Netherworld: Drop Dead Sexy by Tracy St.John

Dan’s eyes. Inquisitiveness is one of my failings,
but I did manage to change my line of interrogation. “You must have
died young.”
    He nodded. “I was thirty-eight. That
was pretty young to go from a heart attack.”
    I stopped in the middle of the street.
“Wow Dan, that’s ridiculously young. How awful. Don’t you think
your family would want to know you’re okay, so to speak? I mean,
you could get a message to them, right?”
    His voice stayed steady, but the
darkness in his eyes grew. “I died in prison.”
    I blinked. Okay, there were lots of
things that could put a guy behind bars. And Dan didn’t strike me
as the kind of guy who would knock over a liquor store or beat on
his wife and kids. Definitely a white-collar offender.
    “Can I ask what were you doing
there?”
    “I killed a man.”
    His statement was too bald to be a lie.
He looked at me, and I fought a shudder. Dan a killer? But he’d
done nothing to make me feel endangered.

    Self-defense? Involuntary manslaughter?
Had to be.
    “You’re not a murderer.” My firm tone
buoyed me.
    “Actually I am.” The darkness in his
eyes overwhelmed him, and I saw pain, deeper than any I’d ever
known, flood his face. “My business got into trouble, and the IRS
agent in charge of my case was looking to shut me down. I would
have lost everything. My family would have been out on the street.
When the agent came and started up with the questions and warnings,
then offered to look away for a bunch of money I didn’t have, I
snapped.”
    “Just like that?” My voice sounded
small and hurt. My fantasy Marlboro Man, all studly and strong and
beyond reproach was just that: a fantasy.
    Dan snorted. “I’d never even gotten so
much as a speeding ticket before in my life. Can you
imagine?”
    “Wow.”
    He studied my face and nodded, as if
confirming something to himself. “Not much to say about it, is
there?” He drew himself up. “It was a horrible thing I did,
something I’ve never forgiven myself for. I went to the police and
turned myself in that very night, told them where to find the body.
I would have done anything to take it back.”
    I licked my lips, unsure how to treat
Dan now after his stunning confession. “Have you ever run into him
down here? The man you killed?”
    Dan shook his head. “He either haunts
some other place or didn’t become like us. Sometimes I wish he’d
stuck around just so he could kick my ass.”
    We endured several moments of awkward
silence. I didn’t know what to say to Dan. He’d killed
somebody.
    Okay, the agent had tried to blackmail
him. Threatened to take away his livelihood. Tried to ruin
him.
    But Dan had done even worse, had ended
the man’s life.
    On the other hand, my Marlboro Man had
been so nice to me, taken care of me when I was lost and
scared.
    But he’d killed somebody.
    As my interior debate raged, Dan
shuffled. “It’s getting late. We should get over to the King George
Hotel.”
    I was grateful for a change in subject.
I so didn’t want to think about Dan being a murderer. “The King
George is here?”
    “It’s where all the important stuff
happens for paras. That’s where Tristan holds court, so to
speak.”
    He tucked my arm into his, and I had to
fight to keep myself from pulling away. Dan would never hurt me. To
cover my sudden stab of fear I said, “The King George was by the
waterfront. That’s going to be a bit of a walk.”
    “Teleporting is faster.”

    “ Like how you brought me
from the woods to the library. And how Tristan left us.” Could I do
that, I wondered?
    Dan relaxed a little now that we
weren’t discussing his past. “Would you like a lesson? You know the
library now, so we can jump there first. Then I’ll take you to the
hotel.”
    “Okay.” A rush of anticipation made me
smile. How cool to just zap wherever you wanted whenever you
wanted. I was psyched for this.
    “I’m going to hold tight to you. That
way if you go off course, you’ll take me with