Page 36 of Just Dare Me
Nora and Elle are both yelling at me from the car. “Shayne, get in here! Jump!”
“Nobody move,” I say. “Just relax.”
“I’ve got a shot,” Charlotte announces.
“No!”
“Yes! I’m taking it!”
“Don’t you dare! This one’s Jay’s. I promised him.”
“Jay’s not here!”
“You sure about that?”
Bowler Hat races toward me. I can see the white cataracts of his eyes. His bared fangs. As soon as he leaps onto the hopper car, just three quick strides away, Jay’s voice calls out from behind me. “Down!”
I lower into a crouch, and Jay fires once over my head, nailing Bowler Hat straight in the heart. The revenant drops, lifeless on the roof. Cheers crackle through my earpiece.
“Holy shit, partner!” Russo whoops.
“Oh, I want one!” Elle whines.
Jay pulls me in close. He’s wearing a black tactical vest over a dress shirt with a purple tie. Lethal and formal at the same time. A killer look on him.
I smile. “Shouldn’t you stake his heart, just to make sure?”
“I just did.” He holds up his handgun. “Ash wood bullets.”
I don’t know why, but the only word that comes to my dazzled mind is “Neat.”
He pulls me in and gives me a good, long kiss. Long enough that I have time to pluck my earpiece out when it erupts with catcalls.
When the need for breath forces us apart, I stare into his eyes and relish how good he smells right now. “Husband,” I say.
“Wife,” he says back.
After one more devastating smile, he lets go, and we each drop to opposite sides of the train—me onto my ride and he onto his. Shortest, most dangerous date ever, but so worth it.
The next morning, I’m stillriding the high of Jay’s kiss when I set the plastic vial in front of Madison West. “Rock salt,” I announce.
Pulling her chair up to the desk, she peers intently at the vial. “Salt? From where?”
“From the cargo hold of a freight train, which was filled at the Detroit Salt Mine. A perfect base of operations for East Side. The mine’s as big as the Grandy district, a thousand feet underground, totally secure, only two ways in and out, and no sun to bother the Cleveland vamps.”
“Living in the salt mine. No wonder we couldn’t find them.”
Adrian York stands to one side of the desk, towering over us. His thick, square beard is the perfect frame for the grim set of his mouth. “Let’s back this up a bit. Fill in the blanks.”
I keep my eyes on Director West. As intimidating as she is, my nerves still prefer to deal with her rather than the aggressive mythic staring down at me. “What blanks?”
“This salt. Who gave it to you?”
“Nobody. I got it myself.”
He folds his arms across his chest with a skeptical look. “You personally?”
“That’s usually whatmyselfmeans, yes.”
