Total pages in book: 178
Estimated words: 163885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 656(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 656(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
“Dealer has lots of spiked hair and a strange orange jacket?” Savage already had the dealer pegged.
“Is that the color? I thought it looked like vomit. Yeah, he’s the dealer. He’s doing a brisk business.”
“She’ll listen to you,” Savage said. “She isn’t the type to be snowed.” He knew, from the brief time with her, that he was right. She made her own decisions; she wasn’t going to be pushed into anything. But she could be influenced . . . “Give your pitch and then let me talk to her. See if I can do a little persuading.”
Just the thought of sparring back and forth with her again sent the blood rushing through his body in anticipation. He found himself looking forward to just talking to her. That was so far out of character that he couldn’t let himself examine the why of it. Frankly, he didn’t give a shit. He just wanted to be close, to talk to her, to breathe her in.
“She one of your crazy bitches?” Maestro studied the singer.
“No.” Savage didn’t offer any more information, although he read the curiosity in Maestro. Of course he’d be curious. Savage never talked about women or what he did with them. If they wanted to talk, that was on them. “You have Code look into her?” He asked the question of Maestro deliberately without inflection, as if the answer wouldn’t mean a damn thing to him.
“Yeah. The one thing I do have going for us is that she lives in Sea Haven. She owns a little cottage there, so she’s very close to Caspar. Maybe she can work in the bar when we’re not playing. She has experience as both a bartender and a waitress. I think she’ll draw a crowd.”
“You already draw crowds,” Savage pointed out, watching the supposed scout at the bar. “Who the fuck is he?”
“Name’s Joseph Arnold. Came here from San Francisco. And Code couldn’t find much on Seychelle other than her parents were French. Both of them deceased. Father came over from France, met her mother and fireworks went off. Seems like life with her parents wasn’t everything it should be.”
Savage’s gut tightened. He didn’t know why, other than he just plain didn’t like the fact that Maestro was going to make him ask. Testing him to see what Seychelle was to him. He remained silent, letting her voice carry him away from the sounds of screaming. Of blood. Of eyes begging him to save them when he couldn’t even save himself. Silence stretched out for nearly an entire song, but in the end, it won him the information.
“She took care of both of them. Father had heart disease and mother had a rare type of blood cancer. Mother went first, and her father died about two years ago. From everything Code found on the parents, they were decent people, just sickly. She stuck it out with them, though. Fortunately, the father made a great deal of money from home. Like Code, he was good on a computer. He came up with some kind of software that made them a fortune. She doesn’t need money.”
Savage didn’t acknowledge the additional information. He simply filed it away like he did everything. He wasn’t a man to forget details. He’d learned that details saved lives, and he’d learned the hard way.
The music faded, and the lead guitar player stepped forward and all but yanked the microphone from Seychelle. Savage didn’t like the way he did it, grabbing it out of her hand and nearly pushing her aside with his body. She stepped back, avoiding contact, and then walked off the stage on the opposite side of where Savage had draped himself on the wall. She hadn’t seen him, or at least if she had, she didn’t acknowledge him. Maybe she’d been too ill to remember him. She’d definitely had a concussion.
He began to thread his way through the crowd, lagging just a little behind Maestro and Keys. Both men followed her while Master and Player blocked Joseph Arnold and refused to move so he could get around them. They did it easily, naturally, a move they’d perfected years earlier. Backs to their target but mirroring his every move so he couldn’t do anything but get frustrated.
Maestro was imposing, and when he moved through a crowd, others got out of his way. Savage hung back just a little farther, staying to the shadows so he couldn’t be seen. He didn’t want Seychelle to know he was there. He definitely wanted to hear what Joseph Arnold had to say to her.
She kept walking until she neared the end of the alley, her back to them, and lit a cigarette. That pissed Savage off. First, she’d separated herself from safety and didn’t even check behind her when she went off alone. Then there was the fact that he detested cigarettes and no woman of his was going to smoke. He’d had enough cigars and cigarettes and other hot objects put out on his body. He had the scars to prove it, and just the smell could trigger him to episodes of extreme violence.