(LB2) Shakespeare's Landlord by Charlaine Harris

the telephone ringing in his office. It cut off after the second ring; one of the employees had answered it.
    Marshall’s face is markedly triangular, with narrow lips and a nose that has been flattened a few times. He has a distinctly catlike look, but he doesn’t have a cat’s sleekness. He is built much more like a bulldog.
    Well, I should either talk or tell him I’m not going to, I thought. He was waiting patiently, but he was waiting.
    “Was Pardon Albee your partner?” I said finally.
    “Yes.”
    “So what happens now?”
    “We had a contract. If one of us died, the other got the whole business. Pardon didn’t have anyone else to consider. I had Thea, but Pardon didn’t want to deal with her. So he carried a heavy insurance policy on me, and Thea would get that money if anything happened to me, instead of getting a share of the business.”
    “So…you own Body Time now.”
    He nodded. His eyes were fixed on me. I was used to being on the dispensing, rather than the receiving, end of fixed stares, and it was an effort not to fidget. Also, Marshall was a good bit closer to me than people were in the habit of getting.
    “That’s good,” I said, with an effort.
    He nodded again.
    “Have the police talked to you yet about Pardon?” I asked him.
    “I’m going to go talk to Dolph Stafford tomorrow at the police station. I didn’t want them to come here.”
    “Sure.” I thought I could hardly bring up Thea; Thea’s slapping the little girl was something I wasn’t supposed to know, though if I knew the Shakespeare grapevine, everyone in town was hearing some version of the incident by now. And I couldn’t just blurt out a question as to why Marshall and Thea had separated.
    The air was getting pretty thick with something, and I was feeling increasingly nervous.
    “So…the other thing?” he asked quietly.
    I glanced over at him quickly, then back down at my hands, fidgeting with the damn shoelaces. “Nothing else I can talk about,” I said dismissively.
    “I’ve left Thea.”
    “Oh.”
    We stared at each other a little more, and I felt a bubble of hysterical laughter rising in my throat.
    “Don’t you want to know why?”
    “What? Why what?” I knew I sounded stupid, but I just couldn’t seem to concentrate. It was taking an effort to keep still. A private conversation, physical closeness, personal talk—these are unnerving things.
    Marshall shook his head. “Nothing, Lily. Can I ask you something in return?”
    I nodded rather warily. I wondered if we looked like two of those wooden birds on the stand, bobbing at each other.
    “Where’d you get the scars?” he asked gently.

Chapter 5

    THE ROOM WAS SUDDENLY AIRLESS.
    “You don’t really want to know,” I said.
    “Of course I do,” Marshall said. “We’re never moving beyond where we are now unless I know that.”
    I looked at the mirror beyond Marshall’s shoulder. I saw someone I didn’t recognize.
    “People never feel the same about me once they know,” I said. My mouth was suddenly so dry, it was hard to speak.
    “I will,” he said.
    He wouldn’t. It would ruin the unspoken bond between us—a bond with which, evidently, he was no longer content.
    “Why do you want me to talk about it?” My hands were clenched and I could see them shake.
    “I can never get to know you better until I know that,” he said with patient certainty. “And I want to get to know you better.”
    With one quick movement, I jerked off my T-shirt. Under it, I was wearing a plain white sports bra. Marshall’s breath hissed as he got a good look at the scars. Not meeting his eyes, I turned a little so he could see the ones that crossed my shoulders like extra bra straps; I rotated back to show him the ones that striped my upper chest; I sat up straight so he could see more thin white scars in an arc pattern descending into the waistband of my pants.
    And then I looked him in the eyes.
    He did not blink. His jaw was fixed in a hard line. He