Free All Seeing Eye by Rob Thurman Page B

hadn’t had time for anything to imprint on it, even from Chang. I took it from him, noticing that he was careful to keep his hands from touching mine. The study, still with the study. Yeah, and who was really running that study? Cradling the box that was mercifully mute in my hands, I continued to block the door and watch the water drip from the eaves onto his head and down his neck. “So, do you want a tip or what?” I asked innocently.
    “What I want is to talk to you. And if I could do that without half drowning, I would consider it a bonus.” The blue eyes were narrowed grimly as drops of water drizzled down his face.
    “Then maybe you should’ve called first. Oh, wait, I didn’t give you my unlisted number.” I bounced the box on my hand and took a sniff. It smelled familiar. “Or my equally unlisted address. Huh, you’d almost think you weren’t wanted. Go figure.” I opened the lid. Apple pie … from the same neighborhood diner I’d mentioned to him. I recognized the thick cinnamon-crumble topping and thewide chunk of cheese nestled in a cardboard corner. “I don’t suppose you brought coffee.”
    He continued to fix me with an unwavering and demanding silent gaze.
    Unmoved, I shrugged. “That’s all right. The caffeine makes Hou a bitch to live with, anyway.” I opened the box and set it on the floor. Houdini instantly catapulted to his feet and raced over to bury his snout in the pastry. At the last second, I saved the cheese from his gaping maw. Canine constipation is never a pretty sight.
    Chang sighed and wiped a palmful of rain from his face. “So much for my goodwill gesture. You’re not going to let me in, are you?”
    “Keep this up, Doc, and you’ll put me out of a job,” I drawled, and started to slam the door in his face. Chances were good that it would take off the end of his nose. Let us count the ways in which I did not care.
    His foot stopped the door with a skill I found it hard to believe that college professors, even only professed part-time ones, possessed. “I wanted to do this the easy way, the civilized way,” he offered with grim regret. “I hope you try to keep that in mind.”
    For a moment, I had no idea what he was talking about. The easy way? He might be quick with the old salesman foot, but did he honestly think he was up to pissing me off? I’d learned more when I was a teenager than the superiority of quilts over scratchyblankets or how to spot a mark with one eye and the cops with the other. I could take care of myself. More to the point, I could take care of some dickhead who mistakenly thought I was caught between his foot and an apple pie. I might not want to run into him in an alley, but I would take care of business if I did. “You know, Dr . Chang, you’ve been so careful to avoid contaminating your precious study.” I balled my hand into a fist and bared my teeth in a humorless grin. “What a shame, because I’m about to get one helluva reading off your face.”
    “Maybe you should try reading this instead.” Not precisely impressed with the threat, he held up a picture. It was rain-splattered in the dim light that spilled from the doorway, but I made it out. A face nearly as familiar to me as my own.
    Glory.
    My sister. The numbers she held up beneath a blindingly bright smile were almost a fashion statement for her, she wore them so often. With her perfect cheekbones, hair the color of a handful of new pennies, and eyes the unfathomable green of well water, she looked more like a beauty contestant than a criminal. Hometown girl done good in the big Peach Queen festival, or ex–high school cheerleader who was as fresh and sweet as the day she graduated.
    But Glory hadn’t finished high school, leaving when she was fifteen some six years ago. The school board frowns on throwing your rival down on the bathroom floor, tying her up with her own bra, thencutting off all her hair with a switchblade. It wasn’t the first time my sister had