Day Shift (midnight, Texas, #2)

The second novel in the Midnight, Texas series is set in a tiny, isolated town in rural Texas where the few remaining residents harbor supernatural secrets. Manfred Bernardo, a young psychic who works from home, notices construction crews converging on the long-defunct Río Roca Fría Hotel. His neighbors gather to watch: Fiji Cavanaugh, a witch who runs an occult shop; Bobo Winthrop, who owns Midnight Pawn; and Joe Strong and Chuy Villegas, a couple who run the Antique Gallery and Nail Salon. Joe speaks with the project manager, Eva Culhane, and learns the hotel will reopen as a mixed-use facility for long-term and elderly residents under a company called MultiTier Living. At an evening meeting, Olivia Charity, who lives in the pawnshop basement with her lover, the vampire Lemuel Bridger, insists they investigate the owners. Manfred traces MultiTier Living to a vast conglomerate called Chisholm Multinational, but the connection raises more questions than it answers.

Five months later, Manfred travels to Dallas for in-person psychic readings at an upscale hotel called Vespers. He spots Olivia in the lobby and later sees her dining with an older couple. The next morning, police remove two bodies from a nearby room: Stuart and Lucy Devlin died in an apparent murder-suicide. Olivia tells Manfred the Devlins were old acquaintances. That afternoon, his longtime client Rachel Goldthorpe, a wealthy Bonnet Park widow in her midsixties, arrives for a reading. She looks wretched, recovering from pneumonia, and confides that her troubled adult son Lewis has moved into her pool house and tried to seize her jewelry, forcing her to hide her diamonds and rubies. During the séance, Manfred contacts Rachel's dead husband, Morton. Morton's spirit surges through Manfred and into Rachel, and she dies almost instantly. When Lewis arrives at the hotel, he screams that Manfred murdered his mother and stole jewelry from her purse.

Back in Midnight, Manfred tells Fiji and Bobo what happened. Meanwhile, Fiji sees the Reverend Emilio Sheehan, a taciturn minister who runs the town's pet cemetery and wedding chapel, accept custody of a small boy from a tall, bald stranger who departs in tears. Fiji's talking cat, Mr. Snuggly, inherited from her late great-aunt Mildred Loeffler, tells her the stranger is "like the Rev." The boy, Diederik, has dark hair and striking purple eyes. He is polite and eager but grows visibly older each day, aging from a small child to a teenager in a matter of days. The residents take turns caring for him while the Rev offers no explanation.

Lewis's public accusations bring news crews to Midnight, threatening the privacy the residents depend on. Sheriff Arthur Smith of Davy County interviews Manfred, focusing on Rachel's water bottle, a black refillable bottle decorated with butterflies. Manfred's original lawyer drops him after Lewis hires the same firm, so Manfred retains Magdalena Orta Powell, a formidable attorney in nearby Davy. Meanwhile, the Midnight Hotel officially opens, managed by Lenore and Harvey Whitefield and housing several elderly residents recruited from a dangerous situation in Las Vegas. The Rev instructs Olivia to find the missing jewelry and end the media attention, especially to protect Diederik from scrutiny.

Olivia disguises herself as a home health worker and gains entry to the Goldthorpe house in Bonnet Park but finds nothing. That night, she returns to break in but is ambushed by Falco, an agent of Olivia's wealthy estranged father. She fights free and kills him. Manfred, who psychically sensed Olivia in danger, calls Lemuel. Lemuel, on a layover in Dallas while traveling to find translators for ancient magic books discovered in the pawnshop, reaches Olivia and rearranges Falco's body to obscure the circumstances.

Manfred, Olivia, Joe, and Chuy hold a séance to contact Rachel. Her spirit possesses Manfred and says she hid the jewelry in Morton's study, "inside" something, and mentions seeing "the world" before the connection breaks. Olivia devises a plan, recruiting three of the hotel's elderly residents, Tommy Quick, Suzie, and Mamie, to pose as Morton's old friends retrieving loaned books from his study. Joe and Chuy decline to participate, citing rules that prevent their involvement unless Midnight itself is directly threatened. Barry Horowitz, a newly arrived telepath and grandson of another hotel resident, Shorty, agrees to join the mission.

Inside the Goldthorpe house, Olivia spots a large globe in Morton's study and connects it to Rachel's words about "the world," recognizing it as a piece likely designed with hidden compartments. Barry reads Lewis's agitated thoughts and picks up that Lewis feared Rachel would reveal something about the maid Bertha to Manfred. Lewis calls the police, but the group talks their way out.

Joe senses approaching danger and warns all residents to stay indoors after dark. He connects Diederik's rapid growth to the lunar cycle, concluding the boy and the Rev are both weretigers. After injuring his ankle on a run and finding himself stranded after dark, Joe unfurls brilliant white angel wings and flies back to Midnight. On the nights of the full moon, massive tigers prowl the streets while residents lock themselves inside. Arthur Smith visits Manfred to report that Rachel was murdered: Toxicology results show six times the normal dose of her blood pressure medication dissolved in her water bottle, ingested before she arrived at Manfred's room.

Barry's cover is blown when Shorty inadvertently reveals his grandson's real name to a deputy, attracting agents from a vampire enclave in Dallas. Manfred stages a press conference outside Fiji's shop, ostensibly to deny Lewis's charges and announce Magdalena as his lawyer, but the real purpose is to draw the agents' attention so Barry can escape town safely.

On the final night of the full moon, Lewis drives to Midnight in a rage after seeing the press conference and pounds on Manfred's door. Manfred pulls him inside just as two tigers appear. Bertha, who has followed Lewis, is spotted outside the window. Diederik, in his first transformation, kills her before the larger tiger, his father Quinn, can intervene. Inside, Lewis reveals that Morton's will leaves the estate to "the heirs of his body," which includes John, Bertha's son, whom Lewis claims is Morton's illegitimate child. Lewis accuses Bertha of poisoning Rachel. Olivia later discovers through public records that John faces vehicular manslaughter charges and needs money for his legal defense, providing a motive for Bertha's act. When Olivia returns to dispose of the body, she finds it already gone, quietly handled by the Rev.

Magdalena's anonymous phone tip leads the Bonnet Park police to find Rachel's jewelry inside the globe. Manfred is officially cleared. Arthur Smith reports that Lewis told police he saw tigers eat his housekeeper, but no one believes him. Bertha has vanished, and Rachel's daughters are considering having Lewis committed. Quinn, a weretiger who works as a supernatural event planner, explains that Diederik's mother died after giving birth and that he left the boy with the Rev to protect him from the supernatural community, where young weretigers risk being forced into fighting pits. The town agrees to help raise Diederik.

The novel closes with the community gathering for dinner at Home Cookin, Midnight's only restaurant, where a convenience store robbery is thwarted by Arthur Smith and the cook, Madonna Reed, wielding her shotgun. Magdalena, dining with the group, observes that the people of Midnight are "all very odd." Outside, Manfred watches Quinn, the Rev, and Diederik standing together, three weretigers in human form, and notices a white feather drift from Joe's shoulder, a quiet reminder of the angel wings Joe revealed during the full moon.