A Ghoul's Guide to Love and Murder by Victoria Laurie Read Free Book Online Page A

demon could become, so I could understand Gilley’s theory, but it still shouldn’t have been possible given all the magnets in the exhibit room. What I also wondered was, why was every phone in the place drained of battery life—except for mine? Shrugging out of my vest, I set it on a chair with Heath’s. I’d take them back to the office in the morning. “Gil,” I said as I moved to the sofa. “Assuming it takes us longer than the next sixteen hours or so to get the dagger back, can you do a little checking with one of the EMF meters at the museum tomorrow? I want to know if Oruç or his demon is gaining enough strength to overpower all the magnets and escape the dagger.”
    Gil frowned. “Aren’t you and Heath better equipped to do that?” he asked.
    I had a feeling he was scared of going back to the museum by himself. “We can’t,” I told him. “We’ve been banned from showing up there again.”
    â€œGreat,” he muttered.
    â€œGil . . .”
    â€œOkay, okay,” he said. “I’ll go.”
    â€œGood man,” I said, softening toward him again.
    Heath called to us from the kitchen. “Hey, guys, dinner’s on.”
    Gilley clapped his hands and said, “Hey, over our meal, maybe you two fools can explain why you went off and got hitched without either telling me or including me.”
    A new note of pain lit up in Gilley’s eyes, and a sharp pang of guilt settled into my chest. “We didn’t want to steal your spotlight,” I said gently, reaching for his hand as we headed to the bar off the kitchen. “Heath proposed to me the second day we were there, and, what can I say, Gil? It wasn’t something we gave a lot of thought to. We just didn’t feel like waiting a year or so to be married. In fact, once we were engaged, we both agreed that what we really wanted wasn’t an engagement, but a marriage, right away. And that left us with the choice to either elope, or come back here and risk upsetting you by having our own wedding so close to yours. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to upset you or your wedding plans. So, we decided to elope and not tell anyone—not even Daddy or Heath’s mom, Gil. You were the very first person I planned on telling, because, next to Heath, you’re the person I love most in the world.”
    The hurt faded from Gil’s eyes and he lifted my hand to kiss my knuckles. “You mean all that?” he asked.
    I nodded. “Yes, honey. And, like I said, we hadplanned to keep it a secret until after you got hitched, but in all the hurry to get to the museum and reclaim the dagger, Heath forgot to take off his wedding band.”
    Gil looked down at my bare left ring finger. “Where’s yours?”
    â€œIt’s in the safe, where Oruç’s dagger used to be.”
    Gil narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. “I’ll take that as a hint to get moving on making those calls to Gopher, et cetera.”
    â€œNothing gets by you,” I said to him with a wink and a nudge of my shoulder.
    Gil sighed and went to his phone on the counter, where he’d left it to charge from the plug there. I took a seat on one of the barstools as Heath set a plate of steaming vegetables and noodles mixed in a heavenly smelling white wine sauce. “Bon appétit, Mrs. Whitefeather,” he said with a wink.
    â€œMerci, Monsieur Whitefeather,” I replied before tucking in. The dish was sublime. It was so good, in fact, that I nearly forgot to listen as Gilley spoke to Gopher’s assistant. “Rachel, it’s super important that I get ahold of him,” he was saying. “Isn’t there any way you can contact him and tell him it’s an emergency?” There was a pause, then, “His sat phone was malfunctioning and you haven’t heard from him in three days? Are you kidding me?”
    My