Gathering Deep by Lisa Maxwell Read Free Book Online Page B

to put that away so we can eat?”
    Dinner was pleasant enough, but I could tell Piers was pissed about me insisting he go to Nashville. It hadn’t done anything to help the tension that was already between us, and I was more than a little nervous about what he would say when he pulled me aside after dinner.
    Alone in Dr. Aimes’s cluttered office, Piers again went through all the reasons he shouldn’t go to Nashville or leave me to myself.
    â€œWe haven’t even talked to Mama Legba like we planned,” he said. “We need to meet up with her tomorrow, because you know that if the police came to her, they think the killing had something to do with the occult. Thisbe has to be involved.”
    â€œSo we’ll talk to her first. But you know as well as I do that if you don’t go, you’re going to have to come up with a better reason. Usually, you’d jump at a chance like this. I thought we were supposed keep acting like everything’s normal so we don’t have to involve anyone else. Wasn’t that the whole purpose of my story about Momma visiting a sick relative?”
    â€œYou’re right,” Piers said, running a hand over his head. “But I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone right now. Not with bodies turning up in the Quarter.”
    â€œIt’s just for a couple of days,” I told him again. “Until then, I’ll be staying with Lucy in a well-warded house that’s been covered twice over by Mama Legba’s protective charms. I’ll be fine.”
    He still didn’t look convinced. “I still can’t help but feel like you’re trying to push me away, Chloe.”
    I pretended like I didn’t hear the question in his tone as I walked over to the table where Dr. Aimes had left the foam container and lifted the lid. Again, that uneasy energy whispered through the room. “This was Thisbe’s, right?”
    Piers nodded.
    â€œDid you ever consider that it might be able to tell us something about her, or about what she might do next? If you’re in the lab, we wouldn’t have to wait to find out what they learn about it.”
    He frowned, and I could tell he didn’t like where I was going.
    â€œThink about it,” I pushed. “If you’re the one who delivers the charm to Professor Lamont, and if you get to help out in the lab, you’ll have first-hand knowledge about anything they learn. That would be a lot more help to figuring out what Thisbe might do than all of us sitting here waiting for something else to happen.”
    The way he scowled at me told me that he knew I was right. “I still don’t like it,” he said.
    â€œMe neither. Look, like Dr. Aimes said, you don’t have to decide right this second. Let’s see what Mama Legba has to say, but at least consider it?” Without thinking, I reached out and ran a single finger across the rough thread of the little doll.
    A shuddering unease ran through me, and then all at once, the room around me was gone.
    The smell of woodsmoke burned my nostrils and the light from the fire in the brick hearth cast a strange, pulsing glow over the meager furnishings in the room. My skin felt the fingers of the cold night beyond reaching for me through the sparse warmth of the fire, but I shrugged it off.
    What did a little cold matter when I had power settled over me like a heavy cloak?
    A bone-deep sense of absolute rightness and conviction flooded through me as I looked at the body of the man lying on the narrow bed. He was beautifully built, with strong features that even in sleep looked formidable and sure. Simply looking at him, knowing he was mine, had a warmth curling low in my belly. I had an overwhelming urge to press my lips against his broad and generous mouth.
    But I didn’t. There would be time enough for that later—a lifetime of days. But tonight, there was work still to be done.
    I pulled a low