The elevator doors slid open, and a muscular woman with choppy brown hair joined us in the hall.
“Ares,” Ford greeted her. “We need you to keep an eye on Bonnie while we’re gone.”
“Sure thing.” She popped a bright pink bubble. “In or out?”
Seeing as it was my home, Ford let me decide, and I chose house arrest. “In.”
Ares blinked as if she hadn’t noticed me standing there until I spoke, and when she did look at me, she dropped her gaze to the carpet. “Apologies.”
“Not this again.” I rubbed my forehead. “You can look me in the eye. I don’t mind.”
“I can’t,” she said, and I could tell it irked her. “I would have to get Midas’s permission.”
“I’m confused.” I pinned Ford with a scowl. “How did she know? You witnessed, so I get that, but she just looked at me.”
“He marked you,” Ares answered. “I can smell it.”
Ford studied the wallpaper like the pattern contained the mysteries of the universe explained.
“He didn’t mark me.” I would remember that. “He looked me in the eye, recited some words, and left.”
Ares was less subtle. “Did he touch you at all?”
The imprint of his fingers was a heated memory on my skin, but I didn’t want to confess that to them.
“I touched him,” I admitted, remembering the futon incident. “With most of my upper body. I heard him moving around in my apartment and tackled him.”
“You tackled Midas? Midas Kinase?”
“Blue eyes, blond hair?” I held a hand high in the air. “About this tall.” I replayed it in my head. “I didn’t touch skin, though. Just his shirt. And his jeans. I was between his legs, so…maybe his boots?”
“Ford,” Ares blurted, shock plain in her tone.
“I know,” he said, hurt plain in his.
“Well, I don’t know.” I cornered Ares. “What are you talking about?”
“Gwyllgi take after wargs in a lot of ways.” Her posture screamed she wanted to run, but she stood her ground. “Wargs believe in soul mates, fated mates, life mates, whatever you want to call them. Not all gwyllgi do because fae are long-lived, and some prefer to find a soul mate per century versus one for eternity.”
“I’m not liking the direction this conversation is going.” I stepped back, bumping into Ford. “She’s not saying what I think she’s saying, is she?”
“Are you sure he didn’t touch you?” She dipped her head, breathing in. “Skin to skin? At all?”
Giving up on privacy, I told them the rest. “He grabbed me when I lost my temper.”
The only bodily fluid we had swapped was sweat, and that was more of a transference from him to me. After working in my apartment for hours, I wasn’t going to call the guy out for a damp palm. It would have been weirder if he hadn’t been hot after all he’d done, and in a cramped space too.
“Midas didn’t mate you.” Ford reached out, but he let his arm fall to his side. “If that worries you.”
“Oh, thank the goddess.” I slumped against him, and I didn’t miss his flinch. “I’m not ready for that level of commitment to anything with less than seventy-five percent cacao.”
Ares eyed me with pity, like she knew more than she let on. “Other gwyllgi can scent his interest in you.”
“He’s not interested in me,” I assured her. “It’s got to be some residual magic from the Care Bear Stare he used to activate my eye-contact powers.”
“Care Bear…Stare?” Ares burst into laughter. “I have got to remember that one.”
I might not have received a classic education as far as Bishop was concerned, but I wasn’t totally pop culture ignorant in the realm of cartoons.
She walked to my apartment, amusement still bright in her face, and let herself in.
“Did you notice the smell?” I lifted my arm to my nose. “I don’t smell anything.”
Alone in the hall, Ford stared at the recessed lighting until I questioned if his mother had warned him about the dangers of staring into the sun. “He didn’t mean to do it.”
“That’s good news then.” I brightened, ready to hunt him down. “He can undo it.”
“Not exactly.” He rubbed his neck until I was amazed it didn’t pop off his shoulders. “You can wait it out, let it fade. As long as he doesn’t renew it, it will go away on its own.”
Eyeing my door with longing, I considered postponing our next stop. “Will a shower help?”
“No.”
“I have some Goo Gone.”
“That won’t work on this.”
“Gojo?”
“That won’t help either.”
“Frak.” I hit the button to summon the elevator. “This is going to make for an awkward few days.”
“You can say that again,” he murmured and followed me into the car.
Down in the lobby, I got a taste of how lonely it must be for Midas.
No one held my gaze. No one even tried. Though I felt their attention in the prickling between my shoulder blades as I strode past. It was like I’d donned an invisibility cloak. Even the doorman kept his eyes fixed high above my head.
I would have to start any conversation, and I bet an ounce of Vintage 2014 Andean Alder To’ak chocolate they would speak to my chin.
“I see why Midas hates the royal treatment.” I shuddered on the sidewalk. “That was downright creepy.”
“He grew up with it, a witness to it, I mean. Not a recipient. He’s got a higher tolerance than you do.”
After we climbed in his truck, I hit him with the question that had been on my mind since I plowed into Midas upstairs. “Did you know what he was doing? Not the marking thing, the redecorating thing?”
“The Faraday is responsible for any lost or damaged property that’s the result of failed security measures.” He cranked up and pulled into traffic. “They can afford to offer that insurance since it’s only been cashed in once prior to this.”
“Replacing everything I own wouldn’t cost as much as the POA’s couch,” I agreed, unashamed of my cheap digs. They were mine. Bought with my sweat and effort, all tokens of my new life. “Honestly, I imagine if a thief stole an embroidered hand towel out of his bathroom, that would still cost more than my whole apartment’s worth of furnishings.”
“I heard a rumor he orders toilet paper printed with dollar bills.”
“No, the rumor is he pays someone to tape dollar bills end to end then rolls them and uses that for toilet paper.” As the person who started the rumor, accuracy was important to me. “Have you ever seen his apartment?”
“Not since he moved in, no.”
“Trust me, the toilet paper is plush enough I can believe nuns handstitch it in convents in the Alps or something, but it’s plain white.”
Head shaking, he pulled into the slow lane. “Where are we going?”
“Perkerson Park.” I checked the darkened floorboard and found Ambrose coiled there. “The killer—” calling him Siemen felt premature, “—used that cache for days, if not weeks. I want to have a look around the area now that the cleaners are done with the site.”