Undercover (Into Shadow, #5)

by Tamsyn Muir

She dressed up finely for the interview. Not a stitch of it was hers.

The room was dark and elegant and smelled like good cologne and bad tobacco. The sides were lined with leather-bound books that looked like they never had to worry about being taken off the shelves, and the room itself was as chilly as money could make it.

The most notorious murderer she’d ever got near looked like a doctor dressed up for a wedding.

It was only good manners and fear gluing his feet to the floor. When the Widower waved him off, his feet moved a fraction before her hand did.

Starr could see her frightened face like a pinpoint. It was always easier to see faces when they were frightened.

If there had ever been natural light in the Widower’s eyes, it wasn’t there now.

The Widower’s eyebrows looked liable to rear-end her hairline.

“Once you’re in situ, they’re letting me have a gig on the skyline. I’m getting as far away from this as it gets.” “I wouldn’t want to be up high on Tarleton in a thunderstorm,” she said. He said, “I wouldn’t want to be down here in any weather at all.”

“Won’t save you, sure. Might slow her up enough that some of us get away.” She said, “Keep it. I’m not a humanitarian.”

For a moment she was overcome with the desire to haul off and swing—just put four knuckles in that calm professorial face and send the Widower flying. But there’d be twenty bullets in her before the carnation petals fluttered to the floor.

“That’s ancient history, Charles,” said the Widower. “Call me a historian.”

“God damn you, Carol, if I go down, you’re coming with me, and I’ll probably get into heaven for it.”