Страница 48 из 86
<p> When I blinked and fell back into the real world, I could see the stars.</p>
<p> Ve
<empty-line/>
<p> So now I was guilty of some kind of supernatural sabotage, at the very least, but I figured it probably boiled down to plain old insurance fraud. Something simple and skanky, something with an immediate financial benefit for Eamon, of course.</p>
<p> But hey, at least I’d learned a useful skill.</p>
<p> “Astonishing,” Eamon murmured, looking at the wreckage and all of the emergency crews swarming around the scene in the predawn light. We were sitting on the low rock wall-Eamon, Ve
<p> Didn’t seem prudent to mention her.</p>
<p> “Complete destruction,” Eamon said, and seemed utterly satisfied. “You are a one-woman wrecking crew, love.”</p>
<p> “Thanks,” I said with an ice edge of chill. “We done now?”</p>
<p> “Done?” His eyes were preoccupied, and it took him a second to pull his attention away from the human aftermath on the beach to focus on me completely. “Ah, yes. I did say that I wanted only this one thing from you, didn’t I?”</p>
<p> <i>Bad feeling bad feeling bad feeling.</i> “That’s what you said.”</p>
<p> “I don’t think that will be possible after all,” Eamon said, and smiled just a bit. Just enough to keep me from killing him. “This is the start of a beautiful and very profitable relationship, Jo. After I marry your sister-”</p>
<p> “After you <i>what</i>?” I blurted. “Time-out! Nobody’s getting married. Especially not to <i>you</i>.”</p>
<p> Sarah didn’t even look up to meet my fierce stare. Haggard and strung out, but my sister, dammit. My family. “You can’t tell me what to do,” she said.</p>
<p> “Sarah, wake up! He’s a criminal! And he’s a <i>murderer</i>!”</p>
<p> “Yeah, well, what about you?” she flung back. “You think you’re not guilty of things? You think you aren’t just as bad? Don’t you dare lecture me!”</p>
<p> “Keep your voice down!”</p>
<p> “Or what? You’ll call the cops? Go right ahead, Jo; they’re right over there!”</p>
<p> Sure enough, two uniformed cops standing next to their cruiser were looking in our direction. I swallowed and tried to moderate my own voice to something in the range of reasonable. “Sarah, you do not want to jump into this. Really. You don’t know this man. You don’t know what he’s capable of doing.”</p>
<p> Eamon took her hand. His long, lovely fingers curled around hers, and then he kissed her fingers, staring at me with bright, challenging eyes the whole time. “She’s not jumping into anything,” he murmured. “And really, Joa
<p> “You want to use her,” I said. “You want to threaten her to get me to do whatever you want. Trust <i>you</i> to find a way to make money off of disaster.”</p>
<p> He made a <i>tsk</i>ing sound. “Construction companies, insurance companies, cleanup crews, police, fire, ambulance, paramedics, hospitals, doctors, funeral parlors, coffin makers…all those people make money off of disaster. And thousands more. I’m merely a novice.”</p>
<p> “You want to <i>cause</i> them!”</p>
<p> “Don’t be so negative,” he said. “Freak accidents happen. No reason not to arrange them to our benefit once in a while.”</p>
<p> Ve
<p> “It’s human stuff. I can’t,” she said serenely. “Besides, they can’t see or hear me. I’m a figment of your imagination, Joa
<p> Hardly. My imagination would have conjured up a hunky, half-naked guy Dji
<p> “Do you want me to kill him?” Ve
<p> I stared at her for a long, silent second, and then shook my head. No, I wasn’t prepared to do that. Not even to Eamon.</p>
<p> Ve
<p> “Do I…what?” I was aware it looked to Eamon and Sarah like I was talking to empty child-sized space, because they were exchanging a look. The she’s-lost-her-mind kind of look.</p>
<p> “Like what you did before, although you didn’t do it very well,” Ve
<p> Memories. Sarah was the key to a lot of my childhood, wasn’t she? Who else would I get that kind of thing from?</p>
<p> I nodded.</p>
<p> “Oh, you don’t want hers,” Ve
<p> Ve
</section>
<section>
<h4 align="center">
<p> TEN</p>
</h4>
<p> Eamon was thinking about murder, in an abstract kind of way. He had no real objection to killing, but he did dislike complications, and he was, at that moment, royally pissed about just how complicated a perfectly simple scheme had become.</p>
<p> “All you had to do was pay her off,” he said, staring at his business associate. Thomas Orenthal Qui
<p> “Look at it this way,” Orry said, and stirred the thick, dark drink in front of him. “She was badass enough to kill poor old Chaz. You should’ve seen what was left of him; Christ, it was disgusting. I couldn’t take the chance she might come back for more. Dead is simple, right?”</p>
<p> “Generally,” Eamon agreed. “Dead Wardens, not so simple. They’ll investigate. I don’t want them finding any link to you, forensically or otherwise.” He glanced around-habit-although he was certain nobody was within earshot. Amazing what people would ignore. “You’re sure she’s out of the picture?”</p>
<p> “I’m sure.” Orry gave him a tight, unpleasant smile. He was a nondescript man, and few who met him seemed to understand what lay underneath that unremarkable exterior. Eamon knew, and respected it. He might have been insane, but he was definitely not insane enough to cross Thomas Qui