Page 63 of Stalked By Shadows

“Okay,” he agreed. “But getting mad at the cops is going to help who? Remember, your brother is a cop and you don’t want to make his co-workers pissy with him because you were pissy with them.”

Lukas was not on duty, though he’d shown up when called. Since I was once again involved, even if it was simply finding the dead woman, he’d been shoved to the sidelines of the case again. Which I didn’t think made him all that happy. He had also not been thrilled that we’d been there at all. But since Micah and Mary Lamont worked in the same industry, part of four, well now two remaining tour guides certified by the city, it was stupid to think they’d never speak to each other.

He’d given me the side eye that said he didn’t believe we had come to talk shop at all, but left me to the rest of the cops for questioning. While we hadn’t been stripped and taken anywhere, the questioning had been brutal. Probably a half dozen guys asking the same things over and over. Micah and I were separated, though I kept him in my line of sight. We told as much of the truth as we dared. Just that Micah had come to ask why Mary had been in the cemetery on his scheduled night. It was a simplified version of the truth, but still the truth.

We were finally released right before eight and told to stay out of the cops’ way. “That’s the plan,” I told them as I dragged Micah with our batch of retrieved shopping items toward his shop. They’d taken my shoes again, since I had blood on them. Lukas had given me his since he had more than a dozen to choose from after sending a rookie to grab him a pair.

I would have stopped to talk to him, but he waved us off, with a comment of “Later.”

At the shop Sky looked at us with wide eyes while Micah stalked to the back room to drop off the bags of stuff that had been searched a dozen times.

“Another body?” Sky asked.

I wondered how she could tell, but then I realized there was blood on my shirt.

“Dammit. This job is hell on my clothes,” I said, trying to make light of it. I followed Micah to the back room and stripped off the shirt, throwing it in the basket in the small washroom, and washing my hands and face.

“Still think I’m not a curse?” Micah asked standing in the doorway watching me.

“No more than I am. Hell, maybe it’s the combination of the two of us together that fucks people up. We could offer our services as political assassins. Drop us off in a random country and watch their world erupt.”

“You’re not funny.”

“No?” I asked, drying my hands and crossing the room to tower over him. I grabbed his waist and pulled him against me, staring down into those wide blue eyes.

“No,” he breathed, though it felt like a lie. He relaxed in my arms a little, tilting his head up. I rewarded him with a gentle kiss on his forehead, then one on each cheek before finding his mouth and teasing his lips with my teeth. His mask had gone back up while the cops questioned us, but I was beginning to see around it now, the small breaks of emotions he let through when less people were around.

“It doesn’t have to be anything supernatural.”

“Sure,” he said. “Just dead people everywhere.”

“Um, don’t we live in a city full of dead people? Graves above ground, ghosts, and all that jazz? Oh and real jazz too. Didn’t you tell some story about ragtime—the actual menstrual cycle ragtime—, prostitutes, and the growth of jazz?”

He gave me the narrow eye of judgment again. “Your brain is like a sponge.”

“Thick and sopping wet?” I inquired teasingly.

He sighed and started to complain about my sarcasm again, but I kissed him soundly instead. Not a gentle play of control, but a full dive into his mouth with my tongue kiss. He relaxed into it, closing his eyes and returning the exploration with his own. We stayed together that way for a time. In the moment with each other. Not only was it calming, but clarifying. The chaos around us be damned. “I hope we’re more than just a spark,” I whispered when the kiss ended and I rested my forehead against his.

“Yes,” he agreed. “I think we are.”

And that was the best news I’d heard all day. I pulled away to do a little dance. “Micah likes me, I like Micah, woot woot,” I sang a little made up song and probably looked like an epileptic chicken while I danced.

“Dork.”

“You had one hundred percent disclosure.” I pointed at myself. “Crazy man.”

He gave me a half squint. “I don’t get you.”

“What’s to get?”

“You play broken pretty well, but you’re one of the calmest, most put together guys I’ve ever met.”

I grinned. “Really? You must know some really messed up people then.”

He mock-growled and shoved me away, then made his way back to the main part of the shop to plug his phone in.

“Can we listen to some rock?” I called after him as I went to find another T-shirt. “Instead of Justin Fest?”