was using it to close her emotions off to him. Grif’s heart bumped at the thought.
Kit had opened her eyes as the silence dragged on, and tracked his gaze to the drink. “I was hoping it would help me sleep. I’m overtired, but restless. Fatigue keeps dragging me under. Then it pulls me right back out again. But I can’t bring myself to drink it.”
“You’re thinking too much.” Not that he blamed her.
She nodded. “Yes. About Scratch, about Marin. You,” she added, without heat. “And, still, about those desperate kids who add fuel to their veins just so they can feel anything good at all.”
Grif edged closer, and she focused on him. “I saw Scratch.”
Grif dropped to the foot of her lounger, and she scooted over, then put her head in his lap and hugged him tight.
“When?” he asked. “How?”
He held her as she told him about her bedside vigil, and how Scratch had used the drug-induced sleep to both possess Marin and reach out to terrorize Kit. Her voice remained steady, but he could imagine how scared she’d been. And Jeap Yang had been right. The fallen angel would’ve circled back for her even before she tricked it into divulging information about Bella and her case. Nothing Kit did, or didn’t do, would’ve stopped that.
“Jesus, Kit.” Grif ran a hand over her head, because what he was really thinking was, I should have been there.
Kit nodded. “You were right to warn me about my darker feelings. Scratch said that’s how it would come for me now that it has my tears. It’s . . . waiting.” She said it matter-of-factly, but the tremor was there, between the words.
“I’m sorry, Kit. I’ll talk to Sarge. See if there’s anything we can do.”
Drawing up her knees, Kit lifted her hands and held them beneath her chin as if in prayer. “There’s more. I think it knows something about my father’s death. In fact, I think Marin does, and she isn’t telling me.”
Grif jerked his head. “I told you. Its intent is to create chaos wherever it goes. It wants to confuse you.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not true, though.” Kit pushed herself into a sitting position. “Someone took my father’s life, Grif. Someone took him from me. And nobody has ever discovered who the killer really is. Don’t you think that’s a strange lack of concern for a cop killing? Especially an officer who was the brother-in-law to the nosiest, most dogged newspaper editor in the valley?”
He took her hands. “Don’t let Scratch’s words place a wedge between you and your aunt, Kit. You know that’s what it’s trying to do.”
“If Marin knows something about my father’s death that she’s not sharing with me, then she’s the one placing a wedge between us.” Kit shook her head before he could speak. “You never knew my dad, Grif, but I wish you could have.”
“Me, too,” he finally said, and gave her hands a squeeze.
“Tell me about the Russians, did you find them?” She picked up the drink and took a sip.
“I had a little chat with that Russian mobster’s wife.”
Kit tilted her head. “And?”
He shrugged. “She liked the hat you gave me.”
Raising a slim eyebrow, she waited for more.
“She spotted the navigation switch. I think she thought it was a weapon or recorder or something.”
Pointing the glass at his head, she said, “So she took it?”
Because she sounded amused, Grif said, “After propositioning me in the back of her limo. With her little rat-dog watching.”
Kit made a face. “Those pocket puppies are the worst.”
“Right.”
“That’s all?”
“About it.”
They stayed quiet for a moment and he said, “But it all got me thinking. The krokodil . . . what’s the hardest ingredient to get a hold of?”
Kit squinted as she thought. “Lighter fluid is easy, so is iodine and paint thinner. But codeine. That’s not so easy.”
“Yeah, so I think we need to follow the codeine.”
“Find the codeine, find the dealers,” Kit said, nodding. “That’s smart, Grif. You must be a P.I. after all.”
“Thanks.”
“So I’ll see what I can stir up tomorrow on that. But first, got something for you.” Kit jerked her head at the side table.
Glancing down, Grif spotted what he’d initially taken for a coaster. It was a slip of paper, he saw now, and he stared at the line scribbled across its center. “An address?”
“Mary Margaret DiMartino’s address.”
Grif nearly lunged for the paper. “How’d you get this?”
Smiling at his reaction, Kit pointed at herself. “Reporter, remember?”
Though every instinct was telling Grif to run