The Given (32 page)

She cut off as her phone began to ring in her hand.

She'd been about to say,
Before your time is up.
Yet she let it go, because neither of them needed the reminder of that.

“It's Marin,” she said instead, flashing him the screen. “She's been calling almost since we left her.”

“She must be worried about me,” Zicaro piped up, sitting tall.

Yet before Kit could connect, a squad car came peeling around the corner, cutting directly through the lot to screech to a stop before them. Grif pulled Kit close, placing one protective arm around her waist as both patrol doors flew open.

“Hands up!” said the officer on the passenger's side, and he had one hand on his holstered gun, the other pointing, oddly, at Kit.

“Stokes, please,” the other man said wearily, and only then did Grif recognize Dennis. It was the expression on his face rather than the uniform that had kept Grif from doing so at first. The man usually looked at Kit with admiration, or barely disguised longing, but now his face was marred with a deep frown. “Kit. You need to come with us.”

“I don't understand,” she said, the hand with her phone—ringing again—falling to her side.

Marin's been calling almost since we left her.

Shit, thought Grif, looking up again.

“What's going on here?” Zicaro asked, pushing his wheelchair toward Stokes.

“Sir, we need you to step . . . er, roll back.”

Instead, Zicaro ran over the man's foot. “I'm not going nowhere! What the hell do you want with Ms. Craig?”

Dennis held up a hand. “We just want to—”

“Ms. Craig,” Stokes said, raising his voice to be heard over Dennis as he glared at Zicaro and moved behind Kit to take her hands. She automatically handed her phone to Grif. “You're wanted for questioning in the murder of Gina Alessi. You have the right to refuse.”

“What?” Kit and Grif exploded at the same time that Zicaro nearly leaped from his chair.

Stokes grinned. It was the response he'd been looking for, and he put his hand on the weapon at his hip. “Or we could arrest you. Then you have the right to remain silent.”

“That's absurd!” Zicaro went nuts, chicken neck lengthening as he yelled from left to right. “Police brutality!”

The officer shot Zicaro a warning look, but his eyes shifted to the crowd beginning to gather in the lot and then back at Zicaro. It was clear he didn't want to be seen roughing up an old man. “Sir, back off and don't make me tell you again. You want to come downtown, too, we can take it up there.”

Zicaro stared for a long moment, then cursed and fumbled in his sweater pocket for his own phone, grumbling about calling the
real
authorities.

Grif turned back to Dennis. “What the hell's going on?”

“I'm sorry, Kit.” Dennis met her gaze, but shook his head. “But your prints were all over the place.”

“Oh, come on!” Kit whirled side to side as Stokes pulled her toward the car. “I'm the one who tipped you off about the place! And you know me! I'd never kill an old woman!”

“Yeah?” said Stokes, unmoved. “Then what about Ray DiMartino?”

“Shit.” Grif rubbed a hand over his face, and Zicaro slowly lowered his phone.

“Kit,” Dennis warned. “Don't say any more.”

“Let's go,” Stokes said, nudging her forward. Kit stumbled and Grif reached for her, but Dennis angled between them.

“You're not helping her, Shaw,” Dennis said, hand on Grif's chest. “Let her go. I'll take care of her.”

Stokes was propelling Kit forward, even though she was gazing at Grif over her shoulder. Her eyes were wide, her face bewildered. “Call Marin back. Tell her to call our lawyer.”

A lawyer? “Kit—”

“She's right,” Dennis said, as Stokes lowered Kit into the back of the squad car. “I've seen the crime scenes, both of them. She's going to need one.”

Grif finally managed to find his voice. “I can't believe you're doing this to her.”

“I'm doing it
for
her,” Dennis growled, pushing Grif away. “I'm not the enemy here, Shaw.”

And treating him like one wasn't going to help Kit. Grif finally nodded as Zicaro, who'd listened to the whole exchange, and wheeled up to his side, saying, “Go ahead and call Marin. I'll head back inside and make some phone calls from there. I still have friends downtown. I'll cash in some chips, see what I can learn.”

“Okay.” But Grif couldn't move. Even after the squad car disappeared, he stood in the whipping wind of the old parking lot, the sky bright and wide above him. Somewhere behind that sharp baby-blue cover were stars and comets, universes expanding and dying. Beyond that, the Everlast, where winged beasts awaited his return. Beyond that, the Gates and Paradise, a place Grif was no longer sure he'd ever see.

Glancing down, Grif squinted at his watch. Speaking of seeing, he was suddenly having trouble differentiating the large hand from the small.

You'll start having problems with your five senses, one at a time at first, but they'll all worsen.

Blinking hard, he finally made out the time. Two in the afternoon. Only fourteen hours left until the anniversary of his death. He dizzied at the thought, but not because he was growing weaker. The thought of spending his last hours on this mudflat without Kit by his side exhausted him, but he clenched his jaw and forced himself to dial the last known caller on Kit's phone.

“Marin,” he said when she answered, though he had to stop to clear his throat. He should have drank the water the waitress had brought. His mouth had gone completely dry.

“Where's Kit?” was all she said, and he could tell that she already knew. Out of courtesy, Dennis had probably called her first.

“She's being set up,” he told her.

“I know,” Marin said, and for once he was glad for her curt disposition. “Dennis already called me. I'm headed down to the station now, but you need to go to the Sunset Retirement Community. Now.”

“Why?” He could see no reason, but that didn't keep nerves from tunneling through his stomach.

“Because the authorities have spent the last couple of days interviewing the residents. It's taken some time. It's . . . hard. There's dementia to deal with, and the elderly don't like upheaval, as a rule.”

“So?” Grif asked. He didn't see what any of it had to do with him anymore. They'd uncovered the trust-fund fraud. They knew why the staff had questioned Zicaro and held him against his will, as well as why Barbara had visited him.

Barbara, he thought, mind shooting off in that direction. She was behind this. First him and Evie, now Kit . . .

“Grif!”

He realized it was the fourth time Marin had said his name. He shook his head. “What?”

“I got a hold of the county official in charge of the fraud investigation this morning and convinced him to let me speak to the new health services director. Grif, I asked her about Gina Alessi. She's been living at Sunset the whole time. Years. Room 330. Suffers from Alzheimer's. No family. They say that the staffing change has been especially hard on her these past few days.”

“But Gina Alessi is dead,” he began, but in the back of his mind he heard,
She wants it all.

She
. . . a woman who had a knack for hiding in plain sight. “Barbara,” he whispered.

“What?” Marin said, before an exasperated sigh came over the line. “No. Grif, that's what I'm trying to say. The woman in room 330 isn't Gina Alessi or Barbara McCoy.” She hesitated, and Grif felt himself go dizzy in the wide silence. “She says that her name is Evelyn Shaw.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I
t was late by the time Kit was through being questioned, and it wasn't until she was led back into the bull pen that she saw a wall clock that read nine
P
.
M
.—which made her heart jolt in her chest. However, to her relief, Dennis was leaning against the wall beneath it. His brow cleared when he saw her, though aware that he was still in his professional environment, he merely placed one hand on her shoulder and asked, “You okay?”

For a moment, just one, she allowed herself to lean against him. Then she thought of Grif and reminded herself that there were only seven more hours in which to stop him from dying again. Dennis's jaw tightened as she pulled away, but he let his hand drop.

“Where's Marin?” she asked, as he led her to the admitting window where they'd made her check her .22. She knew her aunt had been there. She'd heard her yelling even with the interview room door shut.

“Probably still raising hell,” Dennis said, jerking his head at the stony-faced officer on the other side. “She was here for about an hour, but between you and me she was doing more harm than help. I finally told her I could get further with the department than she could. Her tongue is as sharp as barbed wire.”

“She's not the most diplomatic when she's upset,” Kit admitted, causing the officer on the other side of the window to snort as he shoved a clipboard her way.

Kit signed where instructed, and only then did he return the plastic bin containing her gun.

“You're lucky you got a permit for that,” the officer said, nodding at her .22.

“I don't break the law,” Kit replied, tucking the gun back into its holster and then her bag. She'd been accused of no crime, so they had to return it. That was the law, too.

“Come on,” Dennis said, cupping Kit's elbow as he pulled her away from the window.

“Marin agreed to let me handle things on this end while she went to the paper to write up a story about the relationship between Barbara DiMartino and Gina Alessi,” he said as he led the way down the hall. “And the diamonds they've both been after for fifty years. Hold up.”

Dennis pulled her back before she could push through the double doors where they'd entered the station. “You don't want to go that way. Reporters.”

“Friends,” Kit said, reminding him that she was a reporter as well.

Dennis shook his head. “Not this time.”

He was right. If some string reporter pieced together the story about two con-women searching for diamonds—and that Kit was somehow involved—they'd start speculating about her as well. That's why Marin was using the newspaper to get their side of the story out first and fast. When it came to the news, a good offense was the best defense.

Besides, if anyone was going to tell this story, Kit thought, following Dennis, it was her. But first she needed to get back to Grif. “Thanks for helping to get me out so quickly,” she told Dennis as they pushed against the steel bar of the back door and swung out into the cold night. “I think you set some kind of record there.”

“Well, we got a witness who says Ray DiMartino had you cowered and cornered just after a gunshot was fired. We also caught Larry and Eric Ritter downtown, trying to catch a bus to Sheboygan, Wisconsin.”

“Where?”

“You gave us the drop on them, so that was in your favor as well.” He motioned to his car at the far end of the lot, but stopped her just after she'd cleared the steps. “I vouched for you, too.”

“Of course you did. You're my friend.”

“Yes. And . . . I remember.”

Tilting her head, Kit found that Dennis's eyes had gone surprisingly dark, yet they still shined in the filtered glow of the streetlamp. “What?”

“You. I remember you sitting at my deathbed, Kit.” He chuckled wryly when she returned to his side. “It's been six months, but I still dream of it. I knew I was dying. My body knew it. I could feel my mind cramping up against the idea.”

It was the first time they'd spoken of it. In six months, they hadn't once recounted the events leading to Grif leaving her . . . and her ultimate decision to be alone if she couldn't have him. She had wanted to explain the choice to Dennis . . . but how could she explain to
anyone
about Griffin Shaw? Even the Pure couldn't understand him. He wasn't just her partner or lover, or some ideal she'd dreamed up from the rockabilly era she loved so much. And discovering that Grif's and her father's deaths were linked only confirmed that there was more than simple love between them. There was fate.

That
was what had propelled him from the shadows the night they met. Fate was what had him defying heavenly orders to save her life. And it was
fate
that had them snapping back to each other like a rubber band, when the tension of being apart grew to be more than either of them could bear.

So Kit now believed that fate would come through once again if only they fought together in these last few hours. If only they both believed.

Yet right now Dennis's eyes were drinking her in. It was the first time he'd allowed his true feelings to show, and Grif was right. This man cared for her. He'd be so good for her.

“I was so afraid you would die.” She told him now.

He touched the side of his head, where the bullet had grazed him, in what had become an unconscious gesture. “You know when you're underwater, and sounds are distorted, yet you can still differentiate between noises?”

“Yes.”

“Your voice was like that. I couldn't hear what you were saying, but I recognized it and knew you were there. I even think I tried to respond . . . at least that's what I dream about now.” He looked at her, gaze gone liquid from the memory. “Even now I wake with the same thought rolling through my mind. ‘She's gonna stick to the very end.' ”

He laughed at that, but there was no humor in his laugh, because he had woken up . . . and she left him still. Kit looked down, shamed. She knew how it felt to be left behind. Yet she also knew it was something she'd do again if given the choice.