Wings of the Night 08 Blue Twilight

by Msggie Shayne

  "I'm a liar? What did I lie about?"

  "The morning breath."

  She smiled slowly. "I found one of those mints they leave on the pillows."

  "You're sneaky as hell."

  "But I taste like heaven."

  Her eyes burned into his, and he had to force himself to turn away, open the bathroom door and step inside for a brisk, frigid shower.

  Forty-four years old, he told himself. He felt about seventeen when he was around her, and randy as a billy goat on the Fourth of July. Damn.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  Someone tapped on the door while Lou was in the shower and Max was still hugging the pillow to her chest and grinning like a loon. Despite her lingering headache, she floated off the bed and danced to the door to peer through the peephole. Stormy stood on the other side, laptop under her arm, a fistful of tangled cords and cables. Behind her, Jason balanced a tray of foam coffee cups on top of a large white box that looked for all the world as if it had come from a bakery. Hot damn, she sure hoped so.

  "One sec,” she called. Then she pulled on her jeans and opened the door.

  "Since I don't know jack about debugging my room or Jay's,” Stormy said, traipsing inside to set the laptop on the nearest surface, a round table against one wall, “we’re having our breakfast meeting here." She scooped up the magazines and motel pamphlets, and tossed them onto the nightstand. Jason came in, and set the bakery box and the coffee on the table, as well.

  "We're pretty sure it's only the phones that are bugged,” Max said. "Still, better safe than sorry."

  Stormy paused in plugging in cables, straightened and looked around. "We need more chairs. Jay, go get the ones out of our rooms, will you?"

  She tossed him a key, and he hurried away even as she plugged in the power cord, then the telephone line for the modem. Stormy gave a glance toward the door as if to be sure he was gone, then another toward the bathroom, where she could hear the shower running, then another toward the rumpled bed, and finally she met Max's eyes. "Any luck?"

  "A little. I kissed him."

  Stormy grinned. "He didn't run for the hills?"

  "Nope. He kissed me back."

  "Details, kid. I want details."

  Max reached for a coffee cup, pulled up a chair and tried to keep the triumphant grin off her face as she filled Stormy in on every intimate second of it. She was just getting to the part where Lou ruined it all by trying to explain it away with his version of an anatomy lesson when the shower shut off. At the same moment, Jason arrived with two desk chairs.

  "Later,” Max mouthed. "So what did you bring?"

  "Pastries. There's a bakery in town—opened at 5:00 a.m. I borrowed the Bug, went for a drive to clear my head,” Stormy said.

  They had keys to each other's vehicles. In fact, there was very little she and Stormy didn't share.

  "Next time you do that,” Max said, “try driving in the other direction."

  "Huh?"

  "The air outside Endover is much more conducive to head-clearing,” she explained.

  Stormy nodded. "Yeah, I noticed that, too."

  Max opened the box, eyed the selection of muffins, Danishes, turnovers.

  "I ordered a breakfast pizza, too,” Storm said. "It'll be here in ten minutes."

  "Damn, you must be hungry."

  "I was up most of the night."

  Max frowned. Jason was situating the chairs around the table. There were three desk chairs now, and one easy chair. Lou came out of the bathroom, his hair wet, jeans and T-shirt looking sinfully good. He wore forty-four the way Harrison Ford had worn forty-four. It ought to be illegal to look that good. At any age.

  She dragged her attention back to Stormy. "Why were you up all night? You okay?"

  "Fine, just wide awake. Couldn't sleep."

  No wonder she couldn't sleep, Max thought, given what she'd been going through lately. Those flashes and lapses in her memory. An attack by a wolf and maybe some kind of newly developed psychic ability. Not to mention speaking in tongues.

  "I spent the night doing research,” Stormy went on. She looked fine, Max thought. Not tired or rundown. She was already tapping the keyboard. The modem screamed like a cat with someone standing on its tail. "I ran a search on missing persons and on Endover, New Hampshire . What I found was…interesting."

  She waited for a page to load, reached into the box or a Danish and handed it to Max. Then she held her open hand out, and Max reached for the coffee. "Which cup is yours?"

  "It has an S on the lid." Stormy said it without looking up.

  Max nodded, took the cup from the cardboard tray and put it into Stormy's hand.

  "Here, here's the list of hits. I sorted it by limiting it to newspaper articles containing both those phrases"

  "Lots of Endover folk tend to vanish?" Max asked.

  Lou was pulling up a chair and settling into it, so Max spotted the cup with the L on the lid and handed it to him. His fingers brushed hers when he took it from her, drawing her eyes to his. They met and held just for a second; then he looked away.

  Was he regretting that kiss? Probably. But she was damn sure he'd enjoyed it.

  "That's just it,” Stormy said. "Not a lot of Endover people vanish, but a lot of people seem to vanish in Endover. Take a look."

  Max got up and leaned over Lou, her head close to his. The screen showed a list of sites that had articles including the search phrases, each one highlighting the related sentence. "Last seen in Endover, New Hampshire " was the common theme.

  "Looks to me,” Lou said, “as if strangers who pass through Endover tend to vanish without a trace."

  "My God,” Jason said. "How long has this been going on?" He had come closer, too, leaning over the others to get a look at the computer screen.

  "Three years, near as I can tell,” Stormy said.

  Lou nodded firmly. "This is excellent work, Storm. Have you read the articles?"

  "Yeah" She clicked the address-book button, and it opened to reveal a list of Web site URLs. "These are the ones that were pertinent. All female. All attractive. And all fairly young, though none as young as Delia and Janie."

  "But…but what happened to them? To the others?" Jason asked.

  "I don't know yet. It took me a while to get this far. Now we need to search for follow-up articles. And that's going to generate a ton of hits—so many people with the same names, you know? It's going to take some time to sort them all, figure out what's relevant and what's not."

  "That's your plan for this morning, then,” Max said. "Stay on this, Storm. Jason, stay with her. Make sure no one gets near her, understand? That attempt on me last night was no accident."

  Stormy nodded. "What are you going to do?"

  "First, Lou's going to debug your phones. Then he and I are going to find a print shop and get a few hundred posters of the girls made up, and post them around town and interview as many of the locals as we can manage."

  Jason got up, taking out his wallet and tugging out a photo. "You can use this."

  He handed her a snapshot of Janie and Delia in evening gowns. Probably at a prom. It made Max's throat tighten up to see it.

  Stormy nodded. "Great. Sounds like a plan. While you're out, Max, see if you can find us some decent maps of this place."

  "What kind? Road maps? Or topographic?" "Either. Actually, both. The more the better."

  There was a knock on the door. Everyone looked up, but it was Lou who went to open it. A young boy stood on the other side with a pizza box and a bicycle. He smiled broadly—big gums, unnaturally small, unevenly spaced teeth, almond eyes and a rounded face. "I brought your pizza,” he said, his voice as thick as the mop of black hair atop his head.

  "You sure are a busy kid,” Lou said. "Didn't I see you delivering newspapers earlier?"

  "Need money so I can go to school"

  "Oh, yeah? You don't go to public school here in Endover?"

  "Yeah, but I don't like it here."

/>   "Why not?"

  The boy shrugged. "Ten-fifty,” he said.

  Lou tugged out his wallet. "What's your name, son?"

  "Sid"

  "And how old are you, Sid?"

  "I'm ten. Almost 'leven."

  "I'm surprised the pizza place would hire such a young delivery man."

  Sid flashed a grin. "It's my uncle's pizza place,” he explained.

  "So you're saving up to go to a private school?"

  "A special school. Away from here."

  Lou knelt down to bring himself eye level with the boy. "Why do you want to go away from here, Sid?"

  He pursed his lips. "Bad air,” he said. "Can't you tell?"

  Lou frowned, then sent a quick look behind him at Max. She barely restrained herself from gasping at those words. So close to the way she'd described the feeling she got here. "Yeah. I thought there was something wrong with it."

  "Most grown-ups don't notice till too late."

  "Too late?"

  He nodded. "Makes 'em stupid. It'll make you stupid, too, you stay long enough."

  "What about you, Sid? Does the bad air get to you, too?"

  He shook his head from side to side, rapidly.

  Lou took out two tens and two quarters. He took the pizza box and handed the boy one of the tens and the two quarters. "This is for the pizza,” he told Sid. "And this—" he handed him the other ten "—is for you."

  "Thanks!"

  "That's okay. You know, if you want another job, I might be able to find you something."

  "Really?"

  "Sure. I need a guide. I don't know my way around here yet."

  The boy's wide smile grew even wider. "I finish with the pizzas at two o'clock."

  "Will you meet me back here then?"

  "I sure will." The boy looked up at the door. "Room four. I'll be here."

  "I'll see you then."

  "Bye!"

  Lou closed the door and turned, pizza box in hand. "That was freaking surreal."

  "Something's wrong here,” Max said. "There's something contaminating this place. Affecting our minds, dulling us."

  "Making us stupid,” Lou added with a frown. "Listen, right now, right here, we need to agree to spend a few hours outside this town every day. See if it helps with this thing—whatever the hell it is."

  "You think Sid's immune?" Jason asked.

  "Maybe. I don't know. Hell, I don't even know if there's really anything to this `bad air' theory. Maybe we can learn more from our new friend Sid this afternoon,” Lou said. He set down the pizza box. "Let's chow down and head out. We need to get moving."

  Stormy had put up with Jason's hovering, pacing and reading over her shoulder just about as long as she could stand it. It was too damn distracting, the way he kept looking at her. She found an article, a follow-up piece on one of the missing women saying that she had been found alive and well a week after her disappearance. Her eyes skimmed the lines as she sought details. Where the woman was found, and how and by whom, and—

  "So you're feeling all right today?"

  His voice intruded on her focus. She shifted her attention away from the computer and onto Jason. He'd finally stopped pacing and settled down in one of the chairs, where he had a clear view of the computer screen.

  "So far,” she said. "You don't need to worry that I'm going to pass out on your watch, Jay. I'm actually feeling pretty good this morning."

  He nodded. She went back to reading. There it was.

  Theresa Mulroy, 24, a woman reported missing by her Maryland family more than a week ago, has been found. Mulroy turned up sleeping in her car along the side of a gravel road in Culliver County , some fifty miles inland from the coastal New Hampshire town where she was reportedly last seen. A county sheriff's deputy, checking out what looked like an abandoned vehicle, found her instead…

  "It gave me a real scare, seeing you like that."

  She turned again, a frown etching itself between her eyebrows at Jason's tone. It was…a little on the tender side.

  "I mean, it's been a long time, Storm, but you know I still care about you."

  "That's sweet, Jay. When you're as close as you and Max and I were, I don't think it changes just because of time and distance. I think you always care about one another."

  He nodded.

  "I mean, that's why we came rushing out here when you needed us, right?" she went on. "And I know if it had been the other way around, if it had been me or Max needing help, you'd have come running."

  "I would,” he said. "I really would."

  "I know"

  He sighed. "I always hoped…there could be more between you and me than, you know, friendship."

  She lowered her head. "I know you wanted there to be."

  "Have you ever wondered what might have happened if you had given me a chance, Storm?"

  She turned her chair around to face him. "I have. I've wondered about that a lot of times."

  "Really?"

  She gave a small smile, nodded once. "But I figure there's not much use dwelling on it. It's in the past."

  "That doesn't mean it has to stay there."

  Stormy let her gaze slide over Jason's face. She had always found him attractive. He had great bone structure, and that milk-chocolate skin begged to be kissed. His lashes had always struck her, thick and dark around velvet-brown eyes.

  "Jay, I know what you're saying. But…look, I've got a lot going on right now. A lot…happening in my head. Things I don't even understand. And you've got issues now, too, with Delia missing." He lowered his eyes. "Have you called your brother yet?"

  "No. I can't. I can't do that until I have something more solid to tell him."

  "How about Janie's parents?"

  He shook his head. "They're in Europe . I tried, but I couldn't find a way to reach them." He swallowed hard. "I hope I won't have to."

  She nodded. "What if we table this discussion about us, hmm? Just for now."

  "Then…you're not ruling it out?

  She met his eyes, felt them pulling at her just as they always had. "I'm just saying now is not the time. We need to focus on the girls." And frankly, she thought, she was surprised Jason wasn't. He should be champing at the bit, pushing harder for action, pacing the floor in frustration. But he wasn't. It was as if he were just… waiting.

  But for what?

  Jason smiled, leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers, a hand sliding around to cup the back of her head. He kissed her tenderly, gently, very briefly. Her eyes fell closed and…

  Traitor!

  Stormy jerked her head back, and her eyes flew open. She looked frantically around the room while Jason searched her eyes.

  "What's wrong, Storm?"

  She swung her gaze back to his. "Didn't you hear that?"

  "Hear what?"

  "A voice—a woman's voice, I think." She looked around some more, saw no one.

  "No,” Jason said. "I didn't hear a thing. Maybe because my heart was pounding so hard." He smiled at her, but worry lingered behind his eyes.

  Stormy understood then. The sound—the single, shouted, accusatory word—hadn't come from outside her but from within. And she needed to smooth this over. She didn't want anyone to start questioning her sanity, because, God knew, that would be the next leap of logic. If odd things kept happening to her and a physical cause had been ruled out, that only left a mental one.

  She smiled back at him a little. "Maybe that's what I heard. But I think more likely it was the old woman in room twelve. She's been yelling a lot at that young man who's staying with her."

  "Her son?" Jason asked.

  "I don't think so" She smiled and wiggled her eyebrows. Then she turned back to the computer, fought to find her place in the article again. There it was.

  The missing woman had no explanation for where she had been. She claimed to have no memory at all of the days since she was reported missing. Deputy Welsh refused to speculate, though his official report made mention of empty bottles and
the smell of alcohol permeating the vehicle.

  "Storm, would you like some more coffee?" Jason had come to stand behind her chair, his hands closing on her shoulders in a gentle massage. "I could run over to the diner."

  Yanked out of her concentration yet again, she tried not to let the irritation show on her face as she turned and looked up at him. After all, the guy was being as attentive as he could, and it was kind of flattering. "You know what I really need, Jay?"

  "What?"

  "A printer. I can save all this information on the hard drive, but a printer would let me put it right at our fingertips."

  "A printer."

  "You can buy cheap printers for thirty bucks these days. Isn't there a Kmart or anything around here?"

  "Well, I could ask Gary, I suppose"

  "That would be great. Get an extra ink cartridge, too—the ones that come with the printers never hold very much. And some paper, and don't forget the cable. Wait, I'll make you a list."

  She got up and moved across the room to the nightstand, snatched up the complimentary pad and pen, and started scribbling her list. "While you're out, you might as well pick up some snacks."

  He nodded.

  "Here, take my card" She rummaged in her purse for the business credit card that had her name on it.

  "I'll use my own,” he said. "I ought to pick myself up a change of clothes and stuff while I'm at it. I didn't bring a damn thing. Had to get a complimentary toothbrush from the motel office this morning."

  She was surprised this motel office even had them.

  "I'll bring you the receipt, and you can deduct the applicable things from my bill when this is over,” Jason said.

  "Okay."

  "Okay." He hovered for a moment, but finally turned and left.

  She sighed, wondering how she should handle his attraction. She wondered if it was mutual. It always had been. She'd been attracted to him in the past. That had never been an issue. But she'd decided, as a barely twenty-year-old, that he was too staid for her, too conservative, too practical. She was older now—old enough to know that dependability was not a bad thing. But she couldn't tell how she felt. There were too many things twisting around in her head—too many emotions, thoughts, feelings. Sometimes they seemed almost foreign. She didn't know how the hell she felt about anything right now.