He reached for her waist with his free hand, steadying her. "Look at me, not the ground," he said. Her gaze darted to his, wide and uncertain. "I won't let you fall. Believe that, if nothing else. Now, reach around the wall and pull yourself across to the next balcony."
Though she was shaking, she did as he asked, and was quickly on the other side. He followed and pushed her into the shadows as headlights speared the darkness.
"Crawl toward the next terrace," he murmured, as the blue and red lights of the police car washed through the shadows.
"We can't climb across the balcony," she protested. 'They'll see us."
"Maybe. Just go."
She did. He followed her, somehow managing to keep his gaze on the police car more than the rather fetching sight of her jeans-clad rear. The cops climbed out of the car, putting on their hats as they walked across the road and disappeared under the balcony. He moved past Kirby and checked the next terrace. Lights were on, but he couldn't see anyone in the windows, and no one was moving around—not upstairs, anyway.
"Go," he said, catching her hand again. "Duck down under the windows when you get there."
Her expression was doubtful, but she climbed onto the railing and edged across. He followed her and pushed her forward again. They repeated the process until they reached the end terrace.
"Now what?" she murmured
"Now we lie down in the shadows and wait for the hubbub to die down." She gave him another long look. "You're kidding, right?" He shook his head and somehow managed to restrain his grin. He could certainly think of worse fates than lying down with her—even if it was for something as innocent as waiting out the cops. "Sorry, no. We try to leave now, someone will definitely stop us. So we wait."
She crossed her arms and didn't move. "Why can't we just sit here? Why do we have to lie down?"
"Because there's less of us to notice. By lying down and lying still, we're a part of the shadows. Believe me, it works." He'd had many a narrow escape by doing precisely that.
"1 just bet you have," she muttered. "And not all of them narrow escapes from thieving jobs, either."
She was reading his mind as easily as he was hers. Odd. He grinned and didn't refute her inference, though he'd never been a womanizer. Far from it.
"I suppose," she continued softly. "We have to stretch out beside each other, not lie toe to head, for the same reason?"
"Afraid so." Her raised eyebrow suggested she knew he was lying. Smiling, he stretched out along the wall, then patted the boards in front of him. "Come along. I don't bite."
"I'll reserve judgement on that," she muttered, but lay down beside him—facing him, rather than the road.
To keep an eye on him, he thought with amusement. Or rather, what he was doing. Not that he could do much with the cops five doors down and the owners of this terrace moving around downstairs.
He reached for his phone. She tensed, then relaxed when she saw it. He smiled and dialed Camille.
"Don't you be hassling an old woman," she said, voice tart. "I'm almost there."
"I'm calling to say don't bother. When the murderer departed she left a rather large zombie to cover her tracks. I'm afraid we only just managed to escape, and the cops are crawling all over the place."
"Where are you?"
"Stuck on a balcony five doors down. We can't really move until either the cops or the owners of this house leave, and I've a bad feeling we should check on Russ before it gets too light."
"I'll head over there, then. Meet you there unless you hear from me in the meantime."
"Will do." He shoved the phone away and glanced past the curve of Kirby's hip to the road. More cops were arriving. It was going to be quite a while before they could move.
He met her gaze. In the warm green depths of her eyes he saw wariness and something else—longing. Desire.
Without really thinking about the consequences, he leaned forward and kissed her.
Eight