Jim got up abruptly. “I gotta go talk to my boy for a minute. I’ll be right back.”
He stalked out of the kitchen and hit the stairs. Up on the second floor, he rapped his knuckles on the bathroom’s closed door. “Yo, Adrian.”
From the other side, the response was something along the lines of, “What do you think this is, a Rocky movie?”
“I need you to do something for me.”
“I gotta leave.”
“You’re kidding me.” He should have known better than to think Adrian’s departure had been about the polite. “And where the hell are you going?”
The door opened. Adrian was fully dressed, with wet hair. “I gotta go.”
Jim took the guy’s arm in a strong grip. “Where.”
Ad narrowed his eyes. “While you’re with your girlfriend down there? Worrying about her? I’m taking care of business. And that’s all you need to know—unless you’re planning on getting back in the game?”
“Oh come on, that’s bullshit.”
“Is it. Really.” Adrian ripped free and limped in the direction of his room. “I’m thinking it’s not.”
“So where are we?” Jim demanded as he followed the guy into his private space. “What’s going on?”
Adrian just shook his head as he went over to his bureau and shrugged into a holster. “You ready to play ball? Because, again, until you are, there’s no point in wasting my breath, is there.”
With a curse, Jim thought of Sissy, sitting in that kitchen, relying on him to be the compass in her f**ked-up world. She had no one else. “Look, I just need to get her up and rolling. This has been a shocker, okay—”
Adrian wheeled around as he popped a forty in under his arm. “Fuck you, Jim. I’ve lost my best friend, and some other pretty heavy shit. Permanently. So first off, do not tell me what’s shocking to her, and second? Excuse me if I’m not real impressed by your caretaking side. You want to masturbate to the Hallmark Channel—knock yourself out. But then don’t question me about where I go or what I do to keep things on track—or make like I owe you an operational update. Ain’t going to happen.”
Jim dragged a hand through his hair. “One day, Adrian. Gimme one day.”
“So you can do what? Get mani-pedis together and go to the mall? Fuck that—”
“I just need one day, and then I’m back. I promise.”
The other angel cursed under his breath as he picked up his crystal dagger and tucked it into the small of his back.
“You have my word on it,” Jim said roughly. “I’ll be a hundred percent all in. I just need you to do something for me in the meantime—”
“Annnnnd the sonofabitch wants something. How perfect—”
“Adrian. Please.”
Ad looked around like he was hoping to find some sanity somewhere. Finally, he muttered, “What do you need me to do?”
When Jim finished the ask, Adrian just stared at him.
After a long, tense moment, the angel said, “You owe me. We clear? I do this for you, you owe me.”
Jim stuck out his palm. “On my honor.”
Chapter Twenty-four
It was harder to go back into the parking garage than she’d thought.
As Cait entered the facility and took her pink ticket, the gate rose and … that was about it. Her foot refused to leave the brakes and her SUV stayed right where it was, as if her Lexus were afraid of what was up there, too.
The flashbacks were intense enough to have her release the steering wheel and grip her thighs, her body bracing itself even though her doors were locked and it was daylight and there was no way whoever or whatever it had been was still—
Beep!
Her eyes shot to the rearview mirror. Behind her, a woman in a minivan was looking as stressed as anybody who no doubt had a carload of kids, too many appointments, and no privacy in the bathroom would be.
Cait hit the gas and began the ascent, giving herself all kinds of pep talk. But as she got closer and closer to the top floor, her body was flooded with no. Which was really pretty crazy. Again, it was broad daylight, and people were all over the place, getting in and out of cars. No isolation, no darkness.
“Nope. Not doing this.”
Wrenching the wheel to the side, she rerouted, heading for the exit arrows that would ultimately take her down instead of up.
She had to use all her self-control to keep from punching the accelerator and going all Jeff Gordon on the escape.
At the bottom, she presented her ticket to the woman in the kiosk and began to explain to her adrenal gland that she was about to get out of here. Really. Like, for sure—
“Wait a minute,” the ticket taker said. “Did you just come in? Or am I getting another misread?”
“I, ah—I forgot my phone. Have to go home.”
The woman batted the air in front of her. “Oh, honey, I know all about that. You go through. There’s a minimum of an hour, but we’ll just pretend you were never here.”
Amen to that. “Thank you so much. It means … a lot.”
The ticket taker beamed like doing a good deed had made her day.
And didn’t that make Cait feel like crap about lying—but was she really going to explain why she was panicking?
And what do you know, it looked like God Himself approved of her decision to leave her car on the street—twenty yards past the garage entrance, there was a vacant metered space. Backing the Lexus in, she grabbed her purse and checked her new hair in the mirror.
Wow. Even after a two-hour painting class and a breezy, slightly humid day? The stuff was hanging like a champ, the color glowing, the layers bringing out the natural curl.
As scrambled as she was inside, it seemed bizarre that her image was so collected.
Getting out, she locked up and found—bonus—that there were twenty-three minutes left on the meter—so she only had to put one dollar and seventy-five cents on her credit card.
“Once more with feeling,” she said as she walked toward the Palace Theatre’s sign.
As she went along, she fussed with her yoga pants and her loose J.Crew barn coat. Chances were good G.B. would be in something casual, right? No way they would make him practice in a tuxedo.
Crossing over that mosaic stretch in the pavement, she opened the door to the foyer. The first thing she smelled was floor cleaner, and over in the corner, there was a polisher plugged into an outlet, standing at attention as if ready to be called back into service.