Tantalize Part 7

"If we find something worth trying on," he said, "I'll look."

Brad had sounded about as hopeful as I felt.

"You're really tall," I said. "Slender, too." More attractive than I'd thought at first glance. It was the kind of face that grew on you. Not so obviously handsome like Kieren's, so obviously masculine. But sophisticated, like his affection for wine.

Our best candidate: a black-and-crimson suit, unlined, s.h.i.+rt sewn into the pants, b.u.t.tons made of plastic. A black-and-red plastic medallion hung from a frayed black ribbon. Brad claimed to already have black dress shoes, but . . .

"Too chintzy," he said.

"Too chintzy," I agreed. "And too short in the arms and legs."

Two days later, Brad's never-ending quest for a menacing menu, well, never ended. While my fellow seniors, the ones with a parent or three, busied themselves with Back to School Night, I broke the news: "The most gothic thing about your eggplant parmesan is the fact that a purple vegetable exists in nature."

"I need a vegetarian selection," he replied, rinsing a long, wooden spoon.

Travis, who was doing dishes, stayed out of it. My uncle had scheduled him and Clyde on alternate days until the debut party. Travis was sweeter, easy to work with. The more Brad and I bantered, the more Travis seemed to want to take cover inside the sink.

Brad, on the other hand, rejoiced in it. He loved to cook, loved to talk cooking. Like Kieren loved his werestudies. Like Vaggio had loved good women. Like Uncle D loved bad women. Like Daddy had loved ancient cultures and Mama had loved Fat Lorenzo's. Brad gobbled it up. He was starting to seem almost as committed to Sanguini's as I was.

"It's after midnight," I said, as he poured more Chianti into the wine gla.s.s I'd left on the butcher's block.

I kept waiting for Uncle D to say something about Brad drinking on the job, about Brad drinking on the job with me. Not with his taste in recreational substances that he had much room to talk. But nada. nada. It was as though Uncle D had woken up one morning and saw me in a new, more grown-up light. I liked it. It was as though Uncle D had woken up one morning and saw me in a new, more grown-up light. I liked it.

"How about a ride home?" Brad asked.

"I'm taking The Banana."

"About that . . ." Brad peered over Travis's shoulder to check progress. "Ruby and Davidson picked up the car a few hours ago, while you were rearranging the sample wait station for the thousandth time. I meant to mention it."

"I guess he's feeling better," I muttered. That morning Uncle D had said he was too sick to come in. Excusing myself to duck into the break room, I used my dying cell phone to call him - no answer.

I could've tried Kieren, but it was late, a school night. I'd just wake up everybody. Meghan was in bed by eight or so. Meara and Roberto after the late news.

Besides, since our blowup on the phone, things had been even more strained between me and Kieren. At school, we'd both pretended like nothing had happened, just like we pretended he wasn't leaving and we pretended he didn't blame Sanguini's for Vaggio's death. It was becoming harder and harder to talk at all.

"Well?" Brad asked when I returned to the kitchen. We'd mostly cleaned up, but he was still wiping down the stovetop.

"My uncle's not answering," I said, frustrated. It would be better once the restaurant opened and he got back on a regular schedule, working days and nights.

"I'd be honored to escort you home, Miss Morris." Brad checked his two wrist.w.a.tches, offered an inviting smile. "No trouble."

What was happening here? I wondered. It was like Brad and I were developing some kind of vibe. Not that anything would come of it. I already had Kieren, or at least, I hadn't given up yet on wanting to have Kieren, and besides, the way Brad kept tasting the food and spitting it out in the trash - kind of a turnoff.

Now, Kieren knew how to devour . . . I shoved the thought away.

Brad was who mattered at the moment. Sanguini's success depended on its chef. I wasn't sure how else I'd get home, but I didn't want to lead him on either.

"Now, then," Brad added, tossing his paper towel in the trash. "I know you're invested in being an obsessive-compulsive over-the-top risk taker. Which, I must say, makes you a contradictory personality type. And a fascinating one at that. But think before you turn me down."

Mildly O-C maybe, but . . . "I am not an over-the-top risk -"

"In addition to that hirsute boy your uncle doesn't approve of," Brad argued, "and your being in the restaurant business, I'm thinking that walking home alone is foolhardy. You can't control what happens in the night, Miss Morris."

It was annoying that he and Uncle D had been talking about my personal life. I patted Brad's shoulder, a nonflirtatious pat. "Save it for the clientele. I'm wiped, and Travis isn't done. Besides, I've walked home from work tons of times." Not at night, though. Not really. I took a gulp of Chianti. "Odds are -"

"Odds don't matter when a predator beats them," Brad replied. "That's the game some beasts live for, beasts that should've been hunted to extinction long, long ago."

I bristled. "If you're talking about werepeople -"

"Translating to 'man-people' - of all the PC nonsense." Brad's voice gentled. "I know you've been avoiding the media, but in the past month, Bear tracks were found outside the window of a missing toddler in Salt Lake City. A Cat shredded a stripper in New Jersey to ribbons. Russian authorities identified a terror cell of werehyenas -"

"I get it." Enough already, I thought. No way was he taking me home now.

"They aren't people," Brad added. "They are not and have never been human beings. It's that form, Miss Morris, the familiar form, that's the disguise. The scam. They're monsters in masquerade. Pretending to be people - neighbors, friends, lovers even. Using their humanlike skins to deceive."

"And you're the expert?" I asked, trying not to overreact. Most humans had issues with s.h.i.+fters. I'd seen a poll on TV not long ago that said something like 80 percent of humans thought of werepeople as dangerous and more than half considered them somehow demonic. Even Uncle D had been known to make the occasional remark. But that didn't make it any less racist or species-ist or something-ist.

"Think of your friend Vaggio," Brad said. "What one of them did to him."

"I'm out of here," I replied. "Kill the lights, will you?"

Brad smiled in apparent surrender. "I will."

"Deadbolt the front door behind me?" I'd been avoiding the parking lot after dark.

"That, too."

I picked up my gla.s.s and held it against my forehead, trying to ease the ache. I couldn't just brush off Brad. He meant well, and he was on the home team now. Setting my gla.s.s back down, I said, "You can call me 'Quincie.'"

Brad reached for my scarred hand. "Be careful, Quincie."

I looked at where our skin met. Then I left, crossing through the dining room to the foyer, stepping onto the busy sidewalk.

"Hey, Quincie!" Travis called, just as I'd pa.s.sed the vacant lot next door, lumbering to catch up with a paper bag in his thick hands. "You forgot this." It was the care package that Brad had whipped together for Uncle Davidson.

"Thanks," I said. "And thanks for staying late."

"Leavin' now," Travis replied with a shrug. "I told my mom I'd be home by a half-hour ago, and Brad said he'd finish the dishes."

I waved, and Travis motored in the opposite direction.

At twelve thirtyish on a Thursday night - make that Friday morning - the weekend was already in full swing. Music aficionados congregated outside the clubs, tourists stumbled out of margarita bars, and the shops had been closed tight. The Capitol Motel, the Spanish-style motel, and the '50s-retro one next door to it all posted No Vacancy. The sky was murky, like it had been covered by a smoky blanket. It had rained earlier that evening, and the asphalt felt slick in places.

Stumbling on the curb, I nearly dropped my uncle's chicken soup. Watching where I was going couldn't hurt. The sporadic traffic to my right, storefront windows to my left. Dull security lights, crisp neon.

What was I thinking, I wondered steps later, walking by myself at this hour? I hated to admit it, but Brad had a point. He was just so hard to read, and then he'd hit too close to home. Reminded me of what I was trying to forget. The investigation. Kieren as a possible suspect. A murderer on the loose. Brad seemed to think I was in some kind of denial, and if that was true, so be it. Denial had been keeping me functional. It was working for me. Or at least it had been.

I paused, considering. Brad would never hear me knocking at the front door, and it seemed safer to stay on the sidewalk with the crowd than go around the building by myself. Besides, I hated the thought of crawling back.

Pa.s.sing a couple of bikers (the kind that wore leather, not the kind that won the Tour de France), I told myself I was worrying for nada, nada, but I felt watched. but I felt watched.

I squinted, scanning the flyers stapled to a pole. Among those announcing "roommates wanted," an anti-death-penalty rally, and a band called The Screaming Head Colds, were others with black-and-white photos of missing people and pets.

At the next intersection, I glanced behind me and spotted a male figure, half obscured by a giant yucca, advancing fast. Was he after me, I wondered, or just trying to make last call? There hadn't been another murder since Vaggio's, and that had been not quite two weeks earlier. But d.a.m.n, why hadn't I waited for Brad to give me a ride?

Maybe the drinking had impaired my judgment.

My keys extended from between each of the fingers on my right hand. My house waited another block away. I glanced back, but a laughing group of partyers had spilled onto the sidewalk between me and my would-be pursuer.

Setting the bag beside a row of newspaper dispensers, I decided, tipsy or no, to make a run for it. If my uncle could go out with his girlfriend, he could live without his soup, and carrying it would slow me down.

I pa.s.sed a pet.i.te woman in blond pigtails, lugging a guitar case. A guy with green hair, wearing chains on his wrists and as a belt.

The sidewalk was uneven, downhill to the stoplight. Then I turned left, hoping whoever it was hadn't seen me as I continued up, up up at a steep incline. A canopy of trees, sleeping houses lay ahead. at a steep incline. A canopy of trees, sleeping houses lay ahead.

A few steps more, one right turn, I'd be on my own street. But . . .

The hill.

Fatigue.

Wine.

I didn't get twenty feet before I heard footsteps closing in. Panting. Something grazed the small of my back.

"Qu -"

I turned to strike back - to hit, kick, bite, if I could sink my teeth into anything. Knowing I'd never outrun him. My fist tightened around my key chain, and I aimed for an eye. Swinging too hard, I missed, throwing my whole body off balance. His, too. Our legs tangled, and we collapsed in a heap on the damp sidewalk. My teeth cut my tongue on impact. Pain surged up my limbs, my side.

"Qu-Quince!"

Kieren? I scrambled away from him.

"Quince?" he said.

I didn't move, couldn't.

"You're not afraid of me, me, are you?" are you?"

"No," I breathed. "Don't be ridiculous." My heart was pounding double time, and Kieren was lucky I hadn't stabbed one of his pretty brown eyes out. I'd hurt my hip, elbow, forearm. The injuries stung in some places, ached in others. Nothing broken, but the gravel had done a number on my skin. "What are you doing?"

He climbed to his feet, offered me a hand up. "I was trying to -"

"What? Scare the bejeezus out of me?"

"Catch up. Travis called me at Clyde's, said you were walking home alone, so I took off as fast as I could and . . ."

Here he was. We stood together in the darkness. In my neighborhood, steps from the turnoff onto my dead-end street. No streetlight. No moonlight tower. No moon.

"Your folks let you stay out this late on a Thursday?" I asked.

"We're seniors now," Kieren said, brus.h.i.+ng dirt from my jeans and T-s.h.i.+rt.

And, I remembered with a pang, the Moraleses were already planning on him going out on his own soon anyway.

"You never walk alone at night," Kieren added.

"I know." His touch felt good. My anger melted as I ached for more of it.

We limped together down the middle of the street, up the walk to my house.

I'd overreacted, I realized. Too much pressure, adrenaline.

Glancing over my shoulder, I unlocked the front door. "My uncle's out with Ruby." I crossed the threshold, flipped on the porch light. Kieren's wild hair looked fuller, more lush. Since this morning, he'd grown a goatee. Tight T-s.h.i.+rt, b.u.t.ton-fly jeans, black boots. Mussy, furry, and yummy delicious. "Wanna come in?" I asked.

Something flashed in his eyes. Temptation, heat, hunger. Pack or no pack, had I finally worn him down? Then his expression grew concerned.

"You've been drinking," he said.

I leaned against the doorframe. "That's not why I'm inviting you in."

I sensed victory as Kieren took a step forward, but when I moved aside to let him pa.s.s, I heard Uncle D's voice from the family room.

"It's a school night, honey."

When did he get home?

Uncle D had gone with me to church downtown, followed by a gospel brunch in New Braunfels. A just-us day, something we used to do more often.

That afternoon, he lounged on the sofa, reading the latest coverage of Vaggio's murder. Another article that didn't say anything new. Uncle D had offered a reward for info, but so far, no luck. He shuffled the paper, turning to regional news. "Looks like that little girl who went missing in the Woodlands died in a weregator attack."

I didn't reply. According to Kieren, though, Gators were an urban myth started by New Orleans swamp tour guides. Not that I hadn't given up on fairness in reporting long ago, at least when it came to stories about s.h.i.+fters. The lynching of werepeople, for example, or cross burnings on their front yards never even made the news unless there were photos, video. Even then, it was too often implied the victims might've somehow provoked the attack.

At my apparent disinterest, Uncle D changed the subject. "Need any help?"

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I looked up from the book opened on the coffee table. "I've got this reading a.s.signment for chem and -"

"Chem." Uncle D folded the paper and sat up. "How about a . . . I guess we don't have much in the fridge. I haven't had a chance to go grocery shopping. Maybe something to drink?" He leaned forward. "Speaking of which, I noticed that you've become quite the red wine drinker." As I was bracing to defend myself, Uncle D added, "I brought home a bottle of the house Chianti, if you're interested."

Wow, I thought. Letting my drinking slide was one thing, but actually offering me booze . . . Apparently Kieren's folks weren't the only adults who thought high school seniors deserved to be treated more like grown-ups. "No thanks," I said, tempted. "I need to concentrate." I shot him a sideways glance. "You didn't take chem as your lab science at Texas State?"