“Oliver.”
“Please, Gwen. I love you, and I can’t lose you, too.”
Shutting the door as quietly as he could, Oliver ducked behind the shelves. If he could close and bar the closet door, he and Gwen might be able to shimmy out one of the bedroom windows before anyone noticed they were there. Footsteps rang loudly across the laboratory’s tile floor.
“I thought he was working today,” a man’s voice said. Oliver recognized it, though he couldn’t place it.
“He is. I heard him down here before. The coffee pot is on. He must have stepped out to get something for lunch,” Newman replied.
His voice drifted closer to the closet, and Oliver flattened against the crates on the bottom most shelves. Even without seeing them, he could hear them rummaging through his drawers, moving things on his specimen shelf, and rearranging Elizabeth Abbot’s bones. The thought of them touching his things made him sick, but he had bigger things to worry about.
“Is this it?” the gruff voice asked.
“Where did you find it?”
“In this box. It was with the rest of this junk.”
“That’s it. I’ll take this other one, too. just in case.”
“We got what he wanted. We done here?”
Oliver silently released a breath. They were going to leave. They were stealing something, but whatever it was, Oliver could replace it.
“No. Those two know too much. Kill Barlow when he comes back. You can deal with Galvan later, and do a good job. I don’t want him popping back up again.”
Oliver’s heart pounded so loudly in his ears he feared the men would hear it. Newman’s footsteps trailed to the backdoor and were followed by the slam of the metal door. There would be no waiting them out. Oliver was trapped. Slowly straightening to his full height, Oliver slipped around the far side of the shelves and inched closer to the door. If nothing else, he had to lead the man away from Gwen.
With the lights off, the room was cloaked in shadows with only the dim sun filtering in through the opaque glass. Peering through the gap between the door and the frame, Oliver couldn’t see where the other man had gone. He couldn’t hear footsteps and hadn’t seen him leave, so he must be lying in wait out of sight. The only place that could be was the shower around the corner by the sink. If Oliver left, he would be directly in his line of sight.
Oliver’s gaze caught on Elizabeth Abbot’s remains. They weren’t close, but it was the only thing he could do. Reaching out with his powers, Oliver strained to connect with the vague pieces of the woman that remained. Sweat dripped down his back, but the bones shuffled and danced like rocks in an earthquake. A shadow roiled across the room, a dark blotch in the dreary light, bringing with it the dusty, swampy scent of clay. Throwing open the closet door with a bang, Oliver ran.
***
Felipe covertly checkedhis reflection one more time in the mirror on the dining room wall. After a shave, a plate of meat, and a fresh set of clothes, he looked a hundred percent better, not that he could have looked worse. He had been rehearsing what he would say to Oliver as he ate. He would apologize for leading him on. He would make it clear that he did have romantic feelings for him, but that those feelings shouldn’t be nurtured when it would only hurt both of them. That sounded reasonable, yet it left a rotten taste in his mouth.
The problem was that he had fallen in love with Oliver Barlow. Felipe couldn’t say exactly when it happened, but he knew he was in trouble when Oliver sat at Louisa and Agatha’s table with a Pomeranian in his lap looking like there was nowhere else he would rather be. When Felipe awoke in the middle of the night feeling safer than he had in ages, he knew he had to end it. Love as an investigator was hard enough. Love as an undead investigator would not end well for either of them. That didn’t erase the fact that Felipe loved Oliver, and the thought of hurting him this afternoon sickened him. He had already written letters for his family for after he died, but he wrote one out for Oliver, too. After Oliver let him go, he would at least know how much Felipe loved him and appreciated his friendship that last week. No regrets, no words left unsaid.
Walking to the kitchen’s entrance, Felipe tried to figure out what he might bring Oliver as a peace offering. He hadn’t seen him eat sweets at all, and he and Gwen usually had noon coffee, so bringing more didn’t make sense. A sandwich and a piece of pie was a safe bet. If Oliver didn’t like pie, Felipe would eat it. Knocking on the kitchen door, Felipe opened his mouth to give the kitchen maid his order when he felt a tug of panic across the tether that was so hard it sent his heart out of rhythm. Felipe coughed at the sudden squeeze in his chest. A second later, it evened out, but the underlying panic remained. His feelings about talking to Oliver must have been getting the best of him, or maybe this was the beginning of his body falling apart.
“You all right, Mr. Galvan?” the young kitchen maid asked, her eyes wide.
“Yes, my apologies, Miss O’Reilly. I was hoping you could pack me a—”
Heart-stopping panic crashed over Felipe like a wave. Gripping the swinging door for support, the maid grabbed his other arm to keep him steady as his head swam.Oliver. Felipe drew in a tight breath, adrenaline already coursing through his veins.
“I have to go,” was all he could get out as he shrugged out of her grip. Felipe burst out of the kitchen and ran for the stairwell. Oliver was in trouble.
***
Oliver realized a secondtoo late he had no plan. As the shadow darted across the room to meet him, gaps in the air revealed pieces of a man. Brown hair, sun-weathered skin, and a glinting bowie knife as long as Oliver’s forearm. As fast as they appeared, the shadow melted into the darkness again. Never had the laboratory seemed so long as he made for the stairs to the anteroom. If he could get up there before— From the corner of his eye, Oliver caught a flicker of light and stumbled back. The woosh of metal meeting air cut far too close to his ear. Oliver swung the lab table as hard as he could in the direction of the motion and scrambled back to grab the bone saw off the tray on the bench. A second later the shadow was gone again, and Oliver froze. If he wasn’t careful, he could run straight into it.
His eyes scanned the empty room for any sign of the shadow. Drawing in a ragged breath, Oliver was hit with the overwhelming stench of wet peat. He flung Elizabeth Abbot’s bones in the direction of the smell and darted away. The bones lurched across the table and into the air like a tangled puppet, catching on the invisible man beneath. He threw them off, knocking over the examination tray with a clatter, but in those precious seconds, Oliver reached the switch and flipped on the lights. In the sudden brightness, the man hidden within the shadows reappeared.
It was Jed Monroe.
Oliver’s mind ground to a halt. Felipe’s partner was working with Newman. Panic fluttered through Oliver’s chest at the realization. Felipe had been with him all night, and Oliver hadn’t checked on him. What if he was hurt and Oliver had never even looked for him? He couldn’t die. He couldn’t let it end here.
The shadow roiled, and Jed was on him in an instant. Oliver threw up the bone saw just in time to keep the bowie knife from slicing into his chest. The force of the impact rattled his teeth, but as Oliver tried to dodge the next blow, he tripped over the stool. Even without being able to see him, Oliver knew Jed loomed over him as he desperately slid back across the tile. That earthy, sulfurous smell invaded his nose and mouth, choking out the last bit of home. His heart raced in his ears. When would the final blow come?
