Page 3 of Tell Me Why (Tell, The Detective #5)

“You should run away,” he said. “They don’t know who you are.

Just leave. I don’t care what you think you’re doing.

You’re in over your head, with your tiny little friend, there, and your fake name.

Run away to wherever you came from and I’ll forget that this ever happened.

But know this. I have eyes in that house.

Closer than Daryll thinks. And if you continue to pursue this…

I think, in the end, you’ll regret it more than he does. ”

“Mmm,” Tell said.

Perceval looked at Tina, predatory.

“I bet you’ve put a lot into her, haven’t you?” he asked. “To be trotting her along behind you like you are? Bet she’d roast up nice, wouldn’t she?”

“Speaking of regret,” Tell said evenly, and the corners of Perceval’s mouth came up.

“Just want you to understand what’s in play,” he said. “What you really care about.”

Tell looked over at Tina.

“You’d be surprised, what she’s capable of,” he said. “And what I’m capable of.”

Perceval snorted, then went to lean against the counter.

“You know, I didn’t ever really like the one-on-one fights to the nothing. They were tedious and… very fluid-centric.” His nose curled. “You fought in them, didn’t you?”

“I’ve done a lot of things over the years, just to see what it was like to do them,” Tell said.

“And yet,” Perceval said. “I suspect that, should I suddenly take an interest in it… I would demolish you.”

Tell shrugged.

“Have to take an interest to find out.” He looked over at the body guards. “Doesn’t seem like you have, though.”

“I don’t know,” Perceval said. “Just seems like it would be… satisfying to break your mouth.”

“Forgive me saying it, but this all seems below you,” Tell said. “How have you ended up here , of all places, fighting over money changing hands?”

“Someone has to keep the little people low,” Perceval said. “The others weren’t doing it, so…” He put his hands out to either side, a reveal motion. “I did.”

“And good on you,” Tell said. “You just… seem to have fallen further than you might have planned.”

Tell flicked his eyebrows, then looked pointedly around the space.

Why had they come here? Tina still couldn’t figure it out.

“I figured, if I was going to slum, I may as well slum,” Perceval said. It sounded like a lie, which was strange.

Tina couldn’t figure out what he would be lying about.

“All the way to the bottom, then,” Tell said, and Perceval shrugged dramatically. Tell sighed.

“I’m milking him,” Tell said. “It’s something to do. Tina runs interference, and I keep making up steps to accomplishing anything, and keep him on the line. We’ve never gotten along, and I saw an opportunity.”

Perceval scratched his chin.

“You want to keep the little people down, too,” he said thoughtfully. Tell shrugged.

“The ones that annoy me,” he offered.

“I see,” Perceval said. “Let’s say I choose to believe you. Let you go. What are you going to do next?”

“Go back to the house, tell them that we went swimming to take the evening off, and go back to work,” Tell said.

“I’m going to crush him,” Perceval said. “Sooner or later, I’m going to end him and his pretensions. I would recommend you not be there, when that day comes.”

“I’ll find the back door as you walk in the front,” Tell said.

Perceval nodded, easing somehow and becoming more fluid.

“I’ll be sending him a head in a box, tonight,” he said, going to get his sport coat from the counter and flipping it over his shoulder. “So you might knock off early, too.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Tell said, and Perceval nodded, superiority dripping off of him as he went back toward the door.

“I assume you can see yourselves home,” he said, motioning. The bearded man looked like he was disappointed that he wasn’t going to get an excuse to stab Tina, but he followed Perceval through the door and left Tell and Tina standing in the dismal, dark little store on their own.

“He’s serious,” Tina said, looking over her shoulder at the front door.

“The driver left the minute we were inside,” Tell said. “Details matter. This was never going to end with a civil business agreement.”

“He was lying,” Tina said, and Tell laughed.

“He seldom does anything else,” he answered.

“About why we were here,” Tina said. “I think.”

Tell nodded.

“He was afraid,” he said. “He didn’t want to hint at where he’s staying in town, so he picked something as diametrically different as possible.”

“And that… doesn’t point you directly at where he is ?” Tina asked.

Tell smiled.

“It does,” he said. “Though I’m wondering if I care.

I could maybe get in and out without them noticing that I was there, but Perceval would smell me, if I got too close.

You, too, now. And while it would be useful to know specifically which of Daryll’s minions are on Perceval’s payroll, there’s no guarantee that they’re making contact in person.

I would keep them away , if I were him, have them in their normal lodgings and just call with updates.

So there’s no guarantee that tracking him down in person would gain me anything.

What it does do is give me some very solid leads on which of the men are his, so I can start eliminating and focusing on the ones who are spying for the others. ”

“Geez,” Tina said, turning to walk to the door. “How many spies has Daryll got in his house?”

Tell laughed gently.

“From the look of things, all of them.”

They walked.

Neither one of them were carrying a cell phone, so they walked.

Fortunately, Tell knew where they were well enough to get them back to the apartment building several hours later, where they found a car and four men waiting for them with an attitude like the two of them might try to escape.

“Easy, guys,” Tell said as they got into the back of yet another black SUV. “I know Daryll’s upset, but we’re not working against you, here.”

Tell and Tina had finally had the opportunity to talk a lot of things through as they’d walked. Unfortunately, they hadn’t really taken it. Tina had asked some things, but Tell had been distant and short in his replies, not so much that he wasn’t being forthcoming as that his mind was elsewhere.

Tell had a history with Perceval. He was a well-rounded prick and had been since before it had been fashionable.

Perceval had history with Daryll, though Tell knew scant little about it.

Perceval knew Isabella and Keon, and Tell needed to make sure that he kept Perceval away from Daryll’s house, because the only thing keeping Isabella hidden was her pseudonym and the fact that Perceval’s spies were either young or of a level of political significance that had kept them out of Keon’s courts.

Perceval’s involvement, while interesting and a source of progress , wasn’t going to change anything.

“He’s dealt me a whole new hand of cards,” Tell had mused at one point, almost out of nowhere. “I just have to figure out how to play them.”

And then he’d fallen silent again.

Tina had thought that she was growing used to wandering around cities after dark, perhaps even a bit amused at being one of the terrors that existed in such environments, but it was eerie, covering that much ground through some of the more suburban regions of Nashville, working off of Tell’s sense of direction alone; he said that they’d been on the interstate, so he was making up his way back on the surface roads.

She felt out of place, really, like she’d left the night world she belonged in and had ventured into one where night was a foreign thing, with its evenly spaced streetlights and blinded windows.

It was a relief to find the apartment building lit, and the men there waiting for them, even if the men hadn’t exactly been polite about it.

Driving up to Daryll’s house, Tell was still pensive and distant, and Tina found herself making rather consistent eye contact with the man in the passenger seat ahead of her.

It didn’t seem to bother him, so she didn’t let it bother her.

Daryll was standing on the front porch as they arrived, hands on hips.

“Where have you been?” he thundered as Tell got out of the car and waited for Tina to join him.

“Is this really necessary?” Tell answered, watching as the second car rolled up behind them and the other two men got out. “Making a scene isn’t going to change anything about what has happened or what will happen.”

Tina thought that that wasn’t actually categorically true, but she didn’t contradict him out loud.

“Get inside,” Daryll said, moving out of the way of the door and glaring. “We have a lot to talk about.”

“I’m sure we do,” Tell answered, following directions easily enough.

Isabella was waiting for them in Daryll’s office. Her eyes were sharp, and she said nothing as Daryll went to the executive side of the desk, moving like he was going to sit down, but was too agitated to manage it.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked. “Where have you been?”

“I was kidnapped as we were leaving the building by Perceval,” Tell said.

Well.

That was more forthright than Tina was expecting.

Daryll blinked, and Tell nodded.

“He made various, characteristic threats, and I have agreed to work for him, handing him any and all discoveries I make before I tell you about them.”

“But you aren’t going to have any of that,” Daryll said. “Crissy is going to oversee the data.”

Tell gave Daryll a patronizing look.

“You think I didn’t think of that?” he asked, going to sit down.

It made Daryll look even more insecure, but contrast, but Daryll didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m going to feed him a steady stream of excuses and delays mixed in with just enough hope to keep him waiting, and meanwhile we’re going to establish your client roster, so that you’re already selling and in with all of them by the time I tell him that it can’t be done and I’m giving up. ”

Daryll went still.

“I should just kill you,” he said. “Show up here with that attitude, keep all your secrets and try to take over my house. I was doing just fine before you got here.”