Pirate's Alley Read Free

relaxing now that the burden had been shared. “Yeah. Same type of queasiness. Not like a virus. It’s just different.”
    I did some mental calculations. She and Rand had only been together since late October, so she couldn’t be more than six weeks along, maximum.
    “I recognize that look, DJ.” She reached over to the end table, picked up her cell phone, and stabbed at the screen. “I was studying the calendar and I figure I’m about a month along, maybe a little more, if…”
    The if trailed into a long silence.
    “If what?” If elves had the same gestational period as humans? If she should even consider having this child, given the circumstances and the fact that the father was a sneaky, manipulative elf?
    “If it would show up on a home pregnancy test.” Her eyes brightened. “I mean, maybe I’m just panicking. We were always safe; I insisted on it. Would Rand’s baby show up on one of those tests you buy at the drugstore?”
    I had no idea. “Let’s find out. I’ll run over to Walgreens and get one, and pick up some ginger ale for you while I’m there. It doesn’t have caffeine, and it’ll help the nausea.” Plus, I felt a growing need for chocolate and the store was stocked with Christmas candy.
    I wrapped a scarf around my neck and bundled myself into a hideous orange and purple plaid wool coat I’d picked up at a charity thrift store yesterday, at Arnie the cabbie’s insistence. He often shopped there, and a girl needed a coat in this weather, he’d said.
    I’d been even more fashion-challenged than usual since my entire wardrobe had gone up in flames just before Thanksgiving, and when I needed basics like underwear and shoes, it seemed frivolous to spend real money on a heavy coat that might get trotted out of the closet once a year.
    Not that I had a closet. And no one except a pumpkin and some breeds of cat looked good in orange—and never when it was tarted out with purple, unless one were headed for a Clemson football game.
    “Need anything else?” I paused at the front door and looked back at Eugenie. “Pizza? Soda?”
    A good, stiff shot of bourbon?
    She shook her head, sadness and fear etched into her face in equal measure. I’d be freaking out in her position, and I had a lot of resources she didn’t: other wizards, a passing knowledge of the prete world, Alex.
    All Eugenie had was me. Maybe I hadn’t always been the best friend to her, but I swore to myself: This time, I wouldn’t fail her.

 
    CHAPTER 2
    One of the few good things about being blackballed by the car-rental places: I didn’t have to worry about fighting for a decent parking spot at the shopping center and schlepping my way across a quarter mile of frozen concrete tundra.
    A blast of frigid air sent shock waves of cold through me when I opened the cab door and eyed the fifteen or so feet I’d need to run in order to get inside the store. The big entrance sign on Tchoupitoulas Street might say RIVERSIDE MARKET , but the drugstore’s location wasn’t nearly that chic. The long strip mall backed up to one of the Mississippi River wharves, and I knew it well. My official office was near the other end, a sparsely furnished rectangle called Crescent City Risk Management.
    It wasn’t a deception, exactly, since I did manage risk. Just not the type of risk for which one bought an insurance policy.
    “Man, that be some cold. I’ll be waitin’ on you, Miss DJ. I’ll even turn off the meter seein’ as how you’re a regular. Ain’t you glad you got dat coat?” Arnie gave me a gap-toothed grin. He was old-school New Orleans, of the generation that still called shopping for food “making groceries” and referred to the near-west suburb as “Metry.”
    “Thanks, Arnie. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Sure I did. I’d be riding the bus or forced to ask Alex if I could borrow the pristine Mercedes convertible he’d stored at his parents’ house in Mississippi last month. Things located near