Fade To Midnight. Shannon McKenna

same time as Marr and Laurent. Only fourteen back then. She was a nerd. Glasses and braces. Back in Parrish’s Flaxon days.”

      “What is she, a socialite?” He studied her more closely, but all there was to be seen of her face was the tip of a nose and the flash of a pale cheek. Those hunched shoulders said get me the fuck out of here.

      “Graphic artist. I checked out her site. Just had a book come out. Some noir, urban fantasy comic book thing. Lots of hoo hah about it. Message forums, rabid fans. Her stuff’s popular with the college crowd.”

      Kev touched the photograph with his fingertip, tracing the outline of her shoulder. As if he could shove up the delicate beige strap that had fallen down over her arm. “Got any other pictures of her?”

      Bruno rummaged. “I printed out the photo on her Web site. Didn’t come out real well, but here.” He passed the picture to Kev.

      It was black and white. Edith Parrish looked into the camera with a diffident smile. Heavy wings of hair left only a narrow strip of her face visible. Horn-rimmed glasses shadowed her eyes. Her chin rested on her fists. Pretty mouth. Soft. She looked nervous, like she’d dart off like a fawn at the slightest provocation. “Not a socialite,” Kev said.

      “By no means,” Bruno agreed. “A Goth art nerd. Wonder what Daddy Dearest thinks of that.”

      Kev kept staring. Edie Parrish’s photo stirred him, but gave him no hard data to crunch. Sometimes he could trace phantom emotions to their source, make something of them. Usually not. Which was why emotions seemed so useless to him. More trouble than they were worth. But this feeling wasn’t bad. It felt…well, fuck it. Almost good.

      “I want to meet her,” he said.

      Bruno looked startled. “Edith Parrish? What for?”

      He shrugged, defensive. “I just do.”

      Bruno dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “Forget her. She’s too young to have anything to do with what happened to you. She was only eleven years old when Tony found you. Start with the dad.”

      “Of course I’ll go after the dad. But I still want to meet her.”

      Bruno’s eyes narrowed. “Why?” His voice had a challenging ring.

      Kev didn’t answer. Bruno let out an expressive grunt. “She’s too young for you, you slobbering perv. Pick on somebody your own size.”

      “I didn’t say I wanted to sleep with her,” Kev snapped. “I just said I wanted to meet her. And besides, how do you know how old I am?”

      “You weren’t twelve when I found you,” Tony pointed out darkly.

      Bruno’s cell phone chirped. He pulled it out, and stared at it. His dark eyes flicked up to Kev’s face. He looked unnerved.

      “What?” Kev demanded. “What the hell is it?”

      Bruno hesitated. “When I visited Edie Parrish’s Web site, I signed up for her mailing list,” he finally admitted. “It sends me an automatic SMS when she’s having an author appearance in my area.”

      The excitement was disorienting in its intensity. “Where?”

      Bruno didn’t answer. Kev lunged for the cell in Bruno’s hand, and grabbed the IV rack to steady himself when Bruno whipped it out of his reach. The dangling bottle of sugar water rattled and swung crazily.

      “Where?” he said, more sharply. “When? What bookstore?”

      “Calm down,” Bruno said. “I haven’t seen you this excited since you destroyed Patil’s face. Leave that babe alone. She’s irrelevant. You’ve got no business chasing her just because you think she’s cute.”

      Kev lunged again. “Give me that fucking phone!”

      Bruno darted back. “What do you think you can learn from her?”

      Kev waved his arms. “I don’t know. But it feels like a sign. Or the closest thing I’ve ever had to one.”

      Bruno looked worried. “What, you mean, like, from God? You mean, you actually believe in that stuff?”

      Kev finally captured the telephone. “Fucked if I know. But there’s one thing I don’t believe in.”

      Bruno looked apprehensive. “And that is?”

      Kev opened up the text message, memorized its contents, and handed the phone back to his brother. “Coincidences.”

      CHAPTER

       5

      Kev’s legs felt rubbery as he walked into Pirelli’s, the hip independent bookstore that had recently opened up downtown. He was early for the two-thirty meet-the-author event. He’d been too anxious to wait at home, and he wanted to stay out of Bruno’s reach.

      They’d worked out a shaky truce. Or rather, Kev had made Bruno understand that if he tried to stop Kev from going to the book signing, or if he showed up to police him there, one or both of them would end up in jail, or hospitalized. They’d fought in the hospital room two days ago, they’d fought this morning. They fought on the phone whenever they spoke. There was no middle ground.

      He understood his brother’s point of view. Pursuing Edith Parrish was a big waste of time. Potentially embarrassing, possibly dangerous. She was too young to have anything to do with his past. This was indisputable. But checking out Edith Parrish was not a decision. It was a compulsion. A clawing, roaring need that could not be reasoned with.

      Bruno had tried, in the hospital room, but his efforts had soon degenerated into shouting, a frequent occurrence in the Ranieri household. Tony had gotten into the fray, and after the IV rack got knocked over, the bottle of fluid smashed, and a table full of medical equipment upended, two big male nurses had come in and thrown Bruno and Tony out. And Kev had been made to understand that he was no longer welcome as a patient at Legacy Emanual Hospital. Now, or ever.

      But hey. A guy had to do what a guy had to do.

      He looked around, gut vibrating in that weird, tight way he couldn’t get used to, and strolled down the magazine aisle. Motorcycles, Men’s Health, Fine Art & Furnishings. He caught sight of himself reflected in the coffee bar machine, and winced. The wraparound sunglasses looked dumb, but he couldn’t tolerate fluorescent lights without them, and they hid the scarlet spot in his eye. And that hair, God. He went back and forth between long hair and buzzed off, it being a toss-up which took less maintenance, but he’d worn it long before the waterfall accident. When he wore it loose, it shielded him from a good forty percent of the stares that he caught for the scarring.

      But they’d buzzed him to the scalp for the surgeries. It was barely two inches long, which meant that as it grew, it stuck up in spiky, crazy cowlicked whorls that made him look like an overgrown Sting wannabe. Even the long canvas coat, chosen for bland neutrality, seemed like a costume piece, with that hair, those glasses. And he was so fucking tall. He fought the urge to slump. That didn’t make a tall guy inconspicuous.

      He forced himself to straighten, and noticed the cute blonde scoping him from the other side of the magazine rack. He turned his head as if checking out the bookstore map, letting her get a good long look at the scars. Her gaze darted away. She strode off. Bingo. One down, three billion to go. He weeded out the pointless ones a priori as quickly as possible.

      He had discovered, to his cost, that girls fell mostly into two camps. The ones who were repelled by the scars, and the ones who were intrigued. He wasn’t sure which category was worse.

      He hated explaining the story to them. He didn’t like to lie, but he hated telling the truth, too. Dealing with the girls’ wonder, their speculation, their sympathy, their heebie-jeebies. And the worst; their tender fantasies about soothing his ravaged soul and healing his inner wounds. Hell with that shit. It exhausted him. Celibacy was preferable.

      Then he saw the photograph.

      The