Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson #5)(35)

He didn't even flinch. Instead, he cocked a hip, made a kissy face, then smiled seductively, turning an ordinary pair of jeans and a purple wifebeater into brothel-wear.

"Hey, darling," he told Sam. "I bet you're gorgeous in man shape, hmm?"

"It's Sam," I told Kyle dryly. And even though I knew it would just stir up trouble, I had to warn him again because I really liked him. "You need to be careful about whom you flirt with among the wolves - you might get more than you bargain for."

Kyle could sometimes have a real chip on his shoulder - getting disinherited, then living in a conservative community has had that effect on more than one g*y man - and Kyle could take flaming (and bitchy) to an art form when he thought it would make someone who disapproved of him uncomfortable. Luckily, he chose to take my warning in the spirit it was offered.

In an entirely different kind of voice, he said, "Love you, too, Mercy." He dropped the flirtatious act with a speed and completeness that many an Oscar winner would envy. "Hey, Samuel. Sorry, didn't recognize you with all the fur." He looked at what I held. "You want to put a towel in my safe?"

"It's a very special towel," I told him as I ducked around him and into the house. "Dried Elvis's hair on the day of the last concert."

"Oooh," he said, stepping back so Sam could follow me. He shut the door and, almost as an afterthought, turned the dead bolt. "In that case, you certainly need it someplace secure. You want the big safe with all the electronics or something better hidden?"

"Better hidden would be cool." I didn't think that electronics were going to work against the fae.

He led the way through the house, up the stairs, and past his library - one side filled with beautiful leather-clad law books, the other with tattered paperbacks that included Nora Roberts's complete works. I took two steps and stopped, backed up, and looked in the library again.

If the fae were after the book, and they had some way of tracking it - certainly they would already have it. Instead, it had spent the better part of two days in my Rabbit wrapped in a towel.

Kyle came back and looked at the library, too. "It's a book, is it? You're thinking of hiding it in plain sight?" He shook his head. "We can do that, but if someone is looking for a book, the first place they'll look - after the big safe - is the library. I have a better idea."

So I followed him to a bedroom. It was painted dark blue with black splatters, and the twin-sized bunk beds had comforters with Thomas the Tank Engine chugging around on his track - not exactly something I expected to ever see in Kyle's house. I knew that he never had family visit, so it couldn't be for a nephew. Kyle continued into the bathroom so I did, too. Sam's claws clicked on the slate floor.

Thomas continued to rule the bathroom, too. A plastic toothbrush holder in the shape of a train sat next to the sink, and a set of towels embroidered with Thomas and his friends hung from towel racks shaped like train tracks.

Kyle opened a cupboard next to the sink to reveal two empty shelves and one filled with towels of various colors.

"Give me that," he said, so I handed him the book.

He knelt on the floor and unfolded the towel, repositioned the book, and folded the towel in the same way as all the other towels. He handed it back to me, and I put it on the bottom of one of the stacks.

Kyle looked at my work and straightened the stack. The book towel looked just like the ones around it.

One thing pretending to be another.

For some reason I thought about the incident with the bounty hunter this morning. The bounty hunter - and the fae armed with a plastic gun loaded with silver bullets just like Kelly Heart's gun had been. Because he'd been hunting werewolves.

Maybe . . . maybe that was not what the fae had been hunting. Adam had suggested the silver ammunition might have been used only to match Kelly Heart's, that the shooter might have been after any of us and not just a werewolf. I'd thought he was just trying to draw the spotlight off himself and keep me from worrying about him. But what if he was right? What if the fae had been after me?

I was probably being paranoid. The world didn't revolve around me, after all. Just because this past year I'd had vampires, fae, and werewolves try to kill me at various times didn't mean someone was after me at present. The old woman in the bookstore hadn't known who I was. Surely, if the fae were trying to kill me, she'd have recognized my face. Maybe the fae were willing to kill for the book I'd just hidden in my friend's home. Warren wasn't always here, and Kyle was just human. Maybe I shouldn't leave it here. Maybe I was paranoid and seeing conspiracies where there were none.

"Hey, Kyle?" I said.

He looked at me.

"You don't risk anything for that book," I told him. "If someone comes and threatens you - just give it to them."

He raised a well-groomed eyebrow. "Why don't you give it to them? Whoever 'them' is."

I sorted through a number of answers, but finally said, "That's just it. I don't really know who 'them' is or why they want that book. Or really if they want the book." Probably I was overreacting to the whole thing, and Phin would call me in a couple of days and ask for his book back. Probably the bounty-hunter incident was just what everyone thought it was - a publicity-hungry producer. And the armed fae was . . . My imagination failed me. But there could be an explanation that had nothing to do with me or the book.