“Dammit, Jamison, Jen just left. She’s going back to New York, probably right now.” He fought to control his rapid breathing as the agent gave calm orders on the other end of the line.
“We’ve got her covered, Mick. One of my men’s following her right now.”
A knot of tension eased a bit in Mick’s gut. “Good. Keep her safe. If that crazy bastard gets her, I’ll be your worst nightmare.”
“Jennifer’s not his target. And Chicago’s not a murder location. The next killing is in St. Louis, and that’s where he’ll be next. Our agents down there are covering every venue your book mentions. And the agent assigned to your fiancee will keep her in his sights until this thing is resolved.”
My ex-fiancee Mick wanted to say into the receiver but didn’t. Besides, if this agent stuck as close to Jennifer as Jamison claimed he would, everyone at the Bureau would realize soon enough Mick was solo.
The thought of the FBI knowing he’d been dumped was nowhere near as terrifying as the thought of Jen’s death. They’d never have a life together, but at least she would have a life. That was more than he could say for the fifteen victims of some crazed M. S. Kazimer fan.
For the first time in his entire life, Mick drank himself into a stupor that night. He passed out, fully-clothed, on the floor of his hotel suite.
“MOTHER, WE HAVE to talk.”
Cassie, Medusa and Endora had gone to the ladies room together, and not because there was safety in numbers.
“About what, dear?”
“Mother—”
Medusa’s hands fluttered in a gesture of agitation. “All right. I never should have brought Mort Morula here to see you.”
“That’s the understatement of the century, Mom. I’m almost to the point where I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
“I didn’t even know you could perform an impotence spell.”
Cassie’s gaze met her mother’s in the over-the-counter mirror, and she snapped, “Don’t change the subject. You knew I wanted nothing to do with Mort, yet you brought him to the signing and made a scene.”
“I just thought—”
“No, Mom, you didn’t think. That’s the trouble. I’m a grown-up now, capable of knowing my own mind. Just because what I want differs from what you want for me doesn’t negate my feelings.” Suddenly finding herself fighting tears, she took a seat on a powder room chair. A sigh escaped unbidden. “I love what I do, yet you refuse to accept my success. Why can’t you be happy I’m good at something I enjoy? Why can’t you be proud of me?”
Stunned, Medusa turned to Endora. The familiar stared back, expression stating she would stand by Cassie to the end.
Medusa knelt beside the chair and gathered her now-weeping daughter into her arms. “Darling, don’t. Don’t cry.” She brushed back Cassie’s hair with a shaking hand. “I am proud of you. Truly. I just don’t want to see you alone all your life. Please, don’t cry, dear.”
After a few moments, Cassie was cried out. She raised her head from Medusa’s shoulder and dashed away her tears with the back of a hand. Her mother’s honest contrition had gone a long way toward easing the hurt. “You’d rather I spend my life with a loser like Mort Morula?” she asked wryly.
“Well, in retrospect, he’s not a very good match for you,” Medusa conceded softly.
“He’s a pompous ass, Mom. And that’s being kind.”
“Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. His chauvinism astonishes me.”
“Speaking of Mort the chauvinist,” Endora interrupted, “we’d better get back out to see the show.”
Both witches’ attention snapped toward the familiar.
“Endora—” Her name on Cassie’s lips was both warning and question.
She held her hands up in supplication. “Well, Cassie, he was being, as you said, a pompous ass—”
“Endora!”
“Okay, okay. I put live anchovies in his deep dish pizza,” she confessed without the slightest bit of remorse. “They should be trying to swim back upstream right about now.”
Cassie had a hard time keeping her jaw from dropping open.
“This I have to see,” Medusa said on a laugh.
THE WOMEN WERE destined for disappointment. They arrived at their table just in time to view Mort’s back as he beat as hasty a retreat out of the restaurant as his stilt-like legs could muster.
“I should go after him,” Medusa said halfheartedly. “Try to smooth things over.”
Cassie shook her head. “Bad idea, Mom. If you follow him and see him tossing his anchovies in some alley, he’ll be horrified. All that male witch pride and arrogance reduced to puking in the street, right in front of a respected elder. Why not just stay with us? We’ve got less than two hours before the reception starts back at McCormick Place, so let’s eat.”
“He left most of his pizza,” Endora observed.
Cassie grinned. “Somehow, I don’t think you’re going to lose sleep over that.”
“Are you kidding? Live anchovies are my favorites.” Endora sat down in Mort’s vacated seat and tucked into his pizza like a pit bull after a mail carrier. “Cream would go great with this.”
Medusa and Cassie traded grimaces as they joined Endora at the table.
“I’ll pass on that, thanks,” Cassie said as Medusa nodded her agreement.
“Your loss.”
“I don’t think so,” Cassie and Medusa chorused.
Mouth full of pizza, Endora muttered, “You two don’t know good food when you see it.”
With a wink at Cassie, Medusa said, “I think I’ll trust my daughter’s judgment on that one.”
Cassie could practically feel herself glowing at her mother’s subtle endorsement. She literally felt like flying. If she could pull off a stunt of that magnitude. Which she doubted. One thing at a time, she told herself. Maybe Mom will stop her incessant matchmaking now.
She was glad her obfuscation spell kept her thoughts from her companions, especially since images of Mick Sandor kept creeping in at the most inopportune moments. One thing at a time. First, I need to find out if Mick’s actually engaged or in a relationship with Jennifer Bodin. If he isn’t . . . She blushed when she realized Medusa and Endora were staring at her. She gave them a clearly fake smile. “Please, let’s continue with this fascinating conversation.”
“Actually, curing wood trolls of foot fungus doesn’t thrill me at all,” Endora deadpanned.
Cassie rolled her eyes. One thing at a time, she chanted. One thing at a time.
Five
“GOOD-BYE, DARLING.” Medusa hugged her daughter close, nearly smothering her in the voluminous folds of her purple robe. “Do have fun on the rest of your book tour.”
Cassie held the embrace a few seconds longer, buoyed by the genuine solicitude in her mother’s voice. The true intent behind spoken words could never be hidden from the witch who heard them. Medusa’s sincerity was real.
“Thanks, Mom.” She gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “And please don’t say anything to Mort about tonight. Let’s just let it lie, okay?”
Medusa laughed. “I doubt he’ll show his face around the coven for quite a while. He really made a fool of himself, didn’t he?” Turning, she embraced Endora before the startled familiar could get away. “Take care of my baby, Dora.”
Cassie blushed as her friend, squirming slightly, replied, “You know I will, Medusa. It’s my job, and I love it.”
“You’re good for her. See that she stays healthy and happy.”
Endora’s cocky smile only served to endear her more to Cassie. “I’m on it!”
Medusa shot the sleeves of the purple robe. Then glancing about and realizing they stood in front of the restaurant, she looked a bit sheepish. “Guess I’ll just go around the corner before I pop o
ut of here . . .”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“My pleasure.” Blowing Cassie and Endora a kiss, she disappeared in an outrageous swirl of silk and satin down a nearby alley.
Impulsively, Cassie wrapped her arm around Endora’s shoulders. She knew such contact went against the familiar’s feline nature, but Endora permitted it. “Hey, pal, let’s get back to the hotel and get freshened up for the big to-do.”
“No problem, Boss.” Endora hailed a taxi. “And on the way, you can tell me how your lunch with Mr. Gorgeous and Famous went.”
Cassie winced, then gave her friend a calculating look. “Dora, what do you know about baseball?”
“Not a thing. I think it’s a stupid sport.”
“Good, then you’ll have no idea what I mean when I say that, when it comes to M S Kazimer, I’m looking into his possible free agency.”
Endora stared back at Cassie. “I can easily investigate into the meaning of that statement, you know.”
“Sure. But while you’re doing it, you’ll be staying out of my private life.” Cassie did her best impersonation of Endora’s catty smile, an action which had the familiar snorting in disgust.
“SWEET CHRIST, Sandor, what the hell got into you?” Robert Jamison stood in the suite’s master bedroom, hands planted on hips, disgust on his G-Man face. At his feet lay the prone body of the world’s most famous horror writer. The agent studied the scene. “Ah, yes. A fifth of Crown Royal got into you. Buddy, you took today’s bad news even harder than I thought you would.”
Mick’s loud snore convinced Jamison that checking for a pulse wasn’t necessary, so he turned down the bed, lifted the unconscious writer in a fireman’s carry and flipped two-hundred-fifteen pounds of dead weight onto the mattress. Taking pity on the poor sot, Jamison pulled off Mick’s shoes, wrestled him out of vest and dress shirt, hauled off his slacks and socks, then tossed a blanket over the now loudly snoring lump.
“Glad I’m not going to be you in the morning,” the agent murmured as he turned off the lights and left the room. “I’ll give your regrets to the reception crowd.”
THE DARKNESS OF the hotel bar provided plenty of ambience and just enough light for patrons to read the carefully worded descriptions of exorbitantly priced drinks. In a final gesture of pique, Jennifer decided to run Mick’s tab as high as she could. Her red-eye flight back to New York didn’t leave until one-thirty in the morning. Since she hated airports and refused to sit for hours in some horrible terminal, she’d gone directly from her suite to the bar and hunkered down for some serious spending. In the three hours before she caught a cab to O’Hare, she figured she could order a dozen appetizers and get herself and every other bar patron plenty drunk on her former fiancé’s money.
So, she set about doing just that.
She glanced up as he approached, expression telling him she saw a blonde-haired man of average height and average looks. And had immediately classified him as insignificant.
He knew he was anything but that.
He indicated the bar stool next to hers. “May I sit here?”
“Why not?” She took a sip of her drink, then cocked her head at him. “You have very unusual eyes.”
“Really?”
“So dark compared to your light coloring. Very intense.” She turned away, and for a moment he thought she had dismissed him. Then she faced him again. “What’s your name?”
He had no qualms about lying to her. Glancing at the bottles on the shelves behind the bar, he saw a familiar brand. “Jack.”
“Just Jack?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Just Jack, I’m Just Jennifer.” The handshake she offered was flaccid and moist. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?”
A predatory smile graced her wide mouth. “Not tonight.”
He had never mastered a charming laugh, but it appeared Jennifer Bodin was beyond caring about the oddly rusty sound that left his throat. He saw her gaze become calculating. It seemed to say, “Let this loser think he has a chance with me.” Bitch. Jennifer Bitch. He wasn’t here to seduce her, but for another purpose entirely.
“Do you live around here, Just Jack?”
“No.”
“In town on business?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
She studied him over the rim of her highball glass. “Not very talkative, I see.”
“No.”
She laughed, then signaled the bartender for another round. “Just like my ex. You married?”
“No.”
“Me either, and it looks like I won’t be any time soon.”
Stroking Jennifer Bitch’s ego, though revolting, was necessary to his purpose. “Who wouldn’t want to marry a pretty woman like you?”
She was so self-possessed she didn’t even acknowledge the compliment.
“My ex-fiancé, that’s who. The sonuvabitch is giving up his career! Didn’t even ask what I thought. I tried my best to change his mind, but does he care what I think? Oh, no. M. S. Kazimer said he’s quitting, and he’s a man of his word.” Jennifer tossed back the rest of her drink neat. “The bastard’s going to regret he ever quit on me!”
The bitch’s absorption in her own indignance caused her to miss the expression of complete astonishment he knew flooded his face. She also missed seeing that emotion harden into cold fury. He could feel his cheeks burning with rage. Felt the walls closing in on him.
“I have to leave,” he said curtly.
Her head jerked in startlement, and she turned to stare at him. “You just got here.”
“Sorry.”
He launched himself off the bar stool and had taken three steps when he heard her say, “Men are all bastards . . . Bartender, another round for the house.”
He couldn’t be bothered by her petty opinions, as she was nothing to him. But what she’d told him . . . He picked up his pace until he was practically running for an exit.
Quitting! M. S. Kazimer is ending his career. Impossible! Blind fury slowly gave way to more rational thinking. Could that bitch Jennifer Bodin have been mistaken? He had recognized her the moment she’d entered the bar. Recognized her from the meticulously collected publicity photos of his idol he had culled from magazines and newspapers over the past six years.
Her engagement to the great M. S. Kazimer was of no import to him. Nor was she. He had come hoping to gain more direct information on the man he worshiped. The man whose genius had provided a blueprint for his own life. But this was the last thing he’d expected to hear.
You can’t quit! How will I continue my work? How will I prove my worthiness to you if I don’t have your guidance to follow? M. S. Kazimer’s wonderful books would no longer show him the way. Desolation struck hard. If Jennifer Bitch was correct . . . No, she lied! Vindictive harlot. Women lied. Always. Angry with M. S. Kazimer for some offense, she had chosen to punish him, spreading vicious lies about his quitting his career.
Necessity now dictated an adjustment in his plans. He’d have to get closer to his deity in St. Louis, where he’d already plotted his next spectacular act of reverence. That way, he could determine for himself the truth of the matter.
THE MAIN BALLROOM glittered with thousands of tiny white lights hung from the ceiling and walls to resemble a galaxy of stars. Men in tuxedos and women in ball gowns drank champagne, nibbling on exotic hors d’oeuvres while trading the latest publishing trends and insider gossip. They toasted the authors and gushed over their latest literary offerings with a fervor just short of sycophancy.
Cassie’s innate insincerity detector stood her in good stead, and she and Endora spent very little time with those who sought to gain something from associating with the Kitchen Witch and her business manager. A quick kiss on both cheeks and a “Le
t’s do lunch sometime” sufficed as contact with those particular types.
Starting at the buffet tables in the center of the room, they slowly moved in an ever-widening circle toward the outer rim of chairs and small cafe tables. Cassie didn’t really care for large crowds, so her strategy was to start at the hub of the action—the food—see and be seen, and move slowly but steadily toward the exit doors. She found herself wishing she could talk to Mick about writing, rather than endure all the false praise coming her way from publishers and business moguls alike.
Where’s your love interest? Endora said inside Cassie’s mind.
Whomever do you mean?
C’mon, Boss, don’t play dumb with me. You didn’t get all dressed up in your favorite teal gown—the one you know makes men weak with lust—just to impress a bunch of uptight suits. Mick’s not here, and that’s bothering you.
Cassie grabbed a flute of champagne off a passing waiter’s tray and took a sip to stall this unwanted conversation. So she’d taken extra time with her makeup and chosen to wear a gown that complimented in truly amazing ways her dark coloring. There were lots of big shots in the room tonight, and she wanted to leave a favorable image with them . . . Making them weak with lust was not her intent at all.
Get off it, Endora. I’m working the room here.
Sure, and my mother is a rottweiler. You’ve barely taken your eyes off the doors all night. That Brad Pitt look-alike made a pass at you, and you froze him out.
Sorry, but I can’t stand it when men drool in my cleavage. Or is that just when certain men do that? I’d bet you’d make an exception for one M. S. Kazimer. Who, I’m sure you’ve noticed, is conspicuously absent.
Really?
“You’re absolutely impossible!” Endora groaned.
Cassie put the now-empty glass down on a side table. They had managed to work their way to the perimeter, and she sat down in an empty chair not five yards from the doors in question. “Why do you say that?”
Endora took the chair beside her boss. “Obviously, you really like the guy. Why not go for it?”
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