Read The Metaphysical Detective (A Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery) for Free Online Page A

crisp cotton bed sheets against her bare skin.  There was a new smell in the room.  She frowned, keeping her eyes closed, trying to identify it.  The sheets rustled and her eyelids flew open.
    Slowly, so as not to make a noise, she turned her head to the left.  Donovan lay beside her, his chiseled countenance relaxed in sleep.  She looked up at the white ceiling.  Oh, God.  What had she done?  She thought back to the night before.  They had finished the bottle – of course.  One didn’t leave a bottle like that one.  And then… had there been another?  A third?  Nothing like this had ever happened to her before.  She’d been drunk before, but not for years, and never like this.  She clutched the sheets to her chest.  Had they – ?  She couldn’t remember.  She’d never had a memory loss, not even during her days in the wild east, doing vodka shots with aging nomads and corrupt cops. 
    Was this what she had sunk to?  Unable to open herself to a real relationship, she’d allowed herself to get drunk and fall into a lonely, one-night stand?  Pathetic.
    She slithered out of bed, careful not to wake him.  By all rights she should have felt like death after drinking that much.  But she felt okay – no headache, no dry mouth, no queasy stomach.  In fact, she felt terrific, unusual since she was not a morning person.  So she hadn’t been drugged, at least.  The after-effects of that were unmistakable. 
    She grabbed clothes at random from her closet and headed to the guest bathroom, wanting to be naked as far from Donovan as her condo would permit.  Riga needn’t have bothered, he was still sound asleep when she returned to get a pair of boots from her bedroom, his bare chest rising and falling steadily with each breath. 
    How late had it been when they’d finally returned home?  She blanched, wondering if he had noticed her affliction.  He had to have seen, unless he’d been too drunk to notice.
    Riga toasted sourdough bread and smeared orange marmalade on it, considering what the hell was wrong with her and what to do about him.  Should she wake him up?  Throw him out?  She took a bite and wandered to the sliding glass door to her balcony, and the view of the bridge.  A coil of fog twined around the top of one of the bridge towers, but it would burn off soon.  The sun sparkled off the water and Riga felt her mood lift. 
    She frowned.  What had happened last night was inexplicable and out of character and wrong.  If she could shrug off her guilt this easily, something was seriously off.  And yet today, the world seemed ineffably beautiful and she felt lucky to be a part of it, particularly this little jewel-like corner. 
    Something was seriously wrong.
    The wine last night had been intoxicating from the moment it touched her lips, but it was a kind of intoxication she had never known before, heightening her senses rather than dulling them, lifting her spirit rather than drowning it. Some of that feeling still lingered.  The wine had expanded her, as if the boundary of her skin had fallen away and she was a part of it all. And there was something else, something that was and was not her.  Her mind groped for it, but it slipped away. The door closed, it was gone. 
    She found herself longing for more.
    Wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong.
    Riga found her keys on the kitchen counter.  She didn’t want to face Donovan, and wasn’t sure if this stemmed from shame or an unwillingness to break the spell.  Her car was parked in its space on the street, she was relieved to see.  She hadn’t abandoned it at the restaurant. 
    Riga passed it by, preferring the walk to her office.  It was warmer today, but she was glad she’d worn her suede jacket.  Her heels clicked on the steep pavement, knees groaning in protest at the angle of the hill. 
    A homeless man raved on a corner, his gray beard matted.  He clenched his fists, raised them in the air.  “She’s coming!  It’s the end!  The