Elijah’s grip tightened even more noticeably, and I wouldn’t let him ignore me any longer. “What?” I demanded, “What’s out there?”
I finally had Chris’s attention, since he hadn’t even noticed Elijah’s dilemma, still stuck on some worthless doorknob. He looked at me, then Elijah, then out to the living room. “I can’t tell,” Elijah said softly. “But there’s someone in the living room.” He took another step back, pulling me with him this time.
Chris, despite all of his questions to Elijah about feelings and trying to get him to psychically solve the case, misunderstood. He pulled his gun. “That won’t help,” Elijah pointed out.
Chris looked back at us, at the living room, then at us again. “Oh,” he finally said, holstering it. “Thatkind of someone.”
“Is it Brandon?” I demanded through gritted teeth, letting my fear feed my anger. “Because that motherfucker who let you sit there all night with broken—”
Elijah yanked on my hand and it forced me to remember that Chris didn’t know about that, since Elijah had flat-out liedto him at the time. He wasn’t looking at Chris, though. “I want to go,” he said. “Can we please just leave?”
Chris looked at me, narrowing his eyes, and I knew he wanted to ask me what I was going to say, but he didn’t. He sighed, resigned to ending the questions. I knew he was hoping to use Elijah to aid his investigation, but he didn’t know the extent of it. He hadn’t been in the cemetery that day, when Elijah knew something was there, just like he knew something was there in the living room. Something Chris and I would not be able to see.
“Alright,” Chris said, motioning to the living room. “But we need to go that way. I don’t want to mess with this door yet because I’m still trying to figure it out.”
“Maybe they left that way, breaking it worse after they killed him,” I suggested. “Or maybe he just broke it when he was drunk. It doesn’t really seem pertinent if there aren’t any prints or DNA.” I swallowed thickly, my eyes not leaving the room that appeared empty but wasn’t.
It was fine. It was okay. There was nothing there because I couldn’t see anything.I continued trying to convince myself, even though it wasn’t true, as we made our way into the living room with me in the lead. I pulled Elijah behind me, Chris following along without a damn care in the world. I dared a glance back at Elijah, and his eyes were trained on the open bathroom door. There weren’t any windows, so it was too dark to see anything, but he pressed into me, pushing me to move away from it as we passed. His eyes never left that dark space. Chris was watching him too, his eyes widening a little, and I could tell even he was starting to get freaked out.
We reached the front door and I sped up a little, pulling Elijah outside and down the porch steps. Chris could take care of himself. He was a big boy and he had a gun.
Elijah and I power walked all the way down the path. We probably looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care. Once we were away from the house, I heard Chris laughing a little from a few yards behind us. Fuck him, though. He hadn’t seen what I had. Hedidn’t know.
When we reached our cars, Chris caught up and said, “You want to tell me what that was about? Because if you saw Brandon in there, I really had some questions for him.”
Elijah shook his head. “I don’t know if it was him. I couldn’t make anything out, just shadows. I don’t know if it was Brandon, or someone else.”
I didn’t like the sound ofthat. “Who the hell else would it have been?” I demanded. “We were in Brandon’s house. Was it haunted before?”
He shook his head. “I never had any weird feelings in there before. But there was something in that house. And it wasn’t friendly.”
Chris looked a little skeptical, but I didn’t care. He was the one trying to milk Elijah of psychic knowledge. “We’re going back to Elijah’s,” I said. “Do you need anything else?”
Chris shook his head. “No. Elijah, we’ll end up bringing you in for a formal questioning, I can’t stop that, but it won’t be like earlier. No arrests, I promise. I’ll call you, okay?” Elijah nodded, and Chris got in his car and headed back toward town.
I looked at Elijah, who was a little shaken. He’d had a rough day, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t made anything better. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get you home.”
Chapter 16
Elijah
He was making me dinner. Enyo and I were sitting at my kitchen table, watching him work. He was wearing a tank top and I was drooling over his tattooed arms while I was pretty sure Enyo was drooling over the food. He could have been one of those guys making videos of themselves cooking some simple meal just to have people thirsting after them. Where the hell had he learned how to cook anyway?
Watching him, I realized I hadn’t even asked him about his life in Chicago. Despite how he seemed, I didn’t know Mason anymore, or what he was capable of. I hadn’t questioned him at all, and for all I knew I was fucking someone’s man while they were waiting for him to come home. “So,” I said, trying to figure out how to word it.“Did you live alone in Chicago?”
He glanced back at me, but then went back to the food he was making. “Yeah. Why?” He didn’t understand what I was asking.
“Did you . . . were you seeing anyone?”
He glanced back again, this time with a little smile. “No,I wasn’t. I’m not some complete asshole who’d come down here and cheat on a boyfriend. I had hookups when I lived there, but life was busy, and I definitely didn’t have time to have as many as you.” The smile turned into a smirk, and he turned back to the stove.
“You’re an ass,” I muttered, but my mouth was watering as I looked at the plate he was making me. I hadn’t eaten anything all day, and my stomach was making up for the hunger it had lacked earlier.
He put the plate in front of me then grabbed his own and sat down across from me minus the smirk. It felt weird being waited on in my own home. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had made me dinner. Even as a kid, with my mom raising me alone and working so much, I was usually fending for myself. I was the one who’d kept the house clean too. I’d grown up fast, even though she loved me deeply and had always done her best. She’d had no choice but to work a lot, and I’d never lacked anything.
I took a bite of my food, and managed to suppress the moan at how good it was because I didn’t want it to go to Mason’s head. He took a bite and looked at me before elaborating on his earlier words. “So, I didn’t really have time for a relationship. You know that saying about being married to your job? I guess that was me. A couple of years ago I had a semi-serious relationship that lasted a few months, and he was always at my place, which is why I’m pretty sure my parents are aware that I’m gay even though I haven’t told them. He got sick of it after a while. They all do. I was gone all the time, and there was stuff I couldn’t talk about. He was worried, too, about where I was and if I was safe when I was late getting home, which was often. It was easier to just go out to a bar and hook up with someone, without the attachment.”
He got a faraway look in his eyes.
