I snarled.
He hunched his shoulders as if trying to hide. “In business. We would have made a wonderful business team. Remember, Lula? We could have expanded your bakery and sandwich shop. New locations. Franchises. What a thing that would have been. What a very fine thing.”
His voice was soft, melodious, as if he had pondered this very dream for many, many years.
“You refused my loan,” Lu said flatly.
“Well, you refused me, didn’t you?” he retorted.
That was news to me. Although not a surprise. Lu was beautiful, smart, and courageous. I hadn’t known why every man wasn’t fighting to get to her back then.
I didn’t know why they weren’t fighting for her attention now.
She held her silence and his gaze.
He shifted, warming to the challenge in her stare, all the lines of him unwinding. Seemed like he was made of spring and coil and tension rods, and someone had just applied oil.
“Well, that is water under a very old bridge,” he said with a smile I did not like. “I should have partnered with you and your business. I know that now. We would have taken the world by storm. We would have been so profitable. Can you imagine what we could have done if we had given in just a little? Negotiated toward our common good?”
Lu planted both boots wide and leaned forward. “I have places to be, Mr. Davis. Goodbye.” She made to stand.
“I was hunted,” he blurted, all the gears of him suddenly spinning, as if the movie had gone into fast-forward and he had to get through half a show before the tub of popcorn was down to salt and seeds. “I didn’t know it then, but I’d caught the attention of someone. Someone very dangerous.”
Lu eased back a fraction, waiting.
He wiped his hand over his mouth, again forgetting he had a damn trombone in it, and nearly clocked himself in the nose. He glared at the instrument, then set it down on the floor beside him.
“I had begun collecting antiquities,” he said, a little calmer. “Some that were brought back from the wars, others I researched and, through extensive contacts, procured. My business moved from banking to banking and collection. I enjoyed the thrill of finding rare items, enjoyed holding them, or in the rare cases, selling them for large amounts. Astounding amounts.
“But it was never the money that drove me. It was the hunt. I attracted the attention of the wrong people. I became the hunted.”
He lifted the cup and pulled a long swallow, then wiped lips with the tips of his fingers, his gaze lost to the past. “I thought I had caught the attention of aggressive collectors, but it was more than that, worse than that.”
“Mob?” I asked.
He licked his lips. “That’s what I thought. Powerful men with a thirst to control the weak. To claim what wasn’t theirs and kill anyone in their way. But there were darker forces.” He leaned in, and I could see the sweat spilled across his face. It gave him a sickly sheen. “Supernatural forces.”
“Like ghosts?” Lu’s voice dripped with doubt. “Aliens?” And oh, the judgement she packed into that.
He sat back, his spine straight. “You don’t believe me.”
“I believe you are telling the story you want to tell.”
“How else?” His voice rose. “How else, except through magic, could I still be alive? Still be this young?”
“About that,” I said. “You’ve assumed we believe you are who you say you are.”
“How else would I have recognized you? How else could I have told you those details—the loan, the bakery. Our past?”
“We never said we are who you assume we are,” Lu said simply.
“Fine.” He stuffed a hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a palm-sized silver mirror, the back of which was worked into the shape of a woman’s face. She had waves of hair bound in a manner that was in fashion back when tales of Zeus were being told by shepherds.
There was magic in the mirror. I could feel it from across the gazebo.
“This truth I will know, this truth I will give,” he recited, holding the mirror up close enough his breath fogged it.
He turned it toward us, and light flashed, star-bright and blinding.
