Secrets of the Demon (Kara Gillian 3)

I’d been a detective long enough to know that she was hiding something from me. “Anyone I know?” I pressed.

She kept her eyes on the road and shrugged again. “Um, well it’s a small town, so anything’s possible.” She abruptly veered to the right to take a side street, forcing me to quicken my pace to catch up with her. “Let’s cut through here and run along the lakefront, okay?”

“Sure,” I muttered, fairly sure that the change in direction was an excuse to change the subject as well.

“There’s a five-K race next month,” she said next, confirming my suspicion that she wanted to talk about something else.

Okay, so maybe she’s simply a really private person. Or maybe she thinks I’d be upset if I knew who she’d been dating? The only possible way I’d be upset was if she was dating Ryan, but even though the jealous third grader in me wanted to rear its pigtailed head, I simply couldn’t see the two of them dating. And why would she be encouraging me to make a move on him if that were the case?

Right?

I scowled and slapped my inner third grader down as we finally made the turn to head back to her house. I had enough drama in my life. I didn’t need to fabricate any more.

Chapter 10

I showered and changed into my work clothes at Jill’s house—a far more convenient option than making the thirty-minute drive back to my house to do so, where I would then have to make another thirty-minute drive to get to the station. My cell phone rang as I was toweling off after my shower, but since I recognized Ryan’s ringtone, I finished drying off and getting dressed first. It felt a bit weird to think about talking to him on the phone when I was naked. Yes, I was that stupid.

“I figured you’d have called earlier,” I said after I called him back.

“Don’t you go running in the mornings with Jill now?”

I frowned. Had I told him about that? I couldn’t remember. Not that it was a big secret or anything. “Yeah, my twice weekly dose of ‘let’s hang out with someone who makes me feel like an out-of-shape slob.’”

He laughed. “You’re far from a slob.”

“I notice you didn’t say that I’m far from out of shape,” I pointed out.

“You’re far from a slob,” he repeated.

“Asshole,” I grumbled, but I was smiling.

“Don’t compare yourself to Jill, fer crissakes. She was nearly an Olympian.”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t you know? She was a hotshot gymnast—expected to nail the trials and go to the Olympics ... um, ten years ago or so. Then she had a bad fall, hit her head, and dropped out of competition.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling oddly hot and cold at the same time. “No, I didn’t know that.” And how do you? I’m supposed to be her best friend, and yet you know these things?

“Find anything in your research?” he asked, pulling me out of my stupid little pity spiral.

My lips twitched. This was his way of asking if I’d found out anything from Rhyzkahl, but I knew he had no intention of mentioning the demonic lord. “Nope. Yesterday was pretty much a bust for getting any sort of useful info.” There. That covered the summoning, without saying it outright.

He muttered a curse. “Which means we’re pretty much at a standstill with this now. Any other cases at work that you can sink your teeth into?”

“Not really. Things are pretty slow right now.” Then I cringed.

There was a pause. “I can’t believe you said that,” Ryan said, voice low and ominous.

I laughed. “Me neither. Holy shit, I just totally jinxed myself.”

“Dork,” he said with a chuckle. “Okay, give me a call later on.”

“I’ll try to squeeze you into my busy schedule,” I promised.

The biggest drawback to starting my shift at ten was a distinct lack of parking places in the detectives’ parking lot. I scowled and circled the small lot twice in the misguided hope that a free space would magically appear, but my arcane powers failed me in spectacular fashion by refusing to vaporize any of the other vehicles in the lot and thus saving me the walk from the side parking lot.

Oh, whoopee. I could summon demons, but I couldn’t get a parking space.