After we finished eating I told Eilahn I’d take care of cleaning up. She didn’t put up an argument. She retreated outside, leaving Ryan and me alone in the kitchen. An awkward silence fell as I ran the water and waited for it to turn hot.
“Any new and interesting cases?” Ryan asked after a moment.
“Sort of,” I said, dabbling my fingers under the running water. “Not a murder but something kind of strange.” I quickly explained about the deaths of Barry Landrieu and Evelyn Stark and how I knew them. I wasn’t about to share the details of my connection to the two victims with the entire Beaulac police department, but I trusted Ryan.
He leaned against the counter, crossed his arms over his chest, and frowned. “Coincidences make me twitchy.”
“You and me both,” I said. The water was still cold, so I shut it off. Grabbing a towel, I dried my hands as I walked down the hall to a utility closet. “My water heater’s ancient,” I explained as he followed me. “Sometimes I have to relight the pilot manually.”
He wrinkled his nose in sympathy as I crouched and stuck the long lighter into the appropriate hole in the bottom of the tank. “It looks like you’ve done this a few times,” he said.
I listened for the sound of the gas firing up, then stood and nodded. “It’s on my list of things to replace when I can afford it,” I said with a sigh, closing the closet door. I didn’t bother returning to the kitchen, since I knew it would take a while for the water to warm up, and instead headed to the living room.
“There’s more,” I said as I plopped down into the armchair instead of my customary spot on the couch. Yes, I was a chickenshit, because what if he sat next to me? Then I might have to actually think about how I felt about him and whether his sitting next to me meant anything or nothing as far as his own feelings. And then I’d have to consider the fact that I suspected stuff about Ryan that I didn’t dare share with him, as well as consider the possibility that this whole “Ryan” that I knew was a total sham anyway.
No, much better to sit in the armchair and give myself more time to try and figure all of this crap out.
He didn’t seem to notice my hesitation over the seating arrangements and simply sat on the end of the couch closer to the chair. “More?” he frowned. “Tell me.”
I did so, giving him a rundown of the graa attack as well as the summoning attempt.
“Fucking hell,” he breathed after I finished. “So there’s another summoner involved, there are two deaths that seem to be connected, and someone in the demon realm is still trying to summon you.”
I nodded.
“Are any of these related to each other?” he asked.
I spread my hands and shrugged. “I have no fucking idea.”
He gave a dry chuckle. “Is your life ever dull?”
I could only laugh. “Not in the ways that count!”
He reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. “I have your back,” he said. “In any way I can. You know that, right?”
The memory of the being who’d blasted the golem with arcane power rose up. I could barely reconcile that creature and Ryan as the same person.
“I know that,