Gale Force Page 0,42

gentleman get out of his van. He looked like he was in some trouble. I think he might have been having some kind of seizure."

"Seizure," the cop said, and noted it down. "Uhhuh. Was his shirt like that when he got out?"

Oh. The burns. "I didn't notice right away. I didn't see him with a cigarette or anything," I said, which was the absolute truth. "Is it important?"

"Probably not. He damn sure didn't burn to death. So, you didn't know him, ma'am?"

I was lucky that nobody appeared to have noticed our little confrontation in the parking lot - then again, it probably wasn't luck so much as David, taking care of business. Everybody remembered me and David inside the diner, but nobody appeared to have been paying attention when we left and went out to the car. The glamour had held until the windows blew out.

"No, I didn't know him," I said. It was my first real lie, and I had to make sure he bought it. I tried not to hold myself too still or keep his gaze too long. A good Earth Warden could have exerted some mental pressure to make him overlook anything that tripped his suspicions, but I'd never been that good, and I wasn't about to try something like that at my current level of emotional trauma. "Sorry. I think he didn't really know what was going on. Maybe he was high . . . ?" Slandering the dead, Joanne. Good one. I felt an uncomfortable roll of guilt, but then again, Antonelli had been willing to abduct and murder me. A little slander might have been appropriate.

"Where's your boyfriend?" the cop asked.

"Fiance," I automatically corrected him, and smiled nervously. "I think he went to the bathroom. It was - this was awful. Really awful."

The cop nodded, probably thinking of all the much more awful things he'd no doubt seen in his career. Probably thinking I was a lightweight ditz. That was fine, because in some senses I was, and besides, I didn't want him to take me too seriously. That would be a very bad thing.

"Okay," he said. "If you'll wait over there, Ms. Baldwin, it'll be a little while. You said you were on your way to New York?"

"Yes," I said. "I have a business meeting. Look, can I call - ?"

"Sure," he said. "Just don't go anywhere."

I walked away, not in the direction of the reporters, and headed for the pay phone. How long had it been since I'd had to use a public phone? Years. I missed my crispy-fried cell phone, especially when I saw the grime and dried spit on the telephone receiver. You're an Earth Warden, I reminded myself. You laugh at public phone germs.

Still, I fished a tissue out of my purse and wiped the plastic down before I started dialing.

Lewis answered on the third ring. "Somebody tried to kill me," I said. "No, don't interrupt, and don't joke. It was Lee Antonelli. I had things under control, but somebody took him out at a distance. He said something about the Sentinels putting out a contract on my life."

There was a silence on the other end that stretched on for longer than I would have liked. "How'd they kill him?" Lewis asked.

"Some kind of aetheric attack, nothing I've ever seen before. Lewis, they just reached out and destroyed him. What the hell is going on?"

"Just get here," he said. "The faster the better." He hesitated for a second, and then his voice softened. "You okay?"

"Yeah. No damage."

"That's not what I meant."

"You mean, am I okay with the concept that somebody's capable of hiring marginally loyal Wardens as hit men to take me out, and killing them if they fail? No, not really."

I went cold inside when Lewis said, "If it makes you feel better, you're not the only target."

"You?"

"Among others." He didn't elaborate, and I didn't think it was a good time to ask. "Watch your back. If they can kill Antonelli from a distance - "

"I've got David," I said. "And we'll both be watching for it now. You be careful."

"Always. Call when you get back on the road."

"Can't. Cell phone had a fatal issue during the fight."

"Get David to fix it," Lewis said. "I don't want you out of contact for a second."

And that was it. Sentimental, it wasn't, but then we understood each other too well for that most of the time. Not that we couldn't be friends, but business was business, and staying