Demon Fire (Angel Fire #3) - Marie Johnston Page 0,34

back door. Sierra moved her fingers over the laptop keys in case anyone could see inside. They’d think she was focused on her task, but her senses were attuned to the back door.

She strained to hear over the racket the demon was making as he packed. Pill bottles rattled and the host’s footsteps shuffled between the bedroom and bathroom.

She had to get the demon’s attention. Discreetly. “Psst.” She winced. That would have to do.

The host disappeared into the bedroom. Dammit.

Pushing away from the computer, she shoved a hand through her hair. She’d done nothing more than brush it and it was long enough to hang in her face and get in the way. Her coat was by the front door with her hat and gloves stuffed inside the pockets. The pile rested on top of her boots. She hadn’t wanted to track snow all over the human’s tidy house.

She was barefoot and pregnant and unarmed.

Striding to the kitchen, she looked through the cupboards. When she found the glasses, she took one out to make it look like she was getting a drink. The back door was to her right. The curtain across the door’s window was thin, just thick enough to hide the specifics of what she was doing. A shadow moved on the other side, crouched low.

A block of knives sat on the counter. She slipped out the paring knife and tucked it into the palm of her hand. It was small, but if the person on the other side was possessed, it wouldn’t kill the host if she was careful.

Creeping close to the door, she edged back against the wall, inching left and right to catch a glimpse beyond the curtain.

“Okay.” A bag hit the floor and Sierra jumped. The demon had marched out of the bedroom and headed straight for the recliner. “I’m packed, but I need a minute. This heart is fluttering like a billion butterflies.”

He flopped into the chair and peered at her, the host’s eyes narrowing. “What the hell are you doing?”

A crack wrenched the back door open and a man holding a matte-black gun stormed inside.

Who the hell was Sierra? How the hell did she know Alma? And why the hell had she left after a clandestine bathroom conversation?

Boone hadn’t followed Sierra and the old lady here. He’d let her go, disbelief rooting him in place as she hooked her arm around Alma’s and walked out the damn pharmacy and away from him.

But he hadn’t needed to follow her. He’d made free use of the small-town gossip line. After Sierra had left with the lady he’d never seen before, he’d bought a soda and candy bar and made a comment about not having seen her in a while, leaving the her in question nebulous. As he’d hoped, the cashier, who was a good twenty-five years older than his thirty-eight, had filled in a lot of blanks about Alma. Alma Swanson had lost her husband eighteen years ago, kept to herself, and lived on the edge of town. Using his knowledge of what businesses were where, he’d managed to get the address out of the cashier.

Oh, you mean by the old insurance office that’s now a coffee shop?

Yes, Alma’s two straight blocks north of that. Merle used to work there when it was an insurance place.

I’d like to drop by and check on her yard, make sure she’s doing okay. Is it the blue house, or white? The two most popular house colors in any small towns.

Alma hires out the neighbor kid, but I’m sure she’d appreciate the effort. And Merle had the house painted green a few years before he died. I’m so glad he was around long enough to see how cute the new look was.

Ah, small towns. He’d found Alma’s house without a problem.

He was parked a block away. Alma’s old beater was parked out front. Why not use the one-stall garage attached to the small farm-style house?

He pondered the question way too long—no automatic garage door? The space was filled with decades of memories? They were leaving ASAP? The questions kept his mind off of why he was parked and spying on Sierra in the first place. She was nothing to him.

Yet his world had revolved around her for the last two months. He’d planned on helping her, and the whole time he’d stood by the door of the drug store while she supposedly took a pregnancy test, he’d thought about what it would mean. He’d be helping a pregnant