Vampire Shift (Kiera Hudson Series #1) Read Online Free Page B

the time to study it then they would have seen the things that I had. It wasn’t magic – the clues were there if you looked for them. I’d always been like that. My father had called it my ‘ gift’– but it wasn’t really – I just had a knack of noticing things that others seemed unable to see. I saw stuff that other people missed. But it wasn’t magic and it wasn’t a ‘gift’, I called it ‘seeing’.
    But what about Luke? What could I see about him? Nothing. He was like a blank sheet of paper. Apart from his obvious good looks and incredible smile, it was the fact that he was a mystery that I found so attractive.
    Sinking beneath the hot water, images of the Blake boy lying dead with his throat ripped out rippled across the front of my mind. There were two things that troubled me. My father had often told me that you could tell a lot from a crime scene by the pattern of blood left behind. But that was the problem – there was very little blood for such a gaping wound. The brachiocephalic artery had been ripped apart and I remembered my father telling me once how he had worked on a murder where the victim had had their throat cut. Their life blood had pumped away through the wound in that particular artery.
    How then had there been so little blood at the murder scene of the Blake boy? Where had all the blood gone? It was almost as if it had been siphoned off. And what about the lack of footprints leading to and from the scene? I didn’t buy Murphy’s theory about the ground being too dry for any prints to be left. If prints could be lifted from carpets and lino floors, they could be seen in earth – however dry. But how had the killers got to the scene? The only clue was the hole made in the trees above, where the branches had been broken and smashed. It was almost as if someone or something had entered the crime scene from above. But that would be impossible, right?
    As I tried to examine these theories inside my head, I was startled by the sound of someone outside my bedroom door. Leaping from the bath, I wrapped a towel around me and went into the bedroom. Tiptoeing to the door, I listened to the rustling sound. Screwing up my eyes, I could see a shadow fleeting back and forth in the gap beneath my door.
    Reaching out for the key that I’d left in the lock, I called out, “Who’s there?”
    There was silence.
    “What do you want?”
    Then I heard the sound of footsteps rushing away. Holding the towel tight about me, I yanked open the door and peered along the landing. And as I did, I caught the last fleeting glimpse of a shadow disappearing down the stairs. My instincts told me to run after them, to find out who it had been. But with nothing on except the bath towel, I reluctantly stepped back into my room, and as I did, I noticed a small white envelope tacked to the door.
    Removing it, I went back inside. Across the front of the envelope someone had scribbled ‘Kiera’. Sitting on my bed, I opened it and a small silver crucifix fell out into my hand. Placing it on the desk beside my bed, I went back to the envelope. Studying it, my heart skipped a beat, as I could see from looking at it, that the person I’d seen sitting in the bar with their face hidden behind the hood, was the person responsible for leaving me the crucifix.

Chapter Four
    I woke early, just before six. I didn’t want to miss breakfast, like I’d missed dinner the night before. The owner of the Inn seemed particularly strict on the rules surrounding meal times.
    As I pulled on a sweatshirt, jogging-bottoms, and trainers, my stomach groaned. It was then I realised I hadn’t eaten anything since before leaving my home in Havensfield the day before. As I made my way down to the dining area, I switched on my mobile phone. I scrolled through my contact list, until I came across ‘Sergeant Phillips’. I pressed the call button, but all I got back was an unobtainable tone. As I reached the dining area, I noticed the signal bar