Living with the Dead - By Kelley Armstrong Page 0,126

one that sounded suspiciously like . . .

He was laughing.

Hope gasped, mouth opening and closing, nothing going in or out.

“Shallow breaths.” He withdrew his arm. “It’ll come back. And, no, I’m not going to apologize for hitting you that hard. Never go easy on allies if you have to take them down. Especially allies. You’re already fighting the urge not to hurt them. Counteract that and hit them with everything you’ve got.”

She stared as he talked, calmly twisted in his seat, hand on the wheel, lecturing her as if they were still cruising along, talking about how to tail a car. When her fingers edged toward the door, he pressed the electronic lock.

“I know what you’re thinking, Hope. I said I’m going to make the Cabal believe I want revenge for Colm’s death, and you’re wondering if that’s exactly what I want, that I’m saying it to throw you off track. I don’t think I have a single operative who would see that far ahead, and I’ve trained them to always be on the lookout for a trick. I’m impressed.”

She kept staring.

“First-rate survival instincts.” He leaned toward her. “Does that come from having demon blood? Or a professional thief boyfriend?”

She said nothing.

“Either way, I’m impressed. You can never be too paranoid, Hope. That’s what I meant about coming down as hard on allies as on enemies. It doesn’t matter whether you work for the council, a Cabal or on your own. Never trust that your allies won’t turn on you, and never presume your enemies can’t be turned to help you.”

He checked the rearview mirror. “Good. They’ve seen us. It’ll be obvious something happened, maybe you tried to escape, which will support the story.”

He cranked the wheel away from the curb, then accelerated. “It is a story, Hope. Yes, I want revenge against the person responsible for my son’s death, but that person isn’t you. You tried to stop it. In your place, I would have done the same. So it’s not you I’m after.”

“Adele.”

He slowed near the medical center, checking for police before turning into the lot. “Neala—his mother—tried to warn me about Adele. I’ve been gone since Colm was two. I stayed away. That was the deal.” Silence as he circled the lot. “But Neala kept in touch, let me know how he was doing. Then, last year, she called me in a fury. She’d caught Adele and Colm making out.”

“How old is Adele?”

“Exactly Neala’s point. You get it. I didn’t. Maybe as a guy all I could think was that, at his age, I’d have been in heaven if a nineteen-year-old came on to me. Like Neala, I suppose you see the problem. It’s fine for a fourteen-year-old to fantasize, but for a young woman to reciprocate . . .”

“Something’s wrong.”

“Which is what Neala said. I knew it wasn’t normal, but the kumpania is very insular. Adele wouldn’t have a lot of options for a sexual outlet. Maybe she was immature for nineteen. Maybe Colm was mature for fourteen. I made excuses and chalked up Neala’s reaction to a mother’s jealousy.” He paused a moment, then jackrabbited into a spot, slamming on the brakes hard enough to smack her forward, ribs aching.

“Stay put,” he said as he opened the door. “We need to make a good show of this, in case they’re already watching.”

ROBYN

Robyn sat on the ambulance tailgate as the paramedic checked her eyes. He hadn’t looked at her shoulder. He didn’t know he needed to.

Robyn had made a deal with Detective Findlay. If he was going to find Adele, he needed her help, and he wasn’t getting it by dumping her in a hospital room. So she wouldn’t mention the shoulder and he’d pretend not to know about it.

He hadn’t liked that, his blue-green eyes cranking up the frosty blue, his square jaw getting squarer. But she was right and, as she pointed out, it was her safety, therefore her decision. He hadn’t liked that either, his look saying that, as a murder suspect, she didn’t have that right, but he was too polite to say so.

He reminded her of the cops they used to send to her school, parading them as proof that Officer Friendly really was friendly. Robyn wasn’t so sure friendly was the word she’d use to describe Detective Findlay. Just . . . courteous, which was more than she deserved, after pulling a gun on him and ranting about werewolves and demons.

As Robyn looked around, Detective Findlay ambled back to her.