Too late for a lot of things.
“Mel?” He angled his body, looked from me to the car he’d left. I wondered briefly if he was signaling to someone inside, if I was going to be surrounded soon. “Mel.” This time he leaned forward, almost into the truck, inches from my face.
“Nothing. I’m doing nothing,” I replied.
He breathed then, but didn’t back off. “You raced out of your lot pretty fast,” he commented.
“Yeah, well, I needed to get away.” I looked at him. “Still do.”
He cocked a brow. “Not the best thing to say to a police officer.” His lips twisted toward a smile.
I didn’t return the gesture.
He sighed. “Listen, you’re obviously upset. If it has something to do with the case, I need to know.”
The case. Zery and the dead girls. I’d almost forgotten. Turned out my brain could only concentrate on one tragedy at a time.
I pursed my lips-forced my voice to stay calm, to hide the emotion whipping through my body. “It has nothing to do with the case.” Or did it? I’d been so sure I knew what had happened to my son. Knew Alcippe had killed him-and I’d been wrong. What else was I wrong about? Was Alcippe innocent of the girls’ deaths too? If not her, who? Who else had high priestess and artisan skills? Had a reason to target me and motive to kill Amazon teens?
I pressed my fingers to my brow, completely blowing my facade of calm.
“Mel.” Reynolds glanced back at the car again. “There’s something you aren’t telling me. I think we need to go back to your shop.”
I dropped my hands, stared him in the eye. “Where’s Zery? How’s she doing?”
His tongue made a bump in his cheek. It was obvious he didn’t want to answer. “She’s in Milwaukee.”
“But you’re here.” Was that good or bad?
“I questioned her earlier. She refused an attorney.”
“She didn’t tell you anything.” I’d be shocked if she’d given him so much as her name.
He cleared his throat. “It would go easier for her if she would.”
I wrapped my hands back around the steering wheel. “She won’t.”
He watched me for a second. I could feel his eyes studying my profile. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for-the killer’s name tattooed on my cheek?
His hand smacked against my truck door. “I’m going to your shop. You can follow or not.”
I watched him walk back to his car, his legs eating up the space with long determined moves. I turned the key in the ignition, determined to keep going. Let him go back to the shop. Let him find the Amazons acting on whatever the hell idiotic plan they had brewed up.
It wasn’t my problem.
His car sped past me, performed an illegal U-turn right before the light changed and released a flood of cars all in a hurry to go Artemis knew where. I started moving, took a right on Glenway, then slammed on my brakes to the annoyance and honks of a VW Bug behind me. I twisted the steering wheel to the left, gunned my way through a tow place’s parking lot, and took another left back onto Monroe.
Damn Reynolds for already knowing me so well.
Reynolds was leaning against his car, which was parked on an angle, taking up two places, when I arrived back at my shop. I hopped out of my truck and slammed the door. It needed the extra force to latch, but it felt good too.
“This is a waste of your time.” I shoved my hands into my front pockets and stared at the detective. I didn’t want to walk down that sidewalk right now, didn’t want to risk seeing Bubbe, or any of the Amazons. The knife that had been shoved in my back was still there, throbbing, making it hard to breathe.
He slowly pushed away from his car and sauntered toward the sidewalk.
After blowing out a breath, I followed, but I didn’t hurry. Just putting one foot in front of the other was hard enough. He’d reached the midway point-at the crosswalks that led to the basement door on the right and the cafeteria door on the left. He paused then, his hands on his hips, and looked up at Harmony’s window and the tree, then over to the roof of the cafeteria/gym. Again I wondered what he was expecting to see, but shrugged the thought aside. Fact was, there was no telling what he might see.
As I came within a few feet of him, he spun toward the cafeteria door and paused again. “Do I have your permission to enter?”
I realized then he needed my permission-at least for anything he saw inside to be usable for his case. I chewed at my lip, struggling with old loyalties and newly discovered deceit.
Up ahead, something moved.
Bubbe stepped out from behind the gym, onto the other end of the sidewalk. Her arms hung at her side, her shoulders rounded. She looked old and tired.
She’d pulled this trick before. She didn’t fool me-not this time.
“Do you allow me a mistake, devochka moya?” she asked.
I shifted my gaze, the lump in my throat making it hard for me to swallow, the sudden pounding in my chest making it hard for me to stand there, not to run away.
Reynolds turned, but slowly, like he was afraid of startling us. I ignored him. Whether he entered the building or not, discovered what we were or not, didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
I turned too, but away. There was nothing for me here now. No trust, no love. The shop I’d built, been so proud of, the mother and grandmother I’d believed in, none of it meant anything. The only thing left was Harmony. I was going to go get her, take her and leave.
Florida. There was a camp there, but it was a big state. We could keep away from it, from Amazons, and Harmony would like it. What teenage girl didn’t dream of living near the beach?
“Some things you can’t run from. Some things follow.”
I came to a stop. Was she saying she’d follow, like she and Mother had the last time? I turned back.
“Don’t. I won’t take you in this time.”
“I did what I thought was right. What was best. Have you never made a mistake? Done something that later you knew hurt others?”
The dead girls. One, then two. Slipping their bodies from my truck, rolling them into the grass. Zery staked out in my yard. Then Pisto taken too…dead. Were my silence, my actions, the cause?
My hands started to shake.
“I can’t take it back. I can’t do it over.” Bubbe didn’t move, and her voice didn’t change, but I could feel her sorrow…her regret.
I stared at the tip of my boot, at a brown scuff on the black rubber.
I didn’t want to understand what she had done. I didn’t want to forgive her.
Reynolds stepped off the sidewalk into the grass, moved toward my grandmother. I didn’t know what he was thinking, why he was approaching her, but suddenly I did know, angry as I was, much as I wanted to hate her with all the abandon I’d hated Alcippe, I couldn’t.
“No,” I said.
Reynolds stopped. His eyebrows rose.
“You don’t have my permission to go inside. There’s nothing in there for you. Nothing that will help you with your case.”
Then I turned to my right and walked down the steps, into my shop’s basement.
I wasn’t ready to forgive Bubbe or even talk with her, but I wasn’t running either. Not this time.
Chapter Twenty-four
I made it to my office and was in the process of shutting the door when a hand thrust against the other side, stopping its closure. My thoughts shot to Reynolds.
“I didn’t give you permis-” I jerked the door open, and stared into the chocolate brown eyes of Peter.
“You didn’t give me…?” he asked. His tone was teasing, but his eyes were dead serious. I knew instantly another shock was coming my way.
I left his question unanswered, moved to my desk, and collapsed into my chair. He followed me, reached down, grabbed me by the forearms, and pulled me back up. My chest was pressed against his and, in any other state of mind, I’d like to think I would have shoved him away, but I didn’t, I just let him hold me there, and when his lips lowered to mine, I didn’t object.