Free The Scent of Shadows Free with Bonus Material by Vicki Pettersson

these walls that he didn’t somehow find out about. Yet Olivia surprised me. As we exited the foyer into a bright winter day and I turned in the oppositedirection of Cher’s waiting Corvette, Olivia grasped my forearm, her grip unusually strong.
    “You’re the only family I truly have left,” she said, looking me hard in the eye. “Without you, I’d probably believe all the things they say.”
    I didn’t have to ask who she meant. People who wrote magazine articles about her but never dreamed of conversing with her. People who looked her in the chest rather than the eye. People who forgot there was a person beneath all the beauty and gloss, and, yes, that included Xavier.
    “Olivia Archer,” I said, taking her hands in mine, “you are all the things they say, and more. You’re beautiful, kind, intelligent, and strong. You’re true and you’re loyal, and even though you possess a baffling penchant for mud baths”—she choked out a strangled laugh at that—“you are also my sister. Beneath the high sheen of your society face lies a solid core of strength, and a spirit stronger than I’ll ever possess. Touch that in your mind when you begin to forget, okay?”
    She nodded, teary, and I let her go before we both started blubbering on Xavier’s palatial steps. I wouldn’t give him the pleasure. Still, halfway down the steps I turned. “And Olivia?”
    She paused, and I raised my voice so it would carry to her, Cher, and whatever listening devices might be lying in the shrubbery. “Blood sister or not, I’ll never, ever leave you.”
    And I wouldn’t. She was all I had left now too.

5
    Ben Traina forgot nothing. The Italian restaurant was the same place he’d taken me on our first date, years earlier, in a borrowed pickup truck and a suit that didn’t quite fit. This time his clothes did fit—a snug pair of jeans that made me look twice, and a worn leather jacket that called for a third glance—and the vehicle was his own, though still a four-wheel drive and still souped to the nines. The restaurant had hardly changed at all.
    Taverna Deliziosa was an intimate Italian-American hole-in-the-wall that lived up to its name. The dual scents of Italian sausage and fresh bread greeted us at the door, and Sinatra wafted from invisible speakers. The dining area was simply one large room with heavy velvet curtains to soften the corners, and photos of Italian sports and movie stars adorning the crumbling brick walls. A mahogany bar lined the opposite side of the room, its mirror reflecting us back on ourselves, and its edges adorned with greenery, grapes, and old Chianti bottles. Individual tables sported red-and-white checkered cloths, and were topped with atmospheric gold hurricane lamps that did little to brighten the room.
    There were a fistful of couples dining tonight, and a Mormon family with an absolute brood of children had taken up the long trestle in the corner. Only one man was alone, his back to us as he sat hunched at the bar. I studied his face through the bartender’s mirror but saw nothing to alarm me. A retiree probably; older, graying, and harmless looking enough, but I still maneuvered so my back was to the wall and the scope of the entire room available to me. If Ben noticed, he didn’t let on.
    “The waiter knows you by name,” I said after a bottle of Panna and a bread basket had been placed in front of us.
    Ben shrugged out of his jacket. He was wearing a shortsleeved, collared shirt, and it moved nicely with his body. I looked up, trying to focus on his words, but his lips were equally distracting. “They keep cop hours and it’s on the way home.”
    He said nothing about it being the setting for our first date, so neither did I.
    “Seems I’m a little overdressed, though,” I said, motioning down. I’d worn slacks in concession to the blade sheaths fastened at my boot and lower back, but had chosen a bright coral top to stand out against the contrasting black, its neck draping