He shrugged. ‘It’ll come to you. Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’ I chewedon my bottom lip. ‘I need to speak to Bob.’
Robbie didn’t look surprised in the slightest at my announcement. He’d made the same deductions I had. Deductions that had my heart racing every time I thought of them.
‘Bob,’ I called. ‘Are you here?’
A banana rose from the fruit bowl in answer.
Great, he was here, and we were communicating through fruit again.
I cleared my throat, unable to decide how to begin this conversation.
‘So, as you’ve probably picked up, I went to Wraithmore prison today to see Vance Broadlake, and he told me he wasn’t responsible for his actions, that he was possessed by a doppelganger at the time.’ I cleared my throat. ‘He explained that the only reason he’s still living is that he used the IR to sever his soul from his body at the exact moment Jingo left his body. And it got me thinking. You visited Broadlake. Believed him when he told you the truth about being subsumed. You knew then that he didn’t hurt me. Jude Jingo did. Ji-ho got into your arrest files. You arrested Jingo a lot. I’m guessing that was after you found out what he did to me. You made yourself a nuisance. Made yourself a target. Youwantedhim to gun for you. You wanted tokill him. But how do you kill a doppelganger when they hop bodies at the moment of death? You loosen your soul to give them nothing to latch onto. You hoped he’d die, like all the souls he’d possessed had done. But instead, I’m guessing by sheer dumb luck, some poor fucker walked by, and Jude survived. He latched onto a passerby instead, and your body lay there dying. But … you didn’t die, Dad, did you? Not completely. Somehow, you stayed.’
I swallowed hard. ‘If I’m right, Dad, lift the banana up.’
For a beat, nothing happened.
Then the banana rose.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been gaping at the hovering yellow banana, but my mouth had gone dry and my brain still refused to cooperate. My thoughts weren’t spinning. They just … weren’t doing anything at all, and my heart thundered like a herd of stampeding centaurs.
Robbie’s hand settled at the base of my spine. Not holding me back. Not pushing me forward. Just there, the way he always was when it counted.
‘Stacy,’ he murmured, pulling me back into the here and now.
‘I need another second,’ I whispered back, though I didn’t move. Couldn’t.
Dad was here.
Dad was in my kitchen.
Dad had been in my kitchen all this time.
‘Dad,’ I rasped. The word came out small like I was that lost teenager again. A tear trembled down my cheek and the banana lowered back into the fruit bowl.
Icy cold touched my cheek and wiped the tears away.
A lump rose in my throat, and I swallowed convulsively, trying to blink away any other tears before they fell. I pressed my fingertips hard into my palm until it stung.
You’re not that little girl anymore,I told myself, and I mentally pulled my badge out like it was a shield.
Loki flew to my side and pressed himself against my skin. He sent me waves of love and reassurance, and I accepted it all gratefully.
My mind calmed, the shaking stilled, and the tears stopped.
‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ I asked my dad.
The kettle clicked on.
‘Dad, now is not the time for a cup of tea!’ I snapped, then instantly regretted it, because it wasalwaystime for a cup of tea.
Nonetheless, the kettle switched off.
The air around me went slightly colder. Not in a sinister way. More like a window had been cracked open somewhere.
