LITMIR.BIZ

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“Not done yet. One of the investigating officers under Captain Ballard, a man who was an integral part of the security team, got word that his uncle was knifed in a New Orleans alley a few days ago. And here’s the kicker. I can’t get hold of my contact.”

       “Maybe he’s on vacation.”

       Daniel’s protracted silence elicited a sigh.

       “Fine, things have happened. And you know about them because…?”

       “Sources, Jas, plus a little hacking prowess I’ve acquired.”

       Boris gave a short bark as lightning speared down once more. Pushing off, Jasmine crossed to the back door and checked the dead bolt.

       “I assume you think one of Wainwright’s people is out for blood.”

       “One of his people, one of his South American counterpart’s people or, hell, even Wainwright himself.”

       “Stretching, Daniel.” She observed the light show through the door’s half window. “People like Wainwright never do their own dirty work. Especially if they’re dead.” Boris had gone rigid beside her. “What is it?” she asked with a frown.

       He gave two quick barks. Not a warning, but—something.

       “Jasmine?” She could barely hear Daniel now. “Whatever’s unfolding here, I’m worried. About you more than me—even though I’m the one who got the raven’s feathers.”

       “What raven’s feathers?” she demanded. “Daniel, are you drunk?”

       “I wish. You need to call someone you can trust. And no, I’m not going to name names, because even if we have been divorced for three years, I still care about you. Hell, I love you. So don’t expect me to suggest you put your life, or any other part of you, in someone else’s hands.”

       Now a very different set of memories popped into her head, though truthfully, they’d been swimming on the fringe since the thunder had started.

       “Will it make you feel better if I contact Ballard’s replacement?”

       “Sorry…can’t hear you.” Daniel’s voice faded in and out on elastic bands of static. “For the record, and just in case the feathers are for real, I’m…”

       Interference took over.

       “Daniel?” She quieted Boris. “Where are you?”

       “Raven’s Cove… Maine.”

       So close? She’d expected him to be in some innocuous Midwestern town.

       “Ballard’s replacement’s in San Diego,” he continued. “That’s a country’s width away from Massachusetts. I’m not sure who’s in your area, but, well, do what you have to do to stay safe.”

       His frustration came through loud and clear.

       “Whatever you decide, just keep away…too dangerous…don’t believe in gobbledygook as such, but I did get those feathers, and there’s a raven…local legend says…certain death…”

       The rest of his sentence was swallowed up in a sizzle of sound that had Jasmine jerking the handset from her ear a second time.

       “Daniel?” she tried from a distance.

       But there was only fuzzy noise. And a moment later not even that as both the lights and her phone went dead.

      * * *

      HE LINGERED FOR AN exhilarating moment in the rain and gusting wind. Lingered and savored and visualized the prize.

       There’d been no hitches so far, no obstacles thrown down that he couldn’t handle. They would come, though, and from more than one direction, because it was the woman’s turn now. Her long-overdue, highly anticipated turn.

       Anger bubbled like hot acid. But he needed to maintain control, fight for balance. He couldn’t allow a single wrong emotion to slip in or out.

       Lightning directly above fractured the night. Watching it fade, he ramped up his resolve, shoved a hand in his jacket pocket and prepared to set the wheels of Jasmine Ellis’s death in motion.

      * * *

      JASMINE WONDERED DISTANTLY how her mother, her only family, would react to Daniel’s call.

       Colleen Ellis had been forty-four years old when she’d marched into a sperm bank and been impregnated. Time was right, she’d decided. Her tenure at Harvard was secure, and her internal clock was winding down.

       She’d taught art history for twenty-five years after Jasmine’s birth, then she’d packed up her hiking boots and cameras and headed for Scotland in search of the Loch Ness monster.

       Confirming the existence of at least one legendary beast was the lone item on Colleen Ellis’s bucket list. When Nessie had failed to materialize, she’d shifted her attention to the fabled giant octopus off the coast of Bermuda. Currently, she was hunting for Bigfoot in the Olympic Mountains.

       Colleen could surely decipher the raven’s-feather references, Jasmine suspected, if not the implications of what they portended.

       Holding tight to Boris’s collar, Jasmine waited until her emergency lights kicked in.

       Rain pounded the roof and windows like ferocious fists. As if galvanized by them, her thoughts took off in two directions.

       The first led her back more than a year and a half to a night much like this one. On that night, a dark-haired, dark-eyed man had appeared at her safe house, a stranger who had simultaneously terrified and fascinated her.

       The second took her back six weeks, to Captain Ballard’s funeral. Once again, the man had appeared in the night. Maybe he’d appeared out of it. Either way, she’d turned and there he’d been, standing behind her, more familiar this time, but no less dangerous and certainly no less fascinating.

       His name was Rogan. Just that, no more. Ballard had assured her he was a cop. Not the sort you could pin down to any one division or captain—or any one city or state, for that matter. Rogan went where required as required and stayed until the job he’d been sent to do was done. Then, poof, back into the night.

       Not that Jasmine didn’t appreciate his mysterious qualities. She was, after all, the head of acquisitions at Salem’s Museum of Early American Artifacts and Antiquities, or Witch House, as it was more commonly known, since almost every piece there had a witch-related story attached to it.

       More than once she’d considered working a figure of Rogan into an exhibit. Hypnotic, haunting man, dressed in black, surrounded by swirling shadows. She’d highlight his incredible eyes, give him a murky past and a vaguely occult ancestor. Any female viewing him was bound to be as mesmerized as she’d been when she’d met him.

       Intriguing though it was, the idea shattered with the next blast of wind.

       Good, because she really didn’t want to think about Rogan or the circumstances of their first meeting. That would lead her back to the conversation she’d just had with her ex, which would lead her to Rogan, and on and on.

       Determined to break the cycle, she went to the fridge for a soft drink. She was debating her choices when Boris growled.

       Bumping the door closed with her hip, Jasmine surveyed the darker shadows. “Please tell me that wasn’t a threatening sound.”

       The dog gave a sharp bark.

       She listened, but heard nothing above the storm. Until…

       On the heels of the thunder, and courtesy of a lull in the wind, she caught a faint sound, like a swish of leather.

       Now, that wasn’t part of the storm. There was someone behind her.

       Fighting a spurt of panic, she ducked sideways. But the intruder was faster and apparently more intuitive. Before she could evade him, a hand came down on her mouth, and she

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