Page 30 of Deader than Dead

A long pause. “Nothing good.”

“Exactly. Does it sit right with you to deliver that mask right into O’Reilly’s hands?”

Silence. I guess it was an impossible question when the fate of your son hung in the balance. “I’ll take that as a no,” I said.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t have stolen it in the first place, then,” was Cade’s rejoinder. “I know more than you might think about you, Mr. Bellamy Farrell. I know all about how you’ll do anything for the highest bidder, so it’s no good pulling a holier than thou act now.”

Was that supposed to be a threat? I might not know much about necromancers, but I knew of the Paranormal Problems Bureau. Everyone did. And it was no surprise that the founder of it would have an awful lot of information at his fingertips. “Maybe not,” I said, making absolutely no effort to keep the hard edge out of my voice. “But I gave up my life to not deliver that mask into O’Reilly’s hands once I realized how dangerous it could be. So if you think I’m just going to tell them what they want to know, then you’re wrong.”

John reached over to squeeze my shoulder, a gesture of support I really appreciated. However many sides there were to this thing, John and I were on the same one.

Cade cleared his throat, the noise bringing my attention back to John’s phone. “Where did you hide the mask, anyway?” Cade’s tone was just that bit too casual to be genuine.

Did he think I was that stupid? There was trusting someone, and then there was being completely naïve. “Now, why would you want to know that, I wonder? I’m not going to tell you so you can tell them.”

John threw the bag over his shoulder and took hold of my hand to tug me toward the door. “We have to go before they get here.”

“I can help you,” Cade was saying. “I can send someone to find it before they get there. They can take it somewhere safe. It will buy us some time to decide what to do.”

I looked to John. He was the one who knew Cade the best. Perhaps he was telling the truth. When all he could offer me was a shrug, I handed the phone back to him without giving Cade an answer.

“I have to go, Cade,” he said.

“John, tell me where it is?”

“You’re asking the wrong person. I don’t know.”

“Put Bellamy back on and tell him he can trust me. Tell him—“

“Bye Cade.” John ended the call, his phone ringing again almost immediately. He ignored it. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

The slight furrow on John’s brow said he hadn’t gotten that far in his thinking. “Anywhere that’s not here. A café. The park. A goddamn library. Anywhere we can sit down and work out our next steps.”

“Sounds good to me.” Just shy of the door, I grabbed his wrist before he could open it, waiting until he’d lifted his gaze to mine. “There is another option.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded, my heart pounding in my chest. “I leave on my own. This is my problem, and there’s no reason for you to get dragged into it. Then you can tell them the truth, that you don’t know where I’ve gone, and you don’t know where the mask is.”

John’s stare said he was trying to work out if I meant it. I did. Of course I did. I’d walk out of here and face a firing squad if it kept him safe. I’d started this whole thing by stealing the mask, so the least I could do was make sure that no one else suffered more than they already had. Separating from him would be like ripping my own arm off, but I’d do it if he asked me to.

The wait for him to make his decision was excruciating, but then he shook his head and backed me against the wall. Cupping my cheeks, he leaned in so that our faces were only inches apart. “That’s not happening.”

“No?” The flutter of emotions in my chest were a mixture of many things—relief, fear, and lust among them.

“No.” John accompanied his affirmation with a smile. “I’ve just found you. I refuse to lose you already. We’re a team. Whether that’s for five minutes, or for fifty years.”

“Fifty years.” My lips curled up into a wistful smile. “I wish.”

John stroked my cheek, his touch soothing. “Why not? We just need to get past this minor hiccup and then the world is our oyster. To go wherever we want to go. To do whatever we want to do.”

God, that sounded like the best thing in the world. It got even better when he covered my mouth with his. We needed to get out of here, but one more minute wasn’t going to make any difference in the grand scheme of things.

Every time we kissed, it was different. Last night had been about passion and desperation, the one Cade had interrupted had been a celebration of a second chance at life. And this one… This one was about promises and… love. Yeah, it was about love. We might not have said the words, but there was no disputing it. It was there in every exchanged glance, every touch, every shared breath. When we finally separated, we were both smiling like a pair of lunatics.

“God, John,” I said, hoping those two words would get across at least a small iota of what I was feeling.

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