Devil May Care by Patricia Eimer Read Free Book Online Page A

first impression—on the man I’d once loved. With shaking fingers, I lifted up the pink lanyard from around my neck and flashed him my badge. “Faith Bettincourt.”
    “ Dan Cheswick, software engineer for MEDTECH Technologies. I’m doing some upgrades and running the staff training for the new medical supply system.” He stepped forward, sticking his hand out for me to shake.
    “Don’t touch him!” Malachi floated between the two of us, his arms up to stop me. “Claim it’s a contamination hazard or something.”
    “What the hell is your problem?” Harold asked. “I mean sure he’s an engineer, but besides that, he doesn’t seem like too bad of a guy.”
    “This is Dan ,” Malachi said. “ The Dan.”
    “You mean human ex-fiancé Dan?” Harold tilted his head and scrutinized Dan. “The guy who’s complete mental break led to Faith’s dry spell and her lack of trust in Angel Boy?”
    “One and the same.” Malachi nodded grimly and pulled the cowl of his robe lower, to cover his face.
    I narrowed my eyes at him. He had been a vocal opponent of my dating Dan in the first place and his disapproval had turned into an unspoken I told you so when the relationship had so spectacularly fell apart.
    “Oh shit,” Harold said. “Mal’s right, Faith. Don’t touch him. Back away from the mortal and run for your life.”
    I sliced my hand through the middle of Mal’s liver, making him shudder at the intrusion, and shook Dan’s hand instead. The last thing I needed right now was to trigger a memory of me that might cause the Alpha’s mind wipe to fail. We couldn’t risk it. So Ghost Boy and his sidekick, the Three Foot Demon Wonder, were just going to have to deal.
    “Nice to meet you, Dan.” Smart, Faith . I dropped my hand and stuck my hands in the pockets of my scrub top. This was…surreal. And that was saying something coming from me.
    “So you said you were here to do MEDTECH software updates?” I tried to sound nonchalant and polite. It wouldn’t do for me to run away but I needed to find a way to be basically unmemorable at the same time. And asking about the updates would be boringly common. Normal curiosity. But not asking? That might send up a red flag. Especially considering how much trouble the last MEDTECH system failure had caused.
    A few months ago, we had a systems failure that lead to missing morphine in the pediatric ICU. Which led to my filing a report with Harold, who’d still been alive at that point. That report had led Lisa upstairs to Harold’s office, where she used my former boss for a quick—and very unhealthy—succubus snack. Which led to Harold dying and the whole Haunting Me at Work thing he had going on now.
    Now, it appeared that MEDTECH had sent the man I was supposed to have married to fix the problem. Great. To think, usually my Tuesday midnight shifts were slow. What could I expect when I got upstairs? A dozen patients with projectile vomiting?
    “Why are you talking to him?” Mal floated closer to him, peering into his face. “Don’t you think you might trigger a memory? Cause another mental break?”
    “His eyes aren’t dilated,” Harold said, floating closer. “Respirations are normal. Color seems fine. I hate to burst your bubble, Mal, but he doesn’t exhibit any signs of mental distress.”
    “So,” Dan said. “I’ll just leave you and the time clock to your argument and get going.”
    “Right.” I nodded and quickly swiped my badge at the time clock, trying to keep my hands from shaking. I started out of the otherwise empty locker room and into the hall. “I have to go on shift. But I’m sure I’ll see you around at some point. Or one of your assistants. Whichever.”
    “What floor are you on?” Dan asked. Damn it. Normally the locker room was packed before shift and I could have fobbed him off on someone else. But I’d come in twenty minutes earlier than usual today and the normal change of shift crowd wasn’t here yet. Which meant