Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [118]
“Oh, for God’s sake! Max is not drugging—”
“I’m warning you right now,” he said. “Don’t expect me to write more false reports and lie to more cops when I find you and Max knee-deep in missing corpses. I won’t keep covering up for you!”
“I’m not asking—”
“And who’s watching your back while you’re skulking around looking for a body snatcher?” he demanded. “How am I supposed to protect you when you lie to me about what you’re doing?”
“I haven’t lied,” I protested. “I just left out some things. And this is exactly why! Just look at the way you’re behaving now that I’ve told you!”
“Stop right there,” he snapped. “No way is this fight my fault!”
“All right, look, I know how crazy it all sounds. Okay? I do. And I knew how you’d react. Well, I didn’t know you’d be quite this loud,” I said critically. “But I was pretty sure you’d react badly. And you have.”
“You’re talking about a sorcerer raising zombies from the grave!” he shouted. “Of course I’m reacting badly!”
“You need to calm down,” I said firmly. “There’s more that I have to tell you, and I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
“No,” he said. “No. I don’t want to hear anymore. Not unless the next words out of your mouth are that you’ll end your friendship with Max and submit to drug testing.”
I ignored this and said, “What do you think sent Frank Johnson over the edge? He was attacked by the baka!”
“You’ve been talking to—” His dark brows swooped down. “Oh, Jesus, Esther! You used me to find that poor deranged guy?”
“No! I just wanted you to make sure he wasn’t dead!” I said. “I was worried about his safety, because I think Darius Phelps was murdered!”
“Well, at least that’s one thing you and I can agree on,” Lopez said irritably.
“Really?”
“But I’ll never prove it.”
“Because Darius was killed by a voodoo curse?” I said.
“No, Esther,” Lopez said with forced patience. “Because the body is missing.”
“Oh! Right.”
“And even if I find it, it’ll probably be too contaminated by then for forensics to get good evidence.” His shoulders sagged. “Maybe there wasn’t any evidence, anyhow. That’s probably why the hospital is convinced Darius died strictly of natural causes. But I don’t believe it.” He took my shoulders between his hands, and his grip was hard, making me wince a little. “Listen to me. I don’t want you going back to the foundation.”
“You think the killer is there?”
“And I especially don’t want you hunting zombies by night in Harlem.”
“But something is coming! Something very dangerous! Why else would the bokor raise zombies and—”
“Stop talking.” His expression was angry again. “Just stop.”
“That’s why the community held the ceremony tonight!” I said. “Because of the dark magic that someone’s working in Harlem!”
“Enough,” he said.
“No, listen to me! At the ritual, you—”
His mouth came down on mine. I was surprised enough to struggle. He gripped me tighter and kissed me harder, his mouth ruthless and punishing. And I realized I didn’t want to struggle. I surrendered to the angry strength of his arms and the cruel pressure of his mouth. Surrendered and begged for more, kissing him back with all the pent up hunger of the past few months. Where had he been? He should have been here all along, damn him.
I had tried so hard not to think about him. Not to imagine this. I had failed over and over.
“You should have been here,” I said, clinging to him.
“Don’t talk,” he insisted, his breathing harsh and fast now.
“But—” I grunted in surprised pain when he sank his teeth into my lower lip. Then he soothed my bruised mouth with a long, hot, wet kiss as his hands tangled in my hair, holding my head still for his plunder.
His rum-scented breath clouded my mind as he whispered against my mouth, “No more talking.”
He shrugged out of his shirt and dropped it on the floor, still kissing me.
“No more talk,” I said with difficulty. Then I gasped as he roughly tore open the zipper on the side