Midnight Reign by Chris Marie Green Read Free Book Online

carried a baseball bat and wore his shirts rolled over his forearms. But Matt being Matt, he wore no such thing. He liked his just-about-new jeans, boots, leisure shirts over a T, and in spite of the weather, the oversized coat he wore now—a coat that hid what Dawn suspected to be a machete in a back holster.
    A PI or fellow vamp hunter? Dawn had no idea, but whatever his job, he was real good at planting doubts about The Voice in her head.
    Demand answers, he’d said, encouraging her to investigate The Voice and his motives. And she’d tried during this past month. Yet she’d also researched Matt Lonigan at the same time. He’d changed his name after his parents’ murders, from Destry to Lonigan, and she’d used that information to discover that he really hadn’t been lying when he’d told her about his parents. She’d accused him of using the Batman mythos to concoct a fake history and, now, seeing him face-to-face after finding evidence to the contrary, she felt like an idiot who’d jumped to conclusions—something she was trying to avoid with Jac, too.
    After all, the man was holding flowers instead of a gun.
    Daisies. The kind of petals Eva Claremont had worn in her hair during the most famous film scene of her career. One day at lunch, Matt’s eyes had gone woozy when she’d mentioned Eva’s name. On the surface, they’d been talking about Frank, since Matt had been hired to find him. By who? Dawn still didn’t know since client privilege barred him from revealing that information. But, truthfully, she and the team had been testing him to see if Matt was the enemy or a friend.
    After his reaction to Eva’s name, she’d gotten jealous, as she always did when men responded to the suggestion of her stunning mother. Sometimes Dawn even wondered if that was one reason she was attracted to this shy guy who wasn’t her normal type. To win him over fully from Eva.
    She nodded to the flowers, finally catching her breath, her balance. “Those for your sweet old grandma or what?”
    He grinned, held them out to her, and took a step forward. Breisi stiffened even more.
    Dawn put a hand on her coworker’s shoulder. “Everything’s copasetic.”
    “I can’t believe you’re so sure about that.”
    Matt laughed, a white flag of truce. “Keep friends like her around, Dawn.”
    She’d never introduced Breisi to Matt and didn’t see the need to do it now. “Breez, can I…?”
    The other woman kept her eyes on the rival PI. “I don’t like leaving you on a dark street by yourself.”
    “I’m not by myself. I’m with him.”
    She went dead serious. “I know.”
    “Breez…”
    “All right.” She backed away, shot Matt another glare. “I’m going to be in the car and I’ll be on the phone to the office at the same time. Just in case.”
    “Yes, Mom.”
    It’d been meant as a jest, but as Breisi widened her eyes, Dawn realized just how uncomfortable the comment was. If it wasn’t for Frank’s disappearance, Breisi might’ve been her stepmom one day.
    Her coworker went to the other side of the SUV, the slam of the vehicle’s door reverberating. Matt shifted position, automatically drawing Dawn’s gaze to him.
    Unable to resist, she walked closer, feeling the heavy vibration that always filled the space between their bodies. He grinned a little, offering the daisies again.
    “Long time no see,” he said softly.
    Dawn just about sighed. His voice. Graveled. Hot.
    Taking the flowers, she awkwardly held them. Sad fact: she’d never gotten a gift like this from a guy before, so she didn’t know exactly what to do with them.
    “I guess,” she said, “our jobs aren’t the best for scheduling leisure time, huh?”
    He’d asked her out before, and they’d decided to do an actual date once Frank had been discovered. That way, there’d be no conflicts. Hopefully. But it’d happened before she’d found Matt skulking around Klara Monaghan’s murder scene. Before she’d felt the machete at