"Mercedes Lackey - Tregarde 2 - Burning Water" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

 She wrote romance novels. Sentimental, wildly entangled, and blatantly melodramatic romance
novels, with never an unhappy ending in sight.
"So what was it this time?" he asked, taking one of her two bags and leading the way to the
baggage-claim carousel.
"Regency." She laughed as he made a face. "Oh, you might have liked this one. The heroine was a
tomboy, the hero was a smuggler, and the complication was a duke."
"A dastardly cad, no doubt."
"But of course, aren't they all? You're looking for turquoise-blue rip-stop nylon, like the rest of my
gear."
She shrugged at his raised eyebrow. "Hey, it was a bargain, and it's certainly easy to see in a
crowd."
He spotted and retrieved the appropriate bagтАФand he almost suspected her of a little spell-casting,
it came off the plane so quickly.
He gave her a long sidelong glance, and she laughed.
"Don't give me that lookтАФyou know I don't work that way," she admonished.
He continued to give her a teasingly skeptical stare.
"Honestly, some peopleтАФwork it out for yourself, Sherlock."
"Huh?"
"Lord, I thought you were supposed to be good at figuring mysteries out. I told you myself that I
was in a hurry, so much so that I posted the FedEx package at the airport. Ran on the plane at the last
minute. Simple airline procedure, silly. Last baggage on is first off. No hocus-pocus needed. Except
maybe a little nudge at the handlers to make sure my stuff got on at all."
"Okay, okay, I believe you." By way of apology he relieved her of one of her carry-ons. "After
youтАФ" he gestured grandly.
They headed out the door, to be met by a blast of heat, light, and noise.
"Good Lord! This is like walking into the ninth circle of Hell!"
"Welcome to January in Dallas," he shouted over the screeching of tires and the roar of motors.
"So you were up to your eyebrows in love triangles right up until you left, huh?"
"Uh-huh. The best is yet to comeтАФI wangled an advance on a five-book contract, all five to be set
down here. That's who paid for these plane tickets, m'lad. I am ostensibly doing research even as we
speak."
He shook his head with admiration as they approached his battered little red Karmann Ghia. Diana
handed him her burdens silently, then said, very softly, and with just a faint hint of mockeryтАФ
"I wondered how long it was going to take for you to call me. I've been keeping track of your
weirdo killer in the news items. That's the reason I went after that contract in particularтАФI was about
ready to call you up and volunteer."
Mark sighed. "If it had been up to me, I'd have called you in sooner."
She waited until he unlocked the passenger door before replying. "Why don't you pretend I don't
know anything about this and start from the beginning. What I've gotten so far has been what's hit the
national news, and it's probably pretty distorted."
***
She waited quietly for him to organize his thoughts, while he negotiated the Ghia out of the
parking garage and onto the superhighway. A quick glance to the side told him that if she was feeling any
impatience she certainly wasn't showing it. But then, she rarely displayed signs of emotion; she kept her
feelings, like her private life, to herself.
"Like I said," he told her, finally, "if it had been up to me, I'd have called you earlier. The feeling
of the whole area has been real weird for the past month or so."
"How so, weird?"
"OffтАФjustтАФoff. Unsettled, and not in a good way. You know I'm not real sensitive, that's the best
I can tell you. But we've been getting all those signs of 'bad ju-ju' you always told me to watch out forтАФ"