“How you figure?”
His gaze lowered to the turquoise, which lay like the stone it was against my chest. “How many people have turquoise on them? Especially around here.”
“Huh?”
My mind still wasn’t functioning as well as it should. I blamed the walking cougar and the possessed dead man.
“Sawyer knew the demon couldn’t hurt you while you wore his gift,” Jimmy said.
“Sure would have been nice if I’d known it.” I rubbed my arms, chilled despite the warm-for-the-month-of-May evening breeze.
Sometimes I wondered why I still wore the stone. In the beginning, the turquoise was the only jewelry I owned, and it was beautiful, a stark statement of brilliant color in a world where there was so much gray. There was also the added incentive that it drove Jimmy bonkers, which was always fun. In the end I didn’t feel dressed without it. If I were honest, I didn’t feel safe.
I glanced at the cougar. Had this been why?
“He couldn’t have known I’d still be wearing it,” I murmured.
“I bet he did know just that.”
“But—”
“He wouldn’t kill you, Lizzy.” Jimmy’s lips twisted. “Me? That’s another story.” He strode toward the barn.
“Wait!” I hurried after him, grabbing his arm.
“Let’s clean this place up and get on the road.”
“To where?”
“You know where.”
“No.” He shook me off and continued on his way. “I’m not going, Sanducci, and you can’t make me.”
He spun around so fast I took a step back. “I can make you, Lizzy, and I will. We’ve got no choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“Not in this.”
I stood in the barnyard as he disappeared inside, considered hopping into his Hummer and leaving him here. But then what?
I’d have to hide. Forever. I wasn’t up to that.
Instead, I followed, determined to convince Jimmy that his plan sucked.
The tack room was trashed—the mattress shredded by razor-sharp cat claws, stuffing trailed everywhere. The bedframe lay cockeyed, one corner still against the wall, another against the floor, the third and fourth waving back and forth like an overgrown, rusted teeter-totter.
As I came through the door, Jimmy snapped his cell phone shut, tossed it into a bag with one hand and removed a T-shirt with the other. “Put this on.” He flipped the garment in my direction. “Your blouse is toast.”
“Whose fault is that?” I retorted.
“I just gave you a new one. Quit bitching.”
I lifted the T-shirt. “Van Halen?”
He shrugged as if to say, You know how it goes.
I did.
Jimmy had been gifted with all sorts of T-shirts. He wore them with jeans and a sport coat, had been photographed himself wearing them in London, Paris, Rome. What began as a joke became a trademark. If Sanducci wore your T-shirt, he’d deigned to take your picture. You had arrived.
I thought back to the photo he’d taken of Van Halen—Eddie and Alex, Michael, Sammy and David Lee. How he’d gotten them all in the same room was anyone’s guess. How he’d gotten them to pose and not kill one another was a downright miracle. The portrait had graced their latest All-rime Hits CD. The thing had sold three million copies. I had one myself.
Jimmy headed back outside. I hurriedly shoved my dusty stocking-covered feet into my shoes, then lost the buttonless blouse and drew the T-shirt over my head. It smelled like him, and I was struck by a wave of nostalgia so deep I staggered. Would I ever get past loving Jimmy Sanducci? God, I hoped so.
When I stepped from the barn, Jimmy was kneeling next to Springboard and shoving something into the dead man’s pocket.
“What are you doing?”
“Wrapping things up neatly for your cop friends.”
“Huh?”
He sighed and withdrew the item from Springboard’s pocket.
“Ruthie’s crucifix? How did you get that? She never—” I paused.
She’d never taken it off while she was alive.
“You came back?” I asked.
He bent once more to plant the necklace on Springboard. “I was too late for her, but I knew she’d want you to have this—” He straightened, his eyes meeting mine, the grief there an echo of my own. “I took it, then I tried to wake you up, but the sirens…”
“You ran.”
“Like a rabbit.”
“How could the Nephilim have hurt her if she was wearing a crucifix?”
Sadness spread over his face, settling in his eyes. “Only a few beings will be stopped by a crucifix.”
“How can you touch it?”
“I’m not one of them.”
“But—”
“I’m dhampir, not vampire. There’s a difference.”
“So you say.”
“I didn’t burst into flames, did I?”
He was so cavalier I had to ask. “Does a crucifix really destroy a vampire?”