officer, holding out a hand to grab his arm and help him up.
Cait snagged the bottle from the basket and went to the door. “Quickly, before he gets to thinking my threat was a little empty.”
“Not even gonna ask,” Sam muttered.
As fast as the two men could move with shambling steps, they made their way down the hallway to the elevator.
Eddie straightened when he saw them approach, his foot wedged against one side of the doors to hold the car open. His glance took in their odd appearance. “Almost decided you weren’t coming.”
“Good thing you waited,” she said, keeping her voice hard although the effort drained her.
Sam glared, his chest expanding as he realized who the man was. Then his head turned toward her. “You put your trust in him?”
“Gimme some credit. I threatened him with all my powers,” she said, waggling her eyebrows.
Sam groaned. “This time, your ass’ll be sore for a week.”
Eddie chuckled, standing aside with a hand holding the door as they passed.
When the three of them were in the car, he stepped back.
“Not coming with us?” she asked, solely out of politeness, because she knew she was going to have her hands full with explanations.
Eddie shrugged. “I feel a little safer here.” He leaned toward her, his gaze sweeping her head to toe with a lustful glint in his eyes. “Sure you don’t want to stay behind too?”
With a sudden push, Cait shoved his hand off the door. The doors whooshed closed to the sound of his laughter. She hit the button for the first floor.
The elevator shimmied downward. When next the doors opened, the view was of a quiet foyer.
Cait stepped out, glanced around, and then let out a relieved breath. Same shitty place she’d left.
A commotion sounded from the stairwell.
Leland slammed through the door, eyes wild, Jason on his heels.
When Leland spotted them, he stiffened and adjusted his tie. “See you found Sam.” His nose wrinkled. “They need to fumigate that third floor. Smell of rotten eggs comin’ out of the vents. And I’m not done with that TV crew. Get the footage. I don’t want anything more leakin’ out on YouTube.”
Cait nodded, realizing they were back to the moments after the room had filled with noxious fumes and she’d lost sight of Sam. Back to the horrible moment—but with a much happier outcome. Her throat tightened.
Leland didn’t know he’d shown her his softer side. No one knew that Sam had died. Maybe Morin would, from his timeless shop. Only she understood how close they’d all come to a terrible, permanent loss.
Her heart throbbed, which meant Sam wouldn’t remember their encounter in Morin’s bedroom loft.
Well, damn. Back to square one. And with the gleam of retribution burning in his gaze, she guessed she was lucky all he wanted was a pound of flesh. Or to pound hers, anyway.
In anticipation, her bottom winced.
“This thing over?” Sam asked, eyeing the bottle in her hand.
Cait held it up. The goo inside was moving. Still alive. “I’m not sure where to dispose of this.”
“I’m assuming… demon?” At her nod, he asked, “Want it in the office safe?”
Sitting in the safe right beside the pail where another demon was trapped in silvery splinters of glass? She’d have to get with Morin to figure out how best to safely get rid of the remnants. She’d been too busy to get rid of the first demon.
“You two heading to O’Malley’s to celebrate?” Jason asked.
Sam rubbed his naked chest. “I need a shirt.”
A slow grin stretched Cait’s mouth. “I think I can rustle up something.”
19
Sam leveled a deadly glare on Cait, who hadn’t stopped smirking since they’d taken their seats at O’Malley’s. He rolled his shoulders one at a time, trying to stretch his new garment. The Reel PIs T-shirt fit snug across his chest.
He pretended annoyance at her amusement, but inside he couldn’t be happier. They’d both come through the dangerous crisis. Cait had vanquished yet another demon, and they were both alive to celebrate that fact, something he didn’t think he’d ever take for granted again. He’d come close, and remembered the dread certainty he’d felt the moment he’d been jerked through the hallway, tethered by a lightning bolt burning around his wrist.
He held out his hand. Not a mark on his arm. Just sunburned skin that looked like he’d spent a little too much time in a tanning bed.
Pauly slid glasses of ice-filled cola across the table. “Anything else I can bring you?” he asked, eyeing Sam’s red face. “Some aloe vera?”
Sam gave him a grumpy glare, and Pauly strode away, chuckling.
Cait sat beside her Sam, her body snuggled as close as she could manage without sitting in his lap. She’d been clingy ever since they’d left the hotel, unwilling to let him out of her sight. Not that he minded. When she’d scooted close, he’d lifted his arm to bring her in. He needed the tactile reassurance she was unharmed. He didn’t care that they had an audience.
Jason and Leland were crammed together in the opposite bench seat, Leland having been a last-minute addition to their party.
Sam had been surprised, Leland shocked, when Cait had strode over to Leland and leaned up to give his cheek a kiss and offer him the invitation to join them.
“Couldn’t have done it without your help,” she’d said, although neither he nor Leland understood the comment.
Still, he appreciated the opportunity to relax. Nice to breathe in the familiar scents of the bar.
“Really need to do something with your hair, Cait,” Jason said, waggling his eyebrows.
Her hair was poofy again, lifting a couple of inches off her scalp.
Sam grinned, relieved they’d all managed to get out of the hotel alive. He shuddered at the memory of the stinging lightning lash pulling him through a dark, crowded hole. When he’d landed sprawled on the floor along with the officer, he’d been unable to move, rigid with shock.
The unlikely sight of his ex-wife standing behind Lewis and his doppelganger demon had caused his heart to seize for just a moment. Confusion and fear cleared as he realized they hadn’t seen her and that she had a plan, although waving a wine bottle hadn’t seemed like a brilliant one at first.
Cait, hair lifting with the static crackling in the air, had seemed like a superhero, nearly fearless, until he’d heard the tension in her voice and noted the whites of her eyes were large in her face.
So Cait had at least an ounce of self-preservation. She’d been scared to death.
Cait squeezed Sam’s hand right back, not pausing in her retelling of
“There were two Lewises. I didn’t know that fact until the other one crawled out of the vortex. One young, one older. I don’t know if they were halves of the same demon, his past and future selves, or whether they were father and son.” Her hand waved. “Doesn’t much matter, I guess. They’re in pretty snug quarters now. I was a little afraid that part of them might still be attached to the walls, but I think once they were both trapped in the bottle, with that vortex closed behind them, I got everything.”
“No chance of them popping the cork?” Jason asked, staring at the wine bottle sitting in the center of their table.
