Free Hex Appeal by P. N. Elrod Page B

probably cost him more than I made in a week. His hair was dark, with a single swath of silver at each temple, and his skin was weathered and deeply tanned. He wore rings on most of his manicured fingers, all of them sporting large stones.
    “Hi, Daddy,” Connie said, smiling. She sounded pleasant enough, but she’d turned herself very slightly away from the man as she spoke. A rule of thumb for reading body language is that almost no one can totally hide physical reflections of their state of mind. They can only minimize the signs of it in their posture and movements. If you mentally exaggerate and magnify their body language, it tells you something about what they’re thinking.
    Connie clearly didn’t want to talk to this man. She was ready to flee from her own father should it become necessary. It told me something about the guy. I was almost sure I wasn’t going to like him.
    He approached the girl, smiling, and after a microhesitation, they exchanged a brief hug. It didn’t look like something they’d practiced much.
    “Connie,” the man said, smiling. He had the same mild drawl his daughter did. He tilted his head to one side and regarded her thoughtfully. “You went blond. It’s … charming.”
    “Thank you, Daddy,” Connie said. She was smiling, too. Neither one of them looked sincere to me. “I didn’t know you were in town. If you’d called, we could have made an evening of it.”
    “Spur-of-the-moment thing,” he said easily. “I hope you don’t mind.”
    “No, of course not.”
    Both of them were lying. Parental issues indeed.
    “How’s that boy you’d taken up with? Irving.”
    “Irwin,” Connie said in a poisonously pleasant tone. “He’s great. Maybe even better than that.”
    He frowned at that, and said, “I see. But he’s not here?”
    “He had homework tonight,” Connie lied.
    That drew a small, sly smile out of the man. “I see. Who’s your friend?” he asked pleasantly, without actually looking at me.
    “Oh,” Connie said. “Harry, this is my father, Charles Barrowill. Daddy, this is Harry Dresden.”
    “Hi,” I said brightly.
    Barrowill’s eyes narrowed to sudden slits, and he took a short, hard breath as he looked at me. He then flicked his eyes left and right around him, as if looking for a good place to dive or maybe a hostage to seize.
    “What a pleasure, Mr. Dresden,” he said, his voice suddenly tight. “What brings you out to Oklahoma?”
    “I heard it was a nice place for perambulating,” I said. Behind Barrowill, his guards had picked up on the tension. Both of them had become very still. Barrowill was quiet for a moment, as if trying to parse some kind of meaning from my words. Heavy seconds ticked by, like the quiet before a shootout in an old Western.
    A tumbleweed went rolling by in the street. I’m not even kidding. An actual, literal tumbleweed. Man, Oklahoma.
    Then Barrowill took a slow breath and said to Connie, “Darling, I’d like to speak to you for a few moments, if you have time.”
    “Actually…” Connie began.
    “Now, please,” Barrowill said. There was something ugly under the surface of his pleasant tone. “The car. I’ll give you a ride back to the dorms.”
    Connie folded her arms and scowled. “I’m entertaining someone from out of town, Daddy. I can’t just leave him here.”
    One of the guard’s hands twitched.
    “Don’t be difficult, Connie,” Barrowill said. “I don’t want to make a scene.”
    His eyes never left me as he spoke, and I got his message loud and clear. He was taking the girl with him, and he was willing to make things get messy if I tried to stop him.
    “It’s okay, Connie,” I said. “I’ve been to Norman before. I can find my way to a hotel easily enough.”
    “You’re sure?” Connie asked.
    “Definitely.”
    “Herman,” Barrowill said.
    The driver opened the passenger door again and stood next to it attentively. He kept his eyes on me, and one hand dangled, clearly ready to go