Free Charming Blue by Kristine Grayson Page B

morning who was as sick (sicker) than the Fairy Tale Stalker.
    And she knew, had she met him under other circumstances without any idea about his past, that she would have liked him—if, of course, he had looked her in the eye when he was talking to her. Otherwise, she would have thought him attractive but strange. (And maybe not even human; she’d known some feline shape-shifters who couldn’t handle direct eye contact on first meeting because in the feline world direct eye contact was considered threatening.)
    She shuddered at the thought. She finished her vanilla shake, packed up her mess, and patted her too-full stomach. She didn’t usually overeat like that. But she did feel better.
    She had a long night ahead of her. In addition to the work she had brought home, she also had to make about a dozen wards. Despite what she had seen in Bluebeard’s magic, despite Tank’s belief that the man had nothing to do with the current stalking cases, Jodi would be remiss if she didn’t protect herself from Bluebeard and from people like him.
    Someone had warded the rehab center against fairies, which meant that someone either wanted to keep Bluebeard’s only friend away from him or that someone had another agenda, one that had nothing to do with Bluebeard or with Tank or with anyone that Jodi knew.
    She would have to ask Tank if she had any dealings with the staff at the center. But she had a hunch Tank would say no. Tank didn’t like to deal with mortals any more than she had to. Jodi doubted anyone at the center wanted to keep Tank out.
    Still, those wards at the rehab center had given Jodi the idea. She needed to make sure her house was protected, at least for the short term. Especially if Bluebeard had told her the truth—if he had no control over what he did to a woman who came to his attention. And he was right: Jodi had come to his attention.
    Tank had put her in an impossible position, and Jodi needed to deal with it in all ways—not just intellectually, but practically and magically.
    She needed to make sure she was safe.

Chapter 10
    Blue sat alone in the reading room, a single light on the table focused on the printouts before him. Jodi had given him nearly five hundred pages of material, organized by date, with notes on the top. She clearly hadn’t compiled this. He found on the top of the first sheet a Post-it signed by someone named Ramon (who had very flowery handwriting, and who used a scented purple pen). Ramon’s handwriting covered the notes, and the deeper Blue dug, the more grateful he became to this mystery Ramon.
    Ramon was quite the organizer, and he made wading through this material very easy. Not that Blue was wading. He was reading with increasing horror.
    The reading room was on the far end of the main building. He liked to think that no one else came here because it was named “the reading room,” as opposed to the library. But the reading room was the only place in the center that had books.
    They covered the walls, with newer battered paperbacks scattered on various racks throughout the room. Every time he came to the center he saw new books, so he figured that patients left them when they checked out.
    Sometimes he just spent the entire night in here reading fiction. He had trouble sleeping because of all the nightmares, so he tried to do as little of it as possible.
    On this night in particular, he had a hunch he would have trouble sleeping, even if he hadn’t had the excuse of the documents to keep him up.
    He had told Jodi more about himself than he had told anyone except Tank. And Tank had pried some of this out of him when he was drunk. He didn’t remember telling her, but she knew.
    Shortly after he sat down, one of the staff brought him some bottled water and some fresh fruit.
    “Another late night?” he’d asked Blue sympathetically.
    Blue had shrugged. “Is there anything else?”
    The people here were kind to him, and they did do the best they could to accommodate him,