Phoebe’s accent was thicker than usual from her annoyance. “I swear, dem boys steal anyt’ing and Beenie’s too stupid not t’go along. He been in dat boy’s pocket twice now. Usually dem snatchy-hands jus’ take da books—now dey takin’ da cats, too!”
She stopped at the espresso machine and grabbed three cups of coffee off the back counter, muttering to herself. She shoved two of the cups at us. “You’re late, so it’s cold.”
It wasn’t very cold, and I decided I didn’t care so long as it was coffee and took the closest chair in the nook. Phoebe plopped down into another beside the fake fireplace that hid the door to the office. Quinton seemed to think standing was safer and kept on his feet. None of us doctored the coffee.
I waited for Phoebe to settle in and calm down before I said anything, but she beat me to it. I suppose she wasn’t quite so angry about Beenie’s near kidnapping as she seemed. It only took her two long sips before she asked, “So, what sort of trouble you want me to get you out of?”
I had to swallow quickly to reply. “I need someone I can trust to go fetch a puzzle ball from my place.”
“And you can’t go . . . why?”
“Because some guys I really don’t want to tangle with are staking the place out, waiting for me. You they don’t know, so they won’t give you any hassle if you show up.”
“You think they aren’t gonna notice some black woman ain’t you sneakin’ into your place and not think that’s kinda strange?”
“They aren’t watching the inside of the building, just the outside.” I hoped. “They won’t know which condo you go into.”
“Uh-huh. They any kind of observant, they will notice I wasn’t in there very long.”
“They won’t care. You could be any one of my neighbors or one of their friends dropping something off. Take a box of books with you and leave it if you think that’ll fool them better.”
Phoebe looked thoughtful. “Hm . . . I could do that. I could take the safes.”
“The whats?” I asked.
“Safes. That’s what I wanted to show you. I got a bunch of these ‘book safes’—they’re those hollowed out books that people hide stuff in—in a box of books I bought at a big sale on Capitol Hill. Some of the book safes have things inside and I thought you might help me find out who they belong to. No one from the sale knew. So. I help you out and you help me.”
That was a no-brainer. “OK. I’ll give you my keys and if you can go tomorrow, I’ll meet you here when you’re done.”
“Fine. I’ll leave the safes at your place, say . . . tenish. Where’s this puzzle ball?”
“On a bookshelf by the TV. It’s wood, about eight inches across. You can’t miss it: There’s only one.” I handed over the condo keys, showing her which one was for the exterior door and which the interior.
Phoebe took them and nodded like the deal was done. “Dinner next Sunday. And you’re both comin’ or Poppy’s sendin’ da braas for you—don’t think he wouldn’t.”
Intimidating as they look, Phoebe’s brothers don’t scare me except in terms of sheer bulk. Phoebe is the oldest but she’s also the smallest, and you could lift three of her for one of her brothers. But the oldest brother, Hugh, would do anything for her, so I like to stay on his good side. And Poppy’s, because I sometimes suspect he sees a lot more than he lets on.
“Sunday. All right,” I agreed, hoping I’d be alive to see it.
NINETEEN
I did not sleep well that night in the Danzigers’ basement. I might have been sending Phoebe into danger and I hadn’t been honest about it. I couldn’t get the sound of the Grey out of my head, nor could I push aside my own internal voice that worried at the things Carlos had implied about my own motives. I felt bloody and raw inside and even my dreams were haunted by that voice. My brain was as loud as an asylum without drugs and even Quinton’s attentions didn’t push it back far enough.
The ferret tried to haul me off the bed in the morning by biting my toes and heaving backward with all her two-pound might; she didn’t quite shake the turmoil from my mind, but she did get me upright.
“Stop that!” I snapped, flailing the air as I tried to catch the escaping miscreant. She danced backward, chuckling and flashing her teeth until she fell off the bed and had to retrench underneath it.
“I thought you were going to sleep all day,” Quinton said, watching me from across the room at his makeshift worktable. “Not that what you were doing was really sleeping. . . .”
“What was I doing?” I asked, shooting him a questioning glance and grabbing the nearest clothes my size.
“Mostly muttering and thrashing around. Mostly.”
“And when I wasn’t?”
“That’s when you scared me. About four a.m., you made this gurgling sound and went rigid. Then you stopped breathing. And when I touched you, you gasped, whipped around, and kneed me about . . . here,” he added, pointing to his navel. “I’m really glad I’m shorter than you. After that, you scrambled over me and when your feet hit the floor, you went limp. It was fun getting you back into bed. But you slept a little better after that.”
I bit my lip and frowned in confusion. “I don’t remember any of it.”
“You weren’t exactly awake when it happened.” He looked back at his work and picked up his soldering iron, prodding something with the hot tip. “I don’t know what you’d call it. It’s not really sleepwalking; more like . . . sleep-fighting. I figured you were dreaming and the cold floor shocked you enough to stop but not enough to wake up.”
I sat back down on the edge of the bed with my clothes half on, trying to remember what I’d been dreaming, what might have made me act like that in my sleep. I studied his half-turned back, watching him for a moment. His posture was a little odd, as if he were pulling his shoulders in. Defensive. He wasn’t telling me something.
“Did I say anything?” I asked.
“I’m going to kill you.”
“What?”
“That’s what you said: ‘I’m going to kill you.’ ”
“You don’t think I was really talking to you. Do you?”
“Well, I admit, I wasn’t sure. It was very clear and your voice was very cold. It’s a little freak-worthy when someone stops breathing, says something like that, and then attacks you. I’m not even sure how you managed to say anything when you weren’t breathing—holding your breath, maybe?”
I felt something well in my eyes. “Oh, no . . . Quinton. . . .” My chest ached and it was hard to breathe around what felt like a rock in my throat. I got up and rushed toward him but stopped short of the intended embrace. My vision was going blurry and red, and I sank to my knees, wiping my eyes while I bowed my head. I felt an unusual stickiness against my skin and knew it was blood.
I didn’t want him to see it and tried to turn aside, but I felt his arms come around me as he slid down onto the floor. I kept my face down and pressed it into his shoulder. Oh, gods, I was going to stain his shirt. . . .
He stroked my hair, shushing me as I hiccuped on the tears I tried to hold back. “Hey, hey . . . it’s all right.”
I let the awful feeling go, let it roll out and over me and tumble away on a series of shaking breaths. “Y-you know I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it,” I cried.
“I do. I know.”
“You’re afraid of me.”
“I’m not. I’m not.”
I raised my face. His eyes flashed wide and he jerked back a little before he caught himself. He blinked a few times. “All right . . . that’s disturbing.” He took a deep breath. Then he shrugged and pulled me back into a hug. “You know, in horror movies that’s usually just a picturesque trickle. . . . You kind of look like someone broke your nose.”
I mumbled against his chest. “Oh, thanks.”
“Do you remember what you were dreaming?”
I shook my head. “No.” It wasn’t like the disturbing dream-sendings I’d had about Will; this was a regular dream, if a horrible one. Pieces came back as I thought about it, but not the whole and none of it made sense alone. The only thing that seemed clear was the lingering sensation of electricity across my fingertips and a soreness at my neck and shoulders as if I’d been hanged.