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I hung up, then tossed my phone on the bed while I zipped up the main part of the duffel and opened up the exterior pocket.
“You brought clothes?” Taavi asked.
I glanced over at him. “Yeah.” Then I pulled my little toiletry kit out. “And a toothbrush.”
Another peek told me that he was smiling, and the knot in my chest loosened a little as I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and try to wrangle my hair back into a braid. I might like it when Taavi grabbed my hair, but it didn’t do me any favors in the tangles department.
I was tugging a brush through it irritably when Taavi padded into the bathroom behind me, wearing a different pair of sweatpants—these were dark blue. I raised an eyebrow at him in question.
He put his arm around me from behind, leaning into my back. I felt my mouth curving upward, even though it wasn’t helping me get ready to go.
“I’m going to hit you with this brush if you stay there,” I told him.
He sighed, then moved, sitting on the lip of the bathtub. “Case?” he asked.
I nodded. “Did I tell you about the Antiquus Ordo Arcanum?”
“Yes.”
“Well, at least one of them knows how to make these magic bullets that disappear when they hit their target. And they can go through things like windows and shit.”
“That seems…”
“Like a fucking forensic nightmare?”
“Yes.”
I sighed, tugging on a particularly stubborn tangle. “It is,” I confirmed. “If you remember the Oldham case, Faith Oldham was killed by one of them.”
“And this is another one?”
“Yep. The second since then.”
“The second? There was another?”
“Yeah. An Ian Whitehead. I haven’t been able to find too much, other than the fact that his family has been around since at least the Civil War, and that his company imports rare wood and stone from somewhere in South America.”
“And that someone shot him with a disappearing bullet.”
“And that, yeah.” I finally got through my hair, then realized I didn’t have an elastic. “Shit.”
Taavi reached out and opened a drawer, in which was a small basket full of elastics.
“Thanks.” They were several different colors, so I pulled out a white one. I didn’t want to deal with the shit I’d get from the RPD if I showed up with a pink or teal one in my hair on top of being a civvie.
He followed me back into the main room as I put my shit together, and then I had to leave, but I really didn’t want to.
“I—don’t know what time we’ll be done,” I told him.
He nodded. “I have to work tomorrow, anyway,” he said softly.
“You should take more time off,” I argued, but he was shaking his head.
“I’m fine. I won’t be able to do the really heavy stuff with one arm, but I can clean counters and things.”
I let out a breath, running my hand over his hair. “Taavi—”
“Pot, kettle, Val.”
