Truth or Demon

newest lie. Couldn’t these kids come up with something even remotely normal?

“He’s actually here to do research,” Madison said.

Okay, he could probably work with that.

“He has his own paranormal show,” Madison added with one of her smirky little smiles.

Okay, now they were just getting silly again.

“Your own show? Like one of those ghost-hunter type programs?” Poppy asked.

“Umm, yeah, sort of like that,” Killian said, not sure what exactly she was referring to.

“He’s quite a celebrity in Sweden,” Madison said, clearly enjoying this storytelling a bit too much.

“Madison’s actually getting a little carried away,” Daisy said, obviously agreeing with him. She shot her friend a warning look, then turned to Killian. “Weren’t you saying that you are just here to get ideas for a show?”

“Um, yeah. Just ideas.” Killian forced a smile. If they were expecting his help, then they were going to have to let him make up the fake life for himself. A paranormal investigator/pseudo-celebrity from Sweden? Teenage girls had strange ideas of cool.

“That’s pretty impressive,” Poppy said, although he couldn’t tell if she was impressed or not. He supposed it didn’t matter as long as she was actually buying this load of nonsense.

“In fact,” Daisy said, “he was hoping to have a look around Boston today. You could do that, right, Poppy?”

Poppy shot her sister an irritated glance, then gave Killian a feigned look of regret. “Oh, I don’t know. I have some work to do today.”

“It’s Sunday,” Daisy said. “Surely even you can take a Sunday off.”

Poppy shifted, her discomfort with this idea clear on her face, but reluctantly nodded. “I guess I can join you.”

“Great,” Daisy said. “He wants to walk the Freedom Trail. There’s plenty of ghostly stuff there. Plus, I’m sure he’d like to just see the city.”

Killian nodded. What he’d really like to see was his own place, but to do that, he was going to have to find this waiflike woman in her superhero T-shirt true love. Which was going to apparently involve ghost tours too. Joy.

“Okay, well let me just run to my office and check my e-mail and grab a sweater. Then I will be ready to go.” Poppy hurried out of the kitchen as if she’d rather just go hide and avoid their plan altogether.

He didn’t blame her. How was he supposed to pull off this cockamamie scheme anyway? What did he know about matchmaking? Or true love, for that matter? He’d never experienced such a phenomenon. In fact, he didn’t actually think such a thing existed. In his world, people were usually coming to him because they’d been involved in acts and deeds that had not a single thing to do with love.

“Okay, so here’s what you need to do,” Daisy said in a hushed voice, shooting a furtive glance toward the kitchen door. “First of all, be nice. I mean you’re pretty hot”—Killian raised an eyebrow at that—“but you need to work on your personality.”

He frowned at that. Work on his personality? Whatever.

“Poppy’s not the type to warm up to someone quickly,” Daisy told him. “So you’re going have to work it.”

“You need new clothes too,” Madison added with a disdainful grimace at his uniform.

Killian looked down at himself. “What? This is classic. Dashing.”

“It’s gay.”

“I kind of like it,” Emma surprised him by saying, even though she immediately avoided his gaze, toying with her syrup-drenched pancake.

“Well, you like those Johnny Depp types,” Madison said in a way that made it clear she did not.

“He is a paranormal investigator,” Daisy said. “I think he can pull the look off. It makes him interesting.”

“Because the life you’ve invented for me isn’t interesting enough,” Killian said wryly. “I think maybe I need to invent my own background from now on.”

Madison smiled, smug as usual. Emma bit her lip, sheepish as usual. And Daisy nodded.

“Fine. But remember your task. And try to be someone my sister would like. Well, not like like, but, you know, hang out with.”

“I get it,” he said, finding it rather terrifying that Daisy was the only one who seemed at all sensible.

“And no telling her that you are a demon,” she added. “That won’t make her like you at all.”

“I hadn’t planned on it.” Actually he had thought of it earlier, but that definitely wouldn’t get him home any sooner to his comfy bed, Xbox and expensive scotch.

“Okay,” Poppy said, walking into the kitchen in a black cardigan that looked like it had been around since the sixties. “Are we ready to go sightseeing?”

All three girls stood then.

“Oh, we aren’t going. We have to help Emma’s mother,” Daisy said.

Poppy frowned. “What?”

“We’re helping Mrs. Wills—” Daisy looked at Emma.

“Clean,” Emma said automatically. “We’re—helping with the annual spring cleaning.”

“So you two have fun,” Daisy said, waving as she hooked the other two girls’ arms and dragged them from the kitchen. The apartment door slammed shut before Poppy even managed to snap her gaping mouth closed.

Slowly Poppy turned to look at Killian.

He smiled, perhaps his first real smile of the past two days. “I guess it’s just the two of us.”

CHAPTER 6

J ust the two of us.

Poppy was still trying to figure out how she’d ended up alone with this man, even as they stepped off the T and headed toward their first stop on the historic Freedom Trail.

If Killian’s silence on the subway trip was any indication, she suspected he didn’t quite understand how he’d gotten here either. But the truth was she had knocked him unconscious with a family heirloom, he wasn’t from the area, and she had agreed, even if misled to do so, to show him around. And while she still thought he was a jerk, she was polite enough to make an effort to show him a few of the sights.

“I’m taking you to Boston Commons,” she told him as she led him down the sidewalk toward the park. “It’s the oldest public park in the U.S.—and supposedly hosts a number of ghosts.”

Killian nodded, looking around him, and she couldn’t decide what his opinion of the city was thus far.

They walked silently for several moments; then she decided it was going to be a very long day if they were both mute the whole time.

“How long have you been into the paranormal?”

Killian looked as if he was startled to discover her still in step beside him. Probably he was. He seemed like a pretty self-absorbed kind of guy.

Be nice, she told herself.

“Oh—” He seemed to consider the question for a second, then shrugged. “My whole life, really.”

“Really? Was your family into paranormal research too?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Really into it.”

“Was that—strange?”

Again he was silent for a moment, then another shrug. “Not really. It’s all I’ve known.”

“Yeah,” Poppy said. She kind of felt like the past four years were all she’d known too. Sometimes it was hard to remember a time before her parents were gone.

As if he was somehow aware of what was on her mind, Killian asked, “So your sister lives with you?”

“Yes.”

They walked through the park entrance before Killian spoke again. “Why does she live with you?”

The question caught her off guard. Most people she dealt with either knew or assumed the reason. Or they didn’t ask at all. It actually felt really strange to say the words aloud to an utter stranger. To share the most pivotal