Remembrance (The Mediator #7)(89)

“Jesse, please,” I begged him as the sommelier fussed over him like a mother hen, folding his napkin back over his lap, since it had fallen to the floor, and brushing off his suit. “Paul’s drunk. And, even if he completely messed it up, he did do you a favor tonight. You know you can’t afford to be anywhere near people like Delgado.”

Jesse turned his glare on me. I felt like one of the tiny cakes inside my stepnieces’ vintage Easy-Bake Oven, burning under the bright white lightbulb.

“Did me a favor?” He looked incredulous. “Susannah, I don’t need those kind of favors, from him or anyone, especially when they involve you. And,” he added with a dark glance in Paul’s direction, “he’s a little too drunk, don’t you think?”

“What? No.” I hurried back to my own seat just as the second course, a gold-rimmed plate of Monterey Bay wild salmon with Meyer lemon, was being laid there by a team of servers so professional they gave the appearance of not having noticed there’d been a near knockout in their restaurant. “He seems fine to me. Wait, what are you—”

I broke off as Jesse reached down beneath my chair.

“Really, please, carry on, you two,” Paul slurred drunkenly from the chair he’d sunk back into. To my amazement, he still hadn’t left the restaurant. “Pretend like I’m not even here. I’m used to it.”

Jesse pulled my bag from beneath the table and began to rifle through it. Suddenly I knew exactly what he was doing . . . and what he was looking for. My heart flew into my throat.

“Jesse, no,” I cried, reaching for the leather straps to snatch the bag away. “I—”

But I heard the distinctive rattle, and knew his fingers had closed over the prescription pill bottle before I could stop him. He pulled it from the depths of the bag and squinted at the label in the dim candlelight on the restaurant table.

“What are those?” Paul asked interestedly. “Suze, did you bring party favors? My kind of girl.”

“They’re not the kind you’d like, Slater,” Jesse said, quickly opening the bottle and dumping the contents into his hand. Counting swiftly, he asked, “How many have you given him?”

“Just a few. I put them in the whiskey bottle when he wasn’t looking. I didn’t want him to taste them.”

Jesse swore. “You gave him sleeping pills in alcohol?”

At Jesse’s appalled expression, I shrugged. “It is a big bottle. He’ll be fine, just a little out of it for a while.”

“Thank you for your medical diagnosis, Dr. Simon.” Jesse had already pulled out his cell phone, ready to dial 911. “Why would you do such a thing?”

I bit my lip. I was going to have to tell him eventually. Look at everything that had happened because I hadn’t told—because Becca hadn’t told. Oh, wait. We were talking about me now.

But in the end, Paul was the one who spilled the beans.

“Sleeping pills? That’s a new low, even for you, Simon.” He reached into his jacket pocket for his own cell phone. “I should have known you never had any intention of holding up your end of the bargain. I’m texting Blumenthal to go ahead with the demo on Monday.”

This caused Jesse to pause while making his call. “There that word is again. Bargain. What bargain?”

“Um,” I said, my panic rising to new heights. “Nothing. Just—”

“Oh, ho.” Paul grinned as he continued to tap into his phone. “Awkward. Sorry, Simon. But a deal is a deal. And by attempting to drug me into a stupor, you just voided ours.”

Jesse’s dark gaze burned into me. “Susannah. What is he talking about?”

Before I could say a word, Paul went on, “Oh, don’t be too hard on her, de Silva. You should be impressed, as a matter of fact. It’s hard to find women as loyal as this one these days—at least ones who aren’t interested only in your money, which wouldn’t be a problem for you, I know, but for me, I—”

“Okay, that is enough.”

I stood up, throwing my balled up napkin to the side of my newly delivered bowl of black truffle risotto with Parmigiano-Reggiano, which at this point I had no interest even in trying.

“Come on, Jesse,” I said. “We don’t have to sit here and listen to this. Let’s go.”

But Jesse stayed where he was.

“No,” he said. His eyes were as dark as Paul’s were light—but even darker than usual, since I saw the now-familiar shadows creeping in. “I’m interested to hear about this bargain.”

I began to feel afraid, despite the string quartet playing lightly in the background.

“Jesse, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s . . . he’s on drugs, remember?”

Paul took a deliberate swig from the whiskey bottle. “Sweetheart, I’ve got news for you. I pop pills like candy. How do you think I maintain my extremely unhealthy lifestyle while looking so good? A few sleeping pills mixed into my hooch aren’t going to bother me in the least because I took four dexies before we left the bar. Anyway, what the two of you have together is really sweet, and I’m envious, especially since you both have to know by now it’s going to end.”

“And how is that?” Jesse asked.

“Well, there are no documented cases that I know of human and reanimated corpse copulation, but I think it’s likely such a thing would fly in the face of all physical and natural law. If you ask me, that’s what’s probably going to unleash whatever demonic entities reside within the good doctor here. But what do I know? I’m no expert. I guess we’ll find out Monday, won’t we? Oh, that’s the bargain we had, de Silva. Your girlfriend was going to let me bang her if I didn’t tear down her old house. But now that deal is off. So good luck not slaughtering the bride.”