Page 28 of Shift in the Blood
I shook my head. “I eat everything.”
She beamed. Actually beamed. “That is the best thing I’ve heard all week. Well, count yourself as my guinea pig. Since Didier doesn’t eat what I cook, it’s just me and Neville. I’ve been waiting for another victim.”
I laughed at her enthusiasm, and she joined in.
Which is how Didier found us as he walked into the kitchen.
Chapter Ten
Didier
Ifelt her heart the moment she pulled onto the grounds with Neville. Then I heard her laugh in the kitchen. My own heart beat happily, feeling strangely light. How I knew that, after paying no attention to the doings of hearts in years, I didn’t know. But I felt light as I bounded down the stairs.
While she laughed, I could see the traces of tears. Again, with the tears. I’d bet it had something to do with her sister.
“You’re alone?”
“Carina isn’t coming.” The tone of her voice did not invite questions.
I was right.
“Can I ask you a huge favor?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll just step out.” Mrs. B looked between the two of us.
“No, it’s fine.” Clara waved a hand. “My sister is in the middle of a righteous hair flip. Or flounce. Or something. She has a job as a fish monitor, if I am remembering right. In Seattle.” She looked at me. “That she didn’t tell me about.”
“Oh.” That seemed the safest response. While her voice was calm as she spoke, I could feel the anger and upset bubbling beneath Clara’s calm exterior.
“You said you’d guard her, if I wanted. Can you make sure she’s all right? That she’s not living in a dump? Or if she is, have some big guy scare the crap out of her fellow dump dwellers?”
“Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“Yes. I’m mad, and I’m hurt, honestly, and I don’t want to talk to her, but I don’t want her to be completely unsafe, or get hurt to prove a point. You were right, by the way.”
“In what regard?” I was still playing it safe.
“I should have asked her what she wanted. Not just about this, but a long time ago.” She sighed.
“Do I want to know what she said?”
“That I was a bossy bitch who never had time for her, always told her what to do, and basically, made her life hell.” She ran a hand through her dark hair.
“That’s the younger ones for you.” Mrs. B., who had been at the stove, turned to face us.
I wasn’t sure her interruption was what was needed.
“They never see the whole picture. They can’t.” Mrs. B. was talking to Clara more than me. “But she will, and she’ll come back and make you an apology dinner the likes of which you’ve never seen before.”
Perhaps I was wrong, because that made Clara smile. It wasn’t a full smile, but it reached her eyes. “Carina doesn’t cook.”
“I’ll make darn sure she does.” Mrs. B. shook her spoon at Clara. “Now why don’t you go get cleaned up, missy? I’ll make you some tea, and you and Didier can finish the tour?”
Clara’s face turned to me, a light shining from her eyes. “The gallery?”
“The gallery.”
