Suzy glanced at me, and I gave her a nod, shooing her along with a wave of my hands. I trusted Feish and Eric far more than I did Sarge. Suzy was safe here.

“What happened the first time you met Bree?” Suzy asked Feish.

“I tried to give her tea to make her poop a whole lot. Just in case she was there to hurt Boss.”

Suzy choked on what was probably a laugh as I took the stairs to the second floor of the house. “Gran?”

Movement in the direction of the sitting room that had doubled as Gran’s library turned me in that direction. Gran was sometimes a full-blown apparition so clear you’d think you were looking at a real live person, but this time there were just hints of her—the outline of a body and sway of a skirt. I hurried toward the library. “Gran, are you fading?”

A sigh rippled through the air and her body solidified in front of me. She entered the room and sat in the high-backed chair behind her oversized dark mahogany desk. Her long hair, which usually flew about her face in messy, bright silver waves, was actually swept off to one side. Green eyes that reflected my own were as keen as ever. Today she wore one of her favorite garments, a long flowing burgundy skirt that had more volume than necessary, as if she were doing a throwback to the eighteen hundreds. The fact that she’d paired it with a white blouse that was ruffled at the collar and cuffs only added to the effect. I almost wondered if she was wearing the outfit to freak out the neighbors, which was quite possible. “No, I am not fading really. But it will be better when you are here. You took Crash up on the offer to move in?”

I nodded. “Yes, I’ll be here tonight.” Well, sort of. Depending on when I had to head back out to the fairy ring for Karissa. If she wanted me back. Out of a habit older than I cared to think about, I slid into the chair across from Gran. “Something bad happened. Well, lots of somethings.” I told her about the night before, about killing Pink Eye. About being shot in the leg. About losing my job with the Hollows. I started to tell her about Hattie, but she shushed me with a wave of her hand.

“I already knew about that. I watched her spirit get sucked into the darkness.” Gran shook her head. “She could have stayed on as a guardian like me if she hadn’t decided she wanted to tempt fate. Tell me the real issue, honey child.”

“I’m worried because I don’t feel bad, Gran,” I said softly. “Shouldn’t I feel something? It’s like the whole Pink Eye thing just blipped on the screen—for all it bothers me, I might as well have squashed a roach.”

She steepled her fingers in front of her mouth as she leaned back in her chair. “You did indeed squish a roach, my girl.”

I wasn’t sure that was the answer that I was looking for. “He was still a person.”

“He was evil, Breena. Don’t forget that.” She wasn’t sharp, but her tone brooked no argument. “The O’Seans are power-hungry killers. That they are back in town does not bode well for Savannah.”

“You mean they haven’t been here all along?” I frowned. “What stopped them?”

“I don’t remember,” she said with a shake of her head. “That is the curse of being dead. Not everything is linear for me, not everything is where it should be in my mind. I do not keep things from you apurpose. But show me the card he gave you. You said you picked it up?”

I dug into my bag, but the card wasn’t there. I tried to remember where I’d left it.

Kinkly. Right, I’d let her take it. “I gave it to someone else. But it was the moon card, only not like I’d ever seen it. It was just a full moon with a big fat wolf’s head snarling on it. It had the shadow of a tiny, nearly invisible fairy in the corner. Water behind it.” Or maybe the river. To be fair, it could be any body of water.

Gran closed her eyes. “O’Sean spoke truly then. I see many hidden enemies and paths. You must be careful, Bree. Trouble often follows the women in our family. In case you have not noticed. The O’Rylees produce strong, capable women who don’t always have the best of luck. But that’s part of what makes us who we are.”

“Speaking of luck,” I said, “losing the job at the Hollows . . . that is bad. It’s the only chance I had to make money to buy this place back.” Well, the only steady chance. My words dipped lower as I spoke, drained by sadness.

“And you think you aren’t already trained?” She set her hands flat on the desk, which was strange because I could see a pen right through her hand.

“I’m not.”

“You are. And you have my book?”

I nodded. “Yes, of course. I used it to help the other trainees.”

“Then you don’t need them.” She waved her hand. “The shadow world is drawn to you, if you hadn’t noticed. The jobs will come. Your name alone will be enough to bring you work.”

She wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t found Karissa through the Hollows. A tiny bit of excitement trickled through me. What if . . . what if I just kept training on my own? I could hire Suzy, and the two of us could work together. There was someone else I could call in to help me too, someone from the past.

Assuming he was still alive.

When I was younger, Gran had arranged for a local police officer to help me with some of my training. On the off chance he was still on the force, he could have useful connections, maybe even some the Hollows did not. Even if he’d retired, he might still be willing to help.

Gran was right. Maybe I wasn’t training at the Hollows anymore, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t work as a bounty hunter in the shadow world. “Is Officer Jonathan still around?” I asked.

“Perhaps. Why?” Her voice was deceptively quiet, but the twinkle in her eyes tipped me off that she knew exactly what direction I was headed. I played dumb, as was my role in this game between us.

I shrugged. “Maybe just to say hello to a friendly face. So, no suggestions on why I feel nothing about killing someone? I mean, let’s be honest, I can’t go around killing people every day.”

Gran smiled. “You are a strong woman, Bree. And I’m not going to tell you how you should feel. But you’ve always had a strong sense of justice. Of right and wrong. And he was not only going to hurt you, but your friend, too. And from the sound of it, karma is what took him, not your knife.”

“You mean he was going to kill us, not just hurt us.”

“Yes, I mean kill. So if you don’t feel guilty, it’s probably because you recognize that his death preserved two lives, and possibly more.” Her words eased the fear that had tugged at me. Because more than once Himself (my ex, keep up with me here) had accused me of being crazy. Of being a psycho. Mostly for seeing things that weren’t there for him in the beginning of our relationship. He’d held that over me our entire life together.

He’d said it enough that the fear had stuck with me, and it crept up on me in quiet moments. Or, in this case, it had crept up on me because I’d killed someone and didn’t feel bad about it. I shivered and rubbed at my arms. “Thanks, Gran. I’ll be here tonight after training.”

“Be safe, honey child. There is something very wrong with our town. It is in trouble. Beyond that, I cannot see what is coming. But where there is trouble, it will find you.”

Yeah, that I could believe.

Which should have prepped me for Death Row shopping.

13

Suzy insisted on walking to Death Row, and Feish agreed, which meant I was outnumbered. Gran said she would watch over the house and let Eric know if anyone was coming close. Given he was one of the only other people who could consistently see Gran, it was a solid plan.

Besides, Eric said he wanted to stay in and keep a low profile and bake.

Bake.

I might fall in love with him just for that. Mind you, I’d end up topping the scale, but would it matter if I had fresh-baked pastries every morning along with my tea? I’m not sure it would.

The walk wasn’t far. To be fair, nothing was very far in downtown Savannah, but it was already hot and I’d gotten very little sleep the night before. Not to mention the persistent pull of muscles along my hamstrings and my one calf made me wonder just what I’d done to myself this time. Okay, I hadn’t done it, but a gunshot wound was no small thing. Right?

The thing was, morning for us was usually mid-afternoon. Training at the Hollows started at seven and ran till two or three in the morning, depending on how hard the mentors wanted to work us. Of course, we didn’t have to train today. But we probably should still train on our own.

Even so, I couldn’t keep the yawns away, and more than once my jaw cracked as I let one loose.

Feish walked on my left and Suzy led the way, her perkiness restored now that the night before seemed to have faded from her memory. Neither of them had yawned.

“You’re moving in today?” Feish asked.

“Yes,” I said. “You still good with that?”

“Boss thinks I would be lonely.” She gave a roll of her shoulders. “I think he wants you to spy on me.”

A laugh started up in my belly until I saw that she was serious. “Why? Why would he want me to spy on you?”

She shook her head. “I can’t tell.”

I wasn’t sure if she meant she couldn’t tell me, or if she didn’t know. With Feish, it wasn’t always clear. Her manner of speaking was just the other side of awkward.

We’d almost reached the waterfront, with very few words spoken between us—Feish had quickly and efficiently shot down all my attempts to pull information from her—when Suzy spoke up.

“So you really think I was spelled last night?” she asked just as we reached the top side of River Street.

I paused. “I think it happened to everyone at the Hollows the other night, when you all got knocked out. But it was like he set it off in you. You lost confidence. Sarge is angrier than I’d have thought possible. Corb is being so protective and sweet it’s even turning my stomach.” I paused. “Did you notice anything weird with the others?”