Day Shift (Midnight, Texas #2) Read Online Free PDF

His eyes were closed, so that he could see that world better: He was faced with the usual wall of billowing mist, out of which faces manifested with frightening rapidity.
    And there was a face he knew approaching rapidly through the mist. Rachel’s fingers felt oddly slack in his grip, but he kept his focus with ferocious intensity.
    “Here he is,” Manfred murmured, feeling Morton speeding through him. The spirit manifested a little differently today. Usually, Morton stopped at Manfred’s fingertips, content to touch his wife through Manfred. But today Morton ripped through Manfred with such force that he passed right into his Rachel. “You will not suffer, my dearest Rachel,” Manfred said, to his own surprise.
    “Oh!” Rachel said dazedly, and to Manfred’s ears she sounded both excited and a bit startled . . . but not frightened. Manfred’s eyes flew open to look right into Rachel’s, and in that flash of a moment her eyes went blank. She slumped forward onto the table.
    And then her fingers relaxed completely.
    Morton flowed back through Manfred. Taking Rachel with him. For five seconds Manfred couldn’t see anything at all, and he felt utterly empty.
    It seemed like an eternity until his vision cleared. Immediately, he noticed the limpness in Rachel’s body. He knew that she was dead. He let go of her hands to wrap his arms across his chest. He shivered all over. He wanted to cry or scream or run shouting from the room, but he did none of those things.
    Sometimes, as his grandmother had often said, shit just happens.
    He rose to walk unsteadily to the nearest phone. He punched a number to reach the front desk. “Is there a doctor in the hotel?” he asked, hearing his voice crack. He hadn’t sounded as uncertain since he was thirteen. “My guest is unconscious. In fact, I think she’s dead.”

2

    S o what happened then?” Fiji asked him. It was three days later, and they were sitting in her little kitchen. Fiji had invited Manfred and Bobo over to share a roast for Tuesday supper. She didn’t often buy expensive cuts of meat, but sirloin top roasts had been on sale at Kroger in nearby Davy, where the Midnighters went to shop. She’d cooked it traditionally, with new potatoes and carrots around the meat, and she’d made lots of gravy, and biscuits, too. It was so good that Manfred and Bobo had both had second helpings of everything.
    “Then all the police who had been downstairs investigating a murder/suicide came up to my room,” Manfred said grimly. “It took me about an hour to explain what Rachel and I had been doing. They assumed I was some kind of gigolo. I guess they were hoping that I’d had a connection with the couple who’d died the night before, though they’d already questioned me about that.”
    “Man,” said Bobo. Tall, fit, blond, and with a gorgeous white-toothed smile, Bobo was much more like someone’s idea of an ideal lover. Inpoint of fact, Bobo was not vain and did not seem to be aware of how attractive he was. “With the lady in her sixties? That must have been embarrassing.”
    “I was too scared to be embarrassed. By that time, I figured if they only thought I’d been having an affair with Rachel, I’d be glad.”
    “Did you call Olivia? You said you’d seen her in the hotel.” Fiji poured more iced tea into Bobo’s glass.
    Manfred had not discussed Olivia’s connection to the murdered couple, much less his near certainty that she’d killed them both. He felt both angry with Olivia and a little frightened of her (when he thought about the Devlins), but he didn’t think laying that on his friends would be right. He chose his words carefully. “I figured I’d just drag her into trouble with me if I called her. I have to admit, I really wanted to see a friendly face, so I definitely thought about it.” For exactly a second. He didn’t believe Olivia’s face would have been too friendly if he’d involved her. And he’d had a bad moment, a second