SEALED WITH A KISS: By Lori Titus
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011The Marradith Ryder Series: The Art of Shadows, Part 43
Shannon slammed the front door behind her.
“What are you two talking about?” she demanded. “And Miranda, what are you doing here?”
It was obvious to her that she’s just walked in on her boyfriend interrogating her stepmother about the Sojourners; that much she’d heard. Ryan crossed his arms and stood his ground, not speaking. Miranda shook her head, and reached for her purse.
“Shannon, I didn’t come here to start problems between you and your man,” she said. “There are matters to discuss…”
“Well that cat’s out of the bag now, ” Ryan said. “So why don’t you tell her what you told me?”
Shannon looked at Miranda. Her stepmother was a tiny woman, but her steely dark eyes spoke to her strength. She couldn’t remember seeing real fear in Miranda’s eyes before.
She could see it now.
“What did you do to make them come after you?”
“It has to do with Rafael Castillo.”
“Okay. So what now?” Shannon replied. “Do you think you were followed here?”
Miranda shook her head. “I don’t think so. They would stay back because of him anyway, wouldn’t they?” she nodded towards Ryan.
“Not neccesarily,” Shannon replied. “We may have had a run in with someone before.”
“Wait a minute. What are you talking about?” Ryan demanded.
“The car that ran you over at the precinct a few months ago? It could have been one of them.”
Ryan touched his side, a flare of pain from the injury to his rib moving through his body. A phantom pain, but he shivered anyway. “You knew that for sure? And you didn’t tell me?”
Shannon approached him carefully, placing a hand on his arm. ” I had some suspicions, but no proof.”
“That ‘accident’ was supposed to keep me off of the Marradith Ryder case. Why is the girl that important?”
Shannon shrugged. “Miranda and I have been trying to figure that out. If she’s what we think she is- a hybrid- with werewolf blood and maybe something else, too, she can be valuable to a lot of people.”
“To the same people that wanted Castillo out of the way?” Ryan asked. “Shannon, I want to know the rest of it. Everything that you know, I need to hear.”
“Let’s not talk about it here. ”
“I agree,” Miranda said.
“I prefer to do this alone,” Shannon said. “Can you stay by yourself a while?” she said to Miranda.
The older woman met her eyes with quiet fury. “Yes.”
****
“This shit is starting to get really old,” Ryan said.
Shannon and Ryan had walked down to the park, and were sitting alone on a bench. Sunlight darted in and out of the trees. Shannon watched as a group of children on skates whizzed past them, their laughter carried away on the breeze.
They were alone in this quiet, still space.
“I told you as much as I could at one time,” she began carefully. “I didn’t want to bring the subject of the hit and run up without something solid to give you. And I don’t know that I will ever have that.”
“That might be acceptable if you’d ever stopped working on the case yourself,” he snapped. “How am I supposed to trust you?”
Shannon put her hands in her pockets. “You know why I feel the way that I do about this. My father died and I want justice for him. I didn’t want to go as far as Miranda did—obviously she’s in over her head. But yes, I did my research on the Sojourners, in any way that I could.”
“I love you, Shannon,” he said softly. “I do hope you know that. But this is not something that I can have in my life. If you can’t drop this vendetta…. I don’t see how it can end well for you. And it certainly can’t end well for Miranda. She made a strike against these people, whether she wants to look at it that way or not. If they are looking for her I don’t want her around you. I won’t have her putting you in further danger.”
Shannon closed her eyes for a moment. She shivered. The breeze chilled her arms beneath the coat she wore. When she opened her eyes, Ryan’s face swam in the tears that clouded her vision.
“I love you too,” she said. Despite the fact that she kept secrets from him, when she said she loved him, she knew it was true.
“I don’t know what you need to hear from me,” Shannon said. “Other than I never thought this would happen between us. And I certainly never thought you would believe the truth about my family, and about the Sojourners. That was a gift that was too much to ask.”
He touched her face. “What’s too much is putting yourself in danger with these people. That’s the one thing that I won’t stand for. It has to change, right now.”
His hand was warm against her face. She leaned forward and kissed him.
He returned the touch. Shannon was surprised at how passionate he was. He’d never been one to kiss this way in public.
She let him draw her close.
Shannon already had the knife in her hand. One quick plunge, and he drew away, in a spasm of wordless pain. She drove it deeper a second time, until the knife couldn’t go any further.
Later, she would remember the look in his eyes. As she stood to walk away, she saw him mouth one word before he fell to the pavement.
Why?
****
Back at Shannon’s apartment, Miranda was waiting. “Is it done?”
“Yes,” Shannon took off her black coat and shoved it into a plastic bag.
“Good,” Miranda spat. “You should never have been involved with someone like him, a cop. And to tell him our secrets? He knew too much.”
“I know that. I did what I had to,” Shannon said between gritted teeth. “We need to go.”
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©2011 Lori Titus
