Again, there was that mention of Fletcher Lane helping out other people. That secret part of him that I hadn’t known about. I don’t know why the thought unsettled me, but it did. Or maybe it was just because I was off the edge of the map here. I’d spent seventeen years of my life killing people, and here I was trying to save an old man and his granddaughter from a greedy miner—for free, no less. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Only one thing was certain. It was a hell of a lot more entertaining than my retirement had been so far.

I left the dwarves to watch over Warren and stepped outside. Violet waited with Finn on the porch. Donovan Caine leaned against the porch railing, still brooding.

“Take Violet straight to Eva Grayson’s house,” I told Finn. “No stops.”

Finn pouted. “Would I do something like that?”

“Yes.”

He stuck out his lip a little more. Violet laughed at his expression. Finn’s green eyes swept over her. He grinned.

“Shotgun, Finn,” I murmured to him. “Remember Grandpa Fox and his shotgun.”

That dulled Finn’s smile, but it didn’t completely erase it. Few things could ever do that. Finn had pulled his Cadillac over to the house. He opened the passenger’s side door for Violet, who gave him another shy smile, then slid inside.

After a moment, Finn tore his gaze away from her long enough to glance at me. “Hope you don’t mind sitting in the back,” he said in a very unapologetic tone.

“I don’t mind at all because Donovan’s going to drive me home,” I announced.

Finn blinked. “He is?”

“I am?” Donovan chimed in.

“Yeah,” I said. “You are.”

Donovan’s face tightened a little more in the darkness.

———

Finn and Violet headed back toward Ashland, and Donovan and I did the same in his sedan. We didn’t speak, except when I gave him directions to Fletcher Lane’s house.

We pulled up about thirty minutes later. Donovan Caine peered through the windshield at the rambling, mismatched structure.

“So this is where you live now?” he asked.

“Yeah. It was actually Fletcher’s house, the old man who ran the Pork Pit.”

“Finn’s father, your former handler. The one who was tortured and murdered by Alexis James.”

I nodded. Donovan said nothing.

I stared at the detective, my eyes tracing over the rough planes of his face. “You could come in,” I suggested.

“Spend the night. With me.”

Donovan turned his gaze to mine. Heat. Desire. Guilt.

All that and more flashed in his eyes, but after a moment, he shook his head. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Gin.”

“Why not? A bed would certainly be more comfortable than the backseat of your sedan.” I glanced at the mud we’d left everywhere in our frenzy. “Cleaner now, too.”