LITMIR.BIZ

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This was going to take him all day.

      His new partner, Mary Sunshine, stood there, holding in each hand a container of what passed for coffee at the precinct.

      “I don’t remember asking you to,” he said, making no attempt to take either container from her.

      “You didn’t,” she answered, keeping a smile on her face. “I just thought you might like to have a cup. Newest studies say that three cups of coffee a day help keep your memory sharp.”

      Part of him knew he was being unreasonable and ornery, but he just didn’t feel friendly at the moment. And for her own good, Rosetti had better understand his moodiness early on.

      “And just why would you think that you have to appoint yourself the guardian of my memory?” he asked.

      Jaren placed the container she’d brought back for him on his desk, then sat down at hers. She studied him for a moment.

      “You know, I’d say that you got up on the wrong side of the bed today, but I’ve got a feeling that today, there wouldn’t have been a right side.” She paused to take a sip of her coffee, then asked, “Or is that just a given?”

      Kyle didn’t bother giving her an answer. Instead, he just looked back at the paperwork on his desk.

      She sighed, but refused to give up. “Look, I’m trying to make nice here.”

      He raised his eyes, meeting hers for a fleeting second. “Don’t.”

      There was no such thing as don’t in her language. Jaren tried again, relying on logic, something she felt probably appealed to him. “Until one of us transfers or dies or they rearrange the room, we’re going to be stuck facing each other like this five days a week. Don’t you think it would make things a little easier on both of us if you stopped acting as if I’m the devil incarnate?”

      “Nope.”

      She sighed and shook her head. “I think you should know I don’t give up easy.”

      She wished he didn’t look so damn sexy as he raised his eyes again and said, “You do what you have to do, and I’ll do what I have to do.”

      She had no idea if she was being warned, put on notice or dismissed. But she wasn’t about to put up with any of that.

      Before she could think of something to say in return, she saw the lieutenant walking toward them. Barone held a slip of paper with writing on it in his hand.

      “Dispatch called to say a hysterical receptionist just got in to the office to find the doctor she worked for—a Richard Barrett—dead.” The lieutenant held out the slip of paper that contained pertinent information, including the address. “You two are up.”

      Mentally, Kyle winced. He wasn’t ready to work a case with Little Miss Perky, but there was apparently nothing he could do about it. Resigned, Kyle pushed himself away from his desk. But by the time he got to his feet, Jaren had taken the slip of paper from Barone.

      “We’re on it,” she assured Barone as she slid her arms through the sleeves of her jacket.

      Frowning, Kyle confiscated the slip of paper from her and glanced at the address. He spared the lieutenant a look as he shoved the paper into his pocket. “Pricey part of town.”

      “Rich people get killed, too,” Barone replied. “The details are a little freaky, so get back to me on this as soon as possible.”

      “What do you mean by freaky?” Jaren asked before Kyle could voice the same question.

      The woman had a mouth set in fast-forward, he thought darkly.

      “You’ll see,” was all Barone promised.

      “Freaky doesn’t begin to cover this one,” Kyle commented under his breath as he looked down at the slain doctor. Parts of the expensive Persian rug he lay on was discolored. Blood oozed from the man’s chest.

      Dr. Richard Barrett was a respected, well-known neurosurgeon whose skill was only equaled by his ego. Said to be almost a miracle worker, his services were sought from all over the country. Consequently, he had an incredibly long waiting list.

      According to what Barrett’s receptionist told them in whispered confidence, as if the dead surgeon could still somehow hear her, he’d had the bedside manner of Attila the Hun.

      “Care to be more specific about that?” Kyle prodded the nervous young woman.

      “He always made you feel as if you were beneath him,” Carole Jenkins told them. She averted her eyes from the slain figure on the floor. The sight of him had made her turn a very unbecoming shade of green. “To be honest, I think Dr. Barrett even felt he was above God.”

      Jaren glanced down at the man’s face, frozen in horror. That kind of an attitude would have won the neurosurgeon no friends.

      “So, you’re saying that Dr. Barrett had a lot of enemies?” Jaren asked.

      The receptionist backpedaled a little, as if she didn’t want to speak ill of the dead. “He had a lot of grateful patients,” she assured them hastily, and then relented, “but yes, he did have a lot of people who didn’t like him. I don’t know if you’d call them enemies, but he had a tendency to rub everyone the wrong way. But I never thought…” Her voice trailed off as she glanced at the body on the floor and then shivered.

      Kyle squatted down beside the body, his attention focused on the large wooden stake protruding from the man’s chest.

      “Death by wooden stake. Don’t think I’ve ever come across that before,” he said more to himself than to his partner. “This does seem to be a little extreme.”

      “I’ll—I’ll be in the next room if you need me,” Carole stammered, already backing away from them—and the corpse. “I—I just can’t—”

      Giving her a comforting smile, Jaren took the woman’s arm and escorted her out of the doctor’s study.

      “You just sit down at your desk and we’ll get back to you if we have any more questions,” she said kindly. Turning around, she appraised the slain surgeon. The stake had been driven into the middle of his chest. Deeply. “Think it’s a statement?”

      Kyle glanced at her over his shoulder. “That someone hated him?”

      She was going for something a bit more colorful. “That someone thought of him as a vampire.”

      Kyle stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Come again?”

      “Are you baiting me?” she asked. A frown was the only answer she received. Humoring the man, she went into detail. “Everyone knows that the only way to kill a vampire is to drive a stake through his heart.”

      It didn’t make any sense to him. They weren’t living in the Middle Ages, they were living in an enlightened society. “So, someone was calling Barrett a vampire?”

      “Blood sucker, most likely. Maybe they were protesting his fee. Or a surgery that went wrong,” she suddenly guessed. In her opinion, those could have all been viable reasons for murder, given the right person.

      Kyle wasn’t ready to grant that she’d had an interesting theory just yet. “Don’t you think that’s a little off the wall?” he scoffed.

      “To you and me, yes,” she agreed. “But maybe not to the killer.” And it was the killer’s mind they were attempting to assess.

      Jaren had pulled on a pair of rubber gloves the minute they’d gotten off the elevator on the third floor. As Kyle examined the doctor more closely, she went through the surgeon’s things on his desk and shelves, looking for a lead.

      When she came to a black-bound, hardcover book, she paused. There it was, in plain sight on the shelf behind his desk.

      “Well, how about that.”

      The bemused note in

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