Nocturnal Haunts: Nocturnal Lives, #2.5
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About this ebook
Lt. Mackenzie Santos has seen just about everything in more than ten years as a cop. The last few months have certainly shown her more than she'd ever expected. She's learned that real monsters don't always hide under the bed or in the closet. They walk the streets and can exist in the best of families.
When she's called out to a crime scene and has to face the possibility that there are even more monsters walking the Earth than she knew, she finds herself longing for the days before she started turning furry with the full moon.
Note: This is a re-issue of Nocturnal Haunts. It was originally published by Naked Reader Press and contains new material.
Amanda S. Green
I’m older than twenty and younger than death and that’s all you’ll get from me about my age. After all, it’s not polite to ask a woman her age. I’m a mother, a daughter and was a wife. I’ve spent most of my life in the South and love to travel. The only problem with that is my dog always thinks I’ve abandoned him and it takes weeks to reassure the poor thing. Then there’s the cat who resents the fact I came back before he could figure out a way to kill the dog and hide the body. My house is haunted – it really is. I swear it. What else explains the table that plays music and the light that comes on by itself? – but it’s mine and I love it. Okay, I’m a little strange. But that makes life interesting.
Read more from Amanda S. Green
Eerie Side of the Tracks
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Titles in the series (7)
Nocturnal Origins: Nocturnal Lives, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNocturnal Serenade: Nocturnal Lives, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNocturnal Interlude: Nocturnal Lives, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNocturnal Haunts: Nocturnal Lives, #2.5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNocturnal Rebellion: Nocturnal Lives, #5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNocturnal Challenge: Nocturnal Lives, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNocturnal Revelations: Nocturnal Lives, #6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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Nocturnal Haunts - Amanda S. Green
1
D amn.
Lieutenant Mackenzie Santos gritted her teeth and swallowed hard. Her stomach churned dangerously as sights and smells assailed her. Damn, but this was bad.
During her more than ten years with the Dallas Police Department, the last three-plus in Homicide, Mac had seen more than her fair share of dead bodies. Early on, she consoled herself with the knowledge the day would come when the bodies no longer bothered her. Now she knew better. That feeling of frustration, of fury and regret at the senseless loss of life, was necessary. It meant she still looked at the victims as people, not just case numbers. The day a death failed to move her was the day she resigned from the force.
Like most cops, she’d seen pretty much everything one person could do to another. Drive-by shootings and revenge killings were nothing new. Arguments, usually mixed with booze or drugs or both, all too often escalated into deadly fights. Then there were the domestic disputes. She learned quickly to dread those calls. Too often they ended with one person or another being arrested for killing the other and usually over the most stupid of reasons — their dinner wasn’t on the table at the right time, someone tripped over a shoe left in the middle of the floor or, heaven help her, the toilet paper didn’t roll in the right direction. Too many cops, some of them friends, had been injured or killed on domestic dispute calls because you never knew what to expect.
She’d seen all that and more.
The more included a series of murders committed by a lycan hunting humans on the streets of Dallas. That investigation revealed a world she, like everyone else, believed was nothing more than a creation of imagination, a very bad Hollywood imagination at that. Now it was her world, like it or not. Just as it was her job to make sure that world didn’t encroach too much into the world of the normals, those who didn’t know monsters really walked amongst them.
But even those killings hadn’t prepared her for this.
This could have been a scene right out of the latest hack-and-slash movie. It had that feeling of unreality to it. Too bright colors, too much blood, and two all-too-beautiful victims. The only things missing were the eerie soundtrack and fog rising from the ground to shroud the scene as the moon disappeared behind the clouds.
The uniforms have secured the scene and are keeping the press and gawkers well away from the building entrance,
Sergeant Patricia Collins reported as she joined Mac. Holy hell,
she hissed as she took in the crime scene for the first time.
Yeah.
What else was there to say?
They stood just inside the door to a loft in one of the latest buildings to be renovated in downtown Dallas. The lights from Reunion Tower sparkled outside the wall-length window to their left. The sitting area lay directly in front of them. A white leather sofa and matching love seat, complete with colorful pillows, rested on a snow-white area rug. A huge plasma screen TV hung on the wall. A glass coffee table, or what was left of it, lay upturned in front of the sofa. Dark splotches of red stained the rug.
Blood or wine?
Mac glanced around the sitting area, her eyes missing nothing. The shattered remnants of a wine bottle dotted the hardwood floor near the far end of the sofa. She didn’t immediately scent the wine, but that didn’t surprise her. The smell of death hung heavily in the air, masking any other odors that might be there. Still, smart money was on those particular stains being wine, not blood. But that didn’t explain the stains creating an abstract pattern on the walls, ceiling and floor of the sleeping area just beyond the sitting area.
She slipped a pair of protective booties over her running shoes and pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves before carefully moving further inside the loft. As she did, she slid her recorder from her pocket. Something told her to carefully to document everything about the scene.
But not yet. She needed to do one thing first.
After a quick look around to make sure no one besides her partner was there to see, Mac lifted her head and closed her eyes. Very carefully, she eased her control and opened her senses. Almost instantly she felt her other form, a jaguar, stirring, called by the freshness of the two kills. It struggled for release, fighting against her control. Even as the jaguar tugged against her mental leash, she felt her senses expanding to match those of her animal form. Good. She wanted the advantage that gave her.
One thing she’d learned since her encounter with the lycan was to take nothing for granted. That had been a hard-learned lesson. One she’d never forget.
Face it, Mac, waking in the morgue will do that to a girl. So will turning furry on nights of the full moon—and pretty much any other time you want.
She sniffed once, twice. Then she relaxed a little. She’d scented nothing unexpected. The only shapeshifters she’d noted were herself and Pat. Good, very good. That meant the victims weren’t shifters. Hopefully, it also meant the killer wasn’t one of them. That was one complication she didn’t want or need. This case promised to be bad enough as it was.
Do we have an ID on the vics yet?
She slowly walked around the bed, being careful where she stepped.
Not yet
There was a series of quick flashes as Pat photographed the victims and the surrounding area. But I’ll lay odds on them being Cassidy ‘Cassie’ Dauber and Holden Caldwell.
Mac’s brow furrowed as she considered what Pat said. Is this their place? And why are their names familiar?
To answer your first question, no, this isn’t their place. According to the so-called security guard downstairs—
No doubt about it, Pat had been as unimpressed with the rent-a-cop manning the security desk in the lobby as had Mac —this place is owned by Tri-Creek Investments. It’s used for their executives and visiting clients. The security guard said there wasn’t supposed to be anyone here this weekend
Pat flipped through her notes before continuing.
"As for your second question, Dauber and Caldwell are part of Dallas Debs and Beaus, that reality show about the young, rich and single in Dallas."
Mac closed her eyes again and counted to ten. Wonderful. Just fucking wonderful. That meant she’d face heat from the brass because the rich and powerful in town were putting pressure on City Hall to find the killers now. Then there was the media. This was exactly the sort of case they loved.
God, she hated the media.
But that still left the question of how her partner knew the victims.
Pat, if no one was supposed to be here, why do you think our vics are Dauber and Caldwell?
For a moment, her partner didn’t say anything. When she turned to look at Pat, Mac didn’t know whether to laugh or groan to see the blonde blushing furiously. Obviously, Pat watched the show those two were — had been — on. Interesting. She’d never pegged Pat as a fan of that sort of reality
show. Mac smiled slightly and filed the information away for later. There was most definitely some teasing ahead for her partner.
Let’s see if we can find some sort of ID. I want to tie this down ASAP. And make sure the uniforms know that the first whiff I get of anyone even thinking those names in the direction of the media will be busted down to the worst assignment I can find. Let’s keep this out of the press as long as possible.
This was the bloodbath before them. The media feeding frenzy would be bad enough once the identities of the victims were released. If the press somehow got wind of the state of the scene. . . .
God, could this get any worse?
A large bed, one of the largest Mac had ever seen, occupied the middle of the sleeping area. A white comforter that probably cost more than Mac made in a month —more likely several months — had been tossed onto the floor at the foot of the bed. Whether the victims had kicked it there when they went to bed or the killer did it later, the comforter would never been the same. Blood dripped from the edge of the mattress onto it, forming rivulets that ran down to meet the blood where it pooled on the floor.
Mac’s mouth worked as her stomach rebelled once again. Then she turned her attention to the victims. They lay in the center of the bed, looking as if they’d soon awake from a good night’s sleep — as long as you ignored the blood spattered on the walls and ceilings and soaking the floor. The male lay on his back, eyes closed and a slight smile on his lips. The woman lay with her head on his shoulder, her left hand on his abdomen. Like him, she looked like she might be in the midst of a pleasant dream.
Unfortunately, it was a dream from which neither would awaken.
"Okay, riddle me this, partner. How in hell is there this much blood and yet these two not only