Alan paused. “They have my blood in a bottle, and they are currently putting it on the knives they took from her. They are also planting the blood on her hip bag and that jacket she has. They aren’t even making the splatter pattern correct, which tells me that they are truly just going to sink her hard. But why? Who’s after her? Was I killed just to frame her?”
I shook my head and then realized that Crash hadn’t heard any of that. I passed it on, and Crash stood and left the room without a word.
I could almost feel my life ticking away as the seconds slid by. Gawd in heaven, what a mess. I rubbed my hands over my face, the cuffs clinking. If I was killed, would my spirit be with Gran? No, I couldn’t think about that right now.
I focused on the moment. “Alan, I know you had dealings in the shadow world. Was it just with Davin, or did you have dealings with, like, the mob or something? Someone who might want to get whatever money you have left?” I asked. Maybe there had been someone he’d pissed off. Not impossible considering his attitude.
He didn’t slow his pacing. “Yes, just with him, but he had connections that went far higher up and I . . .well, I wanted those connections. I thought it could help me with my firm, get me better paying cases and maybe my own company.” He grimaced and waved a hand at his ghostly body. “Look where it got me.”
I closed my eyes, thinking through the possibilities. “No loopholes to get me out on good behavior?”
“You?” Alan snorted. “Please, we both know good behavior is not your forte . . . and it wouldn’t matter if it were. Bree, no lawyer will be able to get you out of this.” I opened my eyes as he crouched by the table, and for a moment, I saw a glimmer of the man I’d fallen in love with all those years ago. Smart, confident, and a little bit worried about me. “They will rig the jury. They will bury all the evidence once it’s done and scrub you from the files. It happens more often than people realize.”
Horror made my throat tighten, but I spoke through it. “How can you know all that?”
“Because they were talking about it in the evidence room,” he said. “Whoever has it in for you is deadly serious about getting rid of you, and they’ve paid the police department here very well to make it happen.” Emotion crossed his face. “This is not how the justice system should work! You should get your fair trial, at the very least.”
I realized he was more worried about the system being broken than my life, but I didn’t have enough energy to care.
The door opened once more and Crash came in and went to his chair and stood behind it, an air of defeat on him. “I can bail you out, but you’ll have to stay with me, and it will be house arrest. You won’t be able to leave at all.” He said it as if it was terrible news, and for him, I guess it was. He’d just kicked me out, and now he’d be seeing even more of me than he had before. Damn, that stung.
That sting turned to anger in a flash.
Forget this shit. I wasn’t going to wait for him to tell me why he’d suddenly turned his back on me and booted me out of my own grandmother’s house. I wasn’t a doormat. And I wasn’t a damn teenager either. Angst did nothing for me.
“What the hell, Crash? I don’t do games and this feels like a damn game. I helped you get away from Karissa when you were stoned out of your ducking mind, then I saved us from that psycho goblin, yet you’re acting like I’ve damn well treated you like crap! You’re acting like I did you wrong!”
Was I yelling? Yes, yes, I was.
I drew a breath and threw down the gauntlet. “And that’s after a shower where you couldn’t finish the job!”
Maybe I was hoping that someone could hear after all. Because that last line wasn’t quite true.
His eyebrows dipped low. “Maybe if your ex-husband’s ghost hadn’t shown up, I would have finished the job!”
Alan grimaced and slid out of the door. “I don’t need to listen to this.” I had to agree with him. He was so not the person I wanted here while I yelled at Crash about our almost-sex-scene.
I stood, scooting the chair backward so I could lean over the table and give him a serious glare. “Why? So you could feel better about kicking me out of my gran’s house? You figured you’d at least send me out with a mind-blowing orgasm? A pity duck?”
He leaned forward. “You don’t know the half of what you are doing! You’re fumbling through the shadow world like a damn wrecking ball. I can’t understand how you aren’t dead ten times over! But someone is trying hard to make sure you end up in an early grave, and I’m trying to keep you from it. That’s why I walked. My connection to you brings you even more danger!”
So now we were both yelling. Excellent. I slapped my hands on the table so hard, my palms stung and tingled and the cuffs jangled. “Maybe if someone would give me straight information instead of acting all mysterious and secretive, I wouldn’t get in so much ducking trouble! Maybe if that someone was a damn team player instead of pretending he didn’t need help, we could figure this out!”
Breathing hard, I stared him down, not caring that our noses were touching as we yelled back and forth. Not caring that the air all but crackled with tension as we yelled out our frustrations.
A growl slid from his lips, and a split second later, he dragged me across the table, into his arms, and I was kissing him back as hard as he was kissing me. The pull between us refused to listen to reason. The magic on his skin sung to my own and the fire of his touch lit up my body, burning away any thought of bruises or pain, burning away the hurt that he’d caused me by turning away from me after the fight. His mouth and all of him made me hot and twisted up, left me wishing there were a bed in the corner of the room with those soft sheets he favors that slithered over naked skin so very nicely.
No, I didn’t plan on letting him off the hook—at the very least, he owed me a better explanation—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to soak up the fiery kisses he planted on me, just in case . . .just in case there wasn’t another time.
Just in case the police had their way. That’s what I told myself.
Trust me, you wouldn’t have turned down the opportunity either.
Even so, I was the first to pull back, just enough so I could breathe. “You really hurt me, Crash. I’m not sure I’m ready to forgive you. You’re going to have to work for it.”
His hands smoothed down over my arms to take my fingers, and he stepped back, his chest rising and falling rapidly as if he couldn’t quite catch his breath. At least I wasn’t the only one so affected by this thing between us. “Shit. You’ve gotten under my skin and I was . . .you are . . . damn it, I can’t even talk properly.”
He didn’t let me go, but instead pulled me closer and set his chin on top of my head, his breath ruffling my hair. “I don’t want you to die, but trouble keeps finding you, or you keep finding it. I don’t know how I can keep you safe. . .” He trailed off and I looked up at him.
“Everyone dies, Crash. Maybe not you, because you’re fae, but everyone else dies. And me, I’m going to live full speed, foot on the pedal until that moment. Even if that moment is here and now.” I grabbed his face and kissed him hard even as Alan gagged in the background, muttering about kissing a troll.