Forever The World of Nightwalkers - By Jacquelyn Frank Page 0,3

dignify that with any further mental discussion.

Twenty minutes later, Marissa was doodling absently on a scrap of paper, her pen swirling almost frenetically. Almost as if it was matching the frenzy of the thoughts racing through her mind … or the fierce effort she was exerting trying to not think. The phone rang at her elbow, the cell vibrating into movement, trying to travel across the desk. She picked it up and glanced at the screen. A bright, beautiful picture of her sister was displayed, the pure sunlight on her hair making the brilliant red light up as if on fire. That brilliance was nothing compared to the explosive beauty of the smile that had been captured with it. And that smile said everything that needed to be said about the type of person her sister was.

Smiling in return, she answered the call.

“Whadayawant?” she drawled into the phone, using the heaviest Brooklyn accent she had in her repertoire.

Angelina laughed right off the bat, the ebullient sound dancing across the tension in the back of Marissa’s neck and shoulders, instantly releasing and relaxing it.

“Whatchadoin’?” Angelina bounced back to her in the same exaggerated accent. The amusement was that neither of them had been born in New York, but Lina kept insisting Marissa was starting to sound like a native, so …

“I’m working of course,” she replied in her normal voice. A voice that had been cultivated to sound sophisticated and free of all accent.

“No, you aren’t. You wouldn’t have answered the phone if you were trying to pluck the crazy out of someone.”

“I do other things besides ‘pluck the crazy’ out of these cops. The paperwork alone …”

“Sure, sure,” Lina drawled. “You’re probably just sitting there staring out at Mr. Tall Dark and Dangerous.”

The remark took Marissa so by surprise that she hesitated, her words trapped in her throat. “I most certainly am not staring out at him!” she protested.

“Liar,” Lina accused knowingly.

“Shut up,” Marissa groused, hating that Lina knew her so well … and beyond grateful for it at the same time. They both had other friends and companions in the w of Random House, Inc. and the lorld, but no one was closer to Marissa and she knew the same stood for her sister. “So tell me why you feel compelled to torment me in the middle of my workday.”

“You mean besides it being fun?” But Marissa could hear the smile fading from her sister’s voice in the next sentence. “Actually, I do have kind of a small teensy little problem,” she confessed.

Marissa rolled her eyes. Angelina never had a small problem. And the more adjectives she used to minimize it, the more Marissa knew she wasn’t going to like the favor she was going to be asked for.

“What is going on, honey?” she encouraged her, sighing silently.

“Can I come see you? I’m not far away.”

Marissa glanced at the clock.

“I have an appointment in an hour …”

There was a knock on Marissa’s door, interrupting her. She got up and hurried over to it.

“Hold on a sec, Lina, I have—”

She broke off when she opened the door and saw her sister standing there. Angelina lifted a hand, gave her a sheepish version of her winning smile and wiggled her finger in hello.

“Oh for Pete’s sake,” Marissa huffed, shutting off her phone with a click. “Why didn’t you just …”

That was when she noticed the large, surly looking officer standing behind her sister. Officer Weiss she thought his name was. Marissa slowed down a moment, taking in the details of what she was seeing.

“Oh hell no!” she exclaimed.

“Yeah. I kinda got arrested.”

“How do you kind of get arrested?” Marissa demanded, using every last remnant of professionalism and patience she owned to keep from losing her cool in front of the entire bullpen. Just a few yards away everyone she worked with was milling about and any of them, most probably all of them, were witnessing this developing debacle.

“She kind of punched a cop in the eye,” Weiss growled churlishly.

Marissa’s eyes flicked back to the officer, and sure enough he was turning black and blue around the orbital bone of his left eye.

“Angelina!”

“I didn’t punch him!” she exclaimed. “I sort of … flailed. It was an accident!”

“She was at the MaxCon rally.”

Now things were starting to make sense. MaxCon was a notorious textile company on the Hudson River, just north of the village of Saugerties. They had recently been fined for illegally dumping chemicals into the Hudson River. MaxCon’s press release claimed