What did that say about me?
Maybe Keaty was right. Maybe I finally was the mindless killer he wanted me to be. And if that was the case, I had to be her a little longer. I wasn’t done with death yet.
“I learned from the best.” I wasn’t sure if I meant it as a compliment or not.
I doubted it mattered.
Chapter Twenty-One
There were only so many detours I could take before I had to go home. Though I didn’t have to worry about feeding my cat, Rio, since she’d been staying with Mercedes and Owen while I was in France, I did still need to go back to my apartment eventually.
I’d checked my phone every five minutes since leaving Rain Hotel, and as if he could feel my anxiety from across the city, Dominick texted me to say, I’ll let you know if anything changes. Go home.
How did that skinny jerk know I was avoiding my apartment?
What Paris and New York had in common that I most appreciated was how their layouts promoted pedestrian exploration. I liked cities I could walk in, mostly because driving in traffic made me want to punch people in the throat.
Walking also gave me an excuse to avoid Hell’s Kitchen for an extra forty minutes while I wandered the streets, breathing in the evening air. It wasn’t until I’d gotten back here and set foot on the sidewalks of the city that I realized there had been a time I might have never seen this city again. I had almost died in Paris, and if I had, what would my last memories of New York have been?
Grief and bitterness, avoidance and pain.
If I was going after my mother, I needed to make peace with my city and the people who lived in it. Specifically the people in my life who I had been failing of late.
I kicked up my pace, walking past the corner Starbucks that would take me into Calliope’s hidden realm and continuing down the next two blocks until I was standing outside my yellow apartment complex. My living room light glowed warm, but I couldn’t see who was home thanks to the curtains.
Since Desmond was in wolf form downtown, my houseguest potentials were severely limited. In fact, given that only a handful of people knew I was back in the city, the possibilities were narrowed right down to one.
I didn’t bother looking for my keys again. If it was who I suspected it was, the doors would be unlocked. The undead tended to be less than concerned over their personal safety, at least as far as break-and-enter situations went.
As predicted, neither door gave me any resistance, but when I walked into the living room, it was empty. My apartment wasn’t very big, so there weren’t a lot of places he could be.
“Holden?” I dropped my Coach weekend bag on the floor, weary of having dragged it all over the city. My purse thumped next to it. I kept my boots on and unsnapped the closure on my holster in case someone other than Holden was waiting in the dark recesses of my apartment.
I peeked my head into the kitchen first but found only my microwave and small bistro table to greet me. Neither had much to say.
The shower wasn’t running, so I didn’t bother with the bathroom and instead moved into my bedroom. He wasn’t hiding. My side-table lamp was on, and Holden was sitting in the big armchair next to the door. He’d stretched out his long legs and rested his feet on the end of my bed. A copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was lying facedown against his stomach. It was one of those books I’d bought on a whim but had never gotten around to reading.
I didn’t have a lot of spare time for books, unfortunately.
“Running up my electric bill for kicks?” I asked.
He glanced up. “You can afford it. Speaking of, I have to wonder why you still insist on living here when you have the Tribunal bankroll behind you. I know you weren’t keen on taking charity from the wolf king, but the Council money is yours to spend.”
“No, it’s not.” I sat on the end of the bed and pulled his feet into my lap. I liked seeing he had obeyed my house rules when I wasn’t home, and had taken his shoes off. I gave his toes a squeeze through his cashmere socks.
Leave it to Holden to be snobby enough to own cashmere socks.
“You work for them. Most people who do a job are willing to accept the paycheck that goes along with it.”
“I accept the money, but I don’t feel right spending it wildly. After my first Bergdorf’s spree, I stopped finding it fun. Plus, I like this apartment.”
Holden sneered, doing nothing to hide his disdain for the place. “You’re rich, yet you choose to live in squalor beneath the streets.”
“God, you make it sound like I’m living in an abandoned subway tunnel with all the mole people. This is a nice apartment, and if I ever fall out of favor with the Council, it’s the apartment I can afford. Why would I give that up?”
“Secret, you’re the Tribunal. If you fall out with the Counc
il, you’ll be dead.”