She dodged the bullet this time. But what about next time?
I’m looking at the priest so hard and with so much hate that he keeps glancing in my direction while he talks to Nancy.
But I don’t get out of the car. I only wait long enough to see Kate and her mom climb into the car and drive off, then leave too.
If I stayed, I might still have killed the priest.
And that kind of thing maybe does require a little more planning. But I don’t think we can wait any longer. I don’t think we should.
And now that priest killer Zane is here—for whatever reason he came—he might be able to help me convince Alice that it’s necessary.
Kate will thank us, if nothing else. And that’s reason enough for me.
25
Alice
As often happens when I’m just riding to clear my hear, I completely lost track of time. Shouldn’t have happened, not while I’m on a surveillance mission and we had been expecting a breakthrough tonight.
But there was so much to think about.
Nico and how his closeness makes me feel completely comfortable in my own skin for the first time in almost forever.
What I actually want to do about Gael. And it might not actually be sending him to jail.
And what happens once this mission is over and we go back home, each to our own separate lives.
Zane’s bike was parked in front of my motel room when I returned. And Nico’s car wasn’t parked where it was when I left, it’s a few spaces down.
“What’s going on?” I ask as I enter the motel room. “Why are you here?”
The questions don’t necessarily go together. One was for Nico, the other for Zane. But I’m afraid I might’ve missed something important, already beating myself up for just ridingoff in the middle of things, and that’s why they came out that way.
They’re sitting at the little table by the window, each with a plastic glass of bourbon in front of them, the computer with the surveillance feed closed in the center of the table.
They exchange a glance, probably wondering who should answer me first.
“Just someone say something,” I snap, tossing my helmet on the bed and unzipping my jacket.
“I came to see if you needed my help,” Zane says, his voice hoarse. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry for the way I acted when you asked for my help. It’s been weighing heavy on me.”
“Not so heavy, if it took you over a week to come here,” I say and toss my jacket on the bed beside my helmet. And since there’s nowhere to else to sit, I plop down on the edge of the bed. Not that I want to sit. I want answers, but neither of them is in any hurry to speak.
“I was away, taking care of something,” Zane says. Somehow, his voice is much less monotone—dead, even—than it usually is. But figuring out what caused that change will have to wait.
“Nico came with me,” I say. “We have it covered.”
Zane gives Nico a sharp glance. “And what’s the story between you two? Everything all right?”
Zane might be a lot of things, but he’s also very protective of his friends. Me included. He knows more of my story with Gael than most, which is why it hurt me so bad when he yelled at me instead of coming here with me.
Nico is looking at me, waiting for me to answer the question, fearful anticipation of what I’m about to say in his eyes.
“Everything is fine,” I assure Zane and relief floods Nico’s eyes. Lovely to see. Makes some of the tightness in my chest soften.
“Everything isn’t exactly fine,” Nico says, looking past me now at the far wall of the room. “The priest tried to take his new victim, little Kate Cole, down to the basement after the reading club meeting. It looked like he’d done it before. She didn’t want to go. And I’m afraid I…”
His voice trails off and he doesn’t resume the story.
