Read Bad Vibrations: Book 1 of the Sedona Files for Free Online

a little too penetrating. He certainly didn’t look like your standard-issue UFO crackpot. I found myself wondering what he was a doctor of.
    Then, “All right. Five minutes.” He turned back to the woman with the platinum beehive and said, “Let everyone know I’ll be a little late.”
    She nodded but apparently couldn’t resist sending me another annoyed glance. “Of course, Paul.”
    So his name was Paul. I filed that away, and waited while she disappeared somewhere backstage and he came down the risers they were using as steps to the platform. As he approached, he seemed a lot taller than he had back at El Churro. Maybe it had something to do with the half-frown creasing his forehead.
    “Where’s the bar?” I asked.
    “Why on earth do you want to go to the bar?”
    “Because I have a feeling you’re going to want a drink after you hear this.”
    The hotel’s lobby lounge featured moody neon lighting and sleek black furniture. Appropriate—I almost felt as if I were aboard a UFO. Paul Oliver sat down across from me at a small two-seat table but waved off the waitress when she approached. Obviously he didn’t think he was going to be giving me anything more than the agreed-upon five minutes.
    I resisted the urge to order a drink, but did ask for some Perrier just so we wouldn’t seem like complete freeloaders.
    The waitress left, and he leveled a very direct gaze at me. “So precisely what is so important, Ms. O’Brien?”
    There wasn’t any way to phrase it without sounding like a complete idiot. “Do you believe aliens can possess human beings, Dr. Oliver?”
    That threw him a little. He sat back in his chair and tilted his head slightly, as if considering. “What makes you ask?”
    “This morning I had a client come to me who was convinced that his girlfriend had been taken over by some sort of alien intelligence. He was quite adamant about it.”
    “Client?”
    I didn’t bother to lie. What would be the point? He’d only find out sooner or later. You didn’t get a lot of different hits when you Googled “Persephone O’Brien.”
    “I’m a psychic.”
    Almost at once a shuttered expression took over his face.
    “Don’t you dare get all judgey,” I snapped. “Not when you’re the guy who just gave the keynote speech at a UFO convention.”
    “Symposium,” he said absently, and then almost smiled. The softening of his expression did all sorts of wonderful things to his features…and a few interesting things to my stomach as well. This might have been easier if he weren’t so damn good-looking. “What kind of psychic?”
    Somehow I managed to gather my wits. “Clairsentience and precognition mostly, although I’ve done some psychometry as well if the wind is coming from the right direction.” That comment prompted an actual smile, and I went on, hoping I wasn’t blushing and, if I was, that the lounge’s dim lighting hid most of it, “I get a good deal of input from Otto, my spirit guide. He said I had to come here tonight but wouldn’t tell me why. I’ve learned to follow Otto’s directions or risk the consequences. So I came here, and saw that the hotel was hosting a UFO con—symposium, and the pieces came together. He must have sent me here so I could get your advice.”
    “Shouldn’t your spirit guide be the one providing you with advice?” Paul’s tone was amused, but not so much so that I could construe it as mocking me.
    “Not always. Not if it’s something that affects me directly.”
    “And how does it? I thought you said it was a client who had come to you with the problem.”
    “Otto wouldn’t tell me. But he looked…worried. So tell me, Dr. Oliver, was my client crazy? Or is alien possession something that can actually occur?”
    For a long moment he didn’t say anything. During that silence, the waitress arrived with my Perrier. She set it down in front of me, then asked, “Anything else?”
    He spoke up then. “Vodka martini, two olives.”
    I