Almost dead.
I have to call the police, I have to call, I have to…
But she couldn’t move. Why couldn’t she move?
And then, suddenly, she was at her car. Grif was rummaging in her purse; wide, strong fingers jerking at the delicate cloth. He found the phone, dialed, then he took her face in his wide, warm hands.
“Look at me.” His hands were so hot they almost burned her cheeks, and she felt fevered as she stared into his face. “I’ll take care of this. Get in the car. Stay warm. I’ll need to see if I can…”
Help, he was going to say. He was going back in there to help Paul.
Kit nodded, a motion that seemed to unlock her teeth. They began an uncontrollable chatter.
“Help will be here soon, and we’ll show them the text. It’ll all be…”
He was going to say “okay.” She saw the words forming… and saw them melt away. That’s when the thought that’d been chasing her since Nic’s death finally caught up, and when it hit her, it wrapped its unrelenting grip around her heart, and began to squeeze.
It was never going to be okay again.
Chapter Eighteen
Paul died before the cops even arrived. But the first police officer on the scene, Dennis, was an obvious friend, and he folded Kit into his body like he was the one with wings. He also told Kit what Grif couldn’t, that it was all going to be okay, and snapped at his partner, a Detective Hitchens, telling him to take a walk, though he glanced at Grif when he said it. Grif nodded once, then hung back as Dennis swung Kit around. She needed an old friend right now, not him. He’d let the officer get her settled, warm her up, and calm her down, then rejoin them later.
But the wail that Kit had let out upon seeing Paul’s mutilated body followed him as he disappeared back into the dark. It’d sounded brittle and ruined, like something had fractured inside of the woman. And while she might not yet be able to accept her ex-husband’s death, Grif knew she was already blaming herself for it.
So, hugging the high property wall, he surveyed the white brick to see if there was an easy point of entry to return to the barn. His impromptu plan was to hop it and approach from the back. If Paul’s charming personality held true to form, his Centurion might still be arguing with him over his passage into the Everlast. It sometimes happened, even when the newly deceased wasn’t a total heel.
Grif found a delivery gate about a third of the way along the wall, but it was padlocked, and the lawn beyond it dark. Neither deterred Grif, and he crossed the sprawling estate in a silence so absolute even the horses couldn’t hear him. From this angle he could see what he’d missed before. A carriage house sat only yards away, white and pristine under the full moon. That’s where he’d drag a reluctant soul if he couldn’t convince it to leave before the police came. Some Centurions let the souls squat near their own remains while the police and medical examiners did their thing, but he’d found the medical jargon and black humor either depressed or angered the dead. So he liked to draw them away, if possible.
Yet his approach to the carriage house stalled when a throat was cleared directly behind him. It was the cop who’d been eyeing Kit and him from the patrol car, the one Dennis had called Hitchens.
“Going somewhere?” The steel-lined voice belied the thumbs tucked casually in his front pockets.
“I’m with Kit,” Grif tried, wondering if her friendship with Dennis extended to his partner.
Those thumbs twitched and Grif knew that it didn’t. “I know.”
Since Hitchens had the look of someone who wanted a chase, Grif joined the man on the darkened lawn, pulled out his Luckies, and let one flare in the dark.
Hitchens decided to chase anyway.
“We’ve been keeping tabs on that weirdo. She was present at the scene of a murder. Two, now.” He raised his dark brows like he expected Grif to elaborate.
“She wasn’t present here.”
“She is now.”
“Right.” Grif nodded, as if mulling that over. “Well, keep up the good work, Detective.”
Then he headed toward the barn.
“You can’t go in there,” Hitchens called after him.
Grif turned and looked at him like he was crazy. “Why would I want to go in there? There’s a dead body in there.”
But their voices would have driven away any Centurion in the carriage house, even if Paul had to be dragged kicking and cursing into the Everlast. On to Plan C. Slowly, staring into the bushes and night-shrouded trees, Grif headed to the rear of the barn, well clear of the chaos.
“What are you doing?” Hitchens wasn’t going to let up, which was fine. Grif hadn’t expected him to.
“Looking.”
“For?”
“Doves.”
“Doves?”
He spared the man a glance. “You know, little birdies? Feathered symbols of peace and purity.”
Hitchens’s expression soured further.
Grif almost smiled. “Mourning doves in particular, though a white one will do in a pinch.”
Hitchens placed his hands on his hips. “It’s the dead of night at the ass-end of winter.”
“I know,” Grif replied, and turned back to the nearby bushes. “Should make ’em very easy to spot.”
Okay, so he was just messing with the guy now. Yet Guardians didn’t exactly play it straight, either. Most of the angels in that tribe appeared to their assigned mortal soul in the form of those sweet, winged messengers of peace, thus most people couldn’t spot the celestial heralds if one dropped a turd on their heads. Grif, though, knew how to look. If a Guardian had been here, then Paul Raggio’s death had been preventable. If not, that meant it was long predestined that he would die today, and Grif wouldn’t be held accountable.
So he worked his way across the lawn, the individual blades still illuminated by the remaining angelic strength in his cornea. He scoured the ragweed and underbrush while Hitchens followed a short distance behind. “See one yet?”
“Nope,” Grif said, ignoring the man’s scorn.
“And what does that mean, Sherlock?”
Grif turned so abruptly he actually startled the man, who’d gotten too close. Hitchens took a large step back, covering the uncertainty in the gesture by placing his hands on his hips. Grif, though, stepped forward and stared him straight in the eye. “It means the heavens are closed. It means the angels have abandoned mortals to our folly. It means Raggio doesn’t get a fast pass through the Pearly Gates.”
“That right?” Hitchens gave an indulgent smile. “Well, I doubt that’s where the guy was headed anyway.”
Grif lifted a brow. “What makes you say that?”
Something slithered behind Hitchens’s gaze, but was gone before Grif could name it. “People who die with their bowels falling from their bodies usually aren’t Boy Scouts,” Hitchens said, watching Grif carefully. He shouldn’t have told Grif that, but he was after a reaction. And something more. “Besides, the kid was a lawyer. He’s probably already taking briefs for the damned.”
Grif gave the surrounding darkness a final visual sweep. “Nah. There is no hell. Mortals who have proven themselves unfit for Paradise have to join the Third.”
“The Third?” Hitchens asked, mouth immediately turning down.
“That’s the percentage of the angelic host who followed Lucifer in mutiny against God.”
Hitchens’s lost swagger turned into outright contempt. “What are you? The resident Jesus freak?”
Grif told himself to stop talking. He should return to Kit and try to console her. He should save his voice for
