Mind Sweeper (40 page)

“Hell, no.”

“Can I get your friend something to eat?” Tony asked as he walked up to the table.

“You can see him?” I muttered.

Tony stared at me for a second before grinning like an idiot. “Yes, dear, I can. Let me get you both some tiramisu. On the house.” He walked away.

Dalton chuckled. “I’m holding your hand and you still thought I was a figment of your imagination?”

“It’s been a long couple of weeks.”

The humor left his face. “For me, too. I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For putting you in that position. I know the last thing you wanted to do was mind sweep me.”

“I did it to save your life.” My heart picked up speed and I tried to pull my hand from his grip. “Wait! You can’t be seen with me. What if the supernatural community comes after you again?”

“I’m not afraid, Kyle.”

“You almost died. You need to forget about me.”

He shook his head. “Already happened once, and it won’t be happening again if I have anything to say about it.”

My head was spinning. There were a dozen reasons why he needed to walk away and not look back, but now that I stared into his eyes, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him again. I opened my mouth and he placed his fingers over my lips to silence me.

“Listen to me. There’s a reason why I have my memories back. We have to figure out what the key is all about and where it is now. It’s not in me anymore.”

I nodded, and when he moved his hand away from my mouth, I spoke in a whisper. “We need to talk about the key.”

“Let’s make a deal. We talk about saving the world tomorrow. Tonight, I simply want to be alone with you. Just the two of us. Do we have a deal?”

I smiled. “Yep. But I have to finish my shift here.”

“No you don’t.” Tony held up a bag. “I packed your dessert to go. You’re fired.”

I laughed as Dalton took the bag and pulled me up from my seat.

“You, sir, are a prince among men,” I called over my shoulder to Tony as we headed toward the door.

We snaked our way through the crowd, Dalton holding tight to my hand as we crossed the street to my apartment building. I unlocked the door and we stepped into the cool lobby.

Dalton handed me the dessert. “Hang on to this.”

“What…” Before I could get my question out, Dalton lifted me and carried me up the stairs.

“Dalton, put me down!”

“Not on your life.” Once inside my apartment, he refused to set me down until we reached my bedroom. His eyes took on that predatory glint I recognized all too well. I backed away from him.

“I almost didn’t recognize you with your new hair color. What do you call it?”

“Purple Passion.”

He cocked his head and stared at me for a moment. My skin tingled under his scrutiny. “The name fits,” he responded.

I smiled and stood on tiptoe to kiss him soundly. He growled and pulled me up against him. “Soooo…do you want to eat dessert before or after?” he asked in a low voice.

I backed away again and held the bag up, dangling it in front of him. Turning, I glanced over my shoulder.

“During.”

His eyes darkened and he made a grab for me. I laughed and ran to the other side of my bed.

It didn’t take him long to catch me.

Thanks!

I hope you enjoyed the first book in my Mind Sweeper Series. There will be more to come! If you would like to know when my next books will be released, please join my new releases email list at
www.aejonesauthor.com
or follow me on
Twitter @aejonesauthor
or Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/aejones.author1

And if you are so inclined, please review this book as well.

I also thought I would treat you to an excerpt from my next release. Some of you may have thought I was being a bit of a tease when Kyle asked Jean Luc if he had ever been in love and he simply answered, “Her name was Talia.” Well…there was a method to my madness. Jean Luc and Talia’s story unfolds in my next release, a story about how they first met and fell in love while hunting down a supernatural serial killer.

This novella is scheduled for release October 2014. Please turn the page to read an excerpt from
The Fledgling.

Excerpt from

The Fledgling

AE Jones

Sometime in the mid 1980’s

Chapter 1

The smell of blood no longer excited him. Whether that was a good thing was debatable. However, in this particular instance it worked to his advantage. The stale, tinny odor engulfing the room had already sent several men out the door to lose their most recent meal.

“Jean Luc?”

Mon Dieu
. He turned toward the voice and stifled a groan. Three hundred and seventy-five year old vampires did not groan in the face of overzealous human females. And one such female sashayed toward him.

Well, sashayed was perhaps an overstatement, since she wore paper slippers over her shoes and studiously tried to avoid the human detritus littering the floor. The extraordinarily large shoulder pads in her suit made her look like a small child playing dress-up in her father’s clothes.

“It
is
you! Hi, how have you been?”

“Good evening, Muriel.”

She smiled and her eyes assessed him quickly, the way a shifter would peruse a fresh piece of meat. “You still look the same. I’m trying to remember the last time I saw you…”

Was she really flirting with him, here? Jean Luc took a calming breath. “We met over the previous dead body.”

Muriel giggled. “Of course. Well…I guess I should get to work, then.” She snapped on her rubber gloves and squatted down next to the corpse.

And within a matter of seconds, the flirtatious woman disappeared, replaced by a focused, professional Medical Examiner who barked orders. “Harper, did you get pictures on both sides of the body?”

When no one responded, Muriel’s head jerked up in irritation. “Harper!”

“Is he the redheaded technician with the camera?”

“Yes.”

Jean Luc nodded toward the door, and the muted sounds of retching. “He is a bit indisposed.”

Muriel sighed, “He’s new. I hope he sticks around longer than the last tech. They all think this job is going to be like that TV show,
Quincy
.” She stood and scanned the room, homing in on an older officer. “Simmons, would you go get the camera from Harper and make sure all angles are captured.”

When Simmons returned, she stepped out of his way and motioned for Jean Luc to follow her into the garage.

Peeling off her gloves, she said, “I thought I had seen it all before, but this? His throat was ripped out. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was attacked by a bear or a wolf.”

“Indeed.”

“Except we’re in a split-level in the Indianapolis suburbs.”

Jean Luc shrugged. “There is that.”

“Come on, Jean Luc, the department didn’t just hire you for your pretty face. Give me
something
to work with.”

The department had not actually hired him at all, but the misconception helped him with his real job. The police commissioner contacted the Bureau of Supernatural Relations whenever something “irregular” occurred, so Jean Luc could help cover it up. But there would be no concealing this type of death. The killer might as well have posted it on a billboard. And claw marks did not narrow the field of potential supernatural killers. It could mean vampire, demon, or shifter.

He paused for a moment, debating how much to say. Unfortunately, he had seen this type of kill before. “The viciousness of these murders is increasing. He either knew the victim or is beginning to enjoy the savagery of the act.”

Muriel nodded. “I see no evidence of hesitation this time.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but something light as a gossamer thread brushed his consciousness, and he looked out the open garage door, casing the yard. Several uniformed police officers stood outside, but none were paying attention to his discussion with Muriel.

A supernatural was nearby.

“Jean Luc?”

He turned back to the Medical Examiner. “What do we know about the victim, Muriel?”

“Not too much yet. But they should have found out something by now. Charlie!”

After a few seconds, a heavyset man in a worn corduroy suit lumbered into the garage. “You bellowed, Muriel?”

She chuckled. “You’re the only one who isn’t scared of me. Why is that?”

“Unlike some of these cave men, I think you actually know what you’re doing, even if you don’t have a penis.”

Muriel grinned. “You always say the nicest things. What have you got for us on the vic?”

Charlie pulled out a small notebook and flipped it open. “Guy’s name is Peter Peters.”

Muriel rolled her eyes. “Cut the crap, Charlie.”

His mouth quirked up a bit. “Honest, I’m not making it up. His parents need to be smacked upside the head a couple times. According to the neighbors, he’s been living here for two years. He was, and I quote ‘quiet and kept to himself.’ Why am I not surprised?”

“Do we know if he had any recent altercations?” Jean Luc asked.

“Nada. I’ve radioed into the station, and they’re checking the files, but nothing came up so far. No domestics. The neighbors don’t remember seeing any steady girlfriends, either.”

“Did he have a steady job?”

Charlie turned the page of his notebook. “That’s where it gets interesting. He was an
accountant
for Manny Edwards.”

Muriel frowned slightly. “You don’t think it’s legit?”

“Oh, he probably did work with numbers, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t on the up-and-up. We’ve never been able to catch him, but I’d bet my shield Manny’s restaurant is a front for a bookie joint.”

Manny was also a shifter who dealt with many of the supernaturals in the city, but they did not need to know that.

“We’ve tried to place several cops under cover in his operation, but no one has ever lasted for long.”

Which was no surprise. Shifters were incredibly skillful at sniffing out emotions, walking supernatural versions of a lie-detector. They would see right through a cop’s cover. “Will you be interviewing Manny?”

Charlie smiled. “Oh, yeah. He’s top on my list.”

Once Charlie had finished with his interrogation, Jean Luc would visit himself to find out the truth. After all, Charlie had no inkling of what to ask.

* * *

Jean Luc watched a very irritated police detective peel away from Manny’s establishment. He would wait a few more minutes before approaching the restaurant.

He rested his head against the car seat and closed his eyes. He was tired, as much as a vampire could be tired, and he longed for a moment of quiet. However, instead of silence, he was being serenaded by his partner, who, if he was not mistaken was whistling the theme song from one of the multitude of television shows he regularly devoured, memorized and then trotted out to fill every quiet moment.

“Misha, may I have a moment of peace,
s’il vous plait
?”

The whistling stopped.

Jean Luc took several deep breaths. Why did he continue doing this work? Another dead body. Another case of a supernatural risking exposure to humans. Another lie he must fabricate to conceal the truth. A century of the same issues, of moving back and forth across the country, unable to build a sense of permanence. Misha and he had only been living in Indianapolis for a couple of months. Nicholas had reassigned them to Indiana a week before the killings started. Which was a very significant coincidence, and Jean Luc didn’t believe in coincidence. But until they found the killer, he would table the list of questions he had for his boss.

“What is wrong, my friend?” Misha asked, his deep Russian accent rumbling in the close quarters of the car.

“Nothing. We should go see Manny now.”

Misha shook his head slightly. “You may be older than I am, vampire, but it does not mean you’re a good liar.”

Jean Luc turned to issue a retort, but instead quirked a brow at his teammate. He had not paid attention to the demon’s outfit earlier. He was wearing a white suit with a turquoise t-shirt and shoes with no socks. Did he dare ask him why he was dressed this way? No, ignorance was truly bliss when it came to Misha’s peculiarities. And he was glaring at him as only a stubborn Russian could.

Jean Luc blew out a breath in defeat. “These murders worry me. I have not seen this kind of blatant disregard for exposure of our kind in centuries.” Not since The Wars, and that was not a subject Jean Luc wished to discuss.

“Do you have a theory yet?”

“No. And I have arrived at the crime scenes too long after the killer left to sense any residual energy which might reveal what type of supernatural we are pursuing.” He reached for the door handle. “Shall we go in?”

They climbed out of the car and were greeted at the restaurant door by Manny’s version of a host. He loomed as tall as Misha, who stood six feet six inches, and his neck was as big around as Jean Luc’s waist.