He chuckled softly. “You slay me. Here, let me help you up.”
Gem dusted off her leggings, still rattled by how close they had come to certain death. Had she hesitated for one moment and let Borislav get too close, that might have been the end of her. And how long would it have taken for him to shatter the breaker box and kill Claude?
She looked at the broken phone and realized they couldn’t contact anyone. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
The lights flickered, buzzed, and then went out.
“Me either,” Claude said.
* * *
Once I coughedup all the river water and was able to breathe again, I put on my wet leather jacket, which was undoubtedly ruined, and climbed up the slippery embankment to the road. I headed north, my feet squishing inside my water-filled lace-up boots. The sun had disappeared behind the clouds, and I couldn’t stop shivering as I hugged my body. A mixture of salt and sand covered the road, and the cars had made a dirty mess of it. I briefly thought back to when I was a kid and built a snowman on the seat of my father’s bike, which was parked inside the garage. I wasn’t sure why that memory came back other than my brain was misfiring after drowning.
In the distance, a blue truck headed in my direction. Instead of flagging it, I kept walking.
The vehicle slowed down, and Christian leaned out the window. “Hey there, sexy. Need a lift?”
I wiped my frozen hair away from my face and crossed in front of the truck. Once inside, I quickly threw my gloves onto the floorboard and put my numb fingers in front of the vent. The hot air burned my skin, the color quickly changing from pale white to red. My hair wasn’t even dripping anymore since the water had frozen.
“Did you have a good time?” he asked, his jovial tune making me wonder why he was in such good spirits. “I can’t say it was easy catching up. By the time I got down to the truck, the chopper was gone. Had to drive in the direction it flew with the windows rolled down and my head hanging out like your da’s fleabag. Finally spotted it in the distance, a lot lower than I expected.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“What?”
“I got a surprise for you. Look in the back.”
I twisted around and glared through the back windshield. Fletcher was lying on his back, my dagger still wedged in his leg.
“Good thing you struck bone,” he said, staring down at Fletcher. “It didn’t come loose when he hit the water. I thought it was you that fell off the helicopter, so when I got there, I pulled over and dove in.”
I glanced over at him. “Why aren’t you wet?”
He gave me a crooked smile. “Biology.”
A car honked as it drove around us since we were still parked on the road.
“There was no sense in jumping right in,” Christian explained. “I figured you’d been in there a while. An extra minute wouldn’t make any difference. Once I stripped down, I noticed a body bobbing in the water downriver. Good thing he didn’t drown, or he might have gone under. A little air in the lungs helps. After I gathered my clothes, I jogged down to the spot and waded in. Not before giving an old biddy walking her dog the thrill of her life. Right up until she saw me hauling a body out.”
“I almost had Lenore,” I said, peeling off my jacket. “After Fletcher fell, there was a moment when I could have climbed in the chopper.”
“And then what?” Christian turned the air to blow on the highest setting. “You take a scenic ride with a Vampire?”
“I know a thing or two about a thing or two. Maybe I would have kicked her out the door.”
“Not if she was strapped in.” Christian shook his head. “The pilot must be a complete feckwit. Had you been flying over the city, I’d be scraping pieces of you off every corner. The water saved your life. How close were you when you fell?”
I squeezed the ends of my hair. “My feet touched the water and knocked me off.”
“Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph. Good thing it didn’t flip you into one of the blades.”
I reclined my head. “Perish the thought.”
Christian got me to thinking: whyhadthe chopper lowered so quickly to the river? It seemed unlikely that either Lenore or Houdini would think dragging me across the water was the best way to get rid of me, especially if it put the chopper at risk. Was that Houdini’s way of giving me an opportunity to live? If Ihadclimbed into the helicopter, Lenore would have killed me. And who exactly had Lenore been shouting at, Fletcher or Houdini?
Another car zoomed past us.
“Aren’t you worried about a body in the back of the truck?” I asked.
“It’s not like I can’t charm anyone who asks about it.”
