Page 87 of Tested

“That’ll work.”

He heads for his car, and I hit the key fob to unlock the Taurus’s door. I want to tail him, because if the next person to turn up missing is Joey DelMarco, I’m going to feel like shit.

I turn the engine on and my phone vibrates with a new text.“Call me.”It’s Brodie. I don’t want to deal with him, but I’ve just about hit the Morrigan’s seventy-two hour deadline, so I probably should. I swipe the screen and place a call.

“What?”

“We need to talk,” he says, all business, no bullshit.

I exhale hard. “Where and when?”

“Look behind you, asshole.”

A large, black SUV is parked behind me on the street, with a familiar silhouette in the driver’s seat. “Coming, mother,” I say, and shut the Taurus down.

When I try to open the SUV’s passenger door, it’s locked. I knock, once. Hard. The lock pops and I try again. The door opens. “I mean, I can stand out here all night,” I say, and climb in.

“Just keeping you honest,” Brodie says.

“Honest?” I have no clue what he’s talking about. His aura is a deeper green than normal, which sobers me.

“Why do you think I’m here?”

“At a guess I’d say it has something to do with the Morrigan’s friendly request that I track down the Princess.”

“You always were a rocket scientist.”

Dia á sábháil!I have no time for his idiocy. “Look, are we just here shooting the shit, or what?”

“You got somewhere to be?”

My jaw gets tight enough to crack. “So here’s a hypothetical situation. A certain police detective told me he was going to go interview someone close to a murder victim, and then, a day or so later, you find out the victim’s friend was murdered too.”

“Must have been a short interview.”

Irritation explodes in my chest. “Jesus, Brodie, this is serious.”

He waves me down. “Chill already. You’re always spun so tight.”

I open the car door.

“Fuck. Sit down,” he says, grabbing hold of my sleeve. I jerk out of his grasp but keep my seat.

“So,” he says, “does your hypothetical police detective tell you he had trouble interviewing the vic’s friend?”

“Nope.”

“Well that’s pretty damned sketchy.”

“I think so too.”

Brodie’s expression matches mine in intensity. “And did your hypothetical police detective file a report about the interview that wasn’t?”

“Now, that I don’t know. There’s an additional complication, though.”

Brodie twirls his index finger in a ‘keep going’ gesture.

“I may have just told the hypothetical police detective that another person I interviewed is auctioning off the name of the murderer.”