Alan let out a growl and tried to grab the bars, but he tumbled straight through them and into me, which was strange because he was dead and yet I could still feel him. Almost solid, almost not. Like weirdly cold pudding
Alan was pudding. I focused on that thought because it was easier than what was blooming inside my brain.
His hands clenched into fists and he held them near his face. “Bree, listen to me. They are trying to have you executed for my murder, which even I can see from the evidence room you did not commit. Someone wants you dead, Bree. They are doing everything they can to make it happen, and the police are helping them. All posthaste.”
“Oh.” My legs gave out and I slid to my knees, my hands on the bars the only things holding me up. Alan was still talking but I couldn’t hear him through the roaring white noise between my ears. The police were trying to have me executed for a murder I had nothing to do with.
Why?
I’d done nothing to attract the attention of the human police. If it had been the shadow world’s police force, I would have said sure, they might have reason to get rid of me. But not the regular police.
“There would still be a trial,” I mumbled, my mouth more than a little numb as I struggled to process what Alan was saying.
He kept talking, his words beating back the buzzing in my head, but not much. Planted evidence. Pay offs. Rush trial. Ridiculous bail. No way out.
I pressed my head against the cool bars and fought the despair that wanted to drown me, the undertow of giving up wrapping around my legs and tugging hard. A deep breath, then another and another, until the rest of the white noise slid away and I could look up without my vision sparkling and going black at the edges.
“Then I’m going to need a lawyer. One that isn’t dead,” I managed to say. “They have to give me that much.”
Like I’d wished on a star and the universe was providing instant fulfillment, a police officer stepped into the anteroom of the cells, clipboard in hand. Irritation flickered over his face, and a dusting of white powder on the corner of his mouth told me that I’d interrupted his coffee break and donuts. “O’Rylee, Breena. You have a visitor. Says he’s your lawyer?”
I pulled myself to my feet until I was standing once more, if not steady, at least upright. I had called no one, so Corb and the others must have pulled this gem out of the bag for me. A lawyer was good, and whoever it was would be able to slow down this train. Maybe they could get a stay of execution. Literally.
That’s what I thought, anyway, until he stepped into the room.
My eyes locked on him, and I was sure I was seeing things.
“Ohhh, the silver fox,” the old woman with the fluffy white hair said. “I was hoping he’d come my way.” She tittered and I stared at the man I’d thought had left me high and dry. The guy who could have been my rock to cling to in stormy seas. And instead . . .well, he’d become a rock I stubbed my toe on.
Crash stood in the doorway dressed in dark jeans, a button-down white shirt, and a black tie, and damn him, if he didn’t look just as good as when he was wrapped in nothing but a towel. No, that wasn’t true, I liked the towel look a lot. Even if I was pissed with him, the fluffy-haired old gal was right.
Crash was downright delicious, no matter how you sliced it.
Blue eyes flecked with gold stared back at me, and he lifted one eyebrow. “How am I not surprised to find you in hot water just hours after you were in the frying pan?”
2
The police officer came toward the cell with handcuffs hanging from the finger of one hand and the key held in the other, his knuckles white. He jammed the key in and cranked it hard enough that I thought for a second he might break it, and my next thought was that it would really suck to be stuck in here with the women I’d met and the smear of poo everywhere. I felt bad for them, but I didn’t want to stay with them.
As soon as the door was open, he tossed the handcuffs to me, aiming them straight down so I didn’t have a hope of catching them. They clattered across the floor to rest at my feet against the toe of my boots. Someone had definitely pissed in his cereal that morning.
“Put them on,” he snapped.
“That’s rather unprofessional,” I said as I bent and picked up the cuffs, carefully putting them on one at a time, not tightening them too much. I knew better than to argue, seeing as the officer was obviously spoiling for a fight. This was not the time for me to put up a big stink. Maybe Crash would have a way out of here for me, a magic spell, or a legal loophole that I didn’t know about. I was afraid to hope, but it had to be a good sign that he was here.
Or maybe he’d just showed up to apologize for the way he’d left things after I helped him kill Derek, the goblin king. Or for kicking me out of my gran’s house with nothing but a note.
A note. Like he was a teenager who’d rather send a breakup text than look me in the eye when he said goodbye.
A lot of maybes in the pot and not much to take away from them. The police officer led me out with his hand tight on my right elbow, squeezing hard enough to make me wince. He took me out of the cell block, past Crash, and down a short hall to a small room with no window. A simple folding table and two chairs sat in the middle, leaving little space for anything else. I sat in the chair, the cop left, and a moment later, Crash stepped into the room and shut the door behind him with a soft click.
The smell of clean, freshly showered man flowed from him, a hint of coal fires, and some sort of aftershave that mingled through the air and made me want things I really shouldn’t have. Damn my hormones for not getting with the program.
“They don’t have any cameras or listening devices in this room.” Crash pulled the chair out across from me and sat, resting his hands on the table, fingers linked loosely. His eyes swept over me, as if looking for something. Maybe bruises? Wounds? Evidence that I really had killed Alan?
“No? Are you sure about that? If you’d asked me yesterday, I would’ve said the police would have no reason to arrest me, and yet, here I am. Apparently about to be strung up for a murder I didn’t commit.” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my legs at the ankles. I was not in the least relaxed, but I was not going to give him the . . .well, satisfaction wasn’t the right word. He looked tired, and why not? We’d been up into the wee hours the previous night—no, not having that kind of fun—fighting for our lives against a goblin and his accomplice, who worked for the council of Savannah.
We’d survived, but even just sitting here I could feel the bruises and muscle tension slipping over me.
He frowned. “How did you know?”
Alan, who’d, of course, followed me, muttered to himself as he paced the tiny room, and I realized that as much as we hated each other, he was trying to figure out a way for me to not be executed. Focused on his own thoughts, he didn’t make a single noise about Crash.
I blew out a breath and waved my cuffed hands in his general direction. “Alan. He did a quick recon mission and told me. He doesn’t like me, but I’d bet he’s worried we’ll be stuck together for eternity if I die like this.”
Crash gave a slow nod. “Alan, were you able to see what exactly they have on her?”
Now Crash couldn’t actually see Alan, not the way I could. I suspected he could catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, or a shadow of sorts where my ex-husband was pacing, whereas I could see him as if he were still alive.