Charlaine Harris

by Night's Edge

  CHAPTER TWO

  WHEN SHE WAS AROUND, the hair on the back of his neck bristled the way a cat’s will in the presence of a killer dog. He always tensed up the instant before he saw her. It was not a case of extrasensory perception, no matter what his harebrained assistant might like to believe. More likely a case of instinctive self-preservation.

  She was nearby, all right. It wasn’t a scent, exactly, though now that he was alert, he could just detect a faint whiff of that aroma that always floated around her. Not a powerful fragrance—not even a perfume or cologne. Maybe it was the soap she used or something. He only knew it was unique, an aroma he equated with his biggest headache. It shouldn’t seem like a sexy scent to him. But it did.

  Jack lifted his head and scanned the dim room, but he couldn’t see her. Candles flickered from the shelves that lined the walls. Their dancing light was refracted in the slow-turning crystal prisms suspended from the ceiling, and transformed into living rainbows that crept over the walls and floor. The purple curtains that separated this room from the rest of the shop were closed, and revealed nothing.

  She was out there, though. No doubt about it. The persistent little pain in the ass.

  Finally, Jack refocused on the nervous woman who sat across from him, fidgeting with her purse straps. Really on edge, this one. Even more than most people were their first time. At least now he knew why; she was just another weapon in Kiley Brigham’s one-woman crusade against charlatans like him.

  He barely restrained himself from cussing loud and long—not a good quality in one who purported to be in touch with the spirit world—and forced a serene smile for his new client.

  “I’m sorry, Martha. I just can’t seem to get a response from your dear departed husband.”

  “You can’t?”

  He shook his head sadly. “It’s odd. Feels almost as if he—” Jack pinned her with his gaze “—doesn’t exist,” he said. “It’s as if you made him up, just to—I don’t know—test me or something.”

  She blinked twice, gaping, and Jack saw just enough guilt in her eyes to confirm his guess.

  “That’s impossible, of course,” he went on. “You wouldn’t do something like that to me, would you, Martha?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Maybe you’ll have better luck with another medium. I could give you some names.”

  “No, thank you. I’ll just…” She let her voice trail off as she rose.

  Her small wooden chair scraped over the marble tiles, a growl of discord breaking the spell of the haunting New Age music that whispered in magical Gaelic of fairies and poisoned glens and other such nonsense.

  “Don’t rush off,” Jack told her, rising as well. “I insist on refunding your money. I’m not a thief, you know.”

  She took a step backward, toward the curtain, clearly itching to get out of there. She actually leaned toward the curtain as she moved, actually reached behind her for it long before she was close enough to touch it. “You, uh, you can mail it to me,” she rushed on, her feet shuffling away from him, slowly but steadily.

  “All right, I’ll do that. Do you want to give me your address, Martha, or shall I just save time and send the money to Kiley Brigham?”

  The purple curtain flew open even as Martha kept groping for it, and he was not surprised to see Kiley herself on the other side, mad as hell, judging by the way her face was screwed up. “Damn you to hell, McCain!” Her hands were braced on her hips and she was breathing a little too fast. She did the heaving-bosom thing well. She certainly had the bosoms for it. Candlelight illuminated the hot-pink spots on her cheeks and the fire in her green eyes. Cat’s eyes, she had, and hair blacker than ink. Hell, she ought to be the one running this scam. Her exotic looks would attract customers like moths to the porch light.

  Well, she’d have to dress the part, of course. Those tight-fitting, faded jeans and that T-shirt that read “Keep Your Opinions Out of My Uterus” would never cut it.

  But Kiley Brigham, girl columnist, wasn’t interested in taking up his line of work. Instead, she was intent on ruining what he’d built into an incredibly lucrative business.

  Martha, he realized, was long gone. Must have darted out of the room while he’d been perusing his nemesis, who, he realized, had been perusing him right back.

  “Tell me something, Brigham,” he said, relaxing back into his chair. “Were you mauled by a pack of mediums as a child?”

  She sent him a smirk that should have burned holes through him, but said nothing. Her probing green eyes were busy now, scanning the room: narrow, suspicious, searching. He hated to admit it made him a little nervous to have her looking around his place so closely.

  “So what do you want?” he asked to break her concentration. “You come for a reading? Want me to tell your future, Brigham? Read your palm? What?”

  As planned, her gaze returned to him. “How the hell did you know I was here?”

  He rolled his eyes, shook his head. “I’m clairvoyant , remember?”

  “And I’m a Republican.”

  A grin tugged at the corners of his lips. He battled it and finally won. “So what do I have to do? Slap you with a restraining order?”

  “You really think it would help?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” he said.

  She bristled, but only for a moment. It seemed to him the wind left her sails far more quickly than usual. She heaved a sigh and sank into the chair the other woman had occupied.

  “Did you have to scare her like that, McCain? You know how tough it is to find out-of-work actresses who come as cheap as that one?”

  He did smile now. It seemed safe. Her rage was ebbing, and in record time. It made him wonder what was wrong. “You want something to drink?”

  “Not if you’re gonna try to foist some herbal, trance-inducing tea on me, I don’t.”

  “Guess you’re outta luck, then.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You don’t really drink that crap. You can fool everyone else in this town, including the tourists, but you can’t fool me. Why don’t you drop the act?”

  He pursed his lips as if thinking it over, then said, “Nah. Business is booming these days.” He narrowed his eyes at her and leaned forward, flattening his palms to the table. “Largely thanks to that nasty little column of yours discrediting my competitors one by one on a weekly basis.”

  She leaned over the table, too, her palms on the gleaming hardwood surface like his, her face only inches away. “You make a living by feeding innocent victims a line of bull. They hand over their hard-earned money for the privilege of being duped.”

  “I make a living by giving people who might not listen to a therapist psychologically sound advice. I’m good at what I do. I help people. You, on the other hand, make a living putting hard-working people like me out of business. I’ll take my karma over yours anytime.”

  “Karma, schmarma.” She sat back, her palms gliding in tight circles on the small round table. “You know as well as I do that there’s no such thing. No psychics, no ghosts, no magic.”

  “No God?” He asked the question idly, as if he could care less.

  She was silent for a long moment, so preoccupied she didn’t even notice him looking at her. Her eyes looked a little puffy, as if she hadn’t slept. There was a tautness to her face that suggested worry.

  Then, her gaze still focused inward, she said, “I don’t get it, McCain.”

  “Don’t get what?”

  She shrugged. “Look at this picture. It’s skewed, don’t you think? You’re the crook. I’m the crusader. So how come you get the adulation and I get the hate mail?”

  “It’s adulation you want, huh, Brigham? The love of your fellow man?”

  “I don’t want anyone to love me. I’ve scraped by without it for this long, haven’t I?” She said it lightly and rushed on before he could identify the emotion that came and went in her eyes. “I’d be happy if they’d just stop with the death threats.”

  Jack started to laug
h, but it died in his throat when he looked into her eyes. There had been no lightness in her tone this time, no laughter in her eyes. She wasn’t kidding.

  “You’ve been getting death threats?”

  “Just the one, actually. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about it, would you? Quaint little love note on my bathroom mirror, written in what the police department tells me is blood. Human blood, I learned this morning. Cute, huh?”

  It wasn’t his imagination. She shuddered when she said it, though the way she gritted her teeth made it obvious she was trying real hard not to show the slightest hint of upset. Hell, her face had gone a full shade whiter. It was as he was studying the pallor of her skin that Jack noticed his own new position. Now, just when the hell had he come out of his chair and around to her side of the table? She rose as he stared down at her, as if she didn’t like having to look up at him. Or maybe it was that she didn’t want him to see her teetering.

  Too late for that, though.

  “When did this happen?”

  She shrugged, avoiding his eyes. “I was soaking in the tub last night. I got up and went into the bedroom for my robe, and when I came back it was there on the bathroom mirror. For all I know they could have been right on the other side of the shower curtain from me at some point.” Her lower lip quivered, but she bit it hard and quick, then gave her head a shake. “Bastard’s lucky I didn’t see him.”

  “This isn’t funny, Kiley. Jesus, have you got the police on this?”

  She nodded. “Look, don’t trouble yourself over it. I didn’t come here for sympathy.”

  He wanted the animosity back. He wanted to fight with her, wanted her back to insulting his moral fiber instead of making him feel sick on her behalf. “No, you just dropped in to chat, ruin my business and accuse me of threatening your life. I love these little visits of yours.” As an attempt to rekindle the banter, it was sadly lacking. But it worked all the same.

  “Drop dead, McCain,” she said.

  Ah, that was more like it. “Same to you, Brigham.”

  Her head came up fast, green eyes meeting his, wider than he’d ever seen them. “You mean that?”

  He felt as if she’d punched him in the gut. But she just stood there, waiting for an answer, probing his eyes with hers and looking madder than hell, capable of murder and as vulnerable as a wet kitten all at the same time. His hands came up to grasp her shoulders, never bothering to ask his permission on the way. “I didn’t leave you any death threat, Brigham. Whenever I get the urge to tell you to drop dead—which is often—I say it right to your pretty little face. And if I’d been lurking on the other side of the curtain while you were soaking in the tub, the worst thing I’d have done is cop a peek. And I think you know it.”

  She blinked, swallowed audibly and nodded. “I didn’t really figure a message in blood was your style.”

  “Because I’m such a swell guy?”

  She smirked, a little of the old mischief backlighting the fear in her eyes. “Because you know me well enough to know I’d kick your ass if I ever found out.”

  “Any time you wanna try, Brigham.”

  No comeback. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d sparred with her and she’d run out of back talk. It made him uncomfortable to know just how upset she must be to let it affect her acid tongue. And he had to change the subject, right now, before he started getting some stupid urge to help her out or something.

  He cleared his throat, realized his hands were still on her shoulders, and lowered them to his sides while searching his brain for a safer topic. “So, uh, how did you manage to get in? I would have thought Chris would have noticed you lurking outside the curtain.”

  “You mean the scrawny kid with the quartz earring and the bright yellow dust mop on his head?”

  “That’s his hair.”

  “No shit?” She shrugged. “Anyway, he was busy humming along with whatever flaky music you have playing out there. What is that, some new Gaelic tranquilizer or what?”

  “You know, if you could manage to stop being so damned pleasant all the time, you might attract more friendly fans.” He felt his lips thin as he tried to find a way to give her some free advice without imparting the impression that he actually gave a damn. “And you might try being a little less controversial, while you’re at it.”

  “And how would you suggest I do that, McCain? You want me to put in for a personality transplant?”

  “Maybe you should try toning down your columns for a while? Find a new subject for a few weeks, give this a chance to blow over?”

  Sighing, she dug a pack from the bottom of the denim backpack she carried and shook a cigarette loose, catching it between her lips. Normally, Jack would have forbidden her to light up inside the shop. It was against state law, anyway. In fact, he opened his mouth to do just that. But then he noticed the way her fingers trembled as she fumbled with her lighter, and for some reason he couldn’t get the words out. Instead, he grabbed a candle from the nearest shelf and held it up to her.

  She sent him a quick, surprised look. Then she bent her head to the flame and the flickering amber glow painted her eyes with mysterious light. It made her raven hair gleam. And when she straightened, her full, moist lips parted, puckered…and blew a stream of smoke in his face.

  Jack stepped out of the carcinogenic cloud and replaced the candle. “On second thought, maybe the personality transplant wouldn’t be a bad idea after all.”

  “Not possible,” she said. “No more than backing off from my work is possible. That would be letting the bastard win.” She hauled her backpack onto her shoulder. “I gotta go.”

  “I’ll walk you out.” He walked her through the shop to the front door.

  She looked around his shop, those piercing eyes of hers searching for secrets, tricks. She wouldn’t find any. Jack’s tricks were all in the minds of his customers. This crap was real to them.

  Brigham stopped at the front door, turning to face him. For a very brief moment he had the feeling she didn’t want to leave any more than he wanted her to. Damn. He must be overworked or something. They couldn’t stand each other. They detested each other. If someone had asked Jack to name his number one enemy, he’d have named her without batting an eye. And he had no doubt she would name him if asked the same question. She knew damned well he had about as much clairvoyance as her ancient, smoke-belching boat of a Buick. She knew it, and he knew she knew it. He reveled in rubbing her nose in it, and that drove her nuts!

  It was strange, the relationship they’d developed over the past few years. She, always trying to trip him up. He, always struggling to stay a half step ahead of her. It was an ongoing contest with no clear winner in sight. He’d gotten kind of used to it…maybe was even beginning to enjoy her irritating persistence?

  Nah.

  He looked down at her and then he flinched at the size of the knot that formed in his stomach. For a second, he’d seen it in her face, just as plain as day: cold, dark fear. She hid it quickly, covering it up with the stubborn determination he was used to seeing there. But not fast enough. Not before he’d spotted it peering out of those sparkling emerald eyes of hers. It wasn’t an emotion he’d ever seen there before. She was probably the gutsiest loudmouth he’d ever known.

  She cleared her throat, reached for the door handle. “Well…”

  “Yeah.”

  She nodded once, stepped outside into the normal world again. And he winced inwardly, because he had the feeling someone was about to drop a piano on her.

  He caught the door before it could swing closed. “Brigham?”

  “What?”

  Jack licked his lips. “Watch your back, okay?”

  “You bet your amethysts, I will. And I pity the son of a bitch who left me that message, once I find him.” She sent him a wink and strode away as if she wasn’t terrified of being alone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  JACK MC CAIN MIGHT BE the lowest form of pond slime, Kiley thought as she sat at her d
esk back in her office at the Burnt Hills Gazette , staring at her empty computer screen. But he wasn’t the kind who would leave messages in human blood on a bathroom mirror.

  She’d known that before she’d asked him, but hadn’t been able to resist asking all the same. Just to gauge his reaction.

  There was a tap on her office door before it opened, and her boss, the most gorgeous woman in town if Kiley was any judge, stepped inside. “Did you get anything on McCain?”

  Sighing, Kiley shook her head. “He knew it was a setup. Smelled it like a rat smells cheese.”

  Barbara Benedict laughed softly, raking a hand through her pixie-cut ash-blond hair. “You ever wonder about that, Kiley?”

  “About what? Whether he’s part rat?”

  “Whether he…maybe really has something. Some kind of…you know.”

  Kiley pursed her lips. “God, it would be one warped universe if it handed out gifts like that to guys like him.”

  “Yeah, he’s already got the looks, the charm—you’re right, it would be unfair.”

  Kiley hadn’t been referring to his looks or his charm, but she didn’t bother to correct her employer.

  “So did you ask him about the, uh—the incident?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And?”

  “Oh, hell, you should have seen it. It was the performance of a lifetime, Barb. The hint of worry in his eyes. The concerned knit in his brow. The hand on my shoulder. It was perfect. He almost had me believing he was worried about me.”

  “You…you don’t really think he did it?”

  Kiley lowered her head. “No, it’s not his style.”

  “Then why—”

  “Because Jack McCain doesn’t worry about anybody or anything, other than himself and his financial wellbeing. If he’s concerned at all, it’s that I’ll try to pin this on him and disrupt his livelihood in the process. No, Jack is a con man. I’ve dealt with men like him before. I know ’em when I see ’em.”