Deep Within The Shadows (The Superstition Series Book 1) Read Free

over the crook of her elbow. “If ever you need me, or just want to visit, my door is always open.”
    “Thank you, Aubrey.”
    Miranda watched her walk out and turn left, heading for the side parking lot. Susan, one of the work-study students, came back to the desk from shelving books.
    “If you’ll wait until Vivian comes back to man the checkout desk, then you can go, Susan.”
    “Will do, Ms. Templeton.”
    She studied the student a moment. Her skin looked paler than usual against a tawny mane that fell midway down her back. Half-moon shaped circles discolored the skin beneath her cat-shaped eyes.
    “Are you—eating as you should?” Miranda asked, her voice dropping. “You don’t want to let yourself get run down.”
    On a campus filled with the unknown, it only took one slip to throw the whole balance off and draw attention where it wasn’t wanted. Finding one of the human students unconscious and suffering a case of instant anemia might send up red flags.
    “My boyfriend is picking me up and bringing me—something. I can hold out until then.”
    Since there weren’t many students in the library, Miranda took another moment to assess the girl.
    “I’m good, Ms. Templeton,” Susan assured her. “It’ll only be five or ten minutes more.”
    “Okay. I trust you to know your limits.”
    The girl smiled.
    With one concern dealt with, and Aubrey’s warning still resonating through her, Miranda took the back stairs directly to the third floor and strolled between the heavy wooden bookcases, straightening and adjusting the books. There was a comforting repetition to this task, and she could usually lose herself in it. By the time she finished a circuit of the room, and found nothing, her tension had eased.
    She checked both bathrooms, and finding them empty, moved on to the study areas.
    The midnight warning chime sounded, and she heard the two students she’d spotted scuffle down the stairs. She glanced over the railing that opened the third floor to the main floor commons area to search for Vivian, and found her at the desk checking out books.
    Miranda paused a moment to look across the empty space to the other areas of the library. The structure—a huge, unwieldy rectangle on the outside—had an unexpected grace in the interior. The open space in the center of the library shot upward to the roof, where a multi-paned skylight stretched across the full distance of the first floor. A third quarter moon shone down through the panes, the summer sky clear of clouds.
    The offices across the commons were locked down tight and dark except for the security lights that burned here and there. She’d closed and secured the technology center herself half an hour earlier.
    The sound of the front door opening downstairs drew her attention. At the same time Susan and another student were leaving, Caleb Faulkner wandered in. Spotting her near the third floor railing, he tilted his head back to look up at her.
    “Hey, Mandy.”
    His deep, masculine voice with its husky undertone echoed in the open space and triggered a sharp pang of longing. What would it be like to hear that voice whisper in her ear while they made love? Why did she want someone she could never—? She cut off the thought. She could, if she allowed herself to set aside all her baggage and just reach for it. Every time she looked into Caleb’s eyes, she knew he was waiting for her to do it.
    “I’ll be right down. I have to check the second floor and make sure everyone’s gone.”
    He nodded. She descended the stairs to the second floor, straightened the study area, placed a couple of magazines tossed on a table back in the appropriate rack, and did a quick walk-through between the shelves to make sure there were no lingerers.
    She knocked on the men’s restroom door and heard thumps and heavy breathing, so she paused at the threshold.
    Surely they weren’t… Yes, they were. She could see the tangle of feet and clothes about their ankles. She