Gray Dawn, page 22
“Huh.” She crossed her long, tan legs. “Your corpse must be watching a taffy-pulling demo.”
There were a few candy shops on River Street, two of them side by side, but I was betting Grimshaw was visiting The Sweet Hereafter, which catered to the dusk until dawn crowd. Not its delicious but mundane next-door neighbor.
From our shop on the outskirts of Thunderbolt, Georgia, it took ten minutes to reach historic downtown Savannah, Georgia. Grimshaw had spent that time shopping for treats. Unless she still had her grandkids with her, not the most ideal collection scenario, that should have been plenty. Yet she was lingering.
“Loaner.” I pinched Josie’s thigh, relishing her yelp. “Not corpse.”
The code was critical when speaking about the other family business we ran out of The Body Shop if they wanted me to stay out of Atramentous, the prison where people like me got stuck in cells and forgotten.
No one, as far as I could tell, had talents like mine, so using them wasn’t exactly illegal. Just ill-advised.
But the graverobbing? The body snatching? The desecrating of iconic Bonaventure Cemetery?
Definitely illegal.
Even knowing the other drivers would hate me for it, I parked across two spots, guaranteeing I had room to maneuver if I had to make a quick exit. We rode down in an elevator that reeked of stale beer and hot wings then walked a block to the nearest cobbled ramp winding down to River Street.
“I can’t make it on this bum leg.” Josie rubbed her thigh with the heel of her palm. “Go on without me.”
“Idiot.” I picked my way down, careful not to turn an ankle. “I didn’t pinch you that hard.”
“You have fingers like vises.” She caught up to me. “That’s what made you such a good pickpocket.”
Nostalgia crept over me like a warm blanket, but I grunted, “How about you check on our repo?”
“How about you buy me a caramel apple when we get to the shop, and I forgive you?”
“You’re my little sister.” I considered tripping her for good measure. “I don’t care if you forgive me.”
“Liar, liar,” she sing-songed, bending down to rest her head on my much lower shoulder.
The crowd wasn’t too bad for this time of night, which could work for or against us. More people meant an easier time blending in until we cornered the repo, but it also gave us worse odds of catching her if she ran. And they always ran. Always. That was why I lived in sneakers.
Wading through the throng, we were almost to Hereafter when a woman exited with three kids in tow.
“We never get this lucky.” Josie jabbed me in the ribs. “We should buy lotto tickets on the way home.”
A fresh prickle of unease stung my spine because she was right, but I called out, “Mrs. Grimshaw.”
The repo turned toward me wearing a polite, automatic smile that didn’t bode well then dissolved into bloodcurdling screams that drew the eye of everyone on the street. Of all the ways I expected a repo to react when faced with collection, shrieking like a horror movie extra didn’t rank in my top one hundred.
“Help.” She gathered the kids around her. “Please, someone.” She pointed at Josie. “She’s got a gun.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered, stepping in front of my sister.
Half the people scattered, ducking into stores, but the other half closed ranks, eager to be heroes.
“I’m unarmed,” Josie yelled from behind me. “Call the police. I’ll submit to a search.”
One of the nearest men dialed 911 on speakerphone. The second the operator finished asking what the nature of his emergency was, he blurted in a rush, “There’s a woman on River Street waving a gun.”
This situation was spinning out of control faster by the minute, and I didn’t trust the rapid escalation.
Magic. Some type of agitation spell maybe? But who had cast it? Grimshaw couldn’t have done it.
“What gun?” I was screaming to be heard, but no one was listening. “There’s no gun.”
“She threatened to shoot my children if I didn’t give her my wallet,” Mrs. Grimshaw wailed, pitching her voice over the crowd for the operator’s sake. “Don’t just stand there. Grab her. Don’t let her get away.”
Grab her? Really? That was how she wanted to play this?
If Grimshaw wasn’t already dead, I would have wrung her neck for pulling this stunt.
“We’ll wait here for the police.” I held my arms out, shielding Josie. “They’ll verify my sister is unarmed.”
“How can we trust you?” A woman stepped forward, crackling her taser. “You have a gun.”
“I thought y’all said she had the gun?” I rolled my eyes. “Get your stories straight.”
“Please put that away.” Josie grimaced. “Those things hurt like the dickens.”
“If you’re not a criminal,” the woman shouted, vindicated, “how do you know what a taser feels like?”
“You’re not helping your case,” I hissed at Josie, wary of us getting pinned against a stone wall.
“Easy.” She leaned over my shoulder. “My first girlfriend shot me with hers—”
“See?” The woman wasted no time pulling the trigger. “She’s a thug.”
The thug in question hit her knees, jittering as electricity flowed through her, then fell over sideways.
Fury spread ice down my arms into my hands, chilling my fingers until they were as cold as the grave.
Spirits moaned as my temper roused the dead beneath our feet, those lost souls begging me to let them rest in peace. An unearthly chill began frosting the glasses of the teenage boys standing across from me.
Dial it down, Frankie. Keep your cool. Don’t make the situation worse.
“Are you crazy?” I stepped over Josie. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“She attacked that woman,” a man yelled from the back of the crowd. “She has a knife.”
Yep.
Definitely magic run amok.
There was no other excuse for the randomness of their baseless accusations.
“That’s not—” I craned my neck to see the big mouth. “You can’t even see her from back there.”
“Don’t let…her get…” Josie wheezed, curling around her middle. “Away.”
Too late.
The repo was gone.
About to yank Josie to her feet and pursue, I snarled when thick fingers clamped over my upper arms.
“Hands off her if you want to keep them,” a low voice growled from behind me.
A shiver dappled my arms, but I couldn’t identify the speaker among the jostling looky-loos.
“Her friend tried to kidnap that woman’s kids right off the street. She has a gun and a knife.” The man tightened his fingers until they bit into my skin. “A brave citizen stopped her with a taser, but this one tried to run.”
“Ha.” I struggled in his grasp. “Like I would leave my sister at the mercy of you psychos.”
“She quit twitching,” the brave citizen noted, her thumb on the trigger. “Should I zap her again?”
“Hands,” the low voice warned a second time. “Off.”
The person restraining me vanished with a grunt, leaving a cold spot where he had been.
“Well, shit.” Josie blinked up and up at a fixed point beyond my shoulder. “It’s you.”
Pivoting on my heel, I almost swallowed my tongue when I recognized my savior.
And noticed his Savannah Police Department uniform.
“It’s me,” Samuel Harrow agreed, challenging me to a staring contest I was determined not to lose.
Had his eyes always been that shade? Faded denim? Like my favorite pair of jeans?
“Don’t mind me, the victim of a violent crime.” Josie propped her elbow on the concrete then rested her cheek on her fist. “I’ll just lie here in gum, stickers, spit, vomit, and pee while you eye-fuck each other.”
“Thanks,” I murmured, distracted by the same unruly flop of golden-brown hair, how his sweat plastered the ends in a crosshatch across his forehead, practically begging me to brush the strands out of his eyes.
“You shouldn’t be in Savannah.”
That snapped me out of my hormone-induced daze, and the old anger gripped my throat like a fist.
“Neither should you.”
Last I heard, he was living in Seattle. Not that I listened out for news of him. That would be pathetic.
“Uncle Lyle got sick, so I transferred back home.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I thumped his badge just to watch his teeth grind. “He must be proud of you for carrying on the Harrow family tradition.”
“How about you?” His fingers curled into his palm as he resisted the urge to buff away the smudge. “Still running an illegal necromancy practice?”
“She works with Matty and me at The Body Shop.” Josie got her feet under her. “It’s all aboveboard.”
Minus the voluntarily possessed mechanic and the secret basement where I kept the bodies. Er, loaners.
“Good.” His lips flattened into an unforgiving line. “You’re not a kid anymore, Frankie.”
“Huh.” I cupped my boobs, gave them a little jiggle. “That would explain these.”
“Jesus.” He gripped my wrists then pinned my arms down by my sides. “Mature as ever.”
“Are you going to hit her with one of your patented do better speeches?” Josie drawled. “Because we’ve all missed those. So much. Please do go on.”
“She needed to grow up and take responsibility for her actions before she landed herself behind bars. Or face down in a ditch. Maybe if you or Matty made her quit while she was ahead instead of hiding behind your Marys bullshit, I wouldn’t have had to—” He shut his eyes, exhaled. He hadn’t let go, and his touch burned through my skin to brand his fingerprints onto my bones. “What really happened here?”
“Your guess is as good as ours,” she said cheerfully, since my brain quit working after he touched me.
A scream rang out, and Harrow didn’t hesitate. He ran straight toward it. But he forgot to let me go first. He dragged me across River Street into one of the slammed parking lots. His fingers spasmed, opening at his first good look at the scene.
The crime scene.
The repo sat with her back against a tire, her neck bent forward, chin resting on her chest.
Grimshaw’s spirit was gone. Only the corpse was left. The kids were nowhere in sight.
Good thing too, since Grimshaw had slashed open a man’s throat and left him to bleed out beside her.
“Wait here,” Harrow tossed over his shoulder as he waded into the fray. “I’m not done with you.”
Soft fingers slid into my hand, drawing me backward as soon as he turned away.
“Come on,” Josie whispered after I faded behind the first row of gawkers.
A few more steps, and I cleared the crowd. Then we were powerwalking up the ramp onto Bay Street.
Only after we climbed in the wagon, and its steady purr got to work settling my nerves, did it hit me.
“Grimshaw is dead.”
“Technically, she was already dead.”
“You know what I mean.” I rested my forehead on the steering wheel. “She killed someone.”
“Yeah.” Josie tugged on her ear. “And Harrow is back.”
“And Harrow is back.”
The Samuel I had known, back when he was a sulky teen volunteering with Uncle Lyle at the food pantry we hit in times when even the roaches gave up on finding food in our apartment, had been buried under a crisp uniform and a shiny badge long before he left for Seattle.
And if I didn’t find out how and why Grimshaw had killed that man, he just might bury me next.
JOIN THE TEAM
Want to get updates and alerts on Hailey Edwards and her new books? Sign up for her newsletter to get info on new releases, giveaways, appearances and more.
Want to talk books? Join Hailey’s Facebook group to learn about new releases, future series, and chat with Hailey. You can expect giveaways, sneak peeks at upcoming books, early glimpses at cover art, and lots of talk about books. Lots. Like a really, really lot. Ridiculous amounts probably.
Want tees or hoodies to show love for your favorite characters? There’s a store for that!
Want to purchase signed books? Stickers? Mugs? Water bottles? Tumblers? Temporary tattoos? Canvas totes? Visit Black Dog Baubles for all the latest.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today best-selling author Hailey Edwards writes about questionable applications of otherwise perfectly good magic, the transformative power of love, the family you choose for yourself, and blowing stuff up. Not necessarily all at once. That could get messy.
www.HaileyEdwards.net
ALSO BY HAILEY EDWARDS
The Body Shop
Fair Market Value #1
Black Hat Bureau
Black Hat, White Witch #1
Black Arts, White Craft #2
Black Truth, White Lies #3
Black Soul, White Heart #3.5
Black Wings, Gray Skies #4
Gray Witch #5
Gray Tidings #6
Gray Court #7
Gray Seas #8
Gray Days #9
Gray Dawn #10
The Foundling
Bayou Born #1
Bone Driven #2
Death Knell #3
Rise Against #4
End Game #5
The Beginner’s Guide to Necromancy
How to Save an Undead Life #1
How to Claim an Undead Soul #2
How to Break an Undead Heart #3
How to Dance an Undead Waltz #4
How to Live an Undead Lie #5
How to Wake an Undead City #6
How to Kiss an Undead Bride #7
How to Survive an Undead Honeymoon #8
How to Rattle an Undead Couple #9
The Potentate of Atlanta
Shadow of Doubt #1
Pack of Lies #2
Change of Heart #3
Proof of Life #4
Moment of Truth #5
Badge of Honor #6
Black Dog Series
Dog with a Bone #1
Dog Days of Summer #1.5
Heir of the Dog #2
Lie Down with Dogs #3
Old Dog, New Tricks #4
Black Dog Series Novellas
Stone-Cold Fox
Gemini Series
Dead in the Water #1
Head Above Water #2
Hell or High Water #3
Gemini Series Novellas
Fish Out of Water
Lorimar Pack Series
Promise the Moon #1
Wolf at the Door #2
Over the Moon #3
Araneae Nation
A Heart of Ice #.5
A Hint of Frost #1
A Feast of Souls #2
A Cast of Shadows #2.5
A Time of Dying #3
A Kiss of Venom #3.5
A Breath of Winter #4
A Veil of Secrets #5
Daughters of Askara
Everlong #1
Evermine #2
Eversworn #3
Wicked Kin
Soul Weaver #1
Edwards, Hailey, Gray Dawn
