Midnight Reign (13 page)

“How can you be sure?!”

“Kiko.” Breisi’s tone was forceful. “The holy water and silver are having no effect—”

“She could be one of those higher-level vamps! Let go of me, goddamnit!” Kiko grunted, trying to free himself.

Dawn couldn’t feel anything—she was too afraid to. “I thought I saw…
felt
…” What? What the hell had she felt besides hatred and vengeance?

For one second, while the adrenaline coursed through her, she’d felt like she had a purpose. She’d felt defined.

Tentatively approaching the woman, Dawn reached out to her. “I’m sorry. So sorry, here…let me—”

With an ear-stabbing screech, the woman sprang up, swiped at Dawn with her jagged fingernails and sprang away. She sprinted down the alley, erased by the darkness.

Dawn’s gaze settled on the woman’s meager belongings: an army bag with torn pants sticking out, a plastic tarp, a ratty, stuffed pink bunny rabbit with dead pink—not even red—eyes. The last item had a bloodstain on it, fresh, livid.

“We need to find her,” Dawn said, the words barely forming. “We should get her some medical aid—”

She took off running to the end of the alley.
Have to find her,
Dawn thought.
Have to make sure she’s okay…

But when she arrived at the exit, she zipped her gaze back, forth, everywhere.

The woman was gone. Hiding? Where?

Footsteps slammed the pavement behind her, and without really feeling anything, Dawn recognized that a hand had landed on her shoulder, jerking her back into the alley.

It was Breisi, frantic, pissed as hell. “Don’t ever run off by yourself. What if she was bait for an ambush, or—”

“We’ve got to find her,” Dawn repeated.

“No.”

When Dawn looked at Breisi, she found her coworker angrier than she’d ever imagined. In back of her, Kiko finally arrived, slow to travel.

“Dawn, you know what’s at stake,” Breisi half whispered, but her soft tone was lethal. “We cannot tell a medical worker that you stabbed a woman with a martial arts weapon.”

“But you can give her some help,” Dawn insisted. “You’ve done it for me and Kik, with your gel….”

Looking torn, Breisi glanced around. She was only being careful, Dawn knew, only analyzing the risk of a trap. Gradually, Dawn forced herself to admit the necessity of pausing; she’d already done enough damage by reacting too quickly. Was she going to make it worse by leaving her team?

Kiko kept right on going past both Dawn and Breisi, clearly intent on finding the woman himself.

“Kik—” Dawn grabbed at his jacket, holding him back from the unknown.

He resisted, and Breisi stepped back in, holding his jacket, too, keeping him with them, just as Dawn was.

“You’re not to engage in anything, Kiko Daniels,” Breisi said. “We’ve been clear about that.”

He held up a finger, first to Breisi, then to Dawn, accusing them both with a heartbreakingly enraged grimace.

“You need my help,” he said, voice trembling. “You can’t stop me from giving it.”

Feeling dead again, Dawn shook her head. “You’re right. We do need you. But you’re not…”

How could she say it without mortifying him?

He finished for her. “I’m not up to it right now. You’ve told me. I’m a gimp, physically and mentally. But that’s just because you’re coddling me. If you’d let me loose, I could get us back on track….” He trailed off, probably because he, also, knew that he was lying to himself.

Without another word, he turned his back on them.

Slowly, Breisi put an arm around his shoulders, then guided him away, casting one last baleful glance at Dawn, who slowly followed, taking up their backs.

But before she turned the corner, she looked behind her, seeing the faint glow of the stuffed bunny’s eyes by the Dumpster.

The pink lights sputtered out.

I
N
the clenched silence of the SUV, Dawn sat on the edge of her front seat, vainly inspecting the passing storefronts and sidewalks. “Can’t you slow down?”

Breisi complied as Kiko spoke up.

“If we haven’t found her by now, we’re not going to do it anytime tonight. The boss even said that none of the Friends can locate her. She’s gone where all the other faceless people in this town go: through the cracks.”

He’d grabbed the backseat, surrendering shotgun to Dawn, acknowledging that she needed the clearer view in this fruitless search. Lying flat on his back, he wore his sunglasses, as if blocking everything out.

“Kiko’s right,” Breisi said. “Chances are slim to none we’ll find her.”

“A slim chance is higher than zero.” Dawn swiveled her gaze back and forth, covering every streetlamp-lit patch of sidewalk and every shadow. This wasn’t over. Not until she made up for her mistake.

“We can anonymously look around to see if a woman of her description checked into any ERs,” Breisi said. “How is that?”

“Not enough.”

Even as she said it, she knew her teammates were right, that they couldn’t do this all night. L.A. wasn’t a sandbox; the wounded lady could be anywhere by now. But, still…it was her own tangled thirst for payback that had injured the innocent bystander, and the more she recalled the thrill of whisking that throwing star at what she thought was a monster, getting it before it got her, the more her self-disgust grew.

The dashboard clock flashed 11:08, each pulse seeping into Dawn with stressful urgency. But when Breisi turned the SUV back toward the office, Dawn knew it was done.

I’d take it back if I could,
she kept thinking over and over in useless apology to a woman who’d never hear it.

Wouldn’t I?

The question stabbed at her, a knife point digging toward what she suspected was the truth.

Her weapons were real now: no more stunt fighting, no more movie magic that made the imaginary into a facsimile of life. She’d crossed that line a while ago, but it was only tonight, faced with the wounds she could inflict on a human, that she understood the full impact of drawing blood.

And, someone help her, deep inside she knew she’d do it again if the situation were repeated. She’d do it to get Frank back, and that scared her more than any monster.

Terror lodged in her throat, and when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket, she rushed to grab it.

The call screen read “Matt Lonigan,” and even though Breisi, his biggest fan, was sitting right there, Dawn went ahead and took it. They’d been playing too much phone tag. “Hi.”

“Hey.” He hesitated. “What’s wrong?”

She straightened in her seat, like that would change the flatness of her voice or something. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Breisi glance over, then turn back to the front.

“I’m just tired.” There. The most deflective excuse in the book. It was almost the
How are you? / Fine, thank you, how are you?
of meaningless exchanges.

A beat passed while he probably thought the same thing. Then, “You sound busy. I was actually expecting your voice mail since it’s pretty late….”

So polite. He often called late, knowing she’d be up. They knew each other’s schedules by now, if nothing else.

“I’m just…” What? Worried about her id? “…puttering around right now.”

From the backseat, Kiko grunted but didn’t say anything.

“Just puttering?” There was a smile in Matt’s voice. “Well, how about that. Me, too.”

“No pressing PI duties tonight?” Her tone was still comatose, but it was improving. He had that effect on her. “No dead bodies to lurk around or shadows to jump out of? You must be at a loss.”

He laughed. “See. I knew I could get you to say something scrappy. For a minute I thought you were in a bad mood. Well, worse than normal.”

What she wouldn’t give to allow him to help her forget. She managed her own smile, then rubbed a hand over her eyes.

“If you’re not doing much,” he said, voice going low, “I have a couple of ideas about how to cheer you up.”

“Cheer? That sounds so…” Impossible. But if that were true, why did it send a blip of interest through her?

They’d reached the Hills by now, pulling in front of their Spanish Revival office. A small sign proclaiming
LIMPET AND ASSOCIATES
hung over the porch, near the iron cross that guarded the doorway. Like shaded eyes, the circular windows were blocked by iron grating and thick curtains. The red-tiled roof and tan stucco provided caked makeup for the building’s aging face—a Gloria Swanson used-to-be who was creaking into modern times.

As Breisi pulled into the garage and cut the engine, she didn’t make a move to exit. Even Kiko, slowly sitting up in the backseat, wasn’t leaving.

Dawn cleared her throat at them, indicating that, perhaps, some privacy wouldn’t come amiss.

Both coworkers remained rooted. Nosy.

Matt started to say something again, but Dawn stopped him.

“Can I call you back?”

“All right.” He sounded a little baffled.

She hung up. “May I help you two?”

“Besides recovering from tonight, you need to catch up on sleep,” Breisi said. “Things are picking up, so any rest you can get now might help later.”

Kiko joined in. “I think that’s Breez’s way of saying some shut-eye will increase your powers of judgment, Dawn. And you know what? Not a bad idea.”

Dawn got the impression that he’d wanted to add something like “for us both” to the end of his comment. She didn’t remark on this near-apology for getting angry at her and Breisi. No sense in rubbing salt in his sores.

“Are you saying you don’t need me for the rest of the night?” she asked Breisi.

“I’m saying you need to use your time wisely.” The other woman gave a pointed glance toward the phone.

Dawn’s rebellious attitude reared up. “Did it occur to you that I might be able to get a bead on what Matt knows about Jessica Reese’s murder and how it’s connected to Klara’s?”

Breisi opened her mouth, but Kiko beat her.

“If that’s why you wanna go, then go, Dawn. It’s too late to make any other possible interview appointments tonight anyway.”

With one sex-patrol glance back at her, he carefully got out of the SUV, sliding down the seat until he hit pavement.

He shut the door, leaving Breisi and Dawn alone. Genuine worry lingered in her coworker’s gaze, and Dawn couldn’t find it in herself to battle against that. It was kinda nice to be cared about sometimes.

“Don’t get all fretful,” Dawn said. “I’m defense-ready, just in case he turns out to be the mean man you think he is.”

“You’ve got free will, but…If you insist on seeing him, would you refuse to have a Friend accompany you?”

“Breisi.”

“Dawn.”

Stalemate. Realistically, Dawn saw the sense in bringing extra protection; part of the reason she found Matt so attractive was his dark mystique. The other part of it was because, out of everyone else in her life right now, he really did make her feel that normalcy was not just an abstract word someone had stuck in the dictionary. In spite of all his possible closet activities, he was a genuine guy. Hollyweird didn’t have many of those. She sure as hell didn’t know any.

And, anyway, he
did
know something about Jessica Reese; he’d let on as much the last time she’d seen him. Why not subtly grill him about it in person?

Breisi traced her car key over the steering wheel. “I don’t feel right about leaving you alone with anyone right now. We should all be sticking together.”

It occurred to Dawn that maybe Breisi thought she owed it to Frank to watch over his daughter. Unable to help it, she smiled at the other woman, touching her arm briefly before taking her hand away again. Breisi merely nodded once, as if most everything was out in the open now. Right.

“I’ll tell you what.” Dawn felt like a kid bargaining for the car on a Friday night. “What if one of our Friends hangs around outside while I go to Matt’s. I won’t even stay long, just enough to get some information if he’s willing to give it. No guts, no find-out-about-the-Underground, right?”

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.

A
N
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.