Out of Time 01 - Out of Time

frequent, I assure you.”
    The fork slipped from her hand. “How did you know about that?”
    “I’m not a man without means.”
    “You’ve been spying on me?”
    “Spying has such a negative ring to it. I’m merely... keeping an eye on you. It’s a dangerous city and the Manchester Arms isn’t in the best neighborhood, but then I don’t need to tell you that, do I?” he said and lifted one of the silver coverings from a tray. “I think you’ll particularly enjoy the duck.”
    She felt sick. He knew where she lived, where she ate. Who knows how long he’d been having them followed. “I’m not feeling very hungry anymore.”
    King smirked and set the covering down. “Very well. I’m a patient man. We’ll simply enjoy each other’s company until your appetite returns.”
    There was no getting out of it. No getting out of any of it. Maybe the sooner she ate, the sooner she could leave. She picked up her fork and managed to get a mouthful down.
    The dinner, what she ate of it, was excellent, or would have been if her stomach hadn’t been on strike. The chef at the Ritz owed King a favor, for what she didn’t ask, and had prepared an elegant meal. King rearranged the food on his plate, taking small bites. The strange thing was he never took off his gloves. She hadn’t seen him without them. Odd enough in the middle of a heat wave, but at dinner, in his own home?
    He must have noticed her staring, because he set down his fork and rubbed his gloved palms together. “An affectation,” he said, with a mild grin. “My hands are always cold. But as they say, cold hands, warm heart. As it were.”
    She smiled and went back to her meal. Cold hands, ice cold heart was more like it. Or was it even more than that? She remembered the feeling of his ice cold lips the night he’d kissed her hand. Vampires lacked normal blood circulation and were rumored to be cold to the touch. And, she thought, looking at his untouched food, they didn’t eat.
    Maybe her imagination was running away with her. There were other explanations, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that the man sitting across from her wasn’t a man at all.
    The conversation was sporadic and more often than not ended with a dangling question or an ambiguous answer. Once the final course had been served, King leaned back in his chair and regarded her with calm appraisal. “You are a charming guest. When you set your mind to it.”
    “Thank you, I think. And it was a lovely dinner, but I really should be getting back. Simon will be—”
    “Ah, yes. Professor Cross,” King said, lingering over the name with mild amusement. “I don’t think he likes me very much.”
    He hates your guts didn’t seem like a profitable thing to say, and so Elizabeth merely shrugged.
    “But I see why he likes you. You’re different, Elizabeth. Very different from the women I’ve met. A man could spend several lifetimes looking for a woman like you. There’s a uniqueness, I can’t put my finger on it, an unusual quality about you.”
    “I could say the same about you.”
    “Touché. So, tell me,” he said casually. “How did you meet your husband?”
    The way he caressed the last word made her tense. “Simon?”
    “Unless you have more than one.”
    “No, just the one.” She crammed a spoonful of crème brûlée into her mouth to buy time. She could make up a story, but there was no guarantee she’d remember it. Best to stick with the truth. “We met at college. I was a student there, and he was a professor.”
    King’s smirk reached all the way to his eyebrows. “Dating the professor? I’m shocked.”
    “We didn’t actually date until after I graduated.”
    “A college graduate working as a waitress. That’s odd, isn’t it?”
    Elizabeth shrugged. “Good jobs are hard to find.”
    King grunted noncommittally and sipped his wine. “Where did you go to school?”
    “Out of state.” This was getting worse and worse. Time to go on the offensive. “But enough about me and my boring life. Tell me about you. How does somebody become a...”
    “A gangster?” he said with that damn smirk. “Family business. Tell me more about yourself. I do find your...story fascinating.”
    Elizabeth grew nervous at the word “story”. Best to stop this conversation now. “Didn’t you say there was something you wanted to show me?” she asked.
    King smiled. “Yes, there is.”
    Out of the frying pan into the fire, she thought. Smooth.
    King set down