“We’ll see.”
That sounded rather ominous. “What do you mean,we’ll see? Are you planning to detain me?”
He laughed — a warm, unbridled sound. “Salem has a way of pulling people in. Sort of its own gravitational force, so to speak.”
“Moonbeam was right, then? Itisa center of mystical convergence?”
“I’m reluctant to throw in my hat with someone named Moonbeam.”
“You aren’t wearing a hat,” I pointed out.
“It’s an expression.” His eyes did the crinkly-amused thing again. “All I know is, when people get here… even the ones who don’t plan to stay for more than a night or two tend to…linger.”
“You sound like you’re speaking from personal experience.”
“Probably because I am. Just over a year ago, I came up this way for a federal outreach training in Boston. I had a day off before my flight back to Baltimore, thought I’d use it to check out some of the local towns. I stumbled across Salem and the rest is history. I applied for an open position on the force the very next day. Within six weeks, I was here.”
I stared at him, baffled he’d revealed so much about himself with minimal prompting. Whowasthis guy? Why was he so straightforward? It wasn’t normal. Most people were cagey, always keeping their cards close to the chest. Yet he put all his cards right down on the table without my ever asking to see them, let alone demanding to see mine in return.
Again, I found myself battling the insane urge to touch him, if only to get a glimpse inside his head. Surely, the Clark Kent facade harbored dark, sinister motives. Surely, the Hero-Hair was a carefully styled ruse…
“You still with me, Goldie?”
“Goldie?”
He looked at my hair, which was cascading around my shoulders in a platinum halo of untamed waves. “You gave me a hair-related nickname. I figure fair’s fair.”
“Hero-Hair is an insult. Not a nickname.”
“Potato, po-tah-to…”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, just because Salem exerted its weird gravitational force on you doesn’t mean I’m sticking around. I wasn’t even supposed to be here. I wouldn’t have stopped at all if not for…” I glanced at my clunker. It was a rather unimpressive sight, sitting there in all its rusty glory. “Let’s just say I didn’t have much say in this particular detour.”
“Where were you headed originally?”
I dropped my gaze back to the pavement, avoiding his eyes as I scrambled for an answer to his question that wouldn’t make me sound certifiably insane. I couldn’t tell him the truth — that I didn’t even have a destination when I set off this morning. I’d just known I couldn’t spend another freaking second in that god-awful Providence motel with its mildewed bathroom tiles and wallpaper that reeked of secondhand smoke from whatever poor unfortunate soul stayed there before I checked in.
“Hey.”
My eyes jerked back to the detective’s face at his soft word. His chiseled features were illuminated by the streetlight that had just flickered on overhead, and his expression was oddly gentle. “Are you all right?”
“Of course I’m all right,” I said automatically. “Do I not seem all right?”
To this, he had no reply.
I blew out a sharp breath. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Looking at me like I’m some wounded bird with a broken wing you found on the side of the road.”
He glanced down at my arms, which I’d crossed over my chest in order to glare at him more effectively. “Your wings look perfectly fine to me.”
“Are you trying to piss me off?”
“No. I guess it comes naturally.”
My glower intensified.