Samantha Moon: First Eight Novels, Plus One Novella (33 page)

She agreed to my terms, and for her sake, I hope she honors them.

My body was shutting down. Quickly. I felt vulnerable and weak and easy to subdue. But even at my weakest, I still couldn’t be killed, unless someone drove a stake through my heart.

And why would anyone want to do that to such a sweet little thing?

Vampires might be immortal, but we sure as hell felt human about this time; that is, just before sunrise. (And, no, I didn’t sleep in a coffin. Just give me a bed, darkness, and some peace and quiet.)

When I shut down, I do so in waves. The first, a draining of energy, always hits me about a half hour before sunrise. And ten minutes before the sun came up, the second wave hit.

That was always a rough wave. I was stuck between exhaustion and sleep. I usually lay down at this time, because within minutes I would be out cold. But when the third wave hit, I absolutely had to lie down and sleep. I was out of options.

For now I was in the middle of the second wave. The sun was minutes from rising and my body was exhausted. And that’s when my IM window popped up on my laptop.

Are you up, Moon Dance?

Yes, but not for long.

First or second wave?
asked Fang.

Second wave. Almost third.

So I have only a few minutes.

Yes.

I like knowing that I’m sometimes the last person you think about before going to sleep.

You’ve said that before.

When I was in the second wave, I was often short and to the point and didn’t feel very flirty. I felt exhausted. I felt as close to dead as a person could feel.

I also like knowing that you might dream of me.

I rarely dream, Fang. And besides, what am I supposed to dream about? Words that appear in a pop-up window?

There was a long pause. Almost too long. I felt myself going catatonic. If Fang didn’t say something soon, it was going to take all my last energy to shut the computer down and crawl over to the couch in the pseudo-living room.

Then perhaps we should meet someday, Moon Dance.

Now it was my turn to pause. I sat back, and as I did so, I had the peculiar sense that something wanted to leave my body. What that something was, I wasn’t sure. A part of me. Perhaps my soul, if I still had one. Within seconds I would be out cold.

Through a narrow gap in the curtain, I could see the sky lightening with the coming of the sun.

Are you being serious, Fang?

Yes.

I drummed my fingers on the wooden desk. My brain was fuzzy, thoughts scattered.

Did you say meet?
I asked.

Yes. Now, sleep, Moon Dance. Goodnight, even thought it’s morning.

Goodnight and good morning, Fang.

Chapter Twenty-four

“
You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked Monica for the tenth time.

She nodded but looked a little overwhelmed. I didn’t blame her. We were at Chino State Prison in Ontario, California, sitting in a stark waiting room with a few other people. I had made special arrangements with the warden for a late evening visit. Both he and the inmate agreed. Being an ex-federal agent has its advantages.

The plain waiting room was smaller than I thought it would be. We sat in plastic bucket seats that were covered with gang graffiti. Took some balls to carve gang graffiti in a prison waiting room.

Monica looked lost and fragile, and I wondered again at my logic for bringing her here. Chad was busy tonight and I had had no one else to turn to. As I was contemplating calling the private investigator Kingsley and I had met at the beach, brainstorming out loud, Monica had volunteered to come with me, telling me she would be fine. “After all,” she had said, “I’m just going to be in the waiting room, right? I won’t be seeing him.”

I reached out now and held her hand, forgetting for a moment that my own was ice cold. She flinched at the touch, but then gripped my hand back tightly.

“
Sorry,” I said. “My hands get cold.”

“
So do mine. Don’t worry about it.” She squeezed my hand again, tighter, and looked at me. “So what are you going to say to him?”

“
I’m going to convince him to leave you alone.”

She nodded and looked down. I didn’t want to mention that maybe her ex-husband’s next attempt to find someone to hurt her might slip past prison officials. Although all his calls were monitored, there is more than one way to smuggle information out of a prison.

“How are you going to convince him?” she asked.

“
I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m going to kind of feel my way through it.”

“
He’ll want to kill you, too, you know.”

“
I’m not worried about him.”

She kept holding my hand. Hers, I noticed, was shaking. I shouldn’t have brought her—

But maybe this was a good thing for her. Maybe on some level, she was facing her fears.

Just then the heavy main door into the prison opened and a young, serious-looking guy wearing a correctional uniform stepped into the room.

“Samantha Moon?” he asked.

I gave Monica’s hand a final squeeze before I released it. “I’ll be back,” I said.

Chapter Twenty-five

Ira Lang was shown through a heavy metal door.

Monica’s ex-husband was a medium-sized man in his mid-forties. He was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, and not very well, either. The clothing hung loosely from his narrow shoulders and flapped around his ankles when he walked. He looked like a deflated pumpkin. Ira was nearly bald, although not quite. Unlike my client, Stuart, Ira did not have a perfect bald head. In fact, his was anything but. Misshapen and oddly flat, it was furrowed with deep grooves that ran from the base of his skull to his forehead. What Monica had seen in the man, I didn’t know.

I watched from behind the thick Plexiglass window as Ira was led over to a chair opposite me. I noticed the guard did not remove the handcuffs, which were attached to a loose chain at Ira’s waist, giving him just enough freedom of movement to pick up the red phone in front of him and bring it to his ear, which he did now. I picked up the phone on my side of the Plexiglass.

“
Who the fuck are you?” he asked.

I knew the warden was listening. The warden had agreed to let me speak to Ira, anything to make this problem go away. And Ira, with his hell bent desire to kill his wife, was proving to be a huge problem for the prison.

“My name’s Samantha Moon, and I’m a private investigator. I’ve been hired to protect your ex-wife.”

“
Protect her from what?”

“
You.”

I sometimes get psychic hits, and I got one now. I saw waves of darkness radiating from Ira. Wave after black wave. The man felt polluted. I sensed something hovering around him, something alive and something alien. I sensed this thing had its hooks in Ira. What this thing was, I didn’t know. After all, it was only an impression I was getting, a feeling. Something I sensed but didn’t really see. Anyway, this
something
was black and ancient and full of hate and vitriol, psychically hanging on to Ira’s back, digging its supernatural claws deep within the man. I sensed that Ira had let this dark energy into his life through a lifetime of fear and hate and jealousy. And I knew, without a doubt, that whatever this thing was that had its hooks in Ira, it would never, ever let him go without a phenomenal fight. Whatever clung to Ira would cling to him until his death, and perhaps even beyond, a cancer of the worst kind.

These were all psychic hits. Impressions. Gut feelings. I get these often. Sometimes they’re important, sometimes they’re a waste of time. But I’ve learned that I should trust such feelings. And I trusted these.

A smirk touched Ira’s lips. And something ancient and dark swept just behind his eyes. Whether or not Ira was possessed by something, I couldn’t say for sure. But something foul and alive was eating him away from the inside out.

He asked, “So what are you, a body guard or something?”

“Or something.”

He laughed, but his was a dry, raspy, dead sound. “Okay, fine, whatever. So who hired you?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He quit smiling and something passed behind his eyes again, a flitting shadow. Whether or not it was really there, I didn’t know. And whether or not I was making it up, I didn’t know, either. But there was something off about the guy. Something off, and something wrong. The moment passed and he smiled again. Amazingly, he had a hell of a smile. Perfect teeth. Okay, now I could see how he might have been engaging to a young girl fresh out of high school, which was when Monica had first met him.

“So what the fuck do you want?” he asked.

“
Gee, you have such a wonderful way with words, Ira,” I said. “It’s almost poetic. Maybe you should write a book of poetry in prison, rather than obsessing about your ex-wife. Call it, I don’t know,
Poetry From the Pen
or, let’s see,
Lock-down Limericks
.”

“
What the fuck are you talking about?”

“
I don’t know,” I said. “It was a poetry/prison riff. Not my best work, but not my worst either.”

He looked at his phone as if there was something wrong with it.

“Lady, either tell me what the fuck you want or get the fuck out of here.”

“
Okay, now there’s a slap in the face for you,” I said. “Dismissed by a scumbag who has nothing better to do than to play with his willy.”

“
Fuck off, bitch.”

And as he moved to stand, I said, “Leave Monica alone, Ira.”

A long shot, of course, since I suspected Ira Lang spent most of his waking hours obsessing over his wife’s frustrating lack of dying. And playing with his willy.

He sat back down slowly. As he did so, he adjusted his grip on the phone, wrapping his surprisingly long fingers tightly around the receiver. His movements were all slow and deliberate, as if he had practiced them beforehand. He now placed the phone carefully against his ear and looked at me for a long, long time. I think I was supposed to be afraid. I think I was supposed to shrink away in fear. Perhaps he thought I would swallow nervously and look away. I didn’t swallow, and I didn’t look away. I also had the distinct feeling he was memorizing every square inch of my face.

“You want me to leave my wife alone?” he said evenly into the phone. He didn’t take his eyes off me.

“
Your
ex
-wife, and yes.”

“
Why would I do that?”

“
Because I said so.”

He stared at me blankly, and then laughed. A single burst of sound into the phone. He laughed again, longer this time.

“You’re funny.”

“
When I want to be.”

“
You’ve got balls coming in here,” he said. “I’ll give you that much.”

“
The world’s worst compliment to a woman.”

“
What?”

“
Never mind. So will you leave her alone?”

He stared at me some more. I heard guards talking to each other out in the hallway. Ira and I were alone in the visiting room, since it was after hours and I had been given special access. A clock ticked behind me. Somewhere I thought I heard someone scream, but that could have just been my imagination. Or my hypersensitive hearing.

Ira cocked his head a little, and then said, “It’s too late.”

“
Too late for what?”

“
Never mind that. The bitch shouldn’t have left me. I told her to never leave me.”

“
Gee, you’re such a sweetheart, Ira. How could anyone ever leave you?”

He barely heard me. Or heard what he wanted to hear. “Exactly. I gave her everything. The ungrateful bitch never had to work a day in her life.”

“People leave each other every day, Ira. It happens.”

“
Not to me it don’t.”

Ira had gotten himself worked up. I knew this because the skin along his slightly misshapen forehead had flushed a little, and he was holding the phone so tight that his knuckles looked like some weird prehistoric spine running along the back of the receiver.

Breathing harder, he said, “I will do everything within my power to make sure the bitch dies. No one leaves me. Ever.”

I realized this was going nowhere fast. I honestly hadn’t expected anything different, but it had been worth a shot.

“I beg to differ,” I said, gathering my stuff together.

“
You beg to differ what?”