Heading out of town for a few days…. don’t wanna just leave the blog half dead…so here’s an excerpt.  From a spooky-ish book, Talking with The Dead.  It released last year, but with Halloween coming…it seemed fitting.

You can buy it here.  Currently, it’s only in ebook.

“Out kind of late, aren’t you?” she asked as she unlocked the chain to let him in.
His eyes were grim. There was a chill to his features that made her gut go cold. And suddenly, Daisy wished she had stayed in bed. Wouldn’t have mattered though. She felt cold all over. A cop knew what was wrong when a person was woken up in the middle of the night. It was because somebody had died.

“Why are you here?” she asked softly, backing away from him. She rested her hips against the hall table and folded her arms around her chest.

“She’s gone.”

“Tanya?” Daisy asked, clenching her jaw.

“No…Tanya hasn’t passed on yet,” he said quietly. He continued to watch her closely and she saw the answer in his eyes.

Daisy had never seen anybody who looked as haunted as he did. She prayed she’d never see it again. Swallowing the knot in throat, she said huskily, “Then you’re going to have to explain who you are talking about. Tanya is the only one who has died recently.”

“I told you that he had taken somebody else.”

It seemed like the pit of her belly dropped out. Closing her eyes, she said, “No. You said he just took her.” One hand closed into a tight fist and she fought against the useless burst of fury. No.

“He didn’t kill her. She died.”

Perplexed, Daisy opened her eyes and glared at him. She shoved off the table and planted her hands on her hips. “Damn it, O’Rourke, you’re not making much sense. Now granted, it is the middle of the night and I’m in dire need of a caffeine rush. But if you’re going to come here and tell me that a girl is dead—” She clamped her mouth shut and hissed out a breath. She took a deep breath. Tried to think, turned his words over in her head. Nope. Still didn’t make sense. Looking back at him, she said in a tight voice, “You need to remember something. I’m a cop. I’m the town sheriff. I take a dead girl pretty damned seriously. Especially since we have a killer using my town as his hunting ground.”

His lashes lowered, hiding the haunting blue of his eyes. “She was sick—bad heart. I told you that. I think her heart gave out.”

With that, he turned on his heel and started for the door.

“Hey!”

He paused, looking over his shoulder.

“Where in the hell do you think you’re going?”

“Out to the field. Tanya might be ready to talk to me.”

Propping her hands on her hips, Daisy stared at him. “Why? What changes things from this morning?”

“Because a girl is dead,” Michael said, his tone patient, as though he was talking to a small child.
“Yeah and this morning, talking might have saved her.”

Michael’s lips curled in a sad smile. “I don’t think so—you don’t understand, Sheriff. The deceased, they are like kids. Like a young one, scared, confused and alone in the dark. She couldn’t this morning—it just wasn’t time, not for her.”

“So because it wasn’t time for her, some young girl was raped and tortured, probably scared to death—” her voice faded away at the look on his face.

“No. She wasn’t hurt. I don’t know what happened. But there—wasn’t that tortured touch to her. I need to go. Are you coming?”

Damned jerk, Daisy thought a few minutes later as she drove over the rough roads. He sat next to her in silence. Hell, she couldn’t even hear him breathing. Spends so much time with his ghosts, he acts like one.