A Bloody Good Secret: Secret McQueen, Book 2 (29 page)

Warning: This book contains carnies, cops, chases, chance encounters and love at first touch.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
A Cop and a Feel:

Ronna’s panic level reached a new high when Matt’s sandy head disappeared around the back of the Ferris wheel. The image of the gears of the Ferris wheel splattered with blood replayed vividly in her mind’s eye. The crowds swarmed around her, and her heart thudded loudly in her ears. He was going to be killed, and
she couldn’t get to him.

Why were there so many people at the damn carnival? And why were they all moving at an excruciating shuffle pace? Didn’t they realize while they plodded along forming the impenetrable mass of a human herd, the man she was meant to spend the rest of her life with, who was going to give her adorable green-eyed babies and make her laugh until she was ninety-two and too senile to get his jokes anymore, was in peril at this very moment behind the Ferris wheel?
So why they the hell weren’t they moving faster?

Ronna pushed her way through the wall of bodies, too afraid of what might be happening to Matt to toss off apologies as people around her protested her shoving and stomping on feet.

She had to get to him.

Not that she’d be much help if she did. Touch-reading was hardly a super-power capable of stopping a speeding bullet, but she was
sure
she could save him if she was just there with him. He was the love of her life, or at least he would be, and she wasn’t about to let some carnie thug off him behind the Ferris wheel.

A pocket opened up in the crowd between her and the Ferris wheel, and Ronna sprinted forward, running full tilt around the side of the ride and into the heavy shadows behind it, half expecting to stumble over Matt’s lifeless form. In the moment it took for her eyes to adjust to the relative darkness after the spinning strobes of the carnival, she tried to remember how to breathe, gulping in oxygen. She squinted into the dark, one hand pressed over her drumming heart as a figure materialized out of the shadows in front of her.

“Matt!”

Thank God.
Ronna took two running steps forward.

The man in front of her turned toward her. Something was wrong. Ronna slammed on the brakes, her sandals skidding on the sticky asphalt. The form in front of her was too heavyset to be the tall, lean Officer Holloway.

“I-I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I thought I saw someone come back here.”

As soon as the words left her lips, Ronna could have kicked herself. He was probably a Ferris wheel operator. If he found Matt skulking back here, the future love of her life would get in trouble with the carnival operators. Which was better than his blood splashing all over the gears, but still…

“You know, I didn’t see anyone,” Ronna said quickly. A second figure shifted in the shadows to her left. She knew him as soon as he moved.
Matt
. He was okay. Hiding, which, yeah, was kinda weird, but totally okay. She’d been panicking over nothing. “Nobody here!” she sing-songed to the shadow man, bypassing subtle and going straight to obnoxiously Cinderella-cheerful. “Nobody at all.”

She tossed the shadowy Ferris wheel operator a loopy smile. He didn’t say much for a carnie. She still couldn’t make him out, but he didn’t seem familiar. She spent most of her time at the carnival in her booth, but she knew most of the regular operators at least on sight.

He reached toward her, waving something metallic, and Ronna’s vision from Matt’s touch replayed in her mind.

Oh crap, is that a gun?

“Get down!”

The shout came from her left. Matt surged into the open, a gun of his own braced between his hands. Ronna didn’t think. And she didn’t obey. In that split second in the shadow of the Ferris wheel with two armed-and-dangerous men, she couldn’t see anything past the nightmare vision in her mind of Matt’s gorgeous eyes, wide with horror and shock, in a face sprayed with blood. She dove toward him, slamming him to the ground in a tackle worthy of an NFL All Star. The spit of a silencer and the answering deafening report of an unsilenced gun split the shadows.

Matt grunted as he hit the ground and her weight hit him. Footsteps pounded the dirt nearby, and he rolled, pinning her protectively beneath his body as he twisted to scan the darkness around them, his gun trained on the spot where the gunman had stood.

The shadows were empty of crazy gun-wielding Ferris wheel operators now, but Matt’s body didn’t relax. He stayed tense above her.

Tense and whole.
He’s alive.

There wasn’t any moisture where her front was pressed against his, no gushing fluids to indicate excessive bleeding from a mortal wound, but she ran her hands over his torso just to be safe, checking for bullet holes. When her hands hampered his range of movement with the gun he was still pointing into the darker shadows, he knocked them out of his way.

“Lie still,” he snapped, clearly not appreciating her life-saving tackle or her continued concern for his well-being. He dug into his pocket, shifting his weight so he wasn’t pressing her down into the filthy ground, but still shielding her as he lifted his cell phone, punched a number in with his thumb and pressed it to his ear, never taking his eyes off the shadows or lowering his gun.

She was close enough to hear the bleeping tone of a dropped call.

Matt swore and dialed again, snarling another obscenity when the call failed a second time. “Is it too much to ask for a fucking signal?”

Ronna couldn’t make herself care about crappy cell providers. “You’re
alive
.”

“Of course I’m alive.
You
could have gotten yourself killed. What the hell were you thinking?”

“I saved your life,” Ronna explained patiently. “I ruined his shot.”

“You ruined
my
shot.” Matt shoved his phone back into his pocket. “Not to mention my chances of getting a permanent spot on the task force. Damn it.” He rose to a crouch, still alertly surveying the area.

Ronna sat up as well, taking stock of her now-filthy Madame Ramona getup. There was no fabric on earth capable of withstanding being ground into popcorn, cotton-candy residue and Ferris wheel grease and coming out unscathed. Her entire outfit would have to be burned when she got home to avoid contaminating the rest of her closet.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing back here?” Matt straightened and helped her—none too gently—to her feet.

He would probably react badly if she told him she had envisioned his death and followed him out of her booth to protect him from a horrific Ferris wheel-related death. He didn’t seem to be in a very receptive mood.

Get in. Do the job. Get out. If only it were that easy.

Ghost Soldiers

© 2011 Keith Melton

The Nightfall Syndicate, Book 2

Vampire hit man Karl Vance has a new target: a rogue, charismatic sorcerer building an army of paranormal creatures in Eastern Europe. The stakes have never been higher, nor the odds so long, but he’s in too deep to turn back. If Karl fails to kill, the powerful Order of the Thorn will hunt down Maria Ricardi, the vampire he loves, and destroy everything he’s fighting for.

When Karl is cut off in enemy badlands, he’s reduced to survival mode, doing the kinds of things he’d sworn would never be part of his vampire existence. Things that will forever color his relationship with Maria…if he survives to see her again.

In Boston, Maria is haunted by disturbing dreams of Karl as she struggles to keep control of her mafia syndicate against a growing tide of threats—traitors, FBI agents, hostile crime families, and the fear that power will turn her into a creature like her hated Master, Delgado. Then she discovers Karl is walking straight into a deadly trap…and there may be nothing she can do to stop it in time.

Warning: Explicit language and intense, violent content. Assassinations, betrayals, paranormal warfare, explosions, gangland slayings, chaos, calamity, rampant pandemonium, and an occasional fiery explosion.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Ghost Soldiers:

Maria Ricardi sat alone at her table with her back against the wall so she could see anyone approaching through the main dining room. Vibrant artwork hung on the walls, though her gaze kept returning to a painting of two lovers locked in a kiss. The smells of fresh bread, olive oil and garlic lingered everywhere, and an Italian opera played softly over the speakers.

She lifted her glass of wine and sipped a Ruffino Aziano Chianti. Drinking with fangs could be a bitch. It was hard enough remembering to smile without flashing fang, now she had to focus on carefully wrapping her lips around the rim of the glass before drinking. Who said being a vampire was all fun and games and random evil?

“Ms. Ricardi,” a man called, walking toward her table. Another man trailed along behind him.

She tensed, preparing for an attack. The guy wore an off-the-rack dark suit, still far enough away so his heartbeat was lost in the noise of all the other heartbeats and the music. He was lean, blond, with hard eyes flashing an intensity a few degrees too hot. His buddy was almost exactly the same size, but older, a gray-flecked beard and another Sears suit. Feds. Had to be. She relaxed a fraction.

The younger man pointed toward an empty chair at her table. “May we sit?”

“No.”

“Thank you,” he said, and both of them sat down across from her anyway. “I’m Agent Toller.” He swept a hand at his buddy with the beard. “This is Agent Jacobsen.”

She could smell their guns, oil, plastic and steel, their cologne intermingling in a rather disgusting way, sweat from Agent Jacobsen, and beneath it all, the ever-present scent of warm blood.

She smiled. “What, no ID flashing?”

Agent Toller reached inside his coat. She waved a dismissive hand, but he pulled out his FBI identification anyway and made sure she saw it. Agent Jacobsen didn’t bother.

“Nice picture,” she said. “Who took it? The DMV?”

Agent Toller ignored the sally. “Ms. Ricardi, do you know why we’re here?”

“My library fines. Look, gentlemen, I’ll pay them as soon as I come into some money. I’m due for a check any day now.”

Agent Jacobsen frowned at her, disapproval making his face sag like wet newspaper. The corner of Agent Toller’s mouth curled in a half smile leeched of all humor.

“You disappeared off the radar for a long time,” Agent Toller said. “We were concerned.”

“I was sleeping in a box full of dirt.”

Both of them stared at her. She gave an enigmatic smile. Closed mouth, of course.

Agent Toller glanced around the restaurant. “I expected you to be a little more cautious. Carmine Galante died eating in an Italian restaurant. Those trigger men walked right up and blew holes in him with a shotgun, and there he was, bleeding a river on the cement with a cigar still clamped in his teeth. Shame to have it happen to a pretty lady like you.”

“First of all, I gave up smoking. And if you want a history lesson…let me see…how about good old Agent John J. Connolly and the Winter Hill Gang? Hmm? Don’t like that one? Let’s review, shall we, since you like history so much. Your star Effa-Bee-Eye agent got his share of racketeering charges for his help tipping off those Irish mates and blowing FBI investigations out of the water. Great for morale, right?”

Agent Jacobsen scratched a fingernail on the tablecloth, back and forth, back and forth, digging at it. His jaw muscles bunched, and his eyes were hard and bright.

Agent Toller actually winked. “The only thing I can say is, ‘So many laws argue so many sins.’”

She wasn’t fooled. As if she’d never seen the classic good-cop, bad-cop act. One would think the routine would get old.

“That sounds like something fancy.” She shrugged. “I’m an accountant. You want to impress me with smarts, do a few consolidations or show me your accounting for derivatives and hedging. Talk about sexy.”

“We know you did your father’s books.”

“I can fill out a mean 1099, let me tell you.”

Another smile. “We think it was a little more complex than that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, gentlemen. If some mistake has been made, then bring in the forensic accountants—oh, but get yourselves some warrants first.”

“I smell RICO,” Agent Jacobsen said. His voice grated on her nerves immediately—simultaneously rough and higher pitched than she expected.

“I smell bad aftershave. So what?”

“You could go away for a long time,” Agent Toller warned. “We’ve been hearing some things about the…disagreements…certain Ricardis had with Stefano Lucatti and his people.”

“Seems to me Stefano’s dead. Died in a fire. Perhaps you should take the hint.” Unwise to provoke cops and Feds, in fact, it was generally prohibited to even swear at them, but she’d made a career out of skating the line.

And look where that got me
. She ran a tongue over the tip of one fang. Fuck.

Agent Jacobsen leaned toward her. “I don’t appreciate your attitude.”

“I don’t appreciate being harassed, agents. I don’t get out often, and I’d like a little alone time, thanks.” She glanced at Agent Toller’s suit jacket. The butt of his pistol in a shoulder holster was barely visible where his jacket had opened. “I’m also scared of guns.”

Agent Toller ignored her comment again. “We hear a lot of things from all around. Like maybe certain Kingmakers aren’t happy about you picking up your father’s banner.”

She reached for her purse, deliberately not thinking about the money-stuffed envelopes inside. It would look very bad if they noticed. They hadn’t witnessed the handoff, otherwise they wouldn’t be having this conversation at all. “I think it’s time I left. I don’t like you talking about my father.”

Agent Toller caught her hand. She stopped pushing back her chair and looked at him. He must’ve seen something in her eyes, because he let her go so fast she’d have thought her skin had burned his fingers. God, had her eyes gone all glowy or something? She’d been working on suppressing that in public. Karl hadn’t been kidding when he’d told her she wasn’t ready to go gallivanting back among the living. Of course she’d ignored him, but maybe that had been another mistake.