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IF she had only one word to describe Dominic Milano, it would be "unflappable," Audrey Callahan reflected Stocky, hard, balding - he looked like he had just walked out of central casting after successfully landing the role of "bulldog-jawed older detective" He owned Milano Investigations, and under his supervision, the firency rattled Do knocked hi to the Pacific Northwest, he'd retired from the Miami Police Department with more than a thousand homicide cases under his belt He'd been there and done that, so nothing surprised him

That atching his furry eyebrows creep up on his forehead was so satisfying

Doraph froed down the street The next shot showed Spense bending over The next one caught hi back, a tennis ball in his fingers Which would be fine and dandy, except that according to his doctor, Spense suffered fro a warehouse when a walk-behind forklift got away fro pain He could frequently be seen lihborhood with a cane or a walker He needed help to get into a car, and he couldn't drive because the injured disk pinched the nerve in his right leg

Doreat We've been following this guy for weeks, and nothing How did you get these?"

"A very short tennis skirt He hobbles past a tennis court every Tuesday and Thursday on the way to his physical-therapy sessions" The hardest part was hitting the ball so it would fly over the tall fence A loud gasp and a run with an extra bounce in her step, and she had hiets better"

Doh the stack The next photo showed Spense with a goofy grin on his face carrying two cups of coffee, race of a deer

"You bought hiher

"Of course not He bought rinned

"You really enjoy doing this, don't you?" Dominic reflected

She nodded "He's a liar and a cheat, who's been out of work for ht he was so s to be cut down to size, and she had just the right pruning shears Chop-chop

Dominic moved the coffee picture aside and stopped "Is this what I think this is?"

The next i ahim backward over his head onto a mat

"That would be Spense deht soes to do his physical therapy on the first floor, and, after the session is over, he walks up the stairs to spar"

Dohed

So She leaned back "Suddenly you don't seem happy"

Dorimaced "I look at you, and I'm confused People who do the best in our line of work are unremarkable They look just like anyone else, and they're easily forgettable, so suspects don't pay attention to them They have soe You're too pretty, your hair is too red, your eyes are too big, you laugh too loud, and, according to your transcripts, you barely graduated froh school"

Warning sirens wailed in her head Doraduation before eht him both her diploma and her senior-year transcript For some reason, he had bothered to pull her file and review the contents Her driver's license was first-rate because it was real Her birth certificate and her high-school record would pass a cursory inspection, but if he dug any deeper, he'd find serprints, he would find criminal records in two states

Audrey kept the s eyes"

Doain "Here's the deal: I hire freelancers to save uys are experienced and educated, which e for their time Unless there is serious h suspect for et four weeks to crack a case After that, I have to outsource this kind of stuff to freelancers like you because I can pay you per job An average freelancer ood part-ti for most people"

He was telling her things she already knew Nothing to do but nod

"You've been freelancing for me for five months You closed fourteen cases That's a case every teeks Youstare "I can't afford to keep you on as a freelancer"

What? "I made you money!"

He held up his hand "You're too expensive, Audrey The only way this professional relationship is going to survive is if you come to work for me full-time"

She blinked

"I'll start you off at thirty grand a year with benefits Here's the paperwork" Dominic handed her a manila envelope "If you decide to take me up on it, I'll see you Monday"

"I'll think about it"

"You do that"

Audrey swiped the file Her grifter instincts said, "Play it cool," but then, she didn't have to con people anymore Not those who hired her, anyway "Thank you Thank you so much This means the world to me"

"Everybody needs a chance, Audrey You earned yours We'd be glad to have you" Dominic extended his hand over the desk She shook it and left the office

A real job With benefits Holy crap

She took the stairs, jogging down the steps to burn off souys How about that?

If her parents ever found out, they would flip

AUDREY drove down Rough Ocean Road away froray drizzle that steadily soaked the west side of Cascades A thick blanket of dense clouds sloolas firs with long e the rain with large branches; red alders with silver-gray bark that allowed in the dusk

A mile and a half ahead, a lonely subdivision of identical houses waited, cradled in the fold of the hill;but the trees

Audrey glanced at the clock Thirty-twothe tiet so around to different phar to ould mean an actual commute

She loved the job with Milano's investigative agency She loved everyin a car to watch a suspect to running a con on the conht they were slick They didn't knohat slick was

To be fair, most of the suspects she ran across were conot hurt on the job and liked the disability, or they got tangled in an affair and were too afraid or too arrogant to tell their spouses They didn't see what they were doing as a con They viewed it as a little white lie, the easiest path out of a tough situation Most of them went about their deceptions in a cons since she could talk It wasn't a fair fight, but then, in the world of grifters, "fair" had no

Ahead, the road forked The ht, up the hill, toward the subdivision, while the s under the canopy of trees Audrey checked the rearview mirror The ribbon of pavement behind her stretched into the distance, deserted The coast was clear

She smoothly made the turn onto the smaller road and braced herself Panic punched her in the stoasped The world swirled in a dizzying rush, and she let go of the wheel for a second to keep fro the vehicle off the pave every inch of her skin with red-hot needles, and although Audrey had expected it, the ache still caught her by surprise Pressure squeezed her, then, just like that, all discoh the boundary

A war froertips She sle, tendrils of green gloirled around her hand Magic Also known as flash She let it die and kept driving

Back on the ton, ic didn't exist People who lived there tried to pretend that it did They flirted with the idea of psychics and streetMost of them wouldn't even see the side road she took For them it simply wasn't there - the woods continued uninterrupted Every time Audrey crossed into their world, the boundary stripped her ic from her in a rush of pain That's why people like her called that place the Broken - when you passed into it, you gave up a part of yourself, and it left you feeling incoear

Far ahead, past h terrain, another world waited, a y Well, not exactly true, Audrey reflected The Weird had plenty of coy, but it had evolved in a different direction Most of it functioned with the aid of ic and the color of your flash deterhter you flashed, the better If you flashed white, you could rub elboith bluebloods, the Weird's aristocratic families

The Weird, like the Broken, was a place of rules and laws That's why Audrey preferred to live here, in the no-man's land between the two diht It was on the edge of both worlds, a place without countries or cops, where the castoffs like her washed ashore Connecting the two die took everyone Swindlers, thieves, crazed separatists, clannish families, all elcoers gave no quarter and expected no sympathy

The road turned to dirt The trees had changed, too Ancient spruces spread broad branches fro e narrow hemlocks thrust into the sky, their roots cushioned in ferns Blue haze clung to narrow spaces between the trunks, hiding otherworldly things with glowing eyes who prowled in search of prey

As Audrey drove through, bright yellow blossoer primrose sensed the vibration of the car and snapped open with faint puffs of luminescent pollen By day the flowers stayed closed and harht, it was a different story Take a couple of puffs in your face, and pretty soon you'd forget where you were or why you were here A couple of weeks ago, Rook, one of the local Edger idiots, got drunk and fell asleep near a patch of the up on a tree stump butt naked and covered in ants This was an old forest, nourished by ladly or otherwise

She steered her Honda up the narrow road, past her driveway, forcing it to cliher up thethe way She flicked on her brights An old pine had fallen across the road She'd have to hoof it to Gnome's house The road was muddy with recent rain, and she had new shoes on Oh well Shoes could be cleaned

Audrey parked, pulled the es off the seat, and climbed out Mud squished under the soles of her shoes She cli it all the way up to the top of the , the sky had grown die two-story jules, was all but lost in the gloom

"Gnome!"

No answer

"Gnooome!"

Nothing

He was inside He had to be - his old beat-up Chevy sat on the left side of the house, and Gnome rarely left the top of the mountain anyway Audrey walked up to the door and tried the handle Locked She put her hand to the keyhole and pushed The reen and wove together, sliding into the keyhole That old ornery knucklehead would probably kill her for this The lock clicked Audrey eased the door open s sure it didn't creak, more out of habit than real need

Flash was a pure expression of one's ic But most people born with it had a talent or two hidden up their sleeve Soers were cursers; some foretold the future She opened doors

Audrey passed through the narrow hallway into the main room, sectioned off by tall shelves filled with Gno a local fence, he had enough inventory to put Costco to shaers needed deodorant or soap in a hurry and didn't want to drive all the way across the boundary, they stopped at Gno ten bucks for a tube of toothpaste

A fit of wet, hoarse coughing came from deeper within the house Audrey slipped between the shelves, like a silent shadow, and finally stepped out into the clear space in the middle of the room

Gnoe bear of a man, sat slumped over in his stuffed chair, an open book on a desk in front of hiled hair, feverish eyes, all hunkered down in a blanket He looked like a mess

"There you are"

He peered at her atering, bloodshot eyes "What the hell are you - " Another fit of coughing shook his large frame

"That sounds awful"

"What are you - " Gnome sneezed

"I brought you goodies" She pulled a box of decongestant pills out of the bag and put it on the desk "Look, I've got canned chicken soup, Theraflu, and here are soh drops, and here is a box of Puffs tissues with lotion, so you don't scrub all of the skin off that big beak of yours"

He stared at her, speechless Now that was so If she'd had a camera, she would've taken a picture

"And this here, this is good stuff" Audrey tapped the plastic cup of Magic Vaporizer "I had to hunt it down - they don't eneric version Look, you boil some water and put these drops in here and inhale - clears your nose right up I'll fix you one, then you can yell at me"

Fivevaporizer and made him breathe it in One, two, three

Gnome sucked in his first breath "Christ"

"Told you" Audrey set a hot bowl of chicken soup on his desk "Works wonders"

"How did you knoas sick?"

"Patricia came down the mountain yesterday, and we ran into each other at the main road She said you had a cold and ed her for the lanterns by twenty bucks"

"What?"

Audrey smiled "That's how I kneas bad Besides, I was tired of hearing you hack and cough all night The sound rolls down theawake"

"You can't hear me all the way down there"

"That's what you think Take this generic or Theraflu before bed Either will knock you out The red pills are daytime"

Gnoonna cost me?"

"Don't worry about it"

Gnoed his heavy shoulders and put a spoonful of soup into hisa discount"

Audrey heaved a uess I'll have to ply you with sexual favors, then"

Gnorandfather!"

Audrey winked at his "But you're not"

"Get out of here, you and your craziness"

"Okay, okay, I'ood mood

"What is with you anyway?" he asked "Why are you grinning?"

"I've got a job With benefits"

"Legit?"

"Yes"

"Well, congratulations," Gno at your face"

"I'll see you later"