The Broslin flea market flourished every Sunday in an old airplane hangar that had been once part of the county airport. The utilitarian space was now divided into about a hundred “shops” that vendors rented on a permanent basis. In the middle, several rows of folding tables lined up neatly. Those could be rented by anyone just for the day.Jack stalked around for half an hour, observing the sellers, the buyers, the gawkers, the complete lack of security, before finally heading back to the last row of stalls to the man he’d come to see. He weaved in and out of the crowd. The place was packed, the usual Sunday crowd of gleaners.As colorful as a gypsy caravan, he thought, and wondered if Ashley Price had ever painted it. He had Ashley on his mind entirely too much lately. She was a puzzle, and he was a cop. Cops liked puzzles. And yet, deep down, he knew there was more to it. Another time, another place…if he wasn’t what he was. He forced his focus back on his surroundings.He couldn’t

“I thought it was because I lost a life. I thought if I saved a life, the visions would go away. They didn’t.”“I’m glad you came for me anyway.” He couldn’t imagine how hard that must have been for her.She gave a wry smile. “Don’t make me regret it.”“I’m afraid I might have already.” He watched her. “But thank you. I mean that, Ashley.”She looked away, then back at him. “I wanted to thank you too, for not giving my paintings to the FBI.”“How do you know I haven’t?”“If they had the paintings, they would have said something.”He hated the agents who kept getting in his way. And he didn’t want them messing with her either.So he felt protective toward her. So what? She’d saved his life. She deserved something in return.“Any new urges to paint?” He asked the question to prove to himself that he was here to investigate and not just to see her.She shook her head as she stood in the middle of the kitchen, looking all alone and vulnerable and completely lost. And completely hot, regar

Jack came close to smiling as he drove back out to the old firehouse Tuesday morning. Full, active duty. Finest three words in the English language, he’d ever heard. He got a new service weapon and a new badge, and he swore he’d die before he’d let anyone take them away from him.Harper was in the hospital with a bullet wound to the shoulder, the poor bastard. A jealous husband had clipped him. The idiot was currently cooling his heels at the county jail. Bing and Jack had taken him in.The jerkwad was out of circulation and would be out for a long time, but the shooting left the department one man short, which meant Bing had to bring Jack back to active duty.He’d passed his physical first thing Monday morning, then did whatever he had to so Dr. Beacon would sign the psych release. By noon, he’d been reinstated and was interviewing burglary suspects. He was in charge of that now, officially. And only him. Harper had Joe working with him, but Bing moved Joeover to looking for a runaw

Jack started his morning with calling the Lanius gallery and asking about how to reach the mushroom artist, Greg Shatzkin. The guy had been all around the mushroom houses. He could have been the one to track those spores onto the last Blackwell crime scene. He could be Blackwell.But it didn’t turn out that way. Shatzkin, when finally reached, claimed a solid alibi, teaching at a local college, which was confirmed by the admin office. Another dead lead.After Jack finished grousing over that, he spent the morning online, checking eBay and Craigslist, checking local listings against the roster of stolen items he had from the burglaries. The work was tedious and not the case he wanted to work, but if this was the price he had to pay for being back on active duty, then so be it.His hand paused over the mouse as a listing for a laptop came up, same model as on his stolen items list. The hard drive would be wiped clean by now, the laptop pretty much unidentifiable, but he made note of the

“That I can promise.” She tilted her head. “So if Blackwell is in Jersey, why aryou here instead of being there?”“I’ll drive over tomorrow.”“Why not let the FBI handle it? You could let it go. You’re alive. You won.”He didn’t want to talk about it. And then he did anyway. He’d never cared before if anyone thought him an obsessed lunatic. He shouldn’t now. But he did.“I had a sister. Six years older than me. She raised me, pretty much. Breast cancer took our mother in her twenties.”A dull pain throbbed to life in the middle of his chest. Then came the flood of guilt. “Our father was working the graveyard shift. I was a teenage brat, wanted pizza. We lived too far outside of town. The only pizza shop didn’t deliver that far out. I begged her into it. I stayed home and played video games. She drove out for the pizza. She always tried to make up for the fact that I had to grow up without a mother. I was a spoiled little shit, pretty much.”“Jack—”“Anyway, she never came bace k. The