Read Online Wild Hunt by Margaret Ronald - Free Book Online

might have a chance at a simple hunt to recharge me. “I’m her. Genevieve Scelan.” I shook her hand. Her fingers were as slender as reeds and probably about as strong. “Come on in; I’ll need a moment to get settled.”
    I showed her in and pulled a jacket over my sweaty courier gear. She took a seat, purse propped in front of her, legs crossed at the ankles, and waited for me to settle into the chair on the far side of the desk. “Right,” I said. “What’s your name, and how can I help you?”
    “Abigail Huston. Pleased to meet you.” She smiled again, and despite the lack of laugh lines in her face, there was a twinkly quality to it.
    “And how do you like Boston, Abigail?”
    She blinked, startled, then laughed. “No, I suppose I don’t look like a native.”
    “Not really.”
    “My brother always claims I can blend in anywhere.” She smiled. “He’s a flatterer. No, this is my first time here; the closest I ever got before now was out in Central Massachusetts.” Her smile thinned a little, as if it wasn’t a good memory, but the moment passed.
    “Ah. How long are you here for?” Smile or no, there was something I couldn’t quite catch…I shifted a little in the chair. Was it the light in here?
    “Well, that rather depends. You see, it’s somewhat of a long story—my mother passed away some years ago, and her executor finally transferred some of her possessions to me…”
    Not the light. Not her voice either. I sniffed, and Abigail paused. I shook my head. “Go on. Please.”
    She hesitated, then fidgeted, pulling off her gloves one finger at a time. “Well, one of the things thatwas deeded to me was a set of chests belonging to my great-great-grandmother. I’ve only just started cataloguing the contents, and unfortunately, I think some of the items within might be stolen property.”
    It couldn’t be her scent. That was flat normal…no, not normal, but colorless, bloodless. I’d never known anyone to have a scent that made less of an impression on me. If it hadn’t been for the continued sparking scent from the fountain and the assorted trails of the office itself, I’d have thought I was catching a cold.
    “What I’d like is to return the property to its rightful owner. But there’s an awful lot of different things in those chests, and I don’t know who the owner might be, or if they’re—if he’s even still reachable.” She laid her gloves over her purse, smoothed them flat, then clasped her hands over them. “I’d been told you had some…some amazing successes in finding items, and I wondered if you could turn that around and find an owner.”
    It wasn’t her body language either. This wasn’t a learned approach, the way that some people who’d gone through nasty situations learned to hide themselves. This was something else. “What makes you think that some of your inheritance is stolen property?”
    Abigail was silent a moment, staring at the edge of the desk. Even her eyes seemed washed out, and that shouldn’t have been possible with brown eyes. Finally she looked up at me. “Nightmares,” she said, clipping off the word.
    And that was it. With that word her scent changed, a flash of real emotion as bright and fleeting as the glare off a blade. She was scared, scared enough that her fear could break through what I realized was a highly controlled mask, one that went deeper than just composure.
    She was an adept.
    I should know better to rely on sight rather than scent. But scent is such a nonverbal trigger that it’s hard to translate into words, and so if I have an idea,it comes through as hunches or unconscious aversions long before I can say what it is or why. I exhaled slowly, and this time I noticed how Abigail tensed when I did so. She knew what I was looking for and how I was looking for it, which meant she knew about me. Which meant she wasn’t just a nice little old lady.
    “Well,” I said, leaning back, “I can see why that would be a problem.