Chapter 21

" W hat the actual fuck?" I tasted metal when I swallowed. "Audrey Collins worked for Armie?"

That was the waitressing gig Maggy mentioned? Good Lord. How had we not put it together sooner?

"Looks that way." Carter hit the pause button. "But…Frankie…it's not a crime to have dinner with your uncle and the proprietor while a future missing person serves you drinks in a room full of witnesses."

A growl was the most polite response I could articulate.

"Harrow wasn't going to recall a kid who waited on him while those three were doing whatever the hell they were doing that night. He never even looks at her. But Armie would have known her. He hired her. Even if he couldn't recall her name off the top of his head, he had this footage to remind him."

The mention of the footage shifted my ire back to Armie and away from Harrow.

"But—" she mashed play before I responded, "—it wasn't Armie who went after her later that night."

On screen, the restaurant emptied, leaving only the staff. The waitresses were chatting and laughing one minute then waving goodbye the next, thanks to Carter hitting fast-forward. "And then there were two."

Audrey and an older woman waited on the outside benches together.

The woman left first, after a man pulled up and honked once.

Audrey was old enough to drive, but she didn't own a car. Headlights flashed over her, and she smiled. She rose, thinking it was her ride, and gathered her things. The driver must have called out. She froze, and, with a visible tremor, glanced over her shoulder.

A split-second later, she ran, her hair whipping behind her.

Lyle slammed into her from the back, knocking her sideways and out of view of the camera.

"There's more," she told me as the picture remained frozen, except for the timestamp ticking past. "She hit her head on the edge of a bench. She was unconscious when he carried her to his car and loaded her in the trunk. We lost him after he backed out and hit the road."

"She must have seen or heard something that made her a liability."

"That's all I can figure, but I'm leaning toward heard. I've watched this a dozen times and nada."

The blinking numbers sank in, and I double-checked them. "This was the night before Lyle died."

"Ghosts have a poor grasp of time, right?"

"Yeah." I hated to admit it. "They do." I shook my head. "Mr. Collins is so persistent. I believed he was an outlier. That he was more in tune with the living world because of his guardianship of his granddaughter, but now I'm not so sure." Had he remembered our last scheduled meeting? Or had it been a coincidence and he only showed up after hearing about the asrai attack? "If I'm wrong about him, and we can't trust his sense of self-awareness, this changes everything we thought we knew about the timeline of Audrey's disappearance."

"This proves Audrey was already missing the night Lyle and Armie died." Carter dragged a hand down her face. "Mr. Collins approached you more than two weeks after she vanished."

"If Lyle kidnapped Audrey, and Lyle is dead, then who's been hunting the other girls?"

"Only one of the three men there that night is still alive."

"Harrow," I agreed, chest tight as I realized she was right.

Odds were good Lyle killed Audrey as soon as he took her. I almost hoped that was the case. If he decided to lock her up until he could dispose of her, and then he was shot the following night, Audrey would have starved to death by now if dehydration hadn't killed her first. It was a horrible way to die.

" If Harrow is involved, and if he knew Audrey was a threat to them, and if Lyle didn't get a chance before he died to tell Harrow their leak had been plugged—" Carter spread her hands, "—then…"

"Harrow might have been searching for her," I finished for her, hating how much sense it made.

"Either he didn't know about the cameras," she mused, "or he didn't know where the recordings were kept."

"He would have destroyed the equipment if he'd known there was damning footage on there."

"He might have gone hunting her armed with only the few details he recalled from that night," Carter suggested. "Lyle might have told him the girl had to be eliminated but not whether he succeeded, leaving Harrow to cover their tracks."

"That's a lot of ifs , mights , and maybes ." I needed a minute to catch my breath. "This is Harrow."

As pissed as I was at him, I wasn't ready to slap a serial killer label on him without more proof.

"That's why, before anyone other than the two of us sees this, I'm going to sit down and talk to him."

Handing off the laptop, I got to my feet. I couldn't sit there. I had to move. To think.

"I understand if you don't want to back me up on this, after what he did to you, but he'll talk more freely with you than with me. You were friends. More than that. He and I didn't get that far. But your history might apply enough pressure on a fault line to break him."

"I'll go with you." I had to give him a chance to defend himself. To explain. "Kierce will come too."

"That's a terrible idea."

"Until we know Harrow's role in all this, I can't trust him not to play you and me against each other."

I might be open to hearing his side of the story, but I had already almost died enough for one week.

One drop of my blood in the air, and Carter would be stuck fighting a battle on two fronts.

Against him.

And herself.

"That's fair." She clenched her jaw. "Kierce will have to conceal himself, though."

"Yes." I had been thinking along the same lines. "Harrow can't see him, or things will get ugly."

Uglier.

"Where do you want to meet?" Carter amended her statement. "Where would you feel safe?"

There was one place, aside from the shop, that always made me happy. "Bonaventure."

During the day, I couldn't count on the spirits to help me, but there would be humans. Tourists loved the cemetery, and it was an unspoken rule of paranormal society we conceal our existence from them. They would provide me with a buffer.

The outdoor location, paired with Kierce's familiarity of the place, would provide him with infinite hiding spots. Badb could still be his eyes in the sky. With a surplus of oaks and monuments at her disposal, she could stand watch without making herself a target.

"He'll know you're coming too if I tell him that," she warned. "Do you want to tip our hand?"

There was a chance thinner than a single strand of hair Audrey might still be alive, and we had to take it.

"He may be on leave, but it's voluntary. He's still got access to the 514's files and his friends at SPD." I let it sink in, that we might already be too late. "When he finds out we tossed Armie's restaurant, and if those recordings are mentioned, he's going to come for them. We have to act fast if we want to get answers before he switches to damage control mode."

"I'm sorry, Frankie, truly." She glanced toward the door. "I know this is hard."

Not as difficult as it would have been a few hours earlier. "Tell me the truth. I'm not enacting some ex-girlfriend revenge fantasy, am I?"

"From where I'm sitting, no." She put away the laptop. "That you're worried it could be speaks volumes. Your brain is spinning, trying to justify or explain his behavior and any possible involvement to yourself."

"This sounds plausible to you?" I dragged my fingers through my flat hair, wishing for an elastic. "That he could do something like this? Harrow? Samuel Harrow? That Harrow?"

"You're conflicted because you two have history. I haven't known him long, and he hasn't liked me much during that time. That he shot his uncle to save my life didn't do much for our partnership either." There was a pause, like she had to organize or soften the blow of her thoughts. "He's a damn fine cop. He does his job well. He cares. Those things don't always go hand in hand. But he's got hang-ups about who he is, what he is, and where his loyalties should lie. He has an us versus them mentality that'll get him killed if he's not more careful." She shuttered her gaze. "He's a lot like Lyle in that sense."

"He came back different." I heard the plea in my tone and hated it. "He's been using magic."

"Not since Lyle died."

"Not once?"

"Not once." She shrugged. "That I've seen anyway."

Used to his allergy to magic, I didn't track his usage. It surprised me every time he whipped out a spell. It wasn't much. Just a bare-bones getthejobdonefastfastfast grudging use of his talents. I never expected a show of power, but now it slapped me upside the head how I almost died. Twice. Carter had been there. It was as easy as asking her to verify, but I didn't have to because I knew. Deep down, I knew.

He had powers.

Yet he hadn't used them to save me.

Had he destroyed all instinct to reach for magic in crisis? Or had he abandoned me by choice?

"Call him. Get the ball rolling." I pushed off the mattress, about to go shower and dress, but I had to ask. "Why didn't you want Kierce in here? There was nothing on the video he couldn't have seen."

"Kierce and Harrow get along about as well as a feral cat and a rabid dog tossed in a pit with a ribeye?—"

"That's weirdly specific. I can tell you've put a lot of thought into this."

"Not really." She made a vague gesture. "It's a gift."

"It certainly is something." I prompted her, "You were saying?"

"I didn't want Kierce going off half-cocked if he saw Harrow colluding with the enemy."

Thanks to his weakened state, he couldn't pop over to Harrow's place then rip out his intestines through his fingertips before we could stop him, but that was need to know.

And, yeah. Okay. It was also graphic. Disturbing even. Maybe I was spending too much time with Carter.

"I'll talk to him." I went to fetch him while Carter stepped into the hall to dial Harrow. "Kierce?"

Straightening from his lean, he let me pull him into the room and shut the door behind him. "Yes?"

"Where did you go earlier?" I hadn't been in the right frame of mind to ask. "When you left?"

"To check Josie's apartment for your blood. I cleaned up what was there to ensure no one saw." He swept the room with his gaze, guaranteeing our privacy. "Our gods have many enemies. As do I. As do all those in service. Should one of them think you're the same as us, they might strike at you, and you won't survive an attack meant for a god blood."

A god blood. That was a new term. I filed it away to reflect on later.

"I'll keep that in mind." I rubbed my hands up my arms, but it did nothing to ward away the chill. "Carter and I have a job for you, if you're up for it." I let him take over my efforts, warmed not because of friction but because he cared enough to try. "Do you feel up for covert ops?"

Interest flared in his eyes. "What did you have in mind?"

As I explained first what I had seen and next what Carter and I intended to do, he listened with growing agitation that made me grateful she had let me break the news to him and doubly so that he couldn't zip away and find himself face-to-face with Harrow.

"The cemetery is a good place to confront him," he decided in the end. "You're strongest there."

"The spirits will be sleeping," I pointed out. "They won't be much help."

"Their power is rooted in the soil in which their bones rest." He slid his hands down to my wrists. "You can draw strength from it." A smile tempted his full lips. "I can show you how."

"I'll try not to geek out all over you when the time comes."

He rolled his eyes, which convinced me he was learning how to human better from watching my siblings and me interact. Slightly weird, but he would sand down the rough edges until the expressions fit on his face. Already, he was making strides in his study of normal . Though I doubted he would lose his peculiar edge. I hoped not anyway. His otherness called to mine, and I enjoyed being weirdos together.

"Geek out all you want." His thumbs traced the veins along the insides of my wrists. "I enjoy you all over me."

"Kierce." A blush rocketed into my cheeks, stinging me with its intensity. "That's very forward."

Glancing away, he dropped my hand. "I apologize?—"

"I'm kidding." I caught him by the arm. "I like forward." I scrunched my nose. "From you."

"You don't tolerate it from other men."

"Not really, no." I burned under his stare. "But I like you."

As much as I wouldn't have minded, say, his lips on mine or his hand fisting my hair, I crackled with the electric tingle of his restraint. He was still thinking about Harrow putting his hands on me. I could tell. He was questioning if I would lump them together if he pressed harder, asked for more. And he was asking himself if he…

"Josie asked me if I want to be intimate with you."

"You've really got to start exercising your right to plead the fifth when she questions you."

"I told her I'm not sure."

"Oh." I swallowed to wet my parched throat. "Okay."

Oh. That was my brilliant response. Followed up by another word vomit classic. Okay.

"That's not what I meant." I bit the inside of my cheek. "I'm trying to say you're entitled to your feelings. It's okay to not be sure. You don't have to decide right now." He deserved the time to figure out what he wanted for himself. "There's no wrong answer here. No tricks. No traps. No expectations. To go forward, or not, is your choice."

"I haven't thought about sex in…"

"…a long time," I finished for him, marveling at how thoroughly he had cut himself off from the world.

"I must have experienced physical intimacy during my mortal life, but I don't recall the particulars."

"Kierce…"

"You deserve someone who doesn't struggle to recall the mechanics of physical intimacy. Someone who knows their own mind, their own heart. I can't offer you those things. Not now. I lost them." He dragged a hand down his face. "It could take years to relearn what I have forgotten, to be what you need in a partner. I won't ask you to wait when the results are uncertain." His head hung loose on his neck. "I understand if you no longer want to hold my hand."

The twist in my chest as my heart wrung itself out made me wish I could bundle him in bubble wrap to keep him from getting hurt. From hurting him. But when hearts got involved, there were no guarantees. For either of us.

"Everyone has a first relationship. Everyone is a virgin at one point. Everyone screws up, gets hurt, learns from their mistakes, makes new ones, and has enough sex to get proficient if not good at it. That's life." I raked my fingers through his hair, pushing it away from his face. "Inexperience is nothing to be ashamed of. Neither is uncertainty." I cupped his chin, forcing him to look up at me. "I'm going to keep holding your hand, Kierce, and I'm not letting you go." A prickle stung my cheeks as fresh word vomit spewed all over our conversation. "Unless what you decide—and you can take as long as you want—is that you want to be let go of, then I will, of course, honor your wishes. With no hard feelings. Whatsoever."

A firm knock on the door saved me from myself before Carter stepped in.

From the look on her face, I could tell she had an update. "You got in touch with Harrow?"

"He's willing to meet us at dusk." She cocked an eyebrow. "He wants you comfortable."

A few spirits would be out and about then, but it wasn't like I could order them to attack him. Really, the time of day didn't matter. Harrow was giving me a security blanket by meeting us as night fell. Before he put his hands on me, I would have been moved by his concession. I would have taken it as a good sign.

But I was tired of giving people credit only to have them default on me in spectacular fashion.

With a yawn, I leaned into my newly formed exit strategy. "That gives me time for another nap."

And offered Kierce room to breathe after baring his soul.

The last few hours had taken an emotional toll on me and my family I wasn't done paying yet. He and I were raw. Vulnerable. Sleep wasn't a cure for what ailed me, but it was good medicine.

"Go to Josie." Kierce traced the curve of my cheek with his fingertip. "I'll be here."

The way he made it a promise I could believe in tightened my stomach. Or maybe it was simply his touch. I rolled onto my toes to kiss his cheek, cut Carter a warning stare to behave, then left them to go next door and climb in bed with Josie as I did my damnedest to hold my sister together while what remained of her world fell apart.