29. Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Carter.” His name shattered the dreamlike state between sleeping and waking.
“Mm?”
“We should get up.”
He shifted against me, his stubble brushing my forehead where I still lay close to his chest. “Ten more minutes.”
“I don’t even know what time it is,” I mumbled.
“Time doesn’t matter today.”
He groaned when I untangled myself from him and sat up.
“I need to figure out what happened at the warehouse.” I leaned over the side of the bed and found my phone in the pocket of my pants.
Early afternoon and no messages from Owen or anyone else.
I wondered if they’d found clues and what they had done with Gray’s body.
The air I breathed in stuck halfway to filling my lungs. Rook’s hand fell on my back and rubbed circles there.
“It’s not your fault. Do you need help with planning a funeral or anything? Does he have a family? Girlfriend?”
But no one would show up for Gray’s funeral. His parents were dead. His ex-wife was a long-discarded pain. I didn’t even think Gray had friends besides the women he slept with. Mostly, all he did was work.
There was only me.
“I need to find out what happened,” I said, reaching for my clothes. My chest tightened. “I need to—need to find out how the fire started and what happened to him.”
And punish whoever was responsible.
Rook kissed the back of my neck, then rested his forehead on my shoulder. “Whatever you need, just ask.”
“I need him not to be dead.” My voice broke and my eyes burned. Tears sprung up unwanted. I lifted a hand to wipe away the ones that were bold enough to trail down my cheeks, but Rook grabbed my forearm.
“Don’t touch those. Wait here.”
He dashed out of the room and returned seconds later with a large kitchen knife in his hand.
“It’s not fancy, but it’s sharp. It’ll do the job.” He ran the flat of the blade across each of my cheeks and caught the tears on the shining edge. He touched the tip of the knife with his finger, magic sealing the tears to the metal. “Come with me.”
He guided me, half-dressed, to the bathroom and laid my arm across the sink.
“This is going to hurt for a sec. Close your eyes.” He pulled the blade across my forearm in a long gash, until blood dripped in the sink, and coated the blade in that too, sealing it the same way he had the tears. Both fused with the metal.
He healed my arm and mopped up the blood with a washcloth. I stared at the knife, at the weapon that would kill the foe I’d been chasing since I left home. I hadn’t heard from the spirits since I scared them off the night before, but if Gray had crossed over, if he wasn’t stuck here like them…
He was the second person Death had taken from me.
Rook laid the knife in my palm.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Do you think the masked man could have done this? He graffitied your building.”
“What would he gain from burning down my warehouse?” A number of thoughts had crossed my mind—an electrical malfunction, an enemy trying to make a point, one of my own men who would have known Gray was working there—but not the killer who seemed so interested in me.
“He could be trying to scare you, or ruin your business. I might have considered it a few months ago if I’d known where it was.” He gave a wry smile. “You killed my greatest asset. Don’t look at me like that.”
I smoothed the sour expression on my face and nodded. “What connection do you think Pope and I have to the Council?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Pope owed everyone something. He could have fucked anyone over and gotten killed for it, and you’re the biggest power in town.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, now you’re ready to admit it?”
“I still would have usurped your ass if your cock wasn’t so magnificent. Now I’ve had a change of heart, I guess.”
My eyes flicked between his, looking for a blink or a gleam or anything that might give away that he remembered what I said last night, or if he felt the same.
“Anyway, what about Wesley?”
“What about him?”
He led me back to the bedroom and sprawled back out on the bed with his hands folded behind his head. “He threatened you. He hates Emmett. He wanted Blackwell’s job. Those are a lot of good reasons to murder everyone.”
“And Pope and the file clerk?”
“Covering up something? They knew too much, maybe.”
“He’ll be at the full moon gala tomorrow night.” I shoved his legs until he made room for me to sit on the edge of the bed. “I invited him. We can watch what he does then.”
“We?”
I stroked my fingers up his leg. “May I extend an invitation to you this time so you don’t have to crash?”
“Invitation accepted.”
My hand slid lazily toward his knee and then stopped. “About what I said last night…”
He jackknifed off the bed and grabbed my hand, his thumb circling the veins on the top of it, but his eyes didn’t leave mine.
“We’ll talk about it later. Let’s just deal with Wesley and the warehouse, and then we’ll figure us out, okay?”
He dropped my hand, and my stomach went with it. That wasn’t an answer, and it certainly wasn’t a return of feelings, but perhaps he was right. I finished dressing and looked him over, relaxed and easy and giving away absolutely nothing that would soothe the nervous flutter in my chest.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night.” I leaned down to kiss him, but I wouldn’t have invited him at all if I’d known the shit show the gala would become.