“You’ve got to be shitting me,” a voice growled from the threshold.
Graham.
I’d been stunned to see him. Detective Hightower, on the other hand, seemed not at all surprised by his abrupt arrival.
“Graves. Surprised it took you so long.”
“Tell me I am not seeing what I think I’m seeing.” His eyes flashed to me for a split second. “Tell me you are not questioning my woman as a suspect in a homicide without proper representation?”
I jolted at the wordsmy woman, startled to hear myself described as such.
Cade glanced at me, frowning. “You his, now?”
I opened my mouth to proclaim that I wasn’t his — that I wasn’tanyone’sthank you very much — but Graham beat me to the punch.
“Gwendolyn is mine. She’s been mine a while, you just haven’t wanted to accept that.” Graham’s voice was scathing. “That ends now. You are not pulling any more of this shit without my knowledge. No more ambushing her at work, no more chats down at the station unless I’m sitting next to her. If I hear otherwise…”
The tension in the small room mounted to scary levels as the threat dangled between them, unspoken. The air grew so thick with testosterone, I could barely breathe.
Cade’s jaw was clenched with carefully-contained rage. “She said she had nothing to hide and, like it or not, I’m doing my due diligence—”
“Oh, piss up a rope, Hightower. She’s not a suspect here, no matter what the evidence says. Treating her like one doesn’t make you a good cop, it makes you a fucking sheep.” Graham held out a hand to me, never shifting his burning gaze from the detective. “Come on, Gwen. We’re leaving.”
Normally I would protest at being summoned like a dog, but in this particular case I didn’t hesitate. I pushed to my feet and hauled ass to his side, making not a peep of protest as his hand enveloped mine in a bone-crushing grip.
“I’m not finished with her,” Cade said, rising from his chair.
“You are.” Graham’s tone brooked no room for argument. “You need a follow up, call my attorneys. As of this moment, they represent her.”
With little other choice, Cade had watched us go. He hadn’t looked happy about it. As for Graham, he wasn’t happy either. Not when he drove me back to the store, not when I dragged him into the back office to tell him about the missing knife in my display cabinet, and definitely not when I’d voiced my theories regarding the animal sacrifices. By the time I was finished talking, his jaw was ticking like a bomb set to explode.
“Whatever they’re planning will most likely happen on Halloween, then.”
I’d nodded, at a loss for words.
“Not even three weeks away,” he’d muttered, running his hands through his hair. “Christ. Certainly puts a clock on things.”
“In a way, this is good,” I’d said, trying to look on the bright side. “Now, we know I’m safe. We can stop constantly looking over our shoulders for a little while. At least… until Halloween.”
When they sacrifice me on an altar of blood.
Graham did not look like he agreed with my assessment that this was good. Graham, in fact, looked so off-the-charts pissed, it was somewhat surprising he didn’t explode out of his skin like the Incredible Hulk in a fit of uncontrollable rage. But, with a series of deep breaths, he’d managed to rein it in, only to yank me into his arms to lay a hot, lip-bruising kiss on me, after which point he muttered, “Do not leave the store until I come back to pick you up.” Then, he turned on his cool-as-shit motorcycle boots and stormed out.
I’d worked the rest of the day — which was remarkably hectic for a Tuesday — at Hetti’s side, playing backup barista, cleaning tables, rinsing dirty mugs, chatting with customers, and ringing in sales until the near-constant chime of the cash register was giving me a headache. It was wall-to-wall customers. The espresso machine never stopped steaming, books and baubles were flying off the shelves faster than we could restock them. Even the citrine was moving, which I considered a bonafide miracle. Both Hetti and I were dead on our feet by the time we flipped the door sign to CLOSED.
Graham showed up to collect me a few minutes later. I thought he was going to take me home when I finished my nightly cleaning routine, but he surprised me by driving across town to The Witches Brew. When we’d walked in, Flo and Des were already seated at a snug booth in the back, sipping drinks. Both of them grinned wide at the sight of us, hand in hand. They’d barely stopped grinning in the thirty minutes since — the pointed exception to their buoyant moods being the moment I filled them in on my morning visit to the Salem Police Station, as well as my current status as Suspect Numero Uno in the investigation into Eliza Proctor’s untimely demise.
“Gwennie!” Flo shouted to be heard over the music — a badass version ofSupernaturalby Barns Courtney, featuring a head-banging drum solo. “Does all of this mean our Halloween plans are off?”
“No tricks or treats for me this year,” I replied morosely. “Graham says I have to stay under lock and key until the Heretics situation is handled.”
She scowled at the man beside me. “Get a move on, will you?”
“Working on it,” was his terse reply.
I stifled a giggle.
“These Heretics are seriouslythe worst,” Flo muttered grumpily. “It’s one thing to threaten your life. It’s another to derail our party!”