“Did you just call me dude?”
“No,” I lied.
“You did. You called me dude.”
“I saiddetective.”
“Are you lying to an officer of the law?”
“Of course not,” I lied again. “Maybe you should get your hearing checked. It’s dangerous to be running around after criminals if you can’t hear them coming.”
“Your concern for my welfare is touching.” He paused, mouth twitching when he caught me leveling another scathing look at his perfect hair. “Would it make you more or less angry to know that I rolled out of bed this morning and didn’t even touch a comb?”
“More.”
“I surmised as much,” he murmured. “You have somewhere to stay tonight?”
My wide eyes jerked back to his. “I’m not staying with you.”
“Did I invite you to stay with me?”
“No.” I flushed in embarrassment. “Of course not. I meant I’m not staying in this town.”
“What’s wrong with my town?”
“Witch City?” I shook my head rapidly, wishing my cheeks weren’t flaming red as I desperately sought a change of topic. “I think not. What kind of nickname is that, anyway?”
“You’ve never heard of Salem?” He looked genuinely bewildered by the concept.
“Should I have?”
“1600s… Mass hysteria… Innocent civilians prosecuted for witchcraft… Lots of hangings and other unpleasant shit…” His head canted to one side. “Any of this ringing a bell in that beautiful head of yours?”
I decided — for my own mental health — to bury the fact that he’d just called me beautiful somewhere deep in my psyche, where it could not haunt me for the rest of time. Instead, I focused on what else he’d said. Truth be told, his words were ringing several bells in my cerebral cortex — a portion of my brain left vastly underutilized since I got my GED at age sixteen.
I’d heard of the Salem Witch Trials. Hell, everyone in the continental United States had heard of the Salem Witch Trials. They were famous. Notorious, even. A dark chapter in American history that, for whatever reason, historians and teachers seemed all too jazzed to revisit every term when discussing the Colonial Era.
“So youhaveheard of Salem,” he said, reading the recognition on my face. “Let me be the first to officially welcome you. Don’t let the wand-waving locals scare you off. They’re harmless. Mostly.”
Mostly!?
“If you need somewhere to stay, the Hawthorne Hotel downtown is nice,” he said. “Reputedly haunted, but the ghosts are of the friendly variety. So I hear, anyway.”
I glared at him.
He ignored my glare and carried on. “It’s a ways from here, though… and now that I think about it, I doubt they have any vacancy. October is high season in Salem. Pretty much everywhere is booked solid for the next few days, until the Halloween madness subsides and the tourists head home.”
Fantastic.
I really couldn’t catch a break, tonight.
(Or ever. But especially tonight.)
“Do any of your recommendations have vacancy?” I asked. “Preferably ones in walking distance, without any friendly ghosts floating the halls?”
His eyes flickered over my shoulder, down the dark road. His full lips went flat with either reluctance or displeasure (I didn’t know him well enough to tell) as he crossed his arms over his chest. “There’s an inn a short ways down the block. The Sea Witch. No frills, no amenities to speak of… but not a bad spot to spend the night if you’re in a jam. And almost guaranteed they’re not at capacity. It’s... not the kind of place people stick around long.”
“Perfect.Like I said, I’m not sticking around.”