All Seeing Eye by Rob Thurman

meant it was still rough around the edges, which had just been proven. That didn’t stop people from coming, and walk-ins were common. That didn’t mean the man who opened the door while I was sweeping up small pieces of glass wasn’t what I considered a member of my usual clientele. Not that I didn’t get men in, I did. But they were usually an older crowdor dreadlocked twentysomethings who smelled of incense and goat cheese. The man at my door didn’t fit. He looked to be in his early thirties and wasn’t being dragged along by a giggling girlfriend or sporting flip-flops and a tie-dyed shirt. On the contrary, he was wearing a suit. In this weather, the man was wearing a goddamn suit. Unbelievable.
    Okay, there was no tie, and the shirt was open at the collar one whole button, but it was still a suit. I felt the sweat prickle the nape of my neck at the very sight of it. The guy was tall and solid, with short blue-black hair and almond-shaped pale blue eyes. I’d only seen that combination once before. A couple of months of my long-gone past, and here it stood before me. But this wasn’t the real deal. Years had passed, and except for the unusual coloring, I probably couldn’t have picked out my old acquaintance on the street. But I did remember that he’d had a helluva nose and was short. This guy had a nose of less than anteater proportions and was tall, taller than me. He wasn’t a good-looking guy, with a face of harsh angles and planes, but he had a quiet power about him. An air of competence. I wouldn’t have wanted to run into him in a dark alley. Abby, on the other hand, would’ve finagled his phone number in a heartbeat.
    Power and competence. It made me think of Cane Lake and cops. I’d had my fill of cops when I was fourteen, including the sympathetic ones. None of it made for good memories.
    “Are you the …” He closed the door behind him and waited for the tinkling bells to quiet before he finished the question. “Are you the resident psychic?”
    I’d long slipped my glove back on. Resting the broom against Abby’s desk, I folded my arms to regard him suspiciously. The disquiet I kept to myself. He wasn’t the past, but this guy was someone, all right. Someone who wanted something from me, and it was more than where Auntie Liz had hidden the family silver before she died. He wasn’t a cop. He didn’t quite have the tinfoil bite to him, but he was something. And whatever that might be was pinging hard on my radar.
    “That depends on your definition of psychic,” I drawled. It was my show, but there were times the trappings of it grated. “Walk-ins are twenty-five bucks extra. Rates are posted in plain sight per Chamber of Commerce rules.” I jerked my chin in the direction of the black-and-gilt cursive, Abby’s doing, on the wall.
    He wasn’t put out by my rudeness. “I’m not here for a reading,” he said politely with a vaguely Northern flavor to his voice. “Not yet, at any rate. I would just like to talk.”
    “I charge by thirty-minute increments,” I droned on as if he hadn’t spoken. If he wasn’t here for the talent, I wasn’t going to waste the usual routine on him. “I have an hour window in my schedule. You want the whole thing or not?” I didn’t care either way. On one hand, I wasn’t one to turn away money.On the other, well, I wasn’t one to turn away money. I suppose that meant there was only one hand, a moneygrubbing paw blithely unaware of my caution. Or simply resistant to it.
    “You’d charge to talk?” He blinked, torn between a tightly drawn amusement and mildly righteous outrage. “I’m not sure my expense account will cover that.”
    “I’d charge to flip you off in traffic if I could work out the logistics.” I straightened. “My time is valuable. You can pay or you can walk. It’s your choice.”
    He reached for his wallet without further argument, only saying, “There goes my dinner money.”
    Yeah, cry me a river. I accepted the