all the doors closed. She dumped her dirty clothes in a corner in her room, then glanced outside. It was getting lighter—maybe seven o’clock in the morning. She had two choices: wait for Dillon to get over his hangover and drag himself out of bed, or go down and start taking care of things on her own. It was a no-brainer. She needed to find out where her car was, get it towed, call Isobel, find some coffee, find something to eat….
The stairway was narrow and dark, and if there were any lights she couldn’t find them. She went down carefully, holding on to the rickety railing, feeling her way in the shadows. She got to the bottom, reaching for the door into the kitchen, when she stepped on something soft and squishy. Something big.
She screamed, falling back in the shadows, and then immediately she felt stupid. It was probably nothing, just a discarded piece of clothing….
The door to the kitchen was yanked open, and Dillon stood there, filling it, radiating impatience. “What the hell are you yowling about?” he demanded. “Did you fall?”
“I—I stepped on something,” she said, trying to control her stammer. “It was probably nothing….” She glanced down at the small square of floor at the bottom of the stairs. She gulped. “Or maybe not.”
“It’s a rat,” Dillon said, his voice as flat as his expression. “We get them every now and then.”
“You have rats?” she demanded in horror.
“Sorry, princess, but this ain’t the Taj Mahal. It’s an old warehouse, and rats come with the territory. They show up occasionally, but at least they’re dead. Someone must have put some rat poison behind the walls years ago and it’s still working. Every now and then there’s a nice fresh corpse, and I don’t have to worry about them getting into the food.”
Food, Jamie thought. She glanced down at the dead rat, but even a corpse wasn’t enough to distract her. “I’m hungry,” she said.
“Then go on into the kitchen and find yourself something to eat. Unless you were thinking of fried rat?”
She rose from her seat on the stairs and glared at him. Two steps up put her eye level with him, and the result was disconcerting. “Maybe you could move the rat first? I don’t want to step on it.”
Big mistake. Before she knew what he was doing he’d simply picked her up, swung her across the small square of floor and set her down in the kitchen. Letting go of her immediately, as if she weren’t any more appealing than the dead rat. Maybe less. “There you go, Your Highness. There’s bread on the counter and beer in the fridge.”
“Or course there is,” she said, hostile. “But I’m not in the habit of drinking beer for breakfast.”
“You oughtta try it. Good for what ails you.”
“Nothing ails me.”
“Nothing but that stick up your ass,” Dillon said pleasantly, picking the rat up by the tail. It swung limply from his hand, and she shuddered.
“I’ll save the beer for you,” she said, controlling her shudder.
“Good of you.” He carried the rat over to the back door, opened it and flung it out into the alleyway. “All taken care of,” he said.
“You’re just going to leave it out there? Spreading disease and God knows what else?”
“The bubonic plague is over. And if it comes back I’m willing to bet you’d be happy to have me get the first case.”
“You got me there.”
He seemed to consider the idea for a moment. “Besides, there are enough scavengers around that he won’t be there for long. He’ll either be eaten by his brothers or carried off by some stray dog.”
“What makes you think it’s a he?”
“That was for your benefit. I assumed you think all rats are male.”
“Good point,” she said. The kitchen didn’t look much better than it had last night. The bottles had been swept off the table, but the smell of cigarettes and stale beer lingered in the air, with the faint note of exhaust beneath it.
“Bread’s on the counter,” he said. “I’ll make coffee.”
There were exactly two pieces of bread in the plastic bag, both of them heels. “Where’s the toaster?”
“Broken. There’s some peanut butter over the stove—make yourself a sandwich.”
Isobel would have fainted with shock at the idea of peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast. Jamie was just grateful for the protein. She sat down at the scarred oak table to make her sandwich, watching as Dillon reached for the coffeepot. He poured out the dregs, filled the carafe with water and put it back in the machine.
“Aren’t you going to wash it out first?”
“Why? It’s going to hold coffee, and that’s what it held before. What’s the big deal?” He leaned against the counter, watching her lazily.
“The old coffee oils will make it bitter,” she said, not even getting to the cleanliness part. From the look of Dillon’s littered kitchen, cleanliness wasn’t high on his list.
“Maybe I like bitter.”
“I have no doubt that you do,” she said. The bread was slightly stale, but it was solid, and she devoured her makeshift sandwich. “I don’t suppose you have anything as mundane as a soda?”
“They call it pop out here in the hinterlands, Your Highness. Check in the fridge.”
He’d been lying about the beer. They must have finished it all during their late-night poker game. The contents of the refrigerator consisted of a chunk of moldy cheese, half a quart of milk and enough cans of soda to satisfy anyone. She grabbed a Coke and shut the door, snapping the top and taking a long drink, letting the sugary caffeine bubble down her throat.
He was watching her, an unreadable expression on his face. Not that she’d ever been able to guess what he was thinking. “What?” she demanded irritably.
“You don’t strike me as the type who’d drink straight from the can.”
“Maybe I don’t trust your idea of cleanliness.”
“I’m sure it’s not up to your standards.”
“It’s not. When did you get my suitcase? Is my car here?”
“Your car’s still stuck in a ditch out on the highway. And I didn’t get the suitcase. Mouser was running an errand for me and he stopped and got it. You made quite an impression on him, but then, he doesn’t know you as well as I do.”
“You don’t know me at all. We haven’t seen each other in twelve years, and back then you had nothing to do with me.”
“That’s not the way I remember it.”
It felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. She didn’t even blink. “And your memory is so clear after all these years?”
“Clear
