Anna Leonard - The Night Serpent

She shook her head, too worn-out to be either angry or amused at his evasion or the appearance of her hated nickname. “Who told you that?”

“One of the uniforms. Said you could talk to anything feline, get it to do what you wanted.”

“Anyone who said that knows nothing about cats.” Lily looked up finally, and in doing so was caught again by Agent Patrick’s gaze. Dark, yes, and intense, yes, and totally focused entirely on her, in a scary-nice sort of way. Oh. So that was what he’d done to the sketch artist. You could get lost in those eyes, just watching them watch you. It made her nervous. Something, hell everything about him was making her nervous. Like he thought she was one of his suspects, someone to be interrogated, bullied and pushed around.

“Oh?” His tone was smooth, inviting; much smoother than the look in his eyes. That voice was another thing the FBI probably issued its agents on their first day on the job, to go with the suits. And the guns, although she hadn’t seen Patrick’s yet. She didn’t doubt he carried one. There was something about him. That intensity, it had a purpose beyond getting answers. Or undressing women visually. She had seen it before; he was a man with a long-term goal, and Lord help the person who got in the way.

All right, maybe that was unfair. But she could practically smell the ambition in him, and it made her wary. Lily didn’t understand ambition. She had needs, desires, of course. Everyone did. But ambitious people carried a tension around inside them that made her tense up in return. She preferred the company of those who were comfortable where they were, who took days one at a time and who didn’t ask too much of life.

“There’s an old joke,” she said, shaking off her reaction and responding to his earlier question. “‘Dogs have owners, cats have staff.’ Or, ‘Dogs come when called. Cats have answering machines and might get back to you.’ All true. A cat will do something you ask of it because it chooses to do so. It won’t obey out of loyalty, or fear, or even love—merely choice.”

Cats couldn’t be used. Not that way. It was one of the reasons why she respected them.

Agent Patrick nodded, not laughing, or even smiling at her words. “And cats choose to listen to you?”

No. Cats chose to talk to her. They always had, even when she was a little girl and terrified of them. They would come to her, twine their lithe bodies around her ankles, look up at her as though she could solve great mysteries, and she would curl into a ball against the nearest wall and cry until her mother came and got her. She never got violent, the way some phobics did, and she never got angry—just sad to the point of overwhelming depression. She had wanted to like cats, in a way she never felt with people.

“My boss at the shelter claims I must smell like catnip, or something.”

The look in his eyes suddenly shifted. Lily wasn’t sure how, or why, but the interest deepened, his face changing slightly. It made her suddenly uneasy in a way even his previous intensity hadn’t, as though she had suddenly been dumped somewhere unfamiliar, without warning. The other man, the FBI agent, she knew how to avoid, and why. This man, the one with the glitter-bright stare, he was… Seductive was the only word that came to mind. Seductive, and dangerous, and appealing. Which were three words, but all meant the same thing. He was looking at her as if he wouldn’t mind taking a roll in some catnip, himself, right then. Like he wasn’t undressing her now, but was already inside her.

Lily knew herself pretty well. She was attractive, if you liked brunettes, too short, and had a reasonably curvy, if not stacked, body. Great hair, nice face. A solid B-grade on all fronts. Nice, but nothing that qualified for that kind of fascination. He was interrogating her again, only with a different question in mind.

“Look, I don’t know what Detective Petrosian thought I’d be able to tell him, or what you think I can do. I’m good with cats, yes. But—”

“Have dinner with me.”

“Excuse me?” She should have been expecting that, yet it still caught her off guard.

His thin lips curved in a smile now. The hint of white teeth showed between the pale red flesh, but the intensity of his eyes was, if anything, even more focused on her. Not undressing her, but getting inside her brain. Inside her soul.

She recoiled, and then scolded herself for recoiling.

All right, Lily, stop that, she told herself. You’re tired, stressed and overreacting. He’s just a guy. A cute guy. Why not have dinner with him?

“I’m a federal agent, miss. You can trust me.” She must have laughed at that. “Seriously,” he went on. “I have a few questions I want to ask you, but I just hit town and I’m starving. And we hijacked you out of your job—the least I can offer is dinner, as a thank-you for your help.”

Lily was oddly flattered, but shook her head. She wasn’t much for dating, and even if she were, a guy who was in town for two, three days tops? She needed more time than that to make up her mind about a guy. Even if he was as exotic as a Burmese, and friendly as a Maine coon. And on the hunt sure as any big cat she’d ever seen. “Thank you, but no. I’m just going to grab a ride back to the shelter, pick up my car and go home. It’s been a really long day and I’m not feeling particularly social. Detective Petrosian has my phone number and e-mail address, if you need to ask me anything more, but I’m sure there’s nothing I can add.”

She stood up, and then looked down at the agent, remembering that moment of sympathy she had experienced on the scene, over the bodies of the kittens. “Whoever did this, you’ll find him.”

It wasn’t a question, and Agent Patrick didn’t pretend otherwise.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Petrosian found him half an hour later still sitting at the table, a notepad flat in front of him, the unlined paper covered with circles with words scribbled inside them.

“So what’s the story?” he asked the cop, pushing the notepad away from him in disgust.

“The store was for rent. Last owner moved out four months ago, but market’s been slow, hasn’t even had anyone in to look at the space since then. It was the Realtor who found the bodies, called us in.”

“Four months.” Patrick reached for the pad and jotted that down as well. “We’ll need a list of anyone who might have known about the space, had access to the keys, that sort of thing.”

“Already have someone on it. Anything else you want us to dig into?”

Jon T. Patrick was smart. More, he was savvy. And he knew blue sarcasm when he heard it. So he dragged himself out of his thoughts and gave the detective his full attention. “You guys have it under control. I’m just working a side investigation, is all. A little project.”

“Uh-huh.” Petrosian maybe wasn’t as smart, but he was plenty savvy too, so he let Patrick’s comment go without challenge.

“Although…” Patrick knew it was stupid, but he couldn’t resist. “Tell me about your specialist, Ms. Malkin.”

Ms. Malkin. Lily. It wasn’t a name that suited her: a lily was a delicate, overscented flower. Malkin’s hazel eyes were tough, her body toned and muscled under the curves, her stride strong, and her scent…unscented. Powder and soap.

He usually liked perfume on a woman, liked placing his face against her neck and smelling the aroma rising off her skin. But perfume would be wrong on Malkin. It would be overkill.

He wanted to take her out to dinner. Nothing fancy: pasta maybe, and a bottle of decent wine. He wondered if she drank red wine. He thought maybe she did. Or maybe he was projecting. Patrick was amused at himself, despite the seriousness of the case. Profiler, profile thyself? Why was he so attracted to her? She was a hot little thing, yeah, but he’d seen better. But there was something about her that spoke to him, beyond the physical, and well beyond any use she might have to the case.