I raise both eyebrows at him.
“You really haven’t been here long if you thinkI’mthe local lunatic. Wait until you meet Carl. He bites. No ankle is safe.”
Rohan appears newly intrigued by this.
“Is Carl a cat or a person?” he asks.
I pull a face at him.
“I don’t think you’re mentally or emotionally prepared for the answer to that question.”
Rohan seems to roll that around in his head for a bit.
“Agreed,” he says decisively. “None of my business. I like some mystery in my life anyway.”
I press my lips together firmly to hide a smile.
“Good choice.” I jerk my chin at Kitty, who is still watching me with a steady appraisal, and ask Rohan, “Is there any chance he’s really your boyfriend, and you’ve just had a disagreement over whose turn it was to unload the dishwasher?”
That’s not even a joke question. During a visit to Rex and Damon’s hometown, Colbie, I once had to break up a fight between two middle-aged mothers. One woman found out her neighbour had been stealing her toilet paper every time she came over, and the other woman got back at her by breaking into her house and stealing her fridge. They were rolling around on their joint front garden when we came across them, slapping and kicking at each other.
The first woman was shouting, “That was three-ply toilet paper, you bint. What kind of person nicks the good toilet paper? You’re supposed to take the thin shit, like any decent human being would.”
And the other woman was shouting, “You’re a toilet paper hoarder, Linda, and everyone is sick of it. Give me back my fridge; if the boys don’t have their string cheese for school tomorrow, then I’ll never hear the end of it.”
When I got into the middle of their fight to pull them apart, they both bit me. I’d rather have been sorting out a couple of shady international criminals. International criminals hardly ever bite, I’ll say that for them. Some have even got enough manners not to make me chase them down. They know the routine well enough by now just to get down on their knees with their hands up and wait. It’s taken me a long time to build a solid rep for being relentless in a chase. There was a time when I spent three hours straight going after one bloke, tailing him all over Mexico City until I finally tackled him off his motorbike in the street. I got scrapped up all to hell, maybe cracked a few ribs, but it was worth it to make that dickhead eat concrete.
Rohan doesn’t blink at my question.
“No chance.”
“Not your type?” I ask sardonically.
Rohan purses his lips and throws me a disapproving frown. “Don’t be rude, he’sright there.”
Ah yes, don’t want to be hurting the potential assassin’s ego. I switch tack. “Is he here to kill you?”
Rohan looks over at Kitty and gives him a sarcastic grin. Kitty still seems prepared to murder both of us. I wonder if he’s ever had a Happy Meal? It’s doubtful.
“Nah,” Rohan says, still watching Kitty with one of those hysterically amused expressions I’ve seen on people who have nothing left to lose. “He’s here to abduct me.”
Abduct? Kitty was going a bit full metal at Rohan just to snatch him off the street. Then again, if Kitty had wanted to take Rohan out, he’d have been better off just shooting him. He could have done that easily from any one of the shadowed roofs on Chaos Street.
“Why?” I ask, looking Rohan over with obvious scepticism.
Rohan huffs, indignant, his mouth forming a moue of displeasure.
“Some people would be offended by that. I’ll have you know I am considered quite the desirable asset.”
Rather than questioning the validity of his statement, I ask a more relevant question.
“Does your abductor talk?”
Rohan looks from me to Kitty and then back again. He shrugs. “Probably. Could try asking?”
Good point. It’s hard to tell if Kitty understands what Rohan and I have been saying. I’d guess he does, but there’s a blankness behind his eyes that makes me feel unsure.
“Do you talk?” I ask him.
