Vicki Pettersson - The Given

And if he did have them, he thought, staring at Kit, he’d trade them for just a few more hours with the woman he loved.

“Hey,” Kit said, leaning close to peer up into his face. “We’re still going to solve this thing, okay? You have to believe. Please, don’t give up before—”

She cut off as her phone began to ring in her hand.

She’d been about to say, Before your time is up. Yet she let it go, because neither of them needed the reminder of that.

“It’s Marin,” she said instead, flashing him the screen. “She’s been calling almost since we left her.”

“She must be worried about me,” Zicaro piped up, sitting tall.

Yet before Kit could connect, a squad car came peeling around the corner, cutting directly through the lot to screech to a stop before them. Grif pulled Kit close, placing one protective arm around her waist as both patrol doors flew open.

“Hands up!” said the officer on the passenger’s side, and he had one hand on his holstered gun, the other pointing, oddly, at Kit.

“Stokes, please,” the other man said wearily, and only then did Grif recognize Dennis. It was the expression on his face rather than the uniform that had kept Grif from doing so at first. The man usually looked at Kit with admiration, or barely disguised longing, but now his face was marred with a deep frown. “Kit. You need to come with us.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, the hand with her phone—ringing again—falling to her side.

Marin’s been calling almost since we left her.

Shit, thought Grif, looking up again.

“What’s going on here?” Zicaro asked, pushing his wheelchair toward Stokes.

“Sir, we need you to step . . . er, roll back.”

Instead, Zicaro ran over the man’s foot. “I’m not going nowhere! What the hell do you want with Ms. Craig?”

Dennis held up a hand. “We just want to—”

“Ms. Craig,” Stokes said, raising his voice to be heard over Dennis as he glared at Zicaro and moved behind Kit to take her hands. She automatically handed her phone to Grif. “You’re wanted for questioning in the murder of Gina Alessi. You have the right to refuse.”

“What?” Kit and Grif exploded at the same time that Zicaro nearly leaped from his chair.

Stokes grinned. It was the response he’d been looking for, and he put his hand on the weapon at his hip. “Or we could arrest you. Then you have the right to remain silent.”

“That’s absurd!” Zicaro went nuts, chicken neck lengthening as he yelled from left to right. “Police brutality!”

The officer shot Zicaro a warning look, but his eyes shifted to the crowd beginning to gather in the lot and then back at Zicaro. It was clear he didn’t want to be seen roughing up an old man. “Sir, back off and don’t make me tell you again. You want to come downtown, too, we can take it up there.”

Zicaro stared for a long moment, then cursed and fumbled in his sweater pocket for his own phone, grumbling about calling the real authorities.

Grif turned back to Dennis. “What the hell’s going on?”

“I’m sorry, Kit.” Dennis met her gaze, but shook his head. “But your prints were all over the place.”

“Oh, come on!” Kit whirled side to side as Stokes pulled her toward the car. “I’m the one who tipped you off about the place! And you know me! I’d never kill an old woman!”

“Yeah?” said Stokes, unmoved. “Then what about Ray DiMartino?”

“Shit.” Grif rubbed a hand over his face, and Zicaro slowly lowered his phone.

“Kit,” Dennis warned. “Don’t say any more.”

“Let’s go,” Stokes said, nudging her forward. Kit stumbled and Grif reached for her, but Dennis angled between them.

“You’re not helping her, Shaw,” Dennis said, hand on Grif’s chest. “Let her go. I’ll take care of her.”

Stokes was propelling Kit forward, even though she was gazing at Grif over her shoulder. Her eyes were wide, her face bewildered. “Call Marin back. Tell her to call our lawyer.”

A lawyer? “Kit—”

“She’s right,” Dennis said, as Stokes lowered Kit into the back of the squad car. “I’ve seen the crime scenes, both of them. She’s going to need one.”

Grif finally managed to find his voice. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to her.”

“I’m doing it for her,” Dennis growled, pushing Grif away. “I’m not the enemy here, Shaw.”

And treating him like one wasn’t going to help Kit. Grif finally nodded as Zicaro, who’d listened to the whole exchange, and wheeled up to his side, saying, “Go ahead and call Marin. I’ll head back inside and make some phone calls from there. I still have friends downtown. I’ll cash in some chips, see what I can learn.”

“Okay.” But Grif couldn’t move. Even after the squad car disappeared, he stood in the whipping wind of the old parking lot, the sky bright and wide above him. Somewhere behind that sharp baby-blue cover were stars and comets, universes expanding and dying. Beyond that, the Everlast, where winged beasts awaited his return. Beyond that, the Gates and Paradise, a place Grif was no longer sure he’d ever see.

Glancing down, Grif squinted at his watch. Speaking of seeing, he was suddenly having trouble differentiating the large hand from the small.

You’ll start having problems with your five senses, one at a time at first, but they’ll all worsen.

Blinking hard, he finally made out the time. Two in the afternoon. Only fourteen hours left until the anniversary of his death. He dizzied at the thought, but not because he was growing weaker. The thought of spending his last hours on this mudflat without Kit by his side exhausted him, but he clenched his jaw and forced himself to dial the last known caller on Kit’s phone.

“Marin,” he said when she answered, though he had to stop to clear his throat. He should have drank the water the waitress had brought. His mouth had gone completely dry.

“Where’s Kit?” was all she said, and he could tell that she already knew. Out of courtesy, Dennis had probably called her first.

“She’s being set up,” he told her.

“I know,” Marin said, and for once he was glad for her curt disposition. “Dennis already called me. I’m headed down to the station now, but you need to go to the Sunset Retirement Community. Now.”

“Why?” He could see no reason, but that didn’t keep nerves from tunneling through his stomach.

“Because the authorities have spent the last couple of days interviewing the residents. It’s taken some time. It’s . . . hard. There’s dementia to deal with, and the elderly don’t like upheaval, as a rule.”

“So?” Grif asked. He didn’t see what any of it had to do with him anymore. They’d uncovered the trust-fund fraud. They knew why the staff had questioned Zicaro and held him against his will, as well as why Barbara had visited him.

Barbara, he thought, mind shooting off in that direction. She was behind this. First him and Evie, now Kit . . .

“Grif!”

He realized it was the fourth time Marin had said his name. He shook his head. “What?”

“I got a hold of the county official in charge of the fraud investigation this morning and convinced him to let me speak to the new health services director. Grif, I asked her about Gina Alessi. She’s been living at Sunset the whole time. Years. Room 330. Suffers from Alzheimer’s. No family. They say that the staffing change has been especially hard on her these past few days.”

“But Gina Alessi is dead,” he began, but in the back of his mind he heard, She wants it all.

She . . . a woman who had a knack for hiding in plain sight. “Barbara,” he whispered.