The Witch and the Huntsman by Rod Kierkegaard Jr J.R. Rain Page A

eyes on my friend, then, damn it, I was going to, and I didn’t care what anybody else said. Even if no man could resist the sight of Ivy. Even if they were pretty much the same age. Crap, Ivy was even younger than he was...my heart sank even farther at that realization.
    “ Okay, well, I want to hear all about it!” she said. “So when can you get off?”
    Typical of Ivy; she thought that every job was a fake one like in the movies, and you could just chill and kick back between takes. I’d thought I’d feel nothing but relief if and when she showed up to back me up—but now I was discovering that it brought a ton of emotional complications with it. And not only that, but a lot of prying eyes. I guess all movie stars get that—but I was suddenly sensitive to it because I could spot Regina Jaeger’s eyes boring down on us from the top of the stairs like twin laser beams.
    “ Not now,” I said to Ivy under my breath; then loudly, “You’ll be in the Roosevelt Room, Miss Tanner—I think you’ll find it’s one of our very best with a log fireplace and its own view of Mt. Jefferson. I’ll just call one of our chasseurs to carry your bags up.” And I dinged the desk bell.
    “ One of your what ?”
    “ That’s what we call bellhops here, Miss Tanner—chasseurs. I guess because the name of the lodge is La Chasse.”
    Long before I got a chance to have a heart to heart with Ivy, though, I snuck out during my first break and phoned Smithy back. I’d asked both him and Samantha Moon—who was a former federal agent (and never let you forget about it)—to work their contacts at the FBI and Homeland Security to find out what they had on their computers for Regina Jaeger. Or Schreich.
    “ Nothing on Schreich,” Smithy said in my ear. “Nobody’s ever heard of anybody under that name. But I did get a few hits on Regina Jaeger, nee Bose. She’s got an A and H out on her in Switzerland for fraud, but it’s non-extraditable. Also a string of priors in Austria and Hungary for Black Widow cases back in the 1950s and ‘60s, but I guess she’s way too young for that to be the same Regina Bose, right?”
    “ Black Widow cases?”
    “ You know, marrying decrepit old geezers and then murdering them for the insurance or inheritance.” That sure as heck sounded like Regina’s style. But just how old was she, anyway? The only way I knew of prolonging life and youthful beauty was through vampirism, like Samantha Moon, or else being a werewolf, like Sam’s boyfriend, Kingsley Fulcrum. And I could spot either type of supernatural entity right away. Which meant Regina wasn’t one or the other.
    “ We had better luck with your receptionist friend Ivana Draganova,” Smithy was saying. “Twenty-four, Bulgarian national, several visa violations, failure to file with the IRS. I’d say she has plenty of reason to just pull up stakes and vanish in the middle of the night.”
    “ Not without packing a suitcase,” I said.
    “ Yeah, there’s that. So when are you coming back, lady? I’ve got a bunch of ghostbuster cases piling up on Sunset Boulevard that need your special attention.”
    “ Don’t try to be funny, Smithy, it’s just not you. Oh, I better go—Doberman’s just pulled up.”
    Now that I’d called the state trooper in, it suddenly struck me just how feeble my so-called evidence was. I went over to his car and described exactly where I’d found the bloodstains, then told him about Smithy’s ID-ing Ivanka. “He says it’s too soon to file a Missing Persons report on her, but he finally did for Marisa.”
    He nodded. “In the meantime, I’ll put a BOLO out on the Bulgarian girl. Young woman, I mean,” he said. “Actually, I was sort of wondering, I mean...” The dude suddenly turned bright red and sounded like he was strangling. Or maybe choking to death on his regulation necktie.
    “ Are you okay?”
    “ Sure...I was just going to, um, ask you out to eat. You know, dinner. If you’re not busy