Surprised, I just kind of looked at him.
“I didn’t need to,” he continued. “I could feel the dagger. Went straight to it. Your apartment was like that when I got there.”
Well, crap. I could only hope the ransackers got syphilis. I wondered if there was a hashtag for that.
13
Sometimes I write “drink coffee” on my to-do list
just to feel like I’ve accomplished something.
—STATUS UPDATE
I made it home just after sunset, holding the title to my soul in one hand and a mocha latte in the other. Surely Reyes would see the bright side of that. The soul thing. How angry could he be that I’d gone to see the Dealer? I chose not to dwell on Reyes or his anger while searching for him. After checking his place and my place and everything in between, I headed for my office and finally found him outside in the alley between the bar and the apartment building, his legs sticking out from under the front end of the sweetest black muscle car I’d ever seen. I slowed my pace to take in the work of art before me. Then I checked out the car. The emblem on the side said it was a ’Cuda. Whatever she was, she melted my knees upon impact. She was stunning, and I decided right then and there to become a lesbian.
“Is she yours?” I asked him as I walked up. He was tooling around with her engine, which was clean enough to eat off of, shiny enough to apply makeup by, and big enough to make the earth shake, I was sure.
A soft thunder rumbled in the distance. I glanced up at the clouds that had rolled in, their grayness haunting against the dark sky.
Refocusing on Mr. Angry Pants, I bent over the engine to see what he was doing. He had one of those droplights, and I could see a portion of his face as he worked under the car. He ignored me and kept ratcheting something. Something that I could only hope actually needed ratcheting, because he was really into it. His signature heat wafted up and around me. I put my elbows on a shiny part and propped my chin in my cupped hands.
“Are you going to be mad long?” I asked him.
He ratcheted again, refusing to meet my gaze, so I let it drift over the front of the car to his spread legs, lean and powerful, his slim hips crafted to perfection, and his rock-hard waist, rippled and taut. His T-shirt had ridden up to reveal several inches of deliciousness above his jeans, and my mouth watered in response.
“Which part are you mad about?” I asked, realizing he could be mad about any number of things. I tended to rack up the shit-list points.
He finally spoke, drawing my attention back to him. “You are investigating what you think was my kidnapping.”
That was what he was mad about? Wait, did he just say—? “What I think was your kidnapping? You mean, the baby that was kidnapped from the Fosters wasn’t you?”
He put down the ratchet and picked up another, equally foreboding tool. “Yes, it was me, but I was hardly kidnapped.”
I leaned closer to him, trying to see him past the engine. “What do you mean?” My thoughts staggered into each other as I reviewed the case in my mind. “I don’t understand. You weren’t kidnapped?”
“Not that time.” The car dipped with the pressure he was putting on her.
“Reyes, please explain. Were you kidnapped from the Fosters or not?”
“It doesn’t matter what I tell you. You’ll take that information and do whatever you want with it. You never think about the consequences of your actions.”
“You are so wrong.” I lowered myself onto my knees and bent to look at him under the car. His biceps strained against the thin fabric of his T-shirt as he worked. “That’s all I consider. I do what I can to help—”
“Strangers,” he said, turning the wrench so tight, the car dipped again. “People you don’t know. You don’t think about the people who are closest to you. What your actions could do to them.”
I was appalled that he would even say such a thing. “Do you think I don’t care about my family? My friends?”
“I think you care for too many. You’re spread too thin. You take on too much, risk too much, and you cannot possibly win.”
He was changing the subject on purpose, bringing up an old argument to urge me off the trail of his kidnapping. “Reyes, were you abducted from your biological family or not?”
Breathing hard, he lowered the wrench and finally looked at me, his eyes glittering in the artificial light. “Yes. I was.”
“So, the Fosters are your biological family. The family you chose to be born with on earth?”
“No.” He went back to work, and I pressed my mouth together, struggling for patience.
“So, the Fosters’ child was abducted, but he wasn’t you.”