“Miss Bernard,” Hayne said, and then sighed. There was a long silence, and we stared at the ocean some more.
When Hayne showed no signs of speaking again, I said, “Okay, I’ll keep going. At the same time, I couldn’t help noticing the scars on your wrists.” Automatically, Hayne turned his hands palms-up, looking down toward the old puncture wounds. I couldn’t see them in the dark, but maybe he could. “It didn’t seem like Dashiell’s style to feed off his daytime security guy, not when he has regular volunteers for that. But I figured, what the hell, maybe he does it to keep you in line or something.
“If that were the case, though, why are those scars so old? Why wouldn’t he still be feeding off you? There’s more than one bite there, so it wasn’t just some weird initiation ritual or something. You were fed on, a bunch of times, a while ago. And not by Dashiell.”
When he still didn’t speak, I opted for a more direct route. “Tell me, Hayne: Why did you and Kirsten split up?”
After a beat, Hayne finally answered me. “It wasn’t Dashiell, though I imagine that’s what anyone would think. He’s a lot of things, but he knew I was in love with her, and he didn’t stand in our way. She met him because of me—that’s how she was able to campaign for the witches to have rights, to share a cleaner, all of that.” His voice had a tinge of pride.
“It was Kirsten who eventually…she just couldn’t accept that I trusted Dashiell, that I wasn’t worried that he’d kill me or feed from me.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “I knew that he pressed me sometimes, you know? I’d overhear a phone call, or he’d have secret guests over, or whatever, and he’d take the memory from me. It didn’t bother me, but it drove Kirsten crazy. She offered me a way to protect myself, protect my mind from him, but I refused.” He shrugged. “Eventually it came down to a choice. I loved her, but…anyway.”
“And the bites?” I prompted.
He sighed heavily. “Yes, the bites. We split up, and she eventually got remarried. I was in a rough place. I let my guard down. And then Albert asked me for a favor, just delivering some package to his friend on my way home from work, at sunset. No big deal.” Hayne stared down at his hands, miserable. “Olivia didn’t take all of it, all of the memory. I was there too long for that. And I think she and Mallory enjoyed having me know that I’d given up secrets—I knew some of Kirsten’s and some of Dashiell’s, you see. If I’d said anything to Dashiell about it…”
“Didn’t Dashiell see the marks?”
He nodded. “I told him I’d met a lady vampire at one of Gregory’s parties and things got out of hand. I was so messed up about Kirsten, still, that it made a lot of sense.”
Gregory was a creepy, powerful vampire who threw weekly parties for the vampire hangers-on. I had to agree, it was a great place to go for some recreational self-destruction.
Hayne went quiet for a few minutes, and I let him stew.
“You’re going to tell him now, aren’t you,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “He’s gotta know that Olivia and the witch know things.”
“They’re dead, Hayne,” I said. “Both of them. And Albert was killed too. There’s no one left to know what you told them.”
He stared at me without blinking, for so long that I was beginning to worry. Finally, he said, “And?”
I looked at him levelly. “And Dashiell and Kirsten aren’t stupid. When the dust settles it may occur to them to ask questions. For now, though, I’m planning to keep it to myself.”
He eyed me warily. “In exchange for what?”
I shrugged. “You’ve seen The Godfather, Hayne, you know the drill. ‘Someday I may call upon you for a favor’ and all that. You owe me one.”
“I won’t betray any confidences,” he said stubbornly. “Not again.”
I shook my head and stepped off the porch. “Hayne, my man,” I said over my shoulder, “I wouldn’t ask you to.”
By the time I left the little beach house, I was so tired my bones felt rubbery, and the morphine had completely worn off. I hurt everywhere, and it seemed like too much trouble to try to remember any of the specific injuries. My night still wasn’t over, though, not yet. There was one more thing I had to do, and it couldn’t wait.
I called ahead, and Will met me at the front door of Hair of the Dog. He looked exhausted, but still smiled at me the way he always does, part pleasure at being human again and part general good cheer at seeing me. I followed him through the bar and toward the back hallway.
“Ana took her girlfriend back to my place,” he explained as we went. Will had been busy since I’d left: the bodies, glass, and blood were gone, and the floor was still slick with cleaner. It was a little funny that everyone was cleaning up crime scenes today except for me. “I turned a spare bedroom into a secure room for my wolves a few years ago. Lydia will be safe there.”
“Has he woken up yet?” I asked.
Will shook his head. “I check on him every few minutes. The wolfberry is long gone from his system, according to Matthias, but I think he’s still sleeping off the aftereffects from the sedatives.” We arrived at the door to the little janitorial closet, and Will unceremoniously flipped the light switch.
Eli was laid out on the cot, dressed in a clean-looking pair of sweatpants that had been cut off at the knees, and nothing else. The room was warm, and he didn’t even stir when the light went on. I concentrated on my radius. I knew how Eli’s magic felt better than anyone, and the sense of wrongness had vanished.
“Is it okay if I stay with him tonight?” I asked Will.