"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."
Jenks exchanged a sorrowful glance at Ivy. "Rache," he said softly. "You heard the man. I read the place mat about how many people they lost building the bridge. He wouldn't survive hitting the water. And even if he did, he'd be unconscious and drown. Nick is gone."
We passed the news crews, and I took a shallow breath, finding comfort in that my ribs hurt. I was alive, and I was going to stay that way. "Nick knew that too," I admitted in the dimmer light. "And yeah, he's gone, but he's not dead."
Jenks took a breath to protest, and I interrupted.
"Jax was here," I said, and Jenks pulled us all to a stop in the middle of the closed northbound lane. People swirled around us, but we were forgotten.
"Jax!" Jenks exclaimed, yanked into silence by Ivy.
"Shut up," she snarled.
"He had an inertia-dampening amulet," I said, and Jenks's face went from hope to a heartbreaking look of understanding. "Jax was here to fly it down to the water before the tow truck hit."
"And the NOS," I continued as Jenks paled. "It never exploded. He used the charges to blow the tires, knowing the truck was heavy enough to go through the temporary railing."
Ivy's face was empty, but her eyes were starting to go black with anger.
Shaking my head, I looked away before she scared me. "I'll give Marshal a call, but I bet he's missing some equipment. I never looked to see what Nick had in that truck locker he's got. He's swimming out of here, and I bet Jax is with him."
A pained sound came from Jenks, and I wished I could have said it wasn't true. Feeling his pain, I met his eyes. They showed a deep betrayal he would never talk about. Jenks had taught Jax all he could in the last few days with the idea that the pixy would take his place. And Jax had taken that and used it to burn us. With Nick.
"I'm sorry, Jenks," I said, but he turned away, shoulders hunched and looking old.
Ivy tried to tuck a strand of too-short hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry too, Jenks, but we have a big problem. As soon as Nick gets himself safely settled as a nonentity, he's going to sell that thing and all hell is going to break loose between the vamps and the Weres."
Something in me hardened, and the last of my feelings for Nick died. I smiled at Ivy without showing my teeth, hiking my bag farther up my bruised shoulder. "He won't sell it."
"And why not?" she asked, snarky.
"Because he doesn't have the real one." I looked for Kisten's Corvette, finding it standing by a pylon. Maybe we could splurge and move to the Holiday Inn tonight. I could use a hot tub. "I didn't move the curse to the wolf statue," I added, remembering I was in the middle of a thought. "I moved it to the totem Jenks was going to give Matalina."
Ivy stared at us, reading in Jenks's lack of response that she was the only one who hadn't known. He was staring at nothing, pain still etched in his posture that his son had just buried in the dirt everything he cared about. "When were you going to tell me?" she accused, blush coloring her cheeks. She looked good when she was mad, and I smiled. A real one this time.
"What," I said, "and risk spending the next two days trying to convince you to change your plan?" She huffed, and I touched her arm. "I tried to tell you," I said. "But you stormed off like you were an avenging angel."
Ivy eyed my fingers on her arm, and I pulled them away, hesitating a bare instant.
"Nick's an ass," I said. "But he's smart. If I had told you, you would have acted differently and he would have known."
"But you told Jenks," she said.
"It's hiding in his jockey shorts!" I said in exasperation, not wanting to talk about it anymore. "God, Ivy. I'm not going to mess with Jenks's underwear unless he knows about it."
Ivy pouted. The six-foot sexy vampire in scraped black leather crossed her arms before her and pouted. "I'm probably going to have to do more community service for hitting all those I.S. officers," she grumbled. "Thanks a hell of a lot."
I slumped, hearing forgiveness in her words. "At least he didn't get it," I offered, and Ivy threw a hand in the air and tried to look disgusted, but I could tell she was relieved.
Jenks found a thin smile, his gaze going to Kisten's Corvette. "Can I drive?" he asked.
Lips pressed, Ivy frowned. "We're not going to all fit in that. Maybe we can bum a ride from Ralph. Give me a moment, okay?"
"We can fit," Jenks said. "I'll move the seat back and Rachel can sit on my lap."
Ivy went one way and Jenks went the other. My protest froze when I found a point of stillness in the swirling mess of reporters, officers, and watchers. My lips parted. It was Brett, standing on a cement barrier so he could look over the crowd. He was watching me, and when our eyes met, he touched the brim of his cap in salute. There was a rip in it where the emblem had been removed, and with a significant motion he took it off and let it fall. Turning away, he started to walk for the Mackinaw City end of the bridge. And he was gone.
I realized he thought I had done it, and went cold. He thought I'd blown out the tires of the wrecker and killed Nick for trying to do a double run on me. Damn. I didn't know if that kind of reputation would save my life or get me killed.
"Rache?" Jenks returned from pushing the passenger's seat back as far as it would go. "What is it?"
I put a hand to my cold face and met his worried eyes. "Nothing." Determined to figure it out later, I sent my thoughts instead to the bath I was going to take. I had beaten Nick at his own game. The question was, would I survive it?