putting on any pretense of contrition. “I didn’t know detective work included filling out speeding tickets.”
He gave a razorthin smile. “Where’s the fire?”
“Can I just get my ticket and go home?”
“Any alcohol in the car?”
“Have a look around,” I said, spreading my hands.
He opened the door for me. “Get out.”
“Why?”
“Get out” —he pointed at the dashed line bisecting the road— “and walk the line.”
“You think I’m drunk?”
“I think you’re crazy, but I’m checking your sobriety while I’ve got you here.”
I swung out and slammed the door shut behind me. “How far?”
“Until I tell you to stop.”
I concentrated on planting my feet on the line, but every time I looked down, my vision slanted. I could still feel the effects of the drug pecking away at my coordination, and the harder I concentrated on keeping my feet on the line, the more I felt myself swaying off into the road. “Can’t you just give me the ticket, slap my wrist, and send me home?” My tone was insubordinate, but I’d gone cold on the inside. If I couldn’t walk the line, Detective Basso might throw me in jail. I was already shaken, and I didn’t think I could handle a night behind bars. What if the man from the library came after me again?
“A lot of small-town cops would let you off the hook like that, sure. Some would even take a bribe. I’m not one of them.”
“Does it matter that I was drugged?”
He laughed darkly. “Drugged.”
“My ex-boyfriend gave me a card laced with perfume earlier tonight. I opened the card, and the next thing I knew, I passed out.”
When Detective Basso didn’t interrupt me, I pressed forward. “I slept for more than two hours. When I woke up, the library was closed. I was locked in the media lab. Someone had tied the doorknob….” I trailed off, closing my mouth.
He gestured for more. “Come on, now. Don’t leave me at that cliffhanger.”
I realized a moment too late that I’d just incriminated myself. I’d put myself at the library, tonight, in the media lab. First thing tomorrow, when the library opened, they were going to report the broken window to the police. And I had no doubt who Detective Basso would come looking for first.
“You were in the media lab,” he prompted. “What happened next?”
Too late to back out now. I’d have to finish and hope for the best. Maybe something I said would convince Detective Basso it wasn’t my fault—that everything I’d done was justified. “Someone had tied the door to the media lab shut. I threw a computer through the window to get out.”
He tipped his head back and laughed. “There’s a name for girls like you, Nora Grey. Crazy makers. You’re like the fly that nobody can shoo away.” He walked back to his patrol car and stretched the radio out the open driver’s-side door. Radioing dispatch, he said, “I need someone to swing by the library and check out the media lab. Let me know what you find.”
He leaned back against his car, eyes flicking to his watch. “How many minutes do you think it’ll take for them to get back to me? I’ve got your confession, Nora. I could book you for trespassing and vandalism.”
“Trespassing would imply I wasn’t
“If someone drugged you and trapped you in the lab, what are you doing here now, roaring down Hickory at fifty-five miles an hour?”
“I wasn’t supposed to get away. I broke out of the room while he was coming up the elevator to get me.”
“He? You saw him? Let’s have a description.”
“I didn’t see him, but it was a guy. His footsteps were heavy when he came down the stairwell after me. Too heavy for a girl.”
“You’re stammering. Usually that means you’re lying.”
“I’m not lying. I was tied in the lab, and someone was coming up the elevator to get me.”
“Right.”
“Who else would have been in the building that late?” I snapped.
“A janitor?” he offered easily.
“He wasn’t dressed like a janitor. When I looked up in the stairwell, I saw dark pants and dark tennis shoes.”
“So when I take you to court, you’re going to tell the judge you’re an expert on janitorial apparel?”
“The guy followed me out of the library, got into his car, and chased me. A janitor wouldn’t do that.”
The radio popped with static, and Detective Basso leaned inside for the receiver.
“Finished walking through the library,” a man’s voice crackled through the radio. “Nothing.”
Detective Basso cut cool, suspicious eyes to me. “Nothing? You sure?”
“I repeat: nothing.”
Detective Basso ripped the top sheet off his ticket pad and slapped it into my hand.
My eyes brushed over the balance at the bottom. “Two hundred and twenty-nine dollars?!”
“You were going thirty over and driving a car that doesn’t belong to you. Pay the fine, or I’ll see you in court.”
“I—I don’t have this kind of money.”
“Get a job. Maybe it’ll keep you out of trouble.”
“Please don’t do this,” I said, injecting all the pleading that I possessed into my voice.
Detective Basso studied me. “Two months ago a kid with no ID, no family, and no traceable past wound up dead in the high school gym.”
“Jules’s death was ruled a suicide,” I said automatically, but sweat tingled the back of my neck. What did this have to do with my ticket?
“The same night he disappeared, the high school counselor lit your house on fire, then did her own disappearing act. There’s a link between these two bizarre incidents.” His dark brown eyes pinned me in place. “You.”
“What are you saying?”
“Tell me what really happened that night, and I can make your ticket go away.”
“I don’t know what happened,” I lied, because there was no alternative. Telling the truth would leave me worse off than having to pay the ticket. I couldn’t tell Detective Basso about fallen angels and Nephilim. He’d never believe my story if I confessed that Dabria was an angel of death. Or that Jules was a descendant of a fallen angel.
“Your call,” Detective Basso said, flicking his business card at me before folding himself inside his car. “If you change your mind, you know how to reach me.”
I glanced at the card as he roared off. DETECTIVE ECANUS BASSO. 207-555-3333.
The ticket felt heavy in my hand. Heavy, and hot. How was I going to come up with two hundred dollars? I couldn’t borrow the money from my mom—she could barely afford groceries. Patch had the money, but I’d told him I could take care of myself. I’d told him to get out of my life. What did it say about me if I ran back to him the moment I hit trouble? It was admitting he’d been right all along.
It was admitting I needed him.
