“Agreed. I’ll check in with Hatter and Shoe, make sure they’re dealing with the weather-related disasters.”
“Good,” Myra said. “Delaney?”
“Yeah?”
“You promised me you were going on vacation today.”
I looked at Ryder, and he was staring straight ahead. He felt my gaze, though, and looked down at the phone.
“Reservations are good for a late check in,” he said.
“Wouldn’t have to be a late check in if you left right now,” Myra said.
Ryder’s eyes came up, and I was caught by the green of them, flecked with black and gold, like a forest in the setting sun. There was a question in his eyes, an invitation. We could just run away. Leave this mess behind.
I could just let go.
He must have seen something in my expression because to Myra he said, “We’re good for now. Headed north.” He paused.
I nodded. “Yeah, north.”
“And we’ll work our way down as soon as Crow gets us the list of buyers.” He raised his eyebrow in question, and I nodded. That was the plan. He knew me well.
“If you need me,” I said, “call Ryder’s phone.”
“Why? What’s wrong with your phone?”
“It got eaten by a dragon.”
She laughed and kept on laughing until Ryder pressed the button to hang up on her.
I eased the Jeep out onto the street and took off northward. Limbs had fallen in yards, on roofs, and cars, but no major damage that I could see. A couple of fences were blown over and garbage cans rearranged.
Winter on the Oregon coast meant we were prepared for these kinds of storms. We’d taken a lot worse damage, so I knew we would get through this. But with another storm coming in tonight, it was best to do everything we could before it hit.
Like find all the cursed objects before something terrible happened.
“So on a scale of time-to-go-on-vacation to oh-my-gods-we’re-gonna-die, where do the cursed items fall?” he asked.
“Probably varies. If we have Pandora’s past to measure against, I’d say we’re somewhere in dump-truck-of-shit-about-to-hit-jet-engine territory.”
“Well, crap,” he said.
“Exactly.” I aimed the Jeep north, noting with relief that the main drag through town was relatively clear from debris. The missing traffic light wasn’t helping anything, but we were used to having power knocked out several times a year too. We’d set up road construction sawhorses with flashing lights to warn everyone to use the intersection like a four-way stop.
So far, no accidents. Luckily, this wasn’t the busy tourist season.
Ryder’s phone belted out the opening to “Drop it Low, Girl” by Ester Dean. I gave him a wide-eyed look.
He just flashed me a grin, mouthed, “drop it drop it low,” before hitting the screen. “You’re on speaker, Crow. I’m with Delaney. What you got?”
“The list of names and items. I think there’s only a couple dozen things from Pandora’s stash.”
“Forward it to Ryder,” I said, “we’ll take it from here.”
“Now, now,” Crow said. “I seem to recall someone telling me that if I made the mess, I needed to be the one to clean it up.”
“No,” I said.
