“Heriberto’s dead,” he said flatly.
“Jesus,” I said. “You okay?”
“It wasn’t me,” he said. “I showed up to arrest them, brought a couple officers with me, but as soon as we got there, you left that message about finding the yacht.”
I gawped at him. “So you just left?”
“I just left.”
“But your car . . .”
“I was blocked in, and I was in a hurry, so I grabbed a car from another detective. After I left, Heriberto apparently came out of his house and started shooting. It was over pretty quick.”
“You just left.”
He gave an impatient nod. “Yes.”
“Why?”
He took a few steps, so that he was standing just in front of me as I sat on the edge of the bed, my knees dangerously close to his hips. “Because it was you.”
The air between us had gone into a buzzing violet. I felt it pressing on my chest. “I thought you were done saving me.”
“Actually,” he said, “there was a bullet hole in the front seat of my car when I got back. If I’d been sitting there, it would have hit me. So I guess you could say that you saved me.”
I laughed. “It’s getting so old saving your ass, Detective.” I rolled my eyes dramatically.
“I’ve told you a thousand times,” he said, mocking what I’d repeatedly said to him months before, when we barely knew each other. “Call me Chris.”
He reached out and touched my cast with his finger; the violet almost took on a physical presence, it was so strong.
“You remember me telling you to call me Miss Kill a thousand times, huh?”
“I remember more every day,” he said.
I raised my eyebrows. “And you still want to be around me?”
He bit his lower lip and nodded, slowly, seriously. “More than ever.”
Violet coursed between us, brighter and brighter, until I could hardly breathe. I’d seen violet before—with Dru, with Jones—but I’d never actually felt it taking hold of my body. Chris must have felt it too, because his hand snaked up from my cast, up the length of my arm and into my hair. He cupped the back of my neck and pulled me toward him.
I had seen colors my whole life. I had lived in color, as Peyton had. I had swum in a soup of confusion and sadness and happiness and fear and love and mystery for as long as I could remember.
But when Chris’s lips touched mine, a rainbow sprouted between us, brighter than the Vegas Strip and deeper than rivers of paint and richer than any Hollis ever thought of being. I let myself slide along the colors, even though they scared me and took my breath away. They also felt right. I reached up and placed my hand on his chest. I could feel his heartbeat speeding under my fingers.
He pulled away just slightly, pressing his forehead to mine. “Am I still yellow?” he asked.
“Actually,” I said, barely able to get words out, “you’re totally magenta.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“It didn’t used to be,” I said. I was breathing his breath, the tip of my nose brushing his. “But, yeah, with you, I think it’s probably a good thing.”
He swept both arms around me and I allowed myself to fall into him.
A really good thing.
EPILOGUE
BLUE WAS STILL unpacking when I got home with the cake. The girl had a million little statues and gems and runes and bowls that I joked were her virgin sacrifice bowls.
“You are definitely a witch,” I said, sliding the cake onto the counter and taking the ice cream to the freezer.
She laughed and reached into the box, pulling out a couple of metal rods. “Am not.”
“What the hell are those?”
“Divining rods,” she said, as if I were clueless. Which I kind of was.
I unpacked the cheese and crackers I had bought and laid them out on the counter. “All I know is you better not ever try to use those on me.”
She laughed again. “You don’t use divining rods on people, Nik. You use them to find ghosts.”
“Oh, good, that’s so much more sane,” I said. “You find glasses today?”
“Yep, in the cabinet.” I opened a cabinet and she had washed, dried, and neatly stored a dozen drinking glasses. “And all the plates and silverware are party ready.”
I opened the drawers, checking out all the things she’d put away while I was at work answering phone calls at the station. “Not a party,” I said. “Just my dad and Ruby and Vee.”
“And Chris,” she said.
I felt myself blush. When would the blushing wear off, for cripes’ sake?
“And Chris.”
“Speaking of . . .” She rolled her eyes upward toward Chris’s apartment, a floor above us.
“No, he doesn’t know yet.”
“Nikki!”
“I’m about to tell him. Jeez. Leave me alone, Mom.” I was forever calling Blue Mom. She was tiny and young, but definitely a caretaker. She’d been there while my arm healed, through my post-yacht nightmares, and through all my major freak-outs as I sat for my exams. She even went to the library and checked out books to help me learn how to ignore my colors so studying went easier. I wasn’t sure if they always worked, but it felt good to have someone care enough to try.
“He wants to know.”
“I know.”
“He will be disappointed to find out from someone other than you.”
“I know.”
I started down the hallway to my tiny bedroom.
“You should tell him now, Nikki!”
“I know!” I shut the door and changed clothes, peeling off my “secretary clothes,” as Chris liked to call them, and pulling on leggings and a sweatshirt. I tossed my low heels into the back of my closet—God, I hated heels—and dug out my comfy Chucks. These shoes had been through so much. They’d walked the tile of Peyton’s hospital room. They’d been carelessly discarded by Dru’s bed. They’d stood on his blood. They’d been lost at the beach. They’d been to a swanky dinner in Vegas. They’d strolled with Jones and kicked Luna and chased Peter Fairchild. They’d walked into my new apartment to start a new life, away from the place where my mom died and my dad hid so many secrets.
Some days I thought it was time to get rid of the shoes. Most days, I thought I never would.
I stuffed my feet into a pair of socks and the Chucks and gathered my hair up into a ponytail. I checked the time on my phone, then texted Chris.
Workout?
Already there.
Nervous?
What would I have to be nervous about?
I’ll show you in a minute.
“He deserves to know, after everything. . . .”
“Oh my God, are you still talking?” I said. I grabbed my key to the new downstairs fitness room—really, just a treadmill, a heavy bag, and a sparring mat—that we’d talked the landlord into when we moved into Chris’s building, and walked past Blue, making yak-yak motions with my hands.
“I’m excited, okay?”
I looked at her with exaggerated wide eyes. “You don’t say.”
“Just go. Tell.”
“Okay, okay.”
CHRIS WAS ALREADY sweaty when I got there.
“Hey, neighbor,” I said. “Warming up? I don’t blame you. You need all the advantages you can get.”
“Or I need to wear myself out a little first, so I don’t accidentally hurt you.”
I cocked my head to one side. “Hurt me?” I craned my neck, looking past him. “Did you bring an army I don’t see?”
“Army of two,” he said, flexing both biceps.
I pretended to yawn. “Pretty puny army.”
“Oh, really?” He rushed me, grabbed me around the waist, and pulled me to the ground, flipping so he was on top of me, holding my hands down on the mat on each side of my head. “Hmm. I like this hold.” He leaned down and kissed my neck. My world lit up purple.
I tamped down the color and dug my chin into his shoulder, pressing hard so that he let up. I bucked to the side and tossed him off me, then pulled up onto my knees, facing him, my hands at the ready.
“Oh, so it’s like that, huh?” he asked, a devilish smile on his face.
“It’s always like that.”
“Trust me, I know.”
He started to advance on me and I tensed my stance in anticipation. “I passed,” I blurted.
He stopped. “You did? When did you find out?”
“This morning. Flying colors . . .” I thought about it. “So to speak.”