Page 42 of The Rut in the Road

“Okay,” I agreed, digging into my sundae. I liked the idea of having future plans with Raj, even if they were as simple as watching the rest of the movies in a series. I just liked having a future to plan with him.

7

He hatedit when people treated their cars like this. Dings all over the side, a long scratch on the passenger door, an edge of rust around two of the wheel-wells. And then they brought them in for a wash and complained when he couldn’t clean out scratches or dings or rust.

He sighed. You couldn’t clean off damage, any more than you could explain reason to stupid.

I frowned.These thoughts clearly didn’t belong to the owner of the car. Almost certainly someone who worked at a car wash. Not terribly helpful to the case, except that I could explain that the vehicle they were looking for had dings, scratches, and rust. But so did a lot of cars.

I went deeper.

He’d arguedwith the stupid woman for a good forty minutes before giving up and calling his boss. She’d insisted that it was their fault she needed to replace the bulb in her front headlight, nevermind that the housing was clearly cracked. Probablybecause she’d hit a parking barrier or a tree or something because the fool woman didn’t know how long the front of her own damn car was.

He knew people did that with these long Cadillac sedans.

Let the boss argue with her.

He was done.

Still not particularly helpful,although it was possible that the person responsible for the hit and run was a woman. The owner of the car was a woman, at least. And the car they were looking for was a Cadillac sedan. It was something to go on, anyway.

But I wanted more.

I went deeper.

The stupid bitchdeserved whatever this divorce was going to cost her. He paused, leaning his hand on the car. This fucking car. She’d whined and whined until he’d bought it for her, insisting onthiscar, even though they probably shouldn’t have spent that much on a car, much less one this flashy. Flashy cars got broken into. Dented by people who didn’t like your parking job, and Pamela was an absolutelyterribleparker.

He drew in a shuddering breath.

He hated that he wished they could go back to the way things were. Hated that he missed her, even though he’d barely walked out the door.

But she’d joined that fucking cult, and he couldn’t do that. Just couldn’t support her joining that stupid Church of Holy Judgment.

I dropped out again,but this time, I offered a sickly smile to Raj and Hart. “The car is a Cadillac sedan, the owner is a womannamed Pamela, divorced or in the process of a divorce, and she joined something called the Church of Holy Judgment,” I told them.

“Tell us fucking everything,” Hart said, leaning forward.

I nodded, then started from the beginning.

I stabbedmy bowl of cavatappi a bit more savagely than was necessary to skewer a noodle covered in a creamy tomato vodka sauce. “I’m not getting a ride share to go to work,” I grumbled, glaring down into my aluminum container of pasta to avoid glaring at Raj.

“Fine,” he said, equally as annoyed with me as I was with him. “I’ll come and drive you.”

I set my fork down, now looking up at him. “You willnot,” I retorted. “First of all, you don’t work regular hours, and I usually do. Half the time you’d be leaving work—which you know you can’t really do—to come and get me to drive meone mile. That’s ridiculous.”

“You’ve already been kidnapped walking from work once!” he argued. He wasn’t wrong, and that irritated me more than the fact that he was insisting that I get a ride share to work a mile away so that nobody would target me as a hit-and-run victim.

“Second of all,” I said, choosing not to respond to his comment. “These killers are targetingvisibleArcanids. I’m human, even if I am Arc-human, so they wouldn’t know to target me.” I scowled at him. “Any more than they’d know to targetyou.”

“I don’t walk to work,” he retorted.

I rolled my eyes. “And I don’t walk to work in the middle of the night,” I countered. “Because if I have to work a late séance,someone will drop me off.” I wanted to add that it was because it was just a nice thing to do at two in the morning, but it was also to keep me safe, although more from muggers or drunks than the hit-and-run-killers.

“Rayn, it’s dangerous.”

“It’s not any more dangerous than it already was,” I hissed back. “You’re being paranoid.”

“It’s not paranoia if it’s literally already happened once!”