Page 41 of Hextreme Measures

10

TEN

They stopped for food as soon as they were clear of their parents. Ofelia felt bad lumping Oscar in with that group, and she thought about that as they waited for their order to be filled. Rather than take it home, they opted to eat it at a picnic table outside one of their favorite stops.

“Oh, this is amazing.” Sully bit into a fried shrimp and made a sound that bordered on sexual. “You know, other than you popping into my life, this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Ofelia’s eyebrows hopped as she looked over at him. “Is that a fact?”

“It is, love of my life. It’s a freaking fact.”

All Ofelia could do was shake her head. “The terms of endearment are not as cute as you think they are.”

“That shows what you know.” Sully dipped a shrimp in cocktail sauce and enthusiastically bit before going in for a kiss when the taste was still on his lips.

Ofelia laughed at his shenanigans, then caught herself.

“It’s okay,” he said when he saw that she’d fallen quiet. He scooped his hand over her hair. “You don’t have to feel guilty that you had a single moment of happiness when your friend is locked away in a room and potentially being infected with banshee cooties.”

The sentence was so convoluted that Ofelia had to think it through three times before it clicked. “Banshee cooties?”

He shrugged. “What else would you call it?” Before she could answer, he continued. “We made progress today. It might not be the progress you would have preferred, but we do know more than we did.”

“Oh, yeah? What do we know?”

“Eat your dinner,” he ordered. “I’ll tell you if you eat.”

Ofelia didn’t have much of an appetite — the other dinner and having to deal with her mother and future mother-in-law had sucked it right out of her — but she forced herself to focus on the shrimp and fries she’d ordered. “Fine. I will eat.” And she did because she knew as well as Sully that she was going to need her strength for what was to come. She didn’t care if she had to wrestle down every banshee in the city to kill them. If that’s what it took to save Angelique, she was going to do it. “What do we know?”

Sully waited until she’d bit into a shrimp to answer. “We know a banshee was cured at least once. She even told you how she did it, and you texted Ben to make sure that Angelique knows to fight her condition.”

“I’m pretty sure Angelique would fight her condition regardless.”

“Yes, but we have hope, and that’s going to help Angelique, too.”

Since she didn’t disagree, Ofelia nodded as she reached for a fry to dip in ketchup. This wasn’t her preferred meal. Normally, she appreciated all the spicy gumbo and étouffée the Quarter had to offer. Once a week or so, however, she indulged in a fun meal like this. She’d really needed it tonight.

“We know that there were other incidents,” Sully continued. To Ofelia, he sounded as if he were giving a lecture at the police academy. He was very matter-of-fact. She enjoyed it, though.

“It might just be a theory now, but you’re cooking up something in that busy brain of yours regarding paranormals and whatever the banshees have planned,” he continued. “Ellen not being able to feel the banshees when she could before suggests to you that there’s another player involved.”

Ofelia’s mouth fell open. “I didn’t say that.”

“You’re thinking it.”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?”

He shrugged and grinned. “I’ve been with you long enough to know how your mind works. The second we walked into Cathy O’Neill’s house; you were interested in all of the voodoo stuff. Now, I don’t know why that piqued your interest so much. I do know that you’re rolling toward some sort of theory.”

“That doesn’t mean my theory will work,” Ofelia argued.

“Maybe not, but if I have to put my faith in one person’s theory, it’s going to be yours.”

And that was the best thing he could have said to her. She broke out in a grin and grabbed one of the pickles from the container they’d gotten to share. “I have kind of been thinking about something.”

He smiled to encourage her. “Go on. I want to hear it.”

“Well, Angelique is a paranormal. The two women who were scratched from our party, were they paranormals too?”