“Where are you staying?” Ralph asked as Ivy rubbed her freed wrists. “I’m going to want to talk to you before you go home.”
Ivy explained while I stared at the water. Nick wasn’t dead, and the shock of seeing him go over the edge was evolving into a nasty feeling of satisfaction. I had beat him. I had beat Nick at his own game. Knees shaking, I stumbled away. Ivy hurriedly finished up with Ralph, and with her on one side and Jenks on the other, I started to chuckle. I didn’t know how we were going to get to the room. Three of us wouldn’t fit in Kisten’s Corvette very well.
“Tink’s daisies,” Jenks whispered to Ivy behind my back. “She’s lost it.”
“I’m fine,” I said, cursing myself and laughing. “He’s fine. The crazy bastard is fine.”
Jenks exchanged a sorrowful glance at Ivy. “Rache,” he said softly. “You heard the man. I read the place mat about how many people they lost building the bridge. He wouldn’t survive hitting the water. And even if he did, he’d be unconscious and drown. Nick is gone.”We passed the news crews, and I took a shallow breath, finding comfort in that my ribs hurt. I was alive, and I was going to stay that way. “Nick knew that too,” I admitted in the dimmer light. “And yeah, he’s gone, but he’s not dead.”
Jenks took a breath to protest, and I interrupted.
“Jax was here,” I said, and Jenks pulled us all to a stop in the middle of the closed northbound lane. People swirled around us, but we were forgotten.
“Jax!” Jenks exclaimed, yanked into silence by Ivy.
“Shut up,” she snarled.
“He had an inertia-dampening amulet,” I said, and Jenks’s face went from hope to a heartbreaking look of understanding. “Jax was here to fly it down to the water before the tow truck hit.”
“And the NOS,” I continued as Jenks paled. “It never exploded. He used the charges to blow the tires, knowing the truck was heavy enough to go through the temporary railing.”
Ivy’s face was empty, but her eyes were starting to go black with anger.
Shaking my head, I looked away before she scared me. “I’ll give Marshal a call, but I bet he’s missing some equipment. I never looked to see what Nick had in that truck locker he’s got. He’s swimming out of here, and I bet Jax is with him.”
A pained sound came from Jenks, and I wished I could have said it wasn’t true. Feeling his pain, I met his eyes. They showed a deep betrayal he would never talk about. Jenks had taught Jax all he could in the last few days with the idea that the pixy would take his place. And Jax had taken that and used it to burn us. With Nick.
“I’m sorry, Jenks,” I said, but he turned away, shoulders hunched and looking old.
Ivy tried to tuck a strand of too-short hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry too, Jenks, but we have a big problem. As soon as Nick gets himself safely settled as a nonentity, he’s going to sell that thing and all hell is going to break loose between the vamps and the Weres.”
Something in me hardened, and the last of my feelings for Nick died. I smiled at Ivy without showing my teeth, hiking my bag farther up my bruised shoulder. “He won’t sell it.”
“And why not?” she asked, snarky.
“Because he doesn’t have the real one.” I looked for Kisten’s Corvette, finding it standing by a pylon. Maybe we could splurge and move to the Holiday Inn tonight. I could use a hot tub. “I didn’t move the curse to the wolf statue,” I added, remembering I was in the middle of a thought. “I moved it to the totem Jenks was going to give Matalina.”
Ivy stared at us, reading in Jenks’s lack of response that she was the only one who hadn’t known. He was staring at nothing, pain still etched in his posture that his son had just buried in the dirt everything he cared about. “When were you going to tell me?” she accused, blush coloring her cheeks. She looked good when she was mad, and I smiled. A real one this time.
“What,” I said, “and risk spending the next two days trying to convince you to change your plan?” She huffed, and I touched her arm. “I tried to tell you,” I said. “But you stormed off like you were an avenging angel.”
Ivy eyed my fingers on her arm, and I pulled them away, hesitating a bare instant.
“Nick’s an ass,” I said. “But he’s smart. If I had told you, you would have acted differently and he would have known.”
“But you told Jenks,” she said.
“It’s hiding in his jockey shorts!” I said in exasperation, not wanting to talk about it anymore. “God, Ivy. I’m not going to mess with Jenks’s underwear unless he knows about it.”
Ivy pouted. The six-foot sexy vampire in scraped black leather crossed her arms before her and pouted. “I’m probably going to have to do more community service for hitting all those I.S. officers,” she grumbled. “Thanks a hell of a lot.”
I slumped, hearing forgiveness in her words. “At least he didn’t get it,” I offered, and Ivy threw a hand in the air and tried to look disgusted, but I could tell she was relieved.
Jenks found a thin smile, his gaze going to Kisten’s Corvette. “Can I drive?” he asked.
Lips pressed, Ivy frowned. “We’re not going to all fit in that. Maybe we can bum a ride from Ralph. Give me a moment, okay?”
“We can fit,” Jenks said. “I’ll move the seat back and Rachel can sit on my lap.”
Ivy went one way and Jenks went the other. My protest froze when I found a point of stillness in the swirling mess of reporters, officers, and watchers. My lips parted. It was Brett, standing on a cement barrier so he could look over the crowd. He was watching me, and when our eyes met, he touched the brim of his cap in salute. There was a rip in it where the emblem had been removed, and with a significant motion he took it off and let it fall. Turning away, he started to walk for the Mackinaw City end of the bridge. And he was gone.
I realized he thought I had done it, and went cold. He thought I’d blown out the tires of the wrecker and killed Nick for trying to do a double run on me. Damn. I didn’t know if that kind of reputation would save my life or get me killed.
“Rache?” Jenks returned from pushing the passenger’s seat back as far as it would go. “What is it?”
I put a hand to my cold face and met his worried eyes. “Nothing.” Determined to figure it out later, I sent my thoughts instead to the bath I was going to take. I had beaten Nick at his own game. The question was, would I survive it?
Thirty-five
M y boot heel slipped on the uneven sidewalk, and the sound of me catching my step was dull in the air heavy from the evening’s rain. The faint twinge in my leg reminded me that it wasn’t quite right yet. The sun was long gone, and clouds made the night darker than it ought to be, close and warm. I splashed through a puddle, in too good a mood to care if my ankles got wet. Pizza dough was rising in my kitchen, and I had a grocery sack of toppings.
Lunch was going to be early tonight; Ivy had a run, and Kisten was taking me to a movie and I didn’t want to fill up on popcorn. Passing under a lamp-lit, pollution-stunted maple, I reached to touch its leaves in passing, smiling at the green softness brushing my skin. They were damp, and I let my hand stay wet and cool in the night air. The street was quiet. The only human family living there was inside watching TV, and everyone else was at work or school. The hum of Cincinnati was far away and distant, the rumble of sleeping lions.I adjusted the strap of my new canvas grocery bag, thinking that in the time we’d been gone, spring had shifted into high gear. It was almost a year since I’d quit the I.S. “And I’m alive,” I whispered to the world. I was alive and doing well. No, I was doing great.
A soft clearing of a throat zinged through me, but I managed not to jerk or alter my pace. It had come from across the street, and I searched the shadows until I found a well-muscled Were in jeans and a dress shirt. He had been shadowing me all week. It was Brett.
I forced my jaw to unclench and gave him a respectful nod, receiving a snappy salute in return. Free arm swinging, I continued down the street, hitting the puddles that were in my way. Brett wouldn’t bother me. That he was looking for the focus had occurred to me—either wanting to confirm that it was truly gone, or use it to buy his way back into Walter’s good graces if it wasn’t—but I didn’t think so. It looked like he was going loner when he dropped his cap on the Mackinac Bridge and walked away. But he was just watching now. David had done the same for months before he finally made his presence known. When unsure of their rank, Weres were patient and wary. He’d come to me when he was ready.
And I was in far too good a mood to worry about it. I was so glad to be home. My stitches were out and the scars were thin lines easily hidden. My limp was fading, and thanks to that curse I used to Were, I had absolutely no freckles. The soft air slipped easily in and out of my lungs as I walked, and I felt sassy. Sassy and badass in my vamp-made boots and Jenks’s aviator jacket. I was wearing the cap Jenks had stolen from the island Weres, and it added a nice bit of bad girl. The guy behind the counter at the corner store had thought I was cute.