blur.
“That was cruel,” I wheezed after her, “and horrible and plain mean.”
“I had to make sure you didn’t roll over and go back to sleep.”
“For that, no high-speed internet for a month. It’s dial-up for you.”
Popping her head around the doorframe, she quivered her antennae. “What’s dial-up?”
“Leave.” I flicked my hand at her. “Your youth disgusts me.”
A quick check confirmed that nope, I hadn’t taken off yesterday’s clothes.
Grit in my eyes and tangles in my hair, I padded through the house until I stood on the front porch.
Asa leaned against a tree, whittling a stick he no doubt found in my yard.
For no good reason, that irked me. “Can I help you?”
He wore his standard Bureau-issued suit that made me hot looking at him.
Not like hot-hot, I meant sweaty. Not like good-sex sweaty, just regular sweaty.
And gods above, could I see him once and not have dirty thoughts?
“I came for your signature.” He straightened from his lean. “We got a phone call.”
That first day, Clay told me the copycat killer phoned in his crimes after he committed them.
A heavy weight pressed on my chest, a question of whether I could have made a difference to these girls if I had been less invested in protecting Colby, and myself. But one thing life had taught me was that you had to take care of you. No one else would do it for you.
This was not my fault. These deaths were not on my head.
But the next time, and there would be a next time and a next until we stopped him, it might be.
If I didn’t sign away my soul, I might cost someone else theirs.
Four someones.
There was only one response I could live with, assuming the amendments held. “Do you have a pen?”
“Yes.” He exchanged his knife for a pen and stuck his carving in the dirt. “I’ll get the papers.”
A faded blanket was spread across the ground behind him, its earth tones too muted for me to notice at first.
The file holding the contract rested in the center, along with a thermos I bet was filled with black coffee.
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if he had spent the night out here, but he was too fresh for that. He had returned his hair to its usual long braids and traded his oval earrings for dainty silver hoops to match the one in his nose. Dainty wasn’t the right word, but I was staring again, and I couldn’t get my brain or vocabulary to function.
“Where’s Clay?” I scanned the driveway, but there was no sign of him. “How did you get here?”
Last night, I waited until after the tow truck left with its passengers before summoning Megara.
Between then and now, Clay would have secured them transportation. Either a rental or a company SUV could have been delivered, even this far out in the sticks.
“I went hunting last night.” He retrieved the folder. “I shouldn’t have left it so long. It caused me to…”
“…get territorial?”
“Yes.” He held out the papers with the pen on top. “I apologize for my behavior.”
Last night came back to me in a rush, and I let myself out of the gate. “Your text.”
“It was cowardly of me not to apologize in person.”
The reason I got rolled out of bed came back too. “Is that why you felt the need to stake out my yard?”
“Yes,” he said with enough hesitation I doubted it was his only reason.
“I got your text, but I was up late working on the contract. I fell asleep before I could respond.”
The contract was the exact version Megara and I drafted, and it was already signed by the director at the bottom.
“I’ll run in and sign this at the table.” I nudged open the gate. “Can I get you anything?”
“No.” He crouched, retrieved his stick, and resumed his whittling. “Thank you.”
No surprise, Colby met me at the door and trailed me to the kitchen table.
Palms spreading over the stack, I murmured a soft chant that would verify my assumption.
“The contract is identical.” Not so much as a punctuation mark had been corrected. “That’s good.”
“Then why are you scowling at it?” Colby sat on the papers. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
For me.
She left that part unspoken.
“Life is about compromise.” I scratched her head. “I do this, and we get to keep our life here.”
“We could run again.” She patted my hand with a foot. “We could buy another house, right?”
“I’ve spent a stupid amount of money