Free Dancing With Werewolves by Carole Nelson Douglas Page A

gave a self-effacing grin. “Which I was, no thanks to myself.”
    There was a story there, but I’d get it later. I can wait.
    “A lot of them like to think I’m just lucky,” he added.
    “I let them believe that I have a photographic memory for
    news stories. Most dead bodies in wrong places are MIAs.
    Someone’s missing; somebody’s reported something, if
    you look hard enough. Which I do. After the fact.”
    He met my eyes again. “You seem to have some folk faculty yourself.”
    “You didn’t literally see them, the victims?”
    “I don’t see anything that specific. The dowsing rod draws me to the grave. I report it and the authorities always find a body. Or bodies. Sometimes they’re more than human. Or less.”
    I shuddered. “Are you saying—?”
    “Yeah. Human murder victims are the simplest. Sometimes the bodies are staked vamps, victims of vigilante attacks. Other things.”
    “In this case, you didn’t sense the bodies’ pre-death . . . agony? Their—” I didn’t know how to put it.
    “Their heat? Yeah. I got that this time, but only through your reaction.” His bedroom eyes apparently couldn’t resist giving me a visual pat down. “It adds a whole new dimension to my work, believe me.”
    I was blushing now, and on me, it always showed.
    He managed to ignore that, at least. “This crime . . . feels . . . like revenge for infidelity. I’ve never picked that up before, never anything about means or motive. We make a hell of a combo, Delilah. I wasn’t kidding about you being an associate.”
    Maybe. But he’d just seen me reacting to what I’d felt. He hadn’t experienced it, not both the glory and the gory. I didn’t like hanging out there on the naked edge like that, my emotions showing like a black lace slip under a white satin gown, literally in some strange guy’s hands.
    “I’ve got my own agenda here to take care of.”
    “I noticed. Now you know my secret. So what’s eating you?”
    I jerked my head toward Sunset Road. “I’d sure like to get an appointment with the man behind that wall but I can’t even get past the driveway gate to the security call box inside.”
    Ric turned to eye the imposing property.
    “There? Easy. I’ve been hanging in this park long enough to notice the pool service truck that coasts through those gates every day at four P.M. If you can hitch your wagon to a chlorine machine, you’re in.”
    “Thank you!”
    My watch read 1:00 pm. I had time to plan.
    Ric fingered my elbow-length mesh sleeves. Holding a dowsing rod like a psychic set of reins had given him a touch that could veer from sheer gossamer to a grip of iron. I’d felt that as intimately as I’d seen and experienced the dead couple’s passion and death.
    “I’ll be in touch, Delilah. Okay?”
    Oh, yeah, even though my knees were knocking about what that might mean.
    Or maybe because they were.

Chapter Twelve
    Three hours to kill.
    Oops. That phrase had an ugly echo in Sunset Park now that I’d viewed the skeletons in the ground.
    I wandered around, avoiding the crime scene I’d been banned from. I bought my own hot dog and drenched it in mustard that made my mouth pucker, avoiding onions for my possible interview later. I stared at the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse across the street, meditating on Hector Nightwine and who, or what, he might be. Nice man, bogeyman, entrepreneur, thief?
    At the lower end of the park, I spotted a dog run and stood watching from a distance, sawdust in my throat. I couldn’t help being drawn there, thinking of Achilles. The signs advertised obedience trials at 5:00 P.M. every day. The word “obedience” made me smile through my tears. Achilles wasn’t big on obedience but he was spot-on about everything I needed. Loyalty. Spirit. Elegance. Love.
    My throat was clogging, caught in a vise. Here I was, a new woman in a new city, and my past still had me by the throat harder than any vampire.
    Las Vegas SPCA the sign read. Women bustled