Obsidian Butterfly (ab-9) by Laurell K. Hamilton Page B

Norton had, but he watched me. Maybe he did want a date, but he wasn't watching me like a potential date. He was watching me like a cop to see what I did, how I reacted. It made me think better of him that he was professional.
    Edward had lowered his sunglasses enough to give me a look as I passed by him. He was smiling, almost grinning at me. The look said it all. He was amused at Ramirez' flirting. I flipped him off, covering the gesture with my other hand so only he would see it.
    It made him laugh, and the sound seemed at home here in this bright place. It was a place meant for laughter. The silence filled in behind his laughter like water closing over a stone, until the sound vanished into a profound quiet that was more than quiet.
    I stood in the middle of the bright living room, and it was as if it were a display home waiting for the real estate agent to come through with a tour of potential home owners. The house was so new, it felt like a freshly unwrapped present. But there were things that no real estate agent would have allowed. A newspaper was spilled over the pale wood coffee table with the business section folded into fourths. The business section had
New York Times
written across the top of it, but some of the other pieces said
Los Angeles Tribune.
A business person recently moved from Los Angeles, maybe.
    There was a large colored photo pushed to one corner of the coffee table. It showed an older couple, fiftyish, with a teenage boy. They were all smiling and touching each other in that posed casual way photos often use. They looked happy and relaxed together, though you can never really tell with posed photos. So easy to fool the camera.
    I looked around the room and found smaller photos scattered throughout on numerous white shelves that took up almost all available wall space. The photos sat among souvenirs, mostly with an American Indian theme. The smaller more candid shots were just as relaxed, just as smiling. A happy, prosperous family. The boy and man, tanned and grinning on a boat with the sea in the background and a huge fish between them. The woman and three small girls covered in cookie dough and matching Christmas aprons. There were at least three photos of smiling adult couples with one or two children apiece. The little girls from the Christmas photo; grandchildren, maybe.
    I stared at the couple and that tall, tanned teenager, and hoped they were dead because the thought of any of them up in that hospital room turned into so much pain and meat was ... not a comfy thought. I didn't speculate. They were dead, and that was comforting.
    I turned my attention from the photos to the Indian artifacts lining the shelves. Some of it was touristy stuff: reproductions of painted pots in muted shades, too new to be real; Kachina dolls that would have looked just as at home in a child's room; rattlesnake heads stretched in impotent strikes, dead before their murderer opened their mouths to appear fearsome.
    Put in among the tourist chic were other things. A pot that was displayed behind glass with pieces missing and the paint faded to a dull gray and eggshell color. A spear or javelin on the wall above the fireplace. The spear was behind glass and had remnants of feathers and thongs, beads trailing from it. The head of the spear looked like stone. There was a tiny necklace of beads and shells under glass with the worn edges of the hide thong that bound them together showing. Someone had known what they were collecting because every piece that looked real was behind glass, cared for. The tourist stuff had been left out to fend for itself.
    I spoke without turning around, staring at the necklace. "I'm no expert on Indian artifacts but some of this looks like museum quality."
    "According to the experts it is," Ramirez said.
    I looked at him. His face had gone back to neutral, and he looked older. "Is it all legal?"
    That earned me another small smile. "You mean is it stolen?"
    I nodded.
    "The stuff we've been