Page 93 of A Shade Too Far
Tatiana was a nightmare on the road, totally confident in her abilities, while causing deep fear in everyone unlucky enough to be in her path—or her car.
I leaned my cheek against the cool glass. No rolling down windows in this vehicle. Naveen had adjusted the air conditioning immediately after starting the engine.
He drove like a man with a goal. His movements, be they changing gears with his manual transmission, changing lanes, or turning, were done with ease, calm, and absolute focus.
Unlike me, he didn’t screech to a halt at red lights, sending passengers rebounding into their seat belts. He had this uncanny knack for assessing the perfect distance at which he should begin braking, coming to an even halt every time.
Nor did he possess Laurent’s style of absolute control that was a breath away from smashing into a guard rail, should some button in his head flip.
“Stop watching me. I’m a good driver.” Naveen drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for the red light to change.
“Why do you have people? What exactly do you do?”
“I kill demons and demon accessories.” He drawled it in the Texan voice of Hank Hill, the cartoon character, and I laughed. “Did you think I was a lone wolf?”
I snapped a loose thread off the hem of my skirt. “No, there can only be one of those. Speaking of which,” I feigned a casual interest, “did his plane arrive on time?”
“Haven’t spoken to him. As for my people or further information on what I do, it’s classified.”
Intrigued, I half turned toward him. “Like Black Ops, classified? Do you work for some shadowy government organization who’d deny your existence should you botch a job? Do the Lonestars know?”
He ignored me, powering on the stereo. The smooth crooning of Robbie Williams’s “Millennium” flowed through the speakers.
“Not what I expected.” I grinned evilly. “You had frosted tips in your late teens, didn’t you?”
“Coming from a woman dressed like a…” He raked a glance over me. “I don’t even have words for that outfit. Stones and glass houses, darling.”
“I was rush-packing to avoid demon hordes and I grabbed the wrong things.”
“Mmm.” He didn’t sound convinced. He also didn’t answer any further questions about his work or his best friend’s travel itinerary, so I changed tactics while enjoying Robbie Williams’s greatest hits.
“How does a person go to the demon realm?”
“They don’t.” He shifted gears, his biceps flexing. He was broader across the shoulders than Laurent, and his insouciance only added to his overall handsomeness. Combine that with the intelligence gleaming out of his eyes, his posh accent, and his warrior’s alertness and I understood Eli’s attraction.
“At least one did,” I said. “The man disappeared for three weeks and when he returned, he’d been cured of a terminal cancer diagnosis thanks to a demon parasite who spent the next thirty years puppeteering his shadow.”
Naveen cut in front of the car in the lane to our right. There was a screech of tires and a blaring horn behind us.
I yelped, digging my fingers into the sides of my seat and pumping imaginary brakes.
He jammed the sports car into a parking spot at the curb and wrenched up the emergency brake with a wildness that had me reaching behind my back for the door handle. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I swear. It was the Lonestar who covered up my parents’ murders when I was a teen.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead.” I flinched at his furious expression, Robbie Williams’s “Rock DJ,” providing a discordant soundtrack. “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t do it. I went to talk to him about what had happened and someone or something broke his neck and set his house on fire. Exactly like with my parents.”
Naveen slammed his hand on the wheel, then pulled out his phone and punched in a number. “It’s me. Find out everything you can about—” He snapped his fingers at me.
“Not a dog.” I crossed my arms.
Naveen shot me a smile with too many teeth. “His name. Please.”
“Fred McMurtry. Tatiana compiled a dossier…” I trailed off under his withering look.
Naveen pressed me for a few more details, growing grimmer and grimmer as I filled him in on Fred’s memory loss and rote recitation of answers pertaining to the missing three weeks of his life and the fire set in my family home. But he relayed it all to the other person, issuing further details to look into. “Was he kidnapped? Did he go willingly? If we have crossover happening…” He pressed his lips together, shaking his head at whatever the other person was saying. “Yes, thank you, Clea. I understand that.”
