusion that I was sick and tired of sitting on the sidelines of my
own life. I was confident—to a point—that I wasn’t going to get myself killed if I nosed around a bit, and I knew I’d feel better if I was out doing something than if I was sitting around the apartment playing house with Saul.

I also knew that after last night’s brutal attack on my car, Saul wasn’t about to let me leave my apartment without an escort. One thing all the demon-possessed men in my life had in common was a protective streak the size of Texas, and I doubted Saul was any different from the rest. Not that it was unjustified—I was hosting their king, after all, and if I died, he’d be forced back into the Demon Realm, where Dougal and his supporters could get their metaphorical hands on him. But for what I wanted to do today, I had to forego the pleasure of Saul’s company.

My first plan was to slip out while Saul was in the bathroom, but with my building’s slow and cranky elevators, I’d probably still be standing in the hallway pushing the elevator button repeatedly by the time Saul caught up with me. My second plan was to make my getaway when I went down to the front desk to pick up my mail, but my unwanted bodyguard came with me even for that small task. Plan C was to send him to the deli around the corner to pick up some sandwiches for lunch, during which time I would “wait for him” in my apartment. I think he saw through that one, though, because he insisted on ordering delivery.

That was when I decided subtlety just wasn’t going to work. It was the frontal assault or nothing. Anyone surprised I chose the frontal assault?

While Saul was finishing up the enormous hoagie he’d ordered for lunch, I casually picked up my purse, rooting through it as though looking for something. As I shuffled junk around, I armed the Taser that was
my constant companion and made a surreptitious check of its charge level. It was good to go, so I drew the Taser out of the purse and pointed it at Saul.

He was too busy stuffing his face to notice at first, but when he did, he froze in the middle of biting off a big, drippy mouthful of hoagie. His eyes widened with alarm, and even after the first moment of surprise passed, he didn’t move, barely even seemed to breathe.

“Go on and finish that bite,” I told him pleasantly. “I don’t particularly want to get hoagie innards all over my dining room.”

He bent over the paper wrapper that lay unfurled on the table, then carefully released the hoagie from his mouth. Shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, and mustard spilled out all over the paper, but at least it wasn’t on my carpet.

“Let me finish chewing,” he said with his mouth full. Apparently he hadn’t finished his previous bite before he’d tried to stuff another one in. I reminded myself to give him a lesson in table manners later.

I was worried his request might be some kind of trick, so I put some extra distance between us, making sure I had time to fire off a shot if he came after me. But he just sat at the table and chewed, watching me with wary eyes. Maybe he was trying to make sure his host didn’t choke to death while he was disabled. Electricity mucks with a demon’s control so badly that I wasn’t sure he’d be able to swallow once I shot him.

His face had paled a bit, and if I didn’t know better, I would have sworn he was scared. There was even a sheen of sweat on his upper lip. I told myself he had to be faking it, trying to think of some way to keep me from shooting, but I hesitated anyway.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I demanded. “You
like
pain, remember?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Yeah, but I don’t like being completely helpless.”

I sympathized. So I pulled the trigger before I had a chance to think about it any more, or I might have changed my mind.

Saul went rigid when the probes latched onto him, a strangled sound escaping his throat. His muscles were no longer in control enough to keep him in the chair, so he tilted sideways and hit the floor with a thud. This was the first time I could remember Tasering a demon and actually feeling guilty about it.

I ejected the spent cartridge and shoved the Taser back in my purse. Then I turned Saul over onto his back so his arm wasn’t trapped in an awkward position. He was sweating all over, and my guilt spiked.

“Sorry,” I said, and I meant it. “You’ll be back in control in ten minutes. Fifteen, tops.” Enough time for me to get far enough away he couldn’t stop me.

He tried to talk, but since he wasn’t in control of his tongue, all that came out was a garbled groaning sound.

“Sorry,” I said again, then forced myself to my feet and headed for the door.

Jack Hillerman’s
office was on Broad Street, within spitting distance of City Hall. A much nicer part of Broad Street than Barbie’s office inhabited, I might add. The building had probably been around since the turn of the twentieth century, and the lobby was dismal and depressing. The elevators were new, though, so they shot me up to the fifteenth floor fast enough to make my stomach have to run to catch up. The doors opened onto a very conservative, genteel reception area.

Despite the age of the building, the reception area was decidedly modern in decor, with spare, clean furnishings, good lighting, and abstract art on the walls. Three hallways led away into the depths of the firm. I saw a cubicle farm at the far end of one hallway, but the other two were lined with real, honest-to-God offices.

The receptionist was an older woman with tastefully gray hair arranged in a picture-perfect pageboy. A pair of chic red-framed glasses perched on her nose, adding a modern touch to her otherwise old-fogyish dark gray suit. She flashed me a practiced smile as I
approached her desk, and she didn’t even give my sophisticated jeans-and-T-shirt outfit a second glance.

“May I help you?” she asked, and she managed to convey the impression that she genuinely wanted to help.

I returned the smile. “I’m here to see Jack Hillerman,” I said, knowing things were about to get dicey. I was pretty sure that talking to me wasn’t high on Hillerman’s list of preferred activities—not to mention that it was probably against the rules for him to do so without my attorney present.

The receptionist frowned ever so slightly. “Do you have an appointment?” she asked, in a voice that told me she already knew I didn’t.

I tried to look sheepish. “I’m afraid not. I’m here for personal reasons, not for a business meeting. Can you let him know I’m here? It’ll only take five minutes, I promise.”

“He’s in a meeting just now,” she said, and instinct told me she was lying. “Would you care to leave a message?”

“I just have a quick question for him, and it’s not something I can leave in a message.” I gave her my most pitiful pleading look.

Her gaze darted uncertainly toward the hallway on her left—one of the two lined with real offices. “I can let him know you’re here, but I’m not sure …”

I smiled brightly at her. “Thanks so much!”

She still looked pretty uncertain. “May I have your name?” she asked, picking up the phone.

I’d considered going the phony-name route, but I’d dismissed it almost instantly. I’m probably the world’s worst liar, so I didn’t think I’d fool anyone.