The Lady in Pink - Deadly Ever After 2 Read Free Page A

Clayton and Peyton off the hook. And I sure had looked forward to exacting a bit of revenge on those two.
    “A woman, her hair as blond as spun gold.”
    My eyes narrowed. “Are you sure it was a blond chick?” Sure I’d had a few bad dates in my time, but not one of them had tried to kill me. Yet. My mind flashed to Bo Peep. Scratch that. Only one had tried to kill me. I was fairly sure it wasn’t her, though. Staging an accident wasn’t her style. She was much more likely to hire some douche to shank me in an alleyway.
    Fern wasn’t finished; her brow wrinkled, giving her face an even more scrunched look. “Maybe it wasn’t a woman at all. Who can say for sure?”
    “You’ve been a great help.” I pulled away from the bar, feeling as if I’d been played. I had my doubts about the Ferns’ tale. After all, I was still in the game. I would know if someone had a contract out on me, especially if that someone, man, woman, or fairy, was dumb enough to hold a murderous negotiation in a dive bar.
    “You can’t have everything,” she replied with a snort.
    I waved the bartender over again and ordered three more drinks. The Ferns grinned with delight at the prospect of more free booze. I smiled too, but for a far different reason.
    The bartender brought my drinks over, and I proceeded to drink each and every one while the Ferns looked on. While it wasn’t the most mature payback, it sure as hell made me feel better than I had a few short hours ago when I’d first walked into my apartment and saw my smoldering intern on the floor. I downed the rest of my drink to wash away the image.

CHAPTER 4
    A few hours and eight whiskies later, night blanketed the city as I stepped from Pixies Bar & Grill, in the heart of Fairyland, the very place the Ferns claimed to have overheard a blonde talking about my murder. I’d questioned every fairy in sight without luck. Either they weren’t aware of the contract on my life or they weren’t talking. I suspected the latter. Yet without any leverage, other than threatening to fry a few of them, I couldn’t make them talk.
    The only saving grace was that the bar served some fairly good whiskey. While the booze had warmed the coldness in my soul, it hadn’t quite freed me from the events of the day. James was still very much dead. And it was still very much my own fault.
    I swallowed over the lump in my chest as my gaze swiveled up and down the seemingly deserted street. My sixth sense, developed after years of being mugged by ogres and beaten for being blue haired by local members of the Big Bad Wolves gang, screamed danger. Something bad—very bad, in fact—was lurking nearby. I could feel its evil stare, practically smell the stench of its breath.
    I reached into the pocket of my jacket, making a show of pulling out a pack of smokes. I lit one, inhaling until my lungs burned with pleasure. If I was about to die, I sure as hell was going to enjoy my last moments. I blew out a steady stream of smoke, using it as a screen to search the shadows with greater focus. There. Up the street just in the mouth of an alley, a flash of something caught my eye.
    Was it the same assassin who’d murdered my intern, lying in wait to take me out?
    I sure as hell hoped so. It would make the investigation into the murder so much quicker.
    Acting for the entire world like a blue-haired guy without a care to his name, I strode slowly up the street, enjoying my cigarette after a long day. With genuine regret I snuffed out my smoke on the oil-and urine-stained sidewalk. Then I reached back into the holster under my armpit. This time I withdrew something, if not much deadlier, at least quicker to kill. Thanks to Izzy’s insistence on my not looking like a thug and scaring off our richer clientele, I carried a .38, which fit nicely in the holster, though it did chafe a bit—one of the perils of responsible gun ownership.
    Edging closer to the alleyway, my focus intent on whatever lay ahead, I was