Vicki Pettersson - The Taste Of Night

Regan looked content as well, like a cream-filled cat sunning herself in the late afternoon rays. She also still looked like me. But because her company seemed to satisfy Ben, I didn’t kill her as soon as he’d walked away. With all that had happened to him over the past few months-hell, with what I alone had put him through-I figured he was entitled to a few moments of cheer, no matter how hollow, false, or fleeting they might be.

I did, however, pin a note to the shaft of an arrow I’d honed myself, and when the waiters and foot traffic and cars had all cleared, lifted my conduit and sent that note spinning through the air, whistling all the way until it buried itself in the wooden tabletop, half an inch from Regan’s pinky finger.

She ducked for cover, then returned to her seat under the curious glances of the other diners once she realized she’d already be dead if I’d wished it. Picking up the note, her fingers trembled; and watching her lips move, I read along with her.

No matter what you think, you don’t know me. You can’t predict how I’m going to act. In fact, I’ve left everything you find predictable behind me-the broken young girl you studied before becoming me, the vengeful woman you saw searching for Joaquin, the Tulpa’s daughter-it’s all scattered on the feckless wind like the rubbish it always was. What drives me now is love.

And you’ve got mine.

So ask yourself, as I already have, what’s the worst thing that can happen to Joanna Archer by telling you this?

Then ask yourself again…what’s the worst thing that can happen to Regan DuPree?

She folded the letter away and looked up. I stepped from behind the palm tree planted on the median as the fountains from the Bellagio soared up behind me, hidden speakers pumping Bocelli into the air as he sang about the sun in a language not his own. Regan swallowed hard, then squared her jaw and raised her wineglass my way, a forced smile playing on her new lips.

I smiled back and raised a wall of glass in front of her, my thoughts forcing her reflection back on itself, before I let it dissolve into smoke, like the mist drifting from the lake behind me. And while she was still considering who had whom boxed in, Ben returned. I watched him lean toward her, ask what was wrong. And before he could turn to see what had her so riveted, I walked away, and left him sitting with my enemy, who was still trembling.

Trembling in skin that was supposed to be mine.

Thanks be to the usual suspects-Roger Pettersson, Ellen Daniel, Linda Grimes, Kris Reekie-for early readings, and to Suzanne Frank for both holding me accountable and holding my hand. To those in the KWC forum for ensuring it lives up to its name, and my family for putting up with my mutterings and moods. To Miriam Kriss, without whom this book would have no title, no representation, and no home (you know, the little things). Special thanks to my child’s caregivers, Paula Peck and Dennis Stephenson, for enabling me to confidently leave this world for another. And to Diana Gill, who makes the other world a better place to be.

After ten years with the Tropicana’s Folies Bergere, Las Vegas native VICKI PETTERSSONtraded in her sequins for a laptop. But the author of The Scent of Shadows still knows all about what really happens behind the scenes in Sin City.