Closure was a word therapists used to make you believe that the pain would stop, and that punishing the bad guy, or finding out why, would bring you peace. It was the biggest lie of all.
“Anita,” Edward said, “you all right?” He was closer to me than he had been, all the way on the side of the table with Paula and me. I hadn’t heard, felt, or seen him move.
I shook my head. “No, I’m not all right.” In my head I thought, I am off my game. What was wrong with me?
Edward took my arm and moved me back from the woman. The farther away, the clearer my head, but the tiger inside me was still there, crouched on the other side of the metal wall in my head. But she was lying down; only the end of that black-tipped tail twitching let me know how irritated she was with me.
The door opened and Chief Detective Ed Morgan came through smiling. He was playing those big brown eyes and those nice-guy good looks for all he was worth. He just radiated charm. Oh, right, we’d been waiting for him. Hadn’t Shaw warned us not to ask any questions directly related to the case until Morgan arrived? Guess he had. Fuck it.
“Good afternoon, Paula, may I call you Paula? I’m Ed.” He set files down on the table between them, took the chair I’d been sitting in, and smiled at her. You’d have thought Edward and I didn’t exist.
“I can take it from here, Marshals. Undersheriff Shaw would like to speak with you.” Morgan smiled, broad enough to flash dimples, but in the depths of those brown eyes was an unfriendly spark. I thought we were going to get yelled at. Great.
Edward kept his grip on my arm, as if he didn’t trust what I’d do. If there’d been a mirror to look into, I’d have checked what my expression was, but there was nothing but walls. They didn’t have enough interrogation rooms with those big shiny two-way mirrored windows, so they’d put the woman in one where they couldn’t watch her as well. There was a camera on her, but she didn’t rate the window. She was the only one with a real connection to the dead weretiger, and she hadn’t rated the best room, though she now had one of their best interrogators. I smelled office politics.
Edward led me toward the still-open door. Whatever he saw or felt from me, or in me, was making him nervous. I didn’t feel that scary. I didn’t feel much of anything. Again, there was that little thought, What is wrong with me?
He eased me out the open door. I glanced back and found Paula Chu staring at me. The moment I met her eyes, the tigress in me stood up. She roared again, but this time the metal wall trembled with the sound, as if her roar had hit it like some huge gong. I staggered, and Edward had to steady me.
He leaned in and whispered, “What is wrong?”
“Not sure, but I need to get away from these tigers.”
Morgan said, “Close the door on your way out. Paula and I will get along just fine, won’t we?” He was turned away from us, but I knew he was wasting that brilliant smile on her. She didn’t even look at him. Her eyes were all for me.
I pushed through the door, and only Edward’s grip on my arm kept me from starting to run. My breathing was trying to speed up. My pulse was already racing. I could feel the other tigers inside the interrogation rooms. I could feel them. The only wereanimals I should have been able to feel like that were ones that I was metaphysically bound to, or that Jean-Claude was bound to. I was not close enough in any way to the white tigers of Vegas to sense them this strongly. Something was wrong.
Edward’s fingers dug into my arm. Dug in enough that I would have protested the pain, but it helped clear my head. A few bruises were worth it, and the moment the pain helped, I knew something else.
I whispered to him, “I’m being messed with.”
“Vampire?” He made it a question.
“Unless the white tiger queen can do shit that I’ve only seen vampires do before, yes.”
“Vamp or tiger?” he asked, voice low.
We were getting a few glances from the police officers we passed. Did they see the bruising grip, or the whispering? Or were the rumors so good that we’d just become a curiosity?
I glared at a couple of uniforms who were staring. “Like what you see?”
“Leave it, Anita.” Edward just kept us moving past them. He loosened his grip on my arm a little, and instantly I could feel the tigers behind us in the rooms. I could almost see them looking up and trying to see me.
I leaned in, and whispered, “Tighten the grip.”
“What?”
“The pain helps keep my head clear.”
He went back to bruising my arm, and we kept walking toward the doors. I could see the press of the hot, white sunlight against the doors.