Playing With Vampires - An Izzy Cooper Novel Read Online Free

at a table near the railing.
    He didn’t bother to look up when I approached. “Took you long enough.”
    “I thought we were having coffee?” I pointed to the drink in his hand.
    He lifted his wide shoulders. “I thought you’d probably like coffee, but I prefer something a bit stronger.”
    It figured. If Julius were actually human, he’d probably be an alcoholic.
    Charlie had already put a cup out for me and placed a thermal coffee server on the table. Apparently Julius had been confident that I’d show up.
    “How’s Missy doing?” I asked, though I didn’t truly care. As far as I was concerned, Missy was the poster child for loose women.
    The recently widowed Missy was the woman Julius dallied with when he wasn’t haunting me. I suspected the two of them had plotted her husband’s murder in order to carry on their illicit affair undisturbed, but so far I hadn’t been able to prove it.
    “I haven’t seen her lately.” Julius shrugged, his dark eyes practically caressing me from head to toe.
    I did my best to ignore it.
    Julius was as hot as the fiery pit that spawned him, but he was definitely off limits, namely because he irritated me to no end, but also because I knew what he was up to. He intended to use his natural charisma to seduce me to the dark side.
    Still, I couldn’t help but admire how handsome he looked with that dark hair of his curling around his perfect, almost aristocratic features. He was the type of guy that could actually be called beautiful.
    If it weren’t for that small problem of him being a demon, just maybe I could have overlooked his sarcastic attitude.
    “So what’s up? I know you didn’t call me here just to watch me drink coffee.”
    His full lips spread into a wicked smile. “You are astute. I can’t help but wonder how you managed to be dumb enough to get yourself into this situation in the first place.”
    No doubt he was referring to my fallen angel status.
    I gave him one of my evilest  – damn him to Hell glares. “I’m not in the mood for a sermon. Polly from the Quick Stop was found murdered tonight.”
    The news didn’t so much as spur the raising of his brow. That was probably because he already knew. Julius had some kind of ESP going on to where he knew stuff before it happened. I figured it was probably on account of him being a demon.
    “Well this has nothing to do with Polly,” he sighed.
    Dang it. I was hoping he could give me some clues to help solve the case fast. Most of the time Julius wouldn’t involve himself in human affairs, but every once in while he’d give me a break.
    “So what then?” I asked, while I was busy adding too much cream to my coffee.
    “You’ll probably want to go to the town meeting tomorrow night. I think it would be a good idea to find out what you can about the new guy.”
    These days it was difficult for Julius to surprise me, but I was definitely surprised. He just wasn’t the kind to worry about something as trivial as town meetings and strangers. Actually I wasn’t either, which was why I felt obliged to resist his suggestion.
    “Oh I don’t know. I have so much housework to catch up on … and now this new case.” The excuses rolled off my tongue.
    “Really Izzy … you should go. Aren’t you the least bit curious about who this Zane character is?”
    Actually I was. For the last three weeks Storm Cove had been buzzing with gossip. Everyone wanted to know more about Zane Dupree, the stranger who had purchased the Marsh estate, which was the reason behind the town meeting. The people of Storm Cove weren’t exactly thrilled with the idea of a stranger buying that old estate, especially since he had plans to turn it into some kind of resort hotel.
    The old fear of Captain Beaufort was alive and well on Mystique Island. According to legend, Beaufort was the captain of the Mystique, the ship that brought all the settlers to the island. At some point during the journey, there had been a mutiny.
    As legend