Windfall Page 0,53

the waves. The sky had turned a rich, endless blue, edging toward black.

I'd been asleep a while, but it felt as if I hadn't rested in days. Everything felt sharp and fragile and not quite right.

I let it fade into white noise as Sarah scraped meticulously dismembered vegetables from cutting board to bowl. She left the veggies and checked a stock pot on the stove, which sent out an aroma of chicken and herbs when she lifted the lid. I didn't remember owning a stock pot. It looked new. Like the gleaming chef-quality knives. I couldn't remember if I'd gotten my credit card back. That worried me, in a distant sort of otherworldly way.

She kept talking about my neighbors, whom I guess she'd spent the morning chatting up. I failed to follow, but it didn't really matter; she was babbling with an edge of nervousness, the standard Sarah tactic when she was trying not to think about something else. I remembered her doing this in high school, getting ready for dates with Really Cute Boys. She was nervous about Eamon.

"... don't you think?" she finished, and began draining the chicken. She saved the stock, I noticed. The better to boil the pasta.

"Absolutely," I said. I had no idea what the question was, but she beamed happily at the answer.

"I thought so. Hey, give me a hand with this, would you?" She was struggling with the weight of the stock pot. I got up and grabbed one of the side handles, and a hot pad-those were new, too-and helped out. She flashed me a grin that faded when I didn't grin back. We drained the chicken in silence. The stock pot, refurnished with broth, went back on the burner and got a new load of pasta.

Sarah dumped chicken and veggies into the oil-prepped pan to saut�.

"Is it David?" she asked as she expertly stirred and adjusted the heat. I blinked and looked at her. "Did you have a fight?"

"No." There was no easy answer. She took it for the avoidance it was and concentrated on her cooking.

I'd turned off the phone before collapsing on the bed this afternoon; I wandered over to the wireless base and saw that there were messages. I picked up the cordless and punched buttons.

Chapter Fourteen

"Would you like to own your own home? Rates today are..." Erase.

"Hot singles are looking for you!" Erase.

A brief moment of silence, and then the recording said, "Be on your balcony in thirty seconds. I'll be waiting."

I knew the rich, ever-so-slightly inhuman female voice. And that wasn't a recording. Not exactly.

I put the phone down, walked over to the plate-glass window and looked out. No one out there. But I knew better than to think I could avoid this, even if I wanted to; the Djinn Rahel wasn't the kind of girl you could avoid for long. I opened the sliding glass door and stepped out into the cooling breeze. As I rumbled the door shut again, I felt... something. A little stirring inside, a slight chill on the back of my neck.

When I turned around, Rahel was seated at my wrought-iron caf� table, legs crossed, inspecting her taloned fingernails. They were bright gold. The pantsuit she was wearing matched, and under it she wore a purple shirt the color of old royalty. Her skin gleamed dark and sleek in the failing light, and as she turned her head to look at me I saw the hawk-bright flash of her golden eyes.

"Snow White," she greeted me, and clicked her fingernails together lightly. They made a metallic chime. "Miss me?"

I sat down in the other delicate little caf� chair and folded my hands on the warm wrought iron table. "Like the bubonic plague."

She folded a graceful, deadly hand over where her heart would be if she'd actually had one. "I'm devastated. My happiness is shattered."

"To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"Ah, is it one?"

"Just say whatever you've come to say." I said it in a flat tone, tired of the banter already and just wanting to crawl back in bed and avoid reality for another few hours. Avoid the choice I knew I had to make. Which wasn't even really a choice.

Rahel leaned forward and rested her elbows on the wrought iron. Those alien, bird-bright eyes studied me without any trace of mercy or humor.

"You're dying," she said.