"I, uh... I parked in back and went in the back door. He never even knew I"d been gone." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Now, will you please tell us what"s going on here? Who was that in the ambulance?"
The captain sighed, again addressing Lou and shutting Max out, which Lou knew p.i.s.sed her off. "We responded to a report of a prowler in your building, Lou. When we got here, your apartment door was open, the place was trashed, and there was a woman on the floor. She"d been shot in the head at close range. We found a twenty-two on the floor nearby, no prints." He turned. "Denny, where"s the weapon?"
"Right here, sir." Dennis held up an evidence bag as he hurried closer.
Lou looked at it and d.a.m.n near puked but tried to keep his poker face. "It"s mine. The spare I keep in the closet."
"I thought it probably was," Captain Dutton said. He turned, leading them forward up the stairs toward the apartment. "We"re gonna need you to look around, see if anything"s missing."
Lou nodded. He walked right behind the captain, Max still close beside him. "What about the woman?" Lou asked. "Is she dead?"
"They"re going through the motions," Dutton replied without looking back. "They don"t expect her to last the night, though. We figure she"d been lying there for five or six hours. We never did find any prowler, but one neighbor heard what could have been a gunshot around ten p.m. She thought it was a car backfiring and wrote it off. The ID in the victim"s bag read Jones. Tempest Jones. You know her?"
Max stopped walking. Lou turned to look at her even while processing the name, which seemed vaguely familiar. Then he forgot about it when he saw Max"s face, which had gone utterly white. Her jaw gaped, worked soundlessly, and her grip on his forearm tightened like a vise. Wide green eyes stared into his, moistening, and she whispered, "Stormy."
s.h.i.t. Maxine"s best friend. Max d.a.m.n near went backwards down the stairs when her knees gave. Her hand on his arm went lax, and she sort of sagged, but he grabbed her quickly, pulled her in close, figuring it was okay at a time like this. The captain turned. "Then you did know the victim?"
"She"s a friend," Lou said. Max"s arms had snapped around his waist, and her face was pressed into his shirt. He felt wetness there, but she cried silently. "Listen, Captain, can you just secure the place, post a man on it? I need to take Max to the hospital."
The captain made a face but nodded. "Yeah, sure, fine, but one thing, Lou. How well did you know this girl? This Tempest Jones?"
He shook his head. "Well enough to share doughnuts and coffee with her. Not well enough so I recognized her legal name right off. That good enough for you?"
The captain sighed, inclined his head. "Go on."
"Thanks." Lou moved Max"s body around his own, like shifting the position of a belt. He got her around to the side and managed to shuffle the two of them back down the stairs and past the tape to the car. Someone opened the pa.s.senger door for him, and he glanced up at Denny, gave him a nod of thanks.
Denny looked worried and maybe a little surprised. Sure he looked surprised. It must seem to him, to everyone here, as if he and Mad Maxie were some kind of couple. As if that could happen.
He eased her onto the pa.s.senger seat, and she still clung to him. "Hon, you gotta let go now, okay? Just for a minute, so I can drive us to the hospital. Hmm?"
Sniffling, she nodded against his chest, but it still took long seconds for her to loosen her grip on his neck. He put her seat belt around her, snapped it in place and closed her door. As soon as he was behind the wheel, she latched on to him again. Head on his shoulder, clutching his arm. Made it tough to drive. Not that he minded.
"What the h.e.l.l happened?" she asked him as he drove. "Why would Stormy go to your place?"
He licked his lips. "I don"t know. I just don"t freaking know, Max." Then he lowered his head. He didn"t like thinking what he was thinking. But all of this had happened after he"d made that phone call to his old friend at the CIA. And Stormy Jones was one of the people Max had said had been threatened by that goon five years ago.
It couldn"t be connected, though. G.o.dd.a.m.n, it couldn"t be.
Chapter 14.
*Dante did not intend to creep up to her window tonight, as he had done in the past. He planned to stride right up the walk to the front door, ring the bell and introduce himself when she opened it. Yes, it would shock her. But though physically fragile, he sensed she had emotional strength she hadn"t yet tapped. She would deal with the shock. And then she would answer to him for what she had done.
He climbed the sloping ground from the sh.o.r.e onto the gra.s.sy hilltop, then nearer, crossing the back lawn and circling the house. But when he got close his skin p.r.i.c.kled, not with the attraction he always felt as he drew close to her, but with warning.
Alert now, he looked around, seeing the strange vehicle in her driveway. He didn"t smell exhaust in the air. It must have been sitting there for at least a short time. Whoever was in the house with Morgan had been waiting for her when she had finally returned to the house.
Closing his eyes, Dante attuned his senses. As always, Morgan"s essence was clear and easy to locate. The other one was far more difficult to perceive. It took effort, almost as if the man-yes, it was a man-had constructed a wall around his mind. There was something about the stranger Dante didn"t like. He felt... dangerous.
Dante went up to the house, walked slowly around it, drawing one palm over the wood as he stepped around and between the plants and shrubs. They had not gone into the study. He didn"t know why, but he felt like congratulating her on that.
And then he did. Without even quite meaning to, he sent the message. Good thinking, Morgan. He doesn"t need to go in there.
It stunned him to the marrow when he heard her mind"s reply. That room is my special place. Mine... and Dante"s. No one goes in there.
She spoke to him and thought she was speaking to herself. Carrying on that internal dialogue that people tended to have with themselves. Never knowing that one side of the conversation was coming from someone else.
I don"t like this man, she was thinking.
He"s dangerous, Dante warned, quickly focusing on what was important. Be careful of him.
He knew she was nodding to herself, to him, even though he couldn"t see her. And then he reached the outer wall of the sitting room and felt the hum of her energy right through the wall. He stopped there, turning to face the side of the house, pressing both palms flat and probing his way deeper into her mind. And still deeper. When he felt resistance, he whispered in her brain, Open to me, Morgan. It"s only me. Let me come inside. You know I won"t hurt you.
And she did. With a shuddering sigh, she relaxed and let him in, all the way in. He found himself seeing through her eyes. Hearing with her ears. He didn"t take control. Wasn"t even certain he could if he tried, but it didn"t matter. That wasn"t the purpose of his being this close to her.
Protecting her was. Which was odd, considering he had come here furious enough to kill her himself. At least, he had convinced himself he was furious enough to do her harm. Now he wondered.
The man, the stranger, was standing with his back to Morgan, studying the layout of the house in false admiration, nodding in false approval. "Very nice, what you"ve done with the old place."
"I like it," she replied. "But you said you were here to interview me about my work, Mr. Stiles."
"Please, call me Frank. I realize I should get moving on this. I"d never have bothered you at four a.m. if I hadn"t seen you coming in. I don"t doubt you"re tired. It was awfully good of you to let me come in at all."
"Well, you did say you had driven six hours to get here in time to meet your deadline. But as I said, it"s going to have to be brief. Will you have a seat?"
She didn"t offer him refreshment. He didn"t ask. Instead, he turned as he took his seat in a ma.s.sive hardwood chair with lions" feet and a velvet cushion. Dante saw his face through Morgan"s eyes and felt his heart skip. Or was that Morgan"s heart?
The left side of the man"s face was mottled with pink flesh that looked like a melted rubber doll. The eyelid drooped, the cheek sagged, the lips twisted, and the ear was a misshapen lump. He wore a hairpiece on that side. Dante hadn"t spotted it at first, but now he could see that the hair was a slightly different shade and a bit less coa.r.s.e on one side of his head than on the other. It was a good job. Good enough to fool a mortal.
The scarred man smiled at her. To her credit, Morgan smiled back. But she, too, was sensing something off about the man, and it wasn"t due just to his appearance. She kept thinking it might be, chiding herself for being nervous because of a scar. The man couldn"t help that. But she kept sensing something wrong beyond the surface.
"You must be very excited about your award nomination," he said. "I think it"s well deserved."
"Thank you. Yes, I am quite overwhelmed that the film has been so well received."
"It"s a good film." He pulled out a notepad from a pocket, and then a pen. It looked exactly like the notepad you would expect a reporter to carry. Which was another red flag, as far as Dante was concerned. "But then again, so were the first two. Why do you think this one was so much more well-received?"
Dante"s heart seemed to stop beating. The first two?
"The first two films were much lower budget," Morgan said. "But even so, they gained a cult following that was beyond all our expectations. That, of course, led to our being able to release the third in a much bigger way."
The man nodded. "Is there a fourth in the works?"
"Of course."
The man nodded and scribbled and smiled, while Dante"s heart twisted itself into knots. "I think these films have a realism about them that other vampire films-indeed, nearly all horror films-tend to lack. The Dante character... he"s completely believable. Very real."
Morgan swallowed uncomfortably. He is real-to me, her mind whispered. Aloud she said, "Well, that"s the key to good fiction, you know. Making it believable."
"Indeed," the reporter said. "But this is beyond believable. It"s... well, it"s almost as if it"s a true story. And when I stumbled on the fact that your home was once owned by a man named Dante, well, I have to admit, I got curious."
Every nerve in Morgan"s body went taut. "What are you talking about, Mr. Stiles?"
"Oh, come on. It"s a matter of public record."
She shook her head slowly. "No," she said. "It"s not." Then she seemed to catch herself. "I don"t know where you got that information, but it"s incorrect. This place was abandoned by its former owner, a Mr. Daniel Taylor. The state claimed it when he died without an heir, and my uncle David bought it from them."
"Daniel Taylor was one of many aliases the vampire Dante has used over the years."
She made a face. Dante couldn"t see it, but he could feel her twisting her lips and bending her brows, as if she thought the man were speaking of something too stupid to even contemplate. "My goodness, you have a big imagination."
"It"s fact, Morgan. Just as the things in those films of yours are fact."
She got slowly to her feet. "You"re insane if you think vampires are factual, Mr. Stiles. And I don"t like entertaining insane strangers in my house in the dead of night. I think it"s time for you to leave."
"And I think it"s time for you to tell the truth. Vampires are real, Ms. De Silva. You know it, and I know it. Dante is real, and he"s going to be mad as h.e.l.l when he finds out you"ve been making major motion pictures out of his deep dark secrets."
She strode across the room, even as a cold shiver worked through her body. Across the foyer, toward the front door. She reached for the handle.
The man was close behind her all the way, and he put his hand over hers on the door k.n.o.b. "I"m not a reporter," he told her. "I work for the government. I"ve spent my life studying creatures like Dante, Ms. De Silva, and I know enough about them to know that you are in serious danger. If he finds you-"
"Get out." She jerked the door open despite his hand on hers. "Now, Stiles!"
"How did you learn all that information about him? Tell me."
She glared at him. "If you don"t leave, I"m going to call the police."
"I"m not going to let you do that."
Her hand moved, quick as a heartbeat, to the little numbered panel on the wall, fingers dancing over the security system"s b.u.t.tons before he could reach to stop her. "There. The police will be here in five minutes."
"I"m trying to help you. He"s a monster, Ms. De Silva. He"ll find you, and trust me, he"ll kill you unless you let me help."
She leaned toward him. "There are no such things as vampires," she whispered. Then she smiled as a siren sounded in the distance. "Hmm, quicker than I expected."
The man sighed his frustration, turned and ran out of the house, his gait uneven. She saw his car as he drove away and made a note of the license plate quickly before she closed the door, turned the locks. Then slowly, very slowly, she went still and silent as her mind replayed the words the man had said. That Dante was real. That he would be furious with her for sharing his secrets with the world. That he would kill her.
But he couldn"t kill her, she thought in an unfocused and vague way. He loved her. No, no, she corrected herself. She loved him. If he were real, he would love her, too, because there was no denying the power of that bond. But he wasn"t real. He didn"t exist. So he didn"t love her. And he certainly couldn"t hurt her.
Closing his senses, Dante retreated from her mind, slowly feeling his own flesh again. He opened his eyes, blinking his vision into focus. He moved his hands, clenching and releasing his fists a few times. The sirens were getting closer. Stiles was long gone. But now the police were on their way. So was the dawn, in a few more hours. And yet he didn"t go to Sarafina, or the house she had no doubt made ready and waiting. He didn"t go very far at all.
"He said he was a reporter," Morgan told the police officer who"d shown up. The way his siren had wailed, she"d half expected a small cop army to come crashing in on her. Instead, there was just the one fellow, a rather innocuous looking grandpa type. If he"d had a hair on his head or face, he could have played a convincing Santa. As it was, though, he had only the ready smile, the twinkling eyes and the belly. His uniform was midnight blue, almost black. He didn"t wear a hat, and his head was as shiny and pink as his cheeks. He"d introduced himself as Sandy Gray, which sounded more like a color than a name, she thought.
"So you let him in," Sandy said. "Did he show you any ID?"
She shook her head. She and Officer Sandy were standing in the foyer, face-to-face, he a hair shorter, she feeling less than rea.s.sured, and more tired by the minute. "Do you mind coming in where we can sit down?" she asked.
"Of course not." He followed as she led him through to the same sitting room where the man had been.
"I went for a long walk today. It made me realize how out of shape I am. It really wiped me out." She sat in her favorite chair. The cop remained standing, and she figured she could understand that. At last he was taller that way. She didn"t even mind.
"You said the man gave you his name," he prompted, drawing her back to the subject.
"Yes. Stiles. Frank Stiles. It didn"t seem like a made-up name at the time."
He jotted it down.
"He had a notepad, like yours there. A pen, instead of a pencil. Said he"d been waiting for the chance to interview me about the award nomination, and that he"d driven six straight hours just to interview me in time for a morning deadline."
The man nodded. He knew about the nomination. Since seeing the theater marquees, Morgan realized that everyone in town knew about it by now.
"Then what happened?"
She drew a breath. "I brought him in here. He sat over there." She pointed. "Asked me a couple of questions. I started getting the feeling he wasn"t really a reporter at all."
"Really? What did he say to make you suspicious?"
She blinked. "I don"t know. Nothing, really, it was just a feeling." She shrugged and moved quickly past the topic. "I asked him to leave, and he refused. He seemed vaguely menacing, and so I hit the security panel"s alarm b.u.t.ton. As soon as he realized what I had done, he ran off."
He nodded. "So he didn"t harm you in any way?"
"No."
"And he didn"t take anything?"
"No."
He folded his notebook. "I don"t really see that a crime has been committed here."
She tipped her head to one side and stared at him.
"Well, not leaving right away when told to isn"t exactly criminal behavior."
She sighed. "I suppose not. But this is not your everyday situation, Officer. I mean, I"m not trying to be a b.i.t.c.h here, but I am something of a celebrity. I think he wants something, and I think he"ll be back."
He studied her face. "Obsessed fan? That sort of thing?"
"Sure. It"s possible, isn"t it?"
That, more than anything else she had said, seemed to work. The officer turned it over in his mind and nodded.
"Why don"t you give me a description, ma"am? We"ll have everyone keep an eye out for this character."