Ghost Hunter

Chapter 10

WITHIN TEN MINUTES A DARK COASTER WITH HEAVILY tinted windows pulled into the alley behind St. Clair's Herbal Emporium.

Cooper made another phone call to check the IDs of the two hunters inside and then bundled Bertha into the backseat.

"You'll be okay at the Guild safe house, Bertha," he said. "I'll let you know as soon as we've got this thing under control."

She nodded brusquely. "I appreciate this, Mr. Boone."

"Trust me, you're doing the Guild a favor by cooperating," he said.

"Yeah?" Bertha smiled slightly. "They say the Guild never forgets a favor."

"That's true. I don't want you making any phone calls, but if you remember anything that might be useful, let one of these gentlemen know. They can get the message to me."

"Sure, but I wouldn't be too hopeful, if I were you."

Bertha heaved a sigh. "I'm not likely to ever remember what happened in the few minutes before the burn."

"You never know." Cooper stepped back and motioned to the driver. 'Take good care of her," he said to the man. "Ms. Newell is a friend of the Guild."

"Yes, sir, we'll make sure she doesn't come to any harm." The man behind the wheel inclined his head. "By the way, Mr. Wyatt said to tell you welcome to Cadence."

"Thanks."

He waited until the big car had turned the corner at the end of the alley and vanished into the fog. Then he went back upstairs to Elly's small apartment and stopped in the kitchen doorway.

"Bertha's off to the safe house," he said. "She'll be fine."

"That's a relief." Elly paused in the act of squeezing an orange. "It's obvious she stumbled into something very nasty last night."

"I think so. By the way, I didn't see any other vehicles parked in the alley. Where's your car?"

"In a private garage at the end of this block. Those of us who have shops and apartments on Ruin Lane rent space there."

"I see. Think there's any room for the Spectrum?"

"No. There's a waiting list."

"Guess I'll just keep hanging ghosts on the license plate, in that case."

She searched his face. "You must be half starved. Hurry up and shower. I'll have breakfast waiting when you get out."

He nodded, started to turn, and then hesitated.

"Everything okay with you?" he asked, feeling his way.

"Certainly," she said, very brisk and matter-of-fact. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well," he said, "neither one of us is a teenager, anymore. Car sex can be strenuous for adults."

Her cheeks turned a hot shade of pink. She stopped squeezing the orange and faced him with both hands on her hips.

"I think you'd better take that shower," she said. "Right now."

"You thought I wouldn't remember, didn't you?" He studied her flushed cheeks. "No, you hoped I wouldn't remember."

She cleared her throat, picked up another orange, and got very busy with it. "What occurred in your car last night was an aberration. A complete anomaly. An abnormal reaction to a highly unusual and extremely stressful situation. I think it would be best if we both pretend it didn't happen, don't you?"

"Aberration? Anomaly? Abnormal?" He straightened out of the doorway and started toward her. "We're talking about the hottest sex I can recall having in years, probably in my whole life."

The stain in her cheeks deepened. "Really, Cooper?"

"Yes, really, Elly." He kept moving toward her. "You know, I promised myself I'd be a gentleman this morning. It occurred to me that you would probably be feeling a little shy after what happened between us. I wanted to demonstrate some respect for your delicate feelings. Didn't want you to think I was some kind of low-life hunter who got over-rezzed melting amber and used the most convenient female at hand to satisfy himself."

"I never thought that," she said quickly, taking a step back.

"You're sure?"

"I'm positive." She fluttered her hands at him in a warding-off gesture. "Look, there's no need to get upset about this. What happened last night was just one of those things. No harm, no fou.l"

"To you, maybe, but not to me." He closed the distance between them.

She took another step back, but the small space offered little room for retreat. She came up hard against the wall. "We can talk about this after you come out of the shower."

He leaned in close and flattened both hands on the wall on either side of her head, caging her.

"We're going to talk about it now," he said.

"There's nothing to discuss," she said, a little breathless. "I mean, car sex is all very nice, of course, but-"

"Very nice? That's all you can say about what went on downstairs in my car last night?"

Somehow, trapped as she was between him and the wall, she still managed to bristle. Her fine, lilting brows snapped together in a glowering frown.

"Well, it doesn't exactly imply a deep, meaningful relationship, now does it?" she said very evenly. "Especially when we both know that the impulse was artificially generated because you melted amber."

"Oh, no, you don't." He leaned closer. "You're not blaming this on me. What happened in that alley was not my fault. I tried to leave before things went too far. But you wouldn't let me go, remember? You wouldn't even let me have some privacy so that I could sleep off the afterburn in my own car."

"I was worried you might get mugged down in that alley."

"Guess what? I'm starting to think maybe I did get mugged. By an innocent-looking little herbalist who wanted to find out what it was like to have hot sex with a hunter after he'd melted amber."

"That's not true." She stared at him, appalled. "You know it isn't."

"You sure about that?"

"Of course, I'm sure." She folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. "I was there, if you will recall."

"Huh."

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" she demanded.

"If you didn't take advantage of me in my ghost-burned condition, are you, by any chance, implying that I took advantage of you?"

Her mouth tightened. "I never said that."

"Good. We've established that the encounter was consensual."

She cleared her throat. "I never said otherwise."

"Moving right along, let's go back to your earlier comment, the one about how our episode of hot car sex did not imply a meaningful relationship."

"I think you've pushed this far enough."

"Honey, I haven't even begun to push. What I want to know is, didn't last night mean anything at all to you?"

She got a haunted look. "I'm warning you…"

"Or is having car sex with ghost-burned hunters a casual, sophisticated form of entertainment for you now that you've moved to the big city?"

"You know damn well that isn't true!"

"So we can now state unequivocally that last night did have some meaning for you."

He knew he'd gone too far an instant before the outrage flashed across her face.

"Son of a bitch," she shrieked.

She moved so fast that he didn't even realize her intention until she had ducked under his left arm. By then it was too late. She had the pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice in one hand and was upending it over his head.

He winced as the sticky juice drenched his face and chest and splashed onto the floor.

A shocked silence descended.

"Sorry," he said, wiping his face on the sleeve of his shirt. "You were right. I did push it a little too far."

"Why did you do it?" she whispered.

"Because last night meant something to me, and I didn't want to think that it had been completely meaningless to you. You hurt my feelings, if you want to know the truth." He shrugged. "Go figure."

"I hurt your feelings?"

"Guild bosses have feelings, too."

She blinked. And then she started to giggle. The giggles turned into laughter. He watched, fascinated, as she wrapped her arms around herself and doubled over with the force of her mirth.

It had been over six months since he'd heard her laugh, he thought. He knew he'd missed it. He just hadn't realized how much until now.

"I don't believe it," she finally managed to get out.

"What? About Guild bosses having feelings?" he asked.

"No, that you managed to make me laugh about last night." She shook her head, smiling wryly as the laughter subsided. "Go take your shower, Guild Boss."

He looked down at the orange juice that saturated front of his shirt. "That would probably be a good idea. Too bad I don't have a change of clothes in my kit bag. Most of the stuff I brought with me is back in my hotel room."

He started toward the kitchen door.

"One question," she said a little too smoothly.

He paused and looked back at her. "Yeah?"

"Where did you learn to argue like that? You sounded a lot like a lawyer cross-examining a witness."

"I took some law classes when I attended Resonance City University."

She tilted her head slightly, letting him know he had surprised her.

"You wanted to be a lawyer?" she asked.

"No," he said, "I had other career plans. Figured some background in law would be good preparation."

"Really?" Curiosity lit her face. "Did you want to go into business or one of the professions? So few dissonance-energy para-rezzes ever look beyond ghost-hunting as a career. It's such a narrow field. No intellectual stimulation at all, really, and most hunters have to retire early when they start losing their edge. A lot of middle-aged hunters end up just sitting around the Guild Hall all day, collecting their pensions and swapping ghost stories."

"The profession has its moments."

"Why the law classes?"

"Like I said, figured it was good background for my future career."

"But you were a Guild archivist before you became a Guild boss."

"The history and information retrieval studies were part of the preparation, too."

"For what?" she asked blankly.

"From the time I was nine years old, the only thing I wanted to be when I grew up was boss of the Aurora Springs Guild."

She stood, unmoving. The last of the laughter faded from her expressive face.

"Good grief," she said, clearly stunned. "Most of the men who make it to the top of the Guilds rely on their natural para-rez talents, family connections, and a very wide streak of ruthless ambition. I've never heard of one actually studying to prepare himself for the job."

He gripped the edge of the doorway. "Something you should understand about me, Elly. Almost every move I've made and almost every step I've taken in my life has been designed with two goals in mind: to become a Guild boss and to keep the job for as long as I wanted it."

She tapped one crimson fingernail against the counter-top. "I always knew the position was important to you. I just didn't realize how important."

"Something else you should know. I said almost every move and every step was designed to achieve those objectives. But there have been a couple of notable exceptions, one of which was what happened in the front seat of the Spectrum last night."

Her eyes widened.

He pushed himself out of the doorway before she could get her mouth closed and went down the hall to take a shower.