The Ballingers' maid is very good at finding dirt -- not just dust and grime, but the dirty little secrets the Ballinger clan desperately wants to hide. And she's more than happy to keep those secrets -- for a price. But the handsome Ballingers soon learn it takes more than money to seal the lips of Stiffani Voydalle... This book has a werewolf, a dominatrix, zombies, jade statuettes, vengeful gods, murder, foreign agents and sextortion. What more could you want?
Excerpt
“I’ve come to clean up your dirt, sir.”
Narando Ballinger stared incredulously at Stiffani
Voydalle. “At this time of night?”
Stiffani smiled. “Yes, sir. I saw the light under your
door, so I figured you hadn’t gone to bed yet. May I come
in?”
“There’s no dirt in here. The room is spotless. And even if
it weren’t, this is hardly the proper time to be tidying
up. Come back in the morning.”
“Oh, but there is some dirt in here, sir. And I’d be
neglecting my duties if I didn’t tend to it right away.”
“I think you’ve been working too hard, young lady. I
suggest you get a good night’s sleep. Now if you’ll excuse
me . . .
He started to close the door.
“If you say so, Foster Lee,” she said.
He froze. “What did you just call me?”
She put her fingers up to her mouth. “Oh, I am sorry, sir.
Slip of the tongue. I got your name mixed up with your
partner’s.”
His eyes narrowed. “I have no partner.”
“Not anymore. But you did. Before that unfortunate . . .
accident.”
Narando studied her face. It had been pretty once—before
someone cut a big scar into it, running jaggedly from her
forehead clear down to her chin. But it was her eyes that
captured his attention now—green eyes, feral and hungry,
like those of a jungle cat stalking its prey.
He quickly swung the door open. “Get in here,” he said
gruffly.
He was a handsome man, with swarthy skin and brilliantined
hair and a pencil mustache, and he was nattily attired in
cream colored silk pajamas with gray trim, and maroon
slippers. The glowstone lamp next to his roll-top desk was
alight, and a workbook full of blank music sheets lay on
the blotter, with a fancy gold-plated fountain pen next to
it. Some musical notes had been jotted down on the first
page of the book, with a few lines of lyrics scribbled
below the staves, marred by lots of cross-outs. But most of
the page was empty.
Stiffani strolled toward the desk, humming a tune—Rubber
Boot Blues. It was one of Narando’s compositions, perhaps
his most famous.
She sat down in the dark green swivel chair and crossed her
legs. Narando inspected her shapely shins, then returned to
her flawed face. He licked his lips. She picked up the
workbook.
“What’s your latest song about?” she asked.
He marched to the desk and snatched the book away from her,
snapping it shut.
“Look, Miss Voydalle, I don’t know what you’re up to, but I
wish you’d get to the point. Why did you really come up
here?”
She swung around to face him, folding her hands in her lap.
“To talk about Foster Lee. A remarkable lad. Earned his
living scraping the barnacles off the hulls of fishing
boats down in New Orleans. Used to sing little tunes he
made up on the spot while he worked.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Isn’t it obvious, sir?”
“No. It’s not. What makes you think there’s any connection
between myself and Foster Lee?
Stiffani reached into a pocket of her white apron and took
out a deck of cards.
“I understand you’re good with cards,” she said. “Ever
played with a deck like this?”
His eyes slitted. “Your Mumler deck. So that’s it.”
“Correct, sir. The little scrying session I held in the
parlor the other night went so well, I decided to gaze into
my water bowl again and see what else I could dredge up.
I’ve captured it on this card, and I thought you might like
to watch it, just in case your memory needed a bit of a
jog.”
“How kind of you,” he said acidly.
She riffled the cards, then fanned them out. “Pick a card,
any card—as long as it’s this one.” She pushed up one of
the cards with her thumb.
His hand trembled as he pulled the card from the deck. It
had a black back embossed with a pentagram, and the front
was white, the border decorated with Celtic designs in
thistle-colored ink. But the picture in the middle was not
a king or queen or joker, it was Narando Ballinger
himself—not a drawing, but a sepia toned photograph. A very
special kind of photograph.
Stiffani traced a magical glyph in the air with a
forefinger and said, “Visions of water, in cardstock
sealed, come alive now, the past reveal.”
The surface of the card glowed with soft light, and the
sepia image blossomed into color—and began to move. The
focal point zoomed out, revealing more of Narando’s
surroundings, and sounds began to play—the plinkety-plink
of a piano, the thrum of a powerful engine, the wush-wush
of a paddle wheel churning through water. Narando was
sitting at a round table, playing poker with three other
men, all clad in gentlemen’s clothing. Two of the men were
smoking cigarillos, while another had a big stogie crammed
into his mouth.
Everything seemed quite amiable at first—until one of the
other players suddenly grabbed Narando’s left wrist,
twisted it, and plucked an ace of spades from the sleeve of
Narando’s green suede jacket. Everyone stood up. A brief
argument ensued. Narando was seized by his fellow players
and forcibly escorted out the door onto the deck of the
riverboat and hurled over the railing. He splashed into the
moonlit waters of the Mississippi and shook his fist at the
receding boat, then began swimming toward shore. But he
tired long before he reached the bank, and began to cry out
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