Page 57 of Sweetwater and the Witch

“Right.” He glanced at the bed and then he checked the time. “There’s no point trying to get any rest.”

“No,” she said. “I would not want to trust those sheets, anyway.”

Harriet made a little huffing noise and snuggled deeper into the pillow.

Ravenna sat down on the edge of the bed, crossed her legs, and fixed Ethan with a sincerely determined expression. “What subject would you like to discuss?”

Ethan tried not to look at the skin revealed by the tear in the little black dress. He dropped into the chair, leaned back, and stretched out his legs. He stacked one foot on top of the other.

“Tell me about your big career change,” he said. “How in green hell do you go from being a criminal profiler to a matchmaker?”

She frowned, evidently surprised by the question. “It’s a long story. Do you really want to hear it?”

“We’ve got time to kill,” he said. “Yes, I’d really like to know how you wound up here in Illusion Town.”

“The skill sets involved in matchmaking and criminal profiling are quite similar. As it happens, there’s a long history of both professions in my family. The tradition goes back to Earth. One of my ancestors, Sierra Raines, was the first person on the family tree to display the talent in a major way. She became a matchmaker. But a lot of her descendants who inherited the ability took up profiling instead. When I started out, I likedthe thought of helping to bring bad guys to justice, so I followed that path first. I worked for a private firm that did jobs for various law enforcement agencies.”

“My nephew said word in the Bureau is that you were one of the best.”

“That’s good to know,” she said. “I’m glad I left with my reputation intact. But truth be told I’m a lot happier in the matchmaking profession. At least I was until recently.”

“You can’t possibly get it right every time,” he said. “People are just too complicated.”

She exhaled deeply. “That’s true.”

“I see the parallels in the two career paths,” he said. “Go ahead, tell me why you made the shift.”

“I liked aspects of profiling,” she said. “It felt like important work. I was making a contribution to society. But there is a lot of death and darkness attached to the job.”

“I know.” Ethan laced his fingers behind his head. “Why do you think the Sweetwaters got out of the old family business?”

“You mean, mostly out,” Ravenna said.

“Mostly out,” he agreed. “Like my grandfather says, over time, hunting human monsters takes a toll on the soul.”

Ravenna exhaled softly. “So does profiling—at least that’s what it felt like to me. When I got out of college, profiling seemed like an intriguing intellectual puzzle, a challenge with very high stakes. Then I started getting emotionally involved. I began to obsess on the job. To get the profile right I had to go into the dark places of the monsters’ minds, sometimes for weeks or even months. The process affected my sleep. My dreams. I started having nightmares about getting trapped in those dark places.”

“I understand. These days when the Sweetwaters do favors for Arcane or the Guilds it’s with the understanding that when it’s time for the end game, we get out of the way and let regular law enforcement take over. We’re hunters, Ravenna, not hired assassins.”

She surprised him with a wry smile. “Maybe you should have made that clear on the Ottoway questionnaire. It would have made it so much easier to find a match for you.”

He looked at her.

She raised her eyes to the ceiling. “I’m joking, Sweetwater.”

“I believe we are talking about you, not me,” he said. “I want to hear the rest of your career transition story.”

“Well, let’s see. Last year I was assigned full-time to an FBPI task force. I didn’t feel I was accepted as a full member of the team. I was very good at my job, but my boss, Collins, and the other agents treated me as if I was a cross between the office mascot and a handy computer. All they had to do was bring me coffee and feed me a lot of raw data. I was supposed to spit out the answers on demand.”

“And when the case was closed?”

“Sometimes I got a pat on the head. Sometimes I got propositioned. Sometimes everyone forgot about me altogether until the next time. I was just part of the office furniture.”

“So it was your dissatisfaction with your job that made you decide to quit?”

“Well, that and the fact that Harriet and I nearly got flatlined by a delusional psychopath named Clarence Fitch. He fancied himself a witch hunter. He flatlined three women before we caught up with him.”

Ethan watched her closely. “Jeff told me you were the profiler on the task force that took down Fitch, but he didn’t tell me you nearly got flatlined.”

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