Black Moon Rising

by Ann Simas

  “I—” For the first time in her life, the use of her given name melted her.

  “I know you can’t.” He gave her a wry grin. “I’m just telling you what I’d like to do.” He scooped her into his arms and made his way to the loveseat, sitting with her in his lap. “I guess a make-out session will have to suffice instead.”

  “No petting,” she managed to get out before he kissed her again.

  His hand captured a breast, kneading it, teasing the tip with his fingers. “Luca,” she moaned against his lips.

  “What, love?”

  “Someone might see.”

  “Angie and Libby aren’t watching, and besides it’s getting dark out and the lights aren’t on.”

  He took her mouth again and probed his tongue against her lips. She opened her mouth and dueled with his tongue, moaning again when his hand slid under her tee and released the clasp on her bra. He eased it aside and captured her bare breast. Sunny could do nothing to stop herself from arching into his hand.

  She didn’t think it was fair that he got to fondle her and she could not return the favor. Instead, she settled for wiggling her bottom against him, though he was so hard already, it was unimaginable that he could grow any larger or firmer.

  “Stop,” he murmured, resting his forehead against hers. “I don’t want to be coming in my pants like some randy teenager.”

  “You started it,” Sunny said.

  Unexpectedly, his hand shot down to her crotch and pressed against her. Not satisfied with that, he worked his fingers up under the fabric of her shorts. Even though Sunny knew where he was going, knew it was insanity to let him get there, her legs parted enough let him reach his goal.

  It didn’t take much stimulation to make her come, and likewise, her writhing against his erection had the same effect on him. Their first mutual orgasm came simultaneously. They captured and contained their moans of rapture in another kiss.

  Sunny had never experienced anything like it, not even with Zach. She almost screamed when Luca began to move his fingers again. “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “Trust me, you can,” he whispered back.

  He captured her mouth an instant before she moaned her second release.

  Spent and sated, Sunny collapsed against his chest. “Ohmygod.”

  “I’ll ditto that.”

  She hadn’t known it was possible to come with such intensity, let alone that it could happen twice. How could she have been intimate with Zach for over two years and not know that? She raised her head and cupped her hand against the side of Luca’s face, kissing him with gentleness and hunger. “We can’t make a habit of this.”

  “I disagree,” he said, “we can, but not like this. I want you in my bed Sunny.”

  “I won’t spend the night away from my children.”

  “I know, love, and I have an idea.” He kissed her again. “Dinner and dessert at my place, tomorrow night. You’re dessert.”

  She stared into his eyes. “If Libby doesn’t have plans, I’ll be there, but you are the dessert.”

  He chuckled softly, sending a jolt of anticipation through her. “There’s nothing saying we can’t have two kinds of dessert.”

  Sunny was content to remain in is lap, talking softly about nothing in particular. She missed that closeness with a man, even though she’d experienced it only rarely with Zach. Luca seemed content to rub his hand softly against the bare skin of her back, though he did not neglect her breasts.

  Later, alone in her bed, she imagined what it was going to be like, spending hours in Luca’s arms making love.

  Unfortunately, her imagination didn’t pave the way to sweet dreams, as she hoped.

  Not long after she reached a deep REM sleep, a nightmare overtook her instead.

  Chapter 19

  . . .

  Sunny transitioned from the sleeping nightmare to a wide-awake vision. Unable to open her mouth to scream, she watched in horrified silence as her children were snatched yet again by two black-robed figures after they injected her parents with something that this time she had no doubt, killed them instantly.

  Instead of fading while Maisie and Carson were carried away kicking and screaming, the vision offered a bit more of what would happen.

  And then it vanished, but the horrifying remnants remained with her.

  It took her a moment to process what she’d seen and when it registered, sheer terror seized Sunny. She opened her mouth and let out a scream that woke the entire household.

  She did nothing to shake it off. She wanted, needed, to remember it, because she was certain what she’d seen contained a clue to the identities of the abductors.

  Either that, or she truly was going stark-raving mad.

  Libby flew through her bedroom door. “What’s wrong?”

  Carson and Maisie were right behind her, clinging to each other, sobbing.

  Sunny forced herself out of the bed and dropped to the floor to embrace her children. What a rotten cherry on top of what had already been a somewhat stressful day for them. “It’s okay,” she said. “Mommy just had a bad dream.”

  Libby plopped down beside them, her hand to her chest. “You scared the bejesus out of us!”

  “Sorry,” Sunny said, her arms around the three of them. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Everyone okay?” Angie asked from the doorway. Backlit by the hall light, Sunny noticed that her bodyguard had a gun gripped in her right hand, which dangled at her side.

  “Just a bad dream,” Sunny said again.

  Libby wouldn’t leave it alone. “What was it about?”

  Sunny got creative with her response. “It’s fading so fast, I can’t even remember it now. I probably had too much ice cream for dessert.”

  “Brain freeze,” Carson said, peering up at her with worried eyes.

  “Bwain fweeze,” Maisie agreed, her head bobbing even as more tears streamed down her chubby little cheeks.

  God, her children were human parrots, soaking up everything she’d ever said. “Maybe.”

  “Or maybe,” Libby said, picking up the explanation ball, “your mommy is taking too many different medicines, and one didn’t agree with another. That can also make you have bad dreams.”

  Libby said it so convincingly, even Sunny found it plausible.

  “Does medicine cause brain freeze?” Carson wanted to know.

  “Bwain fweeze,” Maisie said again, nodding.

  “Maybe.” Sunny glanced at the clock radio on her bedside table, which seemed extra bright in her dark bedroom. Only 11:00 p.m. “Who’s up for some hot chocolate to unfreeze my brain?”

  “Too hot,” Carson said. His sibling mimic agreed.

  “Chocolate milk, then? And maybe a storybook after that?”

  The kids’ tears dried up at the suggestion. They disentangled and stood. Libby headed for the light switch and flicked it on.

  “I hungy,” Maisie announced.

  “Me, too,” said Carson.

  “Me, three,” Libby said.

  “Me four?” Angie asked, as if she might not be invited.

  Everyone had eaten a lot at dinner, but that was six hours ago, so hunger pangs at midnight weren’t unexpected. “Off to the kitchen, troops,” Sunny said, trying to sound jolly.

  Carson and Maisie ran from the room, hitting light switches as they went to brighten their way.

  Libby and Angie lingered a moment.

  Her sister said, “I want to hear all about it when they go back to bed.” She slid her arm around Sunny’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  “No, and I won’t be until I figure who the hell it is that wants to steal my children.”

  “Steal your children?” Libby cried.

  “What in God’s name are you talking about?” Angie demanded.

  “After the kids go back to bed, I’ll tell you both.”

  . . .

  Children being children, Carson and Maisie protested returning to their beds, but once the bedtime story was read, th
ey snuggled in under their covers and promptly fell asleep.

  Sunny met Libby and Angie back in the kitchen, where Libby was pouring three glasses of wine. “If you don’t want it,” she said to Sunny, “I’ll drink yours. I have a feeling I’m going to need it.”

  “You might at that,” Sunny said, her tone dry.

  They settled in around the kitchen table. Each took a healthy swallow from her glass.

  Libby said, “Give.”

  “It started out as a nightmare,” Sunny said, “which woke me up, and then came the vision.”

  “Vision? What vision? You mean like a vision vision?”

  Sunny shook her head at her sister. “Is there any other kind of vision?”

  Angie stared at Sunny, a perplexed expression on her face. “Are you saying you had a vision, like from God? Did you see the Virgin Mary or a burning bush or something?”

  “No, it wasn’t anything religious, and I have no idea where the visions come from,” Sunny admitted.

  Libby swallowed half the wine in her glass. “It must have been pretty bad if it made you scream.”

  “Hold up a minute,” Angie said, scowling. “Visions, plural? You’ve had more than one?”

  “Holy crap!” Libby said, her eyes wide. “I totally missed that.”

  Sunny realized belatedly that catching her sister and Luca’s cousin up on the visions wasn’t going to be quite as easy as it had been with Luca, because he’d actually experienced one with her. By the time she’d filled them in, Libby had retrieved the wine bottle from the counter and refilled all three glasses.

  “You probably think I’m crazy,” Sunny said.

  “No, actually I don’t,” Angie said. “Maybe I’m the one who’s crazy, but we Italians are a superstitious lot, and we tend to believe people when they tell us about weird shit like this.”

  Sunny turned to Libby. “What about you? You won’t tell Mom and Dad about this, will you?”

  Instead of answering, Libby drained her glass.

  “Libby, don’t ignore me. You’re not going to run and tell the folks about these visions, are you?”

  Her sister stared at her for a minute, then said, “No.”

  Sunny debated about whether or not go a step further and tell them that Luca had witnessed the second vision about the kidnapping. With very little back-and-forth in her own mind, she decided she had to.

  When she’d finished, Angie nodded. “That explains a lot.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Luca gave me a big lecture about keeping an eye on the kids. I thought that was odd, considering I was supposed to be keeping an eye on you.”

  “Was this vision tonight different or the same?” Libby asked.

  Sunny shifted uneasily in her chair, uneasy about recounting the vision, but knowing she had to. “This time, I knew for sure that Mom and Dad were…dead.”

  Libby closed her eyes and sucked in her lips.

  “Libs?”

  Her sister held up her hand to stave further communication.

  Sunny waited patiently, knowing it was a lot for her sister to take in.

  Finally Libby said, “What about the kids?”

  “Carson and Maisie were taken to a van and literally thrown inside.” She frowned, trying to remember something. When it hit her what that something was, she swore softly. “I got the license plate number!” She jumped up and grabbed a pad and a pen from a drawer. She scribbled the number down, as well as the make of the van. Back at the table, she handed Angie the piece of paper. “Maybe Luca can track it down.”

  Angie stared at the piece of paper with what looked like astonishment. “What color was it?”

  “White.”

  “It’s almost ironic,” Angie said, pushing away from the table.

  “Why?”

  “Vans are a popular mode of transportation for killers and kidnappers these days.”

  “They are?” Libby asked.

  Angie nodded. “I guess because they have more room in the back. In the days of Ted Bundy, if you can believe it, VW Bugs were the vehicle of choice in kidnappings.”

  “Is using a van good or bad?” Libby asked.

  “Honestly, I guess I’d have to say both. Good, because they’ll at least have room to move around. Bad because there are so many white vans on the roads these days, unless we have information about something distinctive on the vehicle, even with the plate number, it’ll be like trying to find that damned needle in a haystack.” She looked back at Sunny. “Did you see anyone or anything in the back of the van?”

  “Yes. There was another person in the back, but I couldn’t make out who. All I seem to be able to remember is that it was someone large, and I have the general impression that it was a man.” A full-body shiver wracked her. Something had been familiar about that person, but when she tried to grasp what, it eluded her.

  “What about any distinctive markings, say like a logo, on the vehicle?”

  Sunny thought about it for moment. Had there been something on the back doors? Again, she had the impression that there was, but she couldn’t remember for certain. It was practically a miracle that she’d remembered the plate number. She said as much to Angie.

  “I’m going to grab my laptop. We don’t have to wait for Luca to run the plate. I can log into the DMV and get the owner info now.” She was back in minutes with her Mac and went to work. “Well, this is interesting,” she said a short while later. “That plate was registered to an nineteen-ninety-nine Ford F-one-fifty, blue in color, owned by a man named Roger T. Kleinbert of Colorado Springs.”

  Angie’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “Hmm, in Colorado, tags can transfer between vehicles of the same owner. There’s a one dollar transfer fee and paperwork required.” She tapped out more keystrokes on the laptop. “According to this, Kleinbert died in twenty-eleven at age eighty-one.”

  “I doubt he’ll rise from the dead to kidnap Carson and Maisie,” Libby said.

  “Is there an obituary?” Sunny asked, even as Angie began typing again.

  “Found it!” She began to read aloud. Kleinbert was a rancher who owned property abutting the south end of Fort Carson. In 2009, he sold his ranch to the U.S. Army and retired from cattle ranching. His wife preceded him in death and he had no offspring. He had one brother, who died in 1998, and one sister, who, at the time of his death, was living in the Springs. The article said he also had two nephews and one niece, no names given.

  “So, he’s been deceased for over five years and had one close living relative, a sibling. Is it possible he left the truck to her and she transferred the plate when she bought a van?” Sunny asked.

  “Not likely,” Angie said, “since no transfer paperwork appears to have been filed.”

  “Can we find out the names of his sister and her children?” Libby asked.

  “We don’t know that the two nephews and one niece were her children, but yes, though it will have to wait until tomorrow, when I can make some phone calls.”

  Sunny rubbed her forehead, wishing it were possible to wipe away a headache by sheer force of will. “It’s possible that we can track these people down, then.”

  “I’m sure going to give it my best,” Angie said, shutting down her laptop. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m beat. What say we get some sleep and pick this up in the morning?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Libby agreed.

  “I’m pretty zonked myself,” Sunny admitted, thought she doubted she’d drop off as easily as either her sister or Angie.

  . . .

  Sunny spent the hours between breakfast and lunch the next morning playing with Carson and Maisie. Ever curious, her children pumped her about her nightmare. She made up a crazy story that made them laugh, but she wasn’t certain it made them forget the blood-curdling scream that had awakened them.

  After lunch, Libby supervised them playing in the wading pool out back, then put them down for their nap. Angie reported that she was exploring every avenue to find the
names of Kleinbert’s kin. “As soon as I know, you’ll know,” she told Sunny, who had gone back to work, painting more scenes for her book.

  Sunny belatedly remembered that she had meant to ask her sister to babysit for the evening, while she went to Luca’s place for dinner. She found Libby out on the back patio, reading a novel.

  Libby frowned with dismay and said, “I’m so sorry, Sunny, I have a date with Trey tonight.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call Luca and see if tomorrow night works for him instead.” She wandered back inside to her workroom and picked up her phone, scrolling through for Luca’s number. His phone went straight to voice mail. She hated to leave a message, but she didn’t want him to find out at the last minute, either, if he didn’t get a chance to call her back until later. “Hi, it’s Sunny. I should have called sooner, but with everything that’s going on, I forgot to ask Libby about babysitting tonight. It turns out she has plans with Trey, so she’s not available. How about tomorrow night instead?” She paused a moment, then said, “’Bye.”

  He called her back fifteen minutes later. “Hey, Sunshine, it’s me.”

  She’d added him to her speed-dials and given him a special ringtone since she’d left the voice mail, but even if she hadn’t been alerted by the Sweet Dreams ringtone, she’d would’ve recognized that sexy voice of his anywhere. “Hi, me. I guess you got my message.”

  “I did and yes, tomorrow night works for me, although it will be agony waiting.”

  The suggestive tone of his admission left her tingling with anticipation. “You haven’t known me long enough to be in agony when you don’t get to see me.”

  After the briefest of pauses, he said, “When two people connect, I don’t think time has any bearing on how one or the other of them feels.”

  That brought her up short, and she wasn’t sure how to respond. After Zach’s death, she hadn’t given any thought to finding someone down the road to replace him, either as a lover or as a husband. She certainly had not expected Luca Amorosi to come into her life, or to fall for him like she had, so quickly or so hard. He had her thinking things she wouldn’t have thought herself capable of thinking just a month ago.