And there it is. The guilt.
“You know I was talking to your husband the other day,” he adds, going toward the door.
“Dex?” I blink at him in surprise.
“Do you have another husband I should know about?”
“What did you guys talk about?” I hated to ask, but obviously Dex never told me anything. The last I heard is that he was going to call Harry about when we could come back and finish the job.
“Not too much, just that on the seventeenth it’s going to be a new moon. Perfect time to do shadow work and come back and finish what you started.”
The seventeenth? That was my birthday.
“Really? That makes it that much more interesting,” Atlas says.
I frown. What the fuck? “What are you talking about?”
“It’s your birthday.”
I freeze. Don’t tell me that for the second time today, someone else has heard my thoughts.
Atlas gives me another smirk and then taps his finger on his temple. “Who else heard your thoughts today?”
My heart thuds against my ribs, and I quickly shut my eyes, steeling myself, building walls around my mind. Normally I do it instinctively but apparently not today.
“It’s okay,” he says, raising his palm. “I won’t pry. You’re just such an open book, Perry.”
Okay, that’s another thing I don’t like about this guy. The fact that he acts like he knows me when he doesn’t know me at all.
“Look,” he says, putting his hand on the door. “Why don’t you come inside. You say your friend is here, then maybe he is. Maybe you can speak to him.”
I can barely swallow, my body awash with cold pin pricks as he slowly opens the front door, and I get a glimpse of the black, fathomless void beyond. The same pull I got earlier is back, tugging at me, like all my molecules are loose inside me, being vacuumed into the abyss.
“No,” I say quickly, turning around so my back is to him and the house. My fists are balled up, nails digging into my palms, sweat mixing with my wet hair at the base of my neck. “It was just in my head. There was no one there.”
“You sure about that?”
I nod but I don’t turn around. I don’t dare turn around. I feel Atlas’ eyes burning into my back as I go down the steps and to the curb where Putt-Putt is resting. I grab my helmet and slip it on, just as another text from Dex beeps in my pocket. I’m mad as hell at him for talking to Atlas behind my back, but right now I just want to get home where I feel safe.
I get on my bike and ride off down the street. It takes all my willpower not to look over my shoulder at the house. It takes a bit before I feel the darkness at my back weaken.
It’s not far of a ride to the apartment, but even though the rain has stopped, I’m so cold I’m shaking. I park the bike in the garage underneath the building and then I’m in the elevator, trying to get my emotions under control. I take a deep breath, trying to expand my chest like my spin instructor tells me to do all the time.
I’m almost at the door when it flings open and Dex is staring at me, wide-eyed, worried, and breathless.
“Where the fuck have you been?!”
I just raise my hand to shut him up and slip past him into the apartment. “I took a detour.”
He shuts the door behind us and looks me over, shaking his head. “Look at you. You’re soaked. Why didn’t you wait for me to pick you up? I texted you.”
“I know,” I tell him, peeling off the leather jacket which is sticking to my gray sweater underneath. Ugh, so uncomfortable. “I didn’t get your text until I was almost home.”
He takes the jacket from me and hangs it up, then grabs my hands, holding them as his eyes search the corners of my face. “Are you okay?” He pauses. “For a moment I thought you really did run off with her.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes. Every single time I come back from seeing Dr. Leivo, he asks if I’m about to divorce him and run off with my hot psychologist.
It’s then that I remember I’m kind of mad at him.
I take my hands out of his and gather my wet hair behind me, quickly putting it in a loose braid. “Why didn’t you tell me that you’ve been in contact with Atlas Poe?”
Dex is pretty good at lying when he’s had time to prepare for it. When I first met him, I felt like I was just unearthing lie after carefully crafted lie. But when he’s caught on the spot, I can see through him pretty well.
He stares at me, the dark brown of his irises glinting in surprise. His mouth opens for a moment before the words come out. “How did you know?”
“I’ll tell you how I know once you tell me why you kept that from me.”
He nods and slowly runs his hand over the thick stubble on his jaw, a beard-in-progress. “Because I didn’t have an answer for him. I wanted to talk to you about it.”
“Talk about what exactly?”
I walk over to the couch where Fat Rabbit is having his afternoon snooze, and sit down, unlacing my combat boots. I glance up at Dex, who is still standing by the door, his brain working overtime. For fuck’s sake, if I wanted to I could try and get the answers from him. I’d just rather not.
As if he heard me, he walks over to me and crouches down, his fingers wrapping over mine, pushing them aside. He starts to unlace my boots for me.
“I told you I wanted us to go back, right?” he says, glancing up at me, his dark brows set low. “With the camera. You agreed to it. Said it didn’t feel right taking the money for what little we did. So obviously I got in touch with him through Harry.”
“Uh huh. And then?”
He finishes one boot and then pulls it off my foot before starting on the next. “And then I talked to him and he suggested the night of the new moon.”
“That’s my birthday.”
“I know, kiddo,” he says patiently. “For whatever reason, I didn’t feel like telling him that. Felt too…personal. I told him I’d talk to you about it. I swear I was going to.”
“When?”
“Tonight?”
I glare at him. Likely story. I know him. He was going to spring this all on me the day of my birthday, somehow pretend this was part of the celebration.
He winces as he looks back at me, either reading my thoughts or getting them from my body language. “So,” he says slowly, undoing the last of the laces and slipping the boot off. “Do I dare ask how you knew all this? Got it from my brain?”
“I ran into Mr. Poe.”
His brows shoot up as he places my boot on the floor. “Where? Wait. Don’t tell me. Edgar Allan Fuck goes to the same shrink you do.”
I shake my head, looking down at my hands. “It was at his house.”
Silence.
I dare to look at Dex. He’s staring at me, completely dumbfounded. “I don’t understand. His house? Like his real house or…?”
“The one on Seneca Street. The haunted house.”
His frown deepens. “You went there? Why?”
I shake my head as I get off the couch and head toward the bedroom. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.” I grab the hem of my wet tunic and start peeling it off. I need a hot bath ASAP.
Naturally Dex is right behind me. “What happened? Tell me everything.”