Лорел Гамильтон - Obsidian Butterfly

"It sounds like you weren't sure of that until just now."

I thought about that for a heartbeat, or two. "You know, I think you're right. I think I've been looking around for someone else, anyone else. But it's no good."

"You don't sound happy about that. Love should make you happy, Anita."

I smiled and knew it was wistful. "If you think love makes you happy, Hernando, you've either never been in love, or never been in love long enough to have to start compromising."

"You're not old enough to be this cynical."

"It's not cynicism. It's reality."

His face was soft and sad. "You've lost your sense of romance."

"I never had a sense of romance. Trust me, the guys at home will back me on it."

"Then I'm even sorrier."

"Don't take this wrong, but hearing you go on about true love and romance, makes me sorry for you. You are setting yourself up for the big fall, Hernando."

"Not if it works out," he said.

I smiled and shook my head. "Isn't it against the rules for homicide detectives to be naive?"

"You think it's naive?" he asked.

"I know it is, but it's sweet. I wish you luck finding your Ms. Right."

The door opened and it was Doctor Cunningham. Ramirez asked, "Does she really get out today, Doctor?"

"Yes, she does."

"Why doesn't anyone believe me?" I asked.

They both looked at me. Funny how quickly people caught onto certain aspects of my personality. "I want to do one more check on your back, then you're free to go."

"You got a ride out of here?" Ramirez asked.

"I asked the nurse to call Ted, but I don't know if she did, or if he's home."

"I'll wait around to give you a ride." Before I could say anything, he added, "What are friends for?"

"Thanks, and this means you can fill me in on the case on the way out."

"You never give up, do you?"

"Not about a case," I said.

Ramirez walked out shaking his head, giving the doctor and me some privacy. Dr. Cunningham poked and prodded, and finally just ran his hands over my back. It was nearly healed. "It's just impressive. I've treated lycanthropes before, Ms. Blake, and you're healing almost that fast."

I flexed my left hand, stretching the skin where the bite mark still showed where the flayed one had bitten me. The bite was pale pink, settling into a nice ordinary scar, only weeks ahead of schedule. I wondered if the scar would eventually disappear, or if it would be another permanent one.

"I've done blood work up on you. I even snuck some of your blood down to the genetics department and had them look for something not human."

"Genetic work takes weeks or months," I said.

"I've got a friend in the department."

"Some friend," I said.

He smiled and it was warmer than it should have been. "She is."

"So I'm free to go?"

"You are." His face got all serious again. "But I'd still like to know what the hell you are."

"You wouldn't believe human?"

"Forty-eight hours after your second injury, we had to remove the stitches from your back because the skin was starting to grow over them. No, I won't believe human."

"It's too long a story, Doc. If it was something I could teach you to use on other people, I'd tell, but it's not that kind of thing. You might call the healing a bonus for some other less pleasant shit that I put up with."

"Unless the other shit is really awful, the healing makes up for it. You'd never have survived the original injuries if you'd been human."

"Maybe."

"No maybe," he said.

"I'm glad to be alive. I'm glad to be nearly healed. I'm glad it didn't take months to recover. What more do you want me to say?"

He draped his stethoscope over his shoulders, holding onto the ends, frowning at me. "Nothing. I'll tell Detective Ramirez that he can tell you about the case now and that you are getting out today." He glanced at the flowers and the balloons. "You've been here, what, five days?"

"Something like that."

He touched a balloon, making them bounce on their strings. "You work fast."

"I don't think it's me that works fast."

He gave the balloons one more whack so they bobbed and weaved like some underwater creature. "Whatever, enjoy your stay in Albuquerque. Try to stay healthy." With that he left, and Ramirez came back in.

"Doctor says I can talk the case with you again."

"Yep."

"You're not going to like it." He looked all serious.

"What's happened?"

"There's been another murder, and not only are you not invited to the scene, neither am I."

"WHAT ARE YOU talking about?"

"Marks is in charge of the case. He has the right to use his resources as he sees fit."

"Stop talking political rhetoric and tell me what the little shithead has done now."

He smiled. "Okay. The men assigned to the case are one of those resources. He decided that I was best used at the police property room going over the items that we've confiscated from the victim's homes, and matching them to the pictures and video we have of some of the houses before the murders."

"Pictures and videos for what?" I asked.

"Insurance purposes. A lot of the houses hit had enough rare and antique pieces that they insured them, and that meant they needed proof that they had the pieces to begin with."

"What pieces did you find in the last scene I was at, the one on the Ranch?"

The smile didn't change, but the eyes did. They went from pleasant to shrewd. "It's not just that you're cute. I like the way you think."

"Just tell me."

"There were a lot of similar pieces since most of the people had collected things from this area, or the southwest in general, but nothing out of the ordinary. Except for this." He reached behind his back underneath the suit jacket and pulled a manila envelope out that must have been inside his belt underneath the jacket.

"I knew you had to be wearing the suit jacket for some reason."

He laughed. He unfolded the envelope and spilled out pictures into my lap. Half of them were semiprofessional shots of a small carved piece of turquoise. A glance and I wanted to say Mayan, Aztec, something like that. I still couldn't tell the difference at a glance. The second set were a few better shots of the object in the study of the man that had been killed. The one that had used salt to interrupt the critter. Then a series of Polaroids, taken from every angle.

"You took the Polaroids?" I asked.

He nodded. "This afternoon after he decided my best use was not at the murder site."

I lifted one of the first series of pictures. "These are sitting on a wooden surface, much better light, natural, I think. Insurance pictures?"

He nodded.

"Who did it belong to?"

"The first house you saw."

"The Bromwells'," I said.

He lifted another picture. "This one was from the Carsons', and that's it. Either no one else owned one, or they didn't think to get it insured."

"Did the people who didn't try to get it insured, try to insure their other pieces?"

"Yes."

"Shit," I said. "I don't know much about this stuff, but I know that it's valuable. Why wouldn't they try to insure it, if they owned one?"

"What if they thought it was hot?"

"Illegal? Why would they think that?" I asked.

"Maybe because of the two houses we can prove had it, their history of the piece — where they got it and when — isn't real."

"What do you mean?"

"Something like this doesn't just show up. It has to have a history if you want it insured. They gave their papers, what they'd been given, to the insurance company, and just a little investigation showed that the people that were supposed to have unearthed the piece, sold the piece, had never heard of it."

"They refused to insure it," I said.

"Yes." There was something in his face, a suppressed excitement like a kid with a secret.