THIRTY-SEVEN

"Listen, Nick-"

"Jeez. Betsy. My name is Richard, Dick for short, Dickie to Jessica and people I really, really like, so knock yourself out. Do I have to paint it on my forehead?"

"I would actually find that very helpful," I admitted. "I don't have the longest attention span."

"Yes, I've noticed," he managed through teeth that were grinding like ... like things that grind together. (I should probably be getting more sleep, too.)

"Also I'd like a map for all the rooms in the mansion, because I think at least two bathrooms are missing. Where did they go? Are they lost in time? Are they in hell? Did they never exist because this is the timeline we're supposed to be in? Did they once exist but no longer since whoever built the mansion in this timeline used different blueprints?"

"I've really got no idea. And I can't believe, with all the stuff you've got on your plate, I can't believe you're worried about bathrooms."

"And were they redone before they vanished into a parallel dimension of extra bathrooms? Or are they still kind of gross? Because that tile, it was just getting sad. Booger Green, what were they thinking? Nick? Are you listening? You should be paying attention to me."

"Can't think why. And it's Dick, okay?"

"Like it matters! I've got more important things to worry about than you changing your name every time I accidentally change the timeline."

He almost stood on the brakes. "What? You-I'm not the one changing anything, you're the one-wait, did you say every time? Oh my God, what have you done that you haven't told me about?"

Told him about? Hmm. Apparently N/Dick and I were gossip buddies in the new-if-not-necessarily-improved timeline. "Do we have a lot of intimate chats, Dee-Nick?"

"Do not, nope, I mostly get your goings-on from Jess. Pillow talk, you know?"

"Don't do that!"

"What?" He looked around wildly. "You see Antonia? I wouldn't run over her. On purpose, anyway ... prob'ly..."

"No, not that, don't talk like that. I don't want to have to picture you and my best friend banging away."

"Her inner thighs are like velvet," he said dreamily.

"Please." I moaned and clutched my bangs amid the clanking of my cuffs-at least he'd cuffed me with my hands in front. "Please don't put that in my head. Please don't put that in my head. Please. Anything. I'll do anything not to think about Jessica's velvety inner thighs. I'll come quietly, I swear."

"Ha! Never in your life. Listen, I'm sorry about what just happened, but-"

"Too late, fascist! Assuming you're velvety right, then Jessica's thighs might be the velvety way to velvety thighs. Right? Oh my God!" I threw my head back and screamed at the car roof. "You put it in my head! No one's hurt me worse than you, and I'm telling you that knowing you know I have met Satan herself, you velvety inner thigh bastard! Oh, God damn it!" What could I do? Kill myself? To what effect? Kill him? Satisfying, but no guarantee. Kill Sinclair? Illogical, but it would be pretty satisfying. And it did have weird logic. If I killed him and skinned him, I wouldn't have to worry about killing and skinning him in a couple of hundred years, right?

Meanwhile, Nick-Dick was laughing so hard he nearly drove into a streetlight. Oh, sure, Sinclair, I'm loads safer in the long bony arms of the law. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"Shut up, Nicki-Ticki-Tavvi."

"Don't call me that. How about you just call me Berry?"

"How about I just call you asshat?"

"Richard?" he asked hopefully.

"You're hauling me off to jail! After making me visualize things I never wanted in my head! Why are we arguing about your name when you're hauling me off to jail? Will I even show up in your system, being legally dead and all? Oh, this is gonna be a disaster. A new disaster, I mean. Because we've got plenty of other disasters. If we were a corporation and we had meetings, they'd be called old business. But it's still business."

He waited until my lips had closed for half a second ... hmm, he was used to arguing with me ... then jumped back in with, "You're not legally dead. Everyone thought the funeral was a really bad joke pulled by your stepmother."

"That bitch."

He glanced at me in the rearview mirror. "Uh, Betsy ... she didn't actually do that, remember? That was your cover story. Can you, uh, try to keep the truth and the lie separate? I guess it's a little tricky, what with two timelines in your head."

"You think? Besides, I wouldn't put anything past that pineapple-colored, hair-spray-shellacked bitch."

"It was the story we put out rather than telling the world you got run over like a gopher and came back as the queen of the undead."

"Great, thanks for the trip down memory lane, and you must really be sleep-deprived because you just missed the exit for the Cop Shop."

"Yeah? That was careless. Or maybe I'm calming down a little and realizing arresting you was a little on the stupid side."

"It was stupid."

"Or maybe I just wanted to get you away from the mansion and the crowds of people hanging out there these days, get you where vamps or weres can't overhear us talking, to see if you've got a plan yet. Because what you tell me is gonna help me figure out what I've gotta do, too." He met my gaze in the rearview mirror. "Betsy, I've gotta think about Jessica first. All the time. I'm sorry. That's just how it is. Even if it inconveniences or embarrasses you. Look, I don't know how it was with us-me and Jess-there. But that's how it is with us here."

"You prick. Don't you dare make me like you for doing this stupid inconvenient illogical weird annoying thing."

He laughed. "Has anybody ever made you do anything?"

"I've got bad news, pal. I don't have a clue what to do, okay? The only thing I've figured out is that I can't half-ass it anymore. I've got to embrace the queen thing. I've got to get as much power as I can, however I can-"

"Uh, Betsy-"

"-so that when the time's right I'm powerful enough to save Sinclair. And myself! And maybe my mom! But not BabyJon because he apparently comes out of all this pretty okay."

"You, uh, don't see the inherent flaw in your ... uh..."

"Awesome plan?"

He blinked rapidly, either because he had a lot of crap in his eye, or didn't want to cry. Or stare. Naw, he just needed another nap. "So your plan to avoid becoming a ruthless dictator with absolute power is to gain as much power as you can at all costs?"

"Well." I had to think about that. "Okay, it sounds bad when you put it like that. So I'm fucked."

"Could be," he agreed.

"Too bad if I am. I can't keep passing the royal buck. I've gotta embrace my role, right?" I absently twisted the small chain holding my handcuffs together while I thought. "So I become ruthless and powerful to help Sinclair, but I destroy Sinclair for some reason when I'm the Queen Bee on top of the frozen world." I twisted faster while my thoughts ran like dazed mice. "Oh, Christ, are things really trashed either way? Is that the big life lesson here? Because-ah, shit."

"What?"

"I owe you a new pair of cuffs." I held up my hands two feet apart, demonstrating the broken chain.

Dickie groaned and banged his head on the steering wheel hard enough to wring a quick "Hnnk!" from his horn. "Do you know how much paperwork I have to fill out to get another pair?"

"Sor-ree, Detective I'm Gonna Arrest My Landlady."

"Look, I'll release you from my custody. Like you couldn't break out of holding in half a second."

"Wouldn't have to break," I told him with no small amount of smug. "Just mojo the nearest guy with a key. Plan B."

"I don't want to know what Plan A was, do I?"

"Nope."

"Fine, so I'm gonna let you go, but you have to promise not to kill me in my sleep."

"I'm not going to do that."

"Kill me? Or promise?"

I grinned at him in the mirror. "You pick ... Richard."

"Sexy and creepy. The original one-two punch."

"You can't get back on my good side by saying nice things like that. This isn't over," I threatened. "By which I mean, it's over." I mean, really. Who had the energy?

"Just please remember to call me Richard from here on out, okay? That's not so much to ask, right?"

"Says the stoolie cop-"

"'Stoolie cop'?"

"-who arrested me without cause! Shut up and get me out of here already."

"I'm glad you hosed the timeline," he said cheerfully. "I like liking you."

"I'm not talking to you."

I didn't mean it, though.

I liked it, too.