Free Underdead by Liz Jasper Page B

Monday, I arrived at five-forty-five and made loops around the block. I almost missed seeing Gavin. He was leaving early.
    I pulled into a bus zone until he passed me, let a few cars get between us, and then pulled out after him, feeling like a P.I. from the movies. Until I lost him. I cursed my incompetence until I realized where he was going—my apartment. It was merely his night for a stakeout. I stopped driving like a lunatic and just headed home.
    Gavin wasn’t there. After some more cursing and a few ever widening loops around town, I found him—or rather, his car parked near the local sports bar. I wasn’t sure if he was there for business or pleasure, but there was only one way to find out. I parked and went in.
    He wasn’t at the bar or in the pool table area, which meant he was either in the men’s room or had gone out to the back deck. The bartender was already giving me odd looks—apparently I was as bad at lurking inconspicuously as I was at tailing—so I decided to try the back deck first.
    It was a weeknight—no cover charge—and cold. They hadn’t hired a bouncer to man the back door so there was no one to notice or care as I opened the door just wide enough to slip through.
    It didn’t take a brain surgeon to realize my clandestine efforts were totally unnecessary. Gavin wasn’t there. In fact, I was alone except for two strangers making out as if they were alone, which they had been until I came out to watch. I felt as much like a voyeur as it sounds. Even more, I felt stupid. I stepped farther back into the shadows and prayed they didn’t see me.
    I was about to go back inside when the man let out a shrill, almost feral scream, fell to the ground and didn’t get up again. His date didn’t move to help him, just stood watching as he gave a last gasping breath and lay still. It had all happened so quickly I hadn’t had a chance to help him.
    I finally found my voice. “Oh my God, is he okay?” I stepped out of the shadows and hurried toward the fallen man. My sudden appearance startled the woman. She whipped around to face me and I let out a gasp of horror. There was an ugly smear of dark lipstick around her mouth. To my surprised and panicked brain, it looked like blood. She took a step toward me and then stopped, turned away and disappeared over the railing.
    I felt his presence before I saw him.
    As if mesmerized, I turned. He stood, tall and dark, on the edge of the platform as if waiting for me. Our eyes locked and my anger toward him melted away as if it had never been, leaving only the aching desire I remembered too well.
    “Will,” I said in a hushed voice.
    He was just as piercingly handsome as I remembered, his body just as long and lean, his eyes as hauntingly blue. The little voice urging me to flee withered and died. I wanted him more than anything, with every particle of my being. I took a step toward him and then another until I stood before him, close enough to feel the warmth of his skin, to see his lips form my name as he reached for me.
    As I lifted my foot to take the final step into his arms, something crossed my vision and struck Will in the chest before ricocheting to the ground with a clatter.
    Will’s eyes glittered with anger as he whipped around to see who had hurled the missile. I turned too, in time to see Gavin hurtling toward us, a long thin rapier in his hand. Will reached the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a knife.
    “No!” I cried, watching helplessly. Will spared me a glance and in the next second was gone.
    Gavin lowered his weapon, which I could now see was not a knife, only a wooden facsimile of one. “Was the ‘no’ for him or me?” He scowled, breathing heavily, and his grey eyes were hard with anger. He picked up the object he’d thrown at Will and sheathed the wooden knife in it with an angry snick . I recognized the innocent-looking result as the odd baton he’d held the morning after he’d spent the night unbidden in my