Read Online Dream of Danger (A Brown and De Luca Novella) by MAGGIE SHAYNE - Free Book Online Page B

suspected this was one of those times.
    “Rachel de Luca? The author, right?” The woman was moving toward me as she spoke. I waited until she got just two and a half steps from me before extending my hand. Any farther, you looked like an idiot. Any closer… Any closer was too damn close. I liked three feet of space around me at all times. It was one of a whole collection of quirks I held dearly.
    “Last time I checked,” I said, pouring sugar into the words, using my “famous author” voice. “And you are?”
    “Oh, gosh, this is such a thrill!” She gripped my hand. Cool and small. She smelled like sunblock, sweat and sneakers. Tinny, nearly inaudible music wafted from somewhere near her neck, and I could hear her pulse beat behind her words. No, seriously, I could. I told you, I hear everything. My brain snapped an immediate mental photo. She was too thin, an exercise nut, five-one or so, probably blonde. Her earbuds were dangli [s wy brain ng, iPod still playing, heart still hammering from a recent run. She probably didn’t even hear it. Hearing loss due to cramming speakers into one’s ear holes and cranking the volume. Joggers were the worst offenders. Sighted people didn’t appreciate how valuable their hearing was.
    Also, she had a beaky little nose and bad teeth.
    Don’t ask. I have no freaking idea how I get my mental snapshots of people. I just do. I don’t know if they’re anywhere near accurate, either. Never bothered to ask anyone or feel any faces. (Give me a break, people, it’s just disgusting to go around pawing strangers like that.)
    And she’d been talking while I’d been sketching her on my brain easel. Sally something. Big fan. Read all my books. Changed her life. The usual.
    “Glad to hear my methods are working for you,” I said. “And it’s great to meet you, but I have—”
    “I’m so glad I came in to check on my missing poodle,” she said. “I think she was dog-napped. But I’m staying positive. You know, I used to lose my temper all the time,” she went on. “I’d fight with my husband, my teenage daughter—and don’t even get me started on my mother-in-law. But then I started writing your words on index cards and taping them all over my house.”
    “That’s really—” fucking pathetic “—nice to hear. But like I said, I—”
    “‘If you get up in the morning and stub your toe, go back to bed and start over,’” she quoted. “I love that one. Such a metaphor for everything in life, really. Oh, oh, and ‘When you’re spitting venom onto others, you’re only poisoning yourself.’ That’s one of my favorites.”
    The woman behind the counter snorted derisively and muttered, “Oughtta be droppin’ dead any minute now, then,” just loud enough for me to hear. If I had been the metaphorical cobra in my metaphorical affirmation, I would have spun around and spat a healthy dose of venom into her eye to keep her from costing me a reader.
    “Sally,” I said, struggling for patience. No, that’s not true at all. My patience was long gone. I was struggling to hang on to the illusion of it, though. “Like I said—” twice now “—it’s nice to meet you, but I actually have something important I need to do here.” This is a police station after all. I mean, do you really think I’m here for shits and giggles, lady?
    “Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry.” She put her hand on my shoulder. Familiar. Like we were friends now.
    I almost cringed. People think they can touch you when you’re blind. I have no idea why. I hear pregnant women complain about the same thing, but of course I’ve never seen it.
    “I hope everything’s all right. Not that I’m asking, of course.”
    Yes she was.
    “I’ll go.” Two steps, but then the parting shot. I was ready for it, even guessing which one it would be. “Remember, Rachel,” she called back, her overly happy tone making me restrain a gag. “‘What you be is what you see’!”
    She left as I tried to remember