Box Office Poison (Linnet Ellery) Read Online Free Page A

outside, I thought, and remembered John’s and my mad flight from Virginia to New York City last summer as we were pursued by Securitech and killer werewolves. I also remembered how it ended: in the Álfar equivalent of the Dakota as John’s real mother had forced him to choose between me and my clients—a terrified mother and daughter—and his own freedom. Of course John had done the noble thing.
    The male anchor was gabbling, almost hyperventilating. Even though he had corrected his female counterpart in a particularly snotty way, he had clearly never seen the effect and maybe didn’t believe the Álfar could actually do it.
    And suddenly the incongruity of the whole thing struck me. As the retired cop had said, if Kerrinan had spotted the cops, why not just step out of his house and into the Fey? Why get into a car and spend hours in a slow-motion chase down the LA freeways when you had the power to be gone in an instant? It didn’t make any sense.
    I waited a few more minutes, but the Ferrari didn’t reappear and the chatter became an endless loop. So Kerrinan had fled to the Fey. I wondered how the DA’s office in LA was going to cope with that? There were so many Álfar in Los Angeles, maybe California had some kind of extradition treaty with the Álfar? Maybe it would have application in New York? The federal kidnapping statutes should have applied to John. I’d raised that with the FBI, and then with a Department of Justice lawyer in the Manhattan office, who’d looked at me like I’d been on crack.
    I decided I’d talk to the California DA. I turned off the television. Thinking about John and my, so far, ineffectual attempts to free him made me depressed. I realized I hadn’t called John’s parents in Philadelphia with an update in over a month. I had met Big Red, the retired policeman, and his wife Meg shortly after John had been trapped and told them exactly what had happened. I owed them that much. They were lovely people, neither college-educated nor wealthy, but good, solid middle-class Americans who had raised four human kids and one changeling, all of them growing up to serve their communities as a firefighter, a nurse, a fisherman, a Marine, and John, who had followed his father into the police force. I shouldn’t be dodging them just because I hadn’t made any progress on freeing their son. Who’s trapped because of you , whispered a nasty voice.
    I tried to drown the depression with a hot bath. When that didn’t work I settled for a nap.
    *   *   *
    A shrilling ring brought me awake. It was dark in the room, and I fumbled for the phone, knocked it onto the floor, cursed, kicked away the covers, and finally ended up kneeling naked on the carpet pressing the receiver to my ear.
    “What? Yes? Hello? Hello?”
    “Good Lord, what are you doing in there? Wrestling crocodiles?” David’s cool baritone filled my ear.
    “You woke me up.” I scraped the hair off my face.
    “Sorry.”
    “No, it’s okay.” Outside the wind set the fronds on the palm trees to rattling like castanets, whistled around the railing of the balcony, and rain exploded against the sliding glass doors. “What time is it?”
    “Ten past seven.”
    “Oh, shit.”
    “Yes, we’re meeting Montolbano at seven thirty.”
    “Why didn’t you get me up?” I said, scrambling to my feet.
    “I just did,” came the snotty reply.
    “In time to get dressed and put on my makeup!”
    “You’ll look fine.”
    “I guess being dead has made you forget everything you ever knew about women,” I said. I forced myself to unclench my teeth, lunged at the closet, and started tossing outfits on the bed.
    “Look, we were going to meet in the bar. I’ll have him come to my bungalow instead. That should buy you a few more minutes.”
    “Great! Thanks.”
    Jeffery Montolbano. Holy shit. I raced into the bathroom, pulled out my makeup, washed and then made up my face. I went with the more dramatic yellow and brown eye shadow