Page 88 of The Number of Love
Margot moved forward, ready to help, but the door opened even as she did, and a frowning Drake filled it. “Dot? What’s the matter?”
Margot pulled her friend up rather than the keys and propelled her into her brother’s arms. Then she fished the slips of metal off the ground and followed the siblings inside.
“Mugger,” Dot managed between sobs.
“What? Are you all right?” He moved his wide eyes from Dot to Margot.
Margot sucked in a much-needed breath, not ashamed to admit there was a bit of a tremor in her own hands, now that the danger had passed. “We’re all right. We got his knife from him. He didn’t take anything, and he didn’t hurt us.”
At the wordknife, Dot pulled away from Drake, fingers pressed to her lips. She let the two bags—her own and Margot’s—fall to the floor and made a mad dash toward her bedroom.
“Dot!”
“Give her a minute.” Drake touched a hand to her arm to stop herfrom following. But his frown furrowed deeper in his brow than she’d ever seen it as he looked at the door she’d slammed shut behind her.
Margot wrapped her arms around her middle. And when Drake moved his hand to her back instead of her arm, she leaned into him just a little. He apparently took it as permission to pull her to his chest, and she didn’t mind that either. Her arms were trapped against her stomach, between them, but she buried her face in his uniform’s shoulder. “We’re all right,” she felt the need to say again. And then a third time.
“I know. Praise the Lord.” He pulled away, framed her face in his hands, and pressed a firm kiss to her forehead. Then he stepped away, his own hands shaking. Putting space between them when she knew well he wanted to eliminate it instead.
This was Drake’s love.
He heaved a breath and passed a hand through his hair. “Tea. The kettle is on. You need tea.”
She didn’t need tea. But she’d take it, and she’d drink it, and maybe the warmth of it would chip away at the cold inside. So she nodded.
While he moved toward the kitchen, she slid out of her coat. And then, armed in the cardigan Maman had made her that she’d worn as an extra layer on this cold day, she bent down to retrieve the fallen bags. And her trembling hands pulled out that vicious-looking knife that Dot had apparently slid into Margot’s handbag at some point.
She set it on the table, where the lamplight could flash down its blade and gleam golden against the wooden handle. She was no expert, but it looked costly. Well made.
“This was his weapon?” Drake set two cups on the table and moved to her side, staring at the knife.
She nodded. And slid a few inches closer to him. Partly for him. Partly for her.
Drake reached for it, obviously more familiar with such weapons than she was, given how easily he flipped it this way and that, testing its balance, she guessed. “It’s a beautiful piece.”
Margot blinked at him. “It’s aweapon. It isn’t beautiful. Equationsare beautiful. Sunsets are beautiful. Poetry and music are beautiful. Knives—”
“It’s the mathematics of it that makes it so. The symmetry. The angles. The perfect ratio of weight between the tang and the tip.” His smile flashed only briefly.
He held it closer. Her gaze settled where his had, on the metal closest to the wood. “There’s something etched into the guard.”
She leaned closer, even rested her fingers on his so she could steady it where she needed. “It looks liked-e-rsomething.V-a-m...” She straightened. “It’s German.Der Vampir.”
Drake’s brows flew upward. “Is that a cognate? ‘The vampire’?”
Margot nodded. And shuddered. “A morbid name for a blade.”
“Certainly not one you’d carve into a kitchen knife.” He set it back down and rubbed a hand up and down her back. “How did you manage to disarm him?”
“Willa and Barclay taught me. Self-defense, they say, is every girl’s best friend.”
His hand hooked over her shoulder. Held tight. “Remind me to thank her on Sunday. Can you tell me what happened? Describe the man?”
She nodded. But somehow, with his arm so comfortably around her and the warmth of the flat seeping in, she became more aware every second of how weak her knees felt. And how much she didn’t want to admit to him that he’d been right to wonder about Williams. “Could we sit first? With that tea?”
“Of course.”
He carried the cups while she moved to the couch, casting a long look at Dot’s closed bedroom door. “Should we check on her?”
