I flick my eyes up, and it’s all I need to ease my mind. Jacques and Hasan are back on the roof, but the pained expression is gone from Jacques’s face.
“I don’t know if you can hear me,” I say, looking from one gargoyle to the other. “But I have to go to work. I’ll be back tonight.” I put my hand on Thomas’s wrist, looking into his eyes for a moment before going back in.
I rush to get ready for work, knowing I’m going to need to stop for coffee on the way. Today is going to drag since I’m running on just a few hours of sleep. I remote-start my car before I get in, feeling the chill come back already. Needing to make a note in my phone so I don’t forget, I remind myself to find someone to come out and make sure the fifty-year-old furnace is in working order before I fire it up and burn the whole house down.
My car bumps down the gravel driveway, and a weird sense of disappointment builds inside me. I don’t want to leave the house. Well, technically what’sonthe house. I’m curious about the gargoyles, but it’s more than that and there’s no way I can deny it to myself forever.
Jacques has the sexy, broody thing going on strong, Hasan is all muscle and oh-so easy on the eyes, and Thomas and Gilbert have that cocky charm and old-world swagger down to a science. It’s like everything I could want in a man divided up and put into four very different bodies.
But they aren’t men. Not anymore.
8
“Good morning, Ace,” the police captain says as I walk through the office.
“Morning.” I look up and smile, sipping my second coffee of the day already.
“Come into my office when you have a minute.”
“Sure,” I tell him, and, for the first time, I feel nervous. I’m not exactly a rule follower by nature; I don’t believe all laws are to our benefit, but I’ve never come close to doing anything at work that would require being reprimanded. But last night I did several.
Regretting chugging so much coffee, I set my mug down at my desk and take off my coat, hanging it on the back of my chair. I pull the case files from my bag and toss them on my desk, then make a quick trip to the bathroom before going to see what Captain Harris wants to talk about.
“Hey, Ace.” Tiffany comes out of the lab, passing me in the hall. “One hell of a night, right?”
“Tell me about it.” I rarely wear my hair down. It gets in the way, especially when I’m leaning over dead bodies. But this morning I’d left it hanging loose around my face for a reason, though I’m stressed and tired and temporarily forget the reason.
Out of habit, I push my hair back behind my ear, gathering it all in one hand and bringing it over one shoulder.
“Jesus, Ace, what happened?” Tiffany’s blue eyes widen.
“Is it that bad?” I ask, wrinkling my nose. The tear in my skin is hidden behind my hair, but the bruising is clearly visible along my temple.
She steps in and parts my hair, looking at the wound. “What happened?”
Usually a good liar, I struggle in that moment. I don’t want to lie to my friend. “I fell.”
“Again?”
Again? When did I—oh, right. I told her I slipped and fell down the ravine. “Yes. I went back to that house I inherited last night because I left something there. The stone steps on the porch are slippery when wet. I found that out the hard way.”
The best lies are the simplest ones, which is where a lot of people mess up. They think spinning something elaborate makes their story sound more legitimate, but it does the opposite. Details get harder to remember.
“Please tell me you got this checked out.”
I guilty-shrug. “It was late and I wanted to go home. I’m fine.”
“You could be concussed. That’s a nasty-looking cut.”
“I know. But I’m fine, really.”
Her brow furrows. “If you say so.” She doesn’t look convinced, and I know it’s just as hard to fool a crime scene photographer as it is me. Tiffany notices details. I fake a smile and make my way into the captain’s office.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” I hesitate in the doorway, not sure if I should close the door or not.
“Yes, come in.”
He doesn’t say to shut the door, so I don’t. Maybe he doesn’t know my gargoyle friends ripped the heads off three vampires last night after all.
