Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down (4 page)

“Whoa, one question at a time.  Boy, they were right
.  Y
ou’re nowhere near a corpse are you?  Do you think I could get a couple of questions in myself?  Just for the record?”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized automatically.  “But um, shouldn’t you check Detective Bishop’s report?”

“Ah, Detective Bishop’s report
…
” he repeated, his brows rising slightly.  “And that would be…
?
”

“You don’t have a Detective Bishop, do you?”  I already knew the answer before asking the question; I’d known it the instant he slipped out the window.  And here I’d let him into my home!  How stupid could I be? 

Lucas
shook his head along with me.  “Not that I know of, and I’m pretty sure that’s a name I’d remember.  You already gave your statement to this Bishop person?”

“Yes, he left right as you got here.  I told him everything I remember, which isn’t much.  But he did take the
bloody
clothes I
was found in
when he left.”  I omitted the part where he disappeared out the window. 

“That’s… gonna hurt the case,”
Lucas
frowned, the first serious expression I’d seen from him so far.  “I was hoping to take those back with me to forensics.”

“I’m sorry
,
I thought he was with the police.”  Hopefully I hadn’t jeopardized my chances at finding the guy responsible. 

“He looked more like a cop than I did?” he asked mildly.

“What?  Oh, he did I suppose, though more like an undercover cop I guess.  He looked like he could be…”
T
he memory of those
intense
green eyes swam before my vision for a fleeting moment
.  T
he way he walked and the complete authority with which he’d asked for information.  I hadn’t questioned for a moment that he wasn’t perfectly entitled to it.  The edge to his voice had made me instinctively want to give him what he was looking for rather than face the consequences.  “…formidable, you know?” 

“Formidable, got it.
”
H
e made a show of writing the word down.  “We’re gonna need a little more of a description to go on though,” he added dryly. 

I gave him the best description I could,
walking
him through the story.  Th
at
time I added the parts Bishop asked me about, namely the license and registration, and his interest in the clothes.  “Do you think he was involved?”  Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to think he was the person who attacked me.  He’d seemed as confounded over my memory loss as I was, more maybe.  That, and despite his brusque manner, I never felt an ounce of danger from
Bishop
the whole time he was in my apartment.  Sure, it got a little weird at the end with him sniffing my clothes, but I never felt afraid of him. 
Boy, was I naïve…

“Well, he
’
s obviously involved in some aspect, why else would he show up at your door in the middle of the night?  But was he the kidnapper?”
Lucas
shrugged.  “It’s hard to say.  We’ll do our best to track him down and get him to answer a few questions of our own.”

“This has been the strangest night,” I murmured, looking down at the ring on my finger, twisting it around and around.
 

“This is one for the books alright. It’s not every day I get the chance to interview a murder victim
.
”
H
is grin was back.  “I’m glad you’re
alright
, by the way.  Did they say at the hospital what led them to pronounce you as dead?
I thought you had a pretty bad injury on your neck,” he frowned, and my hand instinctively rose to cover my unblemished neck.

“I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.  It must not have been all my blood though, I’m fine, really.”  I don’t know how, but I knew it was a lie, even as I said it.  It had been my blood and no one else’s on the dress, and I should ha
ve a wound on my neck.  Ju
st like I shouldn’t have been able to see without my glasses, but
instinct
made me downplay it. 

“Still, you should probably get checked out, I can give you a ride if you like.”

No doctors…
  Bishop’s words echoed through my mind
,
and despite his sketchy exit, I still found it to be sound advice.  “No, thank you.  I
really
want to get some rest
, b
ut I’ll make an appointment tomorrow.  I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more to go on, but it’s all a blank.  What can you tell me about where I was found?”

Detective
Lucas
hesitated, and I could practically see the wheels turning in his mind as he decided how much to tell me about it.  “It was an abandoned house, the call came in that there were multiple shots fired, but you were the only one on the scene when the uniforms arrived.”

“Shots fired,” I frowned, frustration mounting at continually coming up against the blank wall of my memory block.  “Where is it?  Maybe if I could go back there, it might jog my memory?”  It sounded like as good a plan as any, but he was already shaking his head, no.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea with all you’ve been through tonight.”

“Detective, I have to find out what happened to me.  That guy is still out there somewhere, and I have no idea how he got to me.  For all I know, I could fall asleep here in my own bed, he could strike again
whenever he wants,
and I might end up really dead this time.”

“Alright, I’ll tell you what.  Here’s my card.  If you remember anything at all, give me a call, okay?  I’ve got some other leads to check out for this guy, but if we hit a dead end, I promise I’ll take you to the crime scene
.  D
eal?”

I accepted the card, glancing briefly at it before setting it in the front pocket of my purse.  I wasn’t too happy at being turned down, but another option occurred to me.  “Alright,” I conceded.  “It’s a deal.  But only if you call me the moment you catch him.”  Not that I had a lick of leverage to bargain with him, so I added the only thing I could think of, my heartfelt plea.  “Please?”

Detective
Lucas
pulled open the front door, an easy smile on his face.  “There’s nothing to worry about
,
Miss Evans.  I promise you, we’ll catch the guy.  Better lock up after me though.”

I slid the bolt after he’d
gone
,
only realizing then that I hadn’t mentioned the ring to him at all in my retelling of the conversation with Bishop.  The thought of calling him back didn’t appeal to me at all
.  S
omehow it felt wrong to let go of the ring, even if it was evidence in his investigation.  Staring at the ring on the way back to the couch, I set my purse on my lap to check it more thoroughly.  Nothing appeared to be missing, and my phone still had a charge.  I pulled up Bridget’s number, knowing she’d still have it on despite the hospital rules. 

“What’s the
m
att
er, do you need me to come home?”  Bridget’s voice
fairly crackled
with excitement and I almost hated to let her down.

“No, it’s totally fine.  I had a couple of visitors, but I can tell you all about them later.”

“Tell me now, I’m bored out of my skull,” she insisted, and I spent the next fifteen minutes chatting with her about my two very different guests.  She seemed especially interested in Bishop, and I had to admit, his odd behavior did have me wondering if I’d ever see him again.  But I forced myself to get back to the original reason for calling her. 

“Hey, I was hoping you could do me a favor.”

“Is it illegal?”

“Well… I’m not sure about that, it’s definitely against the rules,” I qualified, not knowing the exact legality involved.

“Yeah?  I’m in, what is it?”

“I was wondering if you could find out from the hospital records if it shows where the ambulance picked me up from tonight?”

“
Yep
, I can get that off the trip sheet.  But it’ll probably take a day or so for it to be entered into the computer.  It’ll probably be faster to call the ambulance company directly.”

I brightened at that, feeling like I was on the trail to getting some answers.  “I didn’t think of that, how do I know which ambulance company responded?”

“That’s a good question, depending on where you came in
from
,
it could be AMR or NorCal, or a couple of others.  You can either wait a day or two for it to show up in the records, or start calling ambulance companies from the phone book.”

“Okay, thanks
,
Bridge
.
I think I’ll make some calls tomorrow.”

“No prob.  Just let me know if you want me to go all secret agent on your records,” she offered, and I resisted the urge to thank her again, knowing it wasn’t her thing.   

After I’d hung up, I curled back up on the couch again with my faer
ie
blanket, the pink can of mace tucked between the cushions within easy reach.  I didn’t think I’d sleep a wink for the rest of the night, but eventually exhaustion wore out and I found myself dreaming of a certain pair of green eyes.

Chapter
Four

I have always been something of a morning person.
I craved the sunshine with its warmth and light, and I always felt better when my skin held a nice healthy tan. 
The early bird gets the worm
was my motto, even during the summer months when I didn’t have to get up quite so early for school. 

But the next morning I felt like death warmed over.  Sure, I expected to be tired from being up for most of the night, and the position I’d fallen asleep in on the couch wasn’t the most comfortable, but that didn’t explain why I felt like I’d been hit by a bus.  It wasn’t that
I felt stiff and sore all over;
I felt completely drained, as if I’d come down with the flu.  Maybe I’d picked up a bug at the hospital? 

Even the light hurt my eyes, and I rooted around for
a pair of
sunglasses after closing all the blinds in the apartment.  Food sounded like a bad idea, but coffee was appreciated, and after using up all the hot water in the shower, I managed to get dressed for school in time for my eleven o’clock class. 

The Central Coast Academy of Fine Arts boast
s
a wide assortment of classes designed to turn out some of the country’s premiere talents in music and art.  I’d gotten in on a scholarship for Voice, something which brought enormous pride to my parents.  Growing up, my parents had always been fairly restrictive.  My mother was a high school music teacher and my father taught elementary mathematics in
Santa Clara
where I grew up. 

As a child I took piano, guitar, singing, even dance lessons for one brief summer before it became clear it was not my forte, before focusing on
v
oice.  I’d always been taught that school came first, and even though I had an aptitude for music at an early age, it was never an excuse to turn in less than my best efforts at the academic classes as well.  It turned me into
kind
of a perfectionist
,
which drove Bridget up the wall sometimes.  And remember what I said before about the reputation as something of a book nerd?  It came from being forced to carry around the classics, even when they weren’t on the assigned reading list.  My mother thought it would broaden me, but what it really did was narrow my social scope.

But at the CCA, I found other kindred spirits who’d rather be singing in four part harmony to dead languages than going to the beach or shopping, and I finally felt like I’d found my place in life.  Okay,
so
maybe sometimes I wished we would focus on something a little more contemporary, but I was firmly on the classical path, with an eventual career in
choral music
or possibly even Jazz on my horizon.  Most days I was happy with that path, and it was easier to put one foot in front of the other than wander away and risk losing my footing altogether.

But not that morning.    

That day it was acutely painful to be around the other students on campus.  The halls seemed too clogged with bodies, the laughter too shrill, and the music…  While I normally found missed notes a little painful to my well trained ear, that morning they were positively excruciating.  The cloying smell of perfumes and body sprays and stale smoke… they made my already sensitive stomach lurch
,
and I quickly lost any ability to focus in class. 

I’d seen Bridget in the same state plenty of times after a night of too many excesses, and now I sincerely regretted my lack of empathy.  The next time I saw her hung over, I vowed to turn off all the lights and be as quiet as possible.  Only why did I feel
as though
I’d partied like a rock star the night before
,
when I’d felt fine when I went to sleep
? 

My biggest mistake was in trying to eat at lunch time.  Despite the nausea, I couldn’t shake the feeling like I had to eat something.  It wasn’t so much a growling stomach as a
sharp
hunger, a craving I couldn’t quite pin down.  It led me to the snack stand by the auditorium to try and find something to tempt my fancy.  The smell of cooking hamburgers made my mouth water, and all of a sudden I was ravenous.  I wolfed down the burger in thirty seconds flat, washing it down with a Diet Coke.  The feeling of satisfied fullness only lasted about five minutes before the pain started, stomach cramps strong enough to make me break out in a sweat
,
and I barely made it to the ladies room in time before it came back up again. 

Sitting on the floor of the bathroom stall, my cheek pressed against the cool metal wall, I closed my eyes as my body shook weakly.  Something was seriously wrong with me, and I put my hand to my neck to feel my pulse.  I felt the throb beneath my finger and then….waited, waited, waited… for far too long before the next weak pulse. 
This must be what dying feels like…
  The shot of adrenaline that went through me at that thought sped my heart up for a beat or two and then it
slowed
again.  I had to get out of that bathroom and find some help, but my limbs wouldn’t obey me.  To my growing horror, I felt that same
paralyzing
heaviness take hold of my body
that I’d felt in the morgue.  A
nd then it didn’t
m
att
er anymore as I slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep. 

*
*
*

When I woke up with a start, it was much later in the day.  I wasn’t sure at first how I knew that, but checking the time, I found I’d been asleep for more than
three
hours.  The good news was, I had full control over my arms and legs, no sign of paralysis.  Apart from a throbbing headache, I
felt
better, but I was still far from normal. 
Despite Bishop’s warning against doctors, I
decided to visit
the school infirmary,
if only
to have a place to lie down for a while before I braved the walk home. 
There was no way I’d make it to my
one on one with
Professor
Wright, but I didn’t think I could manage to walk and text
my apologies
at the same time without getting dizzy. 

The infirmary was understaffed as usual.  Not that there were that many students looking for medical care at once, but the harried receptionist was more than happy to let me lie down in one of the rooms with the understanding that it could be a while before the nurse practitioner got to me. 

As I lay there, I realized I could hear the conversation in the examination room next to me as plainly as if I was in the room
with
them.  The nurse listened to the student talk about his worsening cough and other symptoms
. 
I even fancied I could hear the wheeze of air through his lungs as he took several deep breaths for her.  Had the walls always been that thin?  Losing interest with that exchange, I let my mind wander and picked up another conversation with the receptionist on the phone down the hall, making a call to the pharmacy. 
T
here was no way I should have been able to hear her at
the front
desk
.
I could tell she
spoke
in hushed tones
, but I still heard her, clear as a bell
. 

Another stomach cramp doubled me over, and I braced myself for a round of dry heaves, but instead, I felt almost hungry as soon as it passed.  Someone must have brought their dinner with them, because the most delicious aroma wafted through the air, drawing me to my feet in search of it.  No longer feeling weak, I cracked the door open, tracking the scent to another room, the door only open about an inch or so.  Not able to hold myself back, I had to see whatever it was they were eating and find out where I could get some for myself
. 
I pushed the door open, surprised to find it deserted. 
So where was the delicious, tempting treat luring me through the halls? 

M
y eyes lit upon a plastic bowl on the counter, whatever it was, the delectable smell seemed to be coming from there.  Mouth watering, I leaned forward,
only to recoil
in distaste when I realized the tantalizing smell came from a wad of bloody bandages left behind from the last patient. 
Oh
G
od… what was wrong with me?
  Suddenly I knew I had to
go
before the nurse got to me.  Tucking on my sunglasses, I duc
ked out of there
, not even bothering to let the receptionist know I was leaving. 

The sun was less painful, lower in the sky, but I kept the glasses on while I walked home, deep in thought.  Since waking up in the morgue, I’d been experiencing sensitivity to light and sound, enhanced sense of smell, my eyes and ears were sharper, and I hadn’t been able to keep any solid food down. 
I had ‘died’ of blood loss from a neck wound, and risen that same night without a trace of the injury. 
It no longer felt like I was coming down with the flu, I felt… wrong.  I felt… hungry, desperate for something I couldn’t identify. 

Yes
,
you can…

I shoved away the inner voice
reminding
me that I
k
new exactly what
I
was craving, because it was too horrible to admit, even inside my head. 

My body craved blood.