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never interesting for long. Perfection never made you curious. It never raised any questions. Everything was on the surface with perfect. You knew in your gut that, in the end, perfect was going to be boring long-term.
    No, Celinda Ingram was not perfect. What she was, he thought, was fascinating. Fascinating always carried some risk.
    He looked through the windshield at the Slider parked nose to nose with the Phantom and summoned up a mental image of the mysterious woman in the office four floors above him.
    Hair the color of rich, dark amber, caught up in a severe knot at the back of her head, a couple of wisps dangling down in front of her delicate little ears. Big, hazel green eyes, soft mouth, assertive nose and chin. There was an elegance and dignity about her. He liked that in a woman, liked to know that she thought enough of herself to carry herself like a queen.
    He had also sensed a whisper of power. She had worn an amber bracelet on her left wrist. Could have been a fashion statement, he thought, but it could have been something more. Everyone could generate a little psi energy, but powerful para-rez talents like himself often carried tuned amber in some form to help them concentrate and focus that energy.
    Whatever else he had been expecting when he and Martinez tracked down Celinda Ingram, it had not been the deep rush of sexual excitement that had made him long to throw her over his shoulder and take off into the rain forest.
    How the hell could she be a matchmaker? He didn’t trust any of them, not after the fiasco of his engagement to Janet.
    But what the hell, he wasn’t looking for long-term. He could overlook the matchmaking thing. He wondered why she wasn’t married. And then he thanked his lucky amber that she wasn’t.
    “If nothing else, it’s going to be a really interesting evening, Max.”
    The thought cheered him. He hadn’t had a really interesting evening in longer than he cared to recall. Ever since the fiasco of his close encounter with a Covenant Marriage, he had devoted himself to his business. Life was simpler that way. At least it had been until today.
    He rezzed the Phantom’s engine. Beneath the gleaming hood, flash-rock melted. He backed out of the parking slot and drove out of the garage, heading toward his office in the Old Quarter.
    A short time later, Max on his shoulder, he pushed open the door of the offices of Oakes Security.
    Trig McAndrews, seated behind the reception desk, looked up from his computer. His bald, shaved head gleamed in the overhead lights. So did the gold ring in his ear.
    Trig was built like one of the Colonial-era buildings in the Quarter: not too tall but solid as a brick right down to the foundation. He looked as if he moonlighted as a pro wrestler. The elaborate tattoos enhanced that impression.
    “Any luck, boss?” Each word sounded like it had been dragged through crushed gravel.
    “Yes and no.”
    “I hate answers like that.”
    “Me, too.”
    Max hopped down off Davis’s shoulder, landed on the desk, and greeted Trig with a small chortle.
    “How’s it hangin’, big guy?” Trig patted Max on the top of his head and then looked up at Davis. “So, what happened?”
    “The person of interest Martinez and I interviewed had the relic in her possession,” Davis said. “She was apparently willing to turn it over to me. But, in what may strike you as an amazing coincidence, her dust bunny ran off with it just as I was about to take possession. Bunny and relic disappeared.”
    Trig’s expression did not change. “A dust bunny ran off with our client’s artifact?” Each word was very carefully spaced.
    “Miss Ingram says the bunny thinks the relic is a toy, which means that the little sucker will bring it home soon. Dust bunnies don’t like to be parted from their toys for very long.”
    “Gonna be a little hard to explain this chain of events to Mercer Wyatt,” Trig observed.
    “I don’t plan to tell Wyatt what happened. Not as long as