Author: Kalayna Price

“So, how did you get drafted for escort service?” Not that I really cared, but I needed to fill the space with a sound other than the echo of our footsteps on the cement.

“I asked,” he said without inflection. “This is our door.” He pushed it open.

The door led to a multistory parking garage. A welllit garage, thank goodness. As I stepped out of the corridor and the door swung shut behind me, the muggy air in the garage turned prickly.

A spell.

I skittered sideways, and my already-sore shoulder made impact with a body that hadn’t been there the moment before. Or at least, hadn’t appeared to be there.

Only I would jump into a spell, instead of away from it.

I reeled back.The concealment charm broke, and the petite woman who’d been hiding behind it—and whom I’d bumped into—narrowed her eyes before swiping a hand through her dark hair. It fell around her shoulders without a strand out of place, and she turned on her smile, thrusting a mic in my face.

“Ms. Craft, why do you think you were shot at today?”

I blinked dumbly at Lusa Duncan, the star reporter for Witch Watch. Behind her, her cameraman’s red recording light blinked.

My first thought was to wonder if I’d thanked her for the healing spell she’d given me earlier. She was the reporter who’d had the charm that kept John from bleeding out on the Central Precinct steps. Then I registered what she’d asked, and I scowled. I was about to appear on the most popular news show in Nekros City wearing nasty purple scrubs.

I shot a desperate glance at Detective Andrews. He reholstered his gun and tugged his coat closed over the rig. Then he stepped between Lusa and me, knocking her mic aside.

“No comment,” he said, throwing an arm over my shoulder and turning me to march away from the reporter.

Lusa didn’t give up that easily. Her heels clicked on the concrete, trailing us. “Will you still be raising Amanda Holliday’s shade in the morning?”

“Yes.” No way in hell was I going to let some closedminded gunman scare me into not raising Amanda.

My answer seemed to encourage Lusa to throw more questions. “Do you think the shooting had anything to do with what you learned from Coleman’s body?”

Detective Andrews’s fingers dug into my shoulder. A warning? I forced myself to keep moving, to not glance back. I wasn’t an idiot. Lusa was digging. She had no idea whom I’d raised in the morgue. Only John and Andrews knew for certain that I’d so much as seen Coleman’s body. John was in the ICU, and I had serious doubts Andrews had told anyone yet—especially the press.

Detective Andrews yanked a ring of keys from his pocket and hit a button. A car ahead of us flashed its headlights, chirping as it unlocked. My steps faltered. It gave Lusa a second to catch up, but I couldn’t help it.

The overhead lights reflected off the shiny finish of a red convertible, its top down, the black leather interior spotless.

That was so not police issue.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to gawk. I slid into the passenger seat, the soft leather engulfing me. Andrews climbed into the other side, and the car cranked with the gentlest purr.

“Nice car.” A major understatement.

Andrews threw the convertible in gear, and I trailed a hand over the bright red finish. Probably fresh off the lot—unlike my little hatchback, which had been factory assembled in the same decade witches came out of the broom closet.

The sharp echoes of Lusa’s heels bounced off the cement columns as she rounded the car next to us, her mic extended.“Ms. Craft, did Coleman name his shooter? Do you think he was the same person who shot at you?”

Andrews reversed out of the parking spot in one fluid movement, forcing Lusa to jump back. Her mic hit the pavement, and Andrews switched gears.

The car zoomed forward.

“Call me!” Lusa yelled in our wake. I glanced at the sideview mirror in time to see her toss something.

No way would it reach us.

The small dot of what she threw grew larger in the mirror. It was catching up. The car turned the corner of the garage, and whatever she’d thrown followed a moment later.

I twisted in my seat. A pink origami crane flew over the back bumper and across the open rear seat. Its little triangular wings beat the air at a frantic speed, but Andrews was still accelerating, and the crane began to fall behind. I reached out, snatching it.

As I settled in my seat again the little crane unfolded, turning into a flat rectangle in my palm. In the center of the paper, in glossy black letters, was printed “Lusa Duncan, Witch Watch” and her phone number. A homing paper crane was quite an expensive spell for something as disposable as a business card, but I guess Lusa was used to her quarry running from her. I opened my other senses and scanned the card for additional spells.

Nothing. It was just paper again.The fact that she hadn’t tried to sneak a spy spell into the car, and that she’d helped when John was shot, improved my opinion of her. I dropped the card into my purse.

“I live in the Glen,” I said as we reached the entrance of the parking garage.

Andrews made a left out of the garage without a word. The sky glowed rusty red from the city lights, but in my damaged vision, shadows clawed at the massive skyscrapers dominating downtown Nekros. I crossed my arms over my chest and angled my shoulders away from Andrews.There was only one reason I could think of for him to volunteer to drive me home, and I was not in the mood to answer any more questions.

Not that he cared.

“What did you see when you looked at Coleman’s body?” Andrews asked before we reached the interstate.

Oh no, he did not get to pump me for information after kicking me out of the morgue. I readjusted my weight and stared at the darkness consuming the front window. “Do you know the corner of Chimney Swift and Robin?”

His eyes cut across the seat. “I know where you live. Tell me about Coleman.”

“You want to know about Coleman? Watch the recording.”

Light from a streetlamp trailed along his clenched jaw.

“I’ve seen it. You lost control of one shade and claimed Coleman’s body was enchanted despite the fact that a board-certified sensitive detected no spell. On top of that, you claimed the body might not be a body at all.”

I cringed, but tried to hide it under a shrug. “You’re right. I must be a hack magic eye. Why are you asking a hack questions?”

He slammed on the brakes, and the car jerked to a stop. My seat belt locked, but not before I braced myself on the dash. Pain spread along my casted arm. After the abrupt stop, Andrews rolled the car gently to the shoulder of the road.

We were between streetlamps, and the buildings around us were dark, so I could make out the man beside me only by the soft blue glow of the car’s controls. I swallowed, hard.

Andrews regarded me with narrowed eyes that took on an eerie cast in the limited light. “Either you’re a con artist who’s been enjoying the limelight a little too much, or you found something everyone else missed.”

I met his gaze. Held it. “Should I guess which you’re inclined to believe?”

He frowned but didn’t say anything, and the silence stretched. It filled the space between our seats, turned solid. A vehicle whizzed by, flooding us with its headlights, and I winced. When my vision cleared, Andrews had looked away.

“Let’s try this again.”The leather seat squeaked as he turned. “I’m Detective Falin Andrews, lead investigator on the Coleman case.”

The shadowed outline of his hand appeared between us. Shaking hadn’t gone well the first time we’d tried it.

Still, I took his hand—his gloved hand, but in a car this hot, driving gloves were just another indulgence. His handshake was firm but professional.

“Falin,” I said, since he’d given me his first name.

His fingers flexed around mine. “Alex.” He dropped my hand. “Now, what can you tell me about Coleman’s body?”

“Sorry. One handshake doesn’t admit you to the good graces club.”

“But one phrase said in anger—justified anger that someone was tampering with evidence in my case—is enough to bar me from it?”

I smiled at him. “First impressions suck that way.”

His shoulders rolled back.“You have pertinent information about my case. I could arrest you for obstruction of justice.”

And on to threats.

I sighed and glanced at the digital clock in the dash.

“Late” had come and gone already. I definitely wouldn’t be contacting Casey tonight. I’d have wait to tell her what I’d learned. For now, I just wanted to get home, feed my dog, and post a thread on the Dead Club forum to see if anyone had ever encountered a violent shade like Bethany’s or anything at all like Coleman’s body. Not to mention the fact I needed to recharge my ring before the trial, which was—I did the math quickly—in about seven hours.

Well, might as well get this over with. Suppressing a yawn, I rubbed the aching scratches made by Bethany’s shade. Then, taking a deep breath, I tried to explain the spell I’d seen on the governor’s body, describing as best I could the twisting glyphs and the way my grave magic slid around Coleman. As I spoke, Falin eased back onto the road.

“And you have no idea what the spell does?” he asked.

“I sort of got interrupted.”

He let that pass.“Did Detective Matthews hire you to look at Coleman’s body?”

I bit my bottom lip. Would John get in more or less trouble if raising the governor’s shade had been his idea? I must have deliberated too long because Falin turned toward me.

I stared straight ahead. “Coleman was a favor. The only shade John asked me to raise was Bethany.”

“The ritual victim.”

Ritual? Did he mean like a methodical serial killer, or did he actually mean she was killed by a witch as part of a spell? John hadn’t mentioned any magical connections, but something had seriously damaged Bethany’s shade, so it wasn’t much of a jump. I filed the information away. It might help me figure out how I’d “lost control,” as Andrews put it.