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Miranda was as puzzled as Dusty. Probably more so. She made it clear—everyone in the FBI knew about PAVAD and knew how to contact the agents assigned to it. Knew what the unit did. That two hadn’t, well, that was really odd. Those were Miranda’s words. Not her own. Even other federal agencies would have known about PAVAD.
Dusty rattled off the ID numbers and names that had been on the badges.
Miranda was going to keep those ID numbers handy. Just in case.
18
He wasable to get more done than he had expected after his favorite demoness checked him in. Maybe justseeingher had been what it was? All that was needed?
Ben contemplated that once he closed his laptop after a good fifty pages of words had flown from his fingers. Sasha was hiding something from Harry now, he thought. And Harry had justshotsomeone to protect her. He’d started off using a knife, but Ben had decided a gun was less personal and fit that point in the story better.
Of course, the villain—still unnamed at this point, going by the current moniker of [FIRSTVILLAIN]—had been trying to abduct Harry’s little sister’s best friend, Sasha. When she’d been all alone and vulnerable and locking up the diner one cold snowy night in November.
Harry had been with her—he’d stopped by after a bad case, for coffee and conversation. It was a good thing Harry had been. Sasha would have been in serious trouble otherwise. That had scared Harry.
Defending her with a weapon was justifiable. At least, Harry’s friends on the force had argued that. Harry probably wouldn’t face charges, even though [FIRSTVILLAIN] had died.
Now Harry wanted to know what Sasha was hiding. He was going to find out, too…as soon as Ben figured out what it was.
Ben needed to think. To figure it out.Normally, Ben plotted out his books ahead of time. Flying into the dark wasn’t something he did often. But some books…some books just wrote themselves. If he trusted good old Harry, Ben hoped this one would too.
But Ben needed a break. It had been hours since he’d grabbed a burger and potato salad in the dining room and some of Meyra’s apple cobbler. He loved that gorgeous woman witch’s cooking. If the way to a man’s heart really was his stomach, Ben probably would have married Meyra years ago.
But, well, his demoness had cast her spell on him instead. There was that. He was Dusty’s, not Meyra’s now.
Coven sisters didn’t poach, he didn’t think.
Ben needed food again. He was a rather simple man, after all.
He checked his watch. Damn it. The dining room had closed a long time ago. He was going to have to hit the small pod of vending machines downstairs in the game room area. There were sodas and candy bars and even an ice cream freezer.
Snack time.
He’d swing by the front desk, see who was manning it, and get change. All he had was a fifty in his wallet. He didn’t want to get fifty dollars in quarters. And if it was Dusty, well, maybe writing this book was the catharsis he needed to get thoughts of that woman naked out of his head.
No time like the present to check.
Ben headed down the stairs, manfully forcing the fantasy of Destiny Marie naked out of his head by step two.
Well, maybe by step ten.
It wasn’t Dusty at the front desk, thankfully, but a young woman who resembled her, just a little. The hair was that common caramel brown—same as Dusty’s coven sister/real sister Daisy’s, though the eyes were the same witchy green. She was a lot shorter than Dusty. Her dad’s cousin, he couldn’t remember which one. Dusty had three or four second cousins that worked around the hotel. One of the -aceys. There were Jacy, Macey and Casey, he thought. Or Pacey or Dacey or Stacey or…he didn’t really remember their names, but they were getting old enough to be demoness coven sisters in his urban fantasy, too. He’d have to remember that.
This one’s name tag read Jacy. She gave him some tens and smiled, blushing prettily. She couldn’t be more than twenty. She’d break men’s hearts with that smile when she was a little older. No denying that.
Coven demoness sisters always did.
Then, it was on. His quest for food had just begun.
Ben took the stairs—he’d never really liked elevators, he’d probably been crushed in one in a past life or something—and came around the corner. The game room was more of a lounge area that led into the indoor/outdoor pool area that that had been added to the inn back in the seventies or something. It was a bit of a dated part of the inn, but he’d spent several hours there before.
Nikki certainly had. She’d always wanted to be with Dusty. They weren’t together as much now that Nikki was married, though. He wondered how Dusty was adjusting to that. Nikki had Hunter to entertain her, after all.
But Dusty—what if she was all alone now and needing Ben to keep her company? Things had changed for Dusty when Nikki had swept poor little Hunter off his feet like that, too. No denying that.
Life had a way of changing. Ben would maybe someday get used to that.
He stopped short, seeing the woman refilling the towel shelf next to the pool entrance. “Hey, hot stuff.”
