The Taken Read online

  He shrugged. “Not much longer.”

  “That a threat, Mr. Shaw?”

  “It’s Grif,” he said, slumping. “Only my family called me Mr. Shaw.”

  “Cute.” She made a face, then crossed her arms. “But I’m not leaving. I’m going to get answers for Nic. I need to find out who killed her, why, and I’m going to make them pay for my busted door. Nobody enters my house without invitation,” she said, and looked pointedly at him.

  Grif didn’t want to look impressed, but it was hard with her staring him down, tough and determined-looking. Like a lion-tamer. Like she’d said . . . cute.

  “Guess I’ll stick around then, too,” he finally said, lifting his cup. He tried to sound spontaneous, but it was a decision he’d come to in the deep, lonely night. He couldn’t save her just to allow her to die later.

  “I don’t even know you,” she snapped, as if wielding a whip.

  “You didn’t know me last night, either. And you still don’t know who attacked you.”

  She frowned. “You think they’ll be back?”

  “You think they’ve left?” he said, and she winced again. Best to be straight, though. She needed facts. Facts were bricks. Maybe she could build herself a wall with them, too, one tall and wide and strong enough to keep her alive when he was gone. Knowing Sarge, that would be soon.

  Which brought him to the other thing he’d decided in the long hours where no one on either the Surface or in the skies had been talking to him. Sarge and company had stripped him of his celestial powers, leaving him only with the tools to sense impending death. They’d dumped him here as a freak—neither Centurion nor mortal—with holes in his memory and orders to watch a fated murder.

  But Grif had altered fate, and not with wings, but fists. With the part of him that had free will. The part that was human.

  So Grif had decided to block out his death senses, temporarily ignore his angelic side, and use whatever remaining time he had on this mudflat to take care of a little business. A murder that had been haunting him for decades.

  “Ah, here comes the catch,” Kit said, studying his face.

  “No catch. I just need help with an old case I’m trying to solve. A double murder.”

  “And?”

  “And you’re a reporter.” And the case was so cold it had frostbite. It would be hard enough for him to get records, reports, and access to eyewitness accounts with no resources or contacts. But with all the newfangled electronics, it was damned near impossible. Still, as long as he was camping out on the mud, why not take a look?

  “And you’re a hardened P.I.,” she replied coolly. “Why don’t you lone-wolf your way to the answer?”

  “Because it happened here. In Vegas. And I’ve been away a little while.” He showed teeth as he answered, causing fear to move behind her gaze. Good. She should be a little afraid. “Besides, I need some help getting around.”

  “What? No car?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “That, and I get kinda . . .”

  “What was that?” she said, leaning forward.

  He pushed his cup away. “I said I get turned around.”

  Craig leaned back, and smiled. So much for being afraid. “A man who admits to being bad with directions.” She inclined her head, like that was the deciding factor. “I guess I can help.”

  She could. Because he’d done more than watched her during the night. He’d also gone through her house. He’d found awards for journalism through high school, college, and even a national one for investigative reporting. He’d found old photo albums with newspaper clippings linking her to the paper she worked for now, one that her great-somebody had started decades earlier. That’s how he knew she’d have money if she wanted to flee, and sources if she wanted to stay.

  And if Craig—or Kit—stuck around, then Grif would, too.

  Besides, why shouldn’t he have the answers to questions that’d stalked him on both sides of the grave?

  What had happened in the hours leading up to his death?

  Who killed his Evie?

  Who killed Griffin Shaw?

  Kit rose, placed her coffee cup on the pink Formica counter, then turned to address him from the kitchen doorway. “We’ll start with this circled name, and my office.”

  “So we have a deal?”

  She gave a short nod, and pulled her robe tight. “It’s a Saturday, so it’ll be relatively quiet. We’ll take my car.”

  “That fancy foreign number?”

  “How did you know that?” She drew back.

  Because I saw it from the room where your best friend was killed. I saw you, looking like Hayworth, making me want to pin you up, pin you down, take you for a different kind of ride altogether.

  Grif cleared his throat, along with his damned mortal mind, and shrugged. “It’s not exactly a subtle machine. Fact, you might want to ditch it for something less showy.”

  “I’m not leaving my car,” Kit replied coolly. “Wait here while I go change.”

  Grif decided against telling her to pick something she’d want to be seen dead in, and watched her go, admiring her fragile yet aggressive sway, before rising for more coffee.

  Today was the first day of the rest of his life. He could use another cup of joe.

  Chapter Eight

  As might be expected of a reporter, Kit had a knack for words. She noticed nuance and inflection, valuing precision in word choice and crispness of tone. Griffin Shaw didn’t enunciate half of what he should, she picked that up right away, letting his gerunds and suffixes fall away so that if she were writing them, she’d have to use a lot of apostrophes.

  But she wasn’t writing them down, and that only partly because she was driving. Instead she kept catching herself gazing over at him, specifically at his full bottom lip when he spoke, his voice lodged deeply in his throat, as if only escaping reluctantly to take flight in the air. He was not a man overly fond of chitchat. Yet she liked it when he did speak. His voice was like gravel rolling around inside a buckskin pouch, and well-suited to his languid watchfulness, the half-lidded gaze, the wide-legged slump. He was like a lion in repose, his strength quiet and coiled until it was needed.

  Kit knew. She’d seen him pounce.

  And that’s really why she agreed to help him. She’d never partnered with anyone but Nic before, and that only because their skills were complimentary, not competing. Kit was something of a lone wolf herself. Yet it seemed apropos to take on a partner who was not only investigating Nic’s death, but who had prevented her own. Because even through the drugged haze of fear, shock, and pain, she’d seen her death coming. It’d looked like all the pain she’d ever felt had taken form to rise up against her, as tangible as a tsunami.

  And then, because of Griffin Shaw, it was gone.

  It was enough to have her overlook the way he’d put out his cigarette in her vintage Zeisel vase, and had obviously been pawing through her things while she slept. And if there was still an unknown element to him—including his mysterious entry into her house and life—well, Kit liked a good mystery as well as anyone.

  She was also damned fine at her job. She’d find out everything there was to know about Griffin Shaw. In time.

  But first, she thought, hand whipping her glossy wooden steering wheel to the left, who the hell killed my girl?

  “Who the hell taught you to drive?” Grif asked, bracing against the door.

  “My dad. Parked his car on an unpaved stretch of desert when I was twelve and made me go backwards. I had to perfect it before I was ever allowed to go forward.”

  “He drive one of these foreign tin cans, too?”

  “It was a patrol car,” Kit said, smiling slightly. She was used to the scorn from her friends. They all bought American, drove American, bled American. It was her one deviation from her rockabilly lifestyle—forgoing the old Fords and Chevys for this tight, sweet Italian ride. That stubbornness was a trait she’d inherited from her mother, who’d willingly conformed to the things that
defined her—cop’s wife, professional mother—in all ways but one.

  Shirley Wilson-Craig had refused to be domesticated. She’d cook, but only dishes made with fresh market ingredients, most of which took all day. She tidied, but hired someone else to clean. And she’d schedule playdates so Kit would never want for friends, but would never dress down for them, and never, ever carpool.

  “Life should be lived as art,” she often told Kit, her ubiquitous cigarette dangling from its gold holder. “Everything has its place. Let in only those things that are greatly desired, no more and no less. That’s how to make sense of the world, and the only real way to achieve happiness.”

  Once, over a dinner of lobster salad and roasted lamb, Shirley had reported to Kit and her father that she’d been asked to leave a PTA meeting for wondering aloud why business couldn’t be carried out over a two-martini lunch . . . or at least something more civilized than stale cardboard cookies. Yet she was smiling as she refilled her blue-collar husband’s champagne glass, and the look said, I may put myself in this box, but God help the person who tries to force me into it.

  And Kit would never forget the way her father had wrapped his giant hand around that fragile glass and smiled back.

  That inherited stubbornness was why Kit worked at her family’s newspaper, but, despite Marin’s prodding, refused to run it. Ditto the foreign car. She was a newswoman, and rockabilly to the core, but it was those years of formal family dinners with an aristocratic mother, and a father who reveled in his wife’s quirkiness, that really defined her. They might be gone, but she was not.

  “Besides,” Kit told Grif now, “this fine automobile is a classic.”

  “It’s Italian.”

  Kit looked over, impressed, then registered his frown. “You’re cranky.”

  He snorted and gazed out the window.

  “And tortured, if I’m not mistaken,” she added, using the directness she’d gotten from her father.

  Another grunt.

  “You torture yourself,” she ventured, shooting him a look from the corner of her eye.

  The next grunt meant that was true enough.

  “You should let it go,” Kit said, and still thinking of her parents, added with a laugh, “Let someone else torture you for a while.”

  His dark brow lifted beneath the brim of his hat. “You applying for the job?”

  “Depends on the benefits package,” she shot back, playing along. “But I think I could manage it.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’d be great at it.”

  She smiled, choosing to take it as a compliment. The lightness was a welcome distraction. “Well, it’ll have to wait. We’re here.”

  Pulling through the newspaper’s gated entry, she gave the guard a wave on the way to her regular spot, then took a deep breath as she stepped from the car. The sky was a careless blue, too warm to be dead winter, though lacking the ripeness of full spring. Cool and dry, but still as parched and unsatisfying as a broken sauna.

  Heading to the giant brick building’s side entrance, Kit gave thanks that she was still around to see it. Too late, she caught Grif’s frown, and gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m not really in the habit of waiting for others.”

  And she led him into the printing rooms where the giant machines were heated but silent. She loved the sound of production and the scent of ink, and inhaled deeply, thankful again that she was here today. Looking around, she thought about all of this going away, of the Internet turning the traditional press into an archaic technology. It was enough to make her wish she was a Luddite. Unfortunately, she depended too much on the exact same technology to do her job. Lose her smart phone and she might as well lose her soul.

  Kit punched the call button on the elevator, saw the cab was stuck somewhere near the seventh floor, and headed instead for the stairs. It was only three flights up. She had a body. It worked. So she would climb.

  They emerged from the stairwell directly into the press room, Grif huffing behind her.

  “Does every damned thing in this place have to make noise?” Grif mumbled as they wound their way through tottering cubicles.

  “Never thought much about it before,” Kit said, though he was right; phones rang, computers beeped, Internet radio streamed from multiple sources, and a bank of televisions stared down at “reporters’ row” like a general looming over his troops. She shrugged out of her dress jacket, careful not to bend the scalloped collar as she hung it on the vintage coat rack just inside her office. Whirling without stopping, she jerked her head at Grif. “My aunt has the motherboard in her office.”

  She waved at the few reporters—Chuck in sports and Sarah in editorial—who were in this early on a Saturday, but kept a brisk pace as she headed toward Marin’s office. When she got there, she pulled up short. “You’re here.”

  “Never left,” replied Marin, eyes glued to her computer screen. “And before you start nagging me, I took my pills, had a sandwich delivered, and catnapped on the floor. Who’s that?”

  “Griffin Shaw.” Kit shot Grif an apologetic look and said, “He saved my life.”

  Marin’s head shot up at that.

  “And before you start nagging me, look at this.” She tossed her notebook in front of Marin, who immediately flipped to the last page. Her aunt might be controlling and stubborn, but she knew what to focus on, and when, and immediately zeroed in on the circled name.

  “Same list I’ve been working on all night . . . though I haven’t looked up that one.”

  “Who’ve you vetted?”

  Tossing the notebook down, her aunt leaned back in her leather chair. “Mark Morrison, the D.A. who thinks you should vote for him just because he doesn’t wear high heels. Saul Turrets, the up-and-coming Republican who shot himself in the foot by supporting green causes. Caleb Chambers, poster boy for Mormons ’R’ Us aka ‘We’re just like you . . . but with five brides to each brother.’ ”

  “Be fair. Chambers only has one wife.”

  “That we know of.”

  Kit shook her head. That was Marin. Always caustic. Always suspicious.

  “He’s alibied anyway,” Kit said. “Paul was at his fund-raiser that night.”

  “Another one?” Marin rolled her eyes. “Sonja doesn’t even note them in the social blotter anymore.”

  “Dozens of parties a year, yet everyone still wants to go,” Kit pointed out, then looked at her vibrating phone. “Speak of the devil . . .”

  “Who, Chambers?” Marin sat a bit straighter. Sure, she’d take shots at the man, but he was a local shot-maker.

  “No. Paul.”

  Marin growled, and slumped again.

  “Who’s Paul?” Grif asked.

  “Someone Kit once carried in on her shoe.”

  Grif snorted, and leaned against the wall. Kit ignored both them and the call. Paul abandoned her at the station in the wake of Nic’s death. He hadn’t been there when she’d emerged like a newborn into an uncertain world the next morning. And last night . . . well, she could be dead right now and he’d be none the wiser.

  He could leave a message.

  “I’m confused,” Grif said suddenly, half-turning in the doorway, gesturing to the room behind him. “You own all this, and yet you’re pounding the street, setting up stings?”

  “I don’t own it. It’s family-run.”

  “You’ll be the only one running it when I croak.”

  “Marin,” Kit chided.

  Her aunt merely smiled. “That’s why I forced the office on her. She’d be out in the pen with the others if she could, but there has to be some separation marking her for future greatness. For now, she doesn’t want to be in management.”

  “Why?”

  “She finds it intellectually numbing and a waste of her prodigious talent for pissing people off.”

  “Because I believe in working my way up from the ground floor.”

  “Here we go,” muttered Marin.

  “I believe in free press. I believe the world
is basically good, and a good journalist can make it even better. In fact, it’s our moral obligation to make a difference—”

  “These days, we’re lucky to make our rent.”

  Kit shook her head. “No, this place won’t close. We’re not bloggers who don’t fact-check, or paparazzi who create drama, then get sued, then throw their sources to the wind. We don’t just give our readers the easy answer, we give them the truth.”

  Grif raised a brow in Marin’s direction. “She always like this?”

  “You got her started.”

  “Hey,” Kit said, catching her aunt’s eye. “Knowing the truth is important.”

  Marin bit her lip, then nodded.

  “Anyway,” Kit said, clearing her throat and her mind. “The street is where I belong. That’s where the stories are.”

  “Which brings us back to you, Mr. Shaw.” Marin swiveled, her eyes again sharp. “What’s your story?”

  Kit propped a hip on a sliver of cleared desk space, and waited. This man could fight off two armed men with nothing more than fists and a molten rage, but how would he stack up under the full weight of the Marin Wilson treatment?

  Grif shoved his hands back into his pockets. “Everyone gotta have a story in this place?”

  Not answering a direct question from Marin was as bad as screaming a lie. She leaned forward. “It’s a newspaper.”

  “This an interview?”

  “Prefer an interrogation?”

  He dropped one shoulder. “Not bothered by either, really.”

  “Then you’re either a criminal or a saint.”

  Grif snorted. “I ain’t no saint.”

  “Grif is a P.I.,” Kit interrupted. “He’s investigating Nic’s murder.”

  Marin’s brows lifted. “How you doing so far?”

  “I got you a name.”

  “And saved my niece’s life?”

  “Yes.”

  Marin stared at Grif a moment longer, then turned back to her computer. “So let’s see where it leads us.” She picked up the notebook and flexed her fingers. “Lance Schmidt. Doesn’t ring a bell, which is why I haven’t gotten to it yet.”

  Her fingers danced over keys with missing letters. Marin treated finding information like a battle to be won. Yet she froze unexpectedly, then blew out a long breath.