Page 51 of Grave Beginnings

“No.”

“Huh,” I said, processing. Not wanting to make enemies, I grabbed my coffee and headed to the hot case to pick sandwiches for myself and Angel. “If you could send me an email with some notes?” I suggested. “Like, if I’m doing that weird electric zap thing that happens when I touch some people, learning how to control it would be great.”

“Only some people?” Merrill asked.

I picked a sausage and egg English muffin for myself and a loaded ham, cheese, egg, and bacon for Angel. “Not Angel.”

Merrill stared at me like I’d grown another head. “Angel’s power doesn’t zap you? Those runes he has inked jolt everyone, even other shifters.”

“Uh…” What?”

“Hey,” Angel said, walking up behind Merrill to my side. Merrill backed away as if getting within a few feet of Angel would electrocute him. “You good?” Angel asked.

“Oh, yeah.” I held out the sandwich I’d picked for him. “This work for you?”

He took it from me and read the label. “One of my faves. You got yours?”

“I do,” I said cheerfully, and held up my sandwich, eyeing the rest of the spread. “I think I’m going to grab some fruit too. You want something?” There was a giant basket at the end filled with oranges, apples, bananas, and even a few pears.

“Sure. An apple, please. I have peanut butter snack packs at my desk if you ever need them,” Angel said, ignoring Merrill’s existence as he headed back toward the door.

I grabbed our fruit and followed, giving Merrill a polite, “Nice to meet you,” though I knew we wouldnotbe friends. Angel wove us back through the long hall, pointing out offices that now had people in them. We had an entire tech unit on our floor, which he said Bobby and Wade would often vanish into. Other units had their own bullpen and surrounding offices. Ours, while mostly shifter, was the largest, featuring a lot of the NHVs as well, though most of them worked on night rotation according to Angel.

We returned to our office, and I unwrapped my sandwich as I logged in to find the requested files on the computer, with a note from Ezra tagging Angel and me. “That was fast,” I said, biting into my food. Scanning through my email for anything important, I added a few notes to my calendar for meetings and pulled up the case notes. At least this part of the job was familiar enough.

“How’d it go with Merrill?” Angel said, munching on his own sandwich.

I sighed. “I consider myself a pretty good judge of character, you know?”

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t leave me alone with him again. I look like shit in orange.”

Angel laughed, half choking on his sandwich. “He doesn’t like shifters much. Not many HVs do.”

“Whatever,” I said, opening up the first file. “Guess it’s a good thing you got stuck with me, then?”

A smile tugged the corner of Angel’s lips. “I guess it is.”

17

Watchingpeople come and go from the bookstore could have taken days on regular speed, but since their business wasn’t exactly hopping it only took a few hours on high-speed to snapshot anyone in or out. Could we get names for each customer to go with the timestamp? I paid close attention to the ones with kids. None of them looked like the blonde thing I’d seen out of the corner of my eye.

Angel and I split the days, each taking one at a time to review. Both of us sat with headsets on, listening for anything out of the ordinary, gazes locked on the screen. This was the most boring part of the job, but one of the most important. We got through four days before Angel pulled off his headset and stretched. “Let’s go to lunch.”

“Oh yes, food. And more coffee.”

He snorted. “You cannot exist on coffee alone.”

“It’s water,” I protested. “Filtered through beans.”

“If you say so.” A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Want to walk over to the bakery?” Angel asked.

I froze, my stomach gurgling with joy and my head reeling with fear. “Across the Veil?”

“It’s a five-minute walk.”

“But it’s safe?”