Free Chill Factor by Rachel Caine Page B

her hand to pet the silver chain and ornaments, which were small clouds and lightning bolts. ‘Yes. You know your jewellery.’
    Paul rolled his eyes. ‘If it gets worn, she knows about it,’ he said. ‘Go ahead. Show her your shoes.’
    Lel obligingly extended an elegant leg in denim. I glanced at the footwear for a second, looked back into her lovely hazel eyes, and said, ‘Kenneth Cole.’ She gave me a self-satisfied smirk. ‘Knockoffs,’ I finished. ‘Probably Taiwan.’
    The smile went wherever bad smiles go, and she yanked her leg back out of sight. ‘I wasn’t dressing for the prom,’ she shot back. I thought about pointing out that Velada jewellery was hardly appropriate for breakfast at Denny’s, but gave it up. Hell, my shoes were out of pedigree, too. It happens.
    Paul was going to lengths to hide a smile. Marion wasn’t even bothering. ‘OK,’ Paul said. ‘Sounds like you guys are going to get along great. You know the route?’
    Lel nodded. Carl contented himself with gobbling leftover buttered toast. Not her, I noticed;she wasn’t wasting her perfect lipstick on anything so useless as breakfast.
    I didn’t like her, and it wasn’t because of the shoes. Something about her raised my hackles. Carl was just a cipher, but Lel I really didn’t want to be in a car with all the way to Florida.
    Speaking of which, I had a bad, bad thought. ‘Um, Paul? Can I take my car?’
    He nodded. ‘Yeah, fine. You drive. They’ll just ride along.’
    ‘Both of them?’
    ‘You got a back seat, right?’
    Not much of one, but I wasn’t going to be concerned about their comfort. ‘Sure.’ And the minute I could ditch my escort, I’d be heading back to pick up the pieces of this disaster. Because it was going to be a disaster. No doubt about it.
    Carl finished the toast, swilled down half a cup of coffee with a noisy slurp, and stood. Lel followed suit more slowly.
    ‘Jo.’ Paul reached out and took my hand, just for a second. ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘Oh, you’re not nearly sorry yet,’ I said. ‘Get back to me later, though.’
    It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, to walk away and leave David behind.
    I’ll find you . I promised it to him with a grim, burning fury. I will. No matter what.

    My Viper started up with a roar.
    Lel had called shotgun, leaving a disgruntled Carl in the cramped back seat. She seemed completely uninterested about why they were babysitting me on a drive back to Florida; in fact, she slipped on headphones and flipped a switch on an iPod, and ignored me completely. Which was fine with me. I backed my midnight-blue Mona out of her parking space and eased her into gear. The freeway beckoned ahead.
    ‘So that was your Djinn, right?’ Carl asked, just as we hit merging speed. Nobody on the road in either direction. I opened Mona up to eighty and kept an eye on the horizon for cops or storms. ‘Your Djinn they’re trading over to the kid? Must suck, right?’
    ‘Sucks,’ I agreed tightly. ‘We’re not going to chat, right?’
    ‘Long damn trip if we don’t.’
    ‘Longer if we do.’
    He sighed and settled back. Lel bobbed her head in time with a beat I couldn’t hear, and I watched the miles start to spin away.
    There was a huge, gaping empty space inside me. I couldn’t feel David anymore, and that was the worst part. Not knowing where he was, what they were doing with him. How could they believe Kevin? Were they really that stupid, or just that desperate? Kevin wasn’t exactly a brilliantstrategist, but he had a certain criminal cunning…and you could count on the fact that if he had the chance to double-cross you, he would. He was greedy, he was selfish, and he’d never been treated fairly in his life. He’d believe you were going to screw him anyway, so why wait?
    As a survival strategy, not half-bad. As a way to live, it was a tragedy.
    I kept half my attention up on the aetheric as I drove, looking for trouble and hoping for a sign. There was a huge