Chapter 2 #2
“There’s helping a family member, then there’s aiding and abetting a crime,” Sean said, sounding so reasonable I wanted to scream. “The first is admirable. The second…not so much.”
I shook my head. He didn’t understand. My brother was in trouble. If I screwed this up, he might get hurt. Maybe even dead.
“Kiera,” Sean pressed, “someone just unloaded some serious shit on your doorstep.”
“Is there a note?” I asked.
“What?”
“Instructions!” I cried, looking up at him. “I need to know what to do with the bag.”
He frowned. “You need to call the police.”
I groaned in frustration. “I can’t call the police.”
Sean walked back to where he’d dropped the bag and brought it to the living room.
He sat on the couch, set the bag on the table in front of us, and was just about to unzip the bag again when I held out my hand, saying, “Wait. Don’t.”
“Why not? I already opened it once.” He unzipped the bag and jostled the contents while peering inside. “I don’t see a note.”
“Be careful.” I chewed on the edge of my thumbnail. “The gun could be loaded.”
He shook his head like he thought I was nuts. “I’m not going to pull the trigger.”
“But you could bump it. It could discharge accidentally.”
This time he gave me the side-eye, then unbuttoned his cuff and pulled his sleeve all the way down over his hand.
“Are you worried about prints?” I asked. Of course he was. Not only had my brother implicated me in whatever this was. Now he’d involved Sean, too.
“I’m more worried about tampering with whatever fingerprints someone else left behind, though…in all likelihood…they’ve already been wiped.”
“You seem to know a lot about covering up a crime,” I said.
“I’m not a criminal mastermind, Kiera. I’m a hockey player. I know about covering the net.”
“I know.”
“And I’m a dryad, so I know about taking care of things that are important to me.”
He gave me a meaningful glance, which I tried to ignore.
Sean sighed. “I only know about forensic evidence because I watch a lot of movies.”
“Huh.” This surprised me.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” I brushed my hand through the air. “It’s just that—besides when you’re on the ice—I always think of you as living off the grid and sitting around a campfire for entertainment. Not catching the latest blockbuster.”
His lips twitched. “So, you do think about me. I knew it.”
I gave him a look that said, Give me a break, and he did. He got serious again and reached into the bag, gingerly removing the gun without touching it directly. He laid it on the coffee table.
I stared down at it, horrified. It looked deadly serious. Black. Heavy. Lethal. Though the handle was kind of pretty.
Still, I didn’t want it on my table. I didn’t want it in my house.
Sean resumed his bag rummaging. “Oh, wait. There is a note. But they’re hardly instructions.”
“What does it say?”
“It says: One more thing. You know what to do.”
“Uh…not helpful.”
“There’s gotta be…” He did a little more rummaging. “Jesus. There’s gotta be a hundred K in here.”
My phone vibrated on the kitchen counter, and I turned over my shoulder to look at it.
Sean turned, too. “I bet you all the cash in this bag that here come your instructions.”
I sprang to my feet, then hopped onto the cushions. I planted my hand on the back of the couch and swung my legs to the side, hurdling over the couch and landing on the floor behind it.
This was a move I’d never done before, so I crashed down on one knee—hard—before getting up and stumbling to the kitchen counter.
I grabbed my phone. “Hello?”
I glanced nervously at Sean.
He was watching me, his eyebrows raised.
“Kiera Jones?” asked the scratchy male voice on the other end of the line.
Sean mouthed the word, “Speaker.”
I mouthed the word, “No,” then said, “Yes,” into the phone. “This is she.”
“Four-twelve Caspian. Tomorrow. Six a.m. Go alone.”
“Um…could you repeat that?” I yanked open my junk drawer and searched for something to write with.
“Deliver the bag. Four-twelve Caspian. Tomorrow. Six a.m.”
“To who?” I asked. “Who am I supposed to give it to?”
“Four-one-two Caspian,” he said, sounding like I was trying his patience. “Tomorrow. Six a.m. Go alone. Or your brother’s dead.”
Disconnect.
My phone slipped from my hand and clattered against the counter. I grabbed a pen and an old grocery receipt from the drawer, then scribbled down the address and meeting time before I could forget.
By then, Sean was up off the couch and headed my way. “What did they say?”
I quickly flipped the note over and covered it with my hand. “Nothing.”
He looked down at my hand, then up at me. “Kiera, what the hell?”
I cleared my throat. “You need to go.”
“What?” he asked. “Tell me what they said.”
I shook my head. “This isn’t any of your business. It’s a family matter. I’m sorry about the whole dinner thing, but—”
“I don’t care about dinner.” He sounded incredulous. “I care about you possibly getting hurt.”
“I won’t. It’s fine. I can take it from here.”
“You’re not fine. You’re shaking like a leaf.”
I looked down at my body, surprised to see that he was right. I took a breath. Steadied myself. Then—keeping my eyes on the floor—said, “Thank you for your concern. You’ve been very cool about this.”
“Cool?” he asked, and the way his voice shot up, I could tell he didn’t think there was anything cool about any of this.
Undeterred, I kept my eyes focused on the floor—much safer than his eyes—and pressed on. “Yes. Now. I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell Elli about the bag. Or tell anyone for that matter. But especially not Elli. She worries.”
“I’m worried.”
There was genuine concern in his voice that made my heart squeeze. What I wouldn’t give to let myself have this man, but this whole scene proved exactly why I couldn’t.
“You don’t have to worry,” I assured him. “If it makes you feel better, I promise to call you when I’m rid of the bag.”
There. That sounded sensible. He couldn’t argue with that.
“Then,” I continued, still sensibly, I thought. “We can just…go back to how things were. Normal.”
He put his hand around my upper arm and stroked his thumb over my bare shoulder. That felt nice. Too nice. I closed my eyes.
“Gotta say, Kiera, I was hoping we were getting past whatever our ‘normal’ has been.”
I stepped away, taking my note with me and causing his hand to fall to his side. I immediately missed its warmth against my skin, and I clenched my fist around the note.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said while my head screamed, Liar!
It was, in fact, an amazing idea. That is, if this were some parallel universe. But in this world? Me and Sean? I couldn’t do it. We each had very different paths mapped out for our lives, and those paths didn’t even run parallel. They angled away from each other with no way to turn back.
“You think, but you don’t know.”
His moss-colored eyes were turning a deep forest green.
Crap! When…or rather how had I allowed myself to look up at him?
“Not if you never give us a shot,” he added.
“I’m not interested in you in that way.” I said it fast. I said it firm. And I said it with my fingers crossed for fear of being struck by lightning.
Sean looked doubtful. Again, I was a terrible liar. So, I had to go for the kill shot.
“I’m sorry, but I’m just not attracted to you.”
“You’re lying,” he said. Sheer confidence.
Gah. He was totally calling my bluff and forcing me to double down, which pissed me off. Did he think I was enjoying this?
I put both hands on my hips and leaned in. “I know your type.”
At that, he jerked his head back. “Excuse me?”
“You’re not just a dryad, Sean. You’re a nymph.” I folded my arms as if this should have explained everything. And it kind of did. But then it kind of didn’t.
There was nymph on paper: natural beings with strong, often aggressive sexual desires. Then there was the reality of Sean: sweet, caring, sexy—sure—but also willing to wash dirty gym clothes for me so my toast didn’t get cold. Sometimes the dots didn’t connect.
“So?” he asked, proving that my point wasn’t as clear as it could have been.
I unfolded my arms and held up my empty hand to emphasize what I said next. “Do you know where the word nympho comes from?”
His lips thinned. Now, he understood.
“So, yeah,” I said glibly, flourishing my hand. “On top of that, you’re a professional hockey player, so that adds a second layer of arrogance. You just can’t believe a human woman wouldn’t be totally into you.”
His face hardened, and by now his pupils were so dilated that his eyes had gone nearly completely black. “Where is all this bullshit coming from?”
Where was this coming from? Self-preservation mainly. But I wasn’t going to tell him that.
“You seem to appreciate straightforward honesty,” I said, “so I’m being straight with you. This isn’t going to work between us, so don’t waste your time.”
“I see.” A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“Good.” I let out a breath.
“Thank you, Kiera, for being so efficient in setting me straight.”
“You’re welcome,” I replied—calmly, I thought, despite the painful squeezing around my heart.
“And you’re right,” he said. “I’ve wasted enough of my time on you.”
Uff. Gut punch. I didn’t want him to think of me as a waste of time.
He jerked his chin toward my front door, ordered, “Lock it,” then he was gone.
As in, gone.
“Tilting” is what the fae called it, disappearing into thin air. One second Sean was there, then—poof—he left me alone in my pretty blue, French provincial living room with someone’s nasty old gym bag, a hundred K—probably stolen—and a possibly loaded gun.
Immediately, I wished Sean would come back.
I looked down at my clenched fist. Somewhere along the line, I’d squeezed the life out of my hastily written note. I uncrumpled it and pressed it flat against the counter. Then I grabbed my phone, opened my maps app, and looked up four-twelve Caspian.