Midnight in Berlin (21 page)

“Yeah, sure.” I straightened and headed into the kitchen. There was a notepad by the phone and a stubby pencil. I brought them both back to Silke, and helped to prop dear old dad up enough so he could write. We managed not to finish him off in the process, unfortunately. Schreiber didn’t look any too pleased to have my help, but he let Silke guide his hand to the paper.

Looking up at a movement I caught in the corner of my eye, I saw Christoph had come in. He was watching us silently.

Schreiber’s writing took forever and was barely legible at the end.

I’m sorry. I wanted only to protect you. Dr. Leitner would have taken you for study and I could not allow that. I tried to keep him from finding out about you.

You have always been a good girl for your Papa

His arm fell, and he sank back into the sofa cushions, his face grey and exhausted.

“Why did you think Leitner would be so interested in Silke?” I demanded. “Wasn’t her mother a full wolf?”

Silke turned on me. She was an angry mommy bunny now. “Leave him alone. He needs to rest.”

Schreiber made agitated gestures, though, and she handed him back the pencil and notepad. His writing was a step worse this time, but I could just about make it out.

Mother like us.

“She was a half wolf too?” I stared. “So the werewolf virus mutated back into shape?”

He didn’t rush to contradict me, so I guessed I had it right. Or maybe he just didn’t care that much if I was right or wrong. I wondered what it meant for the rest of us and figured it was a damn good thing I wasn’t likely to have any kids anyhow. Silke being a proper wolf—that must have come as one hell of a shock for Mom and Dad. I wondered what had happened to Silke’s mom and what the pregnancy had been like—had Silke’s mom changed form at all in those nine months? Had Silke?

It didn’t look like now was the best time to satisfy my curiosity, though.

“You have to let him rest,” Silke insisted, and there was definitely a wolf in that bunny’s clothing now.

I held up my hands in surrender and went back to where Christoph was still leaning against the doorway. He wasn’t looking too happy. “At this rate, we’ll never learn what we need to,” he muttered. I noticed he kept his voice low enough that Silke wouldn’t hear.

“We have his name, now. Leitner. That’s something.”

“It’s not enough. Even just in Berlin there will be dozens with that name. And he could be anywhere in Germany.” Christoph made a frustrated gesture, wincing as he jarred his bad arm.

“Maybe, but you’re going to have to go through Silke to get anything else out of the guy.”

“Hey—what the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Jon’s angry voice cut through our little huddle like an axe.

Shit. I’d forgotten he was even there. “Hey, relax. No one’s going to upset your girlfriend, okay?”

“And her dad?” Jon looked uncomfortable. “Dude, I’m not saying he’s, like, a great dad or anything, but she cares about him, okay?”

Damn it. I was betting we’d be stuck with these two until Schreiber either got better or took a well-deserved trip to the big forest in the sky. Then I realized what had been bothering me about this whole situation. “Hey, how did you and Silke know to turn up like the goddamn cavalry, anyhow?”

Jon shifted his feet, looking over to where Silke still knelt by her father, holding his hand. “Burak. I went back to the hostel, okay? I was worried about you guys.” Righteous indignation made a sudden comeback. “I felt bad about leaving you with no money, so I went back, ’cause I’d remembered I could get some cash out on one of my credit cards. And Burak told me you said you’d be heading back here, and when I told Silke, she thought—well, dude, I think you can guess what she thought. And she was right. Except, I don’t get why that other guy turned on him, ’cause I thought it’d be you guys who’d be beating on him.” His square, honest jaw tightened. “I guess it’s just as well for you it wasn’t, huh?”

I wasn’t going to argue with him on that. Hell, with Silke on his side, I figured I wouldn’t be arguing with him on anything ever again. “Chill, okay?” I made
calm down
gestures with my hands. “We’re all on the same side here.” Though it’d been a close run thing.

Jon was still scowling. “You just remember that, okay?”

I beat it back to Christoph and kept my voice low. “Guess the interrogation’s a bust. Hey, I got an idea. You can get into Schreiber’s computer, right?”

“Of course.” His certainty wobbled. “If he’s changed his password, it’ll take longer.”

“Hey, it’s not like we had plans for the rest of the day. Let’s go find out, okay?”

Chapter Twenty

Schreiber’s office was a small room at the back of the house. “We may need to break in,” Christoph murmured as we walked along the corridor. “Schreiber keeps the room locked.”

“Yeah? Like he’s in any state to stop us getting his keys?”

Christoph gave me a sidelong look. “Good luck explaining to Silke why we need to search her dying father’s pockets.”

“Okay, you got a point.” Even I wasn’t quite callous enough to suggest we wait until he died and do it then. Also, there was always the chance he might recover.

We were in luck, though. The door was shut, but the handle turned when Christoph tried it. “He must have been in here when we arrived.”

“Or maybe he didn’t feel the need for so much secrecy after we’d left home. Hey, how did you manage to get in here and hack the thing in the first place?”

“Schreiber was out,” he said, striding to the desk and pulling out the chair.

I smirked. “Can’t help noticing Schreiber’s is a hell of a lot smaller than yours. His desk, I mean. Obviously. So did you pick the lock, or did you just get lucky?”

Christoph cast me an amused glance and switched on the computer. “Neither. It was after he caught me in there that he started keeping the door locked.” His amusement faded. “It earned me my first experience of the cage. Fortunately Schreiber believed me when I said I just needed to contact my office, or I think my punishment would have been worse.”

“He locked you in the cage even though he didn’t think you were snooping? Jeez, he’s a sadistic bastard.” I shuddered.

Christoph shrugged. “We were all told no one was to come in here without him. I disobeyed.”

“What, so you had it coming? Face it, that asshole had a serious BDSM kink going on. Probably creamed himself thinking about you locked up in his pretty little cage.”

Christoph’s lips tightened. I thought he was pissed, but then I realized he was trying not to laugh. “Thank you. I’d rather not have had that picture in my mind.”

“Ugh. Now that you mention it…” I screwed up my face in disgust and made a mental note not to talk about the bastard in those terms again.

It turned out Schreiber had changed his password—by one whole digit at the end. It took Christoph all of three seconds to work that out. I perched on the desk while he opened up Schreiber’s email. “Check his contacts,” I suggested.

Christoph gave me a
Duh
look, his fingers flying on the keyboard. “There’s no address here.”

“What about snail mail?” I asked, looking around the room as if a big manila envelope addressed in block capitals to
Dr. Leitner, Mad Scientist
would magically appear.

“I don’t think so.” He swiveled around to glare at me. “You think I didn’t try and check?”

“Hey, you didn’t exactly have a clear field back then. You got caught, you told me. Which means you didn’t have time for a thorough search.”

“I kept a careful eye on post entering and leaving the house. There was nothing.”

“You mean you saw nothing. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything. Like you said, Schreiber started locking his office, so he obviously trusted you about as far as he could throw your house. So he’d have kept his mail secret too, wouldn’t he?”

“You can search—but we may as well try a more direct approach.” He swiveled back and started typing.

Dr. L.

Your advice is urgently needed. The American’s changes are not proceeding as usual. He appears to exhibit increased strength and mental agility whilst in his alternate form. This is an astonishing breakthrough and I urge you to come and examine him personally.

P.S.

“P.S.?” I asked. “P.S. what?”

Christoph gave me that
Duh
look again. “Peter Schreiber. It’s how he signs all his emails to Leitner.”

“Do all Schreiber’s emails make me sound like a prime candidate for dissection too?”

“You’re the most recently infected. It wouldn’t be as plausible for one of the rest of us to have suddenly displayed unusual signs.” Christoph didn’t meet my eyes as he said it, and I realized he was feeling guilty.

“Chill, okay? I’m fine with it. Like you said, he’s got to believe us or he won’t come.” Just before he hit
Send
, I put a hand on his arm. “Hey, you know you don’t have to do this, right? You beat Schreiber—why not leave it at that?”

“And sit here waiting for Leitner to become suspicious at the lack of contact and come along to resume control of his experiment? I don’t think so.”

My gut tightened. Couldn’t the bastard see I didn’t want him to risk his life all over again? Didn’t want to face maybe losing him after all? “You could leave town. Come travelling with me, maybe.” I tried to keep the pleading tone out of my voice, but I wasn’t sure I succeeded.

“I’m not going to run from him,” Christoph snapped, and clicked
Send
.

I felt like a moron for even asking. He was a successful architect, with his own firm and a big—if dilapidated—house in the country. No way would he give all that up just to hang out with a deadbeat like me. “It was a stupid idea. Forget I said it.” I got off his desk and started looking for a distraction. My stomach rumbled right on cue. “Hey, you know what? I’m hungry as hell. Is there any food around here?” I caught myself. “Duh. You’ve got a whole damn cellar full of food. How are you at operating a can opener?”

Christoph gave a sort of huff and followed me into the kitchen. “I’m sure you’ll correct me if I do it wrong,” he muttered.

It was probably just as well he was behind me and couldn’t see my grin.

I’ve never been one for cooking, much. Comes from moving around a lot and staying in places that don’t have kitchens. It turned out Christoph could rustle up a mean, hearty meal out of sausages and lentils, served up with egg noodles called
Spätzle
. We cooked up several gallons of the stuff—him directing, me just trying not to burn anything, including myself—and left the pot on the stove, figuring anyone who was hungry could help themselves. “Your mom teach you to cook?” I asked with my mouth full.

He nodded. “Not this dish, though. I was served it once in Baden-Württemberg and asked for the recipe. It’s a regional specialty. Farmers’ food.”

“It’s good. Heavy but good. I think I just put on ten pounds. Maybe I need to go muck out a stable or something to work it off.”

Christoph’s gaze raked me up and down, slow and deliberate. “I don’t think you need to worry about that. You look good to me.”

My trousers started to feel a little tight, and for a moment, I wondered if things were about to heat up again in the kitchen—but just then Michael and his boys proved there was nothing wrong with their noses by following them in here. They sat down at the table and got busy inhaling Christoph’s cooking.

Damn. We’d gotten more privacy in the hostel in Kreuzberg.

“We should take some to Silke and your friend,” Christoph said as he cleaned his plate, proving he at least was thinking with something other than his dick.

“I’ll take it,” I offered. I got up and started to fill a couple of plates.

Christoph pushed back his chair and stood. I noticed all eyes turned to him, and I guessed he did too, as he made
sit down
gestures with his hands. The king is dead; long live the king. Except the king wasn’t actually dead yet, and might not be any time soon.

“I need a shower,” Christoph announced. “After that, I’ll be in my room if anyone needs me.”

He moved a little stiffly as he climbed the stairs; I guessed the fight was catching up with him. I took the plates in to Silke and Jon and found them with their arms wrapped around each other. Like I said, true love. I still didn’t have a clue where that had come from. Schreiber hadn’t moved; he was still breathing noisily on the sofa.

I obviously wasn’t needed there—unless maybe they wanted a hand smothering the bastard—so I went to find out where Ulf had taken himself off to. I tracked him down in his room. He’d showered and changed into some loose track pants and a faded T-shirt. Comfort clothes. “Hey,” I said, poking my head around the door. “You okay?”

Ulf bit his lip and nodded, the picture of a kid being brave completed as he laid aside a battered copy of
Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen
. Shit. I cast my mind around for something to make him feel better. “There’s, uh, food downstairs. Sausages and noodles and stuff.”

His face lit up like a neon sign, and he scrambled off the bed.

Teenagers. You gotta love ’em.

As he loped down the stairs, I wondered what to do now. Christoph ought to be in his room by now. Did wanting to see the guy qualify as needing him? Maybe he could use some down time. Hell, maybe he could just use a couple hours away from the needy American he’d been saddled with the last few days. He might not welcome any interruption.

Fuck it. He’d just have to deal.

Christoph’s bedroom was on the second floor. It was the third door I’d knocked on, and the only one I’d gotten an answer at. I opened the door to find him lying on the bed staring up at the ceiling, just like back at the hostel. Maybe it was an architect thing—for all I knew, the pattern of cracks told him how long the house had been standing and how much longer it’d be before it fell down.

“Hey. Can I come in?”

He turned his head in my direction. “Of course,” he said, in a why-are-you-even-asking tone that did a lot for my ego.

“Mind if I snoop around?” It seemed kind of rude to poke around his stuff without asking, and I was itching to find out a little more about the guy.