Page 86 of Roses Are Dead
She stumbled as she finally got up. I stopped the playback and noted the time. I’d just arrived at the club and sat down for a shot. It drove home the vulnerability of her situation. She’d been dealing with this all by herself.
While I debated on whether to take Shauna up on her offer.
What if I had?
What if Carl had come back?
Why hadn’t he come back? Was Rose right? Did Carl want me to do his dirty work?
I dialed Skinner and had him download the feed from the timestamps I gave him. “Do me a favor and translate that for me?” I’d picked out the part where Rose chanted something in Latin.
“You know, I have real work to do.”
“Yeah, but this is the kind of stuff you enjoy.”
He ran the recording back. “Carl’s woman is a freak. What do you see in her?”
Did I dare answer that? Maybe I could give him a little hint. “She’s like me. Twisted.”
He swore and tapped away, trying to decode her spell. Finally, he sent me a file.
“I think that’s what it says. I ran the audio through a translator, then back through a text translator. The sheer fact she knows Latin should be a huge red flag, brother.”
A chuckle escaped me. “Hickey would love it.”
“Well, I don’t,” he fired back. “She’s a menace.”
A compliment. I scanned the translation. Interesting and fairly spot-on her description. She didn’t lie to me at least. “I wouldn’t have her any other way.”
“You’re playing with fire.”
Now that brought a full smile to my face. “Like I said, ‘wouldn’t have her any other way.” Then I hung up on him and wiped the feed so he couldn’t get nosy and discover Carl in my backyard.
He’d tell Wolf, who’d tell Jackson, who’d insist I take that motherfucker out. I had other plans for Carl Wingren.
If he wanted to play games with me, I’d play games with him. But first? I had a witch to bed.
21
Roishin
Don’t bother cooking tonight. Mr. Bossy’s text message caught me mid-rise of a tender batch of brioche. I was tempted to flatten it and toss it in the trash. Instead, I stuck to the recipe and the plan for it to be coming out of the oven when he pulled into the garage.
And that magic of chemistry and discipline worked out perfectly.
He froze mid-step, his keys still in hand and not tossed carelessly into a little ceramic bowl I’d found at the second-hand store. “Is that bread?”
I set the pans on their racks to cool. “Yes.”
He visibly deflated. “I told you not to cook.”
“I’d already proofed the dough.” With a sweep of my arm, I included the rest of the kitchen. “And I didn’t make anything else.”
The conflict on his face was evident. He breathed in deeply through his nose, then confessed, “I’m an idiot.”
Since he was a bossy jerk sometimes, I didn’t argue with him.
He noticed. “Witch.”
