Publish and Perish Page 7

  “Actually, it does.” He forced out a gusting sigh. “Meredith will be very upset.”

  The mention of my vampire foster liege added a new source of worry and potential complication. I had been so focused on freeing myself from the firm that I hadn’t considered the broader ramifications. The web of connections between vampires was tangled and intricate, and as a “client” family with a foster child we were closely enmeshed in those webs. I had the job at IMG partly because my foster liege, Meredith Bainbridge, had approached Shade on my behalf. My quitting was going to be viewed as an insult to him as well. Which would affect the business relationship that my father had with Meredith, which would infuriate my dad. Oh yeah, I was going to be facing a really pleasant few weeks. I wondered if just running away, changing my name, and assuming a disguise was an option?

  “I’m sorry to disappoint him, but I have to do this,” I said firmly.

  Shade forced a sigh. “I can see you are quite determined on this. We will miss you. When will you leave?”

  “Caroline has already taken over my caseload, and she’s informing the clients. I’m leaving today.”

  His expression had been morphing from concern to formality and now he was furious. “It is customary to give an employer a month’s notice. I am extremely annoyed.”

  A million years of evolution screamed that I was on the verge of becoming prey to a monster. I blanched and instinctively made the submissive gesture of cocking my head and offering my neck. It was the first thing I had been taught when I entered the Bainbridge household, and it had been drilled into me through the intervening years. Just as quickly as terror had taken me, it was replaced by outrage.

  “Look, I know this isn’t being fair to the firm, but you know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t do this on a whim. I have reasons and they’re good ones. You should trust me on this.” I held out my hand. “I hope we can at least part with respect for each other if not friendship.”

  Once again Shade proved he was one of the good guys. He took my hand and shook it. “I wish you well, Linnet, though you have disappointed me tremendously.”

  I nodded, turned, and left. I stopped at the receptionist’s desk in the elegant and understated waiting room. Bruce gave me a smile. “I started your novel, Bruce. It’s good,” I said. He blushed and looked very young. “I also wanted to let you know I’m leaving the firm, and I wanted to tell you goodbye. If you ever want to talk…” I scribbled down my cell phone number on a message pad. “You can call me anytime.”

  The young man was goggling at me. “Leaving? But … But…”

  I didn’t want to wait around for more questions, or try to decide if I would answer them or not. I headed to the stairwell and went down to my office. I was a little surprised and a bit melancholy over how quickly I could pack up my professional career. I had my diplomas in a banker’s box, the few actual dead-tree books that I had brought into the office, my wind-up Godzilla and Gidra toys, and my laptop in its rolling case. I didn’t have a Rolodex—everything was on my phone or on the computer. I had no photos of family.

  I didn’t seem to have left much of an imprint on this space or the firm. Then I realized I was being maudlin and indulging in a pity-party. I had made a big impact on IMG. My investigations of a coworker’s murder had netted a huge payday for the firm. My actions in Los Angeles had certainly made headlines and put IMG in the news. Which was another argument for why I wasn’t, ultimately, a good fit at IMG. Notoriety and press, good or bad, were considered unwelcome intrusions and gave vampires hives. They just wanted to drift elegantly behind the scenes, pulling strings and getting results. I had been like a noisy off-key brass band dropped into the middle of a concert by a classical quartet. Frankly, they should be glad to see me go.

  I looped the strap of my purse over my shoulder, tucked the box under my arm, grabbed the handle of the laptop case, turned out the light, and left. Norma stood beside her desk, arms folded across her formidable bosom and a Jovian frown on her face. Her hair, teased and sprayed into a frozen gray helmet, didn’t move as she gave her head a disgusted shake.

  “I can’t believe you are doing this.”

  I set my box on her incredibly clean desk and gave her a hug. “I’ll miss you, Norma.”

  She gave a snort that sounded suspiciously like a sniff and returned the hug. “You take care. You haven’t got any more sense than a kitten.”

  The wheels of my rolling case chattered over the stone tile floor. Associates emerged from their offices to watch as I left. As usual the gossip had flown through the office at light speed. Caroline stepped out and our eyes met. She gave me a sad smile and a nod and went back into her office.

  Ryan emerged from his office and stared at me. If vampires really had some of the powers attributed to them I would have been struck dead from the hate that twisted his face. The Legal Eagles Pop Brigade—Cecelia, Nancy, Delia, Juliette, Kathy—surrounded me and we moved as a flying wedge toward the elevators. They were all talking at once. I caught a phrase every now and then.

  “How can you?”

  “You go, girlfriend!”

  “Why?”

  “What happened?”

  “Where?”

  I released the handle on my case, jabbed at the call button, then held up a hand and shouted, “Stop!” They all fell silent. I could hear the elevator rushing up the shaft toward us. “I don’t know where I’m going yet. Yes, I’ll let you all know. No, I won’t tell you why.” I gulped a bit. “And I’m going to miss you all. So much.”

  The elevator arrived with a ding. The doors opened and I plunged inside. I didn’t turn around. Unfortunately, I could see their expressions reflected in the burnished silver of the elevator’s back wall. Juliette and Nancy were crying. The door closed behind me. I let out a sob. Tears were running down my face when I arrived in the lobby. The security guard, looking alarmed, rushed out from behind his desk.

  “Are you all right?”

  No, I’m not all right. I’m crying, which should have been your first clue. But I didn’t say it. He meant well. I brushed away the tears with the back of my hand, forced a smile, and nodded. “Fine. Really. Thanks. If you could get me a taxi.”

  He nodded and rushed through the front doors. I fished in my purse for a tissue, gave my nose a defiant blow. An elevator gave a ding and I heard the doors open. Hands, unnaturally cold and unnaturally strong, closed on my shoulders and spun me roughly around.

  * * *

  Vampires respect personal space. In fact, their idea of personal space sometimes feels like the length of a football field, but David had us only inches apart. There was a coiling deep in my chest, much stronger than the last time I had experienced the sensation and it hurt, setting my chest to aching and sending a stabbing pain into my throat. It frightened me, and the expression on David’s face didn’t help with that. A hard twist of my shoulders freed me from his grasp and I stepped away. The coiling sensation faded slowly.

  “Would you quit grabbing me! I have a cut on my shoulder.”

  David didn’t try to touch me again. Instead he grated out, “What the hell are you doing?”

  I had thought Shade was angry. It had been nothing compared to the fury on David’s face as he glared down at me. Once again I started to show submission, and I defaulted to quipping in an effort to defuse the situation.

  “Waiting for a taxi.”

  “You will answer me! Why are you quitting?”

  Outrage swept through me, burning away the fear. All thought of showing throat was gone. “My business, David. I worked for you. I didn’t belong to you.”

  “I never behaved toward you in that way—”

  “Oh, bullshit! You were always following me, checking up on me.”

  “That’s because … because…” His voice faded away, his hands reached out for me but more in supplication. The expression that washed across his face filled me with pain and panic. Don’t give yourself away! I wanted to scream at him.

 
I grabbed the handle of the computer case and headed for the front doors. I needed to get out of the office before he said anything more or betrayed himself any further. I was out on the sidewalk making my way through clots of pedestrians. Occasionally my computer bag rolled across someone’s toe and I got a glare or a yell of protest. There were running footsteps behind me. I put on a burst of speed trying to reach a subway stop, but I was encumbered by box, purse, and computer. David caught me easily.

  “Please, Linnet, for friendship’s sake if nothing else. Tell me what I did? How I offended you?”

  Tears stung my eyelids. “Oh, David. You haven’t done anything. Well, that’s not exactly right. Look, if only it were for friendship’s sake.” I gave him a level look. His eyes slid away.

  We were blocking the entrance to the subway. I sighed, handed him the box, and led him down a less crowded side street. He had forgotten both hat and umbrella and the skin on his cheeks and the backs of his hands was starting to blister from the sun. I led him quickly into a small florist’s shop on the bottom floor of a building. The sweet aroma of flowers balanced atop that swamp water scent that seemed to accompany all floral arrangements no matter how fresh or how new. It was kind of gross. The girl behind the desk gave us a weird look then darted into a back room. I guess she could tell we weren’t there to buy a bouquet.

  I stole a glance up at David. He probably did look fearsome to an ordinary person with the three deep twisting scars across one cheek, the popping blisters, and the parted lips revealing his fangs. What the girl had read as rage I realized was grief.

  “It’s not what you—”

  I cut him off. “Yeah. It is.”

  David’s shoulders slumped. He turned away and began nervously handling every object on the counter. “I told myself it was just a boss’s concern for a particularly useful and … irritating underling.” He spun back to face me. “But it’s not.” He reached for me. I stepped back, dodging the potential embrace. He dropped his hands to his sides. “So, you don’t care for me.”

  “Not that way. You’re my dear, dear friend. Maybe my best friend, but…” I shook my head.

  “You love the Álfar.” It sounded accusatory.

  “Why do you men always think everything devolves down to love for women? I’m fond of John, but I don’t exactly know him. And maybe if you were human something might have happened between us because there is so much about you that’s admirable. You’re handsome and brilliant, and honorable, and even occasionally funny.” I realized this list of virtues was taking us in exactly the wrong direction. “But it cannot be! I don’t want to die. I don’t want you to die. For both our sakes I have to leave.”

  “Why do we even have this idiotic rule?” David cried out. “Why can’t I Make you? Why can’t I be with you? We saw a female vampire. Something that supposedly doesn’t exist so … so … none of this makes any sense.”

  “Did you report her?”

  He hung his head. “I realized I had no idea who to tell. I wanted to think about it first. What it might mean … for us.”

  “Nothing. It means nothing for us. I want children. Dead women don’t have children.”

  “We could adopt—”

  I covered my ears. “You’re delusional. David, I’m sorry to hurt you, but I don’t love you.”

  “You just been conditioned while you were fostered—”

  “That might be part of it, but give me a little credit for knowing my own mind and heart.”

  His eyes were shadowed and I felt like a brute. He turned away and gently stroked the petal of a rose in one of the bouquets. “It’s not fair that your life should be derailed so early in your career. I’ve had years—”

  “No, you are not going to quit.”

  “It’s the gift I can give to you.”

  “Oh, please don’t act like we’re in a damn romance novel. And would you stop with the chivalrous bullshit and think like a hardheaded lawyer. I’m a woman in a vampire law firm. The chances of my making partner are slim to none. You’re a junior partner. If it’s the flighty human walking away from the plum job there will be fewer awkward questions. If you leave there will be questions, lots of questions, and we can’t survive that. Literally. They will bring in a Hunter and we will be killed. Now tell me I’m wrong.”

  He hung his head, then gave it a slow shake. “No, I can’t.” I took back my box, grabbed the handle on the case. “Will I ever see you again?” I didn’t look back, just shook my head.

  I almost made it to the door before a beautiful bouquet of yellow roses was laid on the top of the box. The water off the stems formed a Rorschach pattern on the cardboard. I wondered what it would say about me if I read it.

  7

  “Hey, sweetie. How are you?” My father’s voice came through the phone warm and happy.

  I was seated in my apartment, cell phone under my chin and a pint of Rocky Road ice cream in one hand and a spoon in the other. Ice cream therapy. “I’m … I’m good. I was thinking maybe I’d come up to Rhode Island for a few days.”

  “Taking a couple of days off?” he asked jovially.

  “Umm … not exactly. I … uh … I resigned from the firm today.”

  For a few heartbeats there was silence, then he burst out, “Jesus Christ, Linnet! Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  The vitriol in my dad’s voice sent me cringing against the back of the couch. My stomach as well as my lower lip was wobbling and the ice cream I’d eaten was threatening to come back up. I dropped the spoon and pulled the cell phone away from my ear. I could still hear him.

  “This is a disaster! Goddamn you. How could you do this without discussing it with me first?”

  “There were reasons. I had to quit.”

  “What reasons?”

  “My boss was getting too … fond of me.”

  “Shade?” he asked, his tone unbelieving.

  “Oh, God, no. Promise you won’t say anything. It was David. I made the only prudent choice.”

  It was as if I hadn’t spoken. He certainly wasn’t listening to me because he was saying, “I’ll talk to Shade. We’ll get this guy transferred or fired. You get back over there and tell them you’ve changed your mind.”

  I threw aside the ice cream carton. My palm was slick with sweat and I gripped the phone tightly. “No. And no. You’re not going to do that to David. If even a hint of this got back to—”

  He cut me off. “You stupid little bitch. You have no idea what you’ve done!”

  Who was this man, I wondered. Then I began to regrow a spine. I leaped to my feet and screamed into the phone, “Stop it! Don’t you dare talk to me like this. I’m not a kid. I’m twenty-eight years old. My life is my own now. It’s not for you or Meredith or Shade or anybody else to tell me what I have to do.”

  There was silence at the other end of the call and I realized he had hung up on me. For a long time I just cried. Eventually the sobs subsided. I tottered into the bathroom, blew my nose, and started filling the old claw-footed tub. I added lots of bubble bath, went back to the living room to pick up the discarded ice cream carton, rinse it out, and toss it in the trash. By the time I returned to the bathroom the bubbles were almost overtopping the tub. I stripped and crawled into the hot water.

  My mind kept trying to skitter away from thinking about that bizarre and horrifying conversation. Granted, I didn’t know my father well. I had left home at eight and, aside from holiday visits back to Rhode Island, I had lived in my vampire foster liege’s home. When, at eighteen, I had been released I had headed off to college and then to law school. My memories of a father-daughter relationship were two decades old. Had this angry man always been there and I just hadn’t recognized it as a child? But this seemed like the voice of a stranger.

  What was so important about IMG and my presence in that particular law firm that my quitting would elicit such fury? I forced myself to remember every word of the exchange. The ache in my throat returned as I replayed the conversation, b
ut a new thought began to intrude. Fury yes, but there had been an undercurrent of fear too. Meredith had once said to me that anger was just fear disguised and that’s why he had tried to train me to use anger deliberately, as a weapon and a tool rather than allowing it to dictate to me.

  So my dad was afraid. But of what? And why? And how did I fit into all this?

  * * *

  I decided to take my woes and worries off to my friends Ray and Gregory’s apartment on the edge of Wall Street. I hadn’t seen them since I’d returned from LA and I had a lot to tell them. God, did I have a lot to tell them. Ray threw open the front door and wrapped me in a hug. He was a professional dancer on Broadway, thin and lithe and very cute. His boyfriend, Gregory, was beaming at me from over Ray’s shoulder. Gregory was older, a bit heavyset, and far more staid then the effervescent Ray.

  I opened my mouth to say something only to have Ray thrust his left hand under my nose and wiggle his ring finger. There was a plain silver band. “Engaged!” he sang out.

  I looked to Gregory, who rolled his eyes, but then smiled and held up his own hand, where a matching ring rested. “Congratulations,” I said as I hugged Ray. “When’s the wedding and do I get to come?”

  Ray drew me into the elegantly appointed apartment as Gregory said, “Come? Of course. In fact, we were hoping you’d be in the wedding party.”

  “You will, won’t you?” Ray added.

  “I’d be delighted.”

  They settled onto the couch together while I took a nearby bucket armchair that was actually low enough that my feet reached the floor. Gregory was a trust-fund baby paid by his very conservative Kansas family to stay well away from them, so the couple lived in what was a very large space for Manhattan. The walls held original art and some great photos of Ray dancing, there were lots of bookcases and even a baby grand piano.

  “Okay, I want to hear all about the Academy Awards,” Ray said. “We were watching.” There was again an eye roll from Gregory and Ray dug an elbow into his fiancé’s ribs.