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Flint freezes on the bottom step and spins back around. “We should bring the bones and the map. We can drop the hand off at the Conservatory later, and you’ll need to skull for Nickodemus.”
“I’ll get them,” Darius offers. “You go on ahead.”
“You just don’t want to ride in the van,” Marc drawls.
“If you know, then there’s no need for you to wait,” Darius says without shame. “There’s no reason to bounce around in the back when I can ride in luxury.”
His feet retreat on the stairs behind me, and the door to the house opens and closes.
The rest of us step into the garage, and Flint hesitates at the van. “Should we be driving it out to a crime scene? What if the scrub down didn’t remove a tracker placed by Berdherst’s people?”
“Does it matter if he knows we’re parking on the road that leads to the JTFPI?” Marc asks. “Besides, it will make it easier to have Xander check it for spells when we drop off the hand.”
“True.” Flint grabs the keys and tosses them to Marc before heading for the passenger side.
He opens the door, then looks at me. “Pen, you coming?”
After a moment of consideration, I shake my head. “I’ll ride with Darius, just in case something happens.”
“Good old buddy system.” Marc climbs behind the wheel. “See you at the grave site.”
The garage door rumbles open, and I watch as Marc backs out, then drives away.
I eat my sandwich while I wait and throw the paper towel into the bin marked for compost.
A few minutes later, the door to the house opens, and Darius’s footsteps sound on the stairs. He must have paused to eat his breakfast to leave his hands free to carry the bones. He cradles the large skull in both arms, and the hand dangles from his fingers inside an evidence bag.
When he sees me waiting in the garage, he pauses in surprise. “You didn’t go with them?”
Did he want me to? Agitation fills me. Yesterday, he would have been overjoyed to have me to himself.
“We’re on the buddy system,” I tell him, my throat tight with all the other words I hold back.
How can he look so unaffected when the burn of his hands still lingers on my body?
With a nod of understanding, he grabs the keys for his expensive luxury car, then juggles the bones into one arm so he can open the passenger door for me.
Unreasonably annoyed by the show of gallantry, I slide into the soft leather seat.
After he deposits the bones in the trunk, Darius hurries around to the driver’s side and slips behind the wheel.
The car purrs to life, and when he backs out of the garage, the smooth glide of the tires earns my unwilling respect for the expensive vehicle.
As we drive into town, silence fills the car, awkward on my side, but I have no idea what thoughts run through Darius’s mind. His face is a mask of concentration as he navigates through early morning traffic.
My leg bounces with agitation, and I press my hand on my thigh to make it stop. Why isn’t he saying anything? This isworsethan how things were before last night.
When he pulls onto the road that leads to New Clearhelm, I can’t stand it anymore. “Did you change your mind? About us?”
His head snaps toward me, his eyes widening. “No, I haven’t changed my mind.”
Relief washes over me, followed by confusion. “Then why did you sneak out of bed this morning?”
Darius wrenches the car over to the side of the road in a spray of gravel and slams on the brakes.
I throw a hand against the dash as my seatbelt snaps taut across my chest. When I turn to look at him, my heart pounds hard at the raw desire in his eyes.
He reaches out to grasp the back of my neck and pulls me closer until our faces are just inches apart.
