Kindling The Darkness. Jane Kindred
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Название: Kindling The Darkness
Автор: Jane Kindred
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
isbn: 9781474082136
isbn:
What the hell was that thing? How could it have kept moving with four Soul Reaper bullets in its chest? It was infernal. It had to be. But it moved faster—and it was larger—than any garden-variety werewolf she’d encountered. And it had seemed somehow less...furry.
The tub had filled, and Lucy shut the water off and leaned back against the built-in headrest. It really was a hell of a tub. She hadn’t paid much attention to it when she rented the place, since she’d only intended to use the stand-alone shower. But it was deep enough and wide enough for her to stretch out both arms and legs and let them float in the silky water without touching anything.
Eyes closed, she ran through the encounter in Jerome with the same critical review. The reptilian-demon waitress wasn’t in the Smok registry, so, killer or not, it was definitely a fugitive. But was it possible it wasn’t the killer she was tracking? What were the odds more than one hell fugitive would be hanging out in Jerome, Arizona? The artsy haven carved into the side of Cleopatra Hill in the Arizona Black Hills, a former copper mining boomtown that had turned its colorful history into a touristy cash maker as an active “ghost town,” had a grand total of less than five hundred permanent residents.
The vigilante—which was what G.I. Joe likely was, given his skulking around in a dark hoodie in the middle of the night on his “neighborhood watch of a sort”—had been adamant that the waitress wasn’t Lucy’s killer. Not that Lucy was going to take his word for it, but he hadn’t struck her as a liar, whatever else he was. He genuinely seemed to believe the girl was harmless. And he claimed he’d been watching her for a month.
Maybe he was just a perv who liked watching young women. But he hadn’t given off that vibe. And he hadn’t made any typical masculine overtures toward Lucy, who was just a few years younger than the waitress appeared to be. Honestly, it had kind of annoyed her. She was used to being noticed by guys his age—just hitting their midlife-crisis stride and hyperaware of any younger woman in their vicinity to project their insecurities onto and gauge their own desirability. Not that she wanted middle-aged dudes creeping on her, but it was almost suspect when they didn’t.
So what was this guy’s deal? Middle-aged but in almost-military shape, living in tiny, artsy Jerome in the middle of nowhere keeping tabs on its “extra-human” population? Maybe he was a fugitive. Lucy opened her eyes. Maybe he was her fugitive.
The phone rang from the living room. She’d left it in her pocket when she stripped out of her wet clothes. Lucy sighed and climbed out of the tub.
She got to the phone after the call had rolled to voice mail, and she listened to the message on speaker while toweling off. An older woman spoke a bit hesitantly, as though her request was awkward. She spoke on behalf of “the council,” which wanted to contract Lucy’s services to investigate a werewolf sighting. In Jerome. So much for taking care of its own.
Whoever this “council” was, they were clearly desperate. Lucy called the woman back to verify the job’s legitimacy before agreeing to take it. Despite the unorthodox call to her personal phone, they’d been referred to Smok Consulting through the proper channels. They were anxious to meet with her this morning, in an hour, wanting to take care of the problem before too many residents—or more likely, tourists—became aware of it. This “werewolf” was probably the fugitive she was tracking. She could kill two hell beasts with one stone.
Lucy pushed down the exhaustion. She’d stayed up this long. Might as well go for two days. She couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten—she’d left a gorgeous plate of hash browns cooked into a giant pancake, plus a sweet side of bacon, at the coffeehouse—but there wasn’t time for a proper breakfast. Maybe she could grab coffee and a muffin somewhere in Jerome before meeting her contact. Lucy sighed. As much as she’d resented Lucien’s attitude about Smok Consulting’s work, it had sure seemed easier handling these kinds of jobs with two people. Maybe he hadn’t been entirely useless.
* * *
The road to Jerome, once she’d left Sedona and driven through the flat stretch of valley beyond Cottonwood and Clarkdale, was straight up the escarpment separating the Black Hills from the valley. One thing Lucy hated was driving slow, and driving up between the stacked limestone retaining walls that hugged the mountainside meant driving slow.
Arriving in Jerome with fifteen minutes to spare, Lucy parked in front of an artsy-looking shop in the bottom of a restored Victorian on lower Main Street near the Ghost City Inn, an old miners’ boardinghouse turned B and B. A wrought-iron sign hanging over the door declared the shop was Delectably Bookish. She wasn’t sure if it was a café or a bookstore, but she thought she smelled coffee brewing inside. She opened the door, pursuing the scent. It looked like a reading room, with comfy mismatched chairs and couches strewn among tables beside stacks of hardback books—and, hallelujah, a shellacked wooden counter at the back bearing an espresso machine and a case of pastries and treats.
Lucy made a beeline for it. Coffee was definitely brewing. But there was no one in sight.
“Hello?” She leaned over the counter, peering into the back through a beaded-glass curtain. “Anyone back there?”
Nothing.
She was running out of time, and she really needed that coffee. She’d been awake for almost thirty hours at this point. “Hey, hello? You’ve got a customer out here.”
In frustration, she tossed a five-dollar bill on the counter and grabbed a lemon poppy seed muffin, stuffing a bite into her mouth while she went around the counter and helped herself to a cup of coffee. There were no paper cups. She’d have to bring back the cappuccino cup after her meeting.
Lucy sipped her coffee as she headed back around the counter and nearly dumped it on herself as she looked up. At the bottom of the staircase that led from the book stacks to the second floor of what she assumed were more book stacks, a ruggedly handsome middle-aged man stood watching her, arms folded—and they were seriously impressive arms packed tight into a white T-shirt—a scowl on his tanned face. It was her G.I. Joe vigilante.
“Find the cash register all right? I hope that pesky drawer didn’t give you any trouble. It sticks sometimes.”
“Cash register? No, I—just needed a coffee. There was nobody here. I left money on the counter.”
“Jerome isn’t your personal hunting ground. You might want to learn some manners before someone mistakes you for a thief and treats you accordingly.”
Heat rushed to Lucy’s face. “Yeah? Well, you might want to be a little more responsive when a customer is waiting. In the real world, baristas don’t get tips when they ignore people. Maybe you shouldn’t be taking bathroom breaks when you’re supposed to be working.”
“Maybe you should learn to read.” His head tilted toward the words printed in large gold lettering on the outside of the glass panel on the door. “We open at noon.”
Lucy tried to maintain some dignity, the stupid muffin crumbling in her hand as she set down the coffee cup. “Why the hell is the door unlocked if you’re not open?”
Barista G.I. Joe studied her for a moment, his expression giving away nothing. “We generally СКАЧАТЬ