The Given

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Tossing three IDs onto the table, Dennis grinned down at Grif. “You gotta love free Wi-Fi,” he said, pulling up a chair. It meant he hadn’t needed to use his police contacts.

“Eric and Larry Ritter, twins, ages twenty-eight, though Larry is the elder by two minutes. Their friend, Justin Allen, is thirty-six and a Gemini.”

“You’re showing off,” Grif said admiringly. He couldn’t help liking Dennis. He would have even liked him for Kit . . . if he didn’t still want her for himself.

Dennis wiggled his eyebrows like an actor in some old silent flicker. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

“Impress us.” Grif folded his arms and grinned at Larry and Eric. They remained unsmiling, though Larry did give a perfunctory jerk on his cuff. The table jolted. Grif’s smile widened.

“Turns out Larry here used to be Metro. Ditto Justin. This one was suspended and eventually fired due to disciplinary problems. Do you know how hard it is to get fired from the force for minor infractions?”

“You guys are so dead,” Larry said again.

Grif just nodded. “What else?”

“Files are sealed,” Dennis said, eliciting a smile from Larry. “But I did find out that he used to work gang crimes, intelligence unit. I got a contact there. It’s only a matter of time before I know more.”

Grif took up smiling as Larry’s smile fell. “And Eric?”

“Ah yes. Quite the IT guy before joining Sunset. Got scholarship offers to MIT and Carnegie Mellon. Made a pretty penny in the private sector until he all but disappeared off the tech radar a few years back. Climbed to the top of his field and just . . . poof. Quit.”

“You must have had a very compelling reason,” Grif said to Eric, who only glared.

“So two disgraced cops and a rogue tech nerd working at Sunset.” Grif tapped a finger on the table. They hadn’t been lying. They did keep it tight.

But they’d have to, especially with the possibility of family and guardians checking in on their charges’ accounts and trusts. Still, Grif was surprised that they hadn’t been caught before now. More often than not, greed and pride would loosen the stays on such a long-term scam. Look what I bought . . . look how much I have . . . look, look, look at me.

“There had to be someone in charge,” he muttered, rubbing his chin.

“What’s that?” said Dennis.

“There’s someone else,” Grif said louder, and leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table. “Someone bigger than Justin, smarter than Eric. Meaner than Larry.”

Someone who could hold a whole group of criminals to a vow of silence for months on end.

“So who’s running you guys?” Dennis asked, crossing his arms. The mugs, of course, were quiet and still in his presence, but the animation had been a one-trick pony, and not one Grif needed now that Larry and Eric were rattled. They knew Grif and Dennis had enough information to nail them all. Larry was trying not to show it, but Grif recognized panic disguised by steely silence.

“We don’t know him,” Eric finally blurted, and his brother turned and glared.

“What?” Eric asked, knocking into Larry’s shoulder. “You think he’s going to stick his neck out for us? Fuck that. They already know our names.”

“Justin has the flash drives,” Larry countered. “And the old man.”

“And we have copies,” Grif said, and kept his shrug easy. It wouldn’t do Zicaro any good to let these guys know how worried Grif was about him. “Of the flash drives, not the old man. But we’ll get back to him shortly. Tell us more about this other guy.”

“I’ve never seen him. Justin has, though. They’re thick as thieves.”

The men were unraveling, and turning on each other as they did.

Larry was now nodding. “I’ve talked to him on the phone, but that’s all.”

“No idea at all what he looks like?” Grif asked.

“Sure,” Larry said, then smiled coolly as he leaned back. “He looks like you. He looks like me. He looks like anyone you’ve ever seen walking down the street. He just blends, and you never see him coming.”

“Sounds like a ghost,” Dennis said.

“Which is what you’ll be if you cross him. He’ll turn on you in an instant, and I have seen that before.”

“Trevor.” Eric nodded, a movement Larry took up as they recalled some shared memory.

“I don’t want that shit bearing down on me,” Larry said, shaking his head. “And believe me, as soon as he finds out what’s going on, he’s gonna come looking for you. Both of you.”

“I hope he does,” Grif said evenly. “I’d like to see this ghost in person.”

“You’ll get that chance. Guaranteed.”

Larry’s confidence was real enough, but there was also something off about it. Grif couldn’t put his finger on it, and Larry’s mug was silent, its contents now splashed over the floor. Still, something nagged at Grif, like a needle poking at the base of his spine. He felt suddenly like he’d been asking the wrong questions and now it was too late.

“Don’t go nowhere,” he told Larry and Eric, then looked over at Dennis and jerked his head.

They congregated by the front door, using the center tiki god to block them from the bartender’s view but still keep the two men in sight.

“What the hell have you guys gotten into?” Dennis muttered. He ran a hand over his head, causing his tight pomp to flare. “First Barbara DiMartino’s death. Now this. Some unnamed criminal mastermind?”

“And it’s all related somehow.” Grif could feel it. Zicaro had been questioned about Barbara right before she’d visited him, right before her death. “Has anyone notified Barbara’s next of kin yet?”

Dennis inclined his head. “There’s a stepson. Ray DiMartino.”

“Yeah, I know him,” Grif muttered darkly.

“Why am I not surprised?” Dennis said.

Ignoring that, Grif dug out the digital recorder Kit had let them borrow, turned it off, and handed it to Dennis.

“None of this is admissible in court,” Dennis said, but took the device anyway. “Sounds like Justin’s the one we need. If we can get an admission on record, we can set a formal inquiry into motion.”

But that wasn’t going to be easy at all.

“I hope the old man’s okay,” Dennis finally said, expression shifting into one of worry.

“They didn’t hurt him in all the time he was out at Sunset,” Grif said. “I get the feeling they want something from him, too. That old newshound probably knows things he doesn’t even know he knows.”

“Old ghosts,” Dennis said, nodding.

Grif tilted his head. “What’s that?”

“What Zicaro was saying at the steakhouse last night. About old ghosts rearing their heads. New ones, too . . . like Barbara DiMartino.”

“You think this has something to do with some fifty-year-old mobster turf war?”

“I think it has to do with the diamonds he was talking about. I looked it up when I got home, Shaw. These things were the size of silver dollars. Three of them. Perfect cuts.”

Grif didn’t remember. When he took on the job of locating little Mary Margaret, he was very clear with Sal DiMartino that he didn’t want to know anything about their business or lifestyle. He was there to help find the little girl, and that was all. He thought if he kept his nose clean, he could keep his hide safe, and Sal—though amused—had agreed.

A lot of good it’d done him. A cache of diamonds had disappeared, and now these pikers thought Grif had the map to locate them.

So then why had Justin just taken off with Zicaro? Why not make a play for Grif?

“Hostage,” Dennis guessed, when he asked him the same thing. “Watch. They’ll want to trade Zicaro for the map.”

The map he didn’t have. The map that probably didn’t even exist.

“Sure you don’t know anything about it?” Dennis prodded, holding up his hands when Grif glared.

“Get bent, Carlisle. You should know better than to ask that of me. I’m a good man.”

“Yeah? So am I, Shaw,” Dennis said, leaning too close. “And I don’t like working this way. It straddles the line, and I’m a good cop, too.”

He was. The aura around him glowed in a healthy ring. He was fully recovered, and it looked like he was destined to stay that way. Grif realized he was glad. So he put a hand on the man’s shoulder, and nodded once. “I appreciate it.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” Dennis snapped, still hot.

And there it was, finally out between them. Grif tucked his hands in his pockets. “I know that, too.”

Turning away, Dennis stared with clenched jaw at the video screens behind the bar. Whatever he was seeing, it wasn’t topless hula girls, swinging hips.

“You broke her, you know,” he finally said, causing Grif to jolt. He hadn’t been expecting that . . . or the quiver in Dennis’s voice. He shook his head, still not looking at Grif. “I don’t know how she’s walking by your side, and talking to you now—she couldn’t even move at all a couple of months ago. She was a ghost.”

Grif found he was unable to defend himself. “She’s very strong,” he said instead.

“She’s more than that, Shaw,” Dennis shot back, and now he did look at him, his honed gaze finding Grif’s. “She’s honest and good. She’s beautiful and pure and you don’t often find that in this world. Not all in one person. And you . . . you just broke her.”

“Can you please stop saying that?”

“No,” Dennis said sharply, nostrils flaring. “Because you need to know. This obsession you have with the past? This Evelyn Shaw you keep mentioning? It’s costing you the kindest person I’ve ever known. Like I said, I don’t like to work this way, but I’d damned well cross the line for her. She’s worth it, and you’re an idiot if you don’t know it.”

“I do know she’s worth it.” Grif swallowed hard. “I just don’t know what to do about it.”

“Then you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought,” Dennis said immediately, then shook his head before Grif could answer. “Forget it. I’m gonna pull the car ’round. Bring those assholes back through the kitchen. I’ll tell the bartender that we need some discretion.”

Then he was gone. Grif took a minute to breathe. He rubbed his jaw and realized his hand was shaking. He stopped it with effort, but couldn’t halt the sense that despite trying, he was doing nothing right.

Taking a deep breath, he headed back to the two men waiting on tenterhooks in the corner, determined to change that.

Kit dropped behind the leather sofa, falling more than dodging the shot that rang across the room. She couldn’t find air; there suddenly seemed to be so little of it, and none within reach of her lungs. And while she was also shaking, she instinctively knew that she had to move. So she fought through the scent of gunpowder shocking the air to remember how to work her legs.

The door leading to the club banged open, and Kit’s head swung around. The woman who’d led her into the room took one look at her trembling on the ground, then at Ray, still on the other side of the room and still, apparently, holding a shotgun in lieu of his towel. The hostess then swallowed hard, backed out of the room, and closed the door behind her.

Ray’s footsteps resumed and Kit tried to inch back, but her skirt kept hampering her. She was climbing up into it, getting caught in the voluminous folds, and while one part of her was screaming to make her shaking hands work, to reach for the gun in her skirt pocket, another part was already anticipating a second shotgun blast through her head. At least I’ll spend eternity in fabulous clothes.

Jesus.

“I liked you, Craig,” Ray said, voice closer. Kit knew he could shoot her right through the sofa, but he didn’t. Not yet. “But Barbara was right. You’re just as dangerous as Shaw is, in your own way. All those questions bubbling up behind that pretty little face.”

Kit didn’t answer. She was too focused on those footsteps, which were a metronome of aggression, and frighteningly calm compared to the calamitous beat of her heart.

“But right now what I want from you is an answer. Where’s the map?”

The map. The mystery. The diamonds.

“I don’t—”

“I know Gina gave it to your father. I saw her. So where is it?”

Kit would give it to him if she knew. She realized in that moment that she would give him anything if it meant she would live. Then, suddenly, the answer was there, like it suddenly crystallized in the shocked air. “Marin has it.”

That was what she was withholding from Kit. The information her father had died for . . . that Grif had died for . . . and that Kit was going to die for, too.

“Does Barbara know that?” Ray asked, and appeared around the sofa’s edge, naked as the day he was born, if heavier and hairier and holding a shotgun in front of him. Kit kept her eyes on his face, because when he decided to shoot her, she’d see it there first.

Barbara’s dead, Kit was about to say, but Ray knew that. He was just on a rant.

“Because Barbara has no right to those diamonds. That necklace was made for my mother, by my father. Barbara took everything else from my family. Those diamonds are mine.”

Kit needed to buy time to find something with which to distract him. Struggling not to move, to scream—fighting just to think—she managed, “I— I thought you were working with her.”

“I thought you were,” he answered immediately. He sounded calm, but too calm. Like a receded shoreline right before a tsunami. “It would be just like her to enlist someone else. She never got her hands dirty. She liked to say she had people for that.”

For some reason, that made him sneer and pump the slide on the shotgun.

“We— We’re not,” Kit said quickly, and she was unable to help herself now. She shoved herself backward on her palms, but got caught up in her skirt again. Reaching down, she pulled the folds free. Ray’s eyes flickered, lighting on her legs.

“I knew that as soon as I saw her reaction to the news that you and Shaw were a couple, but honestly? I don’t care. I just want you all out of my way.”

Kit needed more time. Drawing her legs in tight, she went with her gut. “Barbara killed your father, didn’t she?”

Ray’s expression darkened at that, and his mouth slowly altered, some sort of mute misery drawing it down at the sides. “Her story was that Gina rolled back into town and killed him, which is possible, given that Gina disappeared again, too.” Ray sighed heavily. “But I don’t think so. Gina was genuinely spooked. I know, because I followed her that day.”

Kit froze, trying to wrap her head around that. “So you . . .”

“I left the house.”

He had left.

“You . . . you followed . . .”

Ray’s mouth re-formed into its hard line as he waited for her to catch up, watching her struggle for words with a look that was almost hungry. When she finally figured it out, jolting as she stared at him, his lips shifted again, this time turning upward.

“Life can be so ironic,” he finally said, almost to himself. “I mean, who’da thought I’d be using the same gun on you fourteen whole years after I killed your father?”

Silence flooded in so quickly that Kit had the sense of dropping into it, as if submerged. Yet it was also the loudest thing she’d ever heard in her life. Both out of breath and unable to take another, she couldn’t even feel her ribs in her chest. Instead, she floated up, up, and up as Ray aimed the shotgun at her, and from within the folds of her skirt, her arm rose as well.

The bullet that tore through Ray’s naked body was muted, too. All Kit heard was its sizzle as it left the gun, and the only thing that brought her back around was the recoil of the .22 in her palm.

Ray’s body jerked first left, then right—she must have shot him twice, she thought dreamily—and even after he toppled behind the sofa, his surprised expression was burned into the air where he’d stood.

Gunpowder fogged the room. It had tears springing up in her eyes and felt thick in her buzzing ears. It worked to clog her throat, and seeped into her pores as well. It weighed her down. Violence now lived inside of her. She breathed death.

A sound, half sigh, half moan, filled the air like keening as she wiped at her face. Was that her? Then she began to shake, the shudders so great that her breath sawed through the loaded silence. She felt like toppling to her side, curling into herself, and never getting up. She should move. She should run out the back door and never look back, but all she wanted to do was squeeze her eyes shut—like so—and . . .

“He was going to kill you, you know.”

Kit’s eyes flew wide as she gasped, and she froze, surprised into stillness. She knew she was going into shock . . . but she also knew that voice.

Gaining her knees, jerking up that damned skirt—now with two holes blasted through its pocket—she pulled herself up by the back of the sofa and peered over the edge. When she saw the half-transparent form there, blond and beaming, she felt herself sway. “Nic?”

“Hiya, girly-friend,” Nicole said, perching on the arm of the leather sofa, downy wings folded as she shot her a sweet smile. Kit wobbled and fell back to the floor.

And Nicole Rockwell, her best friend in the world, dead an entire year, called out to her from the other side of the room. “Go ahead and take a moment there. No one is coming in for a bit, and this guy certainly isn’t going anywhere.”

Kit’s mouth moved, but no sound emerged and she had to blink furiously to keep her eyes from rolling back in her head. It wasn’t enough. She slapped her own face, then did it again when she realized that made her feel more present, more solidly there.

Nic snorted from the other side of the sofa.

When she was finally able to take in a real breath, Kit managed to pull herself to her feet—though she still needed the sofa to steady her shaky weight.

Nic, whose grave Kit had sobbed over, was wearing gold-tipped wings that rose in beautiful ivory arches. Her hair was somewhat mussed, giving an indication of its state when she died, but she otherwise looked whole and perfect, and would have even appeared serene were it not for the psychedelic swirling of stardust winking in her otherworldly gaze. Kit took a shaky step in her direction, and Nic smiled encouragingly.

“How am I able to see you?” Kit managed to ask.

And when, she wondered, had she become so comfortable talking with angels?

Nicole frowned, as if the question disappointed her. She snapped her fingers like that would suddenly make Kit understand, yet the movement produced the sound of bells, which only had Kit jerking her head in disbelief. “C’mon, honey. After all you’ve seen and done this past year? After that?” She pointed down at what Kit presumed was Ray’s body. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“Are you a—”

“If you’re going to say ghost, I’m leaving now.”

The sarcasm was pure Nicole, and that’s what really, finally calmed Kit. She hadn’t been about to say ghost. She didn’t believe in ghosts, she believed in angels . . . specifically in Centurions.

“How long have you been listening?”

“I got here when you did. It’s my punishment for disobeying heavenly orders.” Seeing Kit’s dropped jaw, she shrugged. “I take it Grif didn’t tell you about my new gig.”

Kit shook her head. It came out as more of an uncontrolled jerk.

“I’m not surprised. He probably didn’t want to upset you, and he really just learned of it himself. My Take is usually some sob story.” She cut her eyes back at Ray. “But I get the occasional riffraff as well.”

Which meant Nic’s soul was tortured. She’d be stuck with a Centurion’s responsibilities until her soul healed enough to forgive and let go of her earthly regrets. Kit’s heart sank, and she placed her hand over her chest as tears filled her eyes.

“Don’t.” Nicole held up a hand and softly added, “Don’t cry for me, Kit.”

The understanding in her gentle tone ripped a sob from Kit anyway.

Nicole sighed. “Okay, it was hard at first. I mean, letting go of your dreams about a life not lived is like a death all in itself. But I’ve seen some awesome things since then. I get to go to amazing places, and I don’t have to pay some crappy airline to do it.”

That surprised a laugh from Kit. She immediately covered her mouth. There was nothing funny about this situation.

“And before you can say it,” Nicole went on, “I know you’re sorry. I’m sorry, too, but the only way to move on is to let go, and . . . I think I’m almost there.” She nodded at Kit, an acknowledging bow. “You guys have helped, you know.”

“Us . . . ?” Kit asked, inching around the sofa. They were only feet apart now. Two more steps and she could reach out and touch her old friend . . . if she were still alive. She had an almost uncontrollable urge to try, but refrained, just to maintain the illusion.

“You and Grif,” Nicole clarified. “I’ve been watching you. Especially you, Kit. Every time I’m assigned a Take I pop back to the Surface a little early and find you. As a Centurion, I can always spot others like me, and your man Grif is like a beacon to me. So I find him”—she shrugged—“and I find you.”

“You’ve got it wrong. He’s not my man, Nic.” Kit shook her head, not bothering to hide the sadness in the movement. Nic would see it even if she weren’t a Centurion.

“We haven’t been together for months.”

“Honey, didn’t you hear me?” Leaning forward, Nicole quirked an eyebrow, causing the stardust in her gaze to shift and swirl in a different direction. “I’ve been watching. I saw you together. I saw you apart. I even saw you following him when he didn’t know you were there.”

“Grif has a terrible sense of direction,” Kit said defensively, and felt the heat rush back into her cheeks. “Someone had to look out for him.”

“But it cost you to do so,” Nicole said softly.

It’d cost her more to be away from him. Kit looked away. Unfortunately, her eyes landed on Ray, prone where she’d felled him, and she shuddered.

Nicole followed the direction of her gaze. “He would have done it, you know. Killed you just like he killed your father.”

Yes. Kit had seen that . . . and she told herself that’s why she’d fired. Not out of revenge for her dad, or for the havoc the deed had wreaked on the remainder of Kit’s mind and life, but in self-defense. Right?

Swallowing hard, she inched forward and then propped herself on the coffee table before Nicole. Dead or not, Take or not, Ray could damn well wait while she talked with her best friend.

“You’re still helping Shaw find his wife,” Nicole stated.

Kit frowned. Maybe it was time for them to go. “I want what’s best for him” was all she said.

“Is that all?”

Kit sniffed. “I forgot what a pain in the ass you could be.”

“I mean, have you asked him lately?” Nicole went on, ignoring her. “Because like I said, I’ve been watching.”

“He’s the one who’s still looking for her,” Kit pointed out.

“Yes, but he’s looking over you.” Nicole gave her a meaningful look, then feigned looking at a wristwatch before stepping behind the sofa and giving Ray a little kick. “Hey. Get up! We gotta go.”

Kit stood, too. “Nice bedside manner.”

“Learned it from Shaw,” Nic admitted, and surprised she was capable of it, Kit actually smiled. Nicole glanced back down at Ray. “The bastard’s hiding in there. Even newly harvested souls know when they have to answer for their crimes.”

Kit’s heart resumed an unnatural thud. She put a hand to her forehead. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Nicole just shrugged the magnificent wings at her back, causing the gold tips to flare as if lit. “What do you expect? That big lug gave you awareness. He handed you an apple of knowledge and you took a big ol’ bite of it. Now you can’t unknow it. That would require someone more prone to fantasy, and the Kit I knew and loved valued the truth above all else.”

“Still do,” Kit admitted, because it was what her father had taught her, what he’d died for, and what she had lived for ever since.

Don’t just find the easy answer, Kitty-Cat! Find the truth!

“And that’s why you can see me,” Nicole said, crossing her arms. “It’s why you can see Grif for who he really is, too. The Pure actually love that about you, by the way.”

“You mean Grif’s angelic asshole of a boss?” Scoffing, Kit shook her head. “He hates me.”

“He didn’t understand you,” Nicole corrected, “but now he does. He’s had to feel what it’s like to be one of us. He’s actually felt every ounce of your pain and sorrow. It’s excruciating for a Pure.”

Kit was not going to feel sorry for that bombastic, judgmental, blackmailing Pure angel. “I don’t care.”

“Is that why you won’t allow yourself to feel good things anymore? You just don’t care?”

Kit crossed her arms now. “You calling me on my shit, Nic?”

Nicole smiled and pointed at herself. “Bestie, remember?”

Yes, they were besties . . . and Kit wasn’t just happy to see her, she was relieved to be with someone with whom she didn’t have to feign strength.

“It’s hard,” she finally said, chin wobbling.

Nic smiled. “Because it’s worth it.”

“It hurts.”

“Because it’s passion.”

“I’m afraid,” Kit finally admitted in the smallest voice yet.

“But feeling love, even losing it, is better than simply existing,” Nicole said, and shook her head as she frowned. “Take it from someone who doesn’t have to worry about anything anymore, taking a risk is a gift. It means you still have a chance to build something great and new. You should throw yourself at that.”

Kit just stood there.

“I said throw yourself,” Nicole said wryly, and Kit laughed self-consciously. Nicole laughed, too, then straightened and took a step toward Ray. “I really do have to go. This ass-nozzle is starting the Fade, and it’s my wings if he gets Lost.”

But Kit just stared at Nicole, and there was no room for thoughts of Ray or, momentarily, even Grif. This was it, she somehow knew. She wouldn’t see Nicole again, not on this side of the life/death divide, and that reopened the wound that she thought time had healed. A million little memories and moments raced through Kit’s mind: Nicole’s love for potluck cookouts and swing-dancing, the way tears streamed down the apples of her cheeks when she really got to laughing, how their sides would hurt afterward, sometimes for hours.

Kit bit her lip, feeling tears well up, and wished she could hug her friend one last time, or that they could at least link arms as they had so often after a long night out, gazes turned toward the rising sun, making wishes upon the new day.

“Careful,” Nicole said, her star-speckled gaze now surging. She was remembering, too. “Father Francis is going to blame me if he feels all of that.”

Kit still didn’t care. Her sorrow at Nic’s violent, needless death struck her all over again, and as her heart swelled in her chest, she realized that was why God never let people see the loved ones who’d passed on after death. You’d never heal if the scab was continually ripped from the wound.

“I’m glad we get to say good-bye,” she choked out. “We didn’t get to . . . the first time.”

“Yeah, sudden death due to multiple stab wounds and strangulation tends to interfere with the more heartfelt farewells.” Nicole laughed darkly at Kit’s responding wince. “Don’t worry about me, Kit, just . . . don’t shut down. I know it’s not easy, but I think I can deal with facing eternity on this side of things as long as I know that you still have your face turned toward the sun.”

Kit blew out a shaky breath and finally gave a matching nod, though she wasn’t sure that would ever be the case again. She’d always valued knowledge and truth, but now it felt like she knew too much to ever be that blithely, or blindly, happy again.

“Go out the back,” Nicole told her, jerking her head at the far door. “I’ve messed with the cameras, so they’ll never see you leave.”

Kit nodded, and Nicole just smiled and gave her a slow blink when she hesitated. Kit drank in the sight of her, committing this new-yet-old girlfriend to memory, then finally turned away. She’d just touched the handle when Nicole called out to her.

“Do you still love him?”

“I do,” Kit answered, and as soon as she said it, a weight seemed to lift from her chest. Her head felt lighter, too, almost dizzy, but she couldn’t be sure that wasn’t just shock settling in. Still, it felt good to admit. She turned, and they locked eyes one final time, and Kit grew momentarily lost in the stardust swirling in her friend’s pupils. It was still startling, but somehow it made Nicole more beautiful than ever. “It’s the truest thing I know,” she admitted.

Nicole smiled and her stardust gaze glinted. “Then throw yourself at that.”

Biting her lower lip, Kit tilted her head. “I love you, Nic. Always.”

“Of course you do. I’m your forever friend.” Nicole tossed her mussed hair, jerking her head at the door. “Now hurry. You have a life to get on with.”

And so Kit got on with it, leaving quickly and closing the door behind her on stardust and wings and a smile she would never forget.