Siren's Call (A Rainshadow Novel) Read Free

chameleon?”
    “Jones and Jones came up with that information,” Ella said. “I just knew there was something off so I hired J and J to look into Bellamy’s past.”
    “‘Something off’ is putting it mildly.” Karen shuddered. “Bellamy is one of the monsters—the kind of evil talentthey write fairy tales about. And to think I nearly married him.”
    “You didn’t marry Bellamy, that’s the important thing.”
    Karen raised her glass. “Here’s to the next Mr. Right.”
    “To Mr. Right.”
    “It’s your turn, pal. When are you going to register with a matchmaking agency?”
    “Someday.”
    “I’m surprised your family isn’t pushing you hard to register.”
    “They understand that I’m trying to get a career going first,” Ella said.
    “Let’s face it, you’ll never get anywhere if you stay with the Wilson Parsons Talent Agency. Parsons won’t let you establish a name for yourself. No matter how good you are at dream counseling or how many clients you attract to his firm, he’ll always take all the credit.”
    “Between you and me, I’ve been thinking about going out on my own. The problem is that the dream counseling business is very competitive, especially at the low end of the market. A lot of people, including a lot of frauds and con artists, think they can analyze dreams. The secret to success is to project an upmarket image and that’s expensive, what with rent and advertising costs.”
    “You can do it,” Karen said. “You’re good. And as soon as you get established you’ll register with a matchmaking agency, right?”
    “I’ll think about it,” Ella said.
    And she would think about it—she would think about it a lot. But she would never register.
    Registering with a matchmaking agency would mean having to lie on the questionnaires. It would mean lying to the marriage counselors. It would mean lying to a prospective husband. And if she ever did marry, it would mean that she would have to live a lie for the rest of her life.
    The last thing she wanted was a marriage based on a lie. She wanted a real marriage, one founded on love and intimacy and passion and all the other things that she would probably never experience up close and personal.
    “Thank goodness your intuition was better than mine,” Karen said. “More acute than the matchmaking agency’s programs, for that matter.”
    “Just a lucky hunch on my part,” Ella said.
    She could not tell Karen or anyone else outside her own family the truth—she had recognized the monster for what he was because he had touched her on a few occasions in an effort to charm her. The contact had been fleeting and casual—the light brush of his fingers when he handed her a glass of champagne; his hand under her arm when he assisted her out of a car. But that was all she needed.
    No, she would not be registering with a matchmaking agency. There were no fairy-tale endings for women like her. When it came to identifying the monsters, the old saying held true.
It takes one to know one
.

Chapter 2
     
    The Alien music locked in the green quartz walls sang to her senses. Gorgeous notes floated in the paranormal currents. Haunting bells chimed their ethereal harmonies at both ends of the spectrum. The dark thunder and lightning of crashing chords reverberated in the atmosphere.
    Ella did her best to ignore the thrilling music in the tunnel walls so that she could concentrate on her driving.
    “You know,” she said to the dust bunny clinging to the utility sled dashboard, “I’d assumed my first client would be human.”
    The dust bunny responded with a low, rumbling growl. Not so much a warning or a threat, Ella concluded; more like an urgent plea for speed. Then again, what did she know about dust bunnies? The one perched on the sled’s dashboard like a hood ornament was the first one she hadever encountered outside of picture books and cartoons. Every kid on Harmony had read the tales of
Little
Amberina and the Dust Bunny
.
    Dust