Page 29 of Tested

“So they say.”

“Tell me more.”

I lean forward, arms crossed, hoping I can motivate him to answer. Better than standing there like a bump on a log.

The witch blows a kiss at me, which makes me recoil. Connor heaves another sigh and puts two more twenties on the counter.

“I appreciate your generosity”—the witch snatches up the money and stuffs it away—“but that’s really all I know. Adaline Nosaka might not have been quite as nice as she seemed, but she didn’t deserve what happened to her, either.”

I give him my best bitchy look. “You owe us.”

“What?” The witch doesn’t seem to be impressed by my efforts.

“Connor just gave you forty dollars and you responded by saying you didn’t know anything else. That means you owe us information.” I raise my chin, daring him to hit me. “That also means we’ll be back.”

I take that as my cue to leave. Connor doesn’t follow right away, but he’s out by the car soon enough that I didn’t miss anything important. The car chirps and I climb in. Only when we’re both buckled into our seats do I turn to him. “So?”

“What happened to you being the good cop?”

“He annoyed me.”

Connor occupies himself with checking left and right before backing out of our parking spot, but he’s grinning as he does it.

“Wonder what else he was selling in there.”

Connor’s grin fades. “What do you mean?”

“The whole place stank of magic.”

He guns the engine, jerking us out into a break in the flow of traffic. “Didn’t notice.”

“Really?” His frown wipes the smile off my face.

“Not a whiff.” He might be trying for humor, but he misses the mark. “I didn’tsmellanything except mildewed books and maybe some incense.”

“That’s odd.”

“Look, I’m not like you. When I was with the Elites, I carried a fucking sensor so I didn’t miss shit like that.”

“Good thing I’m around, then.” I give him finger guns, but his expression says he’s not sold on my admittedly snarky reassurance. “Maybe they’d let you borrow one?”

“Won’t need to as long as I’ve got you around.”

He says it lightly, like he wants me to think this is no big deal. We break with our surface-streets-only tradition and get on the freeway.

The silence between us stretches long enough to make me twitchy, and I jump when Connor finally speaks. “I should have seen something in his aura, anyway.”

“His what?”

“His aura.” Connor’s staring hard at the road ahead of us. “The energy surrounding him.”

“You can see that? I didn’t know that was a real thing.” I chew on my lip for a second. “What’s mine look like? Is it pretty?”

“Gorgeous,” he says, his lips twitching into something like a smile, and I finally feel like I can exhale. I want to ask him how he learned to see auras and what the skill is good for and a couple hundred other things, but he’s finally lost the crease between his brows so I save my questions for later.

Connor MacPherson, Private Eye and Super Enigma. I thought the vampire was supposed to be the mysterious one. Compared with Connor, though, Trajan’s an open book. We lapse into a more-or-less companionable silence. I spend time wondering which Collins werewolf the witch meant and how much Connor really misses the Elites, and Siri tells us how many miles we have till our exit.

When Siri declares that we have reached our destination, Connor parallel parks us in front of a gracious hacienda style home in Pasadena. He hasn’t said anything, but the clipped way he shuts off the engine makes me think he’s still frustrated.