Page 78 of Deja Who
FORTY
“You’re horrible and I could almost regret meeting you and I’m probably not the only guy out there who wants to strangle you—I’m literally not the only guy out there who wants to strangle you—but I’m not gonna just slink off into the sunset and let you get fatally stabbed a lot.”
“Huh.”
“That’s it.” Archer nodded so hard he almost gave himself a headache. “That’s what I’ll say to her when I see her again.”
“Might work,” Cat conceded. She and Archer were walking toward the downtown area. Archer had called Cat with updates, she gave him an earful, then orders, and he’d met her to walk her to the hotel. The day was too gorgeous, and they were both too keyed up, for a taxi. “Or you could just kiss her a whole bunch.”
“Plan B. Also Plan C through ZZZ.”
“Good to know. So you figured out her incredibly transparent ploy, eh?”
“Please, God, let it be a ploy.” He shoved his hands in his jeans and hunched while they trudged, Cat because she was loaded down with Target bags of just-purchased travel toiletries, he because he was dead like a dodo inside. Thanks to Leah, his heart was extinct.I need to remember to never say that out loud because, even to me, it sounds lame.“Pretty please? God probably owes me a favor, right? I do all sorts of stuff for Him.” Part-time job number five: bookstore clerk at St. Peter’s.
“Trust me, she was as awful as she could be, but not to be awful. Not to just be awful,” Cat amended. “You always, always have to remember what you’re dealing with.”
“Who.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you correcting my grammar, boy?”
“Yeah, it helps me feel closer to the Leah who corrected my grammar and forget the Leah who talked to me like she hates me.”
“First off, it’s ‘whom,’ you doorknob, so you gotta turn in your Grammar Police badge.”
“It is not! It’s ‘who,’ and I don’t have a Gra—”
“Second, she doesn’t hate you. Opposite, in fact. This is a woman who operates almost entirely out of fear while refusing to acknowledge she’s scared shitless pretty much all the time.” Anticipating his question, Cat elaborated. “Scared of putting herself out there, scared of opening up to you, scared of making a friend who doesn’t put ‘feed pigeons chunks of Big Macs’ on her weekly to-do list, scared the world’s gonna drown in aluminum cans because not enough assholes recycle.” She paused. “No. That last one’s something I’m scared of. Leah doesn’t worry much about the planet, just the people who live on it. Scratch the last.”
He shrugged, feeling bitchy. “I dunno. She had a couple of good points.”
“Shut up, don’t buy into that shit,” the mayor ordered. “Depending on my schedule that day I’ll either cut you or smack you upside the head with my platinum Amex.”
She must have been terrifying in office.“So, what? She drove me off like a dog at a picnic for what? Leah’s just gonna just put herself out there? Make herself bait? Write ‘please come stab me, big boy’ on her forehead?”
“Dog at a picnic, heh.” Catching his scowl, Cat shrugged. “Sorry, hilarious mental image. But listen, I think that might be pretty close to the plan. It might even work. Her whole deal is that she’s always passive, always on the sidelines, right? She’s never tried getting in the killer’s face before.”
“She’s never lost her goddamned mind before, either,” he muttered. “I’m pretty sure.”
“I don’t think the killer’s gonna hang around long after doing her mom. He’s gonna have to make his move real soon.”
“Guessing.” He slashed his hand through the air, dismissing the argument. “It’s all just guessing.”
“Yep. But I think Leah’s an accurate judge of his methods. She might not always know who he is, but she remembers enough things to be careful.”
“Except she’s not being careful. Is she?”
“No.”
It’s unreal that we’re even discussing this. Only three weirdos: a shark-eyed Insighter, the rich homeless former mayor of Boston, and... well... me... could have problems like this. Does that make us lucky, or fucked?
They walked in silence for a few moments. “You know whatI can’t figure out? Besides almost everything? How someone who thinks she’s a terrible person would go out of her way to protect you and me.”
“She’s her own worst critic,” Cat agreed, “and she’s still terrible. Just not as terrible as she thinks.”
“This whole thing is making me ill. I don’t know dick about serial killers—any kind of killer, since my dad didn’treallykill my uncle—”
“What the frig, Archer! Minor detail I’m only just hearing about!”
