paycheck?”
“Nope.”
“Money for a hotel? A furnished room?”
“Nope.”
Nomad sighed. “There’s an inflatable mattress in the closet. Towels. Sheets. Don’t let the cops figure it out—I’m not licensed for renters—but you keep your head down and you can bunk here until you make enough money to get a place. Soon as you get a stash, I know a few people who rent places. You can have cheap and dangerous in a few weeks, or more expensive and safer in a few months. We’ll do a drive-by and you can evaluate how much you want privacy. But that’s for later. Now we got a case.” Nomad stood and wiped his face, gathered up all the papers, and tossed them into a trash can. “Keep the trash emptied. Dumpster out back. Place has roaches. Mice. But you don’t look like the kind of woman who runs from either.”
I shook my head. “What kind of case?”
“Cheating husband.”
“You like domestic cases?”
“Hate ’em. But they make up about seventy percent of a PI’s business. Bring your bike inside and we’ll keep it locked up. Safer. Anton and Wayne are aggressive and stupid and they might think about revenge. You pass your CC yet?”
I nodded. I had passed the Concealed Carry permit the week before I passed my classroom training for my PI license. “No gun. No money. Do I get the internship?”
“Despite the little snafu on the street, yeah. And you won’t need a gun on this trip.” He pointed to the restroom. “Pee while you can. Female anatomy isn’t particularly well suited to long-term stakeouts.”
I nodded.
“Not very talkative, are you?” he observed, cocking his head.
“Nope.” I went into the restroom and closed the door. And smiled at myself in the polished metal mirror over the sink, my amber eyes glowing gold with excitement. “I’m in,” I whispered. “I did it. I got the job.”
It was in a little run-down storefront security and PI business. The pay sucked. And I loved it. I loved it all.
Off the Grid
This story takes place just before Broken Soul . In it, you’ll meet Nell, who will be getting her own series! The first book will be published in 2015.
I’d stayed in Charlotte for two days, overseeing the latest repairs on my bike, Bitsa. She was pretty well trashed, and she’d be a different bike when I got her back, very slightly chopped, with wider wheel fenders, and this time, no teal in the paint job. Jacob—the semiretired Harley restoration mechanic/Zen Harley priest living along the Catawba River, the guy who had created Bitsa in the first place using parts from two busted, rusted bikes I’d found in a junkyard—had shaken his head when I asked when the bike would be ready to ride to New Orleans. Bitsa had been crashed by a being made of light, and the damage was extensive. It sounded weird when I said it like that—a being of light—but my life had gotten pretty weird since I went to work for the Master of the City of New Orleans and the Greater Southeast, Leo Pellissier. Jacob had taken my money but refused to discuss the paint job, saying only that I’d love it. And then he plopped me on a loaner bike and shooed me out of his shop as if I were twelve.
I’d ridden the loaner before, a chopped bike named Fang, and though the balance on a chopper-style bike was different from the easy, familiar comfort of Bitsa, it hadn’t taken long to settle in for the ride to Asheville, where I’d hugged my godchildren, eaten at their mother’s café, and then hit the road for Knoxville, Tennessee. My visit north had been occasioned by a request from Knoxville’s top vamp, the Glass Clan blood-master, to try to solve some little problem she had reported to her up-line boss, Leo. Nothing urgent, but Leo was stroking his clan blood-masters’ egos a lot, now that the European Council vampires were planning a visit.
The ride had been great, the weather not too hot for spring, not rainy or cross-windy, but my cell phone battery hadn’t survived the trip across
“Nope.”
“Money for a hotel? A furnished room?”
“Nope.”
Nomad sighed. “There’s an inflatable mattress in the closet. Towels. Sheets. Don’t let the cops figure it out—I’m not licensed for renters—but you keep your head down and you can bunk here until you make enough money to get a place. Soon as you get a stash, I know a few people who rent places. You can have cheap and dangerous in a few weeks, or more expensive and safer in a few months. We’ll do a drive-by and you can evaluate how much you want privacy. But that’s for later. Now we got a case.” Nomad stood and wiped his face, gathered up all the papers, and tossed them into a trash can. “Keep the trash emptied. Dumpster out back. Place has roaches. Mice. But you don’t look like the kind of woman who runs from either.”
I shook my head. “What kind of case?”
“Cheating husband.”
“You like domestic cases?”
“Hate ’em. But they make up about seventy percent of a PI’s business. Bring your bike inside and we’ll keep it locked up. Safer. Anton and Wayne are aggressive and stupid and they might think about revenge. You pass your CC yet?”
I nodded. I had passed the Concealed Carry permit the week before I passed my classroom training for my PI license. “No gun. No money. Do I get the internship?”
“Despite the little snafu on the street, yeah. And you won’t need a gun on this trip.” He pointed to the restroom. “Pee while you can. Female anatomy isn’t particularly well suited to long-term stakeouts.”
I nodded.
“Not very talkative, are you?” he observed, cocking his head.
“Nope.” I went into the restroom and closed the door. And smiled at myself in the polished metal mirror over the sink, my amber eyes glowing gold with excitement. “I’m in,” I whispered. “I did it. I got the job.”
It was in a little run-down storefront security and PI business. The pay sucked. And I loved it. I loved it all.
Off the Grid
This story takes place just before Broken Soul . In it, you’ll meet Nell, who will be getting her own series! The first book will be published in 2015.
I’d stayed in Charlotte for two days, overseeing the latest repairs on my bike, Bitsa. She was pretty well trashed, and she’d be a different bike when I got her back, very slightly chopped, with wider wheel fenders, and this time, no teal in the paint job. Jacob—the semiretired Harley restoration mechanic/Zen Harley priest living along the Catawba River, the guy who had created Bitsa in the first place using parts from two busted, rusted bikes I’d found in a junkyard—had shaken his head when I asked when the bike would be ready to ride to New Orleans. Bitsa had been crashed by a being made of light, and the damage was extensive. It sounded weird when I said it like that—a being of light—but my life had gotten pretty weird since I went to work for the Master of the City of New Orleans and the Greater Southeast, Leo Pellissier. Jacob had taken my money but refused to discuss the paint job, saying only that I’d love it. And then he plopped me on a loaner bike and shooed me out of his shop as if I were twelve.
I’d ridden the loaner before, a chopped bike named Fang, and though the balance on a chopper-style bike was different from the easy, familiar comfort of Bitsa, it hadn’t taken long to settle in for the ride to Asheville, where I’d hugged my godchildren, eaten at their mother’s café, and then hit the road for Knoxville, Tennessee. My visit north had been occasioned by a request from Knoxville’s top vamp, the Glass Clan blood-master, to try to solve some little problem she had reported to her up-line boss, Leo. Nothing urgent, but Leo was stroking his clan blood-masters’ egos a lot, now that the European Council vampires were planning a visit.
The ride had been great, the weather not too hot for spring, not rainy or cross-windy, but my cell phone battery hadn’t survived the trip across
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