Moonlight Mist: A Limited Edition Collection of Fantasy & Paranormal)

by Nicole Morgan

  “I’m assuming you’re here because you had a prescient vision about the accident, correct?” Niles eased closer to her, practically vibrating in anticipation.

  “Yes,” she replied, not hesitating to open up to him, a higher-up in the exclusive club she wanted entrance to. “Apparently, meeting Falbrooke forged a connection between us.”

  Niles grimaced, scratched at his clean-shaven jaw. “I was afraid of that.”

  Wintry claws of dread scraped up her back. “How bad will this get?”

  “This accident is one of several our members have suffered. We’re being picked off one by one, Guardians and psychics alike.”

  “And you want Juliana to join your crazy-ass cult?” Alex adjusted his gun as if making a point. “Keep your Kool-Aid to yourselves and leave her out of it.”

  “Why? Who’d want to hurt the Guild?” Those wintry claws drilled into her shoulders.

  “Michael hired you to put his financial affairs in order. He had an inkling his life was in jeopardy,” Niles explained. “It’s not who wants to hurt the Guild, it’s what the Guild knows and possesses that’s of value to whoever is targeting us. I’m afraid you may be next on their hit list if you don’t walk away now. Forget you ever dreamed about the accident.”

  Chapter Three

  An early autumn breeze blew through the trees, rattling the limbs, raining yellow leaves to the ground like tiny dead soldiers.

  Alex crossed his arms over his chest. “The voice of reason. Thank. You. Niles Nevin.”

  Another round of anxiety assaulted Juliana. “I can ID this killer.”

  Alex rounded on her. “Not at the risk of your life again. Not like last time—” He choked on the words, and she knew how the kidnapping case had torn him up in so many ways.

  A loud clang shattered the tension weighing down the air. The tow truck driver was raising the battered sedan onto the flatbed. There was no resurrection for the car, no resurrection from this horrible accident. Not for Michael Falbrooke, maybe not even for his ghost.

  “I’ll leave you two to settle this.” Niles squeezed Juliana’s arm. “Maybe when the threat has been absolved, you might see fit to join the Guild. We’d love to have you. Until then, remain vigilant, keep your cover.”

  Alex muttered under his breath, “Not if I have any say. Not if you appointed one of your bodyguards or whatever you call them to stalk her.”

  “That can be you, Lieutenant. We could use a cop on the inside among our ranks.” Niles rushed away as if to protect them from further Guild taint.

  Juliana experienced a slew of emotions, chief among them: relief to maintain her way of life without the Guild’s interference or danger, and reluctance to reject the potential support and friendship of other psychics who understood her abilities and their aftermath.

  She peered up the road. “I want to walk up the hill to where the ghost man stood.”

  “The only walking you’re doing is to my SUV.”

  Sniffing in annoyance, she said, “Cool your jets.”

  “You heard the man. Someone’s picking off Guild members for breakfast. Do you want to join them six feet under?” He clutched her upper arms.

  “I’m not a Guild member. I’m Leigh Duncan, assistant detective.” She wrung out of his clasp and headed up the hill. “Don’t blow my cover, MacKenzie.”

  The ground crunched in complaint under his footsteps behind her. “Too many people already know who you are.”

  “You’re right. Two. Two freaking people.” She continued hiking up the hill, pulling on latex gloves, making a show of her fake role.

  Deputy Kepler jogged after them. “MacKenzie,” he called, out of breath. “No dice on a bullet. Forensics will conduct a full workup in the lab.”

  Juliana halted and stumbled, elbowing Alex in the chest. “What? I saw the gun and heard a tire blow in my vision. I saw the man alongside the road.” She tilted her head at the road above.

  “Like I said, we’ll do a full workup.”

  Heart stopping, Juliana clutched her arms across her breasts. The words in Kepler’s head synced with the words he’d voiced. Had she misread her vision? For the second time in her life? No. No. She refused to accept it. The vision was too clear, too perfect. If perfect was a word one used to describe a murder made to appear an accident. Interminable moments crawled by, stranding her on a deserted island with only her Swiss cheese mind to keep her company.

  “Jewel?” Alex said her nickname softly.

  The sun had risen a few degrees higher into the crystal blue sky. Kepler departed, not one thought trailing his exit stage left. Emergency personnel and reporters were gone except for a few stragglers cleaning up the scene.

  Niles watched them, gave Juliana a two-fingered wave. An eerily familiar man in his mid-twenties joined Niles. As tall as Alex, he had a darker complexion, shoulder length dark hair, a slight widow’s peak, straight nose and full, sensuous lips on a well-chiseled face. Where had she seen him before? Then it whacked her, a younger version of Jake McAllister. A cold breeze blew down her back.

  “Juliana, you with me?”

  She blinked rapidly, snapping out of her momentary lapse from reality. “Do you know the man standing by Niles?”

  Alex followed her gaze, his arm stiffening against her, the backpack slung over his shoulder banging against her. “No.” He straightened the pack. “And if he has any connection to Niles, I don’t want to know him. Why?”

  “He resembles Jake McAllister to a T.”

  “Guess they’re all incestuous in the Guild.” Alex steered her arm around and they proceeded up the slope. “We’ll do a quick scan on the hill. Work for you?”

  She smiled wanly. “That’s why I love you to death.” He muttered words to the side of his mouth. “You’re right. You’ll never hear the end if I don’t at least scope it out. And you know I’ll go on my own if you refuse to join me,” she teased.

  “Over my dead body.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, don’t make this a double murder.” She walked her fingers up his arm, trying to defray the tension between them.

  “We have yet to prove a single murder.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith.” She continued hiking up the road.

  “You heard Kepler.”

  Somber reality engulfed her light banter. “Can we trust him?”

  “We weren’t best buds at academy, but he’s a straight shooter. He’d never intentionally steer me wrong.”

  Juliana panted as the road grew steeper, pulling on the muscles of her calves. Rocks slid from under her boots, and Alex danced over them. They trudged up the hill in silence, until they reached the summit and Juliana stopped.

  “I don’t want you joining the Guild,” he said behind her, breaking her concentration on the vision and the nebulous location of the gunman.

  “The sooner I play Psychic CSI Tech, the sooner we leave.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  His tone forced her to address his suggestion, not a demand or command. “It gives me a chance to be with my own kind.”

  “I’m your kind. Human. Normal. Male.”

  She spun around, catching his quick grin. “You’re all male, but are you saying I’m not normal?”

  “You know what I mean.” His grin faded, and he dug his hands in his front pockets like a petulant little boy.

  “Interacting with other psychics can help me stay sane. It can help you deal with me better and me deal with who I am. Us. Together.”

  Pensive, he studied the dry tinder, the trees waiting for a drop of rain to drive off the long, hot summer lingering behind. “Can we discuss it once this case is over and it’s safe?”

  Juliana touched his wrist, refraining from more when all she wanted to do was lick him up. “Deal. I’d love you guarding my body.” She teased her tongue over her lips.

  “The way I do now?” The knife scar on his cheek pulsed as his smile extended to his sparkling azure eyes.

  “That way. Other ways. All ways. Always and f
orever.” She eased away a step, preventing her body from developing a brain of its own and letting him have his way guarding her.

  A growl worked up his throat. “Finish your job so I can explore those ways in our bedroom.”

  She hid a smile at the “our” bedroom bit. So soon. So right and perfect.

  “Yes, Lieutenant MacKenzie.” She refocused on the vision, eyeing the gunman’s spot approximately twenty feet up off the shoulder of the road. Black skid marks scarred the path the car had traveled across the road and over the cliff. A gnarled oak grew to the left of the gunman’s position and a trio of boulders to his right. Leaning against the tree trunk at one point, he’d hidden within the embrace of oak limbs, under canopy of summer dry leaves and branches. Up the mountain to their left towered the Lick Observatory’s largest dome. The moon promised to shine down upon the road later, marking the final path to Falbrooke’s death.

  Juliana swallowed a lump in her throat. She’d spent a mere four hours meeting with Falbrooke over two days and had liked him right off the bat. The role in the firm of the charming and mysterious Jake McAllister confused her to the nth degree though. She had a weird feeling that McAllister was involved in some way, possibly the gunman.

  Forcing her mind off McAllister’s face and frame, she hiked up the hill to the spot the gunman had shot at the car on the incline. Why was Michael Falbrooke driving up to the observatory in the middle of the night? Meeting the gunman? Someone else? A setup? A hook up?

  Alex trailed her, on the lookout for evidence and to keep her safe from prying eyes, especially upon hearing Niles’s warning. She pretended to mark off each step from spot to spot, notebook in hand. Stopping near the tree, she refrained from touching it, not ready to touch the gunman. The ground beckoned, and she crouched down, removing the glove from her left hand. Bracing for a vision to knock her sideways, she brushed her hand over the area the man had walked, working in a grid pattern. The ground was dead, giving up nothing except dirt and debris coating her hand. Not a tingle, not a clarification, zilch. Wiping her hand on her pants, she rose and approached the tree, smoothed her hand over the rough bark.

  “Anything?”

  “Zip. Feels like I dreamed the vision, if you know what I mean.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “Yes, in the million years of experience I’ve had with touch telepathy,” she teased. She’d developed touch telepathy during the kidnapping case when her entire system got knocked out of whack after unexpectedly meeting lead detective Alex for the first time since her teenage vanishing act.

  “Oh.” He flushed red, the color lending his summer tan a burnt hue. “Touch telepathy’s the new thing.”

  “Bingo. You’re gonna earn a lot of prizes by day’s end.”

  “As long as they involve you. Naked. In bed.”

  “Bed, couch, bathtub.” She winked. “Winner’s choice.”

  “All of the above.”

  “I see how this bodyguard act will work. You’re trying to distract me from doing my job, solving any cases.”

  “It’s working, right?” Alex chuckled. Juliana loved his laugh and the way it filled her with an infectious inner excitement and pleasure.

  Stowing away the happy sound of his laugh for later, her face fell. “Seriously, I know there was a gunman. I don’t know why they didn’t find a bullet. I sure hope Forensics finds concrete evidence, because I’m a little freaked out. Not that I want Falbrooke murdered, but this doesn’t happen often in my visions. Not sure why I’m not getting a touch reading.”

  “Maybe your touch telepathy was a one-time deal?”

  “I think not. I touched you last week when you were excited to find your ancestral castle, and learned you’d bought me a replica heirloom necklace.”

  “You spoiled my surprise.”

  “I’m sorry.” Juliana fingered the emerald necklace, loving the pendant so much, she hated removing it. “Comes with the territory you continually confess to covet. No, my touch telepathy isn’t a one-time deal.”

  She waved him off to do his detective bit, allowing her to concentrate. “At one point he touched the first boulder in that gray indent on the top.” The boulder was hidden from where the car had landed, also hiding her from below.

  “That’s more than you described this morning.”

  “It just came to me.” She approached the boulder and bent over it, inspecting the split in the top of the rock, the fissure not having worked its way down to the lower section of the rock yet. Dirt and plant debris stuffed the gap. Alex shifted so near, his prickly apprehension folded around her like a hand. Closing her eyes, steadying her balance, she stuck her fingers in the crack.

  Chapter Four

  A vision streaked across her skull, a fracturing brightness resonating against her heart. Old and deep heartache spiraled through her and she teetered on her feet. As fast as the vision struck, it vanished.

  She probed the crack, learning nothing more as if the vision was a short-lived lapse in another era, bearing nothing whatsoever on the man who’d touched the tree and played target practice on Falbrooke’s car. Had the gunman invaded her mind during the dream and raced to escape her head? Had she previously met him? Was the gunman Jake McAllister? Confusion became an aching lodestone, and she rubbed her temples.

  “You okay?” Alex’s arms tightened around her.

  Turning, she buried her face in his shirt and breathed him in deep, her elixir to maintain her composure, her sanity. “I’m good.”

  His relief trembled over her. He kissed the top of her head, his breath tickling her scalp. “Any clues?”

  “No.” Tipping her head back, she witnessed the familiar creases on his forehead, crinkling his eyes. “A strange empathic reaction. I’m not sure it belonged to the gunman, or the driver.” She sank against the solid strength of his chest.

  “Don’t tell me you’re gaining another psychic ability.” Alex’s groan rumbled against her cheek.

  “Heck, no. The three I wield are enough. I think it was the start of a vision, strong once, now too weak to pick up.”

  “Umm…that doesn’t make sense. And what do you mean by the driver? Didn’t the vision stem from the gunman?”

  “I’m not sure about the source of the vision. That’s what’s freaky about this one.”

  “Freaky if you’re cuckoo, which we know you aren’t.” He released her. “Guess you dreamed the dream. Huh?”

  “Really, MacKenzie?” She regarded him through narrowed eyes, taking in his black dress slacks and the pale gray dress shirt he wore for the office. His arms bulged in the sleeves and his powerful thighs strained against his pant legs. He looked good enough to eat. “Did you learn that in Comedy 101? Or do you need another injection of coffee?”

  Lust lanced his blue eyes. “I didn’t get to make my morning injection, if you know what I mean.”

  She danced her fingers from his belt buckle up to his neck. “The injections I received last night didn’t cure me?”

  “Oh, no. You’ll need multiple daily injections for the rest of your life.”

  “Alex MacKenzie, Elixir of Love?”

  Stepping closer, he gloved her hand in his and imprisoned it flat over his left pectoral. His heart beat fast against her palm, the signs of his longing. A thrill shot through her, splaying off into several directions to her stomach and all points south. God, she loved him. Didn’t know how anyone loved a person so wholly, without utterly losing her identity. Their twelve-year separation had never hindered her love for Alex, yet it had given her an identity she might not have otherwise developed if she’d stayed behind. Despite the drastic steps her father took to bury her in a paranormal institute in New York, the experience had ultimately given her a life and hope for the future in a family of psychics who’d never learned to control their skills.

  Alex’s eyes reached inside her and touched a spot only he had touched before. Her body responded with an unexpected burn. He dipped down and his mouth captured hers. Juliana cinch
ed her arms around his neck and he drew her so close, they barely trapped a molecule between them. The place she wanted to stay forever, to make up for the desolate lost time they’d both experienced.

  Burning with need, she broke off the kiss before someone busted them. She fingered her lips to hold in his faint taste of coffee and hazelnut creamer, and then forced her hands to her sides to prevent them from slipping beneath his shirt.

  “Damn, Juliana.” He plucked the crotch of his pants. “When I take you home, I may not make it to the office today.”

  “When was the last time you took a sick day?” She rested the back of her hand on his forehead.

  “Never.”

  Her eyes widened. “I’d say you’re due. You’re hot.”

  “That’s what all the girls say.”

  She play-whacked his arm. “I meant feverish.”

  Laughing, he seized her hand and they hightailed it down the hill. As soon as they viewed the road below, he squeezed her hand and they separated, acting the consummate professionals to the public at large. Professional of what, is anyone’s guess.

  By the time they reached Juliana’s house, her desire had cooled. The visions played out in her head. Little made sense. Maybe it was a normal every day dream, not a prescient vision. It wasn’t entirely unusual, but the next few days would be telling as her subconscious viewed her way through the case, scraping together more details each time she experienced a telepathic vision until the police solved the case.

  Alex snatched her bag from the cargo hold and met her on the porch. The moment she gripped the doorknob, another vision invaded her, laying waste to her every thought. She sagged against Alex and vaguely felt his arms catch her as oblivion sucked her into its dark depths.

  Juliana awoke on the couch in her family room, Alex sifting his fingers through her hair. He removed a damp washcloth from her brow and handed her a glass of 7-Up. Although she only felt fuzzy-headed, not nauseous, she took a few sips to grant her a moment to think.

  The vision hadn’t lasted long, just a fleeting glimpse. “How long did I conk out?” She set the glass on the coffee table.