“Something like that.” When he said it, it sounded even more lame than when I’d heard similar words come out of my own mouth.
“Listen, I’ve got some errands to run today. You want to keep an eye on things?” I asked.
His eyes widened. “Me?”
I flushed. I shouldn’t have asked him. I had left the note on Mother’s door, even unwilling she was a better choice than Peter. He’d only worked for me a few days. “Never mind.”
“No, I’d love to.” He wrapped his fingers around my biceps, but softly, then just as quickly he pulled his hand back. His fingers trailed over my skin. A shiver passed over my body.
“Anything I should be watching out for?” he added.
Lost in the sensation of his fingers drifting over my skin, I almost missed the question. “N-no…n-n-othing…special.” The words came out in a stutter.
“What exactly were they doing last night?” He opened his fingers, lying flat on his palm was an iron spearhead.
I reached out to grab it. His fingers closed, cutting off my view of the weapon’s head.
I laughed, tried to cover my stupid move. The spearhead told him nothing. “That’s theirs. Some kind of initiation rite, I take it. I didn’t ask too many questions-just told them not to do it again.”
“Then I don’t need to stand guard with an extinguisher?”
I hoped to hell not. I shook my head, laughed again. “No, Zery and I came to an understanding.”
“Zery?” He angled his head, like a dog trying to pin down the source of some sound.
“The woman in charge; that’s her name.” I held out my hand, silently asking for the spearhead.
He tossed it in the air, let it settle back on his palm, then tucked it into the pocket of his pants. “No worries. I’ll take it to her. You’re in a hurry, right?”
I forced my lips into a smile. “Thanks.” I hadn’t gone over my cover story with Zery, but I couldn’t imagine her opening up to Peter. She’d probably do no more than grunt, no matter what he said to her.
I stood there a second longer than felt comfortable. Peter watched me, waiting.
“Uh-oh, and my daughter, Harmony. She’s at a friend’s. I should be back before she gets home.”
“Good to know.” His face wore a what else? expression.
“Guess I’ll be going.”
He nodded.
I glanced at my watch. He had hours before his shift started. I couldn’t order him to work. I glanced at my watch again. “You’re here early.”
He shrugged and slipped his lips into one of those smiles that made my hormones smile with him and told my brain to agree to whatever he said, whatever he wanted to do. “Still getting settled. I have some paperwork to go through, some new designs to add to the flash. And, honestly, I’ve got nowhere else to be.”
“Oh, sure.” I searched for a reason to order him to the shop, away from the burnt circle of earth. The little gears that ran my brain were clacking so loudly I was surprised he didn’t ask about the noise. “I left a note on Mother’s door that she would be in charge. Maybe, since you’re here, you could go up and let her know she’s off the hook.” If Mother had made her way up from her workout and found my note, she’d probably done no more than wad it into a ball. If she hadn’t stopped working out, she wouldn’t welcome an intrusion from Peter. But really, was that my problem?
“Walk me up?” I nodded toward the hill and tried a smile of my own. The flirtatious move felt about as natural as breathing under water.
His hand drifted to the pocket where he’d stashed the spearhead, but he just shoved the fingers of both hands into his front pockets and started moving with me up the hill.
“Speaking of Harmony…”
I jumped, my mind far from my daughter at that point.
“If you’re looking for something for her to do after school, I might know something.”
“Why would you think-?”
“I noticed since your new tenants moved in that she’s not been around much-had a lot of ‘friend time.’ Then with-” He jerked his head back toward the charred spot we’d left behind. “If I’m wrong…”
“No.” Why deny it? “I rented the space to them and I’m locked in now, but after last night…I’m thinking it might be better if she wasn’t too influenced by them.”
Peter bent at the waist to help propel himself up the hill.
The roar of a lawn mower and the scent of cut grass drifted from one of my neighbor’s yards. A moment of normal in an insane world.
“My client, Makis, the man in the wheelchair?” Peter held out a hand to help me up the incline. I stared at it, not getting for a second what he was doing. Then realizing what he was offering, I shook my head and plowed ahead, moved ahead of him.
You can take the Amazon out of the tribe…
Peter’s long gait closed the small space I’d put between us. “He’s starting an after-school art program. He used to teach high school. I told you I’d known him awhile.”
A response didn’t seem necessary. I concentrated on trying to regain the lead his longer legs had stolen from me.
“He has a shop not far from the school. He’s starting a class next week. I think they’ve got permission to paint a mural for some business off Regent. They’ll even get paid, but he’s going to work with the kids a bit first.”
“So, the classes…?”
“Are cheap, might even be able to work out a trade. Makis wants me to do some touch-up work on one of his older tattoos.”
Free class, some extra lip-gloss money for Harmony, and an opportunity to keep her away from spear-tossing Amazons who just might decide to enlighten her on her own heritage? Yeah. I am interested.
Peter told me he’d leave Makis’s contact information on my desk. I bent to tie my shoe while he walked in the front door. I considered going back down the hill to make sure no signs of the sketches were left behind-if we’d missed a spearhead, who knew what else might have slipped our attention? It had been late and dark, and we had been far from relaxed.
As I was weighing the risk of Peter seeing me back at the scene of the crime and raising new questions in his mind, Bubbe stepped out of the basement, escorting yet another workout-attired suburban mom-this one dressed in matching baby blue hoodie and capris. What these women spent on clothing supposedly meant for sweat boggled my brain.
Bubbe tapped a finger on the railing. “Don’t judge.”
I yanked my attention from the blond ponytail bouncing toward the parking lot and frowned at my grandmother. “I wasn’t.”
“Ha.” She pursed her lips, a light forming in her eyes I didn’t care for.
I tried to cut her off. “Could you do another sweep of the front lawn? Peter was down there. He found a spearhead.”
She lifted one shoulder in a so what? gesture. “You brought him here.”
My eyes narrowed. “Don’t judge.”
She dropped her gaze to the hand still resting on the banister, but before she did, I would have sworn I saw a sparkle in her still-young eyes. “My snake is missing. Have you seen him?” She lifted her eyes and her brows-the challenge and her real question clear.
“You have a snake?” I let my lips pull down in a moue.
She shook her head. “Secrets. So many secrets. Why keep them from me?”
Or try, she meant.
I let my hand slip down the strap of my messenger bag to the keys clipped there. Pretending to struggle with the carabiner, I continued walking.
The old fraud. Like she didn’t have plenty of secrets. My grandmother was a bundle of secrets. She probably knew the whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa, Amelia Earhart, and Atlantis. Hell, she might have been responsible for the disappearance of all three.
Muttering under my breath, I climbed in my truck and headed south.
I pulled into the dirt driveway that led to the safe camp and flipped off the truck’s motor. I’d been here only a few days before, but this was different-it was day and I was expected. What lovely greeting party would Alcippe have planned for me?