street,” she said lightly, and inhaled.
“Investigation?” Now he was awake. The covers rustled again as he shifted in bed, and Kit briefly found herself wondering if anyone was lying next to him. “What makes you think—”
“You’ll want to bring the CIS unit, too,” she said, cutting him off.
“Dammit.” A pause, and the silence made her wince. “Are you okay?”
She warmed at the question, the way it was asked, and answered affirmative before giving him the address. Dennis hung up without a good-bye, but Kit smiled anyway. He’d moved to town a handful of years ago from Southern Cal, another locale with a strong rockabilly contingent, and as theirs was a small subculture, they’d met within weeks. They bonded over a common love of beach bands and car parks. Dennis was a cop, but more than that, he was a true friend. He’d come.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you looking so slapdash” were his first words to her, and she pushed herself from the side of her Duetto as he stepped from his unmarked car.
Glancing down, Kit made a face. Her shoes and bag were all right—hard to screw that up when all you had in your closet was vintage perfection—but the capris and sweater set were boring at best, and she was barefaced, hair untidily pinned. “I was in a hurry.”
Dennis frowned. Everyone in the scene knew how fastidious Kit was about her appearance. “Tell me,” he said, as he made to sit next to her.
Kit jerked her head at the foreclosed home’s open door. “See for yourself.”
After that he was too busy to talk at all.
As hoped, Dennis gave instructions to the beat cops that he’d be doing the interviewing, so they left Kit alone while they secured the crime scene and started the door-to-doors. Kit propped herself on the hood of her car to observe the comings and goings, and to eavesdrop on the officers’ conversation while she waited. She wasn’t given this leeway because of him, or because she was a witness, or because she was a reporter.
Kit’s father had been a cop, killed in the line of duty. The circumstances surrounding Martin Craig’s death were every cop’s unspoken fear: an anonymous call, a botched robbery, a masked thief who simply didn’t like men in blue. It also remained unsolved.
“What the hell was that?”
Kit jumped as Grif materialized behind her in that way he had, as if dropped like a star from the heavens themselves. He could reappear on the Surface any time he chose after returning from a Take—whether it was one second after he’d left, an hour, or a week—as long as it was in the future. He’d clearly chosen this point in time because the cops would be too busy to question his appearance . . . and wouldn’t even know he’d been here earlier.
Kit took in his clenched jaw, stony gaze, and hard frown, and pushed to her feet. “I’ve been waiting to ask you the same thing.”
He came around the car to stand with her, toe to toe, which wasn’t as romantic as it sounded. “You snuck out while I was sleeping.”
“I knew you wouldn’t sleep for long. And I left you Jeap’s address.”
“You left me to find my own way,” he corrected.
“I left you a hat with a built-in compass.”
He narrowed his eyes beneath his old fedora, and, swallowing hard, Kit took up the offense. She crossed her arms. “You didn’t tell me there were angels masquerading as monsters.”
He opened his mouth like he had something more to say about that, but then shook his head and changed the subject. “Don’t you realize what you could have done?”
“Nothing, apparently.” Sighing, she stared east where the sun had begun its stretch into the sky, its yellow yawn wide behind the lavender-draped mountain range. Nothing she did ever seemed to matter against fate’s heavy fist.
Grif stepped forward, into Kit’s personal space . . . and not in a good way. “You got yourself gummed up in something you shouldn’t have, Kit. Your name’s going to be attached to a death you never should have touched. Again.”
Kit understood his worry. She’d been targeted for death the last time she’d had an inadvertent run-in with fate, but hey—they’d come through that okay in the end. Besides, done was done, and Kit knew she’d try to save Jeap again, given the chance. It wasn’t the human element she was worried about anyway.
“That thing had black stars for eyes, Grif. It had a voice that sounded