Darker Than Any Shadow

Chapter Twenty-nine

They sent us home two hours later, the snake-crazed Hawkins staring at me all slant-eyed and suspicious. I was weary from explaining the same story over and over. Trey was a brick wall of inaccessibility. So maybe his interrogation had been less old-home-week and more spill-it-buster than I’d imagined.

“Garrity called,” he said.

I blew out a breath. “How pissed is he?”

“Extremely.”

“At me or you?”

“Both.”

“Pissed enough to leave us hanging?”

“No. He called Cummings.”

“And?”

Trey thought about that. “In summary, he explained that I am incapable of breaking the law, and that while you might be reckless, you’re no criminal. He also said he was coming to see you in the morning.”

Which was exactly the cherry on the catastrophe.

“Whatever. Please take me back to the shopping center. I just want to get my car and go home.”

“You can’t. The manager of the other shopping center had it towed.”

I closed my eyes. This was turning out to be one of my least successful days ever.

***

Trey drove me back to the shop. When I asked if he was tired, he shook his head. Usually, he started sapping around nine, becoming mostly useless around ten. But as we drove in the shifting flare and pass of the oncoming headlights, he was wired, edgy.

I tried to make conversation. “So you’re afraid of snakes?”

He didn’t look my way. “Yes.”

I waited. He offered no further explanation. His jaw was tight, and he took the turns even more sharply that usual, slinging the Ferrari around like we were on the Fiorano racetrack, even if the speedometer never crept one inch above the speed limit.

“Snakes, huh? You and Indiana Jones.”

No reply.

“Any other phobias I should know about?”

“No. And it’s not a phobia.”

“It’s okay. I’ve been afraid of clowns ever since I was three and we went to the state fair. There was this one named Goober—”

“I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“But—”

“I said not now.”

“Fine.” I folded my arms. “We’ll stick with uncomfortable silence. That’s always better.”

Which is exactly what we did. When we arrived at the shop, Trey pulled in, switched the car off, and got out without a word. I went to the front door and unlocked it, knowing it would take some heft to get it open. When the humidity got this high, the wood swelled the door shut tight.

“It’s a mess inside,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “But you’re welcome to come in.”

It wasn’t really a question. Asking a question at this point would have been too precarious, so I focused on working the lock until I felt the give.

More silence. Trey stood in the halogen streetlight, alone in his deliberate circle of separation, yet he had an ache of invitation about him, inarticulate and raw.

“Stay,” I said.

He shook his head, his eyes averted, still looking at the dark street that led back to Buckhead.

“Come on, Trey. I’ve already apologized a million times. I don’t know what else I can do.”

I noticed his breathing then, shallow and uneven. Adrenalin, he always said. He paid attention to it, analyzed it, a chemistry student of the lab that was his own body. It was a red flag, but a flag only. Full systemic arousal with no clear precipitating factor.

And then he switched his gaze full on me, and I felt it like a punch to the solar plexus.

“I am very very angry,” he said. “You created this problem, involved me in it, and now I’ve got to resolve it.”

“I can get myself out of this, thank you very much!”

“I’m not talking about you. I’ve got to get myself out of it. Marisa has already warned me about the precarious situation Phoenix is in.”

She’d warned me too. Sternly. But I didn’t admit this.

Trey continued. “And she’s right. Phoenix has barely recovered from the spring, and now I’m a witness in two murders.”

“I didn’t mean to drag you into this.”

“You dragged me into this very deliberately. Perhaps you didn’t mean to involve me in yet another killing—”

“Perhaps? Like I could have seen this coming? Even you—ex-SWAT hotshot with all your training and experience—even you didn’t see this coming!”

“Of course I didn’t! I can’t see things coming, not anymore!”

The words hit hard. They had bite, as if Trey were provoking me with the sharpest weapon at his disposal. And then the pacing started—four steps to the left, then four to the right, agitated. He had his hands on his hips, one finger tapping against his thigh.

I swallowed hard. “I know.”

“Not like I know.”

I took a step toward him, and my instincts went singing into panic, deep down and primordial. He reminded me of a panther right before the attack, gathering, on the verge of kinetics.

He held up a hand. “Don’t.”

“But—”

“I said I was angry. Very angry.”

And he was. It rolled off him like radiation. And still I moved forward, fighting the urge to run, surprised at how strong the instinct was, equally surprised at how easily I steamrolled right over it.

I was two feet from him, his breath quickening…and not only from anger. I felt it in my veins too, and the realization sang in my head. I knew this part, could play it like a fiddle. This was the only time his persona burnt to ashes, and I knew the secrets. I knew the way in. It was heady and reckless and vainglorious, but I didn’t care.

I took another step closer.

And it was so very hot, the heat of night, heavy and clinging. I smelled of old coffee and fabric softener, and I could smell him too, the salt musk of sweat, the evergreen ghost of his aftershave, and the heat, always the heat. Lightning flared at the horizon, erratic and supercharged.

And the circle cinched around us like a lasso.

I crushed my mouth against his, the warmth of the pavement rising and mingling with the sudden blood rush of want and need. He responded with violent abandon, one hand at the base of my spine, one tangled in my hair, wrenching my head back, exposing my throat. Whatever we’d released was flowing now, unstoppable, sharpened into something dark and edged like a knife.

Under my fingers the muscles of his shoulders flexed and bunched, and he pushed me against the brick wall, mouth to mouth, hip to hip. Deep down, the survival instinct keened, but I smothered it with his mouth, his hands, his demand. I smothered it with desire, and there was enough of that to obliterate it entirely.

His mouth found my ear, his voice rough. “Inside. Now.”

I kicked the door open behind me, and the interior swallowed us whole.