Polanski Brothers

by Dakota Cassidy

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  Polanski Brothers: Home of Eternal Rest

  Blurb

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Preview another book by this author

  Note from Dakota

  eBooks by Dakota Cassidy

  Dakota recommends … Michelle Hoppe

  Excerpt

  “So, you gonna tell me about Joffrey the pansy-assed, blue-lipped, hair-better-than-yours lifemate?” Larkin asked as they sat parked in front of Alan Perkins’ house. It was a small two story just at the end of town. Neatly manicured lawn and well-kept exterior.

  Spencer slunk down in her seat. Fuck. “No, I’m not.”

  Larkin’s profile was hard and unyielding. His jaw twitched. “Well, from the sounds of it, you’re not too pleased with this turn of events.”

  “You oughta know, Detective. You’ve obviously read my thoughts on Joffrey.”

  “Good thing he can’t read your thoughts, huh?”

  Spencer dug in her purse for an elastic band to tie her hair back. “Whatever,” she replied.

  “So he knows he’s your life mate because he can smell you?”

  Spencer snorted and wrapped the elastic band around a thick wad of her hair. “Yeah, that’s what he says.”

  Larkin grabbed her wrist to make her look at him. “So what does that mean?”

  Shrugging she said, “It means he has a better nose than I do and why not? I mean, he has better hair than I do.”

  “Does it mean you have to like marry him? Do vampires do something as humanly archaic as get married?”

  “Um, no. This isn’t like we’re betrothed or anything. I have one thing going for me. I can’t smell, so I can’t confirm or deny Joffrey’s claim. Right now, I’m backstroking in the river of denial.”

  Larkin’s chuckle bounced off the small confines of the car’s interior. “Does your family know?”

  “Yeah. That’s who Joffrey told first. Nice, huh? Didn’t even bother to tell the person he has to spend the rest of his bloody eternity with before he hit up my parents. I told him he could kiss my undead ass and sent him packing.”

  Larkin’s fingers caressed her wrist absently, sending delicious chills along her arm. “How does your family feel about it?”

  Spencer laughed, rubbing a hand over her eyes. “My mother flipped. She doesn’t like him any more than I do. My dad didn’t say much. Just that it was up to Joffrey to prove his intentions, which of course I intend to ignore.”

  “Why?”

  She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Because he icks me out, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear, stud?”

  Polanski Brothers: Home of Eternal Rest

  Dakota Cassidy

  Published 2016 by Book Boutiques.

  ISBN: 978-1-62517-992-0

  Copyright © 2016, Dakota Cassidy.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Book Boutiques.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, locales, or events is wholly coincidental. The names, characters, dialogue, and events in this book are from the author’s imagination and should not to be construed as real.

  Manufactured in the USA.

  Email support@bookboutiques.com with questions, or inquiries about Book Boutiques.

  Blurb

  Spencer Polanski is an embalmer at her family-owned funeral home. Perfect job for a vampire, really. Especially one who's sans a working schnoz. That’s right. She has a bum nose. A plus when preparing the dead for eternal slumber—a big fat zero when it comes to sniffing out your true life mate.

  Devoid her sense of smell, it’s business as usual when a clueless Spencer meets Larkin McBride. The detective's at Polanski’s to attend the wake of his best friend when he discovers something very unusual…

  He can hear Spencer’s every thought.

  Her every vampire thought.

  So what’s “Detective McYummy” to do when the luscious Miss Polanksi’s thoughts are consumed by the body count in her sleepy town…and the possibility that the murderer could be one of her own kind?

  Previously Published

  (2015) Dakota Cassidy | (2006) Changeling Press

  Acknowledgements

  Cover Art: Valerie Tibbs of Tibbs Design

  Chapter 1

  “Holy mother of all things undead. You’re really in some piss poor shape, buddy. I’m laying bets you stink,” Spencer Polanski said to the partially deteriorated body on her embalming table as she wrinkled her nose.

  Of course she wouldn’t know if the body stunk because she couldn’t smell it.

  Not a damn thing. Not even a hint of a whiff.

  She was a vampire without a very important, finely honed sense.

  The sense of smell.

  Which was how she’d gotten the job of embalmer to begin with. Plainly speaking, embalming smelled like dirty ass times a million. Her scentless existence made her the obvious choice for the position. Unfortunately, it also made her the brunt of many vampire jokes.

  Of which she took on the chin like a champ. Hah-hah.

  Mostly, the teasing was all in love and of the good-natured variety. And it wasn’t like she was totally alone in this. She wasn’t the only vampire in her family with anomalies. Her grandfather Morris had no sense of smell either, and she had a cousin who was deathly allergic to blood.

  Yet every once in a while, the thing that bothered her the most about her scentless world, and what set her even further apart from everyone in her clan, was the legend of the Polanski’s and their mate call.

  Every Polanski, in the history of Polanski’s, had found their eternal partners via their noses.

  So how, when you were part of a clan of vampires legendary for sniffing out their life mates, were you supposed to find your Mr. Undead if you, Miss Undead, had a clinker of a nose?

  You didn’t. You hoped he’d find you.

  Soon. Please.

  Otherwise it was going to be a very long, sexless eternity. Because to add to the misery of having no sense of smell, in her clan the rule was, no sex with anyone other than your mate.

  Which might seem archaic to some—okay, to almost everyone in the twenty-first century paranormal or not—but it was the law of her people. No one broke clan law or they suffered the wrath of a good shunning.

  Being the good vampire she was, Spencer always played by the rules even while her feministic sensibilities were often at war with said rule. Did anyone really believe they’d be doomed for eternity if they had sex with someone other than their mate?

  Well, you must, because look at you—still a total virgin.

  Fair enough. A risk-taker she wasn’t.

  Though, she’d heard the wait for your clan mate was crazy worth it. She’d heard it was so earth shattering, so perfect, so right, you almost immediately stopped grudging about all those nights spent with a rechargeable vibrator named Supersonic.

  Until then, she’d just keep right on proudly wearing her Spencer the Scentless Virgin Vampire badge for her family members at the parlor.

  Funeral parlor, that is.

  Polanski Brothers was family run since—well, since the beginning of funeral parlors, she figured. It was an easy sour
ce of blood for them due to the fact that each body had to be drained of all fluids anyway.

  However, there was a strict “no dining on cadavers” edict. Her father Edgar was adamant about the care and respect Polanski Brothers gave each human client, and part of that respect required a code of honor he insisted upon. No fangs ever met with the neck of a client—period.

  Owning a funeral parlor was the perfect gig for a family of vampires. Aside from the availability of blood, most of her duties were at night for wakes and in sync with her night dweller tendencies. And in this sleepy burg, the deaths she handled were almost always due to natural causes or an accident of some kind, leaving the blood she drained virtually untainted.

  Polanski’s was located just outside of Cedar Glen, New Jersey, in a town called Easton, population ten thousand and four, and home of one of only three funeral homes in the entire area.

  Her father had set up shop here where they’d rouse the least suspicion amongst humans, yet still have a steady influx of clientele. While they lived and raised their families in Cedar Glen alongside other paranormals with all sorts of afflictions, some much worse than hers, it wasn’t exactly good for business when the lifespan of the average paranormal was forever.

  Her father also didn’t believe you should eat where you played. Some old proverb or something he was stuck on like glue.

  So they’d opened up shop one town away from their homes and business was good. They’d built a solid reputation by fair practices and genuine concern for their clients. Everyone came to Polanski Brothers because of the special attention to detail and the family atmosphere her father took such intense pride in.

  And Spencer.

  They came to Polanski’s because of her. Because she cared about the families of the clients she readied for their final resting place.

  “Hey, vampire. Who the hell is that?” Her cousin Andrew poked his head around the corner of the embalming room and gagged comically. “Christ, he smells. Good thing you can’t, huh?”

  Embalming not only involved horrific smells and the need for plenty of ventilation, it was also a solitary task. Meaning with the exception of her cousin, most of her family steered clear of the embalming room with their ultra-sensitive noses and snarky, unoriginal jokes.

  And for the most part, she liked it that way. It gave her time to think.

  Spencer narrowed her eyes at Andrew’s handsomely pale face and gave him a scathing look. “Don’t you have a grave to dig, Supermodel?”

  Andrew was beautiful to look at, and he knew it.

  “Nope, got nuthin’ but time on my hands.” He smiled smugly, accentuating his perfect bone structure and one of the many reasons she’d dubbed him supermodel. He came to stand by the table where the body of her latest victim was laid out. “So who’s this guy?”

  She grabbed the clipboard left with her by the coroner’s office and scanned it. “Alan Perkins. Thirty-four. Found three weeks ago in a wooded area just off I-36. He’s been on ice since, but because the yahoos over at the coroner’s office screwed up their timing on delivery, he’s beginning to thaw. Coroners figure he was dead about three days before they discovered him. Cause of death…” Spencer paused, tamping down the almost overwhelming tidal wave of empathy at the coroners ruling. Those waves of feelings that sometimes interfered with her professionalism, but it slipped out anyway. “Aw, damn…”

  Andrew’s smile turned to a frown. He cocked his gorgeous head in question. “What’s wrong?”

  Her eyes perused Alan’s body with sadness. Spencer lifted Alan’s arm and saw the evidence of wounds on his wrist. Indeed indicating his death was a suicide. “He killed himself. You don’t see that too often around here, at least not in the five years or so we’ve been in Easton. Damn, that really sucks. Look at him, Andrew. He was a young guy.”

  He gave her a consoling nudge. “Not compared to you he wasn’t.”

  She rolled her eyes at him, knowing he was trying to lighten the dark mood her compassion for the dead brought. “You’re older than me by a hundred years.”

  He chuckled, the sound rich and low, his eyes thickly lashed, smiling down at her. “Maybe so, but at least I can smell.”

  “Oh to be so physically perfect and have a sense of smell. What wonders your unlife must behold,” she joked back, easing the spear of sadness for Alan’s life cut so short by whatever pain had led him to suicide.

  Andrew shot her a sympathetic glance. He knew how some deaths ate her up, lingered long after their bodies were buried. “Maybe you need to take a vacation. Take a break or something. Stop hanging around dead people for a while, Spence.”

  “Then that would rule out almost everyone I know, including you, Tall and Chiseled.” Spencer turned away before Andrew could respond and set about making a small incision to inject disinfectant into Alan’s body, his little remaining blood and gases having safely been removed.

  Andrew covered his nose with his arm and made a face. “That’s my cue to hit it. Take a day off, Spence. Soon,” he reprimanded gently before exiting the embalming room.

  Yeah, yeah. A day off. She was the only embalmer on site at Polanski’s. Besides, who would take the kind of care in the details when preparing a body the way she did?

  She always used great reverence when handling any corpse, thinking often what it might be like if it were her own family member. Of course, her family members didn’t die, not unless there was a rare case of garlic OD. But the mere thought of losing one of them—even smart-ass Andrew and his incessant teasing—terrified her.

  Spencer clucked her tongue. Poor Alan. She wondered if he had children, maybe a wife, and she certainly didn’t want their last memory of him to be what he looked like now. He was really suffering the strains of decomposition. It would take some work to make him presentable.

  “Well, Alan,” Spencer said quietly, examining his glassy, gray eyes with the pads of her gloved fingers. “I’ll make sure you’re perfect for your viewing. Promise.”

  If she had a heart it would constrict, thinking about this poor man’s loved ones, what his life was like before death.

  Sometimes that interfered with her job, always wondering about the details of a client, how their families would move forward without them. Sometimes, the sadness of her work, day in day out, left her feeling heavy and depressed.

  A suicide was always worst.

  But when his family came in to speak with her father, and the funeral director at Polanski’s, she’d discreetly ask for a picture of Alan in life and then she’d return him to a reproduction of himself in death, or at the very least, a close facsimile.

  Leaning over Alan’s body, she patted his pale shoulder. “What led you to this, Alan? What hurt so much you’d end it all?”

  And she was doing it again. Wondering. Making up stories in her head to justify a man this young taking his own life. If she put half the energy into her own life that she did into a clients, she might actually have one of her own.

  Spencer gave Alan a final glance, one last sympathetic scan of his body. “I’m sorry for whatever caused you so much pain, but it’s time. So let’s do this, okay?”

  Alan stared blankly back at her.

  She nodded her head and chuckled. “I know what you’re thinking, Alan. The ‘I talk to dead people’ joke is right on the tip of your tongue, but keep it to yourself. It lacks originality.”

  Alan continued to stare up at her.

  Yeah. It was time to get out more.

  * * * *

  As the Perkins family gathered for the seven o’clock viewing, Spencer smoothed her conservative black suit over her hips and went to greet Alan’s friends and family. She often took on the role of counselor, sympathetic shoulder and bathroom locator. As it turned out, Alan Perkins didn’t have any children or even a wife, but he had droves of friends and distant family members lining up to view him.

  And of course, there was his mother Adelaide, weeping softly as she had from the moment she was allowed to view his body in
private. Spencer fought that fear again, the one involving any one of her family members dying. Well, except maybe Darren.

  Darren was a dickknuckle bottom feeder who’d lived for centuries just to make Spencer miserable at family gatherings and when she stopped to think about it, she still wouldn’t wish death on him.

  But to lose her father or mother—one of her siblings? She couldn’t comprehend it even if they did tease her unmercifully about her smelling issue. Being a vampire had its issues, but it beat the shit out of living for eighty years and croaking.

  She caught a glimpse of a flower arrangement dangerously close to spilling over by the foyer and moved to prevent disaster. Inching her way through the throng of people in the waiting room, she came out the other side of the crowd to the marble foyer.

  As she made her way to the flowers her shoe slipped out from under her and she stumbled, only to be caught by a firm grip and a hard chest covered in a white shirt beneath a crisp, navy blue suit.

  If blood ran through her veins she might have blushed at her clumsiness.

  Way to be the bull in the china shop, Spence.

  “You’re not a bull. The floor’s pretty slippery,” a deep, gravelly voice that made her feel gooey on the inside said.

  Spencer looked up from the chest her face was so ungracefully mashed against and cocked her head, startled. “I’m sorry?”

  That was when she got her first real glimpse of the voice attached to the man, and if she breathed, her breath would be caught in her throat.

  Because wow. So much wow.

  A very tall, rather redwood-tree-like man gazed down at her, his blue-gray eyes intent. “I said no, you’re not at all like a bull in a china shop. The floor really is slippery. Whoever maintains it deserves a raise.”

  She paused, pressing a hand against his stomach of hard ripples without thinking. Had she said that out loud? No, she hadn’t said anything.

  Spencer’s brow furrowed as she tried to push away from him, realizing her palm was still on his belly and liking it a little too much. “I didn’t say anything.”