Nightfall

by Jessica Meigs

  They didn’t speak for the rest of the time it took Zachariah to get his necessary belongings packed and for them to get out to the parking garage. After loading up his suitcase in the vehicle, he climbed into the passenger seat—with as uptight as Ashton was, there was no way he was going to be allowed to drive, not so soon after imbibing weed—and got himself situated while Ashton checked his messages.

  “What’s the plan?” Zachariah asked, breaking the silence between them as Ashton settled into the driver’s seat.

  Ashton buckled his seatbelt and started the car’s engine before he answered. “What do you think about Pennsylvania?”

  “Pennsylvania?” Zachariah repeated. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually been there. What’s in Pennsylvania?”

  “According to Damon…” Ashton flipped his phone around for Zachariah to see the screen, even as Zachariah raised his eyebrows at Ashton’s familiar use of the director’s first name. “He’d like us to check out a report of a poltergeist. Says it’s a personal favor for him.”

  “A personal favor?” he repeated.

  “His sister-in-law. Former sister-in-law. I’m not sure how it works when the sibling that made you in-laws is dead.” Ashton set the phone on his lap and shifted the car into reverse, backing out of the parking space to navigate from the parking garage.

  Director Hartley had a brother? Who knew?

  “Anyway, she and her daughter just bought a house in Pennsylvania, and it appears she might have a poltergeist problem,” Ashton continued. “He sent me information via email on what he has on poltergeists. He wants us to check it out and see what we can do for her and report back to him if we need help.”

  Zachariah pecked at the email, pulling up the attachments to start skimming through them. “Sounds like a good deal to me,” he said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. He could use something to get his mind off his problems, and a ghost that liked to throw things sounded like a good start to him.

  “You up for making this a road trip?” Ashton suggested, stopping at the garage’s exit and giving him a crooked smile.

  “Hell yeah,” he agreed with a grin. “Let’s go pretend to be ghostbusters.”

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for reading Nightfall, the prequel to The Unnaturals Series!

  If you’d like to find out what happens next with Zachariah and Ashton, you can check out The Unnaturals, the first book in The Unnaturals Series!

  Click here to purchase The Unnaturals at the retailer of your choice!

  Be sure to read to the end of the book for a special excerpt from The Unnaturals!

  The Unnaturals

  Continue reading for a special excerpt from The Unnaturals, the first book in The Unnaturals Series!

  “I’m a reasonable guy. But I’ve just experienced some very unreasonable things.”

  Jack Burton, Big Trouble in Little China

  The Unnaturals: Prologue

  “David Petit is dead.”

  The long silence that greeted Zachariah Lawrence after he spoke the words into his cell phone told him everything he needed to know. The director of the governmental sub-agency he worked for was not happy with the news he’d had to relay. Ashton Miller wasn’t usually a verbose man by any stretch of the imagination, so Zachariah was used to his silences, but for some reason, he found this one almost downright scary.

  “Where do I need to call in the clean-up crew to?” Ashton finally asked, breaking the silence on the line.

  “You don’t.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Law enforcement is already here,” Zachariah explained. “Petit was killed in a public place. Parking garage,” he added before Ashton could ask. “Looks like some civilians found him and called the police. I’ve got my government ID. What do you want me to do?”

  There was another pause, then Ashton said, “Forget it. Go to the next person on the list. Courtney Ford. She’s supposed to be holed up in a hotel in downtown Dallas. I’ll text you the details.”

  “Hey, Dallas,” Zachariah said with some measure of enthusiasm as he turned his back on the murder scene and walked away, heading to where he’d parked his car. “Maybe I can drop in and see my parents.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Ashton replied, though he sounded a little doubtful. “But only if it’s not going to compromise your assignment.”

  And that was how, three hours later, Zachariah was walking into the front doors and crossing the lobby of the hotel that Agent Courtney Ford was supposed to be staying in, a bundle of roses in his arms and a happy smile on his face. His boots barely made a sound as he strode toward the front desk, turning the full blast of his charm on the young, uniformed woman standing behind it. She flushed red under his smile, an effect he’d managed to cultivate to turn onto people at will in the years he’d been working for the United States government.

  “Hi, love,” he greeted. “I hope you can help me with something, because I’m at a little bit of a loss.”

  “What can I do for you, sir?” she asked, practically twittering under his attention.

  “I have a friend staying here this week, and it’s her birthday,” he said, using the story he’d come up with on his way from the last scene to this one. “I want to put these in her room and surprise her, put a smile on her face, you know?”

  It was a gamble, one that hedged on whether he’d get a sympathetic ear at the front desk or a surly curmudgeon. If he’d gotten the front desk receptionist that was of a surly variety, he’d have been forced to abandon his current plan and break into the agent’s hotel room. That would have been a lot noisier than he wanted to be and, therefore, risked drawing the attention of hotel guests to him. Thankfully, he seemed to have gotten the sympathetic type of receptionist, because she was looking at him with wide, almost googly eyes, like she just adored the affection he was showing for a friend. She began tapping at the keys to her computer, even as she spoke.

  “That’s so sweet! I wish someone would bring me flowers like that,” she said, clicking with the mouse a few times as she navigated on her computer.

  “Oh, I have a hard time believing that no one has ever brought you flowers,” Zachariah said, sliding an edge of flirtatiousness into his voice. “If you’ve got a boyfriend, he should be ashamed of himself if he hasn’t ever sent you flowers.”

  She laughed softly and shook her head. “No, no boyfriend.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Nope, not one of those, either.” She clicked a few more times then asked, “What did you say your friend’s name was?”

  “Alicia Bachner,” he replied, using the undercover name that Ashton had texted him along with the address to the hotel. “She should be in room 527.”

  A couple of clicks later, the receptionist nodded. “Yep, that’s what I’ve got here, too.” She looked around, quickly, furtively, like she was about to do something she wasn’t supposed to do. “Look, I’m not supposed to do this,” she said, confirming what Zachariah had been thinking. “My boss would be on my ass if he knew I was making unauthorized copies of room keys…” As she talked, Zachariah kept his eyes on her face, doing his best to not look at her hands as she swiped a plastic card key through the reader to encode it for the appropriate hotel room. “So this didn’t happen,” she finished, quickly passing the key to him. “Just bring it back, please? And try not to hang onto it for too long.”

  Zachariah grinned and slipped the card into his pocket casually. “Thanks, doll,” he said, then to put the icing on the cake, he slid one of the red roses free from the rest of the bouquet and set it on the counter. “For your trouble,” he said with a wink before turning and heading to the elevator.

  Riding up to the fifth floor didn’t take long, and neither did finding the appropriate hotel room. Zachariah looked in either direction down the hall, hoping there weren’t any cameras—he hadn’t had time to check—and that nobody would see him go inside. Ignoring the “Do Not Disturb” tag hanging from the doorknob, he slid the k
ey into the lock, waited for the light to turn green, then slipped into the room, easing the door quietly closed behind him.

  The temperature in the room was the first thing he noticed. It was absolutely freezing, like Courtney had cranked the air conditioning down to the lowest setting and had left it there for days. His skin immediately pimpled up with goosebumps, and he shivered under the onslaught of the chill. Immediately suspicious, he slowly knelt, setting the bouquet of flowers on the floor beside the door and reaching under the back of his t-shirt to pull free the pistol he’d secreted there. Something about this wasn’t sitting right with him. Nobody would willingly sit in a room this cold unless they were no longer in a position to feel it.

  He grasped his pistol in a two-handed grip, ready to lift it at a moment’s notice, and crept toward the bedroom area of the hotel room, cautiously, ready for potential attack that might come his way.

  Zachariah didn’t have anything to worry about. He was the only living thing in this hotel room.

  “Shit,” he breathed as he got a look at the petite blond woman’s body crumpled on the floor by the air conditioner. Her blue eyes stared at the ceiling sightlessly, and everything from chin to collarbone was shredded, torn like a wild animal had clamped down on her throat and ripped everything away. Her pistol lay on the carpet, just out of reach of her hand, which was stretched toward it like she’d tried to grab it before being slaughtered.

  A quick pass around the room didn’t reveal any signs of forced entry. No broken windows, no damaged doors, just a room completely undisturbed, save for the savaged body on the carpet by the windows.

  He swore under his breath and pulled his phone free from his pocket, calling Ashton.

  “What you got?” Ashton asked as a greeting.

  “She’s dead,” Zachariah replied. “Courtney’s dead, too.”

  “Son of a bitch,” the other man breathed. “How?”

  “The same as the others.”

  “Shit.” There was a pause between them, then Ashton said, “That’s number twenty-seven.”

  “Twenty-seven?”

  “I’ve had Angelique check on some other agents, too,” Ashton explained. “Courtney makes twenty-seven dead, all in roughly the same manner. Do I need to send in a clean-up crew?”

  “To this one, yes,” Zachariah answered. “Nobody else has been in here, just me. She hadn’t been found yet.” He scanned the room for more clues then added, “I’m going to get out of here for now in case whatever killed her comes back and does me in, too.”

  “You know what killed her, Zach.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, I know. I don’t want to think about it, but I know.” He closed his eyes for a moment then strode to the door, putting his pistol away and pulling his shirt over it to cover it again. “Call Damon. Tell him we need those new recruits, and we needed them yesterday. Somebody—something—is targeting our agents, and we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  The Unnaturals: Chapter One

  Riley Walker hung off a one-inch wide ledge on the side of a condominium, suspended only by her fingertips and the straining muscles in her shoulders and biceps. It wasn’t the most ideal position she’d ever been in; she preferred standing in triumph over a defeated mark—that was the sort of position that resulted in the Agency depositing nice, hefty bonuses into her offshore bank account. But she couldn’t be choosy. Especially not when her life depended on it.

  Worse than dangling off the side of a building, though? Doing it in a skirt and flip-flops, of all things. If she’d had her preferences, she’d have worn what she liked to call the “uniform,” a black ensemble of snug pants and tank tops and tactical vests—not the epitome of stylish but useful when on assignment with all the pockets for her guns, knives, and ammunition. Sadly, most drug lords would have seen through such an outfit, so in her move to get close to said drug lord, she’d been forced to don one more…appealing.

  Hence the skirt. And the flip-flops.

  Riley’s fingers were cramping. She flexed them, trying to dig into the brick more firmly. Her feet swung free, her toes curled in an effort to keep her stupid shoes from falling off. That would have been just what she needed—to have her position given away by a falling shoe.

  Betrayal by Shoe was not on her list of ideal ways to bite the bullet.

  Neither was falling five stories to her death on the cracked sidewalk below.

  The crunch of gravel on the roof alerted Riley to someone above her. She sucked in a breath and relaxed, pressing against the building, resting her pale cheek on the stone and closing her eyes, trying to enter her mental zone where she wasn’t fighting the growing pain in her trembling muscles. She picked her favorite memory, where she was laying on a beach somewhere far away with a big bottle of tequila in her hand, a dark-haired man stretched out on the sand beside her, his smile easy and familiar and mischievous. The man’s sudden appearance jolted her out of her focused daydream and back into the steamy, humid air of Colombia. She opened her eyes in time to see the butt of a spent cigarette drop past her face. Her mark was right above her head, but she didn’t dare look up. She tensed, expecting a bullet in her skull at any moment.

  The bullet never came. Instead, her mark kicked a few rocks over the edge of the roof and began to retreat, perhaps to search for her elsewhere.

  Riley let out the breath she’d been holding and tried to decide the best way to get down from her perch. She shifted against the brick, angling her head to see the side of the building below. The fourth floor had a balcony, the railing almost flush against the side of the building. She was sure if she let go and fell at the right angle, she could make it onto the balcony. She measured the distance with her eyes. She was confident she could make it.

  Her bra chose that moment to chime out the Batman jingle.

  “Shit,” Riley hissed. She glanced down again, her stomach tensed with anxiety—she’d never been comfortable with heights—and then back up to the roof. She locked eyes with the man she’d been sent to eliminate: Emanuel Garza, full-time drug lord and part-time thorn in quite a few peoples’ sides. He was a seller of weapons that had been used to massacre more than one group of people, a purveyor of multitudes of drugs, and a vicious brute; his favorite method of dispatching enemies involved separating their heads from their bodies and leaving them on random roadsides. And he was looking at her with a scowl of anger on his face so heated it could have melted butter, his gun aimed right at her. Grinning despite the situation, Riley balanced her weight on one arm long enough to present the man and his gun with one raw, scrape-knuckled finger.

  Then she let go.

  Riley missed the fourth-floor balcony’s railing as she fell, and her stomach somersaulted as she plummeted past it. She didn’t have time to swear before slamming into the third-floor railing. Her head banged against the rail, but she had the presence of mind to wrap her sore fingers around it and haul herself up and over. She stumbled to the balcony’s concrete floor, tucked and rolled to absorb the impact, and came up on one knee. She hitched her flower-printed skirt up her right leg and pulled free the Sig Sauer P226 pistol from the modified holster strapped around her thigh. Then, throwing caution to the wind, she ripped open the balcony door and stumbled inside the condo, her world spinning.

  Riley’s bra started singing the Batman jingle again as she ran through the condo’s living room, skirting around an ugly black pleather couch and a couple of end tables. She careened off a counter that divided the kitchen from the living area on her way to the main entrance and grimaced at the jab of pain in her gut. Just what I need, another injury, she thought, shoving her hand up her shirt. It took only a second to free the cell phone from her bra, and she pressed it to her ear.

  “This better be Adam West, because I sure as hell could use some sort of drug lord repellent spray right now,” Riley snapped. She skidded to a halt and dropped into a crouch behind the counter, pressing back against it and holding her pistol at ready, as a familiar voice chuckled i
n her ear.

  “Good to hear you’re still alive and kicking,” the smooth voice of her handler, Brandon Hall, said.

  “Yeah, no thanks to you,” she quipped. She spat on the floor, trying to clear her mouth of the sickly taste of bile, and added, “Now I’ve got the damned Colombian version of the mafia on my ass because you can’t keep your finger off the redial button. There was a reason I had my phone on silent, you know. You didn’t have to turn the ringer on remotely.”

  “You were ignoring my calls.”

  “It cross your mind that I had a reason for that, too?”

  “Well, I have a reason for calling.”

  “Then get on with it already so I can get back to kicking ass, would you?” Riley leaned out from her spot to peer around the counter, checking the security of the condo’s front door. People yelled in the hallway in a language she didn’t understand. She gave it another three minutes before they located her and another minute after that before they accessed the condo. “And speak fast. I’m in a tight spot,” she ordered as an afterthought.

  As if that had flipped a switch labeled “personality” in his brain, Brandon’s voice shifted from teasing to serious. “Riley, we need you to come in,” he said. “Immediately.”

  Whatever was going on had to be urgent. There was no way he’d have used her real name over an unsecured line if it weren’t. The thought of someone listening in and gathering information about her gave her chills. She dug her heels into the metaphorical dirt and shook her head, even though Brandon couldn’t see the motion over the phone line.

  “In case you haven’t noticed,” she said, checking the door again, “I’m sort of in the middle of something.”