The Taken

She was still wondering this when she saw something that had her doing so anyway. “What the hell happened?” The panic she felt earlier returned, its strength surprising her, but there was dried blood on one side of his wide neck and face. She looked down, and grabbed his hand. It was there, too.

“I got shot at by a tommy gun. Only hit cement, but the cement hit me.”

Gut still kicking, she shot him a look, and cupped the back of his neck. He pulled back, but she held tight, pushing his head to the side. “I’m not kidding, Grif. You’re bleeding.”

He put a tentative hand to his neck. His fingertips brushed up against hers, held for one charged moment, then slid away. “That is strange.”

He looked a little unsteady as he backed away, lifting his hat to run a hand over his head, and swaying slightly on his feet. It made Kit want to touch the untouchable again. Instead she wrapped her arms around her middle. “Sure you’re okay?”

“Fine,” he said, resettling his hat before jerking his chin at her. “Your hair looks… different.”

“Thank you.” She accepted it as a compliment, even with the accompanying nose wrinkle. “I feel better.”

Grif shoved his hands into his pockets. “You look like Tonga Lily, but without the English subtitles.”

Kit beamed. “I’m impressed. Not many people know their Mexican film history so well, even among us billies.”

There was that nose wrinkle again, followed by a frown that Kit had to fight not to reach out and try to stroke from his face. He wouldn’t like that, she thought, and it worried her slightly that in spite of knowing it, she still wished to do so. Clearing her throat, she pitched her voice higher. “I got a chance to talk to Fleur about Nic, too.”

“Guess that’s why you really needed to go there.” He gave that hard squint from beneath the brim of his hat again, but this time he nodded. Kit realized it was his way of apologizing and she nodded back, happy to accept it.

“Nic’s funeral isn’t until Wednesday, but the gang is getting together tonight to celebrate her life. We’re going to give her a proper rockabilly send off. She’d like that.”

Grif’s eyes met hers. “Want me to be there?”

“Of course,” she said, realizing she did. She still had reservations about his sudden appearance in her life-her house-but not as many as she had about going it alone. Besides, “My friends will love you.”

“Yes, I’m very lovable.”

Another apology. She laughed, and felt better. One corner of his mouth quirked up, too, and for one dizzying moment they stared. He broke first, and Kit cleared her throat. “Warning, though. My peeps are nosy. They’ll ask questions, prod. Relentlessly.”

“So they’re like you?”

“A lot like us both, I think.” She took a step forward, and this time she did reach out, touching his arm. “Look, I’m sorry about before-”

“No, I am-”

Kit shook her head, silencing him. “I was thinking about it. I took a minute to put myself in your… well, that woman’s, Evelyn’s, position-which, in the end, is the exact same as my Nic’s-and I decided that if I were her? I’d want to know who killed me.”

Grif fell very still. “You would?”

“Yes.” Kit nodded. “I’d want to know why. Why my death was fated to come early, why my life was cut short. Who killed me? What happened to those I left behind?” She lifted a shoulder. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“What?”

“I said, yes.” He cleared his throat, squinting off into the sky. “Though some say it doesn’t matter. Anything we need to know, we’ll discover in due time. The rest is not for us.”

“Oh, I know those types.”

Grif kept his gaze turned upward. “I doubt you know these types.”

“But I do,” Kit protested. “They came out of the woodwork after each of my parents died, especially my father. Said things like ‘let it go’ and ‘it won’t hurt so much with time’ and ‘you need to move on.’ ”

Grif’s expression darkened at that. Scar tissue, Kit thought. Only loss could put that look on someone’s face. Yet it wasn’t a look that’d ever fit Kit, despite her losses. Even now, even after what happened to Nic, she still had a need to believe that most people, that most of life, was good. That belief was a sort of strength, too.

“Forgive and forget,” she said, trying to lighten his mood. “That’s the Christian way, right?”

“Something like that,” he said, tone noncommittal. More danger, she thought. More complication.

More to discover.

“Well, if I were Nic,” she said, squaring her shoulders, “or your Evelyn, I’d want someone to get those answers. I’d hope that someone would stick around and remember me like that.”

Grif surprised her then by stepping forward and placing his own hand on her arm, and when she looked into his eyes, she was further surprised. They weren’t hard after all. On the contrary, the blue irises practically pulsed with pain. “You really should run, Ms. Craig.”

She blinked, taken aback by the earnest whisper. She didn’t doubt he’d seen things she hadn’t, but this was different. This was like he knew something she didn’t.

“I’ve been visited by death before, Mr. Shaw,” she said, and for some reason that made him flinch and swallow hard. “I told you before, I’m a newswoman, and not as a vocation. As a way of life. I can make a difference in the lives of total strangers. Why wouldn’t I do the same for myself? For Nic?”

“Because it’s dangerous.”

Kit shook her head. “I know myself, and I need to find out who did this if I’m ever to have true peace.”

“Enroll in a pottery class,” he said, dropping his arm. “Inner peace is one clay ashtray away.”

Her arm burned where he’d touched her, but she ignored it and lifted her chin. “The questions that remain after someone close to you dies don’t die with them. I don’t care what the armchair preachers say, there’s no real forgive-and-forget because you can’t ever forget. But you already know that, don’t you, Grif?” When he didn’t answer, Kit offered up a small smile. “She’s lucky to have you, you know. Your Evelyn.”

He blinked a handful of times, like he was having trouble bringing her into focus, then softly corrected, “Evie.”

“Oh. That’s pretty.” Kit smiled, though some baser emotion moved oddly in her belly. Someone should speak her name so gently, she thought, then cleared her throat. “Well, you might be happy to know that I did some work while I was in Fleur’s chair. Your Evie’s case went cold because there were no leads, except for one. Her husband.”

“What?”

Kit pulled out her smart phone, and scrolled until she found the notes she’d taken. “His name was Griffin, too. Your grandfather, I presume?”

Grif really did sway at that, putting a hand to his forehead, pressing like he was trying to still spinning thoughts. “Um…”

“He went missing after Evie died. Never seen again.” She looked down. “How old would that guy be now, anyway? Eighty-three?”

“Eighty-four,” Grif said quietly.

Abruptly, the phone rang again in Kit’s hand. She opened her mouth, prepared to curse at Paul’s insistent image again, but to her surprise, Marin’s avatar popped up on her screen. “Tell me,” she said, signaling to Grif to hold on.

“Got a hit.”

She smiled and gave Grif a thumbs-up. “So hit me.”

“Ran a search on our boy Schmidt, got a little more on his prior infractions. That’s already waiting in your inbox, but it’s mostly just specifics on what we already knew. Surprise, surprise, he was once named a suspect in a domestic violence charge, though his girlfriend dropped charges almost as soon as she’d filed them. Guess what she did after that.”

“Went poof?” Kit said.

The affirmation was in Marin’s tone. “I’m looking into it, but the main issue now is that the man seems to have