“Stay with me,” he whispered.
“As long as you want.” If that meant moving in with him, then I would. Not because I felt like Ihadto, but because Elliot was inevitable. A tide that I could either resist or embrace—but it ultimately wouldn’t matter, because it would carry me out either way.
I don’t mean that in a bad way. Elliot wasn’t forcing me into anything. I didn’t feel like I had to behave in a particular way or had to agree with whatever he said, the way I’d felt about doing whatever Devin had wanted. I knew that if I told him I wanted to stay on my own, he’d agree for as long as I needed or wanted. He would be disappointed, but he would respect whatever I needed. I also knew that I would end up in his house, his bed, and his arms no matter what—whether in a day, a month, a year, or a decade.
Elliot was my future. In other circumstances—the kind where people weren’t trying to kill him or terrify him—the realization would have been filled with joy. But it’s hard to celebrate while under the threat of death, and it was hard for me to be excitedgiven the reason I was staying with him—for now. When this passed, there would be time for more.
As far as I was concerned, we had the rest of our lives.
33
Elliot Crane
Ma and Pop say hi.
Seth Mays
Hi back.
How long will you be there?
No idea.
I have some paperwork that I need to get done.
And then however long Smith needs me.
Okay.
I’ll be here.
I love you.
I love you.
Elliot was at the Harts’,ostensibly supervising some project of Marsh’s that Judy claimed she was worried about. I was pretty sure she just wanted to have some time with herhoney-badger,as she called Elliot when she was in a particularly maternal mood. Elliot had warned me not to correct her, as apparently both he and Hart had tried to do many times over the years.
They seemed to think that she didn’t get it.
I was pretty sure she understood them just fine and liked to rile both of them up about it. But maybe the gleam in her brown eyes wasn’t at all like the mischievous spark that sometimes lit up in Hart’s lavender ones. And maybe I’m a toy poodle.
I had just gotten to the office—Roger and Lacy were both out, as it was early on a Saturday—and picked up the stack of paperwork that had been accumulating for me over the past several days. Lacy had been extremely understanding about me needing to take care of Elliot, and even Ronda had sent me a text saying she hoped he recovered soon.
Smith was meeting me in the early afternoon, but I’d dropped a sleepy Elliot off around eight so that I could try to power through the mountain of paperwork—on the Aniwa murder-suicide-arson as well as the barn fire with its multiple victims—before he got here.
I’d almost managed it, still inputting information from the chemical tests that had come back on samples taken from the cabin, when Smith walked through the door, carrying a little paper tray of coffee from his favorite place, Glas.
I wasn’t as big into fancy coffee as he was—I wasn’t sure ifanyonewas as big into fancy coffee as Gale Smith—but they did have a dedicated dairy-free steamer, so I was more than happy to accept a soy latte with some random flavoring. Today it smelled like gingerbread, which was just fine with me.
“Seth, how are you?” The tall, thin detective walked into the room, snagging one of the empty chairs so that he could pull it up near me. He spent a lot of time in our offices, getting reports, checking in on cases, and he knew all three of us pretty well by this point.
“Doing okay,” I replied.
“How’s Elliot?”
“Improving,” I answered honestly. “Not as fast as he’d like, but he’s on track to make a full recovery. We go back to see the surgeon next week.” Elliot wasnothappy with the situation, although all of the research I’d looked up suggested he was doing really well.
“That’s good.” Smith shook his head. “It shouldn’t have happened,” he said grimly. “We should’ve figured this out before now.”
