Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X, #1)(62)

Justin sat up suddenly. “He was here? In our house?”

She cringed a little. That wasn’t the reaction she’d expected. “No…he talked to me outside. He was waiting there when I got home.”

“Were you here?” Justin demanded of Cynthia.

“No,” she said. “This is the first I’m hearing about this.”

“He said he was glad you’re back and that he wanted to see you,” Tessa explained. “He also said you were his favorite servitor.”

“That’s fitting, since he’s my favorite megalomaniac,” he muttered. His gaze focused back on Tessa. “Did he threaten you? Hurt you?”

Tessa shook her head.

Cynthia regarded her brother warily. “What are you involved in?”

He stayed silent a few moments, but his eyes were troubled. At last, he smiled at Cynthia, but Tessa could still see tension all over him. “Nothing. Just someone I owe money to. Card game gone bad.”

“I knew it.” Cynthia stood up in disgust. To Tessa, she said, “See? I can’t get away from it. I’m going to bed. You should too—it’s late.”

Tessa hesitated but couldn’t fight against Cynthia’s logic or stern look. It was only after Tessa was in bed that she remembered that Justin never played cards.





[page]CHAPTER 15





HE’S TALLER





He’d had the video for over a week, but Leo hadn’t been able to crack it in “five minutes,” as Justin had assured Cornelia. Leo still swore he’d have the secret of the shadowy figure any day now and finally agreed to go to one of the murder sites to check out the technical and forensic side of things. Of course, it came with a little complaining about missing his ridiculous day job.

Justin went out the night before the trip and had the good fortune of running into a former student from his days of teaching university religion classes. Aurelia had grown up over the years and was quite taken with the idea of her former professor leading a glamorous servitor’s life. She was the first woman he’d slept with since coming home, and the experience was sublime. He supposed, as far as the mechanics went, she was no different from any of the many Panamanian women he’d passed time with in exile, but there was an allure to the idea of finally being in the arms of a Gemman woman again. It had amped up the excitement of it all.

Finally? asked Horatio.

Mae doesn’t count, Justin told him.

Justin slinked back to his house the next morning, certain he was there too early for anyone else to be up. He was wrong, of course. Cynthia was in the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee. Guessing what had happened, she sighed in that angst-ridden way she’d perfected.

“Really? Thank goodness Quentin’s still in bed. What am I supposed to tell him when you come home like this?”

Justin kissed her on the cheek. “That I’ll have some excellent tips for him in ten years.” He reconsidered. The boy was a March, after all. “Eight years.”

He headed for his room, unable to keep the spring out of his step.

Mae was there when he got out of the shower. She always claimed she showed up at the house to save them travel time, but he suspected she actually came to get in on Cynthia’s ample breakfasts. Today, he was met with the astonishing site of Mae, Tessa, and Quentin all out in the backyard. Cynthia stood at the glass door, shaking her head in disapproval at what was apparently a tree-climbing lesson. Mae deftly grabbed the lower limb of a large maple tree and effortlessly swung her body up. Quentin and Tessa stared up at her. His face was rapt, hers uncertain. Neither would have had any experience with tree climbing, Justin realized. Tessa’s mother would have had a seizure at the thought, and Quentin had grown up in far too urban a setting.

“He’ll break his arm,” fretted Cynthia. Mae held out her hand to help Quentin up. He took it eagerly. “He can’t do the same things she can.”

“It’s worth the risk for him to actually see a tree.” With Quentin successfully up, Mae helped Tessa. “Would you rather have him guessing ages and backstories?”

Cynthia scowled, and they fell silently into their shared memory. With her students safely settled, Mae climbed up into the higher branches of the tree. Joy lit her features, and Justin couldn’t take his eyes off her. He’d thought Aurelia might make being around Mae easier, but the girl’s face was already fading from his mind the more he watched Mae.

“She’s an athlete,” Justin observed, more to himself. She effortlessly jumped to the ground from a height that would’ve broken a bone in anyone else.

His sister gave him a sidelong look. “Really? It took a tree for you to realize that and not the part where she’s one of the most lethal soldiers in our country?”

“There’s a difference. She’s physical for the love of it, not just because she’s trained to be.” It was a new discovery about her, a puzzle piece in the mystery that was Mae Koskinen. He might adhere to his hands-off stance, but the urge to figure out her inner workings was one of those things he just couldn’t ignore.

“You can’t sleep with her,” Cynthia said abruptly.

He turned to her in surprise. “What?”

“Some women are even out of your league.”