The Demon Lover by Juliet Dark Page A

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    “It happened two nights ago when there was all that wind,” I said. “This wind chime blew against it and broke it.” I retrieved the metal ornament from the desk drawer where I’d stowed it away, as if it proved my story. Brock gave me a long considering look, as if I was a shelf hung crooked.
    “Is that how you cut your hand?” he asked, looking down at my hand.
    The scratch had almost healed so I’d taken the bandage off, but it had started to itch. I nodded and he took my hand in his own broad and calloused one. He studied the cut for so long I began to feel uncomfortable, but then he ran the tips of his fingers over the scratch, which should have made me feel even more uncomfortable. It had the opposite effect. As he stroked my hand a wave of comfort and well-being spread throughout my body. I thought of stories I’d read about faith healers, people whose touch could cure suffering. Brock Olsen’s hands looked as if they’d suffered a lot themselves; they were nicked and scarred and riddled with burn marks that stood out white against his dark skin. He was missing the top of his left ring finger. Maybe having been through so much pain himself gave him the power to ease the pain in others. When he released my hand the itching was gone.
    “Best be more careful next time,” he said, fixing me with his warm brown eyes. He waited until I promised I would and then went to get his tools from his truck.
    I spent the morning sorting through Dahlia LaMotte’s papers while Brock Olsen worked in the house, replaning all my doors and windows. I found the background noise of his hammering and sanding oddly companionable. I made a pot of coffee for us and heated up a plate of cinnamon rolls Diana Hart had left on my doorstep with a note saying they were leftovers from last night’s guests. The smells of coffee and cinnamon mingled cozily with the piney scent of sawdust. It felt good to have someone else in the house. Maybe Frank Delmarco was right. This was too big a house for one person—although maybe not one person with this many books.
    I decided that there were too many boxes of papers to keep in my little turret office, so I hauled them into one of the empty bedrooms. Brock helped me when he saw what I was doing. I unpacked them all and started stacking them in piles on the floor, sorting by category and using the iron mice doorstops as paperweights.
    There were notebooks—ledgers from her father’s shipping business bound in marbled paper and ruled with narrow horizontal lines and red vertical columns—in which Dahlia had apparently written her rough drafts; piles of typescript; and letters. I arranged the letters chronologically, making piles for each decade of her life, and the writing notebooks and typescripts by book.
    At some point in the afternoon Brock brought me a plate with cheese, bread, and apple slices and a fresh cup of coffee.
    “Oh, Brock!” I cried. “I should have gotten you lunch.”
    “I could see you were wrapped up in what you were doing,” he said, blood rising behind his ravaged skin. “Are these Dolly’s things?” he asked.
    “Dolly?”
    “That’s what we called her here in Fairwick. To the world she was Dahlia LaMotte.”
    “There are people who remember her?” I asked, amazed that the town’s memory went back that far.
    He smiled. “It’s a small town and the local families have been here a long time. My people have been here for over a hundred years.”
    “Really? Did they come from somewhere in Scandinavia?”
    “Sort of,” he replied. “We made some other stops along the way. Dolly’s people, they came later, and overland.”
    “Overland?” I repeated, wondering what on earth he meant. Fairwick was a landlocked village in the Catskill Mountains. How else could anyone approach it? “You mean by train or carriage?”
    A vivid red streak rose up on the right side of Brock’s face, highlighting a welt on his cheekbone. It looked like he’d been bitten by an