The Lost (Celestial Blues, Book 2) - By Vicki Pettersson Page 0,29

that last part. It slipped out, more of a murmur around her cigarette than a statement, but Grif’s hearing was impeccable, and his hand was immediately on her arm. “What does that mean?”

“I just meant that your wife’s death, even though it was over fifty years ago . . .” Kit ducked her head. “It still haunts you.”

“ ’Course it does. But it doesn’t cast . . . what’d you say? A shadow over me.”

“No,” Kit said, and finally looked up. She swallowed hard. “Just everyone around you.”

Grif’s hand fell away. The look on his face was so injured and stunned that Kit wanted to reach for him. But she’d finally said what had been haunting her for so long, so not only couldn’t she stop, she didn’t want to.

“Look, what do you think it feels like?” Flicking her cigarette away, she crossed her arms. “To know the man I love spends most of his waking hours thinking of another woman?”

Hurt shifted to confusion as he drew back. “I’m not thinking about her all the time.”

“No, but you’re chasing her down.” She laughed humorlessly. “And sometimes it feels like she’s chasing you, too.”

“What?”

Kit shook her head. For a smart P.I., he could be so stupid. “You say her name in your dreams all the time, Grif.”

“That’s what this is about? I’m not even conscious.”

“Have you ever dreamed about me?”

“I don’t need to. You’re here.”

Kit felt her expression turn to stone. Grif swallowed hard. “Wrong. Answer.”

She turned away, and when his fingers wrapped around her arm this time, she gave it a violent shake. She shouldn’t have let herself get drawn into this conversation, she thought, striding to her car. But all it’d taken was one slip in thought, one reminder of how hard it was to be compared to someone who was perfect—someone who would always be perfect now that time had also made her saintly—and Kit was suddenly doubting everything she was.

But what’s to doubt? She wasn’t perfect, but she was vibrant and smart and, yes, cheery.

She was also alive.

So, with the safety of her car between them, she finally looked up. Grif was on the other side, his reply waiting, too. “I don’t compare you to Evie, Kit.”

“Maybe not consciously,” she conceded, “but the shadow of her memory is in your eyes every time you look at me. You should at least know that.”

Grif just continued to stare at her so blankly that she knew he’d never even given it any thought. Shaking her head, Kit wished the whole conversation away. Then her phone rang.

Wish granted, she thought, answering without viewing the number as she climbed behind the wheel of her car. Still silent, Grif slid in next to her. “Kit Craig.”

“Detective Carlisle.” Dennis’s voice teased at her formality, though it sobered again with his next question. “How would you like to visit with a junkie who spent all of last weekend with one Jeap Yang?”

Right now? Kit thought, blowing out a hard breath. “I’d like nothing more,” she said, and busied herself by pulling out her Moleskine. A little conversation about drugs and rotting flesh might be just what she needed to banish her worries over a dead woman.

Chapter Seven

Thirty minutes later, a very tense thirty minutes later, Grif trailed Kit into a bar just a shade shy of full dark. Probably best, Grif thought, eyeing the sag of the industrial ceiling, and the bumps in the uneven concrete floor. It would be charitable to call the place a dive. A permanent dark stain led directly to the bar, where vinyl swivel stools sat in uneven clumps, the seat-backs damaged and slumping, not unlike the men occupying them.

It was nearing four in the afternoon, so the after-work crowd had yet to arrive, but there was still a handful of customers lined along the scarred bar top. One listlessly plunked quarters into a flattop video poker machine while two others watched a ball game above the bar with the same lackluster enthusiasm. A fourth man simply stared into space, face blank above his half-empty beer glass.

Choice digs, Grif thought, then returned his gaze to Kit’s ramrod back. Her uncharacteristic cheerlessness matched the mood of the room, but it also confounded him. He still wasn’t quite sure what’d happened in Marin’s office, or what led to their strange conversation in the parking lot afterward.

Did he dream about her?

That wasn’t the Kit Craig he was used to. His girl was relentlessly optimistic, dogged, and thick-skinned. Her overflowing confidence, despite any