Max quickly reached her, reached a hand out, and placed it on her shoulder.
Immediately, I felt scandalized. Some part of my stupid brain suggested Max should only show familiarity like that around me. I quickly stifled that thought, crammed my hands into my pockets, tilted my head back, and forced myself to ask, “what are you talking about?”
The woman frowned as she looked from me to Max. “You told me she volunteered to help?”
It was my turn to frown. It was as deep as Max’s frown as he shot me a commanding look. “She did. Now, Sarah Anne,” he returned his attention to the woman, “did you bring it?”
Jealousy aside, my stomach suddenly dropped, and my heart stilled.
There was no faking the sorrow that flickered deep in Sarah Anne’s gaze.
She clutched her hands together and rung them tightly, almost as if she were trying to pull her fingers from their joints. “There’s nothing we can do. We can’t stop him. We don’t know where he is, where he operates from. It’s just,” she clamped her teeth together as she tried but failed to stop herself from breaking down. Tears gushed from her eyes, streaking her cheeks.
Max was by her side in an instant, clutching that same supporting hand on her shoulder.
She leaned into it and offered him a smile.
Though maybe my jealous brain should have picked up on that smile, instead I went with the compassion swelling in my heart. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I muttered. I’d never been particularly good at offering my condolences. Sure, I had practiced lines, I’d even practiced my expression. After all, people didn’t just come to fortune tellers to find out when they were going to get their next date. Often, it was because of loss.
Sometimes you had to fake your condolences. Now I didn’t. Because you could tell how raw Sarah’s loss was. It paled her cheeks, hunched her shoulders, and made her look several inches shorter.
“Oh, here it is.” She thrust a hand into her pocket and drew something out quickly. It was a crumpled-up photo. As soon as I saw it, my compassion kind of twisted around and slapped me.
I couldn’t forget why I was here, right?
Up until now, I’d been masterfully hiding from the reality of the situation. Now it reached forward and punched me in the gut.
I was here to investigate another murder. No, scratch that – murders.
I think my cheeks paled until they threatened to drop off.
Sarah Anne ticked her questioning gaze towards Max, and he nodded towards me.
She handed me the photo. I didn’t accept it. I wasn’t being deliberately rude, it’s just that my survival instinct was finally kicking into gear. Yeah, so I’d inadvertently solved the Farley murders, but that had been through pure luck and pure grit. Who the heck did I think I was that I could help with these murders? And, more to the point, why would I want to? I didn’t have any responsibility—
I didn’t get the chance to finish that thought. Suddenly Max was beside me, practically growling into my ear.
I jerked forward and grabbed the photo off Sarah. Big mistake. I didn’t even have to look at it. As soon as my fingers brushed up against the plastic paper, I felt a charge crackle off it and shift hard into my palm. It was an entirely unpleasant, foreboding, ominous sensation.
The last week of relative quiet had lulled me into a false sense of calm and security. As soon as I clutched that photo, the security exploded with a bang. All at once, I was reminded of how awful it had been to endure the vision of that woman dying at the hands of Farley. I was reminded of the terror of those darklings climbing the window to get to me. I remembered the awful, visceral sensation of my visions slamming and tearing through my mind.
So what did I do?
I dropped the photo. My fingers just opened, and I jerked back.
You should have seen Sarah Anne’s face – it went from one of controlled hope, to complete confusion.
She leaned down to pick the photo up, possibly thinking that I’d simply accidentally dropped it as if somehow the light plastic paper had been too heavy for me or something.
Max didn’t give her the opportunity to pluck the photo off the dusty floor. He leaned down, grabbed it up, and though he’d been several meters away, somehow he pushed up right next to me. He looked deep into my eyes and judged me with the full force of his fury. “You agreed to help,” he reminded in a soft, quiet, barely audible tone that was clearly designed not to carry to Sarah Anne.
Had I, really? I’d agreed to go out with him and do some simple investigations. I hadn’t agreed to meet with this woman and have her hand me a photo of one of the dead. Max had planned this. Every step of the way. He’d obviously organized this meeting with Sarah Anne, as she’d been waiting here for us. But had he shared a word of that with me? Of course not. So this asshole could go to hell.
I pushed away from him, heading for the door. I didn’t get a chance to reach it.
Max reached out and stopped me. Leaning in right by my ear, he hissed, “You agreed to help, and you’re going to help. Have you forgotten the curse?” Despite the fact Max had a truly deep, vibrating, powerful voice, now it was restrained. Quiet, barely a whisper, one that certainly couldn’t carry beyond me and wasn’t designed to.
Despite the fact it was artificially, creepily soft, my back crawled with nerves. A smart girl would have walked away without another word. Me? I clenched my teeth.
