Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 127, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 775 & 776, March/April 2006

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Kristine Kathryn Rusch is a published author in several genres but readers of mysteries may not recognize her name since books in her private-eye series starring Smokey Dalton appear under the pseudonym Kris Nelscott. The latest in that series, Days of Rage, was published in February 2006 by St. Martin’s Minotaur. Ms. Rusch, who is married to Dean Wesley Smith, is a former EQMM Readers Award Winner.

Pawnshops were all the same. Crowded with junk, reeking of cigarette smoke, they always had one guy who hadn’t bathed in a week sitting behind a glass counter. The counter was the only thing that had been cleaned in twenty years.

Fala rested her palms against the countertop, feeling the warmth of the glass beneath her skin. Old lights illuminated the jewelry inside. Some of it glistened. Much of it was as worthless as the junk on the walls — old class rings, Masonic pins, cheap rosaries — but some of it had possibilities. A garnet ring with emeralds on the side, clearly 1950s. A Tiffany pin, all gold, shiny and complete. A grandmother ring, ostentatious with its twenty different jewels, half a dozen of them small rubies.

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