Free The Curse Keepers (Curse Keepers series) by Denise Grover Swank Page B

pawnshop. Are you always this dense?”
    “Are you always this rude?”
    He shrugged.
    I could have countered but what was the point? I left Collin at the door and grabbed my purse. I wished I had time to talk to Daddy. But that would only help if he was having a good day, and those were becoming rarer and rarer. Wishing was wasted effort, something I’d learned years ago, on a cold stormy night when I was eight years old. Instead of wishing, I was putting my life in the hands of the stranger in front of me.
    Why did I worry that I’d live to regret it?

C HAPTER S EVEN
    I climbed into Collin’s beat-up pickup truck, wrinkling my nose as I shut the rickety door. The windows were down and the red vinyl seats were hot and tacky. I was putting my life into his hands with all the curse nonsense, and apparently that also meant I’d literally be putting my life in his hands with this rust bucket. “We can take my car.
Really
.”
    The engine sputtered, and he turned to me and smirked. “Oh, ye of little faith.”
    Why did I think his words had a double meaning?
    The truck jerked backward as I tried to fasten my seatbelt. “Can you wait?”
    “No. We don’t have time to waste.” He pulled onto Sir Walter Raleigh Street and I cast a glance at the inn as we passed by. Myra’s car wasn’t parked next to the house, not that I expected her to be there. I hoped Daddy’s home care nurse could stay longer. If I wasn’t working at the New Moon, I usually filled in for Myra when she couldn’t get home in time.
    I turned my attention to the road. I didn’t want to explain Daddy’s situation to Collin. A wave of melancholy washed over me as I tried to remember Daddy as the vibrant man I knew from before my mother’s death, but it was so long ago that the memory had become fuzzy. I definitely did my best to block out the year after her death. Mostly what I remembered of Daddy pre-Alzheimer’s was after Myra came into our lives, filling our days with hope and love. I preferred not to think of Daddy as the broken shell he was now,and I didn’t like others thinking about him that way either. The man with the vacant stare wasn’t my Daddy.
    “Well?” Collin asked.
    I shook myself out of my stupor. “What?”
    “So where are we going?” Collin asked.
    “Kill Devil Hills.”
    His eyebrows rose as he turned to look at me. “Kill Devil Hills?”
    I shrugged, staring out the windshield. “I didn’t want anyone in town to know that I pawned it.”
    His mouth pursed, and his brow wrinkled in disapproval. I shouldn’t care one way or the other what he thought, but to my annoyance, I did. Still, Collin Dailey didn’t get to stand in judgment of me. He didn’t know what I’d been through.
    “So if my relic is a pewter cup and yours is a wooden bowl, what does that mean?”
    Collin shifted in his seat and he gripped the steering wheel. “We use them in the ceremony.”
    I’d already gathered that part. “I don’t know anything about the ceremony—”
    “That’s a surprise.”
    “So we get the relics, we perform the ceremony, and we shut the gate.”
    “Something like that.”
    “Care to elaborate?”
    He shot me a nasty grin. “Not really.”
    I was going to see Daddy the minute I got back. I’d learn to perform the damn ceremony without Collin Fucking Dailey. Well, maybe I couldn’t perform it without him, but if I knew more about the curse I wouldn’t be so dependent on him for answers. I got the sense that he’d only dole out information on a need-to-know basis. “So, if we can’t get my relic back, can we use something else?”
    “We could try, but I doubt it would work.”
    My stomach twisted. “I really hope the cup is still there.”
    “Wait. How long was the contract for? Ninety days, right? So then you have an additional sixty to pay it off.”
    I glanced at my lap and twisted the hem of my T-shirt.
    “Ellie?” Collin sounded desperate. “Tell me the contract was for ninety days.”
    I suddenly