Page 53 of A Witchy Spell Ride

“Like what.”

He pointed at the nail. “This is a choice. He could’ve taped the thread. He could’ve tied it. Nailing is ritual. He wanted permanence. He wanted to make a mark he thinks I won’t see under paint.”

“You will,” I said.

“I will,” he echoed, smug and mild. He took the nail out with tweezers, placed it in a vial like a relic. “Galvanized. Cheap. Hardware store on Dauphine sells these. So do six others. But if I get a metal trace that looks like their bin and not the competitor’s, I can ask better questions with money.”

He swabbed the thread for skin cells, pocket lint, stray oils. “You can tell a lot about a man by what his pocket leaves on cotton.”

“We already know enough,” I said.

“That he’s obsessed?”

“That he thinks obsession is love,” I said. “And that he thinks men like me are a disease he can cure with a hammer.”

Cross looked up at me. “You sound calm.”

“I am.”

“You’re not.”

“Calm and cold are cousins.”

“Which one are you?”

“Yes.”

He grinned despite himself. “Reaper says you only do jokes when you’re about to do something terrible.”

“He’s not wrong.”

We packed the kit. Cross left a tiny motion sensor no bigger than a thumbnail in the closet door seam, something he “didn’t do anymore.” I ignored it. We both did. He scraped a smear of dust from the top of the door frame into a tube, because yes, people clean, but people clean differently; maybe the difference would tell us a story about a man too orderly for his lies.

On the way back to the clubhouse we didn’t talk about Selene. We talked about routes and angles and the stain on Cross’s tie that looked like coffee but probably was someone else’s bourbon.We passed the praline guy; he gave me a free piece because I looked like I needed sugar or mercy.

At the gate, Banks was there.

He was sweeping like sweeping was an art form and he was failing at it. He glanced at the truck and then away so fast he might as well have held up a sign that saidI am avoiding guilt. I got out slow.

“Prospect,” I said.

“Ghost,” he said, and went for casual, missed, landed on sweaty.

“You been here all morning?”

“Yeah.”

“You go by the shop?”

“No.” Too quick. He licked his lips. “I mean, I walked past on my way back from.”

I didn’t bother to ask from where. “You walk past it again today, you’ll catch a boot to the throat,” I said, and I meant it. “You don’t look toward her window. You don’t breathe in that direction unless you’re told.”

His face colored. “I didn’t”

“Youwantto be the problem,” I said, low. “I’m looking for the man who actually is. Don’t make me split my attention.”

Banks swallowed. “Yes, sir.”