Page 24 of Dragon’s Rogue

Blaze wandered through the store, letting the pendulum dangle from her cupped fingers, keeping it out of sight of the two women at the counter. It pulled relentlessly towards them. Blaze wondered where the tall woman’s leather messenger bag was.

Blaze made her way gradually closer to the counter, fake-browsing shelves and picking up the occasional tchotchke as if checking the price. Now she could see an open door behind the counter, leading to a back room that seemed to be half storage room and half break room, with a fridge, sink and microwave. There was a small round table with two chairs in the middle. The bag had been tossed carelessly on one of the chairs.

Blaze gave the women her most disarming smile. “Excuse me,” she said. “Is there any chance I can use your bathroom?”

Surprisingly, it was the dragon woman who responded. She scribbled a few more words in her book, and then raised her head and looked directly at Blaze. Her eyes were a startling liquid silver, like a lake just before sunrise, fringed with dark lashes.

She stared for a moment, then cocked her head slightly, as if she were thinking. “Okay,” she said softly. “It’s back here.” She indicated the back room.

She stood aside as Blaze came around the counter. “Thank you so much.” Both Tempest and the woman from Maple Street watched her with identical speculative expressions.

She didn’t feel any overt power coming from them, but they still raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

Blaze walked through the back room and into the tiny bathroom, passing within inches of the chair that held the leather bag. She didn’t dare touch it while they were watching.

Locking herself in, she closed the lid of the toilet and sat down to think.

She hadn’t felt the idol’s presence when she passed the bag, or anywhere in the store. But the woman must have it here somewhere. Blaze opened her hand and let the pendulum dangle. It still pulled towards the break room—and the bag.

She had to check it out. If the idol somehow wasn’t there… well, there was always Plan B. She hoped that worked, because Plan C involved things she would really rather not have to do.

Not to this woman who might be innocent of everything but hiding a stolen object for her thieving asshole boyfriend.

She flushed the toilet and ran the water as if washing her hands, and then emerged. The tall woman was at the sink across the room, rinsing out her travel mug.

Blaze took two steps forward and deliberately tripped over the chair holding the messenger bag. It fell to the floor, flap open, and spilled its contents everywhere, helped by a little spell from Blaze.

“Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry!”

Blaze immediately knelt down and picked up the bag. The idol wasn’t on the floor with the rest of the jumble from the bag, and it wasn’t inside the bag either. Damn. She hastily began gathering up the spilled items, until she saw the tall woman standing over her, only inches away.

“Just leave it.”

There was a note of command in her voice. Almost a threat. Blaze rose slowly to her feet. The woman didn’t back up, and Blaze wasn’t going to, so they ended up way too far into each other’s personal space.

The other woman spoke first. “You don’t look like someone who shops in places like this. What did you really come here for?”

Suspicious and paranoid. Oh, hell. Blaze went for Plan B.

Pretending embarrassment, she said, “Well, you’re right, I guess. I mean, it’s a cute store and everything, but all this woo-woo stuff isn’t really my thing. Truthfully, I’m looking for a guy who kind of scammed me. In that bar down the street? I’m trying to track him down.”

The woman’s eyebrows went up. “And you thought he might be hiding in my bag?”

Blaze gave a fake-nervous laugh. “Um, no. Of course not. That was just a stupid accident. I said I was sorry.”

The woman crossed her arms, staring at Blaze. Most people would have found her intimidating, but Blaze had faced down scarier people than her.

Some of them had been her teachers.

“So,” the tall woman said, “do you have a description of this guy? Or are you just wandering around asking everyone in St. Johns if they’ve seen anyone lately who looks like they might have a penis?”

Blaze kept her smile friendly. This woman either had something to hide, or she was just a class-A sarcastic bitch. “I have a sketch.”

She opened her slim briefbag and pulled out the sketch she’d made, based on what she’d seen of the burglar that wasn’t covered by his ski mask. Which was mostly eyes and that annoyingly sexy mouth, so the shape of the nose could be wrong. He could have a mustache, or even a beard. Hell, he could have a birthmark over half his face.

But she’d figured it was worth a shot. If she hadn’t found him or the idol at the house, she’d planned on canvassing the neighbors with a phony story about being a private investigator.

Now she really, really wanted to see this woman’s reaction when she saw her shady boyfriend in the sketch.