Miss Fortune

Chapter Fifteen

The soft blue clock readout said it was nearly ten after six, but darkness permeated the room as the storm continued to blow. Lightning split the sky to briefly light up the room, but then plunged them back into darkness. Thunder rumbled long and low, just like the angels' bowling balls of Nana Kilkenny's bedtime stories. She was the one who told them all about the banshee and what her cry meant and as a child, Thorin was terrified that he might accidentally lay eyes upon the harbinger of death.

But he was no longer a child. Specters and spooks and things that went bump in the night no longer frightened him. Reality could be far more horrifying than any legend of his ancestors, as seen with the email he'd gotten threatening Alex and her family. Although it hadn't said anything other than Miss Fortune Must Die, he still had the tech nerds check it out, for all the good it did. It had been sent from one of the Cranford Falls Public library computers and they didn't keep a log of who used their machines, so it turned out to be one more dead end.

Sometimes his work got to him, and it didn't have to be a cold case to do that. Even the ones he saw through to the end could haunt him. And to top off everything, he still mourned Frerin. Being able to see him now was both wonderful and horrible, as every time Frerin faded into the darkness, Thorin wondered if it would be the last time he'd see his brother. It left him a bit more hollow each time. Every single factor gave him one excuse after another to lose himself in a bottle. And no one would fault him.

But, as he lay there beneath the navy blue comforter, with Alex curved against him, he realized he was happy there. With her. She only needed to be near him for him to feel that way. And it was something he felt he could very easily get used to having.

She was asleep, her head against his chest, her arm draped over his hips. He trailed his fingertips along that arm over him. So soft. So warm. So damn perfect.

He knew most of the Prescotts on a purely professional level although the oldest daughter, Teddy, flirted with him whenever their paths crossed and had since they were kids. She was hardly shy about dropping hints that he should ask her out. Flattering at first, but she really wasn't his type. Pretty, but way too high maintenance for his liking and his level of patience.

Alexandra Prescott was the quietest of the girls and there was nothing high maintenance about her, from her dark hair in its usual ponytail to her purple Chuck Taylors. She was cute, in a tomboyish way and no one in Cranford Falls had a bad thing to say about her. A couple of his colleagues expressed an interest in trying to pursue her, but if any of them actually tried it, they didn't get very far. She was quiet. Shy. Speculation ran rampant through the police department locker room about her still waters and how deeply they ran.

Although he'd known her for years, he didn't really see her until one day last autumn, when he'd gone into Miss Fortune's Crystal to speak with Eva Prescott. She wasn't there, but Alex was, sitting behind the counter, her nose in a book. She was polite, if reserved, and he couldn't help but stare at her as they made small talk about the beginning of hockey season. Turned out she was also a New York Rangers fan and as they chatted, he realized she knew a lot about the sport as well. They compared notes on favorite current players, favorite all-time players, and lamented that it had been so many years since they last won the Stanley Cup. He almost hated to have to leave, but he was on duty and had things to do.

Still, he couldn't get her out of his mind. She really did have the most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen. Green, but not uniformly so. Instead, they were greenish-yellow around the pupils, growing darker outward, with her irises ringed in a deep, emerald shade. The most mesmerizing eyes he'd ever come across. And they were warm, dancing with a mischief that left him wanting to get to know her better. Left him wanting to test those still waters for himself.