Charles’s smile could have powered the entire grid. “Flatterer.”
We ate breakfast while planning our day—maybe a hike to the lake Charles had spotted on our drive yesterday, definitely some time spent reading by the fire. Normal couple things that we both pretended were normal for us too.
When we started cleaning up, Charles asked, “What’s the biggest case you’ve worked on?”
I blinked because for a second, I thought he meant as an angel. But no, of course not. He was talking about me being a detective.
Fuck. I should’ve prepared for this question, should’ve created a backstory for my persona like Gabriel always toldus to do. Instead, I scrambled for an answer that wouldn’t sound completely manufactured. “Erm, a serial killer who had killed five women.”
A serial killer? Where the flying fuck had that come from? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I’d watched too many true-crime documentaries.
Charles halted for a moment, meeting my eyes with a puzzled frown. “I thought you were in organized crime.”
Jesus Christ and all the saints, why did Charles have to have the best memory on the planet…unlike me? “I worked in homicide for a short while. Wasn’t my thing.”
“Ah, okay. I can imagine. Just the thought of having to see people who were so gruesomely murdered is…” He shivered. “I couldn’t do it.”
“As it turns out, neither could I.”
“So what happened with this serial killer?”
The questions kept coming, each one requiring another lie, another piece of fictional backstory I’d have to remember to keep consistent. Each lie felt like swallowing glass.
By now, we’d moved from the kitchen back to the living room, where I was making sure the fire kept going. I’d seen the forecast, predicting a couple of inches of snow overnight, followed by a severe drop in temperature. Minus fifteen Celsius was no joke in a badly insulated cabin like this, so we’d need all the heat we could get. I made a mental note to chop some more firewood just in case, and maybe we should get some more groceries in case we got snowed in for a bit. I doubted country roads like the one we were on were a priority for the county, and my BMW was sure as hell not suitable to drive through actual snow, all-wheel drive or not.
“So how do you report back when we have no cell service?” Charles asked, his hands curled around his second mug ofcoffee.
That one, I could actually answer, considering the plans I’d just made. “I’ll call in when we’re grabbing groceries this afternoon. I figured we could drive to Lake Placid this time, do some walking around there. My boss knows we’re out of signal here, so he’s not expecting me to report daily.”
“Gotcha. I was going to mention we’d need to stock up a bit more. I’ve seen the weather forecast.”
“You have?”
He shrugged. “You can’t really afford not to keep an eye on it when you live in this part of the country. In the Hudson Valley, we don’t get the amounts of snow they get up here, but we still see a fair number of inches.”
I couldn’t help myself. I leaned forward and met his eyes. “And what would you say is a fair amount? Six? Seven?”
Charles’s eyes sparkled. “Well, in my experience, weathermen and guys I hook up with have something in common. They always promise me eight inches, but usually it’s more around four.”
A laugh bubbled up inside me. “I won’t promise eight. But a solid six with girth should do, no?”
He wiggled his hand. “Eh, I could make do.”
That had us both laughing.
We spent the rest of the morning reading, then headed out after a simple lunch consisting of egg salad sandwiches…on home-baked bread. Even after all this time, I still wasn’t a fan of most American bread, the supermarket kind at least. It had too much sugar, was too dry, and the fact that it would hold for four weeks was not a plus in my opinion. Bread was supposed to go stale after three days. Which was why I so appreciated Charles’s homemade sourdough—made with Wolfgang—which was light and airy and fecking delicious, especially with the egg salad.
The drive to Lake Placid took us along winding mountain roads that offered breathtaking views of the Adirondack wilderness. As we crested a hill, the famous ski jump towers came into view—massive concrete structures that looked both graceful and intimidating against the backdrop of autumn mountains.
“Christ, those are bigger than I expected,” I said, slowing down so Charles could get a better look.
“Can you imagine jumping off those things?” Charles shook his head in amazement. “You’d have to be completely insane or have balls the size of watermelons.”
“Both, probably.” I pulled into a scenic overlook so we could appreciate the view properly. The towers dominated the landscape, their clean lines a stark contrast to the natural curves of the mountains surrounding them. “Amazing what humans will do for sport.”
“Says the man who probably has his own collection of death-defying hobbies,” Charles teased.
If only he knew. Three centuries of guardian work had exposed me to more death-defying situations than any extreme sport could offer.
