Page 43 of Death Raiser

Kang narrowed his eyes at me.

“We could use that.” I shrugged.

Kang stilled and violent energy vibrated from him. Darkness flashed across his gaze. I winced and took a step back.

Jacobs coughed into his sleeve and walked around the corner, presumably where Odette’s body lay.

“Lark,” Kang started.

“Yes?”

“Please stay away from that club,” he said. “Let us handle this.”

“Are you ordering me?” Technically, he said please and phrased it as a request, but his tone and body language suggested something more demanding.

“Of course, not.” He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders back “You’re an intelligent, independent woman. I’m merely pointing out Grant is now a suspect in three homicides and it’s not safe to go to his club when he’s shown particular interest in you.” He added a soft smile as if it would somehow camouflage his obvious tactics of using flattery to get his way.

I pointed at him. “You’re infuriating.”

He reached out with quick reflexes and grabbed my hand. He pulled me forward to press my hand to his chest. His heart was beating really hard, and really quickly. “I don’t like the idea of you becoming the fourth victim. Please be careful,” he said, his voice low and growly.

Damn. It was hard to argue with him like this. When he let me peek behind that tough, grumpy exterior, I wanted to do really bad things despite my would-be assassin lying on the floor a few feet away and the sound of sirens growing louder with each heartbeat. Jacobs must’ve called it in while he was in the other room.

“Okay,” I said. He made excellent points, and I had no plans to argue with him.

Kang cleared his throat and dropped my hand. “Also, I meant to tell you earlier. I have some information on that case you wanted me to open.”

Case? Right now, I was trying to figure out how to tactfully reschedule our date to right now so I could take him home. Sure, I probably needed therapy for having a gun pressed to my head, but I couldn’t think of anything more therapeutic right now than letting Kang do things to my body to keep my mind off what had just happened. And what could’ve happened had things gone the other way.

I shivered.

“Morgan?” Kang watched me, his dark gaze scanning my face.

“What case?”

“The ghost on the street corner,” he said.

My mind scrambled and then the haunting image of the spirit on the road flashed in my mind.

Right.

“The ghost case? You found her?”

“Yeah. Sad story. Lily Zheng was struck by a car at that intersection four years ago.”

Only four years ago and she’d already forgotten her name? That didn’t quite fit. “And you’re sure it’s her?”

“You didn’t give me a lot of standard search parameters to go on besides ‘young East Asian.’ The demographics of the community and traffic at that intersection meant my search yielded a lot of victims who fit the criteria. But Lily is the first one in a string of accidents, had a boyfriend named Mason and the time of death was estimated at around two in the morning.”

“How far back did you go?”

“Fifty years.”

He knew me well. Those were the search parameters I would’ve asked for.

“No one else fits the description, location, TOD, and cause of death before Lily. I can send you a picture of her.”

I nodded. His reasoning was sound. “Was the driver charged?”

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