Joyce & Jim Lavene - Taxi for the Dead 02 - Dead Girl Blues by Joyce Lavene, Jim Lavene Read Free Book Online

age.
    The light was still on upstairs. Lucas slept in the turret room on the third floor. He’d kind of taken it over since he first arrived. None of us had ever even gone up there after Addie’s death, even though it had been the most popular room at the inn when it was open for tourists.
    I slowly walked up the stairs. I wasn’t much of a housekeeper, but Lucas never let the upstairs get full of cobwebs and dust as it had been when he’d arrived. It was no wonder Addie approved of him.
    “You’re late.” He was sitting in front of the big stone fireplace in the turret room. Even though it was summer, Lucas was usually cold and had a fire burning up here.
    Something common for sorcerers? I would probably never know.
    The room was large and five-sided, with a smooth-as-satin wood floor and three tall windows overlooking the street. It was spotlessly clean and smelled of lemon oil and incense. The big wrought iron bed was plumped up and covered in clean sheets and a red velvet comforter. There was a red Persian carpet on the floor that looked old and valuable.
    Lucas had brought the carpet with him from wherever he was from. Sometimes I wondered if it was a magic carpet, but those were only times when I’d had too much to drink.
    There was a large, claw foot tub in one corner of the room. Candles were lit on every flat surface, like always. I wasn’t sure where those came from unless he also made candles between his other chores around the inn.
    It wouldn’t have surprised me.
    “Was there difficulty at your employment?”
    Lucas had been trying hard to fit in. He’d looked and sounded like a Ren Faire character when I’d found him in Nashville. He’d learned contractions, and he’d taken over the maintenance of the inn and grounds. He’d also become our cook, dishwasher, and the one who washed and dried our clothes.
    I hadn’t asked him to take over those responsibilities. He was the kind of person who just saw what needed to be done and did it.
    He wore Jacob’s old clothes, mostly jeans on his long legs and T-shirts on his lean muscular chest. Lucas claimed that he couldn’t remember anything about his past. His use of magic was limited, perhaps because of it.
    It was possible he was a murderer, as Abe had accused, and one of the most feared sorcerers in history, as I’d read online about a man with his name, Lucas Trevailer. Maybe he was a French sorcerer that had vanished from 1312, ending his reign of terror—brought forward in time for some nefarious purpose.
    But as yet, he hadn’t done anything that wasn’t good for me, Addie, and Kate. That was all I cared about.
    I sat in the big, comfortable velvet chair he’d claimed as his own from the attic. “Besides a complicated runner situation that wrecked my van, Abe’s new magic user was killed in the alley outside Deadly Ink.”
    He poked the roaring fire again before sitting closer to me. “I suppose Abe suspects me.”
    “You killed his last magic user, necromancer, or whatever you want to call him.”
    “But you explained that I had no choice in the matter since Jasper had wanted to kill me.”
    “For the tenth time, yes.” I tried not to watch his face for signs that he was lying to me. It was an old professional habit. Maybe I wouldn’t even be able to tell if a sorcerer was telling the truth. There was a lot about magic, and Lucas, that I didn’t understand. “I don’t think he believes me. Even worse, he still thinks you want to work for him.”
    Lucas got to his feet, tall and lithe. His black hair gleamed in the firelight, much shorter than it had been when he’d first arrived. His unusual green eyes—the color of jade—stared into my face. “And you, Skye. What do you believe?”
    “I don’t think you killed Harold the Great, but his death was from dark magic, according to Abe.”
    “He should know since his life swims in it.” Lucas removed the blue robe he wore and slid, naked, into bed. “But tell me, what does he