Page 94 of Some Kind of Haunted

“Yet.”

I think the guilt and grief might actually knock me over, but it doesn’t. Logan walks me to our rental car and we stand there. I don’t know what to do. I want to talk to Nora. I want to shout at Nora. I want to rewind time and use those disgusting hair wreaths to chain me to my antique-store bed. I know Logan is right and we need to postpone any meltdowns until we’re nowhere near police custody. I know we need to get in the car and leave.

But my limbs don’t seem to want to reach forward and open the car door.

I just can’t understand why Nora would take my place.

“Get in, Lex.” There’s a gentleness to Logan’s tone now that hasn’t been here today. Like Nora’s confessing weighs on him as much as it does on me, which doesn’t make any sense. She didn’t sacrifice herself for him. “We’ll head back to the antique store.”

I think about the last time I saw Jack, out by the flood wall. I feel my eyes tear up again. “Does Jack know? About Nora?”

Logan slides into the driver’s seat. He says nothing, which is an answer unto itself—and not the answer I want.

“He doesn’t know?” I can’t imagine what his reaction will be. Or maybe I can.

What was Nora thinking?

“You’re telling him,” my brother says roughly. “I’ve had enough of fucking Bellamys today to last a lifetime.”

Logan pulls out of our parking space, then heads toward the checkpoint at the exit. I look back at the jail. Nora walked in there of her own free will. She confessed to murder.

“She must not have meant—” I begin.

“Nora knew exactly what she was doing, and who would stop her if they knew,” Logan says, his voice low and furious. “She used Harrison as a distraction, snuck away, and did this all by her lonesome self. And yes, Lexi. She meant to do it. She did it on purpose.”

He sounds furious with her, and I’m not exactly thrilled with her myself, but I’m not going to lie. I would have bet that he wouldn’t care too much what Nora did if it got me out, based on the way he’s treated her since we arrived in Midas.

Somehow, I feel that this isn’t the time to push him on that. My brother looks feral, and he never looks anything but polished. Today he’s in a T-shirt and jeans, which is a far cry from his usual Armani. His dark hair looks almost as wild as mine.

His reaction feels bigger than it should, I think.

But then, immediately, I correct myself, because it’s perfectly reasonable to crash out under these circumstances. Someone is dead.

Cleo is dead.

I lean back against my seat and close my eyes. Logan drives in silence for a while and I keep my eyes closed. I don’t want to look at that flood wall. I don’t want to see the place where Cleo was lying. I don’t want to imagine myself back there in all that spooky quiet, sticky and alone.

Still, I can feel it when we drive back into Midas proper. There’s a weight to it. It’s like the air shifts the moment we cross the barrier, and I hate it. I hate everything that’s happened since I made the spectacular mistake of daring to think things were good for a few minutes.

But I remember walking up those stairs inside Swamp Fox Shoppes, feeling Jack’s eyes on me and him all over me. I remember the hum of it, like we were tuned in to our own frequency, and I don’t want to lose that again.

No matter what happens.

When I feel the car come to a stop, I open my eyes against the bright sunlight. The street is thick with people again, but Logan has managed to find a spot to stop right in front of the diner. Though he doesn’t turn off the engine.

I frown at him. “You’re not coming in?”

He runs his hand through his hair. “I’m going back to deal with Nora,” he says gravely. “I’ll be able to see her today as her lawyer, but outside a lawyer, she only gets one non-family visit every sixty days. So you and Jack need to put your heads together. Figure out if there’s some Midas demon way to fix this. You’ll only have one real chance to visit her. It needs to count.”

It hits me that reality isn’t what most people think it is here. There’s the world the police operate in, and then there’s the demon situation that those same police can’t even see.

This has to mean there’s hope.

It steadies me, this little burst of possibility. I manage to push the car door open and get myself upright on the sidewalk, still sporting my prison scrubs, which I’m hoping the milling tourists will take as festive harvest wear. Logan watches me carefully, clearly torn between staying and going.

“Go,” I tell him. “Help Nora. I’ll be fine.”

I shut the car door and turn with the express purpose of striding into that diner, shoulders back, head held high, ready to tackle whatever I need to in order to get Nora out. After a very hot shower first.