The Given

CHAPTER SIX

It turned out the Sunset Retirement Community was aptly named. Not just a nirvana for those living out their golden years playing golf and cards, the facility was set up for end-of-life needs. It provided medication and full-time nursing care, and for most residents, these were the last walls they’d ever call home.

Of course, Kit and Grif didn’t learn this until Kit’d pulled her pretty, purring convertible into the front parking lot, and she used her smart phone to research more while they waited another twenty-five minutes for visiting hours to begin. The late-morning hours gave the caregivers a jump start on the daily grooming and medical needs of the residents before breakfast, and time to get them settled again after. So even though it was Sunday for the rest of the world, it was just another day for the Sunset residents.

“Maybe Zicaro had an abrupt decline in health,” said Kit, while they waited. “Maybe Barbara just—”

“What? Stopped in to say good-bye?” Grif scoffed, and they fell silent, watching as a caregiver in all white pushed a wheelchair-bound resident on a path along the building’s side. The crisp blue sky did nothing to actually warm the day, and the resident had a blanket over her lap, while her caregiver remained careful to keep to the thin, straining sunlight.

Grif just rubbed his eyes. He might have been tucked into a place like this by now . . . if he hadn’t been killed first. It made him realize that no one was Surface-bound for long.

“This may require a new plan,” he said, and held out his hand for Kit’s smart phone. They had one—after another ten minutes and the use of the device’s map application—and when they finally climbed out of the car, Grif headed to the main entrance alone.

The double doors eased open like he was expected. He emerged directly into an open office area decorated with blue and yellow flowers so vibrant they were without parallel in the natural world, their plastic vases filled with clear marbles instead of water. A corkboard was splayed across the wall directly in front of him, community activities and photos displayed atop bright construction paper more suited to an elementary school than a nursing home. A sitting area with two chairs and a settee was anchored with a side table and yet more fake foliage. Two residents sat there but didn’t talk, and while one stared expectantly at Grif, the other didn’t notice him at all. A faint antiseptic smell permeated the whole place, and if Kit hadn’t told him he was in a building offering full-time health care, the scent alone would’ve done so.

“Good morning!” The cheerful voice rang from behind him and a woman emerged from a side office, moving smoothly behind the L-shaped desk. “How can I help you?”

Grif shoved his hands into his pockets and cleared his throat. “I’m here to see Mr. Zicaro.”

The receptionist’s name tag said ERIN, and she sat, giving Grif an ample shot of her full bosoms bursting beneath a low-cut sweater. “Family or friend?”

“Old friend.”

Erin gestured to the guest book, which Grif dutifully signed, catching sight of a surveillance camera over Erin’s left shoulder. They were everywhere these days; not like his first go-round on this mudflat. Too bad all they could reveal were actions and not motives.

Though in this case that might be a good thing, Grif thought, as Erin picked up the phone to ring Zicaro’s room.

“That’s okay,” Grif said, motioning for her to put the phone down. “I called earlier and he said to go on back. Room 128, right?” He took a few steps, like he was already on his way.

“No, um . . . room 238 actually, but you can’t go back yourself. All guests must be accompanied by a staff member.” She studied Grif, her bubblegum gloss momentarily fading, but smiled again when he just shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets.

His view while he waited was that of a common area, obviously where the entire community gathered for their meals—three squares a day, if the notice on the bulletin board was correct. More lumpy chairs and a sofa clustered around a large television on the right, and a bank of curved windows sat beyond that, acting as a sunroom for the tropical plants scattered among dark wood chips along the wall.

Spotting a flash of stocking-clad legs outside the windows, Grif moved to block them, and looked behind him to see if Erin had noticed Kit, too. The woman just beamed at him, and held up a finger as she spoke into the receiver, mistaking his glance for impatience.

Grif turned back around. The rest of the room held dining tables, each spaced widely enough to allow wheelchair and walker access, while a wall to the left hid what was obviously the kitchen. Breakfast was over, but a lone woman sat at a table, her back rounded and chin down as she stared, unblinking, at the orange tablecloth before her. Grif waited for her to move, but she didn’t, and as he glanced around the empty space, despair carved a pit into his stomach.

Could Evie be in a place like this?

He’d once had a dream of her, a vision where she’d lamented being alone and that nobody came to visit. What if it hadn’t been a simple dream? The veil between this world and the Everlast was thin. What if she’d been calling out to him in her dreams, begging for help in the only way she could?

The image of Evie—blond and bright and dancing, her head thrown back and her red-tinted lips wide with laughter—blew through Grif’s mind. He actually jerked his head, unable to imagine her stripped of all that color, sitting in a home with fake rubber plants and food that likely tasted the same.

Grif gave the lone woman one last look, then returned to the reception area to gaze out the window. Kit’s Duetto sat silver and gleaming in the sun, and he used it like a lodestar to anchor his attention and settle his mind.

“Mr. Shaw?” The voice rose directly behind Grif, deep and booming, and he turned to find himself facing the widest chest he’d ever seen. Scanning arms like boulders, and a head that looked to be made of the same, Grif was tempted to scale the man. Unfortunately, he’d left all his climbing equipment back in the Everlast.

“I’m Mr. Allen,” the walking outcrop said, holding out his hand. “I’m Mr. Zicaro’s Life Enrichment Coordinator. I’ll escort you to his room.”

It was like shaking hands with a bear, and Grif discreetly flexed his fingers at his side once they were released. Turning, Mr. Allen motioned with his other paw for Grif to follow him across the dining room. Grif did so silently, noting that even as Allen’s shadow fell across the two residents, even when he gave a cheerful hello, they didn’t acknowledge him. He extended the same greeting to the lone woman in the dining area.

“That’s Martha,” Allen said softly once they’d passed. “She’s in her own little world. Many of the residents here are.”

Grif glanced back and was startled to catch Martha’s watery blue gaze, but then she shifted and he realized, no, she was looking right through him.

“Ya know, I think I’ll go wash my hands first before heading back,” Grif said suddenly. The impatience that flashed over Allen’s features was erased so quickly that Grif wasn’t sure he’d seen it, and he gestured back to the reception area with a smile. Grif accessed the restrooms there—stalling for time, hoping Kit was already with Zicaro—but he also needed the moment to splash water over his face and clear his head. To clear Martha’s vacant look from his mind.

Please, God. Don’t let Evie be in a place like this.

“I know Al will be happy to have a visitor,” Mr. Allen said as soon as Grif returned. If he noted the way Grif had paled, he said nothing as he led him to the residents’ hallway. “Not one person has stopped by in the time he’s been here.”

“I just got back in town,” Grif said, and realized he sounded defensive.

Allen just nodded, lips pursed. Lonely tenants were likely nothing new. “Mind if we take the stairs?” he asked. He was obviously a man who valued his exercise.

Their footsteps echoed in the empty stairwell, and Grif wondered how a place teeming with people could feel so empty. When they reached the second-floor landing, they stepped into a hall identical to the one below. “This floor is obviously reserved for our more agile residents. Al has lost a few steps, but don’t worry. He’s kept his zing.”

Remembering what he did of Al Zicaro, Grif wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. He just hoped there wasn’t anything wrong with Zicaro’s ticker. If he recognized Grif as the man he’d reported on fifty years earlier, he might just have a heart attack.

Mr. Allen stopped before a door that barely obscured the sound of a blaring television, and rapped loudly. Room 238. The same one Grif had texted to Kit as soon as Erin had relayed it to him. Head tilted, Allen shot Grif a calm, closed-mouthed smile as he listened at the door for movement. There was nothing beyond the voice of a female news anchor.

Allen rapped again. “Mr. Z? You got a visitor. I’m gonna come on in now, okay?”

He palmed the handle as he whispered to Grif, “We keep all the residents’ doors unlocked so the caregivers can respond quickly to emergency calls, with medicines, bath times . . . that sort of stuff.”

Grif barely contained his shudder. At least in the Everlast he could pretend he had some semblance of independence and privacy. This sort of care indicated a sort of demoralizing dependency, and the Al Zicaro he’d known—bespectacled and suspicious and high-strung—would absolutely feel the same.

“Well, that’s strange,” Mr. Allen said, his mask of politeness turning to a frown. “He usually answers immediately.”

“He probably can’t hear you above the TV,” Grif said, as Allen twisted the door handle and poked his head inside. His surprised grunt confirmed Zicaro wasn’t in the room, and Grif plastered a look of mild confusion on his face. If there was ever a woman who could draw a man out of his shell, it was Kit.

“Maybe you should check the can,” Grif said helpfully as Allen swung the door wide, already heading into the second room of the small suite.

“I don’t understand,” he called back loudly. “We usually have to beg him to come out. He’s always in here watching the news, taking notes, talking to himself.”

Grif could see that. A large-screen television took up an entire wall, angled in the corner to face a room that was empty but for one wide lounge chair. That was flanked by a floor lamp and an unimpressive, if sturdy, side table. A command center for one, thought Grif, noting the yellow notepads and sticky notes, dozens of pens in a coffee cup bearing the Sunset Retirement Community’s logo: WHERE FRIENDS BECOME FAMILY.

Though not readily apparent, Grif sensed a sort of order to the papers mounded everywhere. A nondescript desk sat beneath the room’s only, curtainless window, the slats of the cheap metal blinds cutting across the stacked papers in harsh blades of light. Copies of the Trib, Kit’s family’s paper, and the one Zicaro had worked at for so many years, were stacked beneath the desk and along the wall in tottering stacks.

Curious, Grif reached for the edition lying on top. It was dated two years back. He didn’t know what was going on with Al Zicaro’s body, but he clearly still had a very busy mind.

“He’s not here,” Mr. Allen said, returning to the room. Grif dropped the paper back atop its stack, and gave Allen an amiable smile. He could afford it, since a quick glimpse out the window had revealed another couple making their way along a path with a sign pointing toward the gardens. The woman was pushing the man in a wheelchair, but their heads were bent close together, one with thick, dark hair sporting a bright pink rose, and the other completely bald.

“That’s okay.” Grif leaned against the desk, blocking Allen’s view. “I’m more than happy to wait.”

Despite the news broadcast blaring from Al Zicaro’s room, the man had responded to Kit’s gentle knock with surprising alacrity. The image that popped into her mind when she first saw him was of a plucked chicken, one with a few strands of gray hair sprouting atop a freckled pate, and an assessing dark gaze that pierced his bifocals. He took one look at Kit, leaned his full weight on his walker, and scowled. “If you’ve come to offer me my old job back, I don’t want it.”

“You recognize me,” Kit said, placing a hand on the door when he moved to shut it.

“Of course I do.”

She wasn’t surprised. Though they’d never met before, she could see a vast expanse of hard-copy clippings sprawling over the walls of the room behind him. He obviously kept up with the news. Besides, as the heiress to the town’s largest newspaper—no longer the jewel it once was but still a respected voice in the community—she’d be recognizable to anyone in the Trib’s extended journalistic family.

“But you don’t seem surprised to see me, Uncle Al.” She used his pet name intentionally, though he was no uncle to her. She was hoping it would calm him.

Zicaro’s thin top lip raised in a snarl instead. “I always knew that someday a representative of the Wilson family dynasty would end up crawling to my doorstep on hands and knees.”

Kit laughed brightly. “Oh no, honey. Not in this outfit.” She whirled, showing off her fit-and-flare skirt. “Besides, these gloves are vintage. They don’t touch the floor.”

Zicaro just growled. “Wanna hear the spiel I’ve been practicing for just this day?”

Kit shrugged and crossed her arms. “If you feel you must.”

“Go to hell!” he yelled, and tried to slam the door.

Kit’s arms shot out, more firmly this time, and her lashes fluttered as Zicaro’s wiry eyebrows almost lifted to where his hairline used to be. “I wasn’t the one who fired you, Zicaro. I’m a different kind of reporter. And I aim to be a different kind of editor one day, too.”

Zicaro refused to be appeased. Eyes bulging, he leaned close, his hot breath washing over Kit’s face. “The world doesn’t need a different kind of reporter! I was the best that paper had! I brought readers rock-solid reportage and exciting news angles.”

“You claimed the Nevada Test Site was building robotic soldiers, financed by the U.S. Treasury.”

“And nobody ever proved me wrong!” Zicaro shouted, pumping one fist into the air. He began to topple and righted himself by grabbing at his walker. It didn’t slow him down any. “Yet my own paper, the one I’d given thirty-one years of service to, never a deadline missed, gave my beat to some uppity, backstabbing cub and then threw me out like trash!”

Kit bit her lip and mentally recalibrated the situation. Clearly, she wasn’t going to talk Zicaro out of his memories. She didn’t have time to argue over whether artificial intelligence really existed, either. So she decided to appeal to his ego instead.

“You obviously haven’t been doing your homework,” she said, causing his dentures to grind. She hurried on before he could move to slam the door again. “If you had, then you’d know that when I say I’m different, I mean that I’m different like you. I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. I go after the truth, no matter where it might lead. And I’ve had more brushes with danger than an entire robotic army could dish out . . . not that you’d know anything about it.”

She turned to leave, and got just as far as she’d expected. Zicaro’s reedy voice chased her into the hall. “Don’t tell me what I do and don’t know, missy! I was penning bylines before you were ever born. You’re Katherine Craig, daughter of the doomed paper-princess, Shirley Wilson Craig, and of the man who was killed as much for the knowledge in his head as the badge on his chest.”

Kit whirled, and sharp-eyed Zicaro caught her flinch and laughed. “That’s right, I know all about you. From your rocky start at your own paper to the way you shut down a kiddie prostitution ring. I know about the way you got yourself mixed up with those drug cartels last year, too. You do have a knack for getting in trouble, Craig . . . and I admire that. Question is, can you get out of it, too?”

She held out her arms, palms up. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

She meant that she’d survived both those stories, but Zicaro snorted as he tapped at his freckled scalp. “Yeah, and my Scooby senses tell me you’re getting into more trouble . . . and aim to take me with you.”

He began to shut the door.

“Whatever,” Kit said, tossing him the word that summed up her entire generation. It had to irk him. It irked her, but then she’d never been one to shrug off anything lightly. “You’re so old now you likely couldn’t help me if you wanted to.”

The door cracked against the wall inside, and, already smiling, Kit turned again, this time catching Al Zicaro in all his aged glory: bony knees sticking out from beneath striped boxers, a ribbed tank revealing more hair on his chest than on his head. He pushed the walker into the hall before him like it was a shield.

“You little pissant! I’ve got more knowledge stored in my left ass cheek than you do in that entire pretty head of yours! So roll that up and smoke it for a while.”

“Really?”

“Hell yeah!”

His face had gone red and mottled, his rib cage heaving as he glared at her, and, wondering if she’d pushed him a little too much, Kit took a placating step forward. “Then why don’t you tell me about a woman named Barbara McCoy, who recently returned to the valley after fourteen long years away?”

The question didn’t surprise Zicaro the way it should have, and seeing her note it, he colored and turned back around. “No.”

“Yes,” she retorted, following so that she could stick her foot in the door this time. Her shoes were vintage patent leather, too, but she’d sacrifice them if she had to. “Why did you call Barbara on Friday?”

He fell back a step at that, eyes going wide, and Kit reached out a hand to steady him, but he shook it off. “Who told you that?”

Kit just shook her head. She was asking the questions now. “What did you mean when you told her you weren’t going to get rubbed on her account? What was she into that you were so wary of?”

“I don’t gotta tell you squat!”

Kit inclined her head. “True, but here’s what I already know. Barbara was a user, a nasty woman who liked to mess with people. She had secrets that went all the way back to her time as a kingpin’s wife, and an old newshound like you might prove particularly useful to her.”

“A DiMartino active in the valley again,” he said, almost to himself. He smacked his lips as he leaned forward. “You think she’s working with someone? Like a conspiracy?”

“You tell me.”

Zicaro made a sucking sound through his teeth, and Kit waited. She didn’t insert herself in the doorway, banking instead on his satisfaction that someone was finally listening to him. Finally, he motioned her inside.

But Kit shook her head. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“I don’t walk so well.”

“And I don’t trust this place.” She tilted her head at him. “Do you?”

He said nothing to that, but his averted gaze spoke volumes.

Feeling the momentum swing her way, Kit pushed. After all, Grif could only stall for so long. “Someone is telling you that you’re safe here, am I right? That there’s security? That Barbara and the DiMartinos and the past can’t get to you here? Is that why you stay? Is it why you keep your television volume so high? Or why you probably check for bugs in your room? For drugs in your . . . drugs?”

Kit was reaching now, but Zicaro’s expression was blasted wide like he’d been waiting for someone to confirm all his greatest worries. He shook his head, and it was like erasing a drawing on an Etch A Sketch. Wonder replaced his anger. “You are paranoid.”

“And you’re a legend,” she said firmly, holding his sharp gaze.

It was his emotional trifecta. She’d appealed to his reason, his ego, and his pride. He considered her with narrowed eyes, then nodded once. “Let me get my wheelchair.”

Kit nodded too . . . then inclined her head. “Don’t forget your pants.”

How do you know Mr. Z?” Mr. Allen asked, making small talk. He’d used the walkie-talkie at his waist to call Erin at the front desk and report Zicaro missing from his room. Grif had assured Allen that he could go look for the old guy himself, but Allen replied politely, and firmly, that under no circumstances could he leave Grif alone in Zicaro’s room.

So Grif spouted the same rap he’d told Erin, saying he was an old friend. Since there was an obvious age difference between his thirty-three years and Zicaro’s seventy-six, he added that his grandfather had known Zicaro first.

“They were both beat reporters back then,” he said as they waited. “My old man followed in Granddad’s footsteps, worked at a paper in Philly, but he lost his job in the recession. The newspaper business isn’t what it once was.”

“Nothing is,” Mr. Allen replied in a soft, bland voice. Grif imagined that working in a place like this, he’d seen that firsthand. “And how about you? You in the family business as well?”

Grif hesitated, but Allen’s wide face held nothing more than mere curiosity. “Nah. I don’t have the newshound bug in me. All that fact-checking, you know. I’m a man who relies more on gut instinct.”

Mr. Allen smiled. “Me, too.”

Then the phone rang at his hip. Turning away, Grif feigned interest in the wall clippings, glancing at Allen while trying to appear as though he were not watching. He wanted to go through each and every stack of paper. He had a feeling there were more answers he and Kit were seeking in Al Zicaro’s humble room than in the rest of the entire Las Vegas Valley, yet Mr. Allen headed back into the adjoining bedroom just as he put the phone to his ear, and that wouldn’t do. Why was a Life Enrichment Coordinator taking personal calls while on duty? Wouldn’t Erin have contacted him via the walkie-talkie at his other hip?

Grif followed, peering into the bedroom in time to catch Allen leaning over the nightstand, staring out the single window. It faced the same direction as the one over the desk, so Kit and Zicaro would be easy to spot if they hadn’t moved quickly. But what really had Grif holding his breath was the holster attached to the belt at the small of Allen’s back. A Life Enrichment Coordinator with a gun? That, along with the flash of white outside the window—two orderlies jogging in the same direction as Kit and Zicaro—brought Grif around the corner.

He kept his feet light and his movements relaxed as he slipped into the room, and just stared when Allen—still squatted low—turned back around. His worry for Kit must have shown. Maybe his shoulders were already drawn in a fighter’s hunch, or perhaps Mr. Allen didn’t like the way he flexed his fingertips.

Or maybe it was simply uncomfortable for a man used to towering over others to turn and find himself eye-level with Grif’s chest.

“What do you mean he’s with someone?” Allen said into the receiver, eyes rising to meet Grif’s. His gaze was no longer questioning or kind, and he was careful to remain in his half-crouch as if unwilling to scare a sleeping cobra. Good instinct. Because that’s exactly what Grif felt like, knowing that two men were after Kit.

Never losing eye contact, Mr. Allen whispered into the phone. “I don’t care if it is a woman. Round her up . . . because she’s not working alone.”

The plan had been for Kit to lead Zicaro away from the building, then circle back around to the Duetto in the front lot. That would keep them out of the eye of the surveillance cameras for as long as possible. However, Kit and Grif had clearly underestimated the staff’s interest in Zicaro.

Allen slowly lowered the phone from his ear as he straightened. Grif shifted, catching the slight bend in Allen’s knees, the looseness in the elbows. He leaned forward at the waist, a way to keep from telegraphing his lunge, and his left foot was forward, marking him as a righty. He had at least forty pounds on Grif, and from the way he mirrored Grif’s readiness, he knew how to use it.

“What an accomplished Life Enrichment Coordinator,” Grif said flatly.

“Who are you?” Mr. Allen said.

“The guy with a gun pointed at your chest.”

Allen’s gaze flicked to Grif’s hands, empty and hanging at his sides.

“Oh, yeah.” Grif rolled his eyes, pulled the gun from his pocket, and pointed it at Allen’s chest before the other man had even blinked. He’d taken it from his ankle holster and readied it when Allen had slipped into the bedroom. “Now I’m the man with a gun pointed at your chest. Question is, who are you?”

Because he wasn’t merely some assisted-living helpmate.

“Fuck you.”

“That seems to be a very common name these days. And how long have you worked here, Fuck You?”

Allen responded by ducking low and stomping on Grif’s right foot at the same time. Grif curled forward automatically, and by the time he saw Allen’s uppercut, it was too late. Stars danced before his eyes as his jaw cracked. Were he 100 percent mortal, he’d be out. As it was, he managed to pull Allen with him as he went down, then flipped and stilled the struggling man by tucking his gun in his left ear.

Grif bore down on the guy, breathing hard. How the hell had Allen hit him? He’d read the other man’s body language. He should’ve seen the blow coming. Growling, he shook the worry off for later.

“Why are you watching Al Zicaro so closely?”

Mr. Allen didn’t move at all, but Grif was a P.I. with two lifetimes’ worth of experience in reading people, and he caught the triumphant cast in the other man’s gaze.

“And why,” Grif said slowly, “don’t the other residents have any idea who you are?”

That drew a smile from Allen, though it was far less kind than the one he’d shared with Grif before. “You have no idea who I am, either.”

“Sure I do.”

“Who am I then, smartass?”

Grif flipped his gun in one quick motion and walloped Allen in the temple twice, once to get the job done and a second time as payback for the blow he’d unexpectedly delivered to Grif. The big man dropped face-first onto the thin carpeting, and a sick crunching sound came from where his nose used to be. Grif left him facedown as he rifled through his pockets.

“You’re Justin Allen,” he said, reading from the wallet. “A.k.a. Fuck You.”

And he dropped the wallet back on the ground so the man would see it when he came around. Then, locking the door behind him, he went in search of Kit.

Kit often said that she was born at least thirty years too late. She’d have preferred to roam the Las Vegas Valley in its heyday, when the Rat Pack was crooning cool at the Copa and when dressing up for a night out meant donning more clothing and not less. Yet despite her love for crinoline and cocktail culture, rockabilly music and the mid-mod sensibility, Kit had to admit that her nostalgia for all things rockabilly was just that. Everything she’d gone through in the past year—starting with the murder of her best friend and culminating with the loss of Grif, a man literally of that era—had forced her to admit that there was no era unmarred by greed or corruption or just plain meanness. Reality was? Those things touched every life and every time.

Sure, Kit would continue thrifting and jiving and swing-dancing, but the cat’s-eye glasses she donned were no longer rose-tinted, and it was with clear vision that she spotted trouble coming from the corner of her eye as she pushed Al Zicaro’s wheelchair down a thin walkway behind his home at Sunset.

And this time, Kit was ready.

“How badly do you want to get out of here?” she asked Zicaro, picking up the pace.

He caught the direction of her nervous glance and leaned forward in his chair, eyes bulging behind his bifocals as he spotted the two orderlies rushing their way. “You didn’t say nothing about getting out of here.”

“You’re saying you want to stay?” she said dubiously.

“I’m saying . . . I don’t know.” He pursed his lips, looking sullen.

“Then why did you grab that?” She jerked her head at the unnatural bulge in his pants, and he covered it with his hands like he was ashamed.

“I bring this with me everywhere. It’s the most valuable information I own,” Zicaro said, patting his pants to reveal the outline of the plastic container he’d shoved in his pocket. “I even sleep with it under my pillow.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, glancing behind her, then ahead, mentally calibrating how far it was to the parking lot. “I have a feeling your most valued information is held in your head.”

“Got that right, missy,” he said proudly.

“Good,” she said, and left the path to make a beeline across the grass.

The orderlies broke into a loping run. They’d catch up well before she could gain the corner of the building, forget about reaching the car.

“What the hell is he carrying?” she said, more to herself than Al. The larger man held his right arm in front of him, and was careful not to let it swing as he ran. His hand was folded around something that glinted in the thin sunlight. It looked like . . .

“Oh, that’s a gun,” Al said matter-of-factly, and Kit stumbled. “They all carry them.”

“At an end-of-life care facility?” she said incredulously, and picked up her pace.

“They take their jobs very seriously.”

Heart revving, Kit searched for signs of Grif, but there was no other soul nearby. She wondered about angels, though. She worried about plasma.

And she knew she was going to have to use the dark experiences of the past year to handle this herself.

“Just follow my lead,” she told Zicaro, and while the guards—not orderlies—were still a hundred yards away, she pulled her lady’s pistol from her bucket bag. Then she swiveled the wheelchair around, and held the gun to Zicaro’s head.

“Hey!” he tried to climb from the chair while it was still moving, scrawny limbs flailing.

“It’s not loaded,” she muttered, grabbing his shoulder and yanking him back into his seat. “Now take mental notes, my attentive friend. Because if my hunch is right, you’re going to be starring in your next feature story.”

The old man’s mouth opened and closed a few times, which made him look like a fish pulling at air, but curiosity finally won out and he snapped it shut. Shooting her a saucy wink, he turned back around and put his hands in the air.

The two orderlies—the guards—reared back on their heels.

“Don’t come any closer,” Kit told them, pitching her voice loud and low, hoping she at least sounded sure of herself. This was improvisation; she and Grif had planned for her to be out of reach well before anyone had noticed Zicaro missing. Again, she wondered what had happened to her reluctant angel.

“Just put the gun down, lady,” one of the orderlies said. He was so ginger he was almost blond, florid in the face where he wasn’t pockmarked, and destined to wear a boy’s face on his man’s body for long into old age. He held his free hand out before him, the other poised at the small of his back.

“Since when does an assisted-living facility require armed guards?” she asked, backing away. The two men mirrored the movement but angled their footsteps in opposite directions, trying to flank her. She tapped Zicaro on the shoulder. Getting into the spirit of things, Zicaro flapped his arms a little.

“No, I mean, help me.”

“Oh.” Zicaro reached for his wheels.

“Just put it down,” said the second guard. His gun was still out, and it was all Kit could do not to stare solely at him, yet the other man, though smaller, was moving fast, and she had to keep him in her sights as well.

“No,” she said. “Why don’t you call the cops instead?”

Neither moved to lift the radios at their waists.

“Maybe we already did,” the smaller guy said. His name tag said ERIC. The other’s? Harry . . . Barry . . . Larry . . .

Zicaro would know, so Kit let it go for now and bared her teeth, an approximation of a smile. “I hope so. I like the police. I have a lot of friends on the force.”

For some reason, that made both men chuckle. “Honey, none of your friends can save you from this mistake.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Kit answered, “but they are powerful enough to come out here and investigate this facility and everyone working in it.”

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Eric said, teeth gritted.

“You have no idea what I’m doing,” she corrected, and leaned forward. “Here.”

She handed Zicaro the gun so that she could pull him backward over the grass. He looked at it for a moment, then cocked back the hammer and pointed it at Larry. He’d drawn close enough for Kit to make out his name now, but he fell back at this and froze as he stared at Zicaro.

The reluctant show of respect emboldened the old man. He flicked the barrel of the gun at Larry, shooing him away. “You thinking about rushing us, buddy?”

“No,” Larry said, falling back again. “No.”

“Good,” Kit said, pausing long enough to meet Larry’s hard gaze. “Now I just have one question for you. Why’d you kill Barbara McCoy?”

Zicaro sucked in a sharp breath next to her.

“I don’t know what you’re—”

Kit jerked her head, cutting him off. “You think I don’t recognize you? I was there last night! I saw you.”

And though the details were hazy—a jumble of ringing blasts and smoky air and stars that realigned themselves and her fate before her eyes—Kit knew she had seen this man dressed in black, looming over Grif in the moments after Barbara’s death. He’d killed a woman in cold blood . . . and Kit? Kit had used the gun that Zicaro now held to fire a warning shot back his way when he was about to do the same to Grif.

And now here he was again, alive and watching over Al Zicaro . . . and looking once more like he wanted to kill her.

“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Larry lied.

“You will,” Kit swore, jerking her chin. “The world will.”

And that’s when she spotted a giant of a man sprinting toward them all, one arm pumping at his side for speed, the other at his head as if trying to keep it from falling off. His furious expression was visible even three hundred yards away.

Shit. Kit’s gaze darted back to the building as if she could see through it to whatever may be happening inside. Where was Grif?

Seeing the other man, Larry returned the gun to the small of his back and folded his arms over his chest. Eric held up his hands and even backed a few steps away, though his gaze had gone predatory. Kit swallowed hard as the giant joined them. At least she knew who was in charge.

“Your move,” Larry said, mouth curling in a knowing smile. He was right to be smug. Two on one was a chess match. Three on one, even with a gun in play, was plain stupid. Besides, she didn’t even have Zicaro to use as a foil anymore. It was pretty evident that she wasn’t going to harm him the moment she handed him the gun.

“Here we go,” she warned Zicaro in a low voice, and he made a high-pitched sound in the back of his throat. Kit was having a bit of trouble breathing herself. Muscles tensing, she darted around the building, pushing the wheelchair. The chase was on.

The wide front parking lot was just as Grif and she had left it, absent of any other vehicles, which gave the front of the building an aspect of abandonment. The leafless trees and wilting perennials sat forlornly in the arid chill, and even the birds had fled. The wheels of Zicaro’s chair rattled across the pavement, as did his breath, and Kit waited for the shouts to rise behind her . . . and even looked for the plasma that Grif was always going on about. Running, she cast about for the effervescent purling of a mist that was supposed to be invisible to the human eye. If she were about to die, she wanted to know it.

The figure stepped forward, emerging from the redbrick building so quickly that they collided. Kit rammed into the back of Zicaro’s head, and her gun flew from his hand. They both squealed . . . but Grif steadied her. Hand gripping her arm, he swiveled so that she was behind him, and then flipped Zicaro around.

“Where the hell have you been?” Kit asked, rushing to pick up the gun.

“Had to make a phone call,” he said, moving fast with Zicaro.

“Make a—?”

“Hurry. We gotta get him in the car,” Grif said, rolling the chair backward, and Kit hurried to open the Duetto’s passenger door. Eric and Larry reeled around the corner just as Zicaro finally managed to swivel in his seat and see who had taken the reins. He took one long look at Grif, let out a strangled squeak, and passed out. Grif caught the old man before he could fall from the chair, lifting him like he weighed no more than a feather.

Kit helped him wedge the old man into the passenger’s seat, and it took all of her willpower not to turn to see how close the three men were now. Though they were armed, she had to trust Grif to protect them. She even thought she heard the sharp cutting sound of blades slicing air, and imagined his wings snapped wide to shield them. Even so, it would be an automatic reaction to danger, and though it was effective against supernatural foes, here he was bound by the same laws of nature as everyone else who wore flesh.

As evidenced by what came next.

“Duck,” he said, just as the first bullet flew. She fell atop Zicaro and he did the same, so that they all lay flat against the seats. That shielded them from the second bullet as well, but the footsteps were growing closer.

Then, suddenly, everything grew too silent. Kit lifted her head. Zicaro groaned beneath her weight, and she shifted as she looked at Grif, now in a squat at the open door. “What—?”

But they both heard the engine by then, and Grif glanced down at his feet as if looking for something.

“Plasma?” Kit asked.

“Not even a bit.” He blew out a breath and offered a hand to Kit. “Looks like we’ll live to piss these guys off another day.”

Trusting him, Kit reached out and they rose together to face off against the three men on the other side of the lot. None of them held a gun now.

Perhaps because of the police vehicle pulling to a stop between them.