Or not challenge me. I didn’t want to face the possibility that she wouldn’t even ask.

I snagged my gun and badge out of my car, and after a brief debate, grabbed my jacket as well. I might as well look as official as possible, even if it was my day off. And when was the last time I had a real day off? I thought with a slight scowl.

About thirty seconds later a dark blue Crown Victoria pulled up to the curb. The passenger-side window slid down and Ryan gave me a mock leer. “Hey chicka chicka! You lookin’ hot. You sellin’ that?”

Groaning, I yanked the door open and slid in. “You are so weird.”

He laughed. “Okay, the gun and badge does kill the sexy a little bit.”

“Hey now, some guys would pay extra for that!”

“This is true,” he said with a grin.

I buckled my seat belt, then grimaced. “Also, the stain on the jacket screams, ‘Oh, do me, baby. Do me now.’” I swiped at the dark streak on the hem of my jacket, but only managed to make it a bigger dark streak. “It’s so not fair. The cops on TV have awesome wardrobes.”

“With terrific shoes,” he added.

“Yes! High heels on crime scenes are an absolute must.”

Ryan snickered. “I dare you to come out to your next crime scene wearing stilettos.”

I made a hacking sound. “I’d be laughed out of the department. Especially after I fell on my face a few times trying to walk in them.” I thought for a second. “I don’t even think I own a pair of heels higher than about two inches.” And I only owned one pair like that, I realized—the ones I wore for court or funerals.

He gave me a sidelong glance. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, because god knows you’d have every right to take this the wrong way . . . But do you ever, um, dress up?”

I glowered at him.

“Okay, you’re taking it the wrong way,” he said with a self-conscious chuckle. “I’m not saying you’re not pretty and feminine and all that good stuff. Because you are.” He flashed me a smile that mollified me somewhat. “But when was the last time you had a chance to dress up and go out and be fancy?”

My throat tightened up and I turned to look out the window so he couldn’t see how deeply the question had affected me. “I dunno,” I said as casually as I could, throwing in a shrug for good measure. “A while, I guess. I’ve had a lot going on.” Never, I thought in sudden silent misery. At least not since I was a kid. How fucked up is that? I’d had two boyfriends, but neither relationship had lasted very long, and the dating had consisted of movies and crawfish boils and fishing trips. And Rhyzkahl doesn’t exactly take me out on the town.

I heard Ryan swear under his breath. Obviously my attempt to hide my upset hadn’t been very successful. “I’m sorry, Kara. I didn’t mean to touch a nerve.”

I schooled my face into a pleasant expression and looked over at him. “Ryan, it’s okay. I just . . .” I shrugged. “My teen years were a mess, and then when I started training as a summoner I became pretty isolated.” “A mess” was a mild description. My mother had died of cancer when I was eight, and then three years later my dad had been killed by a drunk driver. My aunt had been less than thrilled to be saddled with the care of a preteen, and by the time I was fourteen I was doing my best to destroy my life with drugs. The discovery that I had the potential and skill to become a summoner had given us both the impetus to get my life back on track, but the need to keep the demon summoning a secret had pretty much killed any chance of a social life.

“You never went out with your aunt for anything? Special occasions?”

I raised my eyebrow. “You’ve met my aunt, right?”

He winced, then gave me a rueful smile. “Yeah. Wow. Sorry.” He shook his head. “Look, as soon as this case gives us some breathing room, how about you and I dress up like people with actual lives, and go eat someplace where the staff has all their teeth and the napkins aren’t made out of paper.”

I could only stare at him for several heartbeats as my thoughts floundered. Was he asking me out on a date? But he didn’t say it was a date, and if I assume it’s a date that could end up being totally awkward if he didn’t mean it that way. But should I play it safe, or jump on the chance that he meant it as something more? Though if I jumped and missed . . .

Uncertainty abruptly flickered in his eyes, and he reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. “I mean, just as friends, right? Two good friends going out and enjoying themselves.”

I managed to nod, though my smile felt brittle. “It sounds great,” I said, relief and disappointment doing the tango in my stomach. “For this I’ll even buy a dress.”

“Tight and slinky?” He gave me a comical leer again. “And stiletto heels?”

I smiled despite my inner turmoil, obscurely grateful for his attempt to break the tension. “Nah. Floor length. Long sleeves. Y’know: Amish.”

“Wear the stiletto heels with it, and it’s a deal.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Just drive.”

Chapter 6

Lida Moran lived in a house on the lakefront, almost directly across the lake from my aunt’s house. While my aunt’s neighborhood was comprised of older museum-quality houses that had been carefully restored and were meticulously maintained, the other side of the lake was for the people who simply wanted a big horking expensive house on the lake.

And big it was, though it wasn’t quite up to the level of some of the houses in Ruby Estates—the community for people with Too Much Money. Still, it was more house than I would ever live in. Two stories and sprawling, it took up at least three lots—and I knew that the price of land on the lakefront was nothing short of obscene. A mix of brick and stucco, it looked strangely like a scaled down ivy-league dormitory with a large central portion and two wings extending to either side along the lakefront.

I stood back and assessed the house. It had to be at least four hundred feet from one end of the house to the other.

“Weird-looking house,” Ryan muttered as we walked up the driveway.

“Great minds think alike,” I said with a low laugh. “They must really like living on the water.”

He gave a derisive snort. “Sure hope so. The house takes up most of the damn lakefront.”

Then we were at the door and had to carefully compose ourselves into a properly professional mien.

Lida met us at the door, barefoot and dressed in jeans and black T-shirt. She had little if any makeup on and about half her usual number of piercings, and my first thought was that she was absolutely stunning like this and why did she wear the crazy makeup and piercings when she was in public? Of course my second thought was that I was thinking like an old fuddy duddy and the makeup and piercings most likely had absolutely nothing to do with how “pretty” she wanted to appear and everything to do with her personal statement of style. Not to mention that the goth look was part of her persona as a performer.

“Ms. Moran, I hope you don’t mind us stopping by, but we were in the neighborhood and figured we’d see how you were doing and if there’ve been any further incidents.” I said it all with a smile, knowing full well that even though she was only nineteen she was sharp enough to know that we hadn’t dropped by simply because we were in the neighborhood. But she seemed perfectly content to go along with the fiction.

“That’s cool,” she said and stepped back. “Nothing else has happened, but we haven’t left the house either. C’mon in. We’re being kinda lazy today, so please excuse the mess.”

I had no idea what mess she was referring to. We followed her through a foyer and into an enormous living area, and the only things I could see that might be considered out of place were possibly the guitar on the couch or the shoes underneath the coffee table. Everything else was clean and orderly and about as far from the home of a singer of her “genre” as I could possibly imagine. Not a skull or black candle to be seen anywhere. Instead, the room had the unmistakable air of an interior decorator with too much budget. The furniture looked incredibly expensive and uncomfortable, and the few shelves on the wall held odd little decorative pieces that looked vastly overpriced instead of elegant. The art on the walls struck me as the sort of stuff that people murmured appreciative things over at galleries, but would never actually buy for their own home—colorful and intentionally abstract paintings that tried to be ever-so-slightly suggestive, but instead merely looked faintly sleazy.