Blue Twilight_[11]

by Maggie Shayne

That got the woman’s attention. She looked at Stormy sharply. “No one else…there are others?”

  “Almost a dozen.”

  “Not counting my sister and her friend,” Jason added.

  A waitress came, placing glasses of ice water in front of each of them and handing out menus. She began reciting specials, and Stormy held up a hand. “Give us a minute?”

  The waitress nodded and hurried away.

  Mary Ann blinked as if in shock. “I…don’t understand.”

  “Neither do we,” Stormy said. “All we know is that a lot of women vanished from the face of the earth when they were passing through or near Endover. And all of them showed up again, a few days to a week later, with no memory of where they had been or what had happened to them.”

  “My God.”

  “I was hoping you might be able to tell me something that will help us understand what’s been going on.”

  Mary Ann shook her head slowly. “But I don’t remember—”

  “I know. I know you don’t. But there are other things, besides memory, that might give us some clue.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Was there any physical harm done to you while you were…missing?”

  “No. I was in perfect health.”

  “And what about mentally?”

  The woman shot her a look. “I’m not insane, Ms. Jones.”

  “I know that. I just meant—was there anything different about you, emotionally, mentally? Any habits you developed that you hadn’t had before? Fears, phobias, depression?”

  The woman blinked…and lowered her head, telling Stormy more surely than words could that she’d hit on something.

  “What, Mary Ann? Whatever it is, please…?”

  She held up a hand, nodded. “I’m afraid of the dark now. I never was before.” She lifted her head. “And there are…dreams.”

  “Nightmares?” Stormy asked, sliding to the edge of her chair, leaning forward. Around them waitresses carried trays, people sipped coffee and chatted, ice clinked against glassware. Everything was so perfectly normal.

  “Not…exactly.” The woman shot a look at Jason.

  Jason took the hint. “I’m gonna go find the men’s room. I’ll be back,” he said, and he got up from the table and left them alone.

  When he was gone, Mary Ann leaned closer. “In the dreams I’m paralyzed. I can’t move. And there’s a man. And he…does something to me.”

  Stormy frowned. “Were you sexually assaulted, Mary Ann?”

  “No. The doctors found no sign of it, at least. And he doesn’t touch me…that way…in the dreams. Not…with his hands, anyway. It’s like…he does it with his mind. And he…he bites me.”

  Stormy had been leaning forward. But the words made her sit up straight. “He drinks from you,” she whispered.

  Mary Ann nodded hard. “My therapist says that my mind has filled in the missing time with fantasies, stuff I picked up from horror novels or films or pop culture.”

  “But what do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  Stormy covered the other woman’s hand with one of her own. “I’m so sorry, Mary Ann. It must be terrifying for you.”

  Mary Ann shook her head slowly, lifting her eyes to Stormy’s. “No. It’s almost…erotic.” Her eyes slammed closed quickly, and she jerked her hand away. “God, I’m ashamed to admit that.”

  “Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

  Mary Ann kept her eyes shut for a moment, and Stormy thought she was battling tears. “Do you think you could draw him? A likeness of him, I mean? Have you ever tried?”

  The woman’s eyes opened quickly. “How could you know that?”

  “You have drawn him, then?”

  The woman bent to the large handbag that rested on the floor beside her chair. She drew a folder from it and passed it to Stormy with hands that shook almost uncontrollably.

  Stormy took the folder and opened it.

  The man himself stared at her from the page inside. The pencil drawing seemed to stare at her with an intensity that tied her stomach in knots. Longish, narrow face, full lips, a cleft in his chin, long dark hair. And those deep-set, piercing eyes.

  “You don’t think he’s real?” Mary Ann whispered.

  “I don’t know.” But she did know. He was real. She’d seen him before—in her mind.

  Her head began to swim. She was dizzy and flooded in white noise.

  “Ms. Jones?”

  Stormy pinched the bridge of her nose, fought the incoming tide. “Can I keep these?” she managed to ask.

  “Yes. Yes of course.” The woman looked around the café. “God, I feel as if he’s here somewhere. Watching.”

  “It’s daylight, Mary Ann. You’re safe. But…you should go.”

  “I should—”

  “Go. Now.” Stormy leaned back in her chair, pressed both her palms to the sides of her head and closed her eyes tight. Moments later, Jason was there, his hands on her shoulders, tight and hard.

  “Hold on, Stormy. Hold on, don’t let go.” He was pulling her to her feet.

  “Is she gone? Mary Ann? Where is…?” Stormy asked.

  “She’s gone. It’s fine.”

  “Get the drawings,” she whispered.

  He snatched up the folder, her purse. She thought he threw some bills from his pocket onto the table—a tip for the waitress, since they had never gotten around to ordering anything—and then he was leading her from the café, putting her into his Jeep, buckling her seat belt around her.

  “Here,” he said as he climbed into the driver’s side and reached toward her, holding a cloth-wrapped bundle.

  A napkin, she realized, one of the white cloth ones from the café. “Lean forward, bend your head down.”

  She did. He pressed the bundle to the back of her neck. Cold. It was full of ice. He must have scooped it out of her water glass. She sighed, the breath rushing out of her as the cold hit her nerve endings.

  “Any better?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “Do you want to go back to the motel?”

  She reached behind her to hold the bundle, so he could use his hands again. “No,” she said. “Let’s head to the other meeting.”

  “But—”

  She drew a deep breath. “It’s passing. It’s passing, it’s okay.” She met his eyes. “Look. My eyes are still the right color, aren’t they?”

  “They’re the perfect color.”

  She forced a smile. “And I’m still speaking English. I think the ice worked.”

  “More likely you’re stronger the farther we get away from that place.”

  “Maybe.” She nodded at the keys he held in his hand. “Let’s get going. Time’s burning, and we need to stop in Salem on the way back.”

  “Salem? Why?”

  “I did some research on the Net yesterday and found a few books that might help me figure out what’s going on with me. There’s a rare bookstore in Salem, and according to their Web site, they have a couple of them in stock.”

  He nodded. “All right. But if it happens again…”

  “If it happens again, Jay, restrain me if you have to. But don’t let me hurt you. Promise me that?”

  He nodded, though she wasn’t sure he meant it. Then he put the keys into the ignition and started the engine.

  They were driving back toward Endover late in the afternoon. Max was already thinking about dinner, her stomach growling, and not for pizza or burgers. “I wonder if it’s still storming there,” she muttered, voicing her thoughts aloud. “Probably not. It’s nearly dark. This trip took a lot longer than I expected. And he doesn’t need to keep us off the island after dark.”

  “Even a natural storm wouldn’t be likely to last all day,” Lou said.

  “Ever the skeptic,” she said. “What do you say we eat in a real restaurant tonight?”

  “Fine by me. Stormy and Jason will be expecting us back at the mo
tel, though.”

  “Slow down, I’ll call them before we enter the dead zone.”

  He gave a shiver and told her with his eyes that her new pet name for the town wasn’t even a little bit funny to him, but she only shrugged and took out her phone.

  Stormy picked up. Her voice was tired, worn.

  “Hey, Storm, it’s me. You find out anything?”

  “Nothing good. What about you?”

  “Freakin’ creepy stuff. I’ll tell you when I see you. Where are you?”

  “We’ll be back in Endover in another twenty minutes. Why?”

  “Why don’t we meet at that restaurant on the shore? We passed a billboard for it on the way to the boat rental place the other day, remember? I’m hungry for some real food and in the mood to be waited on. It’ll be dark by the time we get there, and we need to decide what to do next.”

  “Okay. Sure, what the hell. I remember that billboard. The restaurant’s outside the Endover town limits, so how bad can it be?”

  “You sure you’re up for it? You sound a little tired.”

  “I’m fine. See you in a half hour or less.”

  Stormy hung up. Max put her phone down and frowned. “She sounds off.”

  “You think she’s losing it again?”

  “I don’t know. Hell, maybe the restaurant is a bad idea.”

  “It’s a good idea. You need a break, and so does she. Jason and I can handle it if anything happens.”

  Max told herself it was unreasonable to believe everything would be fine, as long as Lou was with her. Unreasonable and unrealistic. But she felt it anyway, and mostly believed it was true. Even if it was illogical.

  She and Lou were closer, so they arrived at the restaurant first. There was no sign of the storm, no rain, no clouds, not even in the distance toward Endover. Then again, it was already dusk.

  The restaurant was a large white building, its entire back side mostly made up of glass panes, so that nearly every table in the place looked out over the ocean. There were spotlights set up along the shore that came on once darkness fell, to keep the view alive. It was beautiful.

  Lou asked for a table for four, and a hostess in black pants and a crisp white blouse with a black ribbon around its collar led them to a gorgeous table right up against the windows. It relieved Max to no end when she looked the woman in the eyes and saw a real person looking back at her, rather than a tranced-out zombie. She ordered wine, deciding to relax a little. Lou settled for coffee and a large glass of ice water, probably because he wanted to stay sharp. Especially now.

  The waitress brought their drinks, left their menus and hurried away.

  “This is nice,” Max said. “Someday we ought to come back here, just the two of us.”

  “I don’t know if I’m gonna make Endover a regular place on my list of favorite vacation spots, Max.”

  She shrugged. “No matter. There are lots of nice places overlooking the ocean back in Easton.”

  He nodded.

  “Have you thought any more about that, Lou?”

  “About what?”

  He looked across the table at her. She sighed. “About coming to work with Stormy and me in Easton. Moving up there for good.”

  He drew a deep breath. “I can’t lie to you, kid. The thought has crossed my mind. I’m just not sure it’s the best idea, is all.”

  “Why not?”

  “Honey, we’ve been over all this.”

  “No we haven’t. You’ve given me countless reasons—none of them worth a damn, by the way—why we can’t be together as a couple. But you’ve never given me any reasons why we can’t work together.”

  “That’s because they’re the same reasons.”

  “Oh.” She took a sip of her wine as she thought about that. “So you don’t think we could be together that much without…taking our relationship further.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She frowned at him.

  He reached for her wineglass and took a big drink. When he set it down again, he nodded. “Okay, I give. You’re right, I think if we were together all the time, yeah—something would be bound to happen.”

  She smiled. “I’m irresistible to you.”

  “Damn near.” He looked away as soon as he said it, and she knew he was wishing he could pull the words back.

  “It wouldn’t ruin things, Lou. It would only make things better.”

  “It would ruin you, kid. And I’m not gonna do that.”

  “Lou, sweetie, don’t you get it yet? You can’t turn off your heart. You think you have, but you haven’t. Denying it doesn’t make it go away. And pretending you don’t care doesn’t make it true.”

  He looked past her, toward the entrance, but she knew he heard her, saw it in his eyes. Could he actually be listening for a change? Was she finally getting through to him? God, she was almost afraid to think it was even possible.

  “There are Stormy and Jason,” he said, and standing up, he waved a hand at them.

  Max sighed in disappointment. She would have liked more time to pursue the discussion. For the first time, she felt as if she was making progress.

  The place had been steadily filling up, but there were still plenty of empty tables around. Stormy spotted them and waved back, but Max thought her smile was forced and her gait heavy. Not her usual bouncing, vibrant steps.

  “She’s had a hard day,” Max muttered, but she got up, anyway, and gave Stormy a welcoming hug. “Hey, honey. You look wiped out.”

  “It was a long and interesting day,” she said.

  Jason pulled out a chair for her, overdoing the chivalrous bit, Max thought, and she sat down. Max returned to her own seat, and Lou waved at the waitress as Jason took his own chair.

  The waitress hurried to take Stormy and Jay’s drink orders, then went off to fill them.

  “So?” Lou asked. “What did you guys find out?”

  Stormy drew a deep breath. “The two women had pretty similar things to say. Both have developed a fear of the dark. Both have…disturbing dreams.”

  “About a man who…drinks from them?” Max asked, lowering her voice to a whisper on the last three words.

  Stormy met her eyes, nodded. “Yours, too?”

  “Mmm-hmm. One had painted him.”

  “One of mine sketched him in pencil,” Stormy said.

  They both reached for their bags at the same time. Max produced a tiny, oval-framed miniature—a portrait of a man with powerful black eyes and long dark hair. She slid it across the table to Stormy, and took the folder in return. Then she opened it and caught her breath.

  “Identical,” she said.

  Stormy nodded, showing the oval miniature to Jason without more than glancing at it herself. Max wondered why. Jay thinned his lips and nodded. Max flipped through the drawings, and Lou leaned over the table to look at them as she did.

  “It’s uncanny,” Stormy said.

  “Not so uncanny if he’s real,” Lou said. “And I think we’re well beyond doubting that he is, especially after I got to see him face-to-face.” He thumped his forefinger on one of the drawings. “This is the same guy who tried to grab you the other night, Max. This is our vamp.”

  Max closed her eyes. “Jesus, here we go again.”

  “Max, maybe it’s time we called in some reinforcements,” Lou said. “Your sister, Dante, some of their friends…”

  She shook her head firmly. “Not until I know for sure what we’re dealing with here. Hell, Lou, he came after me. There’s every chance he wants to draw them into this—maybe it’s some kind of trap for them. Maybe he has some sort of vendetta or something.”

  “But how the hell would he know you were connected to others of his kind?” Lou asked. Then he lowered his head and answered his own question. “The break-in. Hell, it happened the first night you were out of the house.”

  “And the computer was the only thing taken,” Max said, nodding. “That seals it. We’re not dragging any other vamps into this. He might be
a rogue. A killer of his own kind. It wouldn’t be the first time a vampire turned on his own.”

  Jason was sitting there looking from one of them to the other, his eyes grim.

  Stormy put a hand on his arm. “That doesn’t mean he’s done anything to harm Delia. Hell, he let the other women go. He didn’t hurt them. There’s no reason to believe he would change tactics now.”

  Max closed the folder and returned it to Stormy, who slid it into the bag at her side. Then Max looked at the bag itself, black with twine handles and a logo on the front. “What’s that?” she asked. “You found time to go shopping during all this?”

  Stormy nodded. “Just some research materials.”

  Max reached for the bag, pulled it into her lap and looked inside. Two fat books, hardcover, musty-smelling, with yellowed, rough-edged pages, sat inside. She glanced at the titles. Case Histories of Demonic Possession and Rites of Exorcism: A Guide for the Clergy. A business card fell out of one, and Max picked it up and read it. It was for a hypnotist in Salem.

  Licking her lips, she tucked the card back into the book, looked up from the bag and saw Stormy’s troubled eyes. “Good choices,” she said. “We’ll read them together.”

  “Okay.”

  “But first, let’s eat, huh? I’m starved.”

  Stormy brightened slightly. “Me too.” She opened her menu, but Max got the feeling she wasn’t really reading it.

  16

  Max hadn’t managed to get Lou into bed with her again since that first night. She’d spent last night in her own lonely motel room, and he hadn’t argued with her, though she guessed from the circles under his eyes that he’d been up most of the night. Didn’t he realize he would sleep better with her safe in his arms? But no, he preferred to pace the floor, straining his ears to hear any sound of trouble. Maybe stepping outside every now and then to take a look around, make sure her door was still locked. She knew exactly what he was doing—because she was doing much the same, in an effort to watch over Stormy. Hell, maybe they should all just bunk together. Save everyone a lot of time and worry.

  Still, he didn’t ask. So she got out of the car after dinner and went to her own room, instead of his, all too aware that the earlier storm was long gone. The skies had cleared, except for the occasional lingering finger of cloud, and the wind had died to a gentle ocean breeze. Max had suggested they find a boat and head to the island, despite the added risk of going there by night.