Page 74 of Speak of the Devil

For a second or two, she didn’t say anything. Her fingers tapped against the side of her plate, and she looked off toward the fountain as though hoping she would find some kind of insight from watching the way the water splashed in the cool January sun.

“Maybe you have a point there. But there’s still so much that could go wrong.”

She hadn’t said she wouldn’t do it, which meant she must be backing down just a little.

Good. Now all he had to do was reassure her that she wouldn’t be going in to beard the lion in his den all on her own.

“Not as much as you think,” he said. “You can have your phone in your purse and have a call connected to me so I can hear everything — and record it, just to be safe. The first hint of trouble, and I’ll teleport into his office and get you out of there.”

“Just like that,” she said, now looking almost amused.

“Just like that,” he echoed. “One of the perks of being part demon, you know? I’ve done it before — carrying another person isn’t a big deal. And since Robert Hendricks is supposedly just a normal guy, there won’t be much he can do to stop me.”

Delia’s lips pressed together. He wasn’t sure whether their soft, rosy hue was natural or whether she used some sort of lip stain. If it was makeup, then it was pretty sturdy, since she didn’t seem to have eaten off any of it.

“And you don’t think he’s going to be a little startled by the two of us just disappearing into thin air like that?”

“Why would he be? If things go sideways, it’ll be because he definitely was the person behind summoning those demons, and that means seeing us vanish isn’t going to throw him off very much.”

Once again, she went quiet as she seemed to weigh all the various arguments he’d presented.

“Besides,” Caleb went on, “I’ll disguise myself, just like I always do. He won’t even know who I am.”

“He’ll sure as hell know who I am,” she returned without missing a beat.

“Yes,” he said. “But he already knows you’re not the person who’s been winning big at his casino…and others. What he won’tknow is who you’ve been working with, and we need to keep it that way.”

She picked up a French fry and dipped it in some ketchup — not, he thought, because she was particularly hungry, but because she needed some cover while she pondered his proposal.

“He won’t be able to retaliate,” Caleb said, hoping this angle might make Delia a little more receptive to his plan. “Doing that would only prove he’s been the bad guy all along.”

“You sound very confident.”

“It’s because I am.”

She popped the French fry in her mouth, then followed it with some iced tea. “All right,” she said after a few more seconds. “I still don’t like it, but you’re right — things can’t keep going on like this indefinitely.”

Caleb wouldn’t allow himself to smile…he didn’t want her to think he was being too triumphant…but he nodded. “Thanks, Delia.”

He didn’t add,You won’t regret it,because he knew if this all blew up in their faces, she might very much regret throwing in her lot with him rather than telling him it was his problem and that he needed to fix it on his own.

She wasn’t that kind of person, though. In her mind, she’d probably already decided where her allegiance lay…and it wasn’t with Robert Hendricks.

And that could only be a good thing.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Delia seriously couldn’t believeshe’d agreed to this. Did Caleb have some kind of demonic powers of persuasion in addition to all those other otherworldly abilities, like teleporting and shapeshifting?

Maybe so. At this point, it probably didn’t matter so much, not when she’d already pulled the trigger.

After lunch, she’d called Robert Hendricks and told him she had some new information she needed to discuss, and was wondering if he could make some time for a short meeting?

He’d agreed at once, although he’d added that he had appointments all afternoon and hoped she wouldn’t mind coming by around six.

No argument there. Or rather, although she couldn’t help being uneasy about meeting the man after dark, she knew that postponing their confrontation until the next day wasn’t an option. Not when both she and Caleb wanted to get this over with.

They’d gone to her house to plot, partly because it was closer to the casino than Caleb’s place in Winterwood and partly because they’d both agreed that, since nothing untoward had happened at her home, it just seemed safer to be there. Sure,they’d splashed what felt like gallons of holy water around his house, but still, it was on the demons’ radar, and that meant it felt safer to be somewhere else entirely.

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