Trace of Magic by Diana Pharaoh Francis Page B

search of some wine.
    I don’t actually drink much, but we were about to be snowed in and I didn’t have any place to be. There wasn’t much I could do to find Josh without following his trace, which would mean returning to the scene of the crime. For now, all I could do was wait and see what Price found out. Drinking seemed a fine way to fill the time.
    I went into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of Riesling out of the wine cooler. I like sweet wines. Taylor eyed me, then fetched three glasses. I pulled the cork and poured. I raised my glass in toast. “To finding Josh. Sooner than soon.”
    Taylor’s mouth twisted. She clinked my glass and took several gulps. Good. Maybe I could get her drunk enough to pass out. She could use the sleep.
    I filled the last glass and carried it out to Price, setting it down on a coaster. Not using coasters could get you killed in Taylor’s house.
    “What’s your sister’s password?” he asked.
    “I’ll go ask.”
    She turned red when I asked and marched out into the living room and typed it in herself. Probably something sappy involving Josh. I couldn’t possibly hope it would be racy. Not Taylor’s MO.
    She vanished into the kitchen.
    “I hope you’re hungry,” I said to Price. “She found a hunk of prime rib or something in the fridge. We’ll be having a five-or six-course meal before she’s through.”
    “I do love a woman who cooks,” Price said absently as he brought up the police portal.
    For the record, I do not cook. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I can make fettuccine Alfredo to die for, and I can make the best cheesecake you ever want to taste. Otherwise, what I eat comes off a menu or out of a box. It’s one of the reasons I work out of the diner. Patti makes sure I’m fed.
    Price looked over his shoulder at me. “You can go help your sister, if you want.”
    “She doesn’t need me,” I said innocently, totally ignoring the hint. “Besides, you didn’t want me out of your sight, remember?”
    “Then go have a seat on the couch. I don’t need you breathing down my neck.”
    Whatever. I did as told, stretching out and pulling a plush throw down over me.
    “What can you tell me about Josh?” Price asked as he typed out something on the keyboard.
    “He’s a suit. Uptight. Likes to rock climb and bike in his spare time. He works at—” I wrinkled my nose up, trying to remember the company’s name. “The Franklin Watley Group. He’s been there something like a decade. He’s apparently a wizard at his job. From the way he tells it, his bosses think the sun shines out his ass.”
    “What does he do?”
    “Hell if I know. Makes money. Gobs of it. Breaks my sister’s heart and then keeps screwing her on the side. So pretty much he’s a douchebag.”
    “Please, don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel,” Price said dryly.
    I turned on my side to look at him. “I don’t like liars and cheats.”
    “I don’t know that he’s done either. He’s broke his engagement with your sister—”
    “And her heart.”
    “And her heart. But he didn’t lie or cheat that we know of.”
    “Yet. But that’s not the point. The point is he’s been leading her on, using her for sex because she’s still so in love with him she’d do anything to hold on to him.”
    “That’s not the nicest portrait of your sister.”
    I shrugged. “Love makes people stupid.”
    I didn’t know why I was saying all this. I wasn’t sure I even believed it. Josh could be the sweetest guy on the planet. Before he ended the engagement, I thought he was. But now? How does a guy do that to the woman he loves? I couldn’t help but feel that whatever Josh had gotten into, it was his fault and the fallout was going to splash onto Taylor and hurt her too. It already had.
    “You don’t believe in love?”
    “Are you serious?”
    He shrugged. “Sure.”
    “Do you?”
    He looked at me and then back down at the screen. “I believe it happens for some