Christian tossed Ivar’s hand at Claude. “Let me give you a hand.”
“I found a baggy!” Gem announced, flourishing a plastic zipper bag that had a sandwich inside. “Think it will fit?”
“Let me see.” Shepherd took the bag and began eating the sandwich.
“Look for any large plastic bags or garbage bags,” Claude said. “And find a mop. We need to clean up the blood. Christian can erase the store worker’s memories and plant something new, but it won’t explain pools of blood.”
I stood up and surveyed the damage. Crystal and porcelain fragments sparkled on the floor. Almost everything breakable was shattered, including the display counters. Velvet rope lay on the floor around the pedestal, and fragmented pieces from the priceless egg surrounded the decapitated body.
Everyone jumped when a shelf inside the outer wall collapsed, sending a massive porcelain ship filled with figurines sliding to its demise.
Shepherd struck a match and lit up a smoke. “This looks like something we’ll have to deny later.”
CHAPTER9
The moment we got home, I went to Shepherd’s medical room to wash my hands. I no longer had on the security uniform, and we couldn’t give it back to the guard since it was ripped and bloodied. Christian had found out where each store worker lived by looking at their ID. After charming them into submission, he was left in charge of driving each one home and scrubbing their memories of the evening. Because there was so much damage, he said he would plant the suggestion that it was a senseless vandalism that occurred after hours. As for the uniform, he said he would come up with something and not to worry. The rest of us were tasked with gathering up Ivar and all his men, loading them into the van, and taking them to a place Shepherd knew about to incinerate the remains. Shepherd was still outside, hosing down the back of the van and cleaning it spotless.
“Everything okay?”
I glanced over my left shoulder at Switch in the open doorway. “Peachy.”
“Might want to use the soap Shepherd keeps under the sink.” He knelt beside me and opened the lower cabinet door. After handing me a giant bar of soap, he casually leaned his back against the cabinet.
“Don’t your feet get cold?” I asked, noticing he wasn’t wearing any shoes.
“Nah. I’m tough like that. Now that you’re home, I thought I might go out for a run.”
“That explains the boxer shorts.”
“What do you mean?”
I lathered up my hands and arms, watching the soap turn pink. “Sometimes I find a pair of boxers lying in the grass. Didn’t your pack teach you to pick up after yourself?”
He nudged me with his elbow. “You should talk. I remember once going inside your dad’s trailer during a party and finding your panties hanging up all over the bathroom.”
“That must have been when our washer broke. I’m an adult now. I don’t leave my dirty drawers lying around. I doubt Kira likes picking up after you.”
“I sometimes forget after a long night running the land. Everything okay?”
“Sure.”
“You haven’t been right since the day we went out for tacos. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you sitting on the roof for hours. I know you like heights, but you only do that when something’s on your mind.”
I leaned forward and sighed.
Switch shut the door. “You know I’m here if you need to talk. Or have a beer. Or let me beat you at a game of pool.”
I stared at the running water as it splashed over my fingers. “Sometimes I don’t know if I’m the good guy or the bad guy.”
“Do you feel guilty about anything you do?”
“No.” I shut off the faucet. “It’s not that I don’t feel guilty—it’s that I enjoy it.”
“I’m sure it’s because deep down, you know you’re saving someone else from a tragedy. I’ve walked that road. If you’re not happy, quit.”
I cut him a sharp glare and straightened up. “This is all I’ve got.”
Switch stared at me with that wolfish gaze, his dark eyebrows lowering. “Life’s like a movie. Write your own ending.”
