The Law of Nines. Terry Goodkind
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casual attitude drew dangerous attention. It was what predators looked for.
Most people never consciously considered the reality that bad things happened, that there were those who would harm them. They simply had never encountered such situations and didn’t believe it could happen to them. They were willfully oblivious.
Jax moved in a different way. Her form, unlike the tight businesslike posture, carried tension, like a spring that was always kept tight, yet she moved with grace. She carried herself with confidence, aware of everything around her. In some ways it reminded him of the way a predator moved. Through small clues in her posture she projected an aura of cool composure that bordered on intimidating. This was not a woman whom most men would approach lightly.
In fact, that awareness was what he found the most riveting. She watched the people moving through the halls—every one of them—without always looking directly at them. She kept track of them out of the corner of her eye, measuring each, checking each one as if for distance and potential threat.
“Are you looking for anyone in particular?” he asked.
Absorbed in thoughts of her own, she said, “Yes.”
“Who?”
“A different kind of human.”
In an instant Alex yanked her around a corner and slammed her up against the wall. He hadn’t intended to be so rough about it, but the shock of hearing those words tripped something within him and he acted.
“What did you say?” he asked through gritted teeth.
He held her left arm with his right hand. The painting was pressed between them. His left forearm lay across her throat, his hand gripping her dress at her opposite shoulder. If he were to push, he could crush her windpipe.
She stared unflinching into his eyes. “I said I was looking for a different kind of human. Now, I suggest that you think better of what you’re doing and carefully let go of me. Don’t move too fast or you’ll get your throat cut and I’d hate to have to do that. I’m on your side, Alex.”
Alex frowned and then, when she pushed just a little, realized that she was indeed holding the point of a knife to the underside of his chin. He didn’t know where the knife had come from. He didn’t know how she had gotten it there so fast. But he did know that she wasn’t kidding.
He also didn’t know which of them would beat the other if it came down to it. He was fast, too. But it was not, and had not been, his intent to hurt her—merely to restrain her.
He slowly started to release his hold on her. “My mother said the same thing to me a few days ago.”
“So?”
“She’s confined to a mental institution. When I visited her she told me that I must run and hide before they get me. When I asked her who it was that was trying to get me, she said ‘a different kind of human.’ Then the report came on about those two officers being murdered. It said they were found with their necks broken. My mother said, ‘They break people’s necks.’ Then she retreated into that faraway world of hers. She hasn’t spoken since. She won’t speak again for weeks.”
Jax squeezed his arm sympathetically. “I’m sorry about your mother, Alex.”
He glanced around to see if anyone was paying attention to them. No one was. People probably assumed that they were two lovers whispering sweet nothings to each other.
His blood was up and, despite her calming voice and her gentle touch, he was having trouble coming back down. He made himself unclench his jaw.
Something between them had just changed, changed in a deadly serious way. He was sure that she felt it as well.
“I want to know how it is that you said the very same thing my crazy mother said. I want you to tell me that.”
From mere inches away she gazed into his eyes. “That’s why I’m here, Alex.”
THE DOOR TO THE REGENT GRILL, covered in tufted black leather, closed silently behind them. There were no windows in the murky inner sanctum of the restaurant. The hostess, a pixie of a woman with an airy scarf flowing out behind, led them to a quiet niche that Alex requested. With the exception of two older women out in the center of the room, under a broad but dimly lit cylindrical chandelier, the restaurant was empty of patrons.
Empty or not, Alex didn’t want his back to the room. He got the distinct feeling that Jax didn’t, either.
They both slid into the booth, sitting side by side, with their backs to the wall.
The padded, upholstered walls covered with gold fabric, the plush chairs, the mottled blue carpets, and the ivory tablecloths made the restaurant a quiet, intimate retreat. The location in back felt safe in its seclusion.
After the hostess set the menus down and left and the busboy had filled their water glasses, Jax again glanced around before speaking. “Look, Alex, this isn’t going to be easy to explain. It’s complex and I don’t have enough time right now to make it all clear for you. You need to trust me.”
Alex wasn’t exactly in an indulgent mood. “Why should I trust you?”
She smiled a little. “Because I may very well be the only one who can keep you from getting your neck broken.”
“By who?”
She nodded toward the rolled-up canvases on the bench on the far side of him. “By the people who did that to your paintings.”
His brow twitched. “How would you know about that?”
Her gaze turned down to her folded hands. “We caught a glimpse of him doing it.”
“‘We’? What do you mean, we caught a glimpse of him doing it?”
“We were trying to look through the mirror in Mr. Martin’s gallery.
We were trying to find you.”
“Where were you when you were ‘looking’ through the mirror?”
“Please, Alex, would you just listen? I don’t have the time to explain a hundred different complicated details. Please?”
Alex let out a deep breath and relented. “All right.”
“I know that the things I’m telling you might sound impossible, but I swear that I’m telling you the truth. Don’t close your mind to what is beyond your present understanding. People sometimes invent or discover things that expand their knowledge so that they accept as possible what only the day before they had thought was impossible. This is something like that.”
“You mean like how people used to think that no one would ever be able to carry around a tiny little phone without it having to be connected to wires.”
She looked a little confused by the analogy. “I suppose so.” She turned back to the subject at hand. “One day I hope I can help you better grasp the reality of the situation. For now, please try to keep an open mind.”
Alex slowly twirled the stem of the water glass between his thumb and first finger, watching the ice remain still in place as the glass spun. “So, you were saying how you were looking for me.”
Jax nodded. “I knew that you had a connection to the gallery. It’s how I knew where you were today. I had to hurry if I was to catch you. Because we had to hurry we couldn’t prepare properly and as a consequence I don’t have much time here.”
Alex wiped a hand across his face. He was starting to feel like maybe he was being played for a fool. “You need a room with my mother.”
“You think this is some kind of joke?” She looked up at him with fiery intensity. “You have no idea how hard this is for me. You have no idea