Page 6 of Looking Grimm (Marionette #4)

I woke the next day to the sound of raised voices in the hall outside Nash’s room. Pippa was making her dramatic exit and ensuring the whole house knew about it. She spouted more of the same scorn and insults I’d heard the day before, and it was enough to make me wad my pillow around my ears and squeeze my eyes shut.

I stayed in bed an hour after I was certain she was gone. I might have remained there all day if Nash hadn’t cleared out my alcohol stash. So, a little after noon, I dragged myself out and padded on bare feet downstairs to the bar.

The projector television was on, a rare sight, and Nash reposed at a table in front of it. His hand curled around a drink that looked largely alcoholic and wholly untouched.

Stalled in the doorway, I debated snagging a bottle from behind the counter and sneaking back upstairs. I headed that way but stopped when Nash swiveled toward me and asked, “You wanna play darts?”

He looked worn through, and I couldn’t bear to see it. But I couldn’t leave him alone with it, either. I nodded.

He gave a little smile and rose, then walked over to the wall-mounted board and plucked out the darts stuck in it.

I opened my hand and mentally called a few toward me. They flew backward through the air and into my waiting palm. The fletching of one grazed the side of Nash’s face and caused him to give me a bemused look.

“You really are feeling more yourself,” he said. “Showoff.”

I smirked. “Plenty more where that came from.”

After watching me throw looping trick shots and land back-to-back bullseyes for three games straight, he was singing a different tune.

“It’s no fun when you cheat,” he grumbled.

Another dart lifted off from my fingers, spiraling lazily to sink in the triple 20 ring. “If I don’t cheat, I lose,” I replied. “That’s no fun, either.”

“Tell me about it.” Rather than take his turn, Nash looked down at the pair of darts he held. Shadows darkened his face.

I shifted closer to him, fighting the urge to squeeze into the space against his chest. We barely touched anymore and hadn’t had sex in weeks, but sometimes I woke in the night to him holding me. It was the only time I felt at peace these days.

But he deserved to be given comfort, not only to have it taken from him. I scuffed my shoe against the polished wood floor and muttered, “I’m sorry about Pippa.”

“I’d rather not talk about it.” He threw a dart that hit the single bull for twenty-five points, not that we were keeping score .

“I feel like I’m ruining your life.” The thought that had plagued me for days finally found voice. It was too honest, and I wanted to take it back, but Nash didn’t bat an eye.

“You’re not,” he replied.

The television had changed over to the midday news. The volume was low, and I didn’t bother trying to discern what the anchor said in his monotone drone. Something must have caught Nash’s interest, though, because his toffee brown eyes stretched wide as they fixed on the projector screen.

He looked so alarmed that I had to see for myself. I immediately wished I hadn’t.

The camera showed the stark, white edifice of the Capitol building. Zooming rapidly in, it focused on where a crumpled body lay on the front steps. Nash bolted past me to the table where he’d been sitting and scooped up the discarded remote, cranking up the volume.

INVESTIGATOR SLAIN, the crawler spelled out. My attention darted between the words and the image of the female investigator’s oddly contorted figure. Black lines smeared across her forehead.

As the camera continued to close in, the mark became clear. F. Farrow had been scrawled in permanent marker below her hairline. It even looked like my handwriting. Nash must have thought so, too, because he stabbed a finger at the screen and turned an accusatory glare on me.

“Is this why you’ve been acting different?” he demanded.

I staggered backward. “I didn’t do that.” But I couldn’t quit staring at it. Grimm got my message and responded, but not how I expected.

What had I expected ?

Nash clutched the remote in a tight fist. “So, you aren’t killing again?”

I ran my tongue across my lips. It would have been simple enough to lie, but instead, I repeated dumbly, “I didn’t do that.”

Nash closed in, maximizing his five-inch height advantage to loom over me. His bearded cheeks flushed. “Who’s it for this time? That Briggs guy?” He didn’t wait for my answer to carry on in a mutter, “I knew I shouldn’t have let him in here. What did he ask you to do?”

“He didn’t ask me to do anything!” I waved my hands dismissively. “I asked him…” My brain churned to generate an excuse that wouldn’t drag Nash into my mess or give him a reason to think less of me, though that may have been impossible at this point.

I settled at last to say, “It’s complicated.”

“It always is.”

The utter defeat in his expression and the way his shoulders dropped gnawed at me. I grabbed his elbow and tugged on it until he looked at me. His eyes were hard, angry.

“I didn’t kill any investigators, Nash,” I insisted but couldn’t keep myself from tagging on, “Not recently, anyway.”

“Then what have you been doing?”

My phone buzzed against my leg, and I pressed my palm against it, hoping it was a phantom feeling and not an actual call coming through. But the second ring was undeniable.

Nash flashed a look of warning as I fished the cell out of my pocket and checked the caller ID.

Lyle, Holland

I clutched the phone to my chest and sucked a steadying breath. “I have to take this.”

Nash’s severe expression became even more so. “You can call them back,” he said. “We’re talking.”

The cell hummed again, and I cringed. “It’s important.”

“And this isn’t?”

Of course, it was important. And personal. So much so that he might as well have asked, And I’m not?

But the phone kept ringing, and the news anchor kept yammering, and the camera kept showing the autograph that wasn’t mine on the dead investigator’s face.

“I’ll be quick,” I told Nash.

His nostrils flared. “Take all the time you need.”

If only he meant that.

He punched the remote’s power button, and the television screen went black, casting the bar area in darkness and silence. He tossed the control onto the table, but it skittered off and hit the floor, popping open and allowing the batteries to roll away.

“Nash!” I yelped after him as he walked quickly away. He passed through the doorway out of the bar while I scrubbed my free hand through my hair and swore.

Pulling the cell away from my chest, I checked the screen again. It would roll to voicemail any moment, and then I would have pissed Nash off for nothing. Growling, I swiped to answer the call and pressed the phone to my ear.

“Afternoon, Investigator,” I greeted through gritted teeth. “Now’s not a great time.”

Holland launched in as though I hadn’t spoken. “Fitch? What kind of game are you playing?” Her voice carried across the line loudly enough that I had to pull the cell back a few inches. “I should’ve arrested you when I had the chance. Would have saved a life.”

“I didn’t do it,” I protested.

“Sounds like a thing you would say,” she replied. “By which I mean it sounds like bullshit.”

I snorted, pacing the floor past the broken TV remote. “Why would I warn you yesterday, then turn around and do this?”

“Because you’re an exhibitionist!” Holland exclaimed, her voice shrill. “And a braggart. This has your enormous ego written all over it. Literally.”

I looked at the empty doorway through which Nash had disappeared. I was ruining his life. Destroying his business. Alienating his sister. I could do even more harm by bringing the cops to his door.

“Are you tracing this call?” I asked.

She didn’t sound nearly surprised enough as she responded, “What?”

“Don’t bother.” A long breath escaped me. “Briggs knows where I am.”

The investigator quickly countered. “And you can bet I’ll be sending a car, so don’t go anywhere.”

The ache of sorrow pinballed inside my chest. This time, something new came alongside it: fear. I was more alone than I’d ever been. More vulnerable. With one decisive act, Grimm had rendered me an enemy to those on both sides of the law.

It didn’t matter that I hadn’t killed this investigator. I’d done plenty to earn this fate.

“Is that a warning, or are you giving me a head start?” I asked. It took twenty minutes to drive from the Capitol to the Bitters’ End. Make that fifteen for patrol cars with sirens and lights flashing.

“Don’t run, Fitch,” Holland said. “If you’re innocent, you don’t need to run.”

I scoffed. “Now, that sounds like bullshit.”

“Don’t run,” she repeated.

“I really didn’t do it.”

That was the last thing I wanted her to hear before I hung up.

With the call ended, I put my phone back into my pocket and found my hands trembling. I kept pacing, fueled by anxious energy that had my bare feet pounding against the floorboards. I pulled at my hair again, wadding handfuls and tugging until my scalp stung.

If I waited here for the Capitol’s justice, it would be swift. Without the evidence to convict me, they could lock me up in Thorngate to await a trial that would never come. I would be collared, and caged, and stripped of my magic. In a cell. In isolation. Indefinitely.

Breaths came quicker until I was gasping. I couldn’t fill my lungs no matter how hard I tried, couldn’t stop my heart from racing. Dizziness rushed my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to anchor myself in the moment.

The investigators had already traced my phone. They were on their way, and I was wasting precious time.

Pulling my cell from my pocket again, I dropped it on the table beside Nash’s forgotten drink. I didn’t know what was in the glass, and I didn’t care. I snagged it and tipped it back, swallowing without stopping until I’d finished the whole thing. It tasted like brandy with a sharp kick of citrus and something that made my tongue burn.

Alcohol, yes, but alchemy, too, flooding my brain with much-needed calm. I looked at the empty glass while the suddenly mellow tone overtook my panic. Apparently, Nash had intended to self-medicate with magical tranquilizers and changed his mind. His loss, my gain.

My flurried thoughts filed into line, and I found that I could focus on the options available to me and consider a strategy.

I had to run. Staying was not an option. If Holland got me in custody, I would never breathe free air again. But unless I intended to live in hiding indefinitely, I needed a way to clear my name or at least a worthy bargaining chip.

There was one person Holland wanted behind bars more than me. One cause for which she had proven consistently willing to compromise everything else. It was the only point we seemed to agree on.

I needed to find Grimm.

Fortunately, I was already on that path. Unfortunately, my first, frankly pathetic step toward the top of the Bloody Hex’s food chain had been answered with a declaration of war. I’d dipped a toe in deadly waters and been dragged into their depths. But it was my only recourse: tempting Holland’s attention away from me by offering a bigger, better catch.

I set down the glass, then gave my discarded cell phone a fleeting glance. Nash’s calm-down juice helped me think clearly, but it failed to put a damper on the sorrow eating up my insides. I didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to run from an end that felt inevitable. Didn’t want to feel like this anymore.

I couldn’t stall any longer, so I turned and walked toward the entry hall where my car keys waited in a bowl by the door.

Fifteen minutes wasn’t long enough for explanations or even goodbyes, so I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and shouted up.

“Nash, I’m going out!”

His bedroom door swung open, and he stepped onto the second-floor balcony, holding my boots. “Not barefoot, you aren’t.” He dropped them over the railing, then turned and disappeared back into his room.

I flinched when the shoes landed with a clunk beside me. I owed him better than this. He was due a warning about the cops about to invade his business or an apology for the havoc I’d brought into his life. At least I could have given him my reason for leaving.

But I didn’t know where I was headed or if I would be back, so I left it at that.