Heart of Stone

The kitchen window had been open, wind shifting a curtain enough to allow him to see that the table in the dining room was covered with paper, used as a workspace rather than for sharing meals. Changing light flickered from the room beyond it, a television droning on. His ears had pricked, preternatural hearing picking out words even from across a street filled with city noises. He was unaccustomed to bothering with such focused listening, but last night, having learned her name, having dared as much as he already had, he’d heard stories of trouble in the park. Hardly unusual, but the man described—

He had lost his focus then, catching his breath as he wrapped his mind around the idea that someone had described him as the murderer. Shudders had taken him, despite the fact that he didn’t feel the night’s cold. It was impossible; he only needed to explain.

Explain to Margrit. She was a lawyer. She could defend him when he couldn’t possibly defend himself. And there was no one else. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to remember the last time he might have turned to a human for help. A moment later his eyes came open again and he chuckled under his breath. Over a century and a half ago. Since then he’d had even less contact with mortals than he’d had with his own kind, and he went to some lengths to avoid his own. A faint smile curled his mouth, then faded once more.

To miss her tonight. That, he hadn’t counted on. A chill slid through him, making him flex his shoulders in discomfort. Had she recognized him from the news report? How could she not? But he hadn’t anticipated it keeping her out of the park.

He curled his hands into loose fists and spread his wings, feeling wind catch under them as he launched into the sky. He had to find a way to speak to her.

THREE

“YOU EVER FEEL like you’re being watched?” Margrit’s question came with a laugh and an uncomfortable shift of her shoulders.

Cole, a few yards ahead and escorting Cameron over an icy patch, glanced back with an elevated eyebrow. “Everybody feels like they’re being watched, Grit. Paranoia is part of a healthy New York City lifestyle.”

Margrit laughed again and hurried the few steps to catch up, avoiding the slick stretch. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“It’s because you’re a lawyer,” Cameron said easily. “You think everybody’s out to get you, because they are. First we hang all the lawyers. Cole, I told you we should’ve gotten here earlier. Look at the line.”

“Dinner took longer than I expected,” he answered patiently. “We’ll be inside in five minutes, Cam. It’s fine.”

“Says you,” she retorted. “You’re not wearing heels and a short skirt in twenty-nine-degree weather.”

Cole took a judicious step back, looking Cameron up and down before sighing happily. “Yeah. I know. But you are.”

She laughed out loud and reached for his hand, tugging him over to steal a kiss. “I guess that’s why I keep doing it, too. Charmer.”

“You mean you’re not dressing up for the other girls? I thought that’s what women did.”

“Only if they don’t have you,” Cam said, then widened her eyes and snapped her fingers. “And gosh, I guess they don’t.”

“You two are disgusting.” Margrit tossed off the accusation in a light voice, turning in line to scan the street. There was an itch between her shoulder blades that hadn’t lessened since her run in the park, making her uncomfortable. She was accustomed to feeling wary and watching out for herself, but the lingering sense of actually being followed and watched was new. There was no particular reason or way the blond man from the park might find her a second night in a row, but the idea that he would rode her like a bad dream.

The image of him as a vampire in her dream made Margrit shudder again and turn back to Cole and Cameron. “Cute,” she said with a quick smile, trying to reassert her place in a normal evening with friends, “but disgusting. I’m glad you asked me to come out with you.”

An innocent man wanted for murder would—She let the thought break off, knowing better. Might well not go to the police, for a dozen reasons. Innocent until proven guilty carried little weight, with a brutally murdered woman in the park and an eyewitness stepping forward. Still, there was no reason to expect to see him, and no good reason to want to. One chance encounter did not a relationship make.

Relationship. She wondered at herself for the word, goose bumps crawling over her skin. Cameron, oblivious to Margrit’s mental gymnastics, smiled back. “You haven’t been out with us since Christmas. It’s about time you said yes.”

“It’s about time you were home early enough in the evening to be invited.” Cole wrapped his arms around Cameron’s waist from behind, standing on his toes to rest his chin on her shoulder, and playing up the difference in their height. “I thought I was seeing things when I got home and you were there.”

Margrit laughed. “I told you, I just ended up working from home after talking to Tony. Russell okayed it.”

“Maybe you should see if he’d okay it more often,” Cameron suggested. “Hey, we’re moving.” She nodded at the line. “We might even get in.” They squeaked through the club doors seconds before the bouncer held up his hand and prevented the next wave of hopefuls from entering.

Music washed through Margrit’s veins, as if her heart was driving it. She stopped just inside the club, taking a breath so deep she seemed to be inhaling the sound. She could all but taste it, the throb of life coppery at the back of her throat. It was a welcome distraction from thought, letting her push away images of the blond man, of Tony and of her job with equal ease.

She laughed, soundless under the pervasive beat, and tilted her head back, letting the rhythm prickle her skin. Cameron stopped at her elbow to yell, “You haven’t been out in way too long, Margrit. You look like you just tasted chocolate for the first time!”

“Maybe you’re right,” she shouted back. “You guys want a drink?” She mimed tipping back a bottle. Cam and Cole both nodded. “I’ll meet you in the Blue Room!”

Cole gave her a thumbs-up and, hand in hand with Cameron, slid through the crowd toward the dance floors. Margrit watched them go, grinning, then went the other way, jostling for a position in line at the nearest bar. The club was busier than she expected for midweek, and she cast a wry grin at the crowd. Cameron was right: she needed to get out a little more. At least once a week, she promised herself abruptly. There had to be one night a week when she could get out of work early enough to spend time with friends and in the company of sensually impersonal strangers. All work and no play led to obsessions over apparently murderous strangers in Central Park. There were less dangerous pastimes to pursue.

“Hey,” said a voice at her elbow. Margrit half turned, looking up a few inches at a dark-eyed guy with a bright smile. “You want to dance?”

“Later!” She nodded toward the bar, and he nodded in turn, stepping back. Margrit glanced over her shoulder a few minutes later as she maneuvered through the crowd, two beers and a ginger ale in hand, to find him following at a discreet distance. She grinned and ducked through a doorway.

The Blue Room was the club’s main space and its namesake. Two stories of strobes and spotlights changed the color of the air every few moments, cycling through blue every third change, to emphasize the name. Fog-machine smoke rolled through, the air dry and faintly tangy as dancers made swirls in the haze.

Cameron and Cole leaned against one another and against the metal railing of a landing halfway up to the second-floor balcony. Cam was scouting the room’s entrances, watching for Margrit, and raised a hand when they made eye contact. She lifted the bottles in response and scurried up the grate stairs, handing Cam the ginger ale. Cam accepted, teasing, “Thought you got lost.”

“Just people watching.” Margrit turned to look down into the crowd. “Somebody even asked me to dance.”

“Did you?”

“Nope, I was on a mission. Deliver drinks. He was following me a minute ago.”

“Ooh, creepy,” Cam pronounced. “Maybe he’s your stalker.”

Margrit laughed. “What happened to a healthy city paranoia? I think I just needed to get out and remember what it’s like to have fun.”

Cam chuckled and clinked her bottle against Margrit’s. Cole bonked his against the other two, nodding approvingly. “Do you mind playing drink hawk and saving our spot here while Cam wears me out? Then you can spell me down on the dance floor.”

“Sure.” Margrit collected bottles again and waved her friends down the stairs, then leaned over the railing with her bottle dangling from her fingertips and the other two safely tucked against her arm.

“Is it later enough yet?” The dark-eyed man appeared at her elbow again, smiling. Margrit laughed and shook her head.

“Not now, sorry. Gotta watch my friends’ drinks. One of them’ll be back soon, so why don’t you catch me on the floor?”

He spread his hands, disappointed, then shrugged in agreement as he jogged down the stairs. Strobe lighting made sharp shadows in the muscles of his shoulders. Margrit watched approvingly, then searched out Cole and Cameron on the dance floor. Cole was more graceful than Cam, flowing from one movement to another with elegance. Cameron exuded the raw power of pure joy in letting go, like a drummer in a rock band. They made a nice contrast. Margrit drank her beer, smiling down at them.

Cole had exaggerated his lack of stamina. They stayed on the floor through half a dozen songs, until Margrit’s beer was gone and the music drove her to dance on the stairwell, still holding two bottles. She waved, trying to get Cole’s attention, then squeaked air out through compressed lips, waiting with growing impatience for one of them to tire. As revenge for having to wait, she drank half of Cole’s beer.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Margrit rolled her eyes and turned. “Look, I said—”

The blond man from the park looked down at her quizzically.

“Son of a bitch!” The appeal of encountering him again turned to sour panic in Margrit’s belly, reality of dancing with a devil slaughtering a half-formed fantasy of taming the beast. Margrit threw Cole’s beer upward, foam and alcohol spraying into the blond man’s face. He yowled, hands flung up to protect his eyes. Margrit abandoned the remaining bottle, sending it careening over the metal railing and into the dancers below as she scrambled down the stairs. Her heel caught in the metal grating, snapping and pitching her forward.

An instant later she was on her feet at the bottom with no clear idea of how she’d gotten there. Her broken heel was poking out of the grate of one step at a rakish angle, a lone monument to her presence there.

Cole and Cameron appeared at her side, alarm and concern on their faces. “Margrit? What the hell happened?” Cole took her arm, as if her balance might be questionable.

“It was—he was—didn’t you see? Up there?” She jerked her chin up, staring at the landing above. He wasn’t there.

Margrit shook her head hard, trying to clear it as she gazed in disbelief. “I swear to God,” she said. “He was there. Just a second ago. I swear.”

“Who, Grit?” Cole’s voice was coaxing, as if he was talking to a small child or a puppy.