Edge Of Midnight. Shannon McKenna

accessories, but it’s sexier than taking the bus.”

      “Barely,” Sean muttered. “I thought you were working on Con’s nerd killer project.”

      “I will be. Cyber stuff. I’ll work from up there.”

      Sean grunted, and yanked a couple beers out of the fridge. He handed one to Miles, chug-a-lugging half of his own. “God, I feel like shit.” The red light blinked insistently on his message machine. He stabbed the button to see what the outside world wanted from him.

      The first two calls were work-related; one about an invoice he’d sent for a consulting job he’d done a few weeks before, another from an independent film director in L.A. who was shooting a movie about GIs in Iraq. Sean punched the fast forward button over both of them. He’d deal with them later, when his brain was back online.

      The next message rooted him in place, bottle poised at his lips.

      “Yo, Carey Stratton here. Tried your cell. Fucker was turned off. I was doing a trawl for your long lost lover-doll. Computer coughed up some new data. Olivia Endicott has had a misadventure, pal. Somebody burned down her bookstore. Oh, and she’s moved. She’s in Endicott Falls, Washington, now. That’s pretty close to you, huh? This might be your chance. Go for it, buddy. The skulking from afar shit is not good for your health, even if it does pay my rent. I sent you an e-mail with the links. No charge for this service. Take it easy, OK? Later, dude.”

      Sean was rooted to the floor. Mind blank, mouth slack.

      “Sean?” Miles’s voice was cautious. “You’re spilling your beer.”

      Sean jerked, startled, and righted the bottle. He couldn’t breathe. He tried to swallow. His throat was choky dry, like desert sand.

      Liv. Back in Endicott Falls. The last news he’d gotten from the private investigator had placed her in Cincinnati, Ohio, working as a research librarian. The latest photos Carey Stratton had sent him had been taken there last December. Black and whites, long range lens. Liv, coming out of her apartment. Liv, petting a dog, smiling. Liv getting her mail, hair swirling around her head like a halo, patterned gypsy skirt billowing in the wind. Her socialite bitch mother Amelia Endicott had loathed those long, swishy, hippie-mama skirts.

      So Liv was still a rebel. Thank God for that.

      The most recent photos, plus his all-time favorites, were kept in a folder on the shelf over his computer. Conveniently near to hand.

      They were dog-eared and battered around the edges.

      He slipped in the puddle of beer as he bolted for the computer room, downloaded Carey’s message, clicked the links. Read them all. Read them again. It was true. Arson, for Christ’s sake. His hands shook.

      “So she’s the one, huh?”

      Miles’s quiet voice from the doorway made him jump. He’d forgotten the kid was there. “What? She’s what one?”

      “The one you keep that huge computer file on,” Miles said. “The reason you never stay with any one girl for more than four days.”

      “What the hell do you know about my file?” he barked. “I never gave you permission to mess around in my private files!”

      Miles dropped his long body into the other computer chair and gave Sean his long-suffering puppy dog look. “Remember those three days I spent trying to recuperate your data when your system crashed?”

      “Oh.” Sean covered his face with his shaking hand. “Fuck me.”

      Miles cleared his throat. “It’s, uh, real hard to keep secrets from your computer doctor.” His tone was apologetic. “Sorry.”

      Sean stared into the screen. His face felt hot. Nobody was supposed to know about his hobby of keeping tabs on Liv Endicott. It was just a small, private insanity that did not bear close inspection. By anyone. Not his brothers, certainly. Not himself.

      “You never said anything about it,” he muttered.

      Miles shrugged. “Figured I had no right to point fingers. It was funny, though. Didn’t know you had it in you. To be obsessed, I mean.”

      Sean winced. “I am not obsessed. And it’s no weirder than that vid clip of Cindy blowing a kiss that you used for your screen saver,” he said through clenched teeth. “Now that’s obsession for you, dude.”

      “I trashed that screen saver,” Miles said, his voice lofty. “Now I have a flock of migrating birds. It’s very relaxing.”

      Sean whistled. “Wow, sounds like a real dick-tingler. Relaxation, is not what you need, buddy. You need—”

      “To get my bone kissed, yeah. You’ve told me that already, like, a thousand times,” Miles said impatiently. “So who is she, anyway?”

      Sean buried his hot, throbbing face in his hands. “Hometown girl,” he said dully. “A direct descendant of our city’s illustrious founder, Augustus Endicott. His great-great-granddaughter, I think. You know that bronze statue of the pioneers in front of the library? The tall guy in the front who looks like he’s got a rifle shoved up his ass?”

      “Oh, man,” Miles said, whistling. “Them? So she’s, like the heir to that huge construction company? Yowsa. Bart Endicott practically owns this town. And what he doesn’t own, he built.”

      “Tell me about it.” Sean’s voice was bleak.

      Miles studied him, slouched in the chair, his dark eyes heavy lidded and thoughtful. “Huh. So she’s the reason you do it, then?”

      Sean gave him a wary look. “Do what?”

      Miles’s eyebrow lifted. “Fuck everything that has a pulse.”

      Sean was stung. “I do not fuck everything that has a pulse,” he said haughtily. “I have my standards. I limit myself to endoskeletal organisms. I always go for vertebrates. And I don’t do reptiles. Ever.”

      “Aw, shut up,” Miles grumbled. “Man slut. It’s not fair.”

      Sean gave him an appraising glance. Miles had changed since he’d started hanging with the McClouds. The results of two years of relentless martial arts training, dating from the historic battle of the Alley Cat Club, to save Cindy from her pusbag pimp of a then-boyfriend.

      Miles got pulped that night, but he’d developed a burning yen to learn to fight, just like the McClouds. Which was a tall order, but they’d made big progress. He had a black belt, for God’s sake. They’d finally gotten him to stand up straight, and his lanky frame and sunken chest had filled out nicely with all the weightlifting Davy made him do. He ate real food now, not just Doritos and Coke, so he no longer looked like an undernourished vampire. Sean’s tireless lecturing about grooming was beginning to bear fruit, too. Miles wasn’t a sharp dresser yet, by any means, but his T-shirt was clean, and his black hair was pulled back into a shiny ponytail, no longer lank, greasy wings framing a pallid face. He’d ditched the weird round glasses, and his big hooked nose looked better without them. He’d taken antibiotics for his zits, praise God. The resultant scarring gave his face a tough, weathered look.

      Add in the big puppy dog eyes and the bulging biceps, and voilà. Not too fucking bad. If he would just lighten up, maybe even smile occasionally, he would look like a guy who could get laid with minimal effort on his part. About time, too. The guy was a volcano about to explode.

      “Are these karate classes you’re teaching mixed?” Sean asked.

      Miles snorted. “I’m working with little kids. Ages four to twelve.”

      Sean shrugged. “There’s always hot and hungry single moms.”

      “This might come as a shock to you, but some people actually do things for reasons which are not specifically aimed at obtaining sex.”

      Sean widened his eyes. “Really? It worries me to hear a healthy twenty-five-year-old male say stuff like that.