Harmony 03 After Glow Read Free

was, after all, one of the most powerful para-rezes in the city. Young males, Lydia had discovered, were very impressed with raw power.
    “Got in around three o’clock this morning,” Emmett said. “Dropped the boys off at their homes and went to my place to crash. Didn’t want to wake you up. The phone rang just as I was walking in the door.” Absently he rubbed his jaw. “I haven’t been to bed yet.”
    Sirens wailed in the distance. About time, Lydia thought.
    “Who called you?” she asked. “Why didn’t you get to bed?”
    “It’s a long story. I’ll explain later.” He eyed her closely. “Meanwhile, please tell me this dead guy doesn’t have anything to do with your new consulting job?”
    “Oh, no, things are going great with the Hepscott project,” she said, relieved to be able to give a positive, upbeat answer for once. She cast an uneasy glance at Maltby. “This was a, uh, private matter.”
    “Yeah, I was afraid of that.” Emmett’s expression hardened a little more. “This is connected to those questions you’ve been asking along Ruin Row for the past couple of weeks, isn’t it? The ones about your so-called Lost Weekend?”
    She should have known that he was aware of the discreet inquiries she had begun making here in the Old Quarter. Emmett was an ex-Guild boss. He had connections.
    “Maltby called me,” she said briskly. “I didn’t call him.”
    “You just can’t let it go, can you? You’re determined to prove that you were the victim of some kind of ghost-hunter conspiracy. You won’t accept that what happened to you was a really bad accident.”
    She narrowed her eyes. “This is precisely why I didn’t tell you I was doing some investigating on my own. I knew I’d get a lot of rez-static.”
    “And this is why you would have gotten the static from me.” He pointed at the body. “Things like this happen in this part of town. At the very least, you should have called me before you came to ask your questions.”
    “I knew that you would be getting back very late last night. I assumed you’d be sleeping late this morning.”
    “Would you have called to invite me along if you had figured I’d be up?”
    She was starting to feel cornered. “I know my way around the Old Quarter, Emmett. I’ve lived here all my life. I don’t need an escort.”
    “Maybe not in the district where you live, but that’s over on the other side of the Quarter. In this neighborhood, you need an escort.”
    She tightened her grip on the strap of the purse. “You know, this really isn’t the time for a lecture on personal safety.”
    “On my way to this flophouse I passed three drug dealers who offered to score me some high-grade Chartreuse, a couple of hookers, a guy who tried to sell me a hot rez-screen, and one of those smiling idiots in green bathrobes who promised to reveal the secrets of true bliss if I would buy a book. And that was just in the half block between here and where I parked the Slider. I’ll be lucky if the car’s still there when I get back to it.”
    “I’m sure you’ll find the Slider right where you left it. No one would dare touch it. Everyone knows who you are, now, Emmett, thanks to that stupid article in the Cadence Tattler last week.”
    Much to Emmett’s disgust, the popular supermarket tabloid had featured a photo of him on the front page. The picture had been accompanied by some breathless prose questioning the real reason for his presence in Cadence. The headline, Next Guild Boss? had said it all.
    Emmett fit his hands to his hips. “You scare the living daylights out of me, Lydia.”
    “Nah. You’re a ghost-hunter. Nothing scares you.”
    She spoke lightly but deep down she was relieved that he was backing off the argument. They were only a few short weeks into this very complicated relationship and things were unsettled enough as it was. They did not need a major confrontation.
    They listened to the sirens halt abruptly outside in the