Serafina and the Silent Vampire Read Online Free Page A

throat. She couldn’t bring him back, any more than she could have brought Mattie back, but she could at least discover what had happened to him. Who had happened to him.
    With his hand in hers, she closed her eyes and reached out to him.
    Blankness. She picked up nothing from the touch of his dead skin; no bewildered or angry spirit came anywhere near her. It almost felt like Jason had never been.
    Maybe she was too wound-up. Maybe memories of Mattie were interfering. After all, the events surrounding Mattie’s death had been a major turning point in her life—the last time anyone had made a decision for her. Now Sera was in control; she made the decisions. Although they weren’t always good ones, or this young man wouldn’t be dead and silent on the bed beside her.
    With an effort, Sera refocused her mind, trying to banish all the personal baggage. There was only Jason Bell, suddenly and mysteriously dead.
    And still silent.
    The bedroom door clicked open, jolting Sera back to her soundings. Her fingers scrabbled, searching for something, anything of Jason’s to keep for later. Encountering a cufflink, she twisted it free and palmed it, just as a uniformed police constable entered with Ferdy.
    The policeman raised his ginger eyebrows at her in surprise. She stood at once, refusing to look as guilty as she felt as she surreptitiously dropped Jason’s purloined cufflink into her leather jacket pocket.
    “Is this your daughter?” the policeman asked Ferdy.
    “Oh no, this is Miss MacBride. I hired her in connection with the stalker we were telling you about.”
    The policeman’s already suspicious eyes hardened. “You’re a private investigator?” he asked, not bothering to hide his distaste.
    Sera looked him in the eye. “I’m a psychic investigator.” As she expected, that deprived the boy in blue of speech long enough for her to add, “I’m Sera MacBride, owner of Serafina’s Psychic Investigations.”
    The constable’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing in here?”
    Sera held his look; she was used to his kind of contempt. “Trying to reach his spirit.”
    The policeman snorted. But he had to swallow whatever cutting remark he’d been about to make when Ferdy asked quickly, “Did you reach him? Did you reach my boy?”
    Sera shook her head. “No. I’m sorry. Perhaps it’s too soon.” Or perhaps, like Mattie’s spirit, he’d never talk to her, because it was her fault he was dead.
    “Aye. Perhaps,” said the copper disparagingly. “Did you touch the body at all?” Although he was busy writing in his notebook, his eyes tried to pierce her with quick darts over the top of it.
    “No,” Sera lied.
    “Come downstairs with me, please.” Despite the deliberate civility, it was not a request. Sera only shrugged and passed under his arm out of the door.
    “Is that it?” Sera asked, heading for the stairs. “Aren’t you going to examine him, take photos and stuff?”
    “My colleagues from CID will be here shortly.” The bedroom door shut with a definite click, and the constable followed her and Ferdy downstairs. But as Ferdy went to join his wife and closest friends among the guests, the policeman detained her in the spacious hall. “A few questions, Miss MacBride.”
    “Sure.”
    “What did Mr. Bell hire you to do, exactly?”
    “Stop whoever—or whatever—was stalking him and his family.”
    “Did you?”
    “Not yet.”
    “How much did you charge him for all the garlic and crosses?”
    “It’s all part of the service,” Sera said brazenly.
    “Aye? I bet you don’t give him a rebate either.”
    “Why should I? It worked, didn’t it?”
    “How do you come to that conclusion?”
    Sera smiled. “Have you seen any vampires in the house?”
    She turned away from him, meaning to go into the larger room where the rest of the guests were giving their names to another policeman before being allowed to leave. But at the last minute, he grabbed her jacket sleeve.
    “How do you