Chapter 1
Chapter One
“So, who did you piss off to be sentenced to our little corner of Hell?”
Standing in front of a large, antique mahogany desk, Sorcha O’Malley blinked twice at the unexpected question. “Beg pardon?”
The woman who’d introduced herself as Bernadette Corwin lifted a stack of papers and straightened them.
“I saw your service record. It’s impressive and spotless.
Means you must have pissed off someone significant to be sentenced to Infernal Affairs.
So what did you do and who did you do it to? Details, please. I love gossip!”
Not something she was about to discuss, especially with someone she just met.
No one needed to know her dubious history that she was still trying to get over.
So Sorcha shrugged. “Don’t know. Guess I’m just unlucky.” And a little too accurate with her aim.
Uncomfortable with this line of questioning, Sorcha cleared her throat and glanced about the old Victorian mansion that had been converted into an office building. The former living room was now a reception area and the woman before her was quite…
Something.
Tall, thin and with dark skin that was smooth and perfect, Bernadette was beauty incarnate. She had short sister locks that framed a face Sorcha could tell was used to smiling and laughing.
She liked her already.
Even if she was nosy.
“What did you do to be sentenced here?” she couldn’t resist asking Bernadette.
“Girl…that is a long and lengthy list. Let’s just say it involved a police captain, a night stick that went some place it shouldn’t have, and a bite that may or may not have been infectious.”
Sorcha felt her jaw go slack. That sounded almost as bad as what she’d done. “Wait… Seriously, what did you do?”
“Oh, you heard me.” Propping her elbow on the top of the desk, Bernadette rested her chin on the back of her hand and smiled.
“Not like he didn’t deserve it. He did. Trust me, I wouldn’t have risked rabies or parvo lightly.
Anyway, I’ve been here five years and love it.
You will too once you get used to your coworkers. We’re all a little…unique.”
“Bernadette! Would you stop trying to scare off the new hire.”
Bernadette scoffed. “Not a new hire. She’s a transfer, like me. I want to know the dirt on her, and I will find it.” She leaned forward and whispered behind her hand to Sorcha, “That’s my special skill.”
Shaking her head, a short middle-aged brunette joined them. She held her hand out to Sorcha. “Captain Elana Reyes. Nice to meet you.”
Sorcha shook her hand. “And you, Captain.”
“Elana, please. We’re not that formal around here.” She slid an irritated glance toward Bernadette. “Will you get back to your real desk and let Ryan have hers?”
With an impressive dramatic gesture, Bernadette rolled herself back from the desk and stood up. “I wanted to meet the new one first. Shoot me.”
“Keep it up and I might.” Elana winked at Sorcha. “That’s how I got sentenced here.”
“That is true,” Bernadette said. “Which is why I’m going upstairs right now before she gets an itchy trigger finger. See y’all later.” She gave an impudent wave of her hand as she left the room.
Confused, Sorcha turned toward her new boss. “Is she another detective?”
Elana nodded. “My second-in-command, Lieutenant Bernadette Corwin. Her skill is intuition and clairvoyance, in addition to research. She’s like a magpie on a shiny object.”
“And yours?”
“I’m the boss at Infernal Affairs, which means my special power is not losing my shit when someone does something they’re not supposed to.
Let that not be any kind of encouragement for you to break rules.
As my father used to say…shit rolls downhill.
I will always have your back, but please remember that I really do have an itchy trigger finger.
And everyone has a breaking point. Please don’t be mine. ”
Given that she had a similar itchy trigger finger and father, Sorcha felt an immediate kinship with the captain. She also suspected there was a lot more to the captain than she let on. In fact, she could feel something “special” about Elana Reyes besides patience.
“How many detectives are there here?”
“Eight altogether, including you.” Elana stepped back and gestured to her right. “Shall I give you the grand tour?”
“Sure.”
The captain indicated the room where they stood.
“The front desk here is normally occupied by our office manager, Ryan Braddach. Not sure where she’s run off to at the moment, but I know she’ll be right back.
She’s extremely reliable.” She led Sorcha past a small waiting area in front of a bay window to a set of double doors.
“This is one of our interrogation rooms.”
Nice. It held a small table and four chairs.
Along with a very thick chain that came out of the wall and made her wonder who or, more to the point, what they interrogated. That thing looked big enough to handle a rhino.
Down the hallway was a small kitchen with a gas stove and green cabinets.
“Feel free to bring food for lunch or cook something as long as it’s not too smelly.
Christian Gutjar is sensitive to smell and will hunt you down to complain.
” Elana paused to give her a knowing stare.
“Trust me, you don’t want to get Chris started. There’s no off switch.”
“Good to know.”
Elana led her toward stairs that had a black runner down the center. “Four of the offices are on the second floor and there are two more on the third.”
Sorcha could just imagine the endless trudging of stairs that lay before her. “Is there an elevator?”
“Sadly, no. But if anyone has mobility issues, we meet them on the main floor or the garden level.”
“Garden level?” Sorcha liked the sound of that. Something about being in nature always soothed her.
“It’s the walkout basement, but it lets out into a garden. There are two offices down there—yours and your partner’s—and another interrogation room.”
“Son of a donkey eating turd ball! Screw you and your afterlife. Sheez! Give it a rest, you giant asshole! I hate you so much! Can’t you haunt the cemetery across the street? What is wrong with you?”
Sorcha drew up short at the deep masculine shout that echoed through the second-floor hallway.
Elana shook her head. “That’ll be the Chris I was warning you about. He’s very creative with his language.” She motioned her toward the office in the far-left corner. Knocking once, she pushed open the door. “There a problem, detective?”
He gestured toward the window. “Winslow…making me crazy as usual. Tell him to go bug someone else or I’m banishing him into the light.
” He picked up a roll of paper towels and began dabbing at his desk and crotch where water had been spilled.
“It’s sad that I can’t have a single sip because someone—” he glared at the corner “—won’t stop knocking my drinks over.
” He growled low in his throat. “Two seconds! Two effing seconds. I swear to all that’s holy that I left the cap off my water to reach for my phone and boom…
I’m going to kill him! Except I can’t. But oh! It’s so unfair.”
Elana slid her gaze to Sorcha to explain.
“Winslow was poisoned by his wife and died in this bedroom. As a result, he knocks over any drink brought in here. Apparently, he’s trying to save the occupants from his bad ending.
Make sure you have a lid on any container you bring in here. Chris, meet Sorcha.”
She waved awkwardly at the tall blond man who reminded her of a modern-day Viking. “Hi.”
“Hi. Sorry for the rough language and hostility. I’m normally very calm. This has just become a major pet peeve for me…and I’m having a crappy day.”
Sorcha definitely understood those. She’d been having way too many of them lately. So much so that she was beginning to wonder if the devil had put a target on her back.
Elana closed the door and pointed to the room across the hall that had the captain’s name on it. “My office is there and Bernadette’s is next to it.”
“Cap?” Bernadette stuck her head out of her office as if on cue. “Need you. Sorry. Can’t wait.”
Elana nodded. “Feel free to explore.” She handed Sorcha a key. “As I said, your office is on the garden level, just off the stairs. It’s the one without a name on the door. I’ll catch up to you.”
Then she was gone so fast that Sorcha barely had time to blink.
Okay, then.
More curious about her own space than anything else, she headed for the stairs they’d just walked up only to learn that they didn’t go down past the main floor.
Scowling, Sorcha turned around, looking for another set of stairs that would lead down to the garden level. “This is odd…”
She glanced out the window to see that there was a wrought-iron balcony on the backside of the house.
Hmm…
She started looking through rooms to find out how to access the balcony. Maybe it had stairs to go down.
As she passed through the foyer again, she saw an attractive young woman in the corner.
Sorcha didn’t speak to her. Not out of rudeness. Rather because she knew it was a residual haunting—a ghost that didn’t even know Sorcha was here.
Since this was her first day on the job, she didn’t want to expose her “unusual” abilities too soon. Even if it was Infernal Affairs and she knew they’d understand because she’d been hired for them, she just didn’t want to be exposed yet.
Which also made her wonder where Winslow had gone.
Chris might have looked to the corner, but it’d been vacant. So she knew he didn’t share the abilities she’d learned a long time ago to hide from others. Even those familiar with the paranormal had a hard time accepting her “gifts” at times.
They were frightening for everyone.
Especially her.
At the end of the hall, she finally saw the outside spiral staircase at the back of the house that went to the garden level, along with a door that opened onto the balcony.
Relieved, Sorcha went outside and paused as she was assaulted with the roar of raucous heavy metal music.