“Wait a minute,” she said, leaning over the table that wired strength back. “I’m not the one who committed a crime. I didn’t kill anyone. I stumbled onto a story, followed a source, and have clearly found something that’s more than what it seems.
“Don’t matter, Katherine-”
“Kit.”
“What?”
“My name is Kit. Only my family calls me Katherine.”
Grif tapped out a smoke. “They could call you Howdy Doody for all I care. You’re still marked for death.”
She fell back at that, and Grif sighed. Too harsh. And too knowing. But he needed her to wise up, and fast. “I’m talking about the squiggly your friend drew in that notebook. Whoever killed her, whoever attacked you, saw it. It made you a target.”
“Then there’s something to it.” She lifted her chin.
“Look, I’ve seen this before. You want to change your future? You gotta change it now. In this case, alter everything about yourself.” The memory of the dooming plasma circling her ankles revisited him. It was gone for now, but he imagined it roaming outside like a wolf, searching for a way back in.
But Kit shook her head. “My life is here.”
He shrugged. “Not much longer.”
“That a threat, Mr. Shaw?”
“It’s Grif,” he said, slumping. “Only my family called me Mr. Shaw.”
“Cute.” She made a face, then crossed her arms. “But I’m not leaving. I’m going to get answers for Nic. I need to find out who killed her, why, and I’m going to make them pay for my busted door. Nobody enters my house without invitation,” she said, and looked pointedly at him.
Grif didn’t want to look impressed, but it was hard with her staring him down, tough and determined-looking. Like a lion-tamer. Like she’d said… cute.
“Guess I’ll stick around then, too,” he finally said, lifting his cup. He tried to sound spontaneous, but it was a decision he’d come to in the deep, lonely night. He couldn’t save her just to allow her to die later.
“I don’t even know you,” she snapped, as if wielding a whip.
“You didn’t know me last night, either. And you still don’t know who attacked you.”
She frowned. “You think they’ll be back?”
“You think they’ve left?” he said, and she winced again. Best to be straight, though. She needed facts. Facts were bricks. Maybe she could build herself a wall with them, too, one tall and wide and strong enough to keep her alive when he was gone. Knowing Sarge, that would be soon.
Which brought him to the other thing he’d decided in the long hours where no one on either the Surface or in the skies had been talking to him. Sarge and company had stripped him of his celestial powers, leaving him only with the tools to sense impending death. They’d dumped him here as a freak-neither Centurion nor mortal-with holes in his memory and orders to watch a fated murder.
But Grif had altered fate, and not with wings, but fists. With the part of him that had free will. The part that
So Grif had decided to block out his death senses, temporarily ignore his angelic side, and use whatever remaining time he had on this mudflat to take care of a little business. A murder that had been haunting him for decades.
“Ah, here comes the catch,” Kit said, studying his face.
“No catch. I just need help with an old case I’m trying to solve. A double murder.”
“And?”
“And you’re a reporter.” And the case was so cold it had frostbite. It would be hard enough for him to get records, reports, and access to eyewitness accounts with no resources or contacts. But with all the newfangled electronics, it was damned near impossible. Still, as long as he was camping out on the mud, why not take a look?
“And you’re a hardened P.I.,” she replied coolly. “Why don’t you lone-wolf your way to the answer?”
“Because it happened here. In Vegas. And I’ve been away a little while.” He showed teeth as he answered, causing fear to move behind her gaze. Good. She should be a little afraid. “Besides, I need some help getting around.”
“What? No car?”
He lifted a shoulder. “That, and I get kinda…”
“What was that?” she said, leaning forward.
He pushed his cup away. “I said I get turned around.”
Craig leaned back, and smiled. So much for being afraid. “A man who admits to being bad with directions.” She inclined her head, like that was the deciding factor. “I guess I can help.”
She could. Because he’d done more than watched her during the night. He’d also gone through her house. He’d found awards for journalism through high school, college, and even a national one for investigative reporting. He’d found old photo albums with newspaper clippings linking her to the paper she worked for now, one that her great- somebody had started decades earlier. That’s how he knew she’d have money if she wanted to flee, and sources if she wanted to stay.
And if Craig-or Kit-stuck around, then Grif would, too.
Besides, why shouldn’t he have the answers to questions that’d stalked him on both sides of the grave?
What had happened in the hours leading up to his death?
Who killed his Evie?
Kit rose, placed her coffee cup on the pink Formica counter, then turned to address him from the kitchen doorway. “We’ll start with this circled name, and my office.”
“So we have a deal?”
She gave a short nod, and pulled her robe tight. “It’s a Saturday, so it’ll be relatively quiet. We’ll take my car.”
“That fancy foreign number?”
“How did you know that?” She drew back.
Grif cleared his throat, along with his damned mortal mind, and shrugged. “It’s not exactly a subtle machine. Fact, you might want to ditch it for something less showy.”
“I’m not leaving my car,” Kit replied coolly. “Wait here while I go change.”
Grif decided against telling her to pick something she’d want to be seen dead in, and watched her go, admiring her fragile yet aggressive sway, before rising for more coffee.
Today was the first day of the rest of his life. He could use another cup of joe.
Chapter Eight
As might be expected of a reporter, Kit had a knack for words. She noticed nuance and inflection, valuing precision in word choice and crispness of tone. Griffin Shaw didn’t enunciate half of what he should, she picked that up right away, letting his gerunds and suffixes fall away so that if she were writing them, she’d have to use a lot of apostrophes.
But she wasn’t writing them down, and that only partly because she was driving. Instead she kept catching herself gazing over at him, specifically at his full bottom lip when he spoke, his voice lodged deeply in his throat, as if only escaping reluctantly to take flight in the air. He was not a man overly fond of chitchat. Yet she liked it when he did speak. His voice was like gravel rolling around inside a buckskin pouch, and well-suited to his languid watchfulness, the half-lidded gaze, the wide-legged slump. He was like a lion in repose, his strength quiet and coiled until it was needed.
