Page 33 of Dropping Like Flies

I blinked. “And that’s all they are, stories. I’m just your common garden necromancer, I’m afraid.”

Rafe looked disappointed for a moment and then seemed to catch himself. “Nothing common about you, Griffin.”

Ben swept the photos back into the envelope and stood. “Thank you for your time, Professor Hart. You’ve been most helpful. I’ll be in touch if there are any follow-up questions.”

“Rafe,” he insisted, his eyes still on me. He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a card, passing it across. “My personal mobile number is on the back.” I turned it over to find a string of digits scribbled in biro. “I really would like an opportunity to sit and talk about what it is you do, whether you can organize a visit to the PPB for me or not. I’ll be in London at the end of the month at a conference. Perhaps we can reconnect then. We could have dinner and you could show me some sights.”

His eyes said there were other things he wanted me to show him that had absolutely nothing to do with London and everything to do with human anatomy. My anatomy, to be exact.

“I’ll call you,” I said, Ben already halfway out of the office without bothering to say goodbye. “I have to go.”

“Of course.” Rafe held out his hand, and I took it, the action less of a handshake and more of a caress. Yeah, the professor was definitely looking for more than a conversation. Was there such a thing as a necromancer fetish? I hadn’t encountered one before, but I was beginning to think there might be.

I made my excuses and left, Ben easy to find when I could feel every negative emotion surging through him as if I was the one experiencing them.

Chapter Twelve

Ben

“You’ve got to be joking,” Griffin said to the hotel receptionist, her name badge declaring her as Rachel. “You’re pulling my leg, right?”

Rachel gave a practiced apologetic smile that she’d probably used on hundreds of customers before. I wondered what its success rate was because it wasn’t working on Griffin or me, neither of us reacting to the news the hotel only had one room available at all amenably.

“Well, it’s my room,” I pointed out less than charitably. “You weren’t supposed to come. You’ll have to find another hotel.”

“I’m afraid,” Rachel said with a slight grimace, “that you’ll find all the other hotels are booked up.”

“All the hotels in Manchester?” I queried with a disbelieving tone. What was this? Some elaborate practical joke that wasn’t at all funny? Had someone at the station set it up? It wouldn’t be the first time they’d pissed themselves laughing over something in poor personal taste. Except, they would have had to know Griffin and I had once been an item to even think of doing it. And as I hadn’t breathed a word of our past relationship, and Griffin hadn’t had any opportunity to do so, that wasn’t possible.

Rachel nodded. “It’s the Commonwealth Games. All the hotels in the city are booked up months in advance.” Now, I thought about it, I vaguely recalled Manchester seeming to have gone overboard on the Union Jack’s, but I’d been too busy fuming over Griffin’s presence to pay it much mind. “The only reason you got a room was because we had a last-minute cancellation. You were lucky.”

Lucky? Right. As if. As Griffin sighed, a sinking sensation started in my gut. Share a room with Griffin? Given the whirlpool of emotion in my chest, that wouldn’t be a good idea. I needed away from him, and I needed it now, before my tongue decided it knew better than my brain. The whole day had been a challenge, but sitting next to him in the back of a cab while he stared at the mobile number scrawled on the back of Professor Rafferty Hart’s business card had been the icing on the cake. It had taken every ounce of willpower I had not to open the door and shove him out into traffic. I fixed Griffin with a cool stare. One that hopefully got across that he’d messed with me enough for one day and that I didn’t have boundless patience. “You’ll have to get a train back to London, even though it’s late.”

“There are no trains heading south currently,” Rachel supplied helpfully with a smile. “There’s been an accident at Stockport. They may start running again tonight, but I wouldn’t take my chances if I were you. Better to wait till tomorrow morning.” Well, wasn’t that marvelous? No trains. No hotel rooms. The universe was obviously determined to take a crap on me from a great height today. “The room is a double,” she said as she pushed the card key over the desk toward me.

I snatched it up, fearful Griffin might try to grab it first. The only saving grace was him not looking any happier about this than I did. Had he found it amusing, I wasn’t sure I would have been responsible for my actions. “Twin beds?” I asked, inevitability already pressing down on me.

Rachel tapped a few keys on her computer. “No, a double.” Of course it was. Me. Griffin. And a double bed. Fuck my life. If this was fate trying to tell us we’d messed up, then it was wasting its time because I already knew that. It was Griffin who refused to listen. No surprise, though. He hadn’t listened three years ago, so why would now be any different?

Griffin waited until we were in the lift, the room on the top floor. “It’s not like we haven’t shared a bed before.”

How much force did it take to strangle someone with your bare hands? We were of a similar height, but Griffin was stockier than I was, more muscled. Even the drink problem he wouldn’t admit to having didn’t stop him from having a great physique. “I need you to be quiet,” I said as calmly as I could. “If you’re not, I’ll make you sleep on a park bench.”

For once, he took it to heart, remaining silent as we checked out the hotel room. It was nothing fancy, but it was perfectly serviceable. And clean. I boiled the kettle while Griffin disappeared into the small bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Finding myself alone, I concentrated on pulling air into my lungs and then letting it out again. I could do this. It was only one night. If we didn’t speak… If he didn’t so much as look at me or breathe in my direction… it would be fine. We’d eat. In silence. We’d watch some crap on TV. In silence. We’d go to bed and sleep. He’d stay on his side and I’d stay on mine. And then in the morning, there’d just be breakfast and the train journey back to London to endure.

By the time the bathroom door opened and Griffin came out, I felt calmer. I sat on the side of the bed I’d claimed as mine—I’d reverted to the way round it had always been when we were together, so I doubted Griffin would argue—and was flicking through the TV channels. He stood in the doorway and stared. So much for him not looking in my direction. “I assume you’re annoyed because Rafe gave me his number?”

It was like someone had lit a fuse. I could almost picture the blue flames snaking from Griffin’s feet where he’d just lit it to me. And then it reached me, fury exploding in my chest and pushing me to my feet. It felt like I’d been holding my tongue ever since he’d walked into the DCS’s office. And while it might only have been days, it felt like years, and I couldn’t do it anymore. “Why would it bother me?” I hissed as I stalked toward him. “It’s not like we were meant to be together. Not like we had our whole lives planned out.”

Griffin’s expression was wary as I drew close. “Marriage. Children,” I spat out. “Do you remember that? Do you remember how we talked through the options at length? Adoption? Surrogacy? We even made a list of female friends we could ask. One of our many lists. We had one for wedding venues as well. Do you remember that?” I didn’t leave Griffin space to answer. There was no point when the questions were rhetorical. He might have blanked things out, but there was nothing wrong with his memory. “And then you just ended it and I didn’t get to have any say in it. One day, I had my entire future in front of me, and then the next, I had nothing. And you wouldn’t even talk to me about it. You wouldn’t take my calls. I emailed you in the end. I fucking emailed the man who was supposed to be in love with me because I couldn’t think of any other way of getting in touch with you. And trust me, I’d thought of nothing else for forty-eight hours. I hadn’t eaten. I hadn’t slept. I’d just thought about how to make you speak to me. It wasn’t like I could turn up at your workplace and beg an audience because the place is a literal fucking fortress and Cade would have taken your side the same way he always does.”

I stopped for a breath, Griffin still not having said a word, which was about right. “I spent hours on that email. Rewording it, rephrasing it, making sure it included everything I wanted to say, that I needed to say. Did you even read it?”

“I…”

I didn’t need him to answer my question; the answer was written all over his face. I backed off a few steps, scared that I’d punch him if I got too close, my fury like a snarling beast in my chest and refusing to abate. I was saying all the things I’d wanted to say for three years. All the things I hadn’t been able to. First, because he’d become a fucking ghost, impossible to track down and get anywhere near, and then in the past few days, because I’d wanted to remain professional.

Well, fuck that. He was already affecting my thought processes with the case, my time in the professor’s office mostly spent resenting him for attempting to build a bond with Griffin—Professor Rafferty Hart, clearly interested in getting in his pants. If things continued as they were, I wouldn’t even notice if the murderer walked straight past me, all my focus on my ex.

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