Read Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files) for Free Online

transition from accidental lover to ex-associate easier. Maybe a nice Thorazine fog would help me, too.
    On the bright side, being irritated was preferable to being sad and horrified; when in doubt, choose rage, that's my motto. I pushed my knit hat back up onto my forehead so I could see, and chiseled at the indefinable coating on the steps: part snow, crusted with ice, scary-slick on top. I'd left my hair down just to prove to Harry that I didn't always wear it in a boring-yet-practical ponytail. He hadn't seemed too impressed. Of course, at the time he'd been highly distracted listening to Black Eyed Peas on his iPod and rapping: “What you gon’ do with all that junk? All that junk inside your trunk?” My hair issues didn't compete with his lively hip-grinding in the kitchen. The thought of him outlined in the shadows of the closed wood blinds by the sink, rocking out in his tuxedo pants and singing about his “lady lumps” just made me smile. I had, no doubt, the goofiest vamp this side of the Atlantic. Revenant, dammit! Screw Batten and his stubborn slang; now he had me doing it. Lord and Lady, if Harry hears me say the v-word, my ass is meatloaf.
    Wherever my tangled locks hung out of my cap, they were coated with hoary, frost-hard tips, and when the wind blew the wrong way, they whipped across my face, poking my eyes and tickling my sweaty brow. My nostrils started to burn and I wondered if I was going to get chapped red, and wouldn't that be oh-so-attractive if Jerkface returned, smelling like a blend of watered-down Brut cologne (which Harry found absolutely hilarious) and body-warmed leather…
    I stopped my fantasizing abruptly with a self-loathing scowl and went back to shoveling.
    Why had I ever thought that working with the FBI would be fun? There had never been a single fun thing about it. Just a grim, never-ending line of wee bloodless bodies smelling of open abdominal cavities and, depending on freshness, putrescine and cadaverine, two scents I wish I wasn't familiar with.
    The sun peeked above briefly, winking out when the heavy clouds trundled on stage left. Lovely of me to be thinking of rotting corpses when a perfectly healthy dead guy had finally wandered off to his bedroom in the basement. I felt his weariness, that slow progression of my Bonded partner as he approached his daily reprieve.
    The cell phone in my back pocket matched the one tucked under the satin pillow in his casket. Only three people had my number: Harry, SSA Chapel, and Jerkface. When it started trilling Taco's version of “Putting on the Ritz” I didn't have to wonder who changed my ringtone.
    “Yes, Lord Fancy Pants?”
    “Are you going out?”
    I'd planned on curling up on the couch to cheer myself up with the newest Janet Evanovich mystery and some Oreos, and I was going to chomp about twenty of them (like a Great White Shark, maybe?) but when your companion has needs… “What do you want, Harry?”
    “May I issue a warning, ducky? I hate to, but may I?”
    “Must you?” I replied.
    “I must,” he continued, clearly missing the testy tone of my voice. “For I suspect you'd fancy a wee drive into town, where you would no doubt get on Agent Batten's wick. To be sure, that can only end in disaster.”
    “On Batten's wick” sure sounded like a coy euphemism to me. Leaning against the snow shovel, I peered up at the gloomy skies and wondered if the sun was direct enough through those clouds to dust my smart-assed housemate.
    “I used to own a crucifix,” I mused. “Solid silver, blessed by a Roman Catholic archbishop. Wonder where it got to?”
    “They probably revoked it from your heathen arse when you went witchy.” I could picture him wiggling his fingers mysteriously the way he did.
    “Rest in peace, Harry.”
    “T-minus five, my pet.” He sucked wind before he hung up on me and I knew he was finishing up a menthol cigarette in his casket again. Embers in an enclosed wooden box with a highly