Free When Temptation Burns: A Shadow Keepers Novel (Shadow Keepers 6) by J.K. Beck

coaster Gretchen had made more than twenty years ago. “I don’t think you should have gone back.”
    Andy focused on the cookie, pretending she didn’t understand. “Back?”
    “To see him. That monster.” He shuddered. “You walked through my door, and I swear I felt cold. Like you’d brought back a piece of the devil himself.”
    She smiled at him fondly. “I’m not one of your parishioners, Daddy. The theatrics don’t work on me.”
    “I’m not being theatrical. There’s evil in the world, sweetheart. You know how I feel about you brushing up against it.”
    “We’ve been over this a hundred times. The opportunity to write about Creevey was too good to pass up.” That wasn’t entirely true. When she’d pitched the original article to the
LA Times
legal editor, she hadn’t realized how big the case would become. How muchattention it would garner because of Creevey’s pretty-boy looks and his ridiculous claims that he had connections to vampires. And it wasn’t until she was already deep in the thick of it that the prosecutors had added more counts, revealing to the public that Creevey was being charged with multiple brutal murders.
    She’d sought the story out not because she’d known it would make her career, but because she’d wanted a window into the mind of a man who could so willingly torture and kill a woman. She wanted to understand.
    That, however, wasn’t something she could tell her father. She told herself it was because she feared dredging up the memory of her mother and opening her father’s old wounds, but that wasn’t true either. The truth was that she wanted to understand how someone could do that—could so brutally take a life—and the only way she could do that was to look evil in the face. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell her father that she wanted to look that close because she was afraid he’d somehow think less of her.
    “I don’t want you to think I disapprove of your work, baby. What you’re doing is good. You’re shining light on things that have no business hiding in the dark. And the coverage you provided of that monster’s trial has paid off in your career. That article was a good investment of time.”
    “I know it was.” She’d already been approached by a publisher. If she could pitch an equally compelling piece, she just might be able to spin her newfound fame into a book deal. Heady stuff, if she could pull it off. That, of course, was the trick.
    “But at the same time,” her father continued, “I don’t know that it’s a good idea going back to that wateringhole. Now that you’re established, maybe you should focus on something … cleaner.”
    “You don’t want me writing a follow-up.”
    Her father shook his head. “No, but that’s only part of it.”
    “Daddy?” His expression was dark, so unlike his usually jovial persona, and it worried her.
    “You’ve been mingling with evil, Andrea. You’ve been seeking it out. And sometimes, when you look in dark corners, you find things that are better left hidden.”
    She realized that she’d lifted her hand to her neck and was idly toying with the cross. She pulled her hand away. “You’re talking like there’re monsters out there. Real ones, not just dangerous men like Creevey.”
    “As surely as there are angels, there are devils, too. And I don’t want my daughter butting heads with them.”
    She shook her head, not sure if he was speaking in metaphors. Her mother had always teased that another world existed alongside their own, but the world Gretchen had told her daughter about consisted of fairies and pixies living on flower petals. Gretchen hadn’t really believed it, of that Andy was certain. And she’d never before had the impression that her dad thought anything otherworldly existed on earth; that was the realm of heaven and hell, after all. A reason to be good and guard your soul, maybe, but nothing was going to jump out of your closet at night if you