"07 - Burnt Offerings 4.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

Hamilton - ABVH 07 - Burnt OfferingseVersion 4.0 - see revision notes at end of
text


Burnt Offerings


by
Laurell K. Hamilton


Book 7 of the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series




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Chapter 1



Most people don't stare at the scars. They'll look, of course, then do the eye
slide. You know, the quick look, then drop the gaze, then just have to have that
second look. But they make it quick. The wounds aren't like freak show bad, but
they are interesting. Captain Pete McKinnon, firefighter and arson investigator,
sat across from me, big hands wrapped around a glass of iced tea that our
secretary, Mary, had brought in for him. He was staring at my arms. Not the
place most men look. But it wasn't sexual. He was staring at the scars and
didn't seem a bit embarrassed about it.
My right arm had been sliced open twice by a knife. One scar was white and old.
The second was still pink and new. My left arm was worse. A mound of white scar
tissue sat at the bend of my arm. I'd have to lift weights for the rest of my
life or the scars would stiffen and I'd lose mobility in the arm, or so my
physical therapist had said. There was a cross-shaped burn mark, a little
crooked now because of the ragged claw marks that a shapeshifted witch had given
me. There were one or two other scars hidden under my blouse, but the arm really
is the worst.
Bert, my boss, had requested that I wear my suit jacket or long-sleeved blouses
in the office. He said that some clients had expressed reservations about my ah
. . . occupationally acquired wounds. I hadn't worn a long-sleeved blouse since