Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #29)(31)

Who else is with you? I texted.

Ru.

Ru was one of my Brides, designed to be basically cannon fodder for the master vampire that made them. They were all this calming silence in my head because they could feel my emotions, but it didn’t work both ways like it could with Ethan.

I leaned into Dolph with McKinnon joining the huddle. “Ethan Flynn and Ru Erwin are here for extra security for me when I’m not surrounded by cops. That’s who I texted.”

“What, Murdock isn’t with you today?” Dolph said.

“Nicky had something else to do,” I said. If it had just been Dolph I might have explained that I’d made the mistake of kissing Nicky in public, and the image went viral. Speculation was that I was dumping Jean-Claude at the altar for my ruggedly handsome bodyguard. To calm the rumors and to

keep the media from swarming me we were rotating my security for a little bit. Since Nicky had become my regular security person as well as my lover and one of the men I was in love with, it felt weird that he wasn’t in the parking lot ready to back me up.

“Everything okay?” Dolph asked.

I nodded, and then there it was again. Something didn’t feel right. “Something feels wrong, like I’m missing something that I should be picking up on.”

“Could McKinnon’s charm have messed with your abilities?”

“Since I don’t know what the charm does, or is, sure.”

“I didn’t mean any permanent harm, Blake.”

“Let’s take this inside,” Dolph said. We went back into the air-conditioned hush of the hotel and found an unused conference room, though the manager had informed us that he would need it for a meeting with the hotel staff to convey the concerns of his bosses and their bosses. Dolph assured him we wouldn’t need the room long. I thought we were going to discuss strategies for the interrogation or the next part of the investigation. What I hadn’t seen coming was Dolph telling me, “There’s no active warrant of execution on this one, Anita.”

“I know that.”

“It doesn’t fall under the preternatural marshals’ jurisdiction.”

“You invite me to come play and now you’re kicking me out?”

“If the hate groups get her a lawyer, you being involved with the interrogation will give them ammunition to say we used supernatural influence to get a confession.”

“When did I start being supernatural influence?”

He gave me a look.

“What?”

“I’ll let you know what we learn.”

“And that’s it?”

“We’ll keep you in the loop,” McKinnon said.

Dolph turned to him with a look on his face that I’d seen before; it did not bode well for whoever was at the other end of that look.

McKinnon knew the look, too, because he said, “What?”

“You don’t get to say to Anita that we’ll keep her in the loop; I could keep you both in the loop.”

“This is connected to my case,” McKinnon said.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t, but it’s still my case right now; me allowing your involvement is a professional courtesy and friendship, but you don’t get to decide how much I read Anita into this case.”

McKinnon looked at him for a few seconds, then nodded. “I overstepped my bounds between you and your colleague, I get it.”

I wanted to say thanks to Dolph for defending me professionally, but it would have been rubbing salt in the wound for McKinnon and I didn’t want to do that. He and I respected each other, even liked each other in that acquaintance/friend-with-similar-jobs-and-mutual-friends sort of way.

“Good,” he said, then turned to me as we exited the conference room. “I hope you understand why I can’t have you there for the interrogation.”

I nodded. “I do, I don’t like it, but I do.”

“Okay, we’ll get our hero down to make an official statement,” he said as new police walked by us close enough to overhear. I might not have been able to change my words in time. The publicity with Jean-Claude had ruined me for undercover work, but honestly I’d never been that good at it.

“I guess I’ll touch base with my people and get back to wedding stuff.”

McKinnon laughed. “You sound more like the long-suffering groom instead of the bride.”

“Trust me, McKinnon, other than getting to wear the long dress I am the long-suffering groom.”

He chuckled and even Dolph smiled. There were new uniforms at Dolph’s elbow waiting to ask questions before he left the scene, so I left them to it. I actually wanted to see Edward and Asher in their matching best man outfits just to see Edward’s reaction to it. I glanced at my watch and realized that Edward would be back in street clothes by now. Damn it, I’d missed one of the few parts of all this that I’d been looking forward to; I hoped Peter had taken pictures.

I had to walk past the crowd that had gathered with their phones out, and a few real reporters, but most of them were using their phones trying to get me to comment about the case. I knew better and just kept walking quickly like I had somewhere else to be. Never make eye contact, never slow down, never make a single noise that can be interpreted as a comment, because anything and everything will be spun into something you never said.