by Tessa Adams
In the end, I say, “Fine,” and he leaves it at that. At least for a few minutes. But when he starts to make the turn onto the major street that will lead him to the house I share with Lily, I freak out. I know she won’t be there yet and I can’t stomach the idea of being alone, even for a little while.
“Can you take me to the station?” The words are out of my mouth before I even know I’m going to say them.
Nate glances at me dubiously. “Don’t you want to go home and take a shower?”
I know I must sound like a nut-job, but I don’t care. “I can’t go sit in my empty house right now. I see her every time I close my eyes and I just—”
Nate reaches over and pats my knee. His hands are clean, at least until they touch my jeans, and I wonder how he managed to keep them from getting dirty in all that mess. Then it hits me. Gloves. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, his voice low and soothing. “You don’t have to be alone.” The soft rumble of his tone calms me on a visceral level and I wonder if they teach classes in this stuff at the academy or if Nate is just really good at dealing with hysterical women. Maybe it’s a little bit of both.
“Is there someone I can call? Someplace else I can take you?”
“My roommate will probably be home in an hour or so.”
He sighs, runs his still-clean hand through his hair in a what-the-fuck gesture that’s hard to miss. “You want to come to the station with me? I have some preliminary paperwork to get done. By the time I finish, your roommate should be home.”
“Thanks.”
He nods, keeps driving. “You know, pulling the girl out of the lake tonight was really brave, trying to see if she was still alive. I’m proud of you.”
“Yeah, because I’m so brave. I won’t even go home to the completely nonthreatening house I’ve lived in for the past four years.”
“Hey, don’t beat yourself up. The first time anyone sees a body—especially one that got that way through violence—is difficult. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
I don’t correct him, though the other two bodies are burning brightly in my head—and my conscience.
The rest of the ride passes quickly as Nate asks me questions about what I was doing down on Town Lake in the first place. I dance around the inquiries, knowing this is an interrogation of sorts, but Nate doesn’t seem to mind the way I leap around. Or maybe he just doesn’t recognize it as such. Either way, I must do a good job, because he seems satisfied when we finally pull up in front of the precinct.
I follow Nate inside, through the main lobby and up the stairs to where he works. There are a lot of people still in the precinct—police officers and civilians—and I’m a little shocked at all the hustle and bustle at this time of night. Not that I have anything to compare it with. The only other police station I’ve ever been in is Ipswitch’s and since very little criminal activity happens in my hometown, I don’t think that counts.
“The bathroom is over there,” he says, pointing to the back of the room. “In case you want to clean up.”
“I do. Thanks.”
He just nods, yanking off his mud-encrusted coat and dropping it on the floor near his desk.
I hurry to the bathroom and one look in the mirror assures me—freaked out or not—I should have let Nate drop me at home where I could spend the next year of my life in the shower trying to get clean. Standing here, with nothing but a faucet and some paper towels, I’m not sure that anything I do will make a dent in the disaster.
Still, I can’t spend the night looking like the Creature that escaped from Town Lake, so I gingerly make my way over to the sink. I start by doing the same thing Nate did, dropping my jacket on the floor next to me. Then I wash my hands and face. I don’t think there’s anything to be done to salvage my clothes—the sweater I’m upset about, the jeans not so much—but I try anyway. Which seems incredibly shallow, even as I’m doing it. How can I care about a sweater when that woman is dead?
Twenty minutes later I decided I’ve done the best that I can with what I’ve got. I’ve pulled my hair back from my face with a butterfly clip I found in my purse. It’s still filthy, but I draw the line at washing my hair with hand soap in a police bathroom. But at least the parts of my body I can see are all clean, as is the cut under my eye. It’s a doozy and I’m afraid it will scar, but I don’t let myself dwell on it. The last thing I want is to feel that fist hit my face yet again.
I even managed to get most of the mud off of Lily’s shoes. They still need to be professionally cleaned, but at least I can walk without leaving a trail of mud in my wake.
All in all, I’m feeling about as human as I can get when I walk out of the bathroom. At least until I glance toward Nate’s desk and realize that things have just gotten a million times more complicated. Because it isn’t Nate’s gaze I meet as I start across the room. It’s Declan’s. And he does not look happy.
Ten
Not that I care if Declan is happy or not, I remind myself determinedly. My first glimpse of him sitting over there like he owns the chair, Nate and this entire police station have rage shooting through me. If he’s somehow responsible for this mess—for what’s happening to me and what happened to that poor woman—I swear I’m going to find a way to make him pay.
Before I can think better of it—or think at all for that matter—I’m storming across the room, fury a volcano inside of me just begging to erupt. “What are you doing here?”
Nate looks at me curiously. “You know Declan Chumomisto?” I can see him processing the fact that I didn’t mention this earlier and I feel like an idiot for pulling the whole diva act. The last thing I need is to make the police more suspicious—the existence of witches with real, magical power isn’t exactly well known and I do not want to be the one to bring our coven out into the open.
“We’ve met,” I finally tell him. “Briefly.”
Declan raises a sardonic brow at my clipped answer, but he doesn’t contradict me. Instead, he smiles and says, “It’s good to see you again, Xandra. Though I’m sorry my performance earlier wasn’t to your liking.”
“I wasn’t feeling well. My leaving had nothing to do with you.” I refuse to admit how he affects me, to him or anyone else. He might already know, but if he doesn’t…I’m not going to give him any ideas about picking up where we left off.
“I’m sorry to hear that you were unwell. Are you feeling better now?”
Yeah, because fishing from Town Lake the tortured, mutilated body of a woman who looks remarkably like me was just a barrel of laughs.
“I’m just dandy,” I tell him. “Can’t you tell?”
Something flashes across his face—amusement, remorse, anger—it happens so fast I can’t tell which emotion it is. “I’ve seen you look better.”
“Actually, I don’t think you have. Whenever you’re around, I seem to be at my worst.”
This time there’s more than a flicker of emotion on his face, and I grind my teeth when I finally peg it as amusement.
I hate the idea that he’s laughing at me. Or worse, indulging me, like an adult with a cranky child.
The anger ratchets up a notch to full-fledged fury, puts me on the offensive when that’s the last thing I want to do. I’m not a coward, but going head to head with Declan takes more guts than I currently have—at least in a very public police station.
“Why don’t you just leave? I don’t need or want anything from you.”
He holds out his hands in the age-old signal for surrender, which might be believable if his jaw wasn’t locked and his eyes weren’t swirling with power. “What makes you think I’m here for you?”
It’s a reasonable question. I flew off the handle when I saw him, leaped to conclusions that really don’t make any sense. Why would he be here for me? For that matter, why is he here at all? I start to ask, but am suddenly afraid of the answer.
Especially when Nate clears his throat, sits straighter. Up until this point, his head has been bouncing back and forth between De
clan and me like he’s following the ball at a Ping-Pong match.
And even now that the match has stopped, I can all but see his cagey detective’s mind trying to figure out how Declan and I fit together. Too bad for him that there’s no answer to that puzzle. No matter how you twist and turn us, Declan and I don’t fit and we never have. Him showing up here after I find a dead body isn’t going to change that.
Nate clears his throat. “He’s here to see me, Xandra.”
Now I’m really confused. It must show on my face because Declan clarifies, “The woman you found tonight was one of my crew.” He doesn’t sound lazily amused anymore. Instead, there’s a thread of his own rage running through the words.
“You’ve identified her already?” I ask Nate, but he’s staring at Declan with narrowed eyes.
“Her purse was found a few yards farther down the lake,” Nate tells me before turning to Declan and demanding, “How do you know she’s the one who found the body?”
Declan raises a brow, then points at me with a languid finger he shakes up and down, as if to say, Just look at her. He has a point. It’s not like my bathroom cleanup did much to disguise the fact that I’ve been rolling around in the mud tonight.
“She could have been mugged,” Nate answers.
“Which is why she’s hanging out with a homicide detective?”
“We’re friends.”
This time it’s Declan’s eyes that narrow. “Not such good friends that it precludes her from coming to my show with another man.” The air around us crackles with…I don’t know what. Something unpleasant.
“Stop baiting Nate,” I tell Declan, but my teeth are chattering so hard that I’m not sure he understands me. Though the police station has the heat turned up, I’m still shivering in my wet clothes. The longer I stand here, the worse it gets.
“But it’s so much fun,” Declan answers as he stands. Without asking permission, he crosses the room to the ancient coffee machine against the wall. Pours a cup, doctors it, then heads back toward us. As he walks, I notice every eye in the place is on him. The two other women in the room watch his every move with a sensual interest they don’t try to hide, while the men very obviously see him as a threat. More than one cop’s hand moves to rest on his gun while Declan passes.
Then he’s back, standing in front of me and thrusting the cup of coffee into my trembling hands. I take a grateful sip, then nearly spew it back out. No wonder Nate hits Beanz at least once a day. This stuff is horrific. But I’m in no position to complain—it’s hot and sweet and exactly what I need to keep the shock at bay.
“Where is Lina?” Declan asks Nate without sitting back down.
“At the morgue. But it’s closed right now. I’ll set up a time for you to identify her body tomorrow.”
Declan nods. “That will be fine.” He turns to me. “Come on, Xandra, you need to get home before you catch pneumonia.”
Nate stands up. “I’m taking her home.” He gestures to the redheaded man who is sitting at the next desk, and who I also saw at the crime scene. “My partner has a few questions for you—”
“Which can wait until tomorrow. Xandra’s coming down from an adrenaline rush and when she crashes, she’s going to need to be at home.”
He wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me into his side, completely disregarding the fine cashmere coat he’s wearing. I try to pull away—the last thing I want is Declan Chumomisto manhandling me—but the adrenaline crash he’s talking about must be setting in because I have almost no strength. In fact, I feel like my legs are going to go out from under me any second.
“Actually, the questions can’t wait.” Nate bites out the words from between clenched teeth. “And again, I brought Xandra to the station and I will be the one to escort her home.”
Declan smirks, actually smirks. “You’re welcome to try.”
Shocked and a little uncomfortable, I try to shrug him off as Nate moves out from behind his desk. But Declan holds firm even as Nate gets in his face. “You don’t get to decide whether or not you answer these questions.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t answer them. I just said I wouldn’t answer them now.” He starts to walk toward the door, the arm he has around my waist propelling me along with him.
Nate’s redheaded partner is there before we take more than a couple of steps and I find myself caught in the middle of three very pissed off men. Oh, Declan is holding it together better than the other two, but it’s obvious that he is just as angry. Or at least it’s obvious to me—his body is rigid against mine, his jaw so tense that I’m amazed he hasn’t yet cracked a tooth.
“You want to sit back down for me, buddy?” Nate’s partner asks.
“I don’t actually.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
“Really?” Declan tilts his head, looks the guy up and down. “It sounded like one. It probably should be one, unless I’m under arrest. Am I?”
“Not yet,” Nate answers him. “Would you like to be?”
“Not particularly. Especially since the last time I saw Lina she was alive, and on stage with me, putting my set together for tonight’s show.” His smile is full of insult. “But arresting me is the only way you’re going to keep me from walking out the door with Xandra, so do what you have to do, officers.”
It’s a deliberate—and petty—insult, one that busts both Nate and his partner down at least one rank. I see it register on them both, watch as Nate’s stance becomes significantly more threatening.
Not that Declan looks threatened. But then again, he’s a three-hundred-year-old warlock who also happens to be a fire element. I can’t imagine that much frightens him.
Suddenly, I’ve had enough of all three of them. Using every ounce of strength I have left—which isn’t much, I admit—I shove against Declan. Since he’s focused on Nate, it works, his hold slackening just enough for me to slip away.
As soon as I’m free, I head for the door as fast as Lily’s Jimmy Choos can carry me. “Don’t worry about me, gentlemen,” I toss over my shoulder. “I’ll catch a cab.”
My annoyance carries me down the stairs and through the lobby, but the last little burst of adrenaline runs out once I’m at the precinct door. I’m tired, so tired and all I really want to do is curl up into a little ball and hide from the whole world. At least for a little while.
And it totally sucks that Nate got so wrapped up in his little dominance display with Declan that he completely forgot about me. Because I’ve been around enough men to know that that little match upstairs was about a lot more than who was going to take me home.
And who the hell do Declan and Nate think they are, laying claim to my welfare when neither one of them has any right to make any decision for me, anyway?
I stumble down the stairs to the street on legs like spaghetti. Look up and down the street for a cab, but the abundance of earlier has obviously dried up. Which means I’m walking. Thank God the rain and wind have died down—I don’t have the strength left to fight them.
Hell, I don’t even have the strength left to fight the shoes. Bending down, I slip them off and then walk barefoot toward the corner, ignoring the chills that wrack my body. I’ve gone only a couple of steps when a sleek, black Porsche pulls up beside me. I’m not sure what it says about either of us that I’m not even surprised when I see Declan behind the wheel.
“Get in, Xandra. I’ll take you home.”
Part of me wants to fight him on general principle, but the truth is, I don’t have any fight left in me. I’ll take the ride home and worry about telling him off later.
When I open the door and slide into the car, Declan’s relief is almost palpable. Which is strange—I can’t imagine why my going along with him would matter one way or the other.
He doesn’t say anything as I fumble my seat belt on, just hands me a Snickers bar before flipping the heat to high and pulling smoothly away from the curb. He turns at Red River, then again at Eleventh Street without any prompting.
It freaks me out.
“How do you know where I live?”
“Don’t confuse me with that bumbling detective,” he tells me. His voice is smoother now that we’re alone, and I can hear the power in it. Not just the strength, which he had no problem showing Nate and his partner, but the magic he somehow managed to keep under wraps.
“Have you been spying on me?”
The look he gives me says very clearly that he considers my question beneath him. It might have shut me up when I was nineteen, but now all it does is make me mad. “Declan, it’s been almost nine years since we’ve seen each other. Frankly, the fact that you know where I live smacks of stalkerdom.”
“Eight years.”
“What?”
“It’s been eight years, five months and three weeks since I last saw you. Not nine years. And why should it upset you if I know where you live? Have I ever bothered you?”
“You’re bothering me now.”
He makes the turn onto Guadalupe smoothly. “No, I’m taking care of you. I thought the difference between the two was obvious.”
“I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“No offense, Xandra, but I don’t think you know what you need.” He pulls to the curb in front of my house but I’m so outraged that all I can do is stare at him with my mouth open and teeth bared.
He smiles—a smug, infuriating grin that makes me want to scream—then bops me on the nose like a child. I gasp, a million different insults rushing to my head at the same time, so many that I can’t wrap my tongue around any particular one of them. Before I can get over being tongue-tied, he’s out of the car and opening my door for me with an old-fashioned flourish.
“I can open my own doors,” I tell him stiffly as I climb out.
“Just like you can do your own spells.”
“You asshole.” I lash out before I think it through, my closed fist connecting with his mouth and snapping his head back.
