Midnight Reign

by Chris Marie Green

  And maybe she could also get some of what Breisi used to get from Frank: smoothies, quiet nights, understanding from another person in their business. Daisies. God knows she needed that anchor tonight of all nights—and not the kind The Voice provided. No, she needed another human. A hu-man.

  Breisi seemed to come to a conclusion. She glared at the door leading to the house, as if communing with it—or their boss. “I really don’t like this. Not at all.”

  “But you’ll arrange some Friend protection?”

  She clipped out a nod, then got out of the car. “Just be careful. Stay aware of everything.”

  Finally, Dawn was able to breathe. “I will. And, Breez?”

  She paused in closing the door.

  Dawn offered a thankful grin, not finding it necessary to say anything else.

  Because there was too damned much to say.

  AN hour later, she was relaxing on Matt’s futon, a glass of water in one hand, TV remote in the other. She was surfing channels while Matt microwaved popcorn in his kitchen, which was connected to the family room by a wall with a window cut out of it.

  Weird, weird, weird, she kept thinking. The two of them had never hung out like this, person to person. She couldn’t get over it.

  He lived in a real “regular guy” place that had been in his family for years and years—a cottage on Beachwood Drive. Palm trees and bird-of-paradise plants shaded his windows. White paint shimmered off the planks of the building’s facade, creating a serene, happy-in-a-pretty-expensive-neighborhood look. Inside, he’d decorated in alpha-male style: a studio lamp aimed toward the ceiling. A basketball backboard, complete with a net, propped against a bolted door, as if waiting to be relocated to a permanent outside home. An entertainment system much like Kiko’s, except where her temporary roommate was neat, Matt was not. He had the components sitting on boxy steel structures, the wires nevertheless wrapped in bundles. No pictures, no frills. Very Matt.

  “Find anything good on the tube?” he asked as he carried out the popcorn in a large plastic bowl.

  At his approach, she’d stopped on a random channel, too compelled by him to notice what was on TV anymore. He’d showered recently; his brown hair was still damp. She imagined he would smell so good: soapy and male, tinged with a little bit of the spice she’d detected when he got close.

  And when he sat next to her, it was true. She breathed him in, dizzy. It was almost enough to dismiss the niggling feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  The woman she’d hurt tonight…

  But that’s partly why she’d come here: to forget. So she was going to do it.

  He offered her popcorn, then sat on the couch, not minding the smell of garlic on her skin—he never did—and reached for the remote with his other hand, stealing it from her.

  He caught her smiling at him, but continued to surf until he landed on an entertainment channel.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You. Such a guy. You have to be in control of the remote, almost like it’s a car or a barbecue or something. I guess I’ll give it to you, just this once.”

  He laughed, and the sound brought her the comfort of a childhood day when the only worry was which game you were going to play outside or what color Popsicle you’d snack on. Or, at least, that was her idea of a decent childhood day—one when Frank wouldn’t have gone on an Eva-inspired crying jag or a whiskey bender.

  “Well, thank you.” He made a show of tucking the remote into the large pocket of his khaki shirt. “I appreciate your prideful sacrifice.”

  They both laughed this time, just plain relaxing together. This was nice.

  “You into all these star-muckraking programs?” she asked, nodding at the late-night entertainment special.

  From the screen, Tamsin Greene and her gorgeous Josephine Baker vibe glowed back at them. She’d been a superstar who’d committed suicide on the Internet last month, and the media hadn’t let up on the coverage since.

  Matt reached into his pocket and presented her with the remote, but not before faking her out by pulling it away again. She snatched it before he could reconsider.

  “You pick then,” he said, tossing a popcorn kernel at her. “Just don’t make me watch Lifetime.”

  At that, both of them cracked up, knowing the Lifetime channel didn’t have a chance in hell with Dawn.

  She hesitated in her surfing. “Sorry I can’t hang with the biography. It’s too depressing to hear about that girl’s suicide again.”

  Especially tonight. The last thing she needed was reminders of mortality.

  Matt stared at the screen, head tilted as he took in an image of Tamsin singing at a concert, dressed in a flowing white dress. “All the big interest in Tamsin Greene’s career, all the TV reports and big-time magazine spreads. Everything’s become a shrine to her, hasn’t it?”

  “Purchased with her blood.”

  “Sometimes, people get what they ask for.”

  Dawn’s eyes went wide at his callous remark. But why was she surprised? This wasn’t Mr. Sensitive she was hanging with—not if he was the hunter she suspected him of being.

  But his remark still stung. That homeless woman hadn’t asked to be injured by Dawn’s weapon tonight.

  “You don’t feel sorry for Tamsin Greene?” she asked.

  “I do, but she was asking for the press to exploit her by the way she went out. I saw her suicide. You could access it just about anywhere on the ’Net.”

  “But wasn’t she trying to make a statement about the paparazzi by throwing the ultimate story back in their faces? She wanted to make sure she scooped them by airing the suicide, at least that’s what she said before she did it. Sure, it backfired, but…”

  “She had to suspect that the press wouldn’t be able to shut up about it.” Matt didn’t say anything for a moment, merely watched the TV. “Who knows what she was thinking.”

  The television played on, but Dawn wasn’t paying a bit of attention.

  She cleared her throat, ready to start work. “So why’d you really call me over here? Does it have anything to do with the discussion of Jessica Reese we didn’t have back by the Cat’s Paw?”

  “Right. Jessica.” He nodded to himself, staring at the table now.

  “I mean, I know you don’t reveal sources”—especially when it came to Frank, the man whom an anonymous client had hired Matt to find—“but I got the feeling you were kinda willing to share.”

  “I am. Kinda.” He turned very serious. “I’m going out on a limb here, but…I think Jessica might not have been murdered by a vampire.”

  She leaned back at his honesty because she wasn’t used to it. “And what does Jessica have to do with Frank? Why would you even look into her death if it didn’t have anything to do with my dad’s case?”

  “I thought, based on the similarities to Klara Monaghan’s murder, there might be a connection.”

  “And how do you know Jessica wasn’t killed by a vamp?”

  Matt drilled a gaze at her. “Take the information for what it’s worth. Sometimes that’s the only choice we have.”

  If she knew for sure whether or not he was a bad guy, the decision would be easier. Of course, she had no idea. She was just willing to take a chance that he was on their side.

  “There are some details I find striking about both Klara’s and Jessica’s murders though,” he said, “besides the whole vampire angle.”

  This was a start. “Shoot.”

  “First, it’s like the murderer wants notoriety, whether it’s the public kind or even a special, secret kind that gets them off in private. I was reading up on other cases, like the Black Dahlia murder. That killer dumped the body in an obvious place, like he was making an announcement. And he left it in a grotesque, sensational state, just like our genius.”

  “Our killer wants to be famous?”

  “That’s why everyone comes to L.A., isn’t it?” He tossed another popcorn kernel, this time at the table. “Our killer isn’t exactly wr
iting taunting letters to the police, but the signature is flashy enough.”

  “Like they’re begging to be noticed, even if it’s in a demented, passive-aggressive way.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And this has nothing to do with Frank.”

  “I…Damn it, I don’t know.” He dumped the rest of his popcorn on a napkin that rested on the table.

  Why wouldn’t he tell her about the reason all this mattered in an investigation of her dad? What was his agenda? Was it as crazy as her own?

  The remote felt alien in Dawn’s hand. She tried to think up ways to get more information out of him, first of all because she’d promised Breisi. Second of all, because she knew she needed to do everything possible to make up for Kiko’s psychic blindness with Milton Crockett and the Tomlinsons—

  Crack.

  Just like that, her vision wavered, like something had disturbed the solidity of her world. Right on its tail, her peripheral vision caught a flash of silver?…red?…outside the window—

  She whipped her gaze there, catching the orange sway of a bird-of-paradise. Not silver at all. Not even red.

  Had the movement come from the Friend who’d been sent to watch her?

  Uneasy, Dawn put her popcorn and water down on a napkin. Her stomach felt light, queasy. Her body felt heavy and exposed—watched.

  It was a Friend, she told herself. That was all.

  “What’s wrong?” Matt asked. “You look the way you sounded on the phone earlier.”

  “And how did I sound?” She tried to smile as she faced him, her back now to the window.

  She knew she wasn’t wearing her emotions freely. Because of training and life experience, he’d never know anything she didn’t want him to.

  “Scared,” he said. “You’re scared of something.”

  “Bullshit.”

  She started to laugh it off—a nerve-laced compulsion—but he quieted her with a touch to her cheek. Immediately, she stopped with the bravado, jolted by the caress of his fingertips.

  Real, she thought, thinking how much different this was than being with The Voice. She could feel, see how Matt’s skin was rough, tangible, how it brushed against her own to cause friction.

  The need for stimulated comfort took her over, jarring her heart to an erratic pump, sharpening the air in her lungs.

  She wanted him to make her forget, like all the other men had. Forget the homeless woman, forget Frank and Eva, just for a little while….

  His fingers traveled her face, sweet deliberation. When he got to her right lobe, where her long blood-moon earring used to hang with ruby-and-silver negligence, he stroked, as if mimicking the phantom fall and shimmer of it.

  “I wish you’d tell me everything,” he said.

  “Same here.” Was this one of their cat-and-mouse standoffs? Is that why he’d invited her over? She couldn’t exactly be angry, because she was here for ulterior purposes, too.

  “I’m not just talking about our work.” He slipped his hands down her jacketed arms, coming too close to her shoulder-holstered gun while taking her hands in his.

  She hadn’t doffed her jacket because weapons were still in her pockets, plus, she didn’t want to showcase the gun, even though he already knew it was there. In back of her, the window seemed to loom with whatever was watching her—Friend or foe. A chill flew down her spine and, not for the first time, she was glad she’d kept her arsenal handy.

  But the reminder didn’t chase away any of the heat churning through her. Steam bathed her, prickling her skin, making it painfully aware of what might happen between her and Matt, now that he’d gotten over some of the bashfulness.

  “Right now,” she said, “I’m all about work. There’s not much left of me.”

  As if to prove her wrong, he leaned forward, molding his lips to hers in lingering question. Wet, warm. She couldn’t think anymore, not with the excitement of him mingling with the shivers of being watched from outside the window.

  Impulsively, she parted her lips, demanding more while pressing forward. She wanted to wipe away the violence she’d faced earlier with violence of another type: something she’d dealt with so many times before, something she could control. Skin to skin, she came out the winner every time, whether it was over a partner or Eva or even herself.

  As she entered his mouth with her tongue, engaging his with ravenous insistence, he fisted her hair, moaning. She levered him backward, intending to straddle him, to grind into him and make him her goddamned slave.

  “Wait,” he mumbled.

  “No.” She sucked at his lower lip, sliding a hand down his chest as she kept pushing him back.

  With just as much force, he grabbed her wrist, the one that had never been injured. He grabbed it hard.

  Good. Her body remembered how, one night, he’d lost a fraction of control, at the hospital, when she’d been devastated by Kiko’s back injury and had been yearning for someone to take her away from it. Matt had responded to her rough kisses, her prodding seduction.

  In the thrall of memory, she groaned, the sound vibrating in her chest, in a place that echoed with emptiness.

  Jonah, she thought. Be like Jonah again. Use me as much as I use you. You were almost there that one night….

  “Hey,” he said again, voice garbled, familiar in its lust.

  So familiar…

  The shock of longing stimulated her, and she nipped at his neck. Her heart pounded like a broken, out-of-control machine stamping steel into jagged shapes. Condensation from its urgent thudding trickled down and down, lubricating her.

  He seemed to sense that she was about to attack, as she’d done that time at the hospital. Maybe that’s why he slowed things down now, loosening his hold on her wrist. He slipped his hand behind her head, cradling it, deepening their kisses.

  At first, Dawn didn’t know exactly what to do. Usually, she’d be down a guy’s pants by now, guiding him out, shucking off her clothes to get him inside of her as soon as possible. After that, she’d be cleansed of him.

  But Matt wasn’t letting her do that. He was slow driving, taking his time with each suck, each nip, running his other hand over her neck.

  Dawn tried to calm her breathing, but it was impossible. Her heartbeat skittered, her body becoming one long throb after another, one long melt.

  Making out, she thought. Is this what it was?

  When she tried to take things a step further, stroking her hand up his thigh, he blocked her, weaving his fingers through hers and ending the kiss with an easy sip of her lips.

  His breath bathed her ear. “I’ve got something for you.”

  Lust nudged at her. “I’ll bet you do.”

  “Dawn.” He laughed, the vibrations of it tapping over her skin. “Humor me. You like games. You like pushing things, don’t you?”

  She did a half wince, half purr, and he laughed again.

  “Come here.” He pulled her up to a stand. “I’ve got something that’ll…You’ll see.”

  God help her, but her gaze traveled right to his zipper, where she hoped to find an erection waiting. But his untucked shirt covered the details, damn it.

  He held up a finger, grinning, then went to his bedroom.

  Without her.

  “Am I supposed to follow you?” she asked, mentally crossing her fingers while fidgeting in pained frustration.

  “No, stay out there.” He was clearly amused.

  Great. She waited, body belting out SOS codes in the most uncomfortable places.

  What was he do—?

  One of those shivers attacked her again, and she reached for her revolver, spinning toward the window, hoping—and not hoping—to discover something there.

  Shoot, shoot! her dark half said, loving the power.

  But…there was nothing. Nothing but the wind and the bird-of-paradise.

  “Okay,” Matt said.

  Adrenaline screeching to a halt, she shoved her weapon back into the holster before he could see it, then turned aroun
d to find him walking out of the bedroom.

  You almost lost it again, she thought. Get it together, Dawn.

  He was clueless to her drama. And it was pretty cute how he was just standing there with a grin, holding some folded material.

  “Um,” she said optimistically, “lingerie?”

  “Not quite.” He was blushing. Blushing.

  Endeared by his shyness, stumped by it, she shook her head. “Come on, what is it?”

  “I thought…It’s…”

  “Good God.” Dawn strode forward, all her aggression surfacing. “It doesn’t look like a French maid’s outfit.”

  He made as if to keep the material away from her, but then he held up a hand. “Let me explain first—”

  There was no stopping her. She grabbed at the material. It belled out, filmy and flowery, into a dress.

  It took a moment for her mind to wrap around what she was seeing.

  “I found it in the window of a vintage store,” he said, blushing even more furiously now. “Can you believe it?”

  She was trying not to.

  Dawn reached out, fingering the sheer material, not accepting what she touched.

  It was a copy of the dress Eva Claremont had worn in her most famous movie, Daydreamer.

  She remembered how his gaze had gone all goofy that day at lunch when she’d said Eva’s name. Remembered how most men got that way with just a mention.

  “You’re not expecting me to put this on,” she said, voice quavering, in what she told herself was only anger.

  “Oh.” He awkwardly looked at it. “I just—”

  “Tell me this isn’t the only way you’ll find me attractive.”

  “Dawn, wait, wait. I didn’t mean—”

  “Is this a joke?”

  He just shook his head, the dress hanging from one hand like the most loaded weapon she’d ever encountered. If it wasn’t for the gleam of something in his gaze—disappointment?—she would’ve felt sorry for him.

  Would’ve.

  Ire surged, unreasonable, all consuming. She’d fought so hard against being her mom’s daughter; it was the only way she could justify never living up to Eva’s beauty. But now, even if she wasn’t here, Eva was winning again. She’d taken over Jac and now, more hurtfully, Matt.