Dreams for the Dead (2 page)

“What do you want?” Dawn demanded.

“To thank you,” he said. His green eyes blazed and he began to smile.

Dawn stepped back, her brow knitting in concern. “Leila—”

“For bringing her back,” he continued. “Now I don’t have to chase after her.”

“
Help
!” Dawn screamed, poising herself to run.

Jared shoved her to the ground and grabbed Leila. Her wide-set almond eyes were blank, passive, but her feet dragged lightly against the asphalt, as if she were resisting after all. Jared jerked her into the Corvette and shut the door.

By the time Dawn came to her feet, he’d already slipped into the driver seat. The engine roared and the car sped north down Main Street. Dawn ran after it, trying to make out the license plate and see which direction it turned. The camera bounced irritatingly against her body and she tried to hold it steady. After a few yards the car was out of sight and she gave up the chase to stumble back to the parking lot, hot and out of breath.

“Shit,” she muttered. She brushed bits of gravel off her palms and reached for her phone. “
Shit
!”

Her fingers clumsily punched in 911. Phone pressed to her ear, she spotted Leila’s car keys on the ground. She snatched them up and shoved them in the front pocket of her jeans, where they bulged uncomfortably. At least they wouldn’t get lost this time.

Suddenly the phone was plucked out of her hands. With a cry she spun around to see Tristan toss it off to the side.

For a second Dawn could only stare as the phone clattered several feet away and broke into pieces. She thought she’d been rational, taking note of the Corvette’s direction and calling the cops with as much calm as anyone could manage in a similar situation. But seeing her phone dashed on the ground unleashed something inside her. All the emotion held carefully in check burst forth in a su
dden stream of hot tears.

“What the
fuck
?” Dawn shrieked. She dove for the phone and immediately wanted to hit something. It wasn’t just a matter of sticking the battery back in. Tristan had crushed it somehow, crushed it with his bare hands, and now it was completely useless.

“You shouldn’t call the police,” he said, coming up behind her.

Dawn whirled up to her feet and threw what remained of the phone at him. He didn’t flinch. “That guy just kidnapped my friend, you idiot!”

“I know. It’s best you just forget about it. There’s nothing you can do.”

“Forget?
Forget
? How can I— Do you have any idea—” She was too angry now to form a complete sentence. The utter absence of emotion in his eyes was astonishing for some reason, and she couldn’t think how she should react. Yell at him? Hurt him? Flag down some random passerby in this shitty part of town and beg for help?

Maybe he’s a robot
, she found herself thinking.

“The rules dictate I kill you now,” he said, and his voice was anything but robotic. It was smooth and dangerously seductive. “Or else I take you with me, and b
elieve me, you wouldn’t like that. Anyway, I don’t feel like doing either of those things, fortunately for you. So, if you’d prefer to stay alive just a little while longer, you should get the fuck out of here and never think about this night again.”

Run.
That was the answer. That was the appropriate reaction.

So she did.

Without looking twice at Tristan, she shot away from the parking lot and down the sidewalk. She wriggled the keys from her pocket and had already clicked open the locks by the time she reached Leila’s car. She couldn’t hear the footsteps of anyone following her, but she was beginning to panic anyway, stabbing the keys at the ignition several times before they finally went in. And then she was driving, the tires squealing as she made a U-turn in the middle of the deserted street, away from that stupid bar.
Breathe. Breathe.

Eventually she was on the 95 heading home and she’d calmed herself down enough to think more or less rationally again.

But Leila was still gone.

And Dawn didn’t know what she was going to do about it.

~

The very fact of morning should have made everything seem better. It didn’t, not really.

Last night Dawn had parked Leila’s car in its usual spot just a few steps from the front door of their shared apartment. It was still there when Dawn peeked through the blinds first thing upon waking. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to see, but apparently nothing had changed. For some reason, though, it felt safe having Leila’s car where it was supposed to be, even if that meant nothing because Leila herself was gone.

But Dawn hadn’t felt anywhere near safe after coming home and locking herself in. She’d checked the door several times, and all the windows, Tristan’s threats running through her mind.
You shouldn’t call the police.
Forget about it.
And then what he’d said about killing her, or kidnapping her … He was psychotic, obviously. Jared was too.

Though wide awake after coming home, she’d tried to sleep, knowing it would be good for her. She couldn’t. It was equal parts fear and confusion keeping her up. Finally she’d stuck a sunstone and a Herkimer diamond beneath her pi
llow and managed to grab a few hours.

Now, Dawn stood in front of the bathroom mirror and rolled on some nag champa oil. She tied the soft black strings of her favorite pe
ndant around her neck. It was a howlite disk, the strings looped through a hole in the center of it. It was a dull white stone laced with pale gray filaments, like a colorless piece of turquoise. A ghost stone, she’d always thought. It was like her, pallid and empty beside more colorful counterparts.

She pushed her thick, fuzzy hair behind her broad shoulders and studied her face, pale beneath the lingering summer tan. Her blue-green eyes seemed tired behind her black glasses, but they almost a
lways looked that way. A hasty application of some blush and lip gloss helped her look more alive.

The events of the night might have happened in a dream, but she knew they hadn’t. Even so, she felt much calmer today. Everything could be fixed. Her fear seemed embarrassing now. Tristan’s threats didn’t mean so much. And, well, she
was
going to the police, no matter what that psycho said. Of course she was. Leila needed her.

But once she’d bought a new phone, a cheap prepaid one like she always used, all she could do was hold it and stare at it. She kept thinking about how menacing Jared had looked, how much he’d seemed to hate her even though he didn’t even know her name. And Tristan, with his smooth threats and eyes gleaming at her beneath the grainy sodium lights. She couldn’t possibly call the police. They would know if she did. Somehow, they would know.

Instead she dialed Leila’s number, the only number besides her own she’d even bothered to memorize. It rang five times and then went to voicemail. Dawn left a quick, urgent message, barely remembering to include her new number. She tried again two times with the same result. On the fourth try, the phone cut off mid ring and went to voicemail. On the fifth, it didn’t ring at all.

Just call the police already
, Dawn told herself, holding the phone with shaking hands.

Her mind spun out a scenario. She would call them and tell them her twenty-three-year-old roommate had disappeared with a strange man. If they didn’t laugh at Dawn for reporting an adult missing less than twenty-four hours, they would question her and pick apart her story. Had Leila screamed or fought? No? Then hadn’t she gotten into the car willingly?

Maybe it would have looked and sounded that way to some people. But Dawn knew Leila’s willingness had somehow been insidiously compromised.

She set the phone down on the counter beside the camera, then walked back to Leila’s room and pushed open the door. Her foot snagged on a dress lying in a heap on the blue carpet. It was a vi
ntage-style thrift store dress Dawn had altered to fit Leila for one of her photography projects. After the project, Leila had gone through a mod phase, teasing up her hair and winging out her eyeliner. She’d recently abandoned the hair but kept the eyeliner.

Dawn laid the dress out on the cherry blossom comforter and paced around the room. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, just that she needed some kind of evidence Leila was in danger. How long ago had she met Jared? Had she even said? If she’d met him on campus, maybe he and Leila knew some of the same people. Maybe he was involved in a mutual friend’s art project. Maybe Leila had taken his picture …

Suddenly Dawn remembered the camera. She hurried back out to the kitchen and picked it up. Even after examining it for a few moments, she didn’t feel confident she could get the film out without damaging it. She wasn’t sure what good a picture of Jared would do anyway, except prove he existed. And maybe she could convince a cop to cross-reference it with a national database or something.

Leila always took her film to a camera store near campus. Dawn had been along a few times and managed to find it without much trouble. She took the camera in and handed it to the clerk.

“I don’t know how to take out the film,” she explained sheepishly.

He didn’t even try to disguise his look of disdain, but she ignored it. After stumbling through purposely confusing questions on how she wanted it processed, she went back to the car and pr
epared herself to wait an hour.

She looked at her phone, but there were no missed calls. Zach had probably been trying her old number. She started to call him but realized she didn’t know his number by heart. It was eleven o’clock, so he’d be at the garage. He wouldn’t get off until four, so she decided just to drive halfway across town to see him while the film developed. She picked up a soda for him on the way, and an iced coffee for herself.

Dawn parked in the hot sun and walked into the not-much-cooler shade of the garage. Zach spotted her right away, before her eyes even had time to adjust.

“Where’ve you been? I tried calling you last night.” He was sweaty and covered in grease, but his thick black hair was still perfectly combed into a rockabilly pomp. He’d pulled his coveralls down to the waist, exposing his muscular shoulders and white tank.

“My phone broke,” Dawn said, handing over the soda. “I got this new one. What’s your number?”

After taking a long drink, he made a smacking sound of satisfaction and recited it. “So where were you last night?” he asked as she punched it in.

Dawn lifted her thick, curly brown hair off her sticky neck and twisted it up behind one ear. With nothing to hold it in place, it unraveled quickly. She frowned as she considered how to begin.

“Here.” Zach pulled the crumpled red bandana from his back pocket and handed it to her.

“Thanks.” She set the coffee down and tied her long hair up in a high ponytail. “So … Leila got kidnapped last night.”

“What?”

“She was supposed to be meeting some guy at the bar we went to.” Dawn told the rest of the story as coherently as possible, but it was hard when the night seemed so odd and far away. She tried to convey her fear and the meaning behind the threats and the murderous intent in Jared’s green eyes. When she was done, she took a deep breath and glanced at Zach, waiting for his advice.

He nodded. “Okay … I see why you’re worried, but it sounds like she went with that guy wil
lingly. I mean, she does things like that, right?”

“Well, sometimes, but that’s not what happened. She hasn’t even called! And when I called her, her phone was off.”

“She’s probably just having a good time. Girls like Leila—”

Dawn shook her head, annoyed. “What do you mean,
girls like Leila
?”

Zach stretched his neck from side to side, recognizing he’d said something wrong. “You know, she’s … she’s kind of …”

“What?” Dawn demanded. “What is she?”

“She’s, uh, a little slutty. I mean, it’s cool with me, but sometimes girls like that …”

Dawn’s mouth dropped open. “I can’t believe what you’re implying. That’s not even … You know what? I don’t think we should see each other right now. You’re not even taking this seriously.”

“What? You’re breaking up with me because I said something stupid? Come on, I didn’t mean it.”

“It doesn’t matter. Something weird is happening and I’m going to help Leila however I can.”

“Okay,” he said. “I can help you. Just tell me what to do.”

“I don’t know what you can do,” she said irritably. “I’m just … figuring this out as I go along.”

“Whatever. Let me know. Thanks for the soda.”

Her hair fell to her shoulders as she untied the bandana and handed it back to him. “Here.”

“Keep it.” He went back to his work, pointedly ignoring her.

She was too angry and agitated to care that she might have overreacted, so she walked stiffly back to the car without another word. Why couldn’t Zach see how horrible things were? At least he’d confirmed her ideas of what the police would have to say about Leila’s kidnapping.

The film would be ready by now. It would take fifteen minutes to get through traffic. If she had time b
efore work, Dawn thought she’d go to campus to see if she could find out anything there. But if by some chance Leila had come home, she should swing by the apartment first … No, campus was closer. And her calls to Leila still weren’t going through.