Magic Graves

certificate and her high school record would pass a cursory inspection, but if he dug any deeper, he'd find smoke. And if he took her fingerprints, he would find criminal records in two states.
    Audrey kept the smile firmly in place. "I can't help having big eyes."
    Dominic sighed again. "Here's the deal: I hire freelancers to save money. My full-time guys are experienced and educated, which means I have to pay them a decent wage for their time. Unless there is serious money involved, I can't afford for them to sit on a tough suspect for months, waiting for him to slip up. They get four weeks to crack a case. After that I have to outsource this kind of stuff to freelancers like you, because I can pay you per job. An average freelancer might close one case every couple of months. It's a good part-time gig for most people."
    He was telling her things she already knew. Nothing to do but nod.
    "You've been freelancing for me for five months. You closed fourteen cases. That's a case every two weeks. You made twenty grand." Dominic fixed her with his unblinking stare. "I can't afford to keep you on as a freelancer."
    What? "I made you money!"
    He held up his hand. "You're too expensive, Audrey. The only way this professional relationship is going to survive is if you come to work for me full time."
    She blinked.
    "I'll start you off at thirty grand a year with benefits. Here's the paperwork." Dominic handed her a manila envelope. "If you decide to take me up on it, I'll see you Monday."
    "I'll think about it."
    "You do that."
    Audrey swiped the file. Her grifter instincts said, "Play it cool," but then, she didn't have to con people anymore. Not those who hired her, anyway. "Thank you. Thank you so much. This means the world to me."
    "Everybody needs a chance, Audrey. You earned yours. We'd be glad to have you." Dominic extended his hand over the table. She shook it and left the office.
    A real job. With benefits. Holy crap.
    She took the stairs, jogging down the steps to burn off some excitement. A real job being one of the good guys. How about that?
    If her parents ever found out, they would flip.
    Audrey drove down Rough Ocean road away from Olympia. Her blue Honda powered on through the grey drizzle that steadily soaked the west side of Cascades. A thick blanket of dense clouds smothered the sky, turning the early evening gloomy and dark. Trees flanked the road: majestic Douglas firs with long emerald needles; black cottonwoods, tall and lean, catching the rain with large branches; red alders with silver-grey bark that almost glowed in the dusk.
    A mile and a half ahead a lonely subdivision of identical houses waited, cradled in the fold of the hill, but meanwhile the road was empty. Nothing but the trees.
    Audrey glanced at the clock. Thirty two minutes so far, not counting the time it took her to stop at a convenience store to get some teriyaki jerky for Ling and the time she spent driving around to different pharmacies. Getting to work would mean an actual commute.
    She loved the job with Milano's investigative agency. She loved every moment of it, from quietly hiding in a car to watch a suspect to running a con on the conmen. They thought they were slick. They didn't know what slick was.
    To be fair, most of the suspects she ran across were conmen of opportunity. They got hurt on the job and liked the disability, or they got tangled in an affair and were too afraid or too arrogant to tell their spouses. They didn't see what they were doing as a con. They viewed it as a little white lie, the easiest path out of a tough situation. Most of them went about their deception in an amateur way. Audrey had been running cons since she could talk. It wasn't a fair fight, but then in the world of grifters "fair" had no meaning.
    Ahead the road forked. The main street rolled right, up the hill, toward the subdivision, while the smaller road branched left, ducking under the canopy of trees. Audrey checked the rear view mirror. The ribbon of pavement behind her stretched into the distance, deserted. The coast was clear.
    She smoothly made the turn onto the smaller road and braced herself. Panic punched her in the stomach, right in the solar plexus. Audrey gasped. The world swirled in a dizzying rush and she let go of the wheel for a second to keep from wrenching the vehicle off the pavement. Pain followed, sharp, prickling every inch of her skin with red hot needles, and although Audrey had expected it, the ache still caught her