What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(51)

When Max protested again, Zone came over with a garbage bag and duct tape. “Why waste your breath?” he said to Max. “She’s going to do what she wants.” And he went to work protecting Kellen’s arm from water. When he was satisfied she would keep the wound dry, he gave her the go-ahead.

“I’ll need help,” Kellen said.

Hands up, Zone backed away. “Don’t look at me. I’m retired from sex, but I’m not dead.” He turned to Max. “You two had the kid. You’ve seen her naked.”

Max made the slight pained sound of a man under torture.

If Kellen had any strength left, she would have slugged them both.

“I’ll help Mommy!” Rae hopped to her feet.

“Perfect,” Kellen said. “Thank you, Rae.”

“Mommy, it’s the neatest bathroom ever. The toilet is like an airplane, and the faucet shuts off by itself, and the shower has a chain to pull when you want the water on. I’ll pull your chain!”

Zone snorted.

“Sweetheart, I know you will.” Kellen slid an arm around Rae’s shoulders. “You keep me steady, okay?”

“Okay! Mommy, Zone has canned Spam. Grandma won’t let me have Spam because it’s fatty and disgusting, but Daddy fried slices in the skillet and I ate a Spam sandwich with mustard and kale.”

Kellen’s stomach growled.

“And yogurt with canned peaches and a Twinkie!”

Kellen shut the narrow bathroom door behind them.

The two men stared at it, hearing Rae’s cheerful, chatting voice and Kellen’s occasional quiet reply.

Zone turned to Max. “Start frying the Spam. I’ll open the peaches. Fuck, women are a pain in the ass.”



27


Kellen wore a clean pair of her own leggings and one of Max’s oversize T-shirts, sat at the table and ate the Spam and kale sandwich and the peaches and yogurt, and to keep her company, Rae ate, too.

“Growth spurt on the way,” Zone muttered, his gaze on Rae. When he saw Kellen watching him, he turned away.

Who was he? Kellen had had enough stitches to know these looked like a professional had done them. So he was a doctor? Medic? Nursing professional?

It sounded like he knew about children. So he was a father?

And he was the Restorer, a man whose reputation for verification was so stellar that Nils Brooks sent a valuable artifact on a dangerous countrywide trek to be authenticated by him. According to the bicyclists, he was a jerk. And of course, a recluse, hiding on top of a mountain apart from everyone, despising the world, its people and its frivolities.

Interesting. “I’m sorry about the goddess, Zone. I had to leave her out there.”

“No problem,” Zone said. “Di Luca brought it in.”

“What?” Kellen whipped her head around and stared at Max. “How?”

“It was sitting on a rock and watching. I hadn’t seen it before, but no mistaking what it was.” Max shuddered slightly.

“The Triple Goddess,” Rae announced with a grand gesture that made Kellen look through the double doors into Zone’s workshop.

The marble head stared regally at her from a tall table covered with tools and papers.

Kellen put her hand to her chest. Her heartbeat stuttered and hurried.

Max continued, “No one else was around, so I picked up that thing and came here.”

Kellen tried to make sense of this turn of events. “I yelled at them. Told them the head was theirs. Put it on the top of the rock where they could see it. I used that thing as a diversion to get us away. Why didn’t they take it and run?”

“Three bodies, Max said. It sounds as if they killed each other over it,” Zone said.

Max interrupted, “Rae, do you want something else to eat?”

“Can I have peanut butter and banana?” Rae asked.

Max plucked the last banana, overripe and bruised, off Zone’s counter.

“Hey!” Zone said.

Max opened Zone’s jar of peanut butter, smeared it on the banana and handed it to Rae.

“Peanut butter? Really?” Kellen felt almost ill. “If I never have another bite of peanut butter, it will be too soon.”

Rae stopped, the food halfway to her mouth. “Why, Mommy? Why?”

“Because I said so.” Because I said so? Really? As a kid, Kellen had heard that phrase from her mother and father, her aunt and uncle. She had hated hearing that, and she told herself she would never say that to a child. Now it slipped out without a thought. Had everything she said to Rae been passed down through countless generations of her family?

Abruptly, Kellen knew her arm hurt, her head hurt, and mystery of the head or no mystery of the head, she couldn’t stay up any longer. She had no more reserves. She stood, her hips and back creaking, her thighs protesting. “I’m going to lie back down.”

“Good idea.” Max had a funny tone to his voice. “Maybe you should have listened to me and stayed down in the first place.”

Rae said, “Uh-oh,” and scrunched down in her chair.

Kellen turned back to snap at him and realized—a flush climbed Max’s face from chin to forehead, and a red flame kindled deep in his brown eyes.

And Rae looked like someone who recognized the danger signs. She met Kellen’s gaze and used her sticky banana-and-peanut-butter hand to indicate a mouth opening and closing.