Murder in Vein

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  Read on for a sneak peek at the second book in the fang- Mystery series by Sue Ann

  EXCERPT

  he dead body floated facedown in the pool like an inflatable joke, something meant to scare people at parties and on Halloween. But to Madison Rose's eye, it didn't look like some plastic gag. It looked real. Dead real.

  "Mike," she said into her cell phone. "We have a problem at the Dedhams."

  "What kind of problem?" he asked.

  "Urn, it's not something I want to discuss on the phone. Can you get here sooner rather than later?"

  "Hmmm" He paused, thinking about his schedule. "I could be there in a little over an hour. That soon enough?"

  "Not really." She looked at the body, wishing it would swim away or vaporize into the December daylight. "But I guess it'll have to do."

  "Sorry."

  "I'll have fresh coffee waiting for you," she coaxed.

  "Then I'll see you in an hour."

  "And there's leftover pot roast."

  "Make that closer to forty-five minutes."

  Madison went back out onto the patio and stared at the body. Lifting her gaze to the surrounding trees and foliage that covered the surrounding hillside, she scanned them for signs of peeping eyes but noticed none.

  It was just after two in the afternoon. Madison had spent the night at Samuel's after working with him until almost four in the morning on council matters. Samuel La Croix was the head of the California Vampire Council. Madison was employed by the council to assist it and Samuel in its day-to-day business affairs -things that were often best handled by a live person during the day. She also helped Samuel with some of his personal business matters. It was a good job-a lot better than her last job as a waitress at Auntie Em's, a diner in Culver City. The council job paid better and was more interesting, although at times it was lonely, and she missed being around the people at the diner. Madison usually did her work for the vampires during the day, depending on e-mails and voice messages for direction, but once in a while she'd have to work through the night with Samuel or attend middle-of-the-night council meetings.

  When she'd returned home from Samuel's, Madison had grabbed the Sunday paper and her iPod and headed out to the patio to read and relax. Doug and Dodie Dedham lived in a charming and spacious home tucked into a hillside of Topanga Canyon. She'd come to live with them last October when her own apartment had been destroyed by killers. The Dedhams had adopted her as their granddaughter, and that was how she was introduced to outsiders. Like the job with the council, living with the Dedhams was much nicer, but at times it was lonely because of the opposite hours the Dedhams kept to hers. Doug and Dodie were upstairs now, suspended in what passed for vampire sleep. Their bodies wouldn't revive until the sun started to set. It was the same with Samuel. She'd gone to sleep in one of his guest rooms while he was still awake, then left his sprawling villa in the hills above Los Angeles long after he'd gone to bed. Except for the couple of hours between sundown and her own natural bedtime, Madison and the vampires were often like ships passing in the night.

  Leaning against a post that held the roof over the patio, Madison wrapped a large pool towel around her wet clothes and studied the body. The body was of a naked black man, slim but very fit, with wide, muscled shoulders and strong legs. From his build, she guessed him to be on the young side. His black hair was cropped close to his skull, but she never looked at his face.

  As soon as she'd seen the body, she'd kicked off her shoes and jumped into the pool to check for life. Once close, she'd noticed the body had been impaled through its chest with a large stick, the end of which was protruding from the man's back. Still, she'd checked his pulse and found no sign of life. She crawled out of the pool at that point, not wanting to destroy any evidence. No matter who the man had been, it was crystal clear to Madison that he was now a murder victim.

  After getting out of the pool, she'd spent a few minutes trying to think of what she should do. Because the Dedhams were vampires, it wasn't like Madison could call the local police. They would arrive and wonder why the Dedhams couldn't be wakened. When sleeping, the Dedhams looked and passed for dead; they were dead. How would Madison ever explain that to the authorities? So she'd called Mike Notchey.

  Mike Notchey was a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. He knew about the vampires and was friends with many of them, especially the Dedhams. When he arrived, they would figure out something together.

  Madison and Notchey had become close friends in the past couple of months. Like her, he was human. Besides the Dedhams' housekeeper, Pauline Speakes, he was her only regular human contact that she could talk to about the vampires. Since today was Sunday, Pauline was off work, otherwise she might have been the one to find the body. She'd been employed by Doug Dedham for many years, even before he had met and married Dodie. Pauline would have known what to do, although Madison was sure Pauline's first call also would have been to Mike Notchey.

  When it was no longer possible to ignore her chattering teeth, Madison decided to run upstairs to pull on some dry clothes. The dead man wasn't going anywhere. Again, she looked around the Dedham back property, wondering if whoever dumped the body in the pool might be watching, but she saw nothing.

  Hurrying, it only took Madison a couple of minutes to slip out of her wet clothing, scrub herself dry with a towel, and slip on a sweatshirt and yoga pants. She'd also pulled on wool socks and slippers. Drying her long brown hair would have to wait. Grabbing another towel and her brush, she started back downstairs to wait for Notchey. She was on the upstairs landing when she stopped in her tracks. Quickly, she reversed direction and covered the hallway to the master suite. She knocked. Receiving no answer, she opened the door a crack and peeked in.

  The Dedhams were on the bed, cuddled together in the spoon position, with Doug's arm wrapped lovingly around Dodie's middle. The Dedhams appeared to be in their late sixties, early seventies. Doug had been a vampire for a few hundred years, but Dodie had been turned less than twenty.

  "Guys?" Madison called to them, hoping that maybe they were nearing the end of their daily death sleep. Since it was winter and daylight hours were shorter, the vampires slept less than they would during the spring and summer. But even in December, the sun wouldn't be going down for a few hours yet. Madison closed the door and ran back downstairs to wait for Notchey.

  Walking through the house, Madison yanked out the band holding her hair and started towel-drying it. When she got out to the patio, she plopped herself down on a patio chair and bent at the waist, letting her hair fall forward while she ran it through the folds of the towel. When she came back up into a sitting position and tossed her damp hair back, she screamed.

  It was a short shriek, as if someone had come from behind her and slapped a hand over her mouth, cutting it off-a scream of surprise that turned into silent horror.

  The body in the pool was still in the pool, and it was still the only body in the pool, but it was no longer floating with its arms extended in a perfect textbook display of a dead man's float.

  Dropping the damp towel, Madison jumped to her feet and stared at the pool in disbelief. Her feet were frozen to the concrete pad of the patio as if the cement had become quicksand and swallowed her up to her ankles.

  The body was at the far end of the pool, near the wide steps that led down into the water. It was still facedown, but its arms were over the edge, its head resting on the apron, as if someone had tried to haul it out of the water and then abandoned the project.

  Madison looked around the back yard and wooded property and again saw no sign of anyone else. When she'd left the body to go inside and change, it had been near the steps but definitely still in the water.

  Finally loosening her feet, Madison took a few careful steps toward the body. Doing some quick calculations in her confused head, she added up the time that had passed since she'd first seen the body, called Notchey, and then left to go upstairs. The man couldn't be alive. No one could float facedo
wn that long and not drown. And there had been no pulse. She hadn't been hasty in her determination. She'd checked thoroughly. She was sure of it.

  Then his right arm moved .. .