Текст книги "Windfall"

Автор книги: Rachel Caine

Соавторы: Rachel Caine
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

Interlude

The storm drives clear skies ahead of it. Warm weather, soft breezes. There is no sense of danger coming, no hint of the chaos moving on the horizon like an invading, destroying army.

The island nation in the way is fat, prosperous, and complacent about its safety. In all of its recorded history, which stretches back a thousand years, it has never been conquered. It is a paradise, a center of trade and culture and learning for half the human world. Its harbors are vast and constantly busy.

It doesn’t matter. Humans have more energy than smaller animals, and the storm craves it.

The storm changes its course, unfurling its killing tentacles toward them.

First warning is the unnaturally clear sky, wrong for the season. Towards evening, the first breezes begin to arrive, and waves come faster, hit harder. A constant roar of surf crashes on high cliffs in explosions of white foam.

In the morning, people gather in the morning’s soft, green-tinted light and find the sea itself boiling in distress where it meets the land. Out toward the far horizon, the storm shows itself in a black line stretching across the curve of the sky. The ocean humps toward them in long, rolling swells, each higher than the last.

The beaches go first, swallowed by wave after wave after wave. There is no alarm, at first. They have seen flooding before. Those living in the valleys and by the sea gather their families and possessions and start a trek inland, whether they will shelter with families or friends.

But the sea keeps rising, and as the storm’s breath begins to blow, they realize that this is no ordinary rain coming to their fair and quiet land.

By the time they ring alarm bells, drawing the people to the temples, to the highest hills, the wind is slashing apart trees and the surge is bringing down everything in its path. They hope for divine intervention, but the wise among them already know the end of the story.

Chapter Six

Two hours? Not enough sleep. Oh, no.

I stumbled up and into the shower, where I finally washed away the blood and sand of the night’s adventures, and realized halfway through that I was still wearing my pull-on jog bra. Ever tried to get one of those off when it’s wet?

Not a pretty picture.

I stumbled comatose out of my bedroom, barely remembering to belt my bathrobe along the way, and started coffee. The asthmatic chug-hiss-chugof the machine echoed through the predawn stillness. Lewis was sprawled out on the floor, wrapped in a blanket. Kevin looked boneless and well rested on the couch. He slept open-mouthed.

War refugees. I felt a prickle along my spine, a dizzying sense that all this was just prelude to something a whole lot worse. I hoped I was wrong.

Not a sound from Sarah’s bedroom. I tapped gently on the closed door, then eased it open.

The two of them were asleep, wrapped tightly around each other. Eamon, in sleep, looked younger and almost angelic, that sharp intelligence missing and a kind of gentleness in its place. His arms were around Sarah. Her back was pressed against his front, and his forehead rested on the disordered silk of her hair.

It looked… sweet. And definitely postcoital.

I shut the door without waking them and went back to stare blankly at the coffeemaker as it peed into the carafe.

A hand on my shoulder made me jump. It was Lewis, yawning, all lean and shirtless and tousled, hair sticking in a dozen directions, eyes heavy-lidded.

“Hey,” I said, and moved away from him. “I made a big pot.”

“I’m going to need a syringe to inject it directly into my bloodstream.”

“IV kit, third cabinet. Rinse it out when you’re done. I’ll need it later,” I said. My hair was still wet. I leaned over the sink and twisted it into a rope, drizzling out a stream of silver water. Lewis busied himself with coffee cup retrieval, sorted through the thrift-store assortment, and handed me a GOT COFFEE? mug with a pop-eyed, jittery Too Much Coffee Man on it. He took Garfield.

“Did you sleep?” he asked me.

“A little.” I’d dreamed, too. Not good dreams. “I’m sorry I got weepy on you. Bad night.”

“I understand.” He poured himself a cup, mutely offered the same to me, and I nodded. “David doesn’t love you.”

I nearly fumbled the cup he was holding out. “What?”

“David doesn’t love you,” he repeated patiently. “He lives for you. I don’t think you understand the difference. Djinn don’t just love. It isn’t a game to them, and it isn’t something they fall out of when it gets old. That’s why the Wardens have rules about these things. Not just because compelling a Djinn against his or her will is—unsavory—”

I thought of Yvette Prentiss, and her use and abuse of her Djinn. And David.

“It’s rape,” I said. “Might as well call it what it is.”

He nodded, sipped coffee, and continued. “Sex, yes. But I’m talking about love. The rules are there to protect Djinn from their own instincts, as well as from anything humans might force them into. Because when they fall in love, it’s … not on a human scale. And people get hurt. I’m worried, Jo. You and David—I know you love him. But the thing is, it’s the kind of love that can destroy both of you. So be careful.”

If he was trying to scare me, he was doing a good job. “David would never hurt me.”

“He hashurt you.” Steam blurred his expression. “Listen, last night you warned me about Kevin. I have to do the same. I like David, and I respect him, but you have to know who and what he is. His instincts won’t always run in your favor. Just… be careful, will you?”

I intended to be. “I have to go to the studio. Will you guys be here when I get back?”

“I don’t know. We really should get on the road, try to get lost. I don’t want to put you and your sister in danger. Well, any more danger than you already seem to have attracted, anyway.”

“You’re too tired to hit the road,” I said reasonably. “If you’re going to flee for your life, at least stay long enough to get some decent meals and rest. Sarah’s a hell of a cook. You can take my bed while I’m gone.”

There’s nothing like the first swallow of coffee after a night of exhaustion; it was like a cattle prod to the spine, a fierce jolt of reality. I savored it and held his stare. “So,” I said. “Are you and Rahel together?”

“What makes you think I’ll answer that?”

“Cold light of day. You’re warning me about falling in love with a Djinn. I’m just curious.”

His expression clearly reflected skepticism of that. “Rahel and I understand each other.”

“Which means, what? You play chess? You give each other backrubs?”

“I don’t think it’s any of your business.” Well, well. Lewis had developed a prim streak. For a guy who hadn’t hesitated to get wild with me on the floor of a college lab, that was a bit hilarious.

“I’m just pointing out that there may be a pot/kettle issue on the table here regarding sleeping with the Djinn.”

“Funny, I didn’t invite you into my private life.”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“Pot.”

“Kettle.”

“Bite me, Lewis.”

“Very mature.”

“Bite me hard!”

“Grow up.”

“You first!”

We stopped, staring at each other, and for no apparent reason, burst into laughter. Flagrant, stupid giggles. Stress and near-death will do that to you. I had to set my coffee down for fear of acquiring more burns he’d have to heal.

When we settled down again—which took a while—I said, “Okay, I’ve thought about it. I’m not going to work today.”

I picked up the phone. Lewis reached over and took it away from me. Our fingers brushed, and he was very close to me.

“You are,” he said. “I don’t think you should stay here.”

“But—”

His fingers twined with mine. “I’m not blind and deaf, Jo. You think I don’t know? You think I can’t feel it?”

I felt horribly off balance. Were we flirting? Had we been flirting? Was he coming on to me? I’d thought he understood…

Lewis said, “No buzz.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

He raised our clasped hands. “No buzz. No resonance. No feedback. Jo, you can’t hide it from me. Your power is gone.”

He wasn’t talking about flirting. He was talking about my Warden abilities… and he was almost right. My power wasn’t completelygone, but it was definitely operating at such a low voltage that he wasn’t drawing a spark from it anymore.

Lewis, who’d always drawn fire and power out of me, couldn’t even feel a tingle anymore.

That wasn’t seduction in his eyes. It was pity.

“Jo—” He let go of my hand and moved damp hair back from my face. “Go to work. I don’t want you here in case things get ugly. You’d get hurt.”

“Sarah—Eamon—”

“I can keep them safe; nobody’s gunning for them. You, however, don’t have enough sense to stay out of the line of fire, and you’ll be a target. Go. Do whatever it is you do.” He winked at me. Winked. “And besides, I love watching you on TV.”

Mona was running a little rough. In-town driving really didn’t agree with her, of course; she needed open road and high RPMs and curves to conquer. Her heart just wasn’t in the few miles to the studio. I patted her console and promised her a weekend in the country soon, not to mention a nice detailing.

Cherise’s convertible was parked in its accustomed space when I arrived. Top up.

I scanned the horizon. Yep, the clouds were crawling closer. Rain later today, for certain.

I checked in with Genevieve, who laconically pointed out my costume hanging on the rack. I did a double take.

“What… ?”

Genevieve, who had for some reason added some white streaks to her hair during the night, as well as a raspberry stripe from front to back, sucked on her cigarette and shrugged. She had a new tattoo as well. I’d never actually seen a woman with a naked woman tattoo before. It seemed recursive.

“You’ve got a new gig, sweetheart,” she said in that tobacco-stained voice.

“Want my advice? Avoid the Fruit.” She meant Cherise, whom Genevieve had nicknamed Cherry back in the early days. Hence, the Fruit.

The costume hanging on the rack was an aqua-blue bikini.

I gulped and held it up. Not enough fabric to it to make a blindfold. It would be different if I was strutting it on the beach, or—better yet—wearing it for David, but for an audience in the hundreds of thousands… I felt faintly violated.

“Um, do I have a—”

“Choice?” Genevieve’s laugh sawed the air. “You’re funny, kiddo.”

I tried a smile, went behind the screen, and changed.

It was worse than I’d thought. I’d had the perfect bikini—in fact, I still had it in a drawer at home—and this wasn’t it. It was way too Penthousefor public view, and it was designed for someone of Cherise’s build, not mine. I felt like I was modeling fabric swatches. The thick bathrobe was a relief. I came out to give Genevieve a miserable look, and she raised one overplucked eyebrow in commiseration.

And then proceeded to torture my hair with hot irons until she was satisfied.

Thirty minutes later, I was walking onto the set, feeling like I was on my way to the electric chair. Clutching my bathrobe in a death grip. Cherise was sitting in a chair over to the side, looking like a thundercloud. I don’t mean frowning, although she was doing that, of course. No, she looked like a thundercloud. As in, blue foam cloud suit, with little drops of silvery rain glittering all over it and hanging by wires. Her legs were covered in thick black tights.

I clapped my hands over my mouth in outright horror. She frowned harder.

“I did notask for this,” I blurted. “God, Cher—”

“I know,” she interrupted. “It’s not your fault.”

“This is awful.”

“Are you wearing my bikini under there?”

“We can quit.”

Cherise managed to look mutinous and defeated at the same time. “And do what? Flip burgers? Internet modeling? I’ve got my pride, you know. I’m a professional.”

Her little, silver suspended raindrops were shivering with indignation.

I swallowed a bubble of laughter and nodded. “Let’s just get through this, okay?”

“I will if you will,” she said, and looked around at the stagehands, who were all staring at us. Probably waiting for me to drop the bathrobe. “You! Assholes! Nobodydrops water on me today unless you want to cash in on that pension, you got me?”

For a little thing, she was ferocious. Nobody answered.

Marvelous Marvin strolled onto the set, toothy as a land shark, and patted his stiff hair. “How do I look, girls?”

“Clark Gable and Valentino all rolled into one,” Cherise said. He beamed at her and moved into his camera position. She glared after him. “They’re dead, asshole.”

“Let me guess. Marvin’s behind this?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. Marvin wants to ogle your ass for a while. And besides, he’s pissed at me because I wouldn’t put out.”

Usually, that would have been a joke, but the way she said it… “Seriously?”

She just looked at me.

“You’re going to report him, right?”

“Oh, yeah, right. Like Bikini Girl is going to get any traction on a sexual-harassment issue. Plus, there’s the whole issue of me having tormented the hell out of every HR person to the point where they run when they see me coming.” She eyed me speculatively. “But you, on the other hand…”

“Me?”

“If he snaps your bikini, you’d report him, right?”

“No,” I said flatly. “I’d kill him.” Especially today. Sonot in the mood for this. I wanted to do this, grab my paycheck—which would be the last one, as I planned to be fleeing soon—and get the hell out.

Whatever Cherise was about to say was cut off by the command for silence on the set, and we stood in silence, waiting for our cues.

Hers came first. I watched her lumber out into public view in her thick, lumpy cloud costume. Watched Marvin deliver his lame-ass jokes at her expense. I’d never really looked at it from this side of the camera before. Damn, I had a really pathetic job.

Marvin had set up a water-drop joke. The stagehand didn’t pull the bucket.

Cherise was just that scary, and besides, the stagehands were union. They didn’t give a shit. When Marvin gave the signal, the stagehand up there just grinned, shrugged, and chomped gum.

Cherise gave him a behind-the-back thumbs-up.

Commercial break. The anchors sniped at each other over who had stepped on whose leads. One of them was rewriting an intro for the next piece. Badly.

Marvin speared me with a look and gave me the toothy grin of death.

“Joanne,” he said. “Let’s flash some skin. You’re up.”

I took a deep breath and slid the bathrobe off of my shoulders, then folded it neatly on a chair. The air felt ice-cold on my all-too-exposed skin. I walked over onto the tiny ocean set, which had glittering white sand, a blue-sky backdrop, and an oversized beach ball. Marvin came over to join me. Close up, his tan looked a shade of orange that earthly sun didn’t produce, and the professionally even smile didn’t really disguise the ruthlessness in his eyes.

“Okay, this is the standard beach setup, right? So look pretty and nod.” He gave me an analytical once-over. “Turn around.”

“What?”

“Turn around.”

I didn’t want to, but I did it, a fast circle. When I was halfway around, he reached out and stopped me.

“Your tag’s showing,” he said, and slipped his fingers into the back of my bikini bottom.

And snapped it.

And burst out laughing.

I spun, with perfect timing, and yanked his toupee off his head just as the camera operator finished his silent three-two-one countdown. The thing felt damp and dead-animal in my hand. I tossed it offstage, to where Cherise was standing.

She fielded it neatly, waved it like a battle flag, and grinned at me.

Marvin was notamused. The red light went on, and he was still glaring at me for a full two seconds before he pulled himself together enough to bare his teeth at the audience and start the shtick. His hair plugs looked naked and sickeningly experimental under the harsh lights, and some of them were standing up stiff as cornstalks from where I’d pulled the toupee off. We were talking about the possibilities for fun and sun in the next three days, I gathered. Marvin talked in totally unscientific generalities about updrafts and warm fronts, and gave us the assurance that we were over the worst so far as hurricane season went. “And I can personally guarantee that the next weekend is going to be spectacular!”

I stood hipshot in my best cover-model pose, waving and smiling. Presenting myself mostly in profile, because it seemed slightly less revealing than standing full-on or (God forbid) facing away.

Marvin turned to me and gave me the most furiously charming smile I’d ever seen.

I smiled back. Give us pistols at ten paces, and we’d be the picture of friendship.

“Why don’t you read the forecast for the next week, Joanne?” he asked. Which gave me a pleasant little shock of surprise.

“Sure,” I said warmly, and caught, too late, Cherise frantically making a no-go gesture with both hands. Damn. Whatever was coming, I’d just walked right into it.

“It’s on the beach ball,” he said.

The beach ball was behind me.

I froze, stared at him for a second, and then recovered my smile. “Would you get it for me, Marvin?”

He kept smiling. “Sorry. I’m busy.”

The whole point was, of course, to get me to turn my nearly naked ass to the camera. I bit the inside of my cheek and decided to just go for it. “Actually, Marvin, I’d like to give it a shot without the notes.”

Which wasn’t what he expected or wanted to hear. He shot a look at the director, who made a bored keep-moving motion. “Sure.” He rolled his eyes for the benefit of the viewers.

“Well, Marvin, from the radar imaging you showed us earlier, it’s pretty obvious that we have a warming trend moving in from the southwest, moving northeast. I’d say from the satellite time-lapse that we can expect to see some clouds later today with a strong possibility of afternoon showers, and by tomorrow, lows in the mid-eighties and highs topping out around ninety-two degrees. The dew point will be around seventy-four, with humidity of about eighty-four percent, rising through the weekend. We can expect to see some thunderstorms by tomorrow evening, about a seventy-three percent chance. So let’s be careful out there. There should be some major electrical activity associated with these storms, as well as the possibility of rising winds.”

I finished it with a wide smile.

There was a stunned silence. The two anchors and the sports guy looked at each other in open-mouthed amazement; I guess they didn’t think a girl in a bikini could so much as string together a sentence, much less deliver a coherent, scientific analysis.

I hadn’t used even a little bit of Oversight to do it, either. I didn’t think I was capable of that, at the moment. I’d done it all from my own observations last night, and the maps, and the same data Marvin had available at his disposal.

And I knew I was right. One hundred percent right.

Marvin looked like a gaffed fish. He must have realized it, because he flushed under the pancake makeup and forced a labored smile in return. “Ha! That’s very funny, Joanne. You’ve been watching a little too much Weather Channel.” He broadly mugged for the camera. “Sorry, folks, but Joanne’s forecast is completely wrong. There’s not going to be any rain. I’ve already guaranteed it.”

“Want to bet?” I asked.

“Oh, we don’t encourage gambling on our show,” Marvin shot back, with a quick, frantic glance at the director. Who was looking enraptured with the sudden tension on the set, and gave him a go-ahead nod. “But I suppose a friendly wager, in the interest of science…”

“If it rains, Marvin, I think you should have to wear the Sunny Suit,” I said sweetly.

The anchors laughed, off camera. Cherise had her fist stuffed in her mouth. All her silver, suspended raindrops were glittering as she shook.

Marvin sputtered and twisted, but after all, he’d given his personal guarantee.

“Well,” he finally said, “I’ll take that bet. Because Marvelous Marvin stands by his predictions!”

The anchors clapped. So did the stagehands, who were all giving me—not Marvin—a big, double thumbs-up.

Marvin did a back-to-you, and the newscast resumed. They were about to interview a 110-year-old man from Coral Gables who had a pet tortoise nearly his own age.

The red camera light flicked off, and Marvin lunged at me. I danced back through the sand, stepped off the narrow ledge onto the cold floor of the studio, and mouthed at him, Want to see my ass?

And then I turned, pointed to it, and walked away, head held high. Put my arm around the squishy mass of Cherise’s costume, and walked her toward the door. I tossed the bathrobe over my shoulder on the way out and made sure that I was doing a full model’s sashay, the entire time.

When I looked over my shoulder, Marvin was doing a silent dance of fury, right in the director’s face. The stagehands were convulsed with silent laughter.

So endeth my career as Weather Girl. Sad, really. I was just getting to like it, in a perverse, kinky kind of way.

It occurred to me, on the drive back, that I had a lot to worry about.

Jonathan’s threat was still in force, and although he’d temporarily forgotten about me, he was almost certainly going to come reinforce his point anytime now.

And whatever wistful hopes I had to repair the damage to David were now officially dead, buried, and had grass growing on their graves.

David was an Ifrit, and I didn’t know how to get him back without human blood and the Ma’at. I was dangerously willing to get the human blood. The Ma’at, however, were notoriously not easy to convince, and with the Djinn in the middle of political warfare, that wasn’t even vaguely an option.

When Jonathan showed up, I’d have to do what he said. I wouldn’t have any choices left.

I felt such a crashing wave of anguish that it left me breathless, tears cold on my cheeks, and I pulled into a strip mall parking lot to let it pass.

It didn’t pass. The waves kept coming, battering me, releasing more and more pain. It was as though a dam had broken inside of me, and I couldn’t stop the flood.

I found myself hunched over, head against the steering wheel, hands over my stomach. Protecting my unborn child, my child who was just an idea, a possibility, a spark.

David was already gone, but he wasn’t dead. He’d told me he had to die for the child to live. Probably.

I tried to sense something, anything, from her, but like the bottle that contained David in thick, obscuring glass, my own body refused to grant me a connection. Was she still there?

Please, I thought to her. Don’t go.

It took me an hour to dry my tears and feel up to facing what was waiting for me at home.

When I arrived, Lewis and Kevin were gone. That wasn’t totally a surprise; Lewis never had liked hanging around waiting for trouble, and he’d be thinking of Kevin, too. I wondered why the Ma’at weren’t rallying to protect him. Yet another thing I should have found the time to ask.

I wished I hadn’t missed Lewis, but at the same time, I was relieved. He’d have taken one look at my reddened eyes and known what I’d been crying about, and I wasn’t really sure I could stand the sympathy just now.

When I closed the door, I heard Sarah banging around in the kitchen. By bangingI mean cooking, with punctuation. I saw Eamon standing in the living room, sipping coffee, and raised my eyebrows; he raised his back and nodded toward the source of the noise.

“I think she’s a bit unhappy,” he said. “Considering that she walked out of the bedroom thinking she’d be alone in the house and, well, she wasn’t.”

I blinked. “That was a problem?”

“It was the way she walked out of the bedroom.”

“You mean she was… ?”

“Naked as the day she was born,” he said with careful gravity. “I think the resulting shriek woke half your neighbors.”

I was going to hell for the fact that this actually cheered me up. I tried to be a dutiful sister. Tried very, very hard. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you, but you guys were asleep—”

“Oh, believe me, it’s not me you have to convince. I thought it was a lot funnier than she did,” he said. “By the way, your friend—Lewis?—said to tell you that you looked great this morning.”

Eamon’s tone had just a bit of a question in it. I felt a blush coming on again.

“On television,” I clarified. “He said he was going to watch me on television. Not like rolling over in bed and saying I looked great or anything.”

“Ah.” Eyebrows up and down. “Of course.”

Hurricane Sarah was making omelets, apparently, with lots of agitated chopping of mushrooms and onions and peppers. Ham had already suffered the same fate.

When I came into the room, she pointed the chef’s knife at me and said, “ You.”

“I surrender. I throw myself on your mercy. Please don’t mince me,” I said, and sat down at the table. There was a pitcher of orange juice out, so I helped myself to a glass. Tart and pulpy, just the way I liked it. I sipped liquid sunshine and waited for the storm to break as Sarah went back to her chopping.

And waited. And waited. She just kept chopping. Finally, I ventured, “So you’re mad, then.”

“Oh, you think?”

“Look, Lewis needed a place to stay for the night. It was late. I didn’t want to wake you—”

“Yes, all very logical, but you’re not the one who wandered out here naked and got ogled by that—lecher!”

“Lewis?” I blinked in surprise. Not that Lewis wouldn’togle—he was a guy, after all, and highly aware of women—but he was usually a lot more subtle about it.

“No, not him. The other one. The kid.”

Oh. Kevin. Of course. “Um, right. Sorry about that. Don’t take it personally. He’s a teenager. He’s constitutionally lecherous.” I edited out the response that began, If you weren’t so focused on shagging Cute British Guy, you might have thrown on a robe, and damn, I’ll bet it was funny…“Are you really mad?”

The chopping paused for three long seconds, then resumed at a slower pace. “No,” she admitted. “I’m embarrassed. First of all, Eamon and I—well, we got carried away. I mean, it was rude of us to stay here, in your home, and—do—what we did. I don’t know what came over me. I’m usually a lot more reserved than that.”

“Hey, I wasn’t even here. Unless you got carried away and had incredible sex in my bed or something…” Oh, man, I didn’t like that silence. “Sarah? Tell me it wasn’t in my bed?”

“Just the once,” she murmured.

I’d thought it looked more than usually rumpled when I came back, but I’d been exhausted and traumatized and distracted.

“I think that makes it a dead heat on insensitivity,” I said. “Speaking of which, thanks for asking me how work went. I got fired this morning. No more Weather Girl.”

“What?” she blurted. “But—how are we going to pay the bills?”

Typical Sarah. Not, Oh my God, that’s awful, are you okay?I eyed the feast she was cooking up. “Well, I did get a decent severance check, mostly because they were afraid I’d sue, given the bikini-snapping by a senior staff member. But I think we’ll have to economize on the haute cuisine. And the couture is right out. Also, anything else with French derivations.”

A quiet cough from the door. Eamon was standing there, looking sober and remarkably self-possessed for a guy who’d appropriated my bed for illicit purposes. “I know you don’t want charity, but I’d be more than willing to offer a loan. Purely to tide you over until you find something else. No strings attached.”

Sarah’s face lit up. Eamon, however, was watching me. Very wise of him.

“No,” I said. “Thanks. It’s a nice offer, but honestly, I can’t accept it. We’ll just figure it out for ourselves.” I didn’t want Sarah to jump from being taken care of by Chrêtien to being taken care of by Eamon. Especially since she barely knew him, for God’s sake. Not that I disliked him—in fact, I thought he was pretty cool—but the pattern bugged me. “Okay, Sarah?”

More agitated chopping. No answer. I sighed and sipped orange juice.

“Were you fired because you were right and that idiot with the hair problem was wrong?” Eamon asked.

“No,” I said. “I was fired because I was right while I was on camera. Plus, I wouldn’t let him snap my swimsuit with impunity.”

Sarah laughed. Eamon didn’t. He just watched me with those cool, quiet eyes, as if he understood everything.

“Good for you,” he said. “You deserve better than that. I heard you give the forecast. It was very clear you deserved his job, at the very least. I doubt they could ever afford your talents, if they understood what you were worth.”

He wasn’t delivering that in a tone of flattery, or admiration—just a dry, brisk, undramatic statement of fact.

I exchanged a look with my sister. She smiled.

“See?” she asked.

I did. I approved. Not that I’d ever admit it, of course. I was, after all, the bratty one.

“So,” I said. “What’s on your schedules for this morning, beyond the best breakfast of our lives?”

“I have some work to do,” Eamon said. “However, after that, I thought I might take you lovely ladies out for a bite of dinner. Would that be acceptable? Someplace nice. Help you forget your troubles for a bit. It’s really the least I can do, after… imposing on your hospitality.”

Sarah got that smile. That secret, glowing smile of Really Good Sex. She gave him a smoking look from under lowered lashes, and I controlled a weary flash of petty jealousy, because I wanted David, I needed him, and I was grieving for him, all at the same time. Sarah might be living her idyll. Mine had crashed headlong into the real world, flamed out, and was plummeting toward earth at Mach One.

I got lost in those waves of sadness again. Luckily, they’d lost a little of their force, and I only got a little hot prickle in the corners of my eyes instead of the full, embarrassing breakdown.

“Jo?” Sarah prodded. “Are you staying here today?”

It was a very good question. I wanted to sit and grieve, but sitting and waiting for all of my dizzying array of enemies to come and take their shots sounded really, really dumb. Much as I wanted to hang out and pretend to have a normal life, that possibility had gone out the window last night on the beach. “I’ve got some things to take care of, too. Will you be all right on your own for a while?”

“Sure.” She gave Eamon another one of those little looks that promised to drag him off to the bedroom. “I’ve been thinking of cleaning up around here. As a thank-you to you, Jo. If that’s all right.”

As long as it kept her busy and preferably not spending any of my dwindling bank account… “Okay. But I want you to keep the phone close, okay? That friend of mine, Lewis, he had some trouble. There may be people looking for him. They wouldn’t hurt you, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful. Don’t answer the door if somebody shows up asking for him, and if you get in trouble, call me.” Eamon made that quiet coughing noise again. “Or, okay, call Eamon. Right?”