Trace of Magic Read Online Free PDF Page B

glared at me when I walked in. “You look like shit.”
    I had no grounds to argue. I hadn’t been sleeping well the last week. Nancy Jane and her mother had been rescued alive. I should have been over the moon. Instead, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong. I spent hours reinforcing my nulls, and I’d taken to carrying my gun everywhere I went, along with the Chinese baton I hid in my sleeve. I usually kept one or the other on me, but tended to leave them behind when I went shopping or to visit my family. Not anymore.
    “Thanks. I spent hours on this look.” I was wearing my hair in a ponytail, with my usual uniform of jeans, hiking boots, a long-sleeved shirt, a heavy jacket, a hat, and gloves.
    “It’s cold out there. Got anything to eat?” I asked, unzipping my coat and stuffing my gloves and hat into a pocket before hanging it on a hook fastened to the bench of my usual booth. A snowstorm had moved in, the first of several to come, all piled up like cars stuck on an LA freeway. By the time they were done with Diamond City, we’d be buried.
    “Hold your horses, Laraby.” Patti glared at the dentist who was waving a check at her. “I’ll be there in a second.” She grabbed a clean coffee cup off the counter and set it down in front of me and filled it. “I’ll get you something to eat.”
    Ten minutes later, she returned carrying a white oval plate mounded with an omelet, hashbrowns, pancakes, and a half-dozen slices of bacon. I didn’t want an omelet, but Patti tended to get me what she thought I needed, not what I wanted. It was loaded with vegetables and cheese. Tasty, but not the burger and fries I was craving. Arguing wasn’t going to do me any good. I’d eat what I was given and try to look happy about it.
    “Give me a few minutes,” she said. “We should slow down soon and I’ll join you. People are trying to get home before the weather gets too heavy.”
    I glanced through the front window. Snow was falling in a thick curtain of fat flakes. Already the ground was white. I was willing to bet there’d be an inch or two on the ground by the time I finished eating. Giving lie to her promise, the door jingled and half a dozen people came in, stomping their feet and dusting the snow off their clothing.
    Patti zipped off to help them. I cleared my plate and immediately wanted a nap. I considered heading upstairs. Patti kept a room for me in her apartment. I spent two or three nights a week at the diner, sometimes more, depending on the jobs I had. Right now I didn’t have anything lined up. I was planning to hit the grocery store and go home and hole up until the storms blew themselves out.
    I took my dishes to the bus tub, waving at Ben, Patti’s partner in the diner, through the kitchen window. I grabbed a pot of coffee and filled my empty cup before sliding back into my seat. I didn’t bother looking up when the bell on the door rang again. I was checking the weather radar on my phone.
    A shape loomed over me suddenly, and Clay Price slid into the seat opposite me. My mouth dropped open. As far as I knew, he’d never even set foot in the diner before.
    “What do you want?”
    He slid my coffee out of my hand and took a sip, then eyed it in surprise. “That’s good,” he said.
    “Not to mention it’s mine,” I said, eyeing him balefully. It was the best coffee in town, though I’d not yet creamed and sugared it to suit my taste buds. He seemed to like his black.
    He set the cup down, then ran his fingers through his hair. He was the carefully controlled type, so his gesture startled me. I examined him. He didn’t look any better than I did. His eyes were sunken, and grooves cut deeply around his nose and mouth.
    “You know, if you’re hungry, there are other tables. Empty tables,” I pointed out.
    He sipped my coffee again. “But you’re not sitting at the other tables.”
    A frisson of foreboding rippled through me. I shivered. It had nothing to do with