I step in closer. “Then stop thinking about it. You do realize it never happened. I lied.”
“I’m trying. I can’t help it, Sophia. I’m jealous of every second another man gets to be with you even when it happens in my imagination.” His crooked smile tells me he knows it’s ridiculous, but he pulls me into his arms anyway and brands me with a deep, hot kiss. I melt into him and only pull away when I need to catch my breath.
“The coin worked, by the way,” I say against his lips. “It saved me from a run-in with one of Ashgate’s unseelie guards.” I tell him about my mistake with the gum.
“Fuck, Sophia! Thank the gods it worked, but did you have to put it to the test so dramatically? How exactly did you think you’d escape?”
I shrug. “Who doesn’t like gum? I took a chance.”
He tucks my hair behind my ears and touches his forehead to mine. “Can you take fewer chances? After all this is over, I want us to be together. That can’t happen if you’re not in one piece.”
“I promise whatever’s left of me is all yours,” I joke.
He growls and kisses me again.
“Any leads on your dad’s computer?”
He groans. “I confirmed it was still there, in his office. And that the tampering happened from that device, not remotely.”
“What? How is that possible?”
He shakes his head. “It isn’t. No one keyed into the room. Unless someone has learned to walk through walls, I have to believe a very talented hacker has covered his tracks in the data.”
“Great. Sounds like a dead end. Did you ever hear back about the identity of the victim?” Last I heard, his team was still working on it.
“Just today. It took longer than usual because his passport wasn’t processed through tickets or park admissions.”
“Huh?”
“He was a guest of Bailiwick’s. His name is Adam Barker. He’s a geology professor from a public university in Illinois.” He opens the folder and shows me Adam’s picture. “He came last week to do a presentation to the grade one students on the geology of the Appalachian Mountains and decided to tack on a short vacation since his entrance into the parks and accommodations were taken care of.”
“Geology? I guess that explains the rock in his hand.”
“Rock? What rock?”
“River told me that when the man died, a gray rock rolled out of his hand. He’d been gripping it in his fist.”
Seven snorts. “Odd.”
“So who would want this guy dead? Did he piss someone off at the Dragonfly Club or something? Did you get any footage on him?”
“Hours. My people went through it all. The guy was as exciting as wallpaper. Didn’t drink alcohol or gamble. Talked with very few people. Spent a ton of time by the pool and reading on the balcony of his room.”
“What else? Who was this guy? Did he have any known enemies?”
Seven closes the folder and pulls out his phone. He brings up Adam’s Instagram and hands it to me. I stare down at a handful of pictures of a man with… rocks. Some are of him holding a rock. Others are of him standing in front of a rock with some geological feature. I thumb through his feed and it’s more of the same.
“That’s it?” I wasn’t aware anyone like this guy existed.
“On every social media channel. And I checked Flutter and Puckers. He didn’t have accounts on either of them.” Flutter is the app humans use to be matched with pixies. Puckers is the one for humans and satyrs. So Adam didn’t have a fae fetish. Going off these accounts, it seems the only thing he was interested in was rocks.
“Gods, he really did have a singular interest, didn’t he?”
“His Twitter feed is full of geology one-liners.”
I stare at Seven like he’s speaking a different language.
“Don’t take geologists for granite,” he deadpans. “Be patient with geologists, they all have their faults.”
