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Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in Body Work .
First New American Library E-Book Printing, October 2011
Copyright © Sara Paretsky, 2000, 2011
Excerpt from Body Work © Sara Paretsky, 2010
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ISBN: 978-1-101-53751-0
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I
When he came into my office that July afternoon, I thought Iâd met him before. It was something about his smile, sweet but aloof, as if inviting and withholding at the same time. I check databases before my first meeting with a new client, but whatever Hunter Davenport did hadnât made my favorite search engines yet. If Iâd seen him before, it wasnât on the evening news.
âIâm glad you could meet me on short notice, Ms. Warshawski. Iâm only in town a few days and these Chicago hotel bills mount up.â He had a trace of that Southern drawl we Northerners secretly find appealing. âThey warned me summer in Chicago could make Charleston feel cool, but I could hardly believe them until I got off that plane.â
I shook his hand and offered him the armchair in the alcove where I meet clients. Outside, the heat was turning sidewalks into reflecting pools, but in my windowless office, all seasons and hours are alike; with air-conditioning and floor lamps, it might have been midwinter.
âCharleston, South Carolina? Is that your home, Mr. Davenport?â
âI lived there when I was a teenager, but most of my adult life has been spent in Europe. I canât quite shake the accent, or a secret longing for long summer afternoons when time stops and all we do is lie in the tall grass, waiting for fish to rise and drinking lemonade.â
I smiled. I feel nostalgia for
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