This didn’t feel like an interview; it felt like a test. “I guess we’ll have to cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“Anything else you can tell me about Rick? Do you know how old he is?”
Rick was old. Rumor had it he’d known Coronado and Doc Holliday and all kinds of people like that; that he’d been running around the American West before it even was the American West. Guy was a walking history book. I hadn’t had the guts yet to ask him about any of it. I was working up to it. Maybe in another decade I’d get the nerve.
“He’s pretty old,” Jack said noncommittally.
She glanced at her phone. It hadn’t made any noise, but she started gathering her things, shoving her notebook and phone into an oversized purse. She left a five on the table for her coffee.
“I’m really sorry, I have another appointment and I have to get going.”
“You always work late, I take it?” I asked.
“Part of the job,” she said, smiling, of course.
“Well, let us walk you out.”
We went outside to the chill night air, under the lights and noise of the city. We’d hardly paused when she was already marching off as she said her last farewells. “I’ve got your number, I’ll be in touch!” she called back.
She didn’t have a car in the parking lot, evidently. She walked west, deeper into downtown. Maybe she was staying at one of the hotels.
Jack said, “That was something.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
We started for home. It was six blocks before either of us said anything.
Jack spoke first. “I couldn’t catch her gaze. I couldn’t get her to look in my eyes.”
“You noticed that too?”
“So she knows vampires.”
“Then why is she interviewing us? There are a lot older, more experienced, more powerful, more interesting vampires than us.”
“Maybe it’s just like she said, we’re the common vampire on the street.”
I gave him a look.
“No, you’re right,” he said. “So what was all that really about?”
I thought for a minute, going over her questions with a slightly queasy feeling that we’d probably revealed too much about something. “She asked a lot of questions about the Family. About Rick.”
“She kind of acted like she knew about Rick.”
“Nobody knows about Rick,” I said. “He doesn’t go public.”
“Exactly,” Jack said.
“I suddenly want to know a whole lot more about Clarissa Carter.”
JACK ENDED UP going to the club again. That was fine, it was his thing. Back at home, half of the cardboard boxes had migrated to the kitchen counter, and there was a stack of vintage metal lunchboxes piled up along the living room wall. I looked them over and swore I’d had a couple of them when I was a kid.
I had intended on doing more Googling of Clarissa Carter. Instead, I logged on and looked for Ginny. I felt a ridiculous amount of glee when I discovered she was online, too. We put on headsets, and how crazy was it that hearing her voice made me smile?
“Hey, where’ve you been?” she asked.
“Had a meeting with a reporter.”