Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(30)

"You look tired." Pastor Julio Arnez's hands were big-knuckled and battered. Like me, he'd worked with his hands for a living - he'd been a lumberman until he retired and become our pastor.

"A little," I agreed.

"I heard about your friend," he said. "Would he appreciate a visit?"

Zee would like my pastor - everyone liked Pastor Julio. He might even manage to make being in jail more bearable, but getting close to Zee was too dangerous.

So I shook my head. "He's fae," I said apologetically. "They don't think very highly of Christianity. Thank you for offering."

"If there's anything I can do, you tell me," he said sternly. He kissed my forehead and sent me off with his blessing.

Zee on my mind, as soon as I got home I called Tony on his cell phone because I had no idea how to get in to see Zee.

He answered, sounding cheerful and friendly rather than coolly professional, so he must have been home.

"Hey, Mercedes," he said. "It was not nice of you to sic Ms. Ryan on us. Smart, but not nice."

"Hey, Tony," I said. "I'd apologize but Zee matters to me - and he's innocent, so I got the best I could find. However, if it makes you feel any better, I have to deal with her, too."

He laughed. "All right, what's up?"

"This is stupid," I told him, "but I've never had to go visit anyone in jail before now. So how do I go about seeing Zee? Are there visiting hours or what? Should I wait until Monday? And where is he being held?"

There was a short silence. "I think visiting hours are weekends and evenings only. But before you go, you might talk to your lawyer," he said cautiously. Was there something wrong with me seeing Zee?

"Call your lawyer," he said again when I asked him.

So I did. The card she'd given me had her cell on it as well as her office.

"Mr. Adelbertsmiter is not talking to anyone," Jean Ryan told me in a frosty voice, as if it were my fault. "It will be difficult to mount an effective defense unless he talks to me."

I frowned. Zee could be cantankerous but he wasn't stupid. If he wasn't talking, he had a reason.

"I need to see him," I told her. "Maybe I can persuade him to talk to you."

"I don't think you're going to persuade him of anything." There was a bare hint of smugness in her voice. "When he wouldn't respond to me, I told him what I knew about O'Donnell's death - all that you had told me. That was the only time he spoke. He said that you had no business telling his secrets to strangers." She hesitated. "This next part is a threat, and I normally would not pass it on, as it does my client's case no good. But...I think you ought to be warned. He said you'd better hope he doesn't get out - and that he's calling the loan due immediately. Do you know what he means?"

Numbly I nodded before realizing that she couldn't see me. "I bought my shop from him. I still owe him money on it." I'd been paying him on a monthly basis, just as I did the bank. It wasn't the money, which I didn't have, that left my throat dry and pressure building behind my eyes.

He thought I'd betrayed him.

Zee was fae; he could not lie.

"Well," she said. "He made it clear that he had no desire to talk to you before he went mute again. Do you still wish to retain my services?" She sounded almost hopeful.

"Yes," I said. It wasn't my money that was paying her - even at her rates there was more than enough in Uncle Mike's briefcase to cover Zee's expenses.

"I'll be honest, Ms. Thompson, if he doesn't talk to me, I can't do him any good at all."

"Do what you can," I told her numbly. "I'm working on a few things myself."

Secrets. I shivered a little, though as soon as I'd gotten home from church, I'd turned up the temperature from the sixty degrees Samuel had set it at this morning before he'd left to go to the last day of Tumbleweed. Werewolves like things a little cooler than I do. It was a balmy eighty in the house, not a reason in the world that I should feel cold.

I wondered which part of what I'd told the lawyer he objected to - the murders in the reservation, or telling Ms. Ryan that there had been another fae with him when he'd found the body.

Damn it, I hadn't told Ms. Ryan anything someone wasn't going to have to tell the police. Come to think of it - I had told the police most everything I'd told Ms. Ryan.

However, I should have asked someone before I'd talked to the police or the lawyer. I knew that. It was the first rule of the pack - keep your mouth shut around the mundanes.

I could have asked Uncle Mike how much I could tell the police - and the lawyer - rather than depending upon my own judgement. I hadn't...because I knew that if the police were going to look beyond Zee for a murderer, they'd have to know more than Uncle Mike or any other fae would have told them.

It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission - unless you are dealing with the fae, who aren't much given to forgiveness. They see it as a Christian virtue - and they aren't particularly fond of Christian anything.

I didn't lie to myself that Zee would get over it. I might not know much about his history, but I did know him. He gathered his anger to him and made it as permanent as the tattoo on my belly. He'd never forgive me for betraying his trust.