Hotter After Midnight (Midnight 1)

Brooks glanced toward the morgue. “What in the hell happened to him?”

“Oh, I’ve got an idea.” Niol.

Time to go interrogate the master demon.

“You up for a little good cop, bad cop?”

“Always.” A wolfish smile curved Brooks’s lips.

Colin punched the button for the elevator. He figured Emily would be long gone by now. “Good. Cause I’ve got a bastard we need to press, hard.” Niol wasn’t going to cave easy. He was too cocky. But if they caught him unaware, he just might slip up.

That’s what the bastards usually did. Got too confident. Thought they were too smart.

Then they screwed up.

Would Niol be the same?

Well, he’d just have to find out.

Yeah, time to go and question the master demon about the little matter of multiple murders.

Chapter 10

Emily sat in her car, her fingers gripping the steering wheel, and stared up at the tidy, two-story house.

After talking with McNeal, she’d fled the station, embarrassed, afraid that she’d see Colin or Brooks.

Lord, what the hell had she been thinking? She’d almost had sex in a morgue for Christ’s sake.

When he’d touched her, lust had pumped through her, and she’d wanted to rip the man’s clothes off his body.

Not her normal style.

Her emotions were high, she knew that. Knew she was running on a hard mixture of fear, worry, and adrenaline. And as a psychologist, she knew those emotions made her susceptible to certain things.

And she sure as hell was susceptible to Colin.

But a morgue? Her knuckles whitened. That wasn’t just being susceptible. It was crossing the line into crazy.

If Brooks hadn’t walked out of that elevator, she would have had sex with Colin. Right there in that smelly, dingy hallway. And she would have loved it.

Shit. Is this what good sex did to a woman? Made her take stupid risks?

Cause she had enough trouble right then without giving the cops at the 12th Precinct a peep show when they went to the morgue.

But, dammit, she’d been ten seconds away from coming. If Brooks had to interrupt, why couldn’t the guy have waited just a bit?

A car horn sounded in the distance. A red-haired boy on a bike flew past her. Emily realized that she was sitting in her car, gazing blankly at the house and slowly rubbing the leather off her steering wheel.

Hell. She didn’t want to be here, but when she’d run from the station, she hadn’t even thought about going home or going to the office. No, she’d known exactly where she had to go. Exactly who she had to see.

Darla’s words kept playing in her mind, rolling around and around like one of those songs you just couldn’t get out of your head.

The reporter knew about her past. There was no denying that fact. No ignoring the smug look that had been on the blonde’s face.

Emily had tried to hide her past. She thought she’d buried it in the ashes at Serenity Woods Psychiatric Hospital.

She’d planned the fire so carefully. Made absolutely certain that none of the patients were near the records room. Stayed close just in case someone had happened to wander by.

Yes, she’d been so careful, but her story had still leaked out.

Her gaze focused on the house. On the perfectly groomed lawn. The leaves that had been swept into a nice, neat pile.

What was she doing here? Talking to the woman would do no good, she knew that.

But the mention of Serenity Woods…oh damn, how long had it been since she’d even thought about that place? Years. Many blessedly forgetful years.

Now that the door to her past had swung open, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

She closed her eyes a moment and saw the girl she’d been.

“No!” Their hands were too tight around her. They were hurting her. “Let me go! Mommy! Mommy!”

Her mother was there. Watching from behind the thin sheet of glass. She was letting them do this to her, letting them hurt her.

They strapped her onto a bed. Put ties around her wrists, her ankles. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. They didn’t understand. No one understood.

Monsters were everywhere. In the streets. In her school. Even at church. They were everywhere.

She’d told her mom, tried to point to one of the monsters with black eyes and show her mother what he was.

But her mother couldn’t see them. Even though they were right there.

“Shh…sweetheart, relax, okay? Everything’s going to be all right.” It was one of the nurses talking. An older woman with bright red hair and lips and skin that looked too pale.

“I-I wanna go home.” She’d never been away from home before, not once in her life. Her friends had sleepovers, but her mom had never let her go—

“You’ll go home.” The nurse stroked her cheek. “Once the doctors make you all better, you’ll go home again.”

She didn’t need to be made better. Her hands balled into fists, jerked against the binds. “I’m not sick!” The words came out as a scream.

The nurse flinched, pulled her hand back.

“You need to calm down, honey.” This came from one of the men in white who’d jerked her out of her mom’s car.

She didn’t like him. Didn’t like the hard, sickly smell that clung to him. Didn’t like his cold eyes.

“Mom!” Her mom couldn’t leave her there. “I’m sorry! I won’t talk about them again, I promise! Don’t leave me, don’t—

”

Her mother was turning away, her shoulders hunched.

No, no, she couldn’t leave her! She wanted to go back home, back to her room, back to—

Her mother was walking away. Not glancing back at her.

“Mom!” One of the straps snapped when she jerked up. “No!”

The men in white caught her shoulders, forced her back down with hands that stung.

“Get the doctor; get him in here, now!”

Emily fought the hands that held her. She didn’t like this place. The people…something was wrong here. The air felt wrong. Too thick.

And it was so cold.

A white-haired man appeared at her side. He had a long, sharp needle in his hands. “This will calm her down.”

She didn’t want to be calm. She wanted to be up!

They held her tightly, and the needle pressed into her arm, burning with a hot flash of pain. She whimpered and finally met the gaze of the doctor.

His blue eyes stared into hers; then, for just an instant, they flashed black.

Her head thrashed against the table. “He’s one of them!” They had to see it! “Look at his eyes! He’s a monster!”