Read Online Deadly Nightshade by Cynthia Riggs - Free Book Online

her age, and taller. Her uniform was still sharply creased after a full day.
    “There's a nice feeling of privacy at night.” Victoria smoothed her hair in the window mirror and looked at her granddaughter's reflection.
    “It's deceptive.” Elizabeth picked up a receipt and studied it. “I can't read the writing on this.” She put the paper to one side. “Everybody in the world can see us, but we can't see them.”
    At that moment, there was a knock at the sliding window.
    “Who's there?” Elizabeth asked; then to Victoria, she said, “I didn't hear anybody coming.”
    Victoria glanced up at the clock. Eleven-forty-five. She had not heard or felt anything, either.
    Elizabeth stood up, and her chair fell over with a metallic clatter. Victoria turned toward the sliding glass window. On the other side of the reflections, she could dimly see someone. “Who could it be at this time of night?” Elizabeth moved toward the window and slid it open a couple of inches. A tall man, half-hidden in the darkness, loomed on the other side.
    “Frightened you, didn't I?” The man moved closer to the window. His shoulders filled the frame. Elizabeth stepped back.
    “Can I help you?” Her voice was higher than usual. Victoria got to her feet.
    “Two large vessels are coming in,” the man said in a deep voice. “They need berths.”
    “Who are you?” Elizabeth slid the window open a few more inches. Victoria could see the man had a huge head of fluffy black hair stuck with osprey feathers, and a huge black beard that covered the lower half of his face. He was wearing a black mesh muscle shirt that exposed dark, hairy upper arms tattooed with intricate designs. Around his neck, he wore a black scarf printed with what looked like white skulls.
    “Who am I?” He grinned at Elizabeth, teeth white against the blackness of his beard and the night. Victoria could see that his upper-right-front tooth was missing. “I am the Wind and the Rain. I am the messenger for the sheik of Qatar. It is the sheik's vessels that are arriving.”
    Victoria moved closer to the open window. Elizabeth glanced at the door. Victoria assumed it was to make sure it was locked. Elizabeth looked behind her. Victoria could tell she was wondering how to handle this situation.
    “The vessels will be here in an hour,” the apparition at the window said. “Two vessels, each one hundred and twenty-five feet in length.”
    Elizabeth's mouth opened slightly. Her hands were on the windowsill.
    “They're coming from the Persian Gulf.” He sounded impatient. “The sheik needs two berths for the night.”
    “Berths!” Elizabeth said. “We can't take boats that size; the channel isn't deep enough. We don't have slips large enough.”
    “The sheik expects you to find something.” The Wind and the Rain scowled, and his dark hair, dark eyebrows, and dark beard almost met. His eyes showed a ring of white around dark irises. Victoria saw the tattoos on his upper arms writhe as he crossed his arms over his chest.
    Victoria moved to the window. Elizabeth stepped forward to stop her, but Victoria slid the window open as wide as it would go. “You look familiar.” She looked intently into the man's hairy face. “You're a Gay Head Indian, aren't you?”
    “I am a Wampanoag.” He flexed and unflexed his arm muscles and scowled, uncrossed his arms and put large grimy hands on the windowsill. “I am a Native American from Aquinnah.” His raggedly bitten nails were rimmed with black. Elizabeth moved back, as if she thought he was going to vault through the window.
    “I know you,” Victoria said in a conversational voice, the voice she used at garden club meetings. “Aren't you one of the Minnowfish children?”
    The man stared at Victoria. His dark irises floated in the glistening whites of his eyes. His pink mouth opened in a pale O. He leaned forward into the window. Elizabeth stepped backward again and fetched up against the computer keyboard. Victoria heard