Night's Deep Hush: Reveler Series 4 by Erin Kellison Read Free Book Online

head.”
    “Can’t help you there.”
    Vince swore and turned back to the cab. He really did look pretty bad. Lucky for him he had a fortune to fall back on. He could get himself a private nurse. Let her occupy his attention. Connect with someone, anyone, else.
    An uncomfortable familiarity pinched her. Malcolm sometimes talked about a connection—and not necessarily with only her. It had to do with his tracking. Once he marked someone, he could almost always find him or her again.
    Vince was bending to seat himself back into the cab.
    Connection. I can feel you , he’d said.
    The familiarity pinched harder. Shit. “Wait.”
    This was awkward.
    Vince rose slightly, holding on to the door and the roof of the cab. After she’d drowned him, he’d been Darkside a really long time. But before that, he’d been with her a lot. In fact, he’d been arguing with her. She’d literally been his mark, and she’d been slipping out of his grasp.
    A semi-plausible alternative explanation, if she were looking for one, which she wasn’t, was that Vince was a tracker, like Malcolm.
    And Vince had accidentally marked her. That’s how he’d found her. That’s why she was in his head.
    Which meant she wasn’t caught. Not yet.
    She moved closer to him and lowered her voice. “Did you bring Chimera with you?”
    “I gave the marshal interested in me and you the slip.”
    “And your excellent business associates?” Didier Lambert among them.
    “They killed my father.”
    There was that. Sad, but handy. “Maybe we can talk.” She felt a tiny bit guilty for leaving him collapsed facedown on the pavement but not guilty enough not to use him if she needed to. “Somewhere safe.”
    “I have an apartment uptown.”
    “Chimera will have that place under surveillance.”
    His face twitched. “A hotel then.”
    “Can’t use credit.” Malcolm’s instructions. She could’ve invited him to share the room she planned on getting with her stolen money, but she hesitated. Maybe she didn’t need to spend it.
    “I have friends,” he said. “They have a place we can use.”
    “What kind of friends?”
    “The best kind—absent ones.”
    Worked for her. “Do you have a mobile phone?”
    He fished one out of his pocket, dropped it, and stomped on it. “Not anymore.”
    He understood, then. She was smiling when she warned him again. “Really, I’ll be fine on my own. You’d be better off without me.”
    “I’m certain I’ll be better off with you.” He cocked his head. “And if my father is any example, I’ll be dead without you.”
    “It’s way worse than you think.”
    “Goddamn.”
    “And I’m in charge.”
    “Understood.”
    Jordan chewed her bottom lip, considering, then gave up the fight. “Yeah, okay. I want a shower.” She moved around him and got into the cab. “And a sandwich.”
     
    ***
     
    “Paula and Marianne split up a few months ago,” Vince said to excuse the semi-packed, randomly cluttered and heaped state of the apartment. A violent shiver ran over him, knocking his teeth together, his vision going a little gray. “Marianne got a new place to go with her new girlfriend, and Paula is getting over the breakup in Spain.”
    He watched Jordan as she looked around. She was sharper than he remembered her to be. It wasn’t that long ago that she’d seemed…ordinary to him. Intelligent, sure. Beautiful, in the slender, leggy way. And she had a classic, professional demeanor, even in jeans. He’d known many accomplished women like her. He just hadn’t anticipated the edge under her poise. He knew now how grossly he’d underestimated her, and he hadn’t even heard her story yet. But then, he’d underestimated everything. If just one person could be straight with him, maybe he could get his bearings. It felt as if he were still underwater Darkside where sometimes it was impossible to tell up from down.
    “I can find what I need,” she said. Seemed like the books and art had been packed, but the