Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

I told him lightly—pressing the handset into my face until it almost hurt. “I love you.”
    â€œI’ll be there.”
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    I LEFT CORBAN SITTING IN THE LIVING ROOM AND WALKED reluctantly down the stairs. I didn’t want to know for sure that the oakman was dead. I didn’t want to confront Catherine if she was still about ... and I thought she would have killed me if she could have. But I also didn’t want to be naked when Adam came.
    The oakman was gone. I decided that it must be a good thing. The fae didn’t—as far as I knew—turn into dust and blow away when they died. So if he wasn’t here, that meant he’d left.
    â€œThank you,” I whispered because he wasn’t there to hear me. Then I put my clothes on and ran up the stairs to wait for rescue with Corban.
    When Adam came, he had the yellow car I’d asked him for. It was a one-sixteenth scale model of a VW bug. He watched as I took it out of the package and followed me down the stairs and set it on the bed in the small room where I’d first woken up.
    â€œIt’s for you,” I said.
    No one answered me.
    â€œAre you going to tell me what that was about?” Adam asked as we went back upstairs.
    â€œSometime,” I told him. “When we’re telling ghost stories around a campfire, and I want to scare you.”
    He smiled, and his arm tightened around my shoulders. “Let’s go home.”
    I closed my hand on the lamb necklace I’d found on the table next to the phone, as if someone had left it for me to find.

13
    THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY WE PAINTED THE GARAGE. True to his word, Wulfe had removed the crossed bones. The least he could have done was repaint the door, but he’d managed to remove the bones and leave the graffiti that had covered them alone. I thought he’d done it just to bug me.
    Gabriel’s sisters had voted for pink as the new color and were very disappointed when I insisted on white. So I told them they could paint the door pink.
    It’s a garage. What can it hurt?
    â€œIt’s a garage,” I told Adam, who was looking at the Day-Glo pink door. “What can it hurt?”
    He laughed and shook his head. “It makes me squint, even in the dark, Mercy. Hey, I know what I can get you for your next birthday,” he said. “A set of open-end wrenches in pink or purple. Leopard print, maybe.”
    â€œYou have me confused with my mother,” I said with dignity. “The door was painted with cheap spray paint—as no reputable paint company had anything this gaudy in their color palette. Give it a couple weeks, and it’ll turn this sickly orangish pink color. Then I can hire them to paint it brown or green.”
    â€œPolice have searched Blackwood’s house,” Adam told me. “They haven’t found any sign of Blackwood or Amber. Officially, they believe Amber might have run off with Blackwood.” He sighed. “I know that it tarnishes Amber unfairly, but it was the best story we could come up with and still leave her husband in the clear.”
    â€œThe people who matter know,” I told him. Amber didn’t have any immediate family she cared for. In a few months, I was tentatively planning a trip to Mesa, Arizona, where Char was living. I’d tell her, because Char was the only other person Amber would care about. “No one is going to get into trouble about this, are they?”
    â€œThe people who matter know,” he answered with a faint smile. “Unofficially, Blackwood scared the bejeebers out of a lot of people who are glad to see him gone. No one will take it further.”
    â€œGood.” I touched the bright white wall next to the door. It looked better. I hoped that it wouldn’t scare away customers. People are funny. My customers look at my run-down-appearing garage and know they are saving the money I don’t put into face-lifts.
    Tim’s cousin Courtney had paid for all of the paint and labor in return for my dropping the charges against her. I figured she had been hurt enough.
    â€œI heard you and Zee worked out something on the garage.”
    I nodded. “I have to repay him immediately—he said so, and he is fae so it must be done. He’s going to loan me the money to do it at the same interest rate as the original loan.”
    He grinned and opened the pink door so I could precede him inside. “So you’re