Here is the next chapter, and thank you for the reviews and support for the story. You guys are awesome! Now, the new DA causes some problems for our vamps. Enjoy!

Chapter 3

It was late afternoon on a cloudy day in Los Angeles, and Ben Talbot welcomed the respite from the sun. He was in his office at Talbot Walker Associates, on an upper floor at the Kostan Building, studying some merger papers for a vampire business in Seattle. When he and Simone started the law firm, they sent out information to all vampire companies that dealt with Kostan Industries, notifying them that their new practice catered to 'special' clients. They had been inundated with business from across the US as well as other countries. They had to bring in several part-time front desk employees, specifically from the ranks of donors that Josef was assisting through school. Amy was on duty now while Sofia Harrison, their paralegal, was filing some documents at the courthouse.

Ben put aside the contracts with a sigh. Simone usually handled mergers, while he focused on liability issues. It wasn't trial work, but he was able to interact directly with clients and that's what he enjoyed. He still had his eye on political office, and hoped in a few years he would be comfortable enough as a vampire to take on the State legislature.

His sensitive hearing picked up someone talking in the outer office. In a moment, Amy opened the door and entered, closing it behind her. She looked at him with a little frown, "Mr. Talbot, there's a Mr. Hemmings, from the DA's office to see you."

Ben tried not to react in surprise, and said, "Send him in, Amy."

She quickly exited and ushered the visitor in. Ben stood, taking in the human. He perceived the man was a little uncertain. Ben held out his hand and said, "Ben Talbot, glad to meet you."

The man smiled, and returned, "Rob Hemmings. I'm the new District Attorney for LA."

"Have a seat," Ben said, resuming his chair. "How can I help you?"

Rob studied Ben Talbot before replying. He'd heard some about him from office staff. They liked the former ADA and were sorry he left. Now he said, "I was hoping you could help with an unsolved case from a couple of years ago."

"Oh? What case is that?'

"The murder of a Hearst basketball player, Dominic Michaels."

Ben stiffened, and cursed himself for letting the human see it. "Not our finest hour," Ben smiled ruefully, playing off his reaction.

"I thought I'd start with you since your team headed the investigation. I've read the reports but wanted to hear your thoughts about what happened."

Back in control, Ben answered, "We had the proof and the perp, but she got away. We tried tracking her, but she and her husband disappeared." Ben knew the real story; that Emma and Jackson Monahan were vampires, and after Emma accidently killed her lover Dominic, she was arrested and then threatened to reveal the vampire community. Josef and Mick along with others, helped Emma escape only for her to be burned to death with her husband after being judged by the Cleaners. Ben knew that Emma and Jackson would never be found, so he relaxed a little.

"Everything was a dead end. After going over all the evidence we could find, we figured her husband was behind her escape, but he disappeared as well. I'm betting they had new identities and got out of the country. No new leads came in and we had to put it aside for other cases."

Rob sat back in his chair. "I know how that goes. I think there are still some anomalies about Emma's escape."

"What did we miss?" Ben asked, frowning.

"I'd rather not say until I look into it further."

"Is your office reopening the case?" Not good, Ben thought.

"No, I'm looking into it on my own," Rob smiled. "I like to dig into interesting unsolved cases—it's kind of a hobby of mine."

Ben could tell the new DA wasn't going to give him any further details, so he said, "I'd appreciate it if you could keep me in the loop if you find anything. That case was one of the failures on my watch."

"Sure," Rob said as he stood up. "I understand."

Handing over his business card, Ben escorted the human to the door. Amy watched as Ben closed the door and turned to her sharply, "I don't want to be disturbed."

Amy nodded, her eyes wide. Ben was usually a very easy going vampire. "Is everything all right?" she asked.

He felt her concern and said, "Nothing to worry about," he replied. Yet. "When Sofia gets back send her to my office, please."

Ben went back to his desk and picked up his phone. He needed to call Megan.

"Hello," she answered.

"Hi, honey," Ben said.

Immediately, Megan could tell something was wrong. "What's happened?"

"I can't talk on the phone, where are you?"

"I'm at the store looking for a new laptop, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. How soon can to get to the office?"

"In about twenty minutes. I'll be there as soon as I can." She hung up and Ben felt relieved. He wasn't a fledgling anymore, but he still relied on her in stressful situations.

Ben turned back to his contracts to try to finish them before Megan arrived. He was emailing the final documents to Simone when Megan came in. He could feel her love and concern. "Ben, what's happened?"

He led her to the sofa and said, "I had a visit today from the new DA."

Megan shook her head. "I hadn't heard there was a new DA. Who is he?"

"No one I know."

"Why did he want to see you?"

Ben took an unneeded breath. "He's investigating the Emma Monahan case."

It took a moment for Megan to remember. "Why, have they found more evidence?"

"No," Ben responded. "It's this DA's hobby to investigate cold cases and he found the police files on the Monahans. I worked on the case when it happened, but I don't know much from the vampire perspective."

"I wasn't here either, but I heard a little about it from Josef." Megan turned to Ben in alarm. "Oh, we have to tell Josef. He's going to be upset."

Ben smirked, "That's why I wanted to talk to you first. Josef needs to know, but I don't want him going off the deep end until we find out what this guy might have."

Just then, Sofia came in. "Amy said you wanted to see me." She took in Megan and Ben and knew whatever was going on, it wasn't good. They filled her in on the DA's visit and she shook her head.

Sofia said, "Josef's going to go ballistic. And you're not sure how much the DA knows?"

"No and that's why we have to handle this carefully," Megan said.

"You should talk to Mick. From what I understand, he was involved in the whole thing. He may be able to keep Josef from killing the guy."

Ben and Megan nodded. That was what they feared as well.

"We don't want that," Megan said. Even though Josef was the Elder of the region, Megan, as well as Ewan, were older and could pull rank if necessary, dealing with an angry Josef was never pleasant.

"I think we'd better see Mick as soon as we can," Ben said.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

"Did you find anything?" Mick called.

Beth came to the top of the stairs, "No nothing up here."

With vampire speed, Mick joined her in the sprawling home of the deceased vampire, Max Fletcher. They were looking for anything that might have contributed to the mysterious death.

Mick looked at his wife and thought how beautiful she was in her low-slung jeans and short midriff-baring tee shirt. They were alone in the large house. Mick could see the temptingly cold swimming pool through the window. He sighed to himself, knowing they needed to finish checking the house for any possible links to the death.

They had spoken to Marie, the exclusive freshie who found Max's body. She was still staying at Josef's until they found the cause of death. Marie had been nervous, but willing to help. She told the couple that Max had changed his habits in the last few weeks, and was actually spending time outside. He told her he had some new treatment that made him immune to the sun.

Beth said, "There's nothing in the bathroom or bedroom, just hairbrushes and things."

"Did you find the freezer?"

She nodded, "Yes, nothing of interest in there either."

Mick rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. "How about the trash?"

"Good idea. We'll finish up here first."

They headed for the bedroom, but found nothing of consequence. After checking the downstairs rooms, they went to the garage trash bin.

"Ewww," Beth gasped. There were times when enhanced senses were a liability.

"C'mon, sweetheart, lets finish this up and get home to a shower," Mick grinned as he dumped out the bin onto the floor.

It only took a few minutes to find a capped bottle that was labeled EverSun. It was empty, and Beth handed it to Mick.

He read everything on the bottle. "It doesn't say much—no ingredients, and no other information, just an email address to reorder. We don't even know if this is relevant to the death."

Beth took it from him, and said, "Well, we'd better place an order and see what's in this stuff."

"Okay, but let's buy it using Max Fletcher's name and credit card."

"Good idea," Beth said. They locked up and left. It was after dark, so Mick put the top down on the Benz for the drive back downtown. "Fletcher had a nice place," Mick commented.

"Um-hmm," Beth said, her thoughts elsewhere.

"Did you like the house?" Mick asked.

"Yes," she said, her focus returning to her husband. "Why?"

He stretched in the seat a little. "I don't know, I was thinking it might be nice to have a larger place. With a pool."

"Mick, you want to buy Fletcher's house?"

"What do you think?"

"Well….it could be a weekend getaway. It's pretty far from downtown and it's already set up for vampires, but we don't know who it belongs to now," Beth said.

"Josef would know. When we're done with this case, we can look into it if you want."

She smiled and scooted closer to Mick as they drove. "I think that would be a good idea."

Mick's phone rang and he said, "Speaking of Josef." He handed the phone to Beth who answered on speaker. "Hi, Josef."

"Beth, where's Mick?"

"I'm driving, Josef. We're heading back from Fletcher's house."

"Did you find anything?" Josef sounded impatient.

"We have something we need to follow up on," Mick responded.

"What is it?"

"We don't know yet, we have to look into it," Beth answered.

They could hear Josef growl on the other end. Beth rolled her eyes and said, "C'mon Josef, we'll let you know as soon as we find out. Why don't you go corner the market in Bangkok or something?"

"Hmmf," Josef grunted. "All right, Blondie. Don't take too long." They heard a click as Josef hung up.

"He wouldn't let me get away with that," Mick grinned.

"Yeah, well he knows Simone wouldn't be happy if he was rude to me."

Mick's phone rang again. Beth looked down and saw it was Ben. "Guess you're popular tonight. Hello?"

"Beth? I was looking for Mick," Ben said.

"He's driving right now, so I'm playing secretary. What can we do for you?" Beth knew Mick could hear the other end of the conversation.

"There's a problem and we need to talk with Mick. You too, of course. If you're close to your place Megan and I can come over."

"What's wrong?" Mick asked.

"I don't want to go into it over the phone."

"All right." Mick took his bearings. "I think we're closer to your condo. We can be there in fifteen minutes."

"Great. I'll tell the concierge to let you up." Ben and Megan like most vampires, lived in a secure building.

When they got to their friends place, Mick rang the doorbell and was immediately admitted by Megan. She greeted the couple and offered refreshments. When they had their blood and scotch, Mick asked, "What's going on?"

Ben took a sip and said, "I had a visitor today. Robert Hemmings the new DA. He told me he's investigating Emma Monahan's disappearance."

Both Mick and Beth sat up. "What?" Mick growled.

"He came to me because I was the Assistant DA at the time." Ben told his friends about Hemming's visit and what he learned.

"So he's not officially opening the case?" Beth asked.

"No, but he said he had some things he wanted to investigate. He wouldn't elaborate."

Mick thought furiously and ran over that unhappy time in his mind. Emma had been adamant that she would expose the vampire community, so they had to engineer her escape from the human police. Did they miss something? "We don't know what he might find," Mick commented.

"I know," Ben said. "We have to tell Josef but I don't want him going crazy and killing the DA. You know that's going to be his first thought."

"Right," Mick sighed.

"Did the DA tell you what he was planning?" Beth asked.

Ben shook his head. "He didn't tell me anything. I asked him to keep me in the loop, but he might not."

"We need to find out what he's doing," Megan chimed in. "If he's working on his own time, he's probably doing it at home. We need to get into his house and bug the hell out of it."

Megan's comment surprised everyone. "Good idea," Beth approved. "Maybe we can keep Josef from killing him outright. We could get Logan to try and hack Hemming's home computer and keep track that way."

"We still have to tell Josef," Mick said, glumly.

Beth took her husband's hand. "We can go over there tomorrow night, after we get Logan set up. We'll have to find out Hemming's schedule so we can get into his place."

Ben sat back in relief. "Thanks, you guys. I don't want to be responsible for a death, but I know we have to tell Josef."

"Don't worry, Ben," Beth said with a smile. "We'll monitor this guy and hopefully he'll get tired of dead ends and give up."

Ben stood, along with their guests. "Let me know if there's anything I can do."

The couple took a detour to Logan's basement. After suitable money changed hands, the vampire computer geek agreed to help monitor Hemming's house. They ended up telling Logan about the investigation into the Monahan's disappearance.

"So why am I keeping track of this guy? Why not just kill him?" Logan asked.

Beth rolled her eyes. "We want to avoid that if we can. It would cause more trouble than it's worth."

"All right, he who has the gold makes the rules. As long as you're paying me," Logan grinned.

"Okay, man. Record anything you find," Mick said.

The couple left the basement and Mick grunted when he slouched behind the driver's seat.

"Tired, sweetheart?" Beth asked. It had been a long night.

"Yeah," he responded.

"Let's get home. I think we deserve an ice bath then the freezer."

"You read my mind," Mick grinned, pulling Beth closer to him as he drove.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Josef Kostan was still in his office getting ready to leave. He'd been on a conference call with London and was looking forward to seeing Simone at home. His private line rang, and he frowned in annoyance. Not recognizing he number he answered cautiously, "Hello?"

"Mr. Kostan, it's Rosa Chavez, you remember?"

It took a moment for his memory to click in on Rosa. Back in the 70's he'd been in Chicago as Charles Fitzgerald for a while and she was one of his freshies. Years later when Rosa retired, she came to LA and happened to see his picture in the paper. She contacted him to let him know she was in town. He'd given her his number, but it had been a while and he'd lost track of her.

"Yes, Rosa, I remember. How are you?"

"Fine, as always. Getting on a bit, but still enjoying life," she replied.

"I'm glad. What can I do for you?" Josef asked. If one of his old donors needed something, he would always help.

"It's what I can do for you, Josef. I'm working for the city, part time in the records department. Been here five years now."

"Yes?"

"I'll get to the point." Rosa knew Josef was all about the bottom line. "The district attorney's office had me pull some old files a couple of weeks ago. All of them came back to be re-filed except the one for Emma Monahan."

"What do you know about that?" Josef asked, dismayed.

He heard a soft chuckle on the other end. "Don't worry Josef, your secrets are safe with me, or should I say us. There's a group of your former freshies that get together once in a while and I heard about the Monahans from them."

Josef shook his head to himself. It seemed the grapevine was alive and well. "You say the DA has the file?"

"Yes. I'm friends with some people up on his floor and they said he likes to work cold cases on his own time. I have no idea why he picked the Monahans, but I wanted to tell you about it."

"Do you know if he's found anything?"

"No, but I'll try to find out."

"Thank you, Rosa. If you hear anything else—"

"I'll call you immediately. Don't worry Josef, the ladies and I have your back."

"Tell them hello," Josef smirked as he hung up. He'd look into Rosa and her friends later. Now he walked to the window where the first streaks of dawn showed over the buildings.

Damn Emma Monahan, Josef thought to himself. Her reckless behavior had put them all at risk and she'd suffered the true death. Now it seemed Emma was coming back to haunt the vampire community.

Josef growled a little. He couldn't allow threats to his region. This new district attorney was going to have to disappear.

TBC

Oops, Josef found out sooner than Mick and Beth wanted. Between the DA and the unexplained death, our vamps have their work cut out for them.

Thanks for reading and reviewing, I appreciate all of you out there!

Mick sat at his desk, reading the report from Dr. Allison Linn