feel of him, loved making her lose control, and she decided there were worse things in life than letting a man take over and rule the world for a few minutes. And as the Portuguese singer raised her voice in a crescendo of passion, Sailor rose with her and then, at the high note, let go. Let the world come crashing down beautifully around her, let him take her for his own pleasure, his own crescendo, his own loss of control.
Their arms were still wrapped around one another and stayed that way for a long time, as if they were alone in the world and did not dare to let each other go.
* * *
Some time later, Declan didn’t know how much later, a phone rang somewhere on the floor next to the bed. Sailor’s phone, not his. He reached for it and held it to her ear as she smiled up at him.
He watched her smile fade, listening to the urgent words that he could hear, too.
“Sailor, it’s Rhiannon. Where are you? The police are looking for you. Your car was at the House of Illusion, and someone set off a bomb in it. And, Sailor, there was a man inside.”
* * *
The crime scene was chaos, and Sailor couldn’t get closer than a half block away, even with Brodie there, alongside Rhiannon.
“They won’t let you near, Sailor,” Brodie said. His tall, commanding presence would have been reassuring, were it not for his grave expression. “Bomb squad’s in there. When the detectives need to question you, they’ll come get you.”
“But I need to see him,” Sailor said. “Or at least try to help—”
“Sweetie, you’re blaming yourself, I know you are,” Rhiannon said. “And it’s not your fault.”
Sailor said nothing. Standing outside the crime scene with her were cops and civilians of all kinds, even at four in the morning, and a fair number of House of Illusion staff, customers and magicians. She was engulfed with guilt and grief, and couldn’t do anything but stare in the direction of the mess that had once been employee parking, that had once been her Jeep.
Had once been Julio.
He had a mother, she knew. And probably siblings. A girlfriend. But most of all a mother. When would they show up here, his family members? Would she witness their cries? She could hear them in her imagination, and she couldn’t bear it. She’d hardly spoken as Declan had driven her here. He’d understood and dropped her off as soon as she saw Rhiannon waving at her from the street, then gone to hunt for a place to park.
He joined them now and put an arm around Sailor, pulling her close. There were no sexual overtones in it, but it was territorial, and she saw Rhiannon take note of it.
“Sailor!” A woman called. It was Lauren, her fellow waitress. “Did you hear? God, isn’t it awful? I can’t believe he’s dead.” She came running over and hugged Sailor in the strange way of people who aren’t on hugging terms until tragedy hits.
“Is his family here?” Sailor asked. “Do they know about it?”
“I don’t know. I heard about it from Tafiq.”
Eventually a detective escorted her to a squad car to interview her. She threw a glance over her shoulder at Rhiannon, Brodie and Declan. They were all, she knew, worried about what she might give away, emotional as she was. But emotional didn’t equal stupid.
She studied the detective, using her powers of perception to see if he was were or shifter, but he had none of the telltale signs. Vampires and Elven were so obvious, she didn’t even have to wonder. He wasn’t a Keeper, either. When she gave her name, he merely asked her to spell it. A Keeper would recognize “Gryffald” the way the residents of Hyannis Port knew the Kennedys, and he would have indicated in some way that he was a colleague.
But he was merely mortal.
His name was Grant Mulligan, and she played it straight with him—or as straight as she could, given that she was withholding information like crazy. No, she had no idea why anyone would plant a bomb in her car. No, she had no enemies. She’d hardly been back in town long enough to make any. She couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to harm Julio, either. Everyone had loved Julio.
Ironically, the most difficult thing to explain to Mulligan was that she’d given Julio her car keys simply out of friendship. This, she could see, he found suspicious. He was