Page 36 of Lucky or Knot
And Jake had vouched for Sean.
I had to take the risk, or there was no point in my being here at all. It wouldn’t have made any sense to someone without a shifter’s senses and instincts, but underneath the pervasive odor of strong cannabis, Sean smelled honest.
And I was desperate.
“There’s a guy,” I blurted out.
The wordsThere’sa guycame nowhere near encompassing Raven, or the strange, aching space he’d carved out for himself in my tight chest so quickly and definitively, but Sean nodded as if he understood completely.
“Cunningham,” I began, and then chuckled despiteeverything as Sean’s eyes widened in total horror. “No! Not Cunningham, I mean, he isn’t the guy. Have you ever seen Cunningham’s boyfriend?” Referring to Raven that way made my gut clench, but I couldn’t think of a better way to say it that wouldn’t get into the details. “Short, long black hair, dresses like the king of the goths circa 1996?”
Sean’s eyes went, if possible, even wider. “Oh, fuck,” he choked. “You—that’s—there’s a guy? Are you suicidal? Are you insane? You’re insane. Jake set me up with a maniac. I’m going to kill him. If you don’t kill me first. Are you a serial killer?”
“No one’s killing anyone, I promise.” Except Cunningham, and anyone who got between me and him, but details. “So you’ve seen him. You know who he is.”
“Everyone who works at Audacity knows who he is. He lives in one of the suites of the penthouse Cunningham uses when he stays here. He’s, like, you know those rich ladies who always have those little purebred dogs they carry around in designer purses, that have diamonds on their collars and shit? I don’t know if boyfriend’s the right word for what he is.” He swallowed audibly, looked around nervously, and lowered his voice to a paranoid whisper. “How did you even get close enough to him to like, have him be a guy to you without dying?”
Sean and Declan should probably get together and have a drink so they could agree on how incredibly stupid I was.
“I shouldn’t tell you and you don’t want to know. But I need to know more about his routine. And Cunningham’s. How they spend their time, where they go and when. And that’s—the favor,” I finished lamely. “That’s why I asked Jake for the intro.”
Sean stared at me. “So you can get me fired and killed too?”
“Bright side, if you get killed you won’t care about getting fired?” The look that earned me could’ve blistered paint off a wall. “Sorry, that wasn’t a great joke.”
“Yeah, don’t try to incorporate stand-up comedy into your stage act anytime soon,” he said. “Tony, I can’t help you. I’m sorry. You smoked me out and that was really cool of you, and I’ll even pay you back whatever you spent, no worries. But I can’t.”
He pushed off the wall, and I knew I had about a two-second window to change his mind. “Free drinks at Lucky for life, and I’ll talk to Declan MacKenna about giving you a job at the Morrigan once this is over,” I promised wildly. “You won’t have to wear that shit. Or work for that motherfucker Cunningham.” His mouth tightened. He was about to say no again. “Please,” I said, Raven’s voice echoing in my head as I did. “Help me, and I swear to all the gods I’ll make sure nothing happens to you. This isn’t about me. This is about, shit. Does he look happy, when you see him? Cunningham’s, you know, the guy.”
Sean hesitated, sighed, and said, “He doesn’t look like anything. I mean, blank. Like someone who’s—there’s rumors. More than rumors. About the way Cunningham treats people.” He slumped back against the wall and rubbed his hands over his face. “Damn it,” he groaned from behind them. “I get what you’re not saying. Now I’ll feel guilty as hell.”
My heart gave a pathetic, hopeful thump, and I pressed my advantage shamelessly. “You won’t have to feel guilty if you help me. Help me help him.”
He dropped his hands and shot me a sour look. “We both know you probably can’t do anything to actually help him get away from Cunningham, since I figure that’s what you’re trying to do. That’s assuming he even wants to, and you could just be a crazed stalker, even if you’re not a serial killer. Plus there’s no way you can actually protect me from someone like that, and I have my doubts about the job. I’m sorry, like I’m not trying to be rude, but looking at you, I feel like even the free drinks might bekind of a stretch.”
Christ, forget my optimistic estimate of half a brain. I’d managed to find the one person on Earth who actually got smarter when he smoked pot instead of stupider. Totally unfair.
How was I supposed to argue with someone who had made a series of valid, inarguable points?
I came up with, “Me being a crazed stalker and him wanting to get away from Cunningham aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Sean blinked at me, shook his head, and stuck a hand in his pocket. “I need to be a lot more high for this. Like, exponentially more high.”
Chapter 12
While Sean smoked another one of the joints, he’d given me a quick rundown on what he knew about Raven and Cunningham’s typical activities. On the weekends, Cunningham had the usual round of filthy-rich pretentious-douchebag-appropriate social occasions, to which Raven accompanied him. Sometimes he hosted lavish parties at the hotel, or more rarely at his estate.
On weekdays, Cunningham worked, and Raven tended to either stay completely out of sight or go out doing the things that one might expect of a wealthy man’s kept boytoy: shopping, spa days, the salon.
Cunningham fancied himself an art collector, and frequently traveled to various private auctions around the world. He’d been on one such trip earlier in the week, and Sean was pretty sure he’d gotten back Thursday evening—which explained Raven’s panic when I’d demanded he meet me that night at the Silver Lode. The gods only knew what explanation he’d given. Something about “communing with the air” or some other hocus-pocus fairy bullshit, I figured. Had Cunningham bought it? I could only pray that he had.
After Sean went back to work half-panicked himself at the idea of being my informant and also high enough to float, I had nothing to do but loiter around and hope he got back to me with something more concrete, as he’d reluctantly promised me he’d do.
Fuck, Raven was probablyright there. From my current lurking spot on the roof of the parking garage where I’d met Sean, he was maybe…I eyed the top of the towering blue-glass expanse of Audacity, to which I had a clear line of sight overa cluster of shorter buildings. Shit, I’d need the Pythagorean Theorem if I wanted to know how far away he was.
Not like I had anything better to do but worry and brood. I pulled out my phone and looked up the height of the building, did a couple of calculations.
About 1300 feet, as one of his fellow corvids would fly.
