Sera glanced up, although the tall buildings shut out all but a narrow slice of night. With low-hanging clouds reflecting the city lights, the sky glowed a nacreous silver. “I don’t think the moon’s full tonight.”
Betsy huffed. “Might as well be. Everyone’s got that weird sparkle in their eyes, even the ones not whacked-out on solvo, or whatever they’re calling it.”
“Must be the holidays coming,” Sera murmured, still watching the night.
“Great. Just add salmonella, suicide, and shoveling- induced heart attacks to the mix.” Betsy nudged Sera’s arm. “Hey, let’s get a cup of coffee.”
Distracted from the sky, Sera shook her head. “I thought you were busy. And I guess I’m spending the evening dusting off my résumé.”
“Marion’s a fool,” Betsy said. “Somebody has to explain the big mysteries before checkout time, and you’ve a real gift for facing the other side.”
Not the kind of gift with a return receipt, unfortunately. Sera fumbled the cane as Betsy hugged her, and they exchanged promises to lunch. She stepped out of the bright lights and relative shelter of the ambulance bay and headed for the darker street.
Yeah, the big mysteries of life and death and why some asshole with three DUIs on his record had plowed his monster SUV into her practical little sedan, putting a severe crimp in the rest of her life, along with her spine.
She was tired of asking questions when she couldn’t help wondering whether there were any answers.
Which was probably why Marion had sent her home.
But home felt like a prison these days. She had spent too much time there since rehab, in a place grown too quiet.
With a twinge of pain, she aimed her steps in the other direction. Good thing Betsy had missed the prescription bottle in the bag next to the cigarettes. The ER nurse would’ve known in a heartbeat what those meant.
Forget the celebratory walk through the cosmetics counters. Just pop the childproof cap on the little orange bottle. She’d have to check on that drug trial the intern had mentioned. He’d said the manufacturer swore Solacin was the painkiller to end all painkillers. With that easy chemical buffer, even the sight of the short stack of job applications on Marion’s desk wouldn’t hurt much.
With the traffic of Upper Wacker behind her, Sera started over the bridge, ducking her head against the wind hissing across the black water.
A quarter of the way across, she noticed the man alone in the middle of the bridge.
If she hadn’t been so wrapped up in her own thoughts, she would have seen him earlier. The matte black trench coat silhouetted his height against the slash of silvery night sky. He stood braced against the wind tugging at the hem of his coat.
Born and raised in the city, she had a healthy respect for and no unreasonable fear of downtown dangers. She worked—until recently, of course—in a job with late hours in sometimes sketchy neighborhoods and had had her car broken into only twice. Even with a cane that marked her as easy pickings, she knew her trigger finger on the can of mace was limber enough.
Still, something about the man slowed her steps and ramped up her pulse.
She couldn’t cross the street. She had less faith in traffic’s ability to avoid her than in her own ability to avoid trouble. And running only invited chasing.
She unzipped the side pocket of her bag, where she kept the mace. Hell, if he had a mugging in mind, she could toss out the prescription bottle, and any self-respecting junkie would follow it into the river.
Despite her inner bravado, her limping steps ground to a halt.
He stood with his face half turned to the sky, heedless of the wind that couldn’t ruffle his close-cropped hair. Sera expected dark shades and a lot of bling, but when he finally glanced down at her, the only spark came from the violet reflections glancing off his eyes.
Not that there were any purple lights around them—just maybe some chance fusion of red brake lights and the blue-tinged streetlamps. . . .
If she was mugged, she didn’t want her description to the police to gush about the hypnotic violet lights in his dark eyes. She’d have to remember the hard edge of his jaw and the width of shoulders below the mandarin collar of his coat, which tapered to lean hips.
She jerked her gaze back to his.
He frowned in a thoughtful, not-menacing way, at least no more menacing than was necessitated by the austere cast to his features. “This, I did not expect.”
She’d be able to ID him by his voice, if nothing else—dark and rough, with a hint of mostly forgotten Southern sweetness, like pralines carelessly heated past caramelizing to burned ruination.
He drew himself up, and she thought darting into traffic might not be completely unreasonable.
“If I told you something bad was right here, right now,” he asked, “would you listen to me?”
Sera thrust her hand into her bag. “I’d tell it to back off.” The mace canister felt sleek and cold and ridiculously tiny when she held it out in front of her.
The man tilted his head. “It won’t be stopped that way. Only you can deny it.”
“Consider yourself denied.”
Violet flashed again in his deep-set eyes. “I am not the threat.”
“See, that’s what all the homicidal schizophrenics say.”
Amusement curved his full lips in a way that made her finger tighten on the trigger.
Danger, danger.
“Temptation is all around you,” he said. “Embrace it at your peril.”
And she’d been deliberately not thinking of embracing. Peril, yes. Embracing, not any time in recent memory.
She shook her head to clear the wayward thoughts. “Right. There’s a men’s shelter on Grand. Tell them Sera from Mercy General hospice sent you, and they’ll find a slot in their outpatient program.”
He sighed. She could barely hear over the wind, but she saw his shoulders lift and fall—under a coat far too expensive for him to be a drug-addled street dweller.
“Sera.” He pronounced it as she had said it, Sear-ah. “I am not patient at all. But nothing I say will convince you. Nothing I say will even make sense. Not yet. Just remember. For when it comes.”
The wind worked its way under her coat, sending a chill up her spine. “I think it’s time you moved along.” She gestured with the mace canister.
He hesitated, then, with a nod, stepped past her. He stayed near the street, giving her space.
The wild wind spun by her, carrying the scent of spice and musk, a primitive blend at odds with his sleek urban look. With fickle abruptness, the wind pushed at her back, urging her toward him. And damn her weak leg, she actually stumbled a step forward.
He turned instantly, one hand reaching out.
“No.” Her voice sounded too high, panicky. She swallowed. “Go on now. Git.” As if he were a mongrel stray.
She waited until the darkness on the bridge swallowed him. He never looked back. Only then did she continue. On the far side, she crossed the intersection against the light, told herself she was an idiot, no one was following her, and paused anyway to make sure.
No man in a black trench coat. No mysterious threat coming her way.
Suddenly her empty apartment seemed better than roaming the city streets in the descending November night. She hailed a cab and ducked inside with only one more glance back.
“Cold out there.” The cabbie’s lilting English distracted her.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re shaking. Shall I turn up the heat?”
She let out a pent-up breath. “Sorry. No. I’m fine.”
Obviously she didn’t have as much of her toughness back as she had told herself, if one crazy set her so on edge. Maybe if—no, when she healed, she’d take that self-defense course Betsy was always pushing on her nurses. It wouldn’t protect her from drunk drivers, but who knew what else was out there?