Weston broke the silence that followed. “So, where’s this book, now?”
“Safely locked away in evidence.”
“I need to see it,” Vivian said.
“Oh, now you’re asking me to break the chain of evidence. I can’t do that.”
“Sure you can.”
“Vivian—”
“I’ve got to have a look at that book, Brett. Just a look. Time to see what it is, and then you can put it back.”
“Can’t be done.”
“Can it be done if I threaten to let everybody know you told me?”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“You think? A word or two to Rich and Cal tomorrow morning at Sacred Grounds and it would be all over town by nightfall.”
“Come on, Vivian. I’m already hanging by a thread. The entire force skirts around me like I’m crazy and it’s contagious.”
“Which is why you’re going to let me see this book.”
For a minute she thought she’d misjudged him, and that his sense of honor would win out even over this threat. She knew she’d use the Voice again to compel him if she had to; prayed it wouldn’t come to that.
She heard the surrender in his voice, along with the anger, carefully contained. “Oh all right. Where will we meet?”
“A to Zee. But give us an hour.”
A moment of silence followed, broken only by the sound of breathing. Just long enough for Vivian to worry he would change his mind, radio in for help, arrest them both. “Fine. I’ll be there.”
The shadow, all she could see of him, moved away.
“You gonna live?” she asked Weston.
“I’m fine.”
“No, seriously. Are you having chest pain? I don’t want to leave an extra body in this coffin.”
She jammed the edge of the pick into the space between coffin and lid and leaned all of her weight on it.
“My heart is fine. Give me that.” He worked at the lid, one side and then the other. With a creak and splintering of wood it came free.
He tossed aside the pick, blew a puff of air out through pursed lips. “Ready?”
She nodded. “You?”
He shook his head.
“Only bones. They can’t hurt you.” She was talking to herself more than to him. The horrible manner of Grace’s death would be in their favor now. Little flesh left for putrefaction and decay. She hoped the part about only bones was true.
“Feel like I’m in a horror movie, cast as Old Guy, First to Die,” Weston muttered. “On count of three?”
“One, two, three—”
They stood side by side, holding their breath, staring at the thing in the coffin. As Vivian had hoped, the remains were skeletal and the smell not overpowering. The bones were blackened, evidence of the severity of the burns.
“Maybe smoke inhalation got her first,” she said, seeking some sort of comfort.
“Doesn’t matter now,” Weston said roughly. “Shine that light in here, will you? Book’s gone, but there might be something else.”
Reluctantly, she did as he asked, illuminating every corner of the coffin. No hidden compartments, as he seemed to expect. She just wanted to get out of here—fill in the dirt, leave the dead in peace. The whole scenario made her skin creep on her own bones. Weston, on the other hand, was businesslike and curt, directing her to shine the light here or there while he tapped and prodded.
He took the bones of the right hand in his and lifted. Vivian cringed as the connective tissue gave way and they tumbled out of his grip and into the coffin with a dry rattling sound. But when he held up a piece of paper she forgot all about that and tried to decipher the words.
“It makes no sense.”
“It’s our old code—the one we used to exchange messages so the old man wouldn’t know what we were doing.”
“What does it say?”
“I’ll decipher it at this bookstore of yours. Let’s get out of here—gives me the heebie-jeebies poking around the body like this.”
Something had changed in his own body language and in his voice, though, and she shook her head. She trusted him, to a point. But there was no telling what the long years of grief might drive him to.
“Tell me now,” she said.
He hesitated, his trust also a tenuous thing, and then sighed. “In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. I’m hoping you don’t take it wrong.”
Vivian listened, and shivered, wondering how there was a way to take it right.
Twenty-one
Zee woke in the dark, staring up at a sky studded with stars. A soft breeze flowed over his skin, not cold, but caressing, scented with flowers and the smell of fresh leaves. Hope came with it, a fragile emotion at first, tentative, feeling its way into his heart. This story wasn’t over yet. It didn’t have to end in darkness. Perhaps, by some twist of luck or fate, he could still put things right.
One by one he tested his joints and muscles, gauging the extent of bruises and injuries and finding that he was still functional. If anything, the wounded arm moved a little more freely, his side pained him a little less. He’d been going to do something before he fell asleep. Something important. For a moment he couldn’t remember and then it all came back.
Right. Bandage Jared’s wounds. Give him water. Keep the bastard alive when he really wanted to kill him.
But a delightful languor kept him where he was, relaxed and drifting between earth and sky. Anticipation of something unknown and wonderful crept over him, and when he heard a rustling of grass he sat up with expectation and without alarm. A woman stood looking down at him, dimly illuminated, as though by an internal glow. She wore only a thin white shift, the outline of breasts and thighs visible through the translucent fabric. Auburn hair curled over shoulders white and unblemished, her eyes were gray and soft with love and desire. So many nights he had dreamed her thus, so many nights she had slipped away from him.
“Vivian,” he whispered, disbelieving.
She knelt and laid a finger over his lips. “Shhh. You’ll wake him.”
He knew, as one knows these things, that she meant Jared. He took her hand, so slender and fragile compared to his, and pressed a kiss into the palm. She made a small sound of pleasure and turned her face so that her cheek rested in his hand.
“Are you a dream?” Zee asked her, turning her face so that her eyes looked directly into his. He ran his hand over her shoulder, the skin like silk beneath his touch. “I’m sorry, about the dragon,” he murmured, waiting for her to pull away.
“I was wrong to fault you. You did what needed to be done.” Her lips were parted, her breath uneven and tremulous.
He dared then to bury his other hand in the thick fall of her hair. She smelled of cinnamon and spring, and his body roused to her presence with such urgency he could hear his own breath loud in his ears.
“Zee,” she murmured, and her voice undid him.
Tilting her chin up to his he kissed her, lightly once, lips barely touching, breath mingling. She gasped, knotted both hands in his hair and pulled him closer. He felt the sense of two things long held asunder returning to a union always meant to be, and then he was lost in sensation worlds away from thought. Her lips pressed hard against his, opening for him to thrust his tongue into the heat of her mouth, her hands on his back stroking his bare skin.
He pulled away for a moment, breathing hard, his brain stumbling over something in the distance that might be important.
“Please,” she murmured, her breath warm against his ear. “I’ve wanted you for so long. You were right that we should be together.”
She pulled away from him and lifted the shift over her head so that she was clothed only in the fall of her hair. When she lay down and pulled him down beside her, he did not resist. She took his hands and guided them to her breasts. Her nipples rose and hardened beneath his fingers and she gasped, arching her head back to let him kiss his way down her neck. His lips lingered a moment at the hollow of her throat, moved down to take the erect nipple in his mouth.