Deja Who (Insighter #1)(38)

“Don’t joke, babe.”

“Ugh. Babe?”

She put her tongue out at him, but he refused to be distracted. “People knife each other for a lot less.”

“Oh yes! But in this case, none of them care about me enough to want to kill me. They only want to force pastry on me at all hours of the workday. We’re all quite jaded, and nobody wants to take on my case load. So again: good news.”

He looked at his notes for a few seconds, then back up at her. “Your idea of good news is different from mine. And you’re so calm about it. ‘Nobody cares about me enough to kill me’ is not good news, Leah, okay? It’s pretty sad news, in fact. More on that later because I can tell you’re already tuning me out, but we’re definitely not done discussing this, get it?”

She shrugged. Tack “tenacious” onto “adorable.” Tenorable? Adoracious?

“Okay, what about that nervous-looking bald guy at Nellie’s house? Your mom’s agent and I guess yours, too, once. He seems pretty furtive.”

“Tom Winn of Winner’s TalentTM (ugh). Don’t be fooled, though. He’s a Hollywood agent, he can’t help it,” she explained. “Tom’s furtive because it’s his nature, not because he’s murdered me a dozen times.”

“And you know this how?”

“That wet-eyed bastard has been in my life for years; he’s had several opportunities to kill me. Anytime she decided I needed new head shots, for example. The cattle call for the Tampax commercial, for example. The callback for Sweets to the Suite, for example. My entire childhood and a chunk of my adolescence, for example.” She took a closer look at Archer and saw he was still puzzled. “It doesn’t work like that, anyway. It’s not going to be some random stranger who knifes me on the subway. It’ll be someone I know, even if just briefly. A patient, or someone who referred a patient. A former teacher.”

“Then why stab me? I was a stranger!”

“Instinct?” she suggested. But it was a fair question. “It’s one thing to intellectually understand my killer is going to strike again and when he does, he’ll be known to me. It’s another not to fight against someone who’s been following me for weeks and then corners me in an alley.”

“Point,” he muttered.

“Plus as I said, Tom has had over a decade to kill me. And he’s entirely my mother’s creature, and was even when I was outearning her five to one.”

A look of understanding crossed Archer’s face. “Oh, she must have loved that.”

Leah managed a sour smirk. “You can guess how much. It was petty revenge, but it was mine. The irony, of course, is that if I’d had no success, she wouldn’t have been so driven to keep me working long after I loathed everything about it. And, in fairness to her, I could be quite smug about it. I would read the trades praising whatever nonsense I’d been up to that week, then ‘accidentally’ leave them for her to read and eat her heart out over.”

“Oh, boo-hoo, your mom deserved it.”

“Well, yes. But regardless, you can scratch Tom. He’s harmless, which is what I always disliked about him.”

“That’s what they all say. But it’s always the quiet ones.”

She couldn’t restrain the fond smile. “It’s sometimes the quiet ones,” she corrected. “History proves it.”

“Okay, so he’s off the list. Also, our list sucks, because we don’t actually have any names on it now. I feel like we should put at least one name down—”

“For the false illusion of progress?” she asked sweetly.

“Yep.” Archer remained admirably unmoved by her sarcasm. “So here comes the toughie: your mom.”

Leah barked a laugh. “Toughie?”

Undaunted (adorable!), he plowed ahead. “I can’t imagine how hard even talking about this must be—”

She laughed again; she couldn’t help it. He was just so earnest, as though he feared hurting her. Nothing had hurt her in forever. Crying in her mother’s driveway those few days ago was the first time she’d cried in years. “As in it will be emotionally difficult for me to discuss the possibility that she will indulge in filicide? Ah . . . no.”

“This is the part where I pretend I know what filicide means.”

“Killing your son or daughter, also known as prolicide. There’s also nepoticide, when you kill your nephew; maricitide, which is killing your husband; parricide, killing a close relative; fratricide, killing your brother; sororocide, killing your sister; uxoricide, when you kill your wife; avunculicide, killing your uncle; and of course my personal favorite, matricide.”

“It’s awful that you know all that.”

“It is awful that I know all that.”

“Getting away from fucked-up uncles killing nephews, the thing about your mom is, she’s kinda killed you in the past.”

“You’re so cute when you’re striving for tactful.”

“Thanks,” he said modestly. “But you know I’m right.”

“Oh, yes. She has most definitely kinda killed me in the past. And because you’re not confused enough, I feel compelled to point out she kinda hasn’t, too.”