Page 22 of The Kings of Kearny

“I can do that,” she said. “I have an appointment with Dr. Perez in an hour. We can ask her then.”

Jakob turned to me. “I want a tour while we wait.”

Look at him, making demands like I fucking owed him anything after the way he’d been acting.

“Why?” I asked. “Didn’t experience enough tension as we were walking in? Want to intimidate some old folks while you’re at it? Maybe press your luck with Hank and see if he’ll really shoot you?”

“Krista,” Gran said in a scolding tone.

I clenched my jaw and didn’t meet her eyes. I wouldnotapologize to him.

“I want to see if I recognize anyone working here,” Jakob ground out. “If I spot some sketchy motherfucker on staff, it might save us a lot of time.”

Damn it. As tempting as it was to shut him down just to be a bitch, logic always had a way of winning out with me. What he said made sense. And there might never be another opportunity for him to check the place out. I was going to have to show him around. I might not like it, but I was going to do it, and that grated. It must be so much easier to be the kind of person who buried their head in the sand and let their emotions blindly dictate their decisions. I envied those people sometimes.

“Fine,” I said. “But you’d better behave.”

“Look who’s talking,” he shot back.

“Oof, the tension between you two,” Gran said, rising from her seat. She sighed, a hint of longing in her expression. “My favorite part of fighting with your grandfather was when we got around to making up.”

Ewww. “Gran, I never needed to know that.”

She grinned. “We broke a table once.”

I gagged and plugged my ears to protect myself from further trauma.

She laughed and stood from her seat. I knew her; the danger hadn’t passed. To Gran, the best form of entertainment was embarrassing or shocking those around her, which was why, even though it made me look like an idiot in front of Jakob, I kept my fingers in my ears and hummed to drown out her voice as I followed her out of her rooms.

Ten minutes later, I gave up on any hope that Jakob and I wouldn’t be the talk of the town by nightfall. Gran kept introducing him to everyone as “My granddaughter’s handsome beau,” and every time I told her to cut it out, she shushed me.

“I’m just keeping up the ruse,” she said. “Plus escorting a dangerous criminal around the premises will be great for my popularity. No offense, Jakob.”

My grandmother, the prom queen.

Jakob’s face darkened as we entered the cafeteria. He swept his icy gaze across the room. “None taken.”

Was it my imagination, or had he just put a little more menace into his expression for her benefit?

~*~

FROM THE SECOND DR. Perez stepped inside Gran’s rooms, it was clear that she was Not A Fan of Jakob. She caught sight of him and came to a dead stop. In her midforties, she was a trim, short woman with deeply tan skin. Her dark hair was cut into a bob. Today she wore a pair of black slacks with a white, scoop-necked silk top tucked into them. Her black jacket was left unbuttoned, the sleeves folded up to reveal a band of the pink silk liner. She looked fashionable and professional, put together in a way that always eluded me, no matter how hard I might try to replicate the look.

Her gaze met mine, and her expression morphed into disappointment. “How did you get him in here?” She held up a hand to forestall my answer. “More importantly, why did you bring him here?”

I caught her up on what we thought was happening at Magnolia.

She frowned as she listened, sinking down between Gran and me on the couch. When I finished, she looked at Jakob, who stood near the slider. “Do you recognize anyone here?”

Jakob hesitated for half a second before shaking his head. I frowned, thinking about the man we’d seen when we first walked in. Jakob had zeroed in on him, but he must not have known him after all. Either that or he was lying.

“How long have you suspected something?” Dr. Perez asked.

“A month,” he said.

Her brows shot up. “And you didn’t think to tell someone here?”

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug that somehow managed to look like a dismissal. “They wouldn’t have listened.”

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