The Dirt on Ninth Grave(56)

He let me lay my hand on it, just barely, just enough to let him know what I would be referring to in my next question. He didn't move but watched me with the intensity of a cobra.



"I should be asking you that. Are you okay? And Reyes, what the hell happened today?"



"You and your friend foiled an attempted robbery."



"And that's it?"



"That's what I saw." He loomed over me. He'd showered and, from the feel of it, wrapped his wound.



I thought of what I'd said to him when time had stood still. Embarrassed, I lowered my head to nudge a piece of loose baseboard. "You didn't see anything else? Or, maybe, hear anything else?"



"Like what?"



I still had my hand on his side, careful not to press. He reached out and hooked a finger into the belt loop on my jeans. It felt so natural, so fulfilling, to be there with him. To talk with him as if we did it every day. As if we'd been doing it every day for years. Not even the heat of Ian's fury could penetrate the warmth I was getting from Reyes.



He inched closer. I saw his inch and raised him a three.



"What should I have heard?" he repeated.



"Nothing. It's …  dumb." I gazed up at him, pleading. "But I saw the blood." I grazed my thumb over his bandages. "What happened?" Could he have fought the angel? How would that even be possible? It wasn't like he had a sword hanging from his belt. But it was getting harder and harder to deny the fact that he was shrouded in darkness. It cascaded off him. Pooled at his feet. And looked exactly like the black smoke that had taken the woman from the storeroom. That had stopped the angel from slicing me into bite-sized chunks.



I had so many questions. Possibly most important of all, why the hell had an angel, a celestial being, tried to kill me? That was wrong on so many levels.



"Please tell me what happened."



A grin tugged at one corner of his mouth. "You first."



I dropped my hand and stepped back. I couldn't. There was still a chance that I was as crazy as a soup sandwich, and I had no intention of spending the rest of my life locked in the mental ward of a hospital. Or, possibly worse, downing a cocktail of psych meds everyday.




 

 



He let go of my belt loop, then put his fingers under my chin to tilt my face toward his. But he didn't say anything. He just perused. Studied. Ran his thumb over my mouth. Caused quakes of hunger to shudder through me.



"Reyes -"



"This is a crime scene," Ian said, his hand resting on his gun.



I snapped to my senses. Reyes dropped his hand but didn't look at Ian, almost as though he knew that would infuriate Ian more. Reyes could have argued. Hurled insults. Physically attacked him. None of those things would outrage a man like Ian more than being ignored.



And boy, did it work. Ian's anger shot out of him like a lightning strike. Reyes either didn't know or didn't care.



"If you aren't part of this investigation, you need to leave."



Francie was watching us, too. Well, pretty much everyone was watching us by that point, including Dixie. She'd been at the bank when everything went down and came back to a plethora of flashing lights and police units. That had to be a little disconcerting.



"Officer, he works here," Dixie said. "I asked him to come in to help me with some boxes out back."



Ian stepped closer to Reyes. "Then help."



"Thank you," Dixie said, tugging at Reyes's shirt.



Reyes winked at me, then obeyed the harried woman. She was genuinely worried about him, even though he wasn't.



I was still recovering from the wink when Ian walked over to stand beside me. He rested a puppy-dog gaze on me. An expectant one. I got the feeling he thought I'd fall into his arms with relief that the ordeal was over. That he'd come in on his day off to see about me. That I was now even more indebted to him and couldn't deny the fact that I owed him my life no matter how cra-cra he was.



"Excuse me," I said to him, a sharp edge to my voice.



I'd spotted Francie and wanted to know if any of that did the trick. If she didn't fall for Lewis now, one of the bravest men I knew  –  and one of the only men I knew  –  then it just wasn't there. You couldn't force another person to like you. No one could. I took Ian as a prime example of that. But if she didn't see what was in front of her, she didn't deserve him anyway.



"What did you think of Lewis?" I asked Francie.



She was leaning against the drinks counter, tapping a text into her phone.



"Pretty brave, right?" 



"Please," she said. "I know what you're doing. This doesn't change anything." She offered me her best smirk. It was really pretty. Right before she left me standing there, she whispered, "Game on, bitch."