Bad Moonlight (12 page)

“Nothing's wrong, except you need to calm down.” Caroline replied, keeping her arm around Danielle. “Let's forget about shopping today. Come on, I'll drive you home.”

Caroline doesn't want to believe that I'm so totally messed up, Danielle told herself as they drove away. How can she say nothing is wrong?

Danielle glanced across the car at her friend. Caroline frowned and tensely bit her lip. Her hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly the knuckles were white.

She
does
know something is wrong, Danielle thought. And she's afraid.

Maybe she's even afraid of me.

♦ ♦ ♦

“I've got you now! You're dead meat!”

Danielle ducked down and held her breath.

Silence. Where is he?

Then she heard shuffling footsteps. Loud breathing. She forced herself to keep still.

The breathing got louder. The footsteps closer.

Finally a blond head poked out from behind a large cardboard box.

Danielle grinned and aimed her Super Soaker. “Gotcha!” she shouted and sprayed water onto her brother's chest.

Cliff fell to his knees and tried to catch the stream of water in his mouth. “Help! I'm drowning!”

Danielle laughed, pumped the water gun, and sprayed him again.

After the frightening scene yesterday, it felt good to be out in the backyard playing a game with her little brother.

“How'd you get me?” Cliff asked when Danielle's gun was empty. He pulled up his drenched T-shirt.

“It wasn't exactly hard,” Danielle told him as they refilled their water guns from a faucet on the side of the house. “You walk like an elephant, Cliff. And I could hear you breathing a mile away.”

“You sound like Aunt Margaret,” Cliff complained. “She's always telling me not to breathe through my mouth or else a bug's going to fly in.”

“So keep your mouth shut,” Danielle advised.

“Yeah, okay.” Cliff squirted water on her arm. “Come on, I'll get you this time!”

The two of them ran to opposite ends of Cliff's cardboard fort and took cover.

The cardboard was getting a little soggy, Danielle noticed. “Hey, Cliff!” she called. “Your fort's going to
collapse if it gets much wetter. Maybe you ought to find some wood and build another one.”

Cliff shouted a reply. Danielle couldn't make out the words.

Now I know where he is, she thought. He falls for that trick every time.

Danielle heard a soft thud.

Grinning, she crept along the length of the fort and turned a corner. Her brother crouched in the dirt. “Gotcha again!” she yelled, aiming the water gun.

“Time out,” Cliff protested. “I hurt myself.”

Danielle rolled her eyes. “Nice try, Cliff.”

“I did! I fell and scraped my arm on one of the boxes. I didn't know cardboard was so sharp.” Cliff stood up and held out his arm. “See? It's bleeding.”

Danielle moved closer and stared. A small cut, about half an inch long. Bright red blood flowed down the slender arm.

She reached out and took hold of her brother's arm.

“What are you doing?” Cliff cried, trying to pull away.

Danielle tightened her grip.

“That's gross, Danielle! Stop it!”

Cliff's protests buzzed annoyingly in her brain. The words made no sense to her.

The cut filled all her senses. Red. Rich. Pulsing.

Danielle pressed her lips against Cliff's soft skin and hungrily lapped up the blood.

Chapter 20

NIGHT VISITOR

T
hat night Danielle pulled back the curtains on her bedroom window and gazed out at the backyard.

The moon hovered over the silvery trees, low and full. Its bright light washed over Cliff's sagging cardboard fort.

Danielle turned away from the window.

I can't believe I did that, she thought, raising her hand to her mouth.

I can't believe I drank Cliff's blood.

Think about something else, she ordered herself. A song. Write a new song. Take your mind off what has been happening to you.

Danielle lay down on the bed and propped her legs up on the windowsill. Closing her eyes, she let words and images drift in and out of her mind. She often
composed this way, without her guitar. Later, once she had the words in her mind, she put them to music.

After a while the lyrics began to take shape.

I'm at the window
howling at the moon,
crying out my love,
trying to get through,
through to you.

I'm howling, howling,
howling my love.
Gotta claw my way back,
back to you.

Weird, Danielle thought.

Howling my love? Gotta claw my way back?

More than weird. Frightening.

Why am I writing things like this? Stuff about clawing and howling. And killing.

Danielle opened her eyes and sat up. Outside, the moon seemed brighter. She shivered and reached for the curtain.

Her arm stopped in midair.

That shadow on Cliff's fort—was it there before?

Every muscle tensed as Danielle watched the shadow slide across the tattered cardboard and into the cold light of the moon.

Someone lurked in the backyard, staring up at her bedroom window.

Chapter 21

BAD NEWS

D
anielle ducked back behind the folds of the curtain. Hidden in the darkness, she struggled to catch her breath.

Then, cautiously, she peered around the curtain again.

A face, pale in the moonlight, tilted toward her window.

Billy's face.

Danielle leaned out the window. “Billy!” she called in a loud whisper. “What are you—wait! I'll come down.”

She didn't want to wake her aunt and Cliff. On tiptoe, Danielle made her way downstairs and into the kitchen. She unlocked the back door and eased it open.

Billy crept inside. In the glow of the moonlight that followed him into the room, Danielle could see that he was nervous. His hazel eyes darted around the kitchen, not meeting Danielle's gaze. His hands stayed jammed into the pockets of his faded cutoffs.

Something was wrong.

“What is it?” Danielle asked. “And how come you came sneaking through the yard like that? You really scared me!”

“Sorry. I—” Billy's gaze shifted to the kitchen door. “I started to the front door, but I didn't see any lights and I didn't want to disturb your aunt.”

“What's the matter?”

“The matter? Nothing.” Billy glanced around the kitchen again. “I—uh—I wanted to make sure you're ready for tomorrow night's show.”

Danielle stared at him. Billy wouldn't stake out her backyard at midnight just to make sure she was ready for a performance.

“Billy—”

“The show is here in Shadyside,” Billy interrupted quickly. “Makes it a lot easier, right? No packing, no driving, no depressing hotels.”

“Right,” Danielle agreed. What is his problem? she wondered, studying his face.

“It'll be good to play in front of a hometown audience,” he went on. “The manager says we're sold out.”

“That's great.”

Billy took his hands out of his pockets, put them on
his hips, then shoved them back in his pockets again. He stared at his feet.

“Billy, what
is
it?” she demanded. “You're so nervous, you're giving me the creeps.”

At last Billy met her gaze.

Danielle jerked away. His eyes! His eyes gleamed with desperation!

Licking his lips, Billy shifted his weight and began inching toward Danielle.

“Danielle, I have—”

“What?” Danielle cried. She took another step back and bumped into a kitchen chair. “What is it? Just tell me!”

Billy kept moving closer to Danielle. “Bad news,” he whispered. “I have very bad news.”

Chapter 22

DANIELLE GOES HUNTING

“B
ad news?” Danielle edged around the chair and glanced toward the door leading into the hallway. She suddenly wanted to get away from him. Fast. “What is it?”

“It's Dee,” Billy answered.

“Dee?” Danielle stopped moving. “What about Dee?”

“She quit the band.”

Danielle stared at him. “She
quit?”

Billy nodded. “I would have talked her out of it, but she didn't tell me in person. She left me a note.”

“Did she say why?”

“Not really,” Billy replied. “She wrote that she couldn't handle what was happening.”

“She meant me. I know she did,” Danielle declared.
“She hated me, hated having to share the lead with me, and—”

“No!” Billy broke in. “It wasn't you, Danielle.” He closed the gap between them. “I know it wasn't because of you.”

“Then why?” Danielle asked. Secretly she felt relieved. It will be great not to have Dee glaring at me anymore, Danielle thought.

“Why
else
would she leave?” Danielle demanded.

“I—” Billy broke off. He cleared his throat tensely. “Never mind,” he told her. “Listen, I better go. Sorry about scaring you before. See you tomorrow at rehearsal.”

Billy pushed open the screen door and quickly melted into the shadows of the backyard.

Danielle didn't try to stop him. She shut the inner door and bolted it, glad he was gone.

I'm shaking, Danielle realized. Billy scared me. He acted so strangely. I could see he didn't tell me everything.

What is he hiding?

Back up in her room Danielle closed the curtain and flopped down on her bed. Useless to try to write anything now. She couldn't stop thinking about Billy's visit.

And Dee.

What did Billy want to say about Dee? He was definitely keeping something from her.

Danielle jumped up and began to pace the room. She had the creeps, and being alone made it worse. She needed someone to talk to, to be with.

She picked up the phone next to her bed and listened to the dial tone for a few seconds. Who should she call? Caroline?

No.

Kit.

Kit, with his cool, dark-lashed eyes and his warm smile. Kit, who cared about her.

Kit lived alone in the carriage house of a North Hills estate. It was late. But Danielle didn't care if she woke him up. She needed to talk to him.

Kit answered on the first ring.

“Kit?”

“Danielle,” he replied. “Hey, I'm glad you called.”

Danielle smiled, happy to hear his voice. “Me too.”

“What's up?”

“Nothing. I just—” Danielle paused. “I just wanted to talk to somebody. To you, I mean.”

“Well, that's good to hear. But you sound kind of stressed out,” Kit said. “Is anything wrong?”

“Not really. Well, maybe,” Danielle admitted. “Billy was here. He left about five minutes ago.”

Kit's voice rose in surprise. “What was he doing there?”

“I'm not sure,” Danielle replied. “He told me about Dee quitting the band.”

“Yeah. He called me a couple of hours ago with the news.” Now Kit sounded annoyed. “Nice of Dee to give us so much notice, huh?”