A Fistful of Charms (51 page)

Nick's truck went atop the wrecker in a horrendous noise of whining winches and complaining hydraulic machinery. The garage guy moved slowly, his dirty blue overalls and cap pulled down low, pressing levers and buttons seemingly at random. The overzealous I.S. guy was telling him to hustle and get his vehicle out of the way before the first news van arrived.

The driver walked with a limp, almost unnoticed amid the FIB and I.S. uniforms, and I thought it rude they made the old man move faster than he comfortably could.

Someone had moved one of the massive construction lights to illuminate the area, and as the distant generators rumbled to life a quarter mile away, a soft glow swelled into a harsh glare, washing out the gray of the fading sunset. Slowly the background rumble became unnoticed. Mind whirling for an idea, I dropped the spent finger stick in my shoulder bag and sighed.

I froze, fingers brushing the familiar objects in my bag. Something was missing besides the remote. Shocked, I stared
into the dark fabric bag, tilting it so the growing light would illuminate what it could. The sight of my things scattered on the grating when Nick knocked me down passed through my mind. “It's gone,” I said, feeling unreal. I looked up, meeting first Jenks's and then Ivy's wondering gaze as she pulled herself away from the vehicle.

“The wolf statue is gone!” I said, trying to decide if I should laugh or curse that I had been right in not trusting Nick. “The bastard took it. He knocked me down and took it!” I had been right to leave the totem shoved between Jenks's silk underwear and his dozen toothbrushes. Damn it, I'd have been happy to have been wrong this one time.

“Piss on my daises…” Jenks said. “That's why he picked a fight.”

Ivy's bewildered face cleared in understanding. At least she thought she understood. “Excuse me,” she said, pushing herself away from the I.S. vehicle.

“Ivy, wait,” I said, wishing I'd told her what I had done, though it wasn't as if I could shout that Nick had a fake. I pushed from the tailgate. Pain shot through me, reminding me I had just been hit by a truck. “Ivy!” I shouted, and an I.S. guy headed after her.

“Won't take but a moment!” she called over her shoulder. She stormed across the closed lanes, uniforms coming from all over to head her off. I moved to follow, immediately finding my elbow in the grip of one of the mustache guys. Images of court dates and jail cells kept me still as the first man to touch Ivy went down when she stiff-armed him in the jaw.

A call went up, and I watched with a sinking sensation, remembering when she and Jenks had taken out an entire floor of FIB officers. But it was I.S. runners this time. “Maybe we should have told her,” I said, and Jenks smirked, rubbing his wrist where his cuffs had been.

“She needs to blow off some steam,” he said, then whispered, “Holy crap. Look.”

His green eyes were brilliant in the mercury light hammering down on us, and my jaw dropped when I followed his
gaze to the wrecker. The brighter light made obvious what the shadows had hid before. The garage guy's hands were spotlessly clean, and the dark stain on the knee of his blue overalls was too wet to be oil.

“Nick,” I breathed, not knowing how he got his hair that dirty white so fast. He was still wearing my disguise amulet, but with the overalls and cap, he was unrecognizable.

Jenks stood beside me, whispering, “What in Tink's garden of sin is he doing?”

I shook my head, seeing the Weres watching him too.
Double damn, I think they knew it was him.
“He thinks he has the focus,” I said. “He's trying to get the original too.”

“Leaving us holding the bag?” Jenks finished in disgust. “What a slug's ass. If he doesn't go to the hospital and die on paper, then we have a dead vamp to explain and will be brought up on insurance fraud. Rache, I'm too pretty to go to jail!”

Face cold, I turned to Jenks, my stomach in knots. “We have to stop him.”

He nodded, and I cupped my hands to my mouth. “Ivy!” I shouted. “The wrecker!”

It wasn't the smartest thing to do, but it got results. Ivy took one look and realized it was Nick. Crying out, she slugged the last I.S. agent and took off running, only to be brought down by a lucky snag by a previously felled officer. She sprawled, cuffs on her in two seconds flat.

Jenks flowed into motion, distracting the surrounding FIB officers. Thinking this was going to look great on my résumé, I sidestepped them and ran for the wrecker. People were shouting, and someone had probably pulled a weapon as I heard, “Stop, or I'll use force!”

Force my ass,
I thought. If they shot me, I'd sue their bright little badges from here to the Turn. I didn't have anything stronger than a pain amulet. I'd been searched, and they knew it.

It was right about then that Nick realized I was coming for him. Clearly frightened, he jerked the door open. A cry went
up when his engine revved, loud over the generators. There was a piercing whistle, and the leader of the unknown military faction waved his hand above his head as if in direction. Horns started to blow when three street racers stopped in traffic and Weres got out. Grim-faced, they closed in. They weren't happy. Neither was I.

“Stop him!” came a bark of a demand, and I picked up my pace. I was going to get to Nick first, or whoever beat me to him was going to get my foot in their gut. He had hurt and betrayed me, leaving me to clean up his mess and take his fall. Twice. Not this time.

My gaze was fixed fervently on the truck as it lurched, almost stalling, but a flash of pixy dust jerked me to a stop. “Jax?” I exclaimed, shocked.

“Ms. Morgan,” the adolescent pixy said, hovering before my nose with an amulet as big as he was, his eyes bright and his wings red in excitement. “Nick wanted me to tell you he's sorry and he loves you. He really does.”

“Jax!” I said, blinking as even the sparkles from his dust faded. My eyes went to the truck. The wheels were smoking as Nick tried to get the heavy vehicle moving. With a lurch, the wheels caught. My face went cold as I realized it was headed right for me. I watched him fight the huge wheel, arms stiff and fear in his eyes, struggling to turn it.

“Rachel, get out of the way!” Ivy screamed over the rumble of the engine.

I froze as the wheels turned, missing me, the tires taking the weight compressing dangerously. Jenks crashed into me, knocking me farther out of the way. Stifling a gasp, I hit the pavement for the
third
time in the last hour. The truck roared past in a frightening noise and a breeze of diesel fumes. A crack followed by a boom shook my insides, the sound rolling over my back like a wave. Jenks held my head down and a second boom followed the first.

What in hell was that?
Heart pounding, I pushed Jenks off me and lifted my head. The wrecker was careening out of control, the tires blown out. Someone had shot out his tires?

I scrambled up when the wrecker with Nick's truck swerved wildly to avoid the scattering news crews. Tires squealing and gears grinding, the brakes burned as he locked them. Momentum kept the vehicle moving—careening into the temporary railing.

“Nick!” I screamed when the wrecker crashed through it like toast. With a shocking silence, it was gone.

Heart in my throat, I hobbled to the edge, too hurt to stand upright. Jenks was behind me, and he yanked me back when I reached the crumbling edge. The wind gusted up from the distant water, blowing my hair out of my eyes. I looked down, dizzy.

Hand to my stomach, I started to hyperventilate. My sight grew gray, and I pushed Jenks's hand off me. “I'm okay,” I mumbled, but there wasn't anything to see. Six hundred feet makes even a wrecker small.

Nick had been in it.
God help me.

“Easy, Rache,” Jenks said, easing me back and making me sit.

“Nick,” I mumbled, forcing my eyes wide as the cold pavement met my rear. I wasn't going to pass out. Damn it, I wasn't! I looked at the edge, the roadway cracked to show the metal embedded in it, threatening to give way where the truck's weight had hit it hard. Shiny shoes clustered around me, belonging to the officers peering down. At the edges of the excited crowd were the Weres. They were dressed in suits, leather, and military uniforms, but the look on their faces was the same. Disbelief and shock. It was gone.

The crackle of a radio intruded, coming from the I.S. officer swearing softly as he peered over the edge. “This is Ralph,” he said, thumbing the button. “We have two trucks off the bridge and a body in the water. Smile everyone. We're going to make the evening news.”

I missed what was said back, lost in the hiss of bad reception and the thundering of my heart as I tried to fit it into my head.
He had gone over the bridge. Nick had gone off the bridge.

“Yup,” the man said. “Confirm a commercial vehicle towing a pickup truck off the bridge and a body in the water. Better get the boat out here. Anybody got Marshal's number?”

He listened to the response, then clipped it to his belt. Hands on his hips, he stared down. Soft swear words dropped from him like the gray smoke from his cigarette, mixing with the faint scent of incense. Ralph was a living vamp, the first local I'd seen apart from the one who had bandaged my leg. I wondered whose neck he didn't bite to get stuck with a job up here, so far from the bustle of the city they thrived on.

I pulled my head up. “Will he be all right?” I asked, and Ralph glanced at me, surprised.

“Lady,” he said, noticing me, “he died of a heart attack before he hit the water. And if that didn't get him, he died on impact. At this height, it's like hitting a brick wall.”

I blinked, trying to take that in.
A brick wall.
It would be the second brick wall Nick hit today. My focus blurred, the sight of Jax and that amulet filling my memory. What if…

“The body?” I insisted, and he turned, impatient. “When can they retrieve the body?”

“They'll never find it,” he said. “The current will take it, moving it out into Lake Huron faster than green corn through a tourist. He's gone. The only way he would have survived was if he was dead already. Damn, I'm glad I'm not the one who has to talk to the next of kin. I bet he's got three kids and a wife.”

I hunched over, the reality of what had happened sinking in. God bless it, I was twice the fool. Nick hadn't died going over the edge. This had been a scam right from when I told him he couldn't have the statue—and I had walked right into it.

“His name was Nick,” I whispered, and the I.S. officer spun from the drop, surprise on his age-lined face. Ivy and Jenks stiffened. I was blowing our cover, but we were going to be questioned before too long, and I wanted our stories to be the same. “Nick Sparagmos,” I added, thinking fast. “He was helping us with a piece of art I was contracted to
recover. I'm an independent runner out of Cincinnati and this was a run.”
The truth is good.

“He wasn't supposed to be here,” I continued as Ivy's tension pulled her shoulders tight. “But when that guy hit us and killed Peter…” I took a breath, the heartache real. “Peter was only supposed to make sure it got to the right people okay. He wasn't supposed to get hurt. The people we recovered it from…I think the accident was their attempt to get it back before we handed it over. Nick came out with the wrecker to make sure they didn't get it. The artifact was still on the truck. He was going to get it out of here, but someone shot the tires out. Oh God, he went right over the edge.”
And a little lie mixed in with the truth keeps me showering alone.

Jenks put a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze to tell me he understood. Peter had been killed in the pickup truck in an accident to satisfy the insurance company. Nick had died when he went over the edge to satisfy the Weres. That Nick was the driver of the Mack truck as well wouldn't even be considered, the driver's absence explained as a hit and run. If anyone got curious and found out the truck belonged to DeLavine, he'd be the one slapped with the illegal early termination lawsuit from the insurance company, not me.

It sounded good to me. I was going to stick with it.

I could almost feel the worry ease out of Jenks, but Ivy was still a knot of tension, not knowing that Nick had gotten away with absolutely nothing.

The I.S. officer who had taken my license ambled up to the man before me. “Hi, Ralph. You got out here quick.” He turned to me, camaraderie in the witch's eyes as he handed me my license back. “Ms. Morgan, what are you doing this far out of the Hollows?”

“Cincinnati?” Ralph looked at me in surprise. “You mean Rachel Morgan?” His gaze went to Ivy. “You're Piscary's girl. What are you doing this far north?”

“Getting my partner's boyfriend killed,” she said, and the man took her ugly look as dark humor. Officer Ralph already had his cuff key out and was getting them off her, frowning
when he realized Jenks wasn't in his. I held up my wrist with my little black strap, and he snipped it off with a special pair of clippers on his key chain. I wanted one of those.

“Where are you staying?” Ralph asked as Ivy rubbed her freed wrists. “I'm going to want to talk to you before you go home.”

Ivy explained while I stared at the water. Nick wasn't dead, and the shock of seeing him go over the edge was evolving into a nasty feeling of satisfaction. I had beat him. I had beat Nick at his own game. Knees shaking, I stumbled away. Ivy hurriedly finished up with Ralph, and with her on one side and Jenks on the other, I started to chuckle. I didn't know how we were going to get to the room. Three of us wouldn't fit in Kisten's Corvette very well.

“Tink's daisies,” Jenks whispered to Ivy behind my back. “She's lost it.”

“I'm fine,” I said, cursing myself and laughing. “He's fine. The crazy bastard is fine.”