Embry kissed Rye’s hand.
Suddenly aware of what she’d done, Embry wrenched herself away and stared at the spot. She couldn’t see evidence of it, the impression of her mouth in the shiny glaze of salve, but she felt it. It’d happened. That had happened. She’d done that.
Then Rye’s hand caught Embry under her chin and tipped her face up to his. The intensity in his eyes hadn’t waned, but it had changed. Thunderstruck now instead of pointed. The knot at his throat bobbed—he wanted to say something, but Embry had tocut this off at the pass. Whatever words came with that look were not ones she was in any state to hear.
“I’m sorry, I’m tired and loopy, and I’m glad you’re okay and we’re okay. Sorry.”
Rye took the words like one of her elbows to the gut or donkey kicks to the calf. His full mouth thinned; he blinked himself out of that intense stare, breathed thinly through his nose.
“Perhaps,” he started, wetting his lips and slowly withdrawing his hand from Embry’s chin, “we need a few hours’ sleep before we analyze our findings. So we’re of sound mind… and not making hasty judgments.”
They hadn’t slept in, what? Thirty-six hours at least? Maybe more. And Embry was clearly not of sound mind in this very moment. Rye was kind to lump himself in with her as far as being tired enough to make rash, strange decisions.
From below came the sound of one zombie announcing to the other, “I don’t see any more blood splatter. Just bleach it.”
“Thenight shiftshould have to bleach it. Why do I have to bleach it?”
“Your funeral if the ME brings a body into a contaminated environment and you knew about it.”
“Youknew about it—”
The slamming of an office door reverberated through the eerie silence of the morgue until it was bookended by the indignant stomping of the remaining zombie, and the muffled muttering and crashing of cleaning supplies.
Embry swallowed hard and finally nodded. “No hasty judgments.”
CHAPTER 26
DADDY’S ORDERS
“MY WAYWARD DAUGHTER HAS RETURNED.”
Embry startled awake from where she’d fallen asleep sitting up in Daddy’s accent chair, pulled flush to the bed. She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the stormy light of her surroundings.
Daddy, who was awake!
Daddy, who was sitting up!
Daddy, who wasn’t grinning, exactly, his azure eyes fierce—alive—in the gloom, magical sedation evaporated.
Embry rushed into motion, leaning forward to snag his hand in hers. His fingers were much cooler to the touch than she would’ve liked. Immediately, she reached for a spell with her free hand and lit the hearth across the space. “How do you feel?”
Lazarus rubbed his thumb across the back of Embry’s knuckles. The sensation was identical to when she attacked her face with the jade gua sha she kept in the back of the fridge. Unfortunately, the effect here wasn’t nearly as soothing. “Well, I don’t feel like I’ve been sawed through with a rusty pizza cutter, so that’s an improvement.”
“Are you hungry? Thirsty? Do you want me to open the curtains?”
That not-exactly-a-grin rose into a genuine smile. “No, dear, don’t trouble yourself.”
“No trouble. Rye’s coming with Indian in—” She checked her mother’s watch, stuffed under her sleeve: 5:29. She’d gotten atleast four hours of sleep, maybe? The midafternoon was a hazy mix of her own zombie walk from the station with Rye, making plans for dinner, downloading with Dr. Goldman, sending the doctor home to rest, checking on Daddy, and apparently falling asleep in this chair. She hadn’t even taken the time to shower, and Goddess knew she needed one of those. “He’ll be here in a half hour. Are you sure you’re not thirsty? Maybe if you’re not, that’s an important detail to tell Dr. Goldman? Here, I can get her on speaker—”
Daddy reached out and smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear. It just got mussed like this when she did strenuous things. Like, say, crawl through police department air ducts and berate herself for switching her brain into power saver mode long enough to kiss Rye Knighton.
Wait. How awful did she look right now? She was seriously regretting not taking the time to look in the mirror when she got home. Daddy’s smile faded. “What I do want is for you to tell me exactly where you were when you weren’t here for approximately ten hours.”
Embry gulped. It was just like Daddy (and her) to know everything—it didn’t matter how he found out, only that he did. She could lie—come up with something that was both easily believable and maybe a little comforting to Daddy because it wouldn’t worry him. He didn’t need to worry.
But Embry wasn’t keen on outright lies to her father, even if they would spare him the mental energy of concern. “Rye and I went to Raven’s Head to look for clues.”
“Clues?”
