As Lie The Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

with an assortment of magnets. Different states, arranged as close to the U.S. map as possible. Many from the south, many more from the northeast. I wondered who they belonged to.
    On the other end of the counter, I spotted a framed photo I’d noticed once before. I reached for it, overcome by a wave of sadness as I studied Alex’s face, smiling back at me. Chalice had known him for years and loved him dearly. I felt it in my bones—an odd connection to a man my brain told me I’d really known for only three days. I didn’t want to grieve his death any longer. Mourning Alex wouldn’t bring him back or make his death any less tragic. I wanted to move on and focus on the now.
    “I don’t even know if he has family still around,” I said. The statement surprised me.
    The freezer door shut. A chilly hand closed around my right wrist and squeezed. I looked up and met Wyatt’s gaze. Smoldering. Sympathetic. “You can’t get involved in his life, Evy,” he said. “Chalice has a lot of personal baggage here, but you can’t let it cloud your judgment.”
    I yanked my hand free. “I’m not letting it cloud anything, Wyatt. You think I want to share her feelings and memories? I’ve got enough shit to deal with without getting stuck with someone else’s, too. But I’ve got it now, thanks to you, and I can’t make it go away.”
    He flinched. “You going to make me apologize for that again?”
    “No, you’ve done enough apologizing for a lifetime.” I eyed the cling-wrapped steaks he’d put into the sink. “Just never mind. Go take a shower. I’ll work on breakfast.”
    The argument seemed over before it began in earnest. He circled the counter. As he passed, though, he said, “I can’t ‘never mind’ it if you keep bringing it up.”
    I let his statement hang until the bathroom door slammed. Something on the wall rattled. He seemed determined to drive me crazy, and not in the orgasmic, “I love you” way. Rather, in the pull-my-hair-out, argue-until-we-kill-each-other way. One day, just a simple conversation would be nice. One that didn’t involve guilt, death, or Dregs in any capacity.
    “You clean up well.”
    My head snapped up and to the right. Phin stood in the doorway. I hadn’t even heard the door open, dammit. He came in and closed it. His wings were still gone, morphed away in whatever strange manner shape-shifters manipulated their bodies. He’d put on a black polo shirt, and as he walked toward me, my temper flared.
    “You make it a habit of taking things that aren’t yours?” I asked.
    He stopped near the sofa. Cocked his head to the side, puzzled. “I took out the trash,” he said. “It didn’t occur to me you’d have a vested interest—”
    “The shirt, Phin.”
    He looked at it, then at me. Puzzlement meltedinto understanding. Thin lips drew into a sympathetic half smile. “I’ll take it off. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
    Dammit, I
was
upset and didn’t want to be. He’d taken a shirt from Alex’s room. So what? Alex was dead. He wouldn’t care if someone else wore his clothes. Hell, Wyatt was going to need a change of clothes, too, even though Alex’s pants were probably a few inches too big. No personal attachments; no object sentimentality. That kind of shit would get me into trouble.
    “Keep it,” I said. “Doesn’t matter now anyway.”
    “It matters to you.”
    “Not really.”
    He blinked. Tilted his head in the opposite direction—a very birdlike thing to do. I’d seen Danika do it a dozen times in as many interactions. But I’d never associated the trait with her species. Hell, I knew humans who did it. Only with Phin it seemed different. Definitely more animalistic.
    “I should have asked first,” he said, “but you two aren’t being all that generous with information right now, so I’m kind of feeling my way around.”
    “Well, to be fair, we weren’t expecting your company.”
    “Touché.”
    “Thank you for cleaning the floor. I