Night Shift (A Novel of Midnight, Texas) - Softcover

Harris, Charlaine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425263231 ISBN 13: 9780425263235

Publisher: Ace, 2017

Synopsis

DON'T MISS SEASON 2 OF MIDNIGHT, TEXAS, THE NBC PRIMETIME TELEVISION SERIES BASED ON THE BESTSELLING NOVELS!

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels comes the third novel of Midnight, Texas, the town where some secrets will never see the light of day...
 
At Midnight’s local pawnshop, weapons are flying off the shelves—only to be used in sudden and dramatic suicides right at the main crossroads in town. Who better to figure out why blood is being spilled than the vampire Lemuel, who, while translating mysterious texts, discovers what makes Midnight the town it is. There’s a reason why witches and werewolves, killers and psychics, have been drawn to this place...

About this title

About the Author:

Charlaine Harris is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse and Midnight, Texas fantasy/mystery series and the Aurora Teagarden, Harper Connelly, and Lily Bard mystery series. Her books have inspired HBO's True Blood, NBC's Midnight, Texas, and the Aurora Teagarden movies for Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. She has lived in the South her entire life.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

   

        NIGHT SHIFT excerpt
   

   

        The first suicide arrives one October night.
   

   

        He is a middle-aged man with a scruffy beard. He parks his battered pickup in front of the Midnight Hotel. The six-to-midnight clerk, a junior college
        freshman named Marina Desoto, later tells Deputy Anna Gomez that when she saw the pickup pull to the curb, she assumed the driver would come in to rent
        a room. Marina does not add that she had been a little excited at the prospect, since in the months she has worked at the hotel only six people have
        asked for a room during her shift.
   

   

        Marina’s hope is dashed pretty quickly.
   

   

        Peering out the glass door, she watches the man fall out of the pickup “like he was drunk,” she tells Deputy Gomez and Sheriff Arthur Smith.
   

   

        Since Gomez knows Marina’s family, she also knows Marina is fully conversant with the behavior of drunk people.
   

   

        “What did he do then?” the deputy asks.
   

   

        “He walked funny, kind of leaning, like a big magnet was pulling him into the middle of the crossroad. And then he . . .” Marina’s voice trails off,
        and tears roll down her face. She lifts her hand to her head, forefinger pointed and thumb cocked, and mimes pulling a trigger.
   

   

        “You saw this from the front desk?” Smith asks. He’s checked the line of sight, and he’s skeptical.
   

   

        “No, you can’t see the whole intersection from the desk,” Marina says immediately, but not as if she’s really thinking about the question. “I had
        gotten up and walked to the door to lock it, after I saw him get out of the truck. Because he was acting so weird.”
   

   

        “Smart,” Gomez says. “So he was just carrying a gun in his hand?”
   

   

        “He pulled a gun out of his waistband. And he shot himself.”
   

   

        Gomez makes herself keep her eyes on Marina, though she’s tempted to turn to look at the dark heap still crumpled by the road. An ambulance is waiting
        to take the corpse to the nearest medical examiner’s office.
   

   

        “He didn’t say anything? You didn’t see him make a phone call?” Sheriff Smith says instead, going over ground already covered. He’s seen a cheap cell
        phone in the man’s shirt pocket.
   

   

        “No sir,” Marina tells him. “He didn’t do nothing but get out and shoot himself.” And she starts crying again. Deputy Gomez sighs and pats Marina on
        the shoulder.
   

   

        Anna Gomez has never liked Midnight, and its people are all guilty until proven innocent to her, no matter what her boss says. But even Gomez can’t
        hold the Midnighters responsible for this suicide, though she’d love to find a way.
   

   

        Gomez gives in to the prickling on her skin and turns to look around her, feeling the eyes on her. The locals are awake and watching. Though this is
        surely a normal human reaction to a lot of lights and sirens late at night, it doesn’t make her feel any more comfortable.
   

   

        Midnight and its people give Gomez the creeps. But she has to admit, none of them approach her to ask questions, and none of them try to get close to
        catch a glimpse of the body.
   

   

        It never occurs to Anna Gomez that this is because they are all well aware of what a body looks like.
   

    Chapter One

    The next night, almost all the people in Midnight went up the steps to gather in the pawnshop owned by Bobo Winthrop, owner and proprietor, who worked the
    day shift there.

    Midnight Pawn was a very old store with wooden floors that creaked in a friendly way. It was crowded with many curious items. The big open area at the
    front of the shop was hospitably full with chairs of all descriptions and ages, which made it made a natural meeting place. The counter, with its high
    stool, was to the left, parallel to the wall. Normally, that was where Bobo sat when there were customers.

    But when there weren’t, like tonight, Bobo sat in his favorite velvet chair. It was very old, and the velvet was worn, but Bobo found it comfortable and
    stylish. He’d positioned it to give him a good view of his domain, from the loaded shelves that held the strange discards of the human race, to the display
    cases in which objects gleamed and glittered. There was a whole shelf of sanders, for example. And one of bubblegum machines. And jewelry, both real and
    fabulously fake.

    And there was one secluded corner full of magical items. Fiji Cavanaugh, the witch who lived across Witch Light Road, had suggested that Bobo let her
    inspect those before they were placed on display.

    Tonight, Fiji came in first. She smiled at Bobo and found a place to sit where she could see everyone. The witch, a brown-haired woman in her late
    twenties, was literally well rounded and had lovely skin, at least in part because she kept it protected from the Texas sun.

    The Rev and his ward, Diederik, took up chairs beside Fiji. The Rev was a sparse man; short in stature, short of words, thin and bony and dry. His thinning
    dark hair was combed straight back. The Rev always wore the same ensemble: a white shirt, black pants, a black coat, and a black cowboy hat and boots. He
    sported a string tie with a turquoise stone fixing it around his neck. Wearing the same ensemble every day simplified his life.

    The Rev’s companion, Diederik, provided a sharp contrast. Diederik radiated health and vitality. The boy looked as though he were nineteen, perhaps
    entering college like Marina Desoto, but that wasn’t so. Diederik had a broad olive face, wide violet eyes that slanted a bit, and dark thick hair. He was
    built like a wrestler, and he moved with grace.

    Before he settled into his chair, Diederik gave Fiji a kiss on the cheek. She smiled at the boy, hoping the smile held nothing but motherly interest. When
    she’d met him a few months ago, he’d been a little boy. Now he was a full-grown male with a lively interest in females.

    Fiji looked over at Olivia Charity, the only other woman present. Did Olivia, too, have a few slightly conflicted feelings about Diederik? But she sensed
    Olivia didn’t; that in fact, he was barely a blip on Olivia’s radar.

    But Olivia let Fiji know who she was thinking about. “Lemuel’s still working on those books,” she said to Fiji, who hadn’t asked. “In fact, he eats,
    drinks, and sleeps those damn books.”

    “Golly,” said Fiji, who couldn’t think of anything more helpful to say. Lemuel could focus like a laser beam, but she’d never seen him that concentrated on
    anything. The volumes in question had been hidden in the pawnshop for decades, and for decades Lemuel had looked for them. Then Lemuel had sold the
    pawnshop to Bobo, staying on as night manager. Bobo had found the cache, not realized its importance, and moved it up to his apartment, planning to examine
    the books someday. Now Lemuel had discovered he couldn’t read the script in one, and naturally, that was the one that was most important, though Fiji
    didn’t know why.

    Chuy Villegas and Joe Strong, the couple who ran the Antique Gallery and Nail Salon, nodded easily to Bobo as they entered. Chuy patted Fiji’s shoulder.
    Diederik rose and hugged them, and scratched their dog’s head. The two took odd chairs, side by side, and set their little Peke, Rasta, down. He snuffled
    around the room, visiting everyone in turn, and then settled by Chuy’s feet.

    Manfred Bernardo, the psychic who rented the house next door from Bobo, hurried in and threw himself into a chair by his landlord. He gave everyone a wave
    or a word. Manfred, almost as small and spare as the Rev, was pierced liberally and with great effect, and lately he had begun getting tattoos. He pulled
    up his T-shirt sleeve to show the new one on his left shoulder, an ouroboros, to Fiji, and she shook her head, smiling.

    “Why volunteer for pain?” she said.

    “It’s for my art,” Manfred said dramatically, and they all laughed. Manfred regarded the tattoo with admiration. “Actually, I think it makes me look
    badass.”

    No one raised the topic of the evening.

    They were all waiting on Lemuel, who would be there when the sun set.

    In October, the sun went down a little before seven thirty p.m. One of the clocks in the pawnshop chimed the half hour, and a minute or two later, Lemuel
    Bridger came up from his basement apartment. There was a sense of completion when he took his place in the circle to Bobo’s left.

    The two were as much of a contrast as the Rev and Diederik. Bobo always seem relaxed, and now that he was in his thirties his blond hair was a little
    faded, and his blue eyes were a little sad. But he still could have been featured in an advertising campaign for something casual but expensive, like
    sunglasses. Lemuel could never pass for human. He was too white, white as bleach, and his eyes were a strange gray. He didn’t even move like a human being.

    “Did anyone know the man who killed himself last night?” Fiji asked the little crowd. “Joshua Allen, right, Manfred?”

    “That’s what they said on the news.”

    “I didn’t know him,” Lemuel said. His hoarse voice was at odds with his white, gleaming appearance. “But I knew the first one.”

    There was a moment of absolute silence.

    “The first one. The first what?” Olivia said.

    “The first suicide.” Lemuel’s pale eyes went from one of them to another. If he was looking for someone to nod in agreement, he was disappointed.

    Fiji was stumped. “Are you looking back a decade or something?” Vampires could lose track of time.

    “I’m looking back a week,” Lemuel said, in a bored way. “The first one was at three in the morning last Tuesday. A homeless woman stabbed herself to death
    right under the traffic light. I knew her, a little. Her name was Tabby Ann Masterson.”

    Even Olivia had not expected this bombshell. “You didn’t tell me,” she said.

    “I could not imagine that it had anything to do with Midnight,” he said. “No one was awake but me.”

    Lemuel was up all night, of course. Though the pawnshop was up a few steps from the ground level, and though he was often behind the counter, the pawnshop
    sat at the northeast corner of the only intersection in Midnight: the crossroads of Witch Light Road and the Davy highway. And from behind the counter,
    Lemuel could get a somewhat abbreviated view of what was happening there. If he happened to be closer to the window, his view would be unobstructed.

    Fiji smiled to herself at the long silence. Even if Lemuel had said he’d been facing the wall when it happened, none of them would have dared to question
    his word. Lemuel, the oldest of the town’s inhabitants by a century, was not a joker, a kidder, or a fantasist.

    “I’ve met Tabby Ann,” she said. “She used to come by my place, looking for my aunt. Evidently, Great-Aunt Mildred used to give her leftovers. I gave her
    some food once, but the next time I wasn’t there, and she peed on my back porch. I cast a spell to find out who had done it, because Mr. Snuggly didn’t
    see.”

    “Where is her body, then?” Manfred asked. “Tabby Ann. What did you do with her?” There was another profound silence. “Wait, sorry, don’t need to know.” He
    waved his hands, palms forward, warding off unneeded information.

    Lemuel smiled at Manfred, briefly. “Tabby Ann Masterson was a homeless woman,” Lemuel said, “as you call it now. I knew her during her better days, when
    she had a man and children and a home. She had no one left any longer.”

    “Two suicides,” Joe Strong, who looked exactly like his name, said. “In the same spot, in the same town. Joshua Allen can’t be a copycat, since he couldn’t
    have known about Tabby Ann.”

About this edition

• Publisher: Ace
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0425263231
• ISBN 13: 9780425263235
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400