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“Then why did you kick me?” I grumbled, shoving the rock behind me. I had to angle my knees so he wouldn’t see the blood on my hand as I slipped my gloves back on. There was too much death around for him to smell it. “What do you want? I told you I needed air.”
He shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. You looked like you were gonna be sick back there. Not to mention the fact you're still our number one suspect until the scene is fully processed.”
“We both know I didn’t kill her.” I glared at him.
Jackson knew me better than anyone. We’d been two halves of the same coin since our freshman year at Tulane. So much so, he’d given me the penny dangling on a chain around my neck for our first anniversary.
Back then when he’d turned too serious, I’d made him laugh. When I was unsteady, he became my solid ground. We were the perfect team.Werebeing the operative word. Everything changed last year. To know your future is to be trapped by it. I couldn’t sleep anymore without seeing him lying dead beside me. The vision of my hands wrapped around his throat had ruined everything.
“I know you didn’t kill her,” he said after a beat of silence. “But we need to prove it before the wrong people see Natalie’s report.”
I stood up and brushed the dirt from my pants. “Are youdone with the scene? Did Shado say anything else about the body?”
“I took a few pictures with my phone, made some notes, but other than that everything hasbeen fully bagged and tagged. Shado’s taking Nadia to the morgue as we speak so she can do the autopsy. She said she’d see you later.”
I nodded and made a mental note to shake Jackson’s watchful eyes as soon as I could. I cleared my throat and started walking. Shado would be expecting me sooner rather than later. She knew from experience I needed the body undisturbed.
“Call me after the autopsy is done,” I said.
He snorted. “You’re going the wrong way. Your bike is near the main–”
I stopped mid-stride and turned around without saying a word. Blush burned hot in my cheeks.
“Do you want me to drive you home?” he asked, falling into step beside me, a smug smile on his lips.
“I’m fine, thanks. I’ve got my Harley parked outside.”
“Pick it up tomorrow,” he said. “If I drive you, we can talk about the case and what our next steps should be.”
I laughed. “You’re really going to let me consult? I thought you were joking.”
“Believe me, I don’t like it any more than you do. But you’re the magic expert in this relationship. You know more about rituals than I could ever dream of,” he said. “I know you hate me, but—”
I did a double take. “I don’t hate you.”
“Could have fooled me. My point is that we’ve worked well together in the past, and I know you. You were nearly arrested, and you don’t like unanswered questions, which means at this point you’re too invested in this case to let it go.”
I stopped walking and looked up at him.To anyone else, he would have looked angry, but I saw the worry. It was in the twitch of his jaw, and the shadows clouding his eyes. Once upon a time, that look would’ve had me kissing him. I hated it when he worried. I would have done anything to make him smile, but now, that look just broke my heart.
“Fine,” I said, swallowing around the lump in my throat. “We’ll work together on this case, but that’s it. Once it’s done, and Nadia’s killer is caught, we’re done. You’ll sign the divorce papers and we can both move on.”
His eyes narrowed. “Fine.”
“Good,” I said and took off for the gate. I hated myself for making that deal, but if I was going to work with him, I had to cut off any hope our proximity might create. Not just for him, but for me too. Jackson Sinclair had always been my kryptonite. If I let myself hope for anything with him, it would be a disaster.
Trailing behind me, Jackson was quiet. Everything was quiet really. The only sounds I could make out were the chatter of a few ME’s gathering their gear, and our shoes scraping across the ground. The absence of any real noise made my skin itch, so I slowed down and asked the first question that popped into my mind.
“So, where were you?”
Jackson arched an eyebrow and kept walking. “At the crime scene? Where else would I have been?”
“I meant before, when Nat called you,” I exhaled, fighting the urge to roll my eyes again. I knew it was a dumb question, and completely counter productive, but the part of me that still loved him needed to know what he was doing while we were apart. Part of me needed to know if he was hurting like I was, or –“Were you on a date or something?”
My cheeks burned again. Had I really just asked him that? Had those words really come out of my mouth? What right did I have to actually ask him that anymore?
Jackson sputtered. “Do you have any clue what time it is? When Nat called me, it was like four thirty. I was in bed. I don’t know about you, but I don’t go on dates before dawn.”
“Were you alone?”
