Dragonfury 02 - Fury of Ice

zone, she grabbed a wooden hanger and, wrestling with over-crowding, pushed her leather jacket aside. God. She really needed to jump on the Salvation Army’s bandwagon and do some serious giving.
    Well, either that, or stop shopping. An impossible endeavor if there ever was one. At least for her. Retail therapy was her specialty. Her drug of choice. While some people were heroin addicts, she was hopelessly in love with her American Express card and all the goodies it could buy.
    A failing? No doubt. But nothing made her feel better than a pair of new shoes. A gorgeous handbag. Or hmm, boy, take her away…a beautiful piece of jewelry. And oh, how the list went on. Call her crazy.
    Myst did. With unerring frequency.
    Her throat went tight. Tania bowed her head, ignoring the organized chaos around her, and rubbed the bridge of her nose. She was so tired of crying, but God, she missed her best friend. Was so worried she didn’t know what to do. The cops still hadn’t gotten back to her. Three days and nada. Not one call. Nary a single text or e-mail. Something was really wrong. Tania huffed. Duh. What was her first clue? A very dead Caroline Van Owen. A missing baby. A still alive, but hiding, Myst. And two homicide detectives gone underground.
    With a sigh, Tania tucked back into her closet, pushing more hanging clothes aside. She needed to find her—
    “Ah, there you are,” she said, spotting her travel bag on the floor near the back in the black hole where handbags went to die. Though what her favorite duffle was doing way back there, she didn’t know. “Come to Mama, gorgeous.”
    Grabbing the leather straps, she hauled the Louis Vuitton out, then headed to the bedroom. A quick toss and it landed on the bed’s silk duvet beside her neatly folded clothes. A weekend excursion was in order. Actually, it was a bimonthly event, one in which Tania visited her sister. At the Washington State Correctional Institution for Women.
    Another failure. She’d missed all the signs. Had been so worried about putting food in their mouths—and decent shoes on J.J.’s feet—she’d failed to realize her sister had fallen in with the wrong crowd until it was too late. Now she made the drive every second week, bribing the guards with cookies to get a few extra minutes with her sibling.
    This week it was chocolate chip.
    Her heart aching, she made quick work of packing, laying two days’ worth of comfy clothes in the bottom of her bag. Ballet flats went in next. She didn’t plan on coming home tonight. Was in for a little more retail therapy after she got kicked out of the prison and left J.J. locked up behind bars.
    “Buck up, Solares.” She wiped beneath both of her eyes. Damn it all. Not again. “No one likes a crybaby.”
    With a quick zip, she closed the bag, then rounded the end of the bed and checked the answering machine on her night table. Nothing. No messages. None from Detectives MacCord or Keen. Zero info from the stupid reporter.
    Crap on a crumpet.
    She should never have talked to Clarissa Newton. But she’d been so flipping angry, and tweaking the police’s noses had seemed like a good idea yesterday. Now she regretted sitting down with the reporter. Too bad the interview was already in the can. They’d done it 60 Minutes –style, sitting at the back of a café in a couple of armchairs while the camera rolled tape. The station had agreed to run her interview as part of an exposé on police corruption in Seattle.
    Tania stared at the buttons on the phone and shook her head. Part of her hoped MacCord would have a cow when he saw the interview. Come banging on her door, demanding to know what the hell she thought she was doing. At which point she’d have to admit she didn’t have a flipping clue and kiss the heck out of him. For payback. And maybe just the tiniest bit of pleasure.
    He deserved the tease. And let’s face it, she needed the delight. Especially after the dreams she’d been having about him. And well…wow. Just wow. Talk about hot. Add in some steamy. Toss it all with oh-my-God-I-want-you-right-now salad spoons, and the dish came out somewhere south of holy crap.
    She rolled her eyes. Stupid fixation. It wasn’t healthy, particularly since—
    The phone rang in her hand.
    Tania gasped, fumbling with the thing before she found the talk button. “Hello.”
    “Ms. Solares?” Filled with gravel, the deep voice rubbed her the wrong way.
    Tania tensed, reacting to the undertone.