But what if… what if ?
He’d be able to show her a whole new world. A world she’d been desperate to see from the beginning, like a kid with her nose shoved up against a shop window.
“Glad you’ve found somebody.” Gritted. Not sincere. “I-I won’t take up any more of your time.”
She looked up just as Zack stormed out.
Holly had his flowers and his note, the next step would be hers. She could bid his ass good-bye or she could step up to the plate and learn what secrets she kept, locked inside.
“I want a background investigation done on Holly Storm,” he told the man before him. A short, dark-haired charmer. Charmers were always the best at ferreting out information from the unsuspecting. And Giles…the guy was damn good. An investigator for the Other, he made a fine living by bending and breaking the law whenever he could.
Giles narrowed his gray-gold eyes. “Why’s that name familiar to me?”
They were in Giles’s office, a freakishly clean business in the middle of downtown Atlanta.
“She’s a reporter for News Flash Five.” And so much more.
“You wanna know if the lady likes to play in the darkness?”
I’m here to play. “I already know that.” His fingers flattened on the desktop. “I want to know about her family, her lovers. I want to know about anything unusual that’s ever happened in Holly’s entire life. And I want to know yesterday. ”
Because a new fear had begun to haunt him after he’d dropped off Holly’s flowers and then taken his time strolling around the station. No one had stopped him. Old Steve had sure given him a wide berth.
Holly was like him, Niol knew it. Even if she didn’t.
The impure will die.
Giles cocked his head. “It’s gonna cost you.”
“What else is new?”
“What am I looking for here, man? Point me to what you want-”
“Skeletons.” Demon skeletons. “Something tells me the lady has more than a few in her family tree.” They just had to knock ’em loose.
Holly was running late for her appointment. Again, dammit. If she wasn’t more careful, she’d start to get a bad reputation.
But before she’d left the station, she’d needed to follow up on the security tapes.
The follow-up had lead nowhere because the tapes were gone.
Not erased. Not unusable. Gone.
The guys at the security station had been rattled. The station owner had been alerted.
Someone was playing a game with News Flash Five.
With her.
More cameras would be installed. More guards hired. After the last bloodbath at the station, the higher-ups weren’t taking any chances.
So now, she was running fifteen minutes late for an appointment that she did not want to miss. The elevator chimed then the doors slid open and Holly hit the hall at a run.
A few moments later, she shoved open a gleaming wooden door, perfectly polished. Holly ignored the gold lettering and hurried inside, where she caught sight of the witch behind the desk.
And Vanessa really was a witch, or, at least Holly was about 90 percent sure she was. She’d caught the woman reading spell books the last time she’d been in the office and Holly was pretty sure she’d seen the redhead levitating her pen once or twice.
“Uh, sorry I’m late.” She hoped that didn’t merit being turned into a frog or something. With the Other, you just never knew. “Is…Dr. Drake still available?”
Vanessa raised her brow. “This is the second time-”
She winced. “I know. Sorry.”
The witch smiled. “Try not to make a habit of it, okay? She’s waiting on you.”
Holly exhaled. Great. Because she sure needed to talk to the Monster Doctor today. She hurried toward the doc’s inner sanctum.
“At least you don’t have a damn snake with you…”
Vanessa’s mutter had her hesitating with her hand over the knob. She glanced back. “Er, right.”
The door opened.
Dr. Emily Drake, known in the darker circles of Atlanta as the Monster Doctor, stood in the doorway. Her black hair was pulled back into her usual perfect bun. Her pretty features were calm, her green eyes curious behind the lenses of her glasses.
Looked like any other woman you’d meet in the city.
But Dr. Drake wasn’t any other woman. She had very, very special talents.
The lady only treated paranormal patients. Word on the street held that she could immediately sense any Other.
And she was heavily empathic.
No hiding from this therapist. Nope, no denial would ever work with her.
The doctor glanced at her watch. “Running behind, are we?”
“Seriously, you don’t want to hear about my day.” Demon heritage. Ex-fiancé from hell. Possible murderer/stalker.
Emily laughed and shut the door. “Oh, come on now, Holly, you know that’s what I’m here for-listening.” She motioned toward the couch and walked back to her desk. A small notebook lay in the middle of the wooden surface.
Holly crossed the room. The couch. Just looking at it made her nervous, and this was her sixth visit to the doctor’s office.
She’d originally come to see Dr. Drake because she’d been…desperate.
Carl had been the first to mention Emily’s name. The first to talk about just how the Monster Doctor had helped him.
She’d thought that maybe Emily could help her, too.
Holly hadn’t wanted to be helpless anymore. The world was full of beasts, predators-she got that. Both human and Other.
She never wanted to be as weak as she’d been in that alley. Not again. There had to be some way for her to protect her mind from those attacks. Some way…
And if anyone would know a way, Holly had figured it would be Dr. Drake.
So their sessions had started. Half-therapy, half-mind-shielding.
The weird thing-both parts were working.
Which was one of the reasons she hadn’t flipped out when she saw old Zack. Without Dr. Drake’s help, she would have tried to rip the guy a new one.
“I-I need to ask you some things.” Holly sat on the edge of the couch, feeling awkward. The first time she’d come into the office, she’d felt the same tension, but she’d bluffed her way through the forty-five minutes.
I know about the Other. She’d said that confidently. You don’t have to pretend with me.
Emily hadn’t spoken.
I know, and I’m here because I want to learn how to protect myself.
Emily had known about what happened in that godforsaken alley. Her lover, Detective Colin Gyth, had been on the scene within moments. Holly didn’t think there were many, if any, secrets between the cop and the good doctor.
The first time she’d come face-to-face with Emily, the knowledge of that dark night had been in the Monster Doctor’s eyes.
Emily had agreed to take her on as a patient. She’d started teaching her how to visualize shields for her mind-and to actually make those damn things work through a focused concentration that sometimes left Holly’s head aching and her heart racing.
And…more had developed in the sessions. Holly had found herself talking about Zack. Her parents.
Her brother.
Christ, the first time she’d talked about Peter, she’d bawled for an hour.
“You can ask me anything,” Emily said as she picked up her pen. “But keep in mind I’ll have my turn to ask questions, too.”
She always did. Sneaky questions that seemed easy enough to answer on the surface but were really designed to rip the scabs off all the old wounds Holly had locked inside.
She pulled in a deep breath of air. “Why-why did you originally agree to see me? You knew that I was a reporter, I could have just been scamming you-trying to get a story-”
“You’re not like that.” Instant response.
Those empathic powers? “You sure of that?”
A nod.
“ Why did you see me?” Holly repeated. The answer was very, very important.
“You need me.” One shoulder lifted, then fell. “I don’t make a habit of turning away people who need me.”