“I donât understand.” Lilahâs voice is quivering with irritation, held
back by - well why is she holding back? Two strides and she has her
fingers locked in hair sticky from cheap shampoo and cold water
showers. “Listen. You can be back where you came from before the sun
sets, and donât think I wonât do it.”
That gets her a flicker of the restless eyes that have been moving
around her office, pausing at each patch of colour, lingering on a
painting she hates but keeps because it once got an approving nod from
someone so high up he had clouds floating by his office windows.
“And Iâm not going back there anyway? Or heading for a nicely painful
death?”
“No.” Lilahâs headshake is emphatic and, she hopes, convincing. “We
donât waste people like that.”
He picks up on the unintentional pun and chuckles, rich and dry as red
wine. “How economical of you. Very well, dear lady, let me make it
clear. I wonât do it. Find someone else - or better yet, donât.”
“Youâve tried to kill him before,” she points out, slapping a folder
onto the bony knees, lost in the shapeless, too-large overalls theyâve
dressed him in. “Read them and weep at your failures.”
He pushes the folder off his knee so that the papers and photographs
spill like milk and she sees him tense as he glances at them. Doesnât
take much insight to work out whatâs caught his attention.
“Good looking, if you go for the buttoned up librarian type, and I
guess we both know you do.”
His foot shifts and he covers up the photograph of Rupert Giles with a
cheap, slip on shoe.
“Wrong tense, my dear. But I still wonât kill him.” The cuffs heâs
wearing, that bind him doubly, clink and clatter as he raises his hands
to scratch at his jaw with an awkward grace. “And Iâm still consumed
with curiosity as to why you want to,” he adds softly.
Her eyes track to the corner and Linwood smiles at her, long dead,
still annoying, melting into God, what was his name anyway? The guy
from Accounting who walked by when they needed a sacrificial victim and
she remembered how heâd nixed her claim for a manicure when she broke a
nail typing a report and called him over... Once the cycle starts, itâs
going to be a while before theyâre back to Linwood, she knows that much
for sure. She just prays this is over before her mother dies.
“People - things - want him dead,” she says flatly, staring into
Rayneâs dark eyes. “Heâs going to be a part of something coming up soon
and they really donât want him to be. They did some digging and it
looks like youâre the ideal person for the job. Seems heâs just full of
guilt and lust and good stuff like that when it comes to you. Do it
right and heâll be begging you to forgive him as you fuck him. Canât
tell me you wouldnât get off on that.”
“Rupert begging me? Oh, yes, thatâs always amusing,” he says. “Or it
was.”
“He still loves you, you know.”
Rayne stands and the crooked, contemptuous smile she gets is like a
slap in the face. “If I could believe that, Iâd die a happy man,” he
tells her. “Sadly, I donât.”
When she sees him next, heâs between Linwood and whatâshisname and heâs
still smiling.
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