Page 30 of Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 29)

I managed to laugh again. “Trust me, Claudia, I don’t want to play delicate gazelle in the damn dress.”Gazellemeant the threat wasn’t happening immediately. “We’re still arguing over the last details ofmy dress and the flowers. He wants all white flowers, but with us in white I want more color.”Colorwas code for chaos, orI don’t know, orI’m not a hundred percent sure that my gazelle isn’t a giraffe.

A door opened farther down the hall. I heard a woman’s voice that sounded like she was crying. A second woman’s voice, more soothing, said, “You saved lives today.”

“You could have gone for just greenery, fewer choices,” Claudia said, trying to ask me if I knew what the threat level was when it did happen. Since the wedding clothes really were black and white neither color could be a code word; we used them too often, which was whyzebracame into the sequence. Green was the lowest threat level since white was off the board. Green, yellow, orange, red was the sequence of escalating badness.

The door to the room with the women in it was still open; I realized there was a uniformed officer propping the door open by standing in it. She was looking down the hallway like she was expecting someone. I avoided her gaze just in case she thought I was who she was expecting. I had my badge on a lanyard around my neck and was wearing my U.S. Marshal windbreaker over everything, so it wasn’t like I could pretend to be a civilian.

“Orange flowers would have looked great with the black side of things, but only okay with the white and it’s hard to find orange flowers that either of us likes.” Claudia knew I thought the threat level was going to be bad when it happened, but not the worst. Then I realized that I didn’t have enough information from McKinnon to be certain of that, so I added, “Though there are so many colors to choose from and flowers have to be fresh, so we have more time to decide on that than anything else.” I’d saidcolor, orcolors, again, which meant I wasn’t certain on the threat level being orange; it could be red, or yellow.

“How about yellow or red flowers?” she asked.

“Yellow would look good with the black, but not so great with the white, but red is the leading contender for the flowers in my bouquet.”

“I think red roses against a white dress with your coloring wouldlook very Snow White.” Color again; how sure was I that it was going to be red? If I repeatedredagain she’d know to take maximum security measures.Snow Whitewas her way of asking if the danger was aimed at only one person.

“More Rose Red than Snow White,” I said, doing my best to sound casual.Redmeant take all the precautions, all the extra security measures, andRose Redmeant it was aimed at all of us. Once the wedding was over I had no idea how we’d make the code words work in normal conversations; Claudia and Bobby Lee would probably make us all memorize a whole new set of words.

I heard the woman crying louder from the open door. The female uniform finally caught my eye. “Gotta get back to work, we’ll talk more wedding stuff later.”

“We will,” she said. “Keep your head on a swivel out there.”

“You know I will.” I was walking slowly toward the officer with the questioning look on her face.

“I know you will.” There was a moment of silence where she probably wanted to say something more, but we didn’t have code words to handle it.

“Later, alligator,” I said.

That made her laugh, which was the point; when your friends worry about you, the least you can do is lighten the mood. I hung up to the sound of her laughter and went to find out what the female uniform wanted from me.

7

OFFICER KAY BEECHERhad been very grateful to find another woman in the hallway with a badge, because she was on her period, and she was afraid she was about to go through her uniform pants. I sympathized as only another woman can, and let her go, taking her place in the doorway. A dark-haired woman in a pink maid’s dress complete with white half apron was partially collapsed on the bed crying into Kleenex from the box beside her.

Beecher had introduced us to each other. “Mona, this is Anita, she’s a U.S. Marshal and she’ll stay with you for just a few minutes.”

I raised an eyebrow at the first names, but Beecher whispered, “She’s really upset, first names help.”

I nodded like that made sense to me, and I guess it did. “Thanks... Kay.”

“Just keep her calm until Captain Storr clears her to go home.”

I whispered back, “She the one who put out the fire?”

“Saved the day,” Kay said, and made her power walk in the direction of a restroom that wasn’t in one of the rooms connected to the crime. First-day lecture for crime scenes: you do not use a bathroom that could contain evidence unless someone tells you it’s clear to use. Officer Kay was probably going to have to find a public restroomunless she could get another room opened that didn’t contain someone connected with the crime. I could be here awhile.

Mona snuffled into the Kleenex, looking at me through bleary tear-filled eyes. “What was your name, Anna?”

“Anita,” I said.

She gave a weak smile. “Anita.”

I smiled encouragingly, thinking it was nice to be the comforting presence for once instead of the threat. I rarely got to play good cop for some reason. Oh wait, because I was bad at it, but I smiled and really tried to look as harmless as my size and not as dangerous as all the weapons and body armor I was wearing.

She smiled back.

“It was very brave of you to tackle the fire with just a fire extinguisher,” I said.

She smiled a little more, then shivered, smile fading away. “I didn’t want what happened in New York to happen here.”

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