Vampire Babylon - Midnight Reign Part 3

It was someone who knew about the murder, too, waiting, hoping that Dawn would eventually come out.

FOUR.

THE EXTRA.

L OW , cheap-whiskey lighting bled over the scruffy interior of the Cat's Paw, licking Maury the bartender's s.h.i.+ny head. Around the slender man, drunks who had no place else to go this late at night slouched in their chairs until last call, when they'd have to find another place to pa.s.s out. Fumes from doubled shots thickened the summer-night atmosphere, and the air-conditioning unit was on the blink, making the pockmarked tables slick with sweat from the melted ice of c.o.c.ktail gla.s.ses.But the stink didn't seem to bother Maury. And neither did the garlic Dawn and Breisi wore on their skin like nose-flaring cologne. He'd no doubt smelled much worse.

He stood behind the bar, flas.h.i.+ng a gold-capped smile as Dawn and Breisi checked in with him.

"You girls don't give up, do ya?" Maury asked. Then his smile fell as he shook his head. "I wish I had good news. That'd make me and the boys a lot happier. We miss old Frank."

Dawn turned to scan the anemic bar crowd, her gaze snagged by a lush named Stanton, who was leaning his cheek against the rough wooden wall, just below a chalkboard announcing a woefully misspelled "French Frys" special. Every time she and Breisi walked into the Cat's Paw, they knew they were wasting their time. Thing was, they couldn't stop coming. There was always that one teeny, niggling hope that maybe, just maybe, tonight would be the night that yielded the biggest break of all.

Giving up on Frank's hangout was like giving up on him.

"I think we've chatted with every regular customer about five times over," she said.

Stanton the drunk's mouth opened and a thread of saliva rolled out.

"Believe me, Dawnie," Maury said. "These guys don't mind you and Breisi giving them the time of day. Not at all."

On the next stool, Breisi flinched at the nickname "Dawnie." It's what Frank had called his daughter. Hearing it must've brought him back to Breisi, even just a little. Unfortunately, the two of them had blown up at each other just before Frank had disappeared, leaving Breisi with hard regrets. Lately, she'd opened up more, hinting about the depths of her feelings for the ex bar bouncer. Dawn understood Breisi's remorse. Definitely. All too well.

Since Frank and Dawn weren't the closest, she hadn't even known he'd been dating anyone, much less working with a freakin'

paranormal investigative team. Talk about remorse.

Dawn smiled at her coworker, trying to soften the blow of missing Frank. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stanton slump a tad more against that wall.

"No," Maury continued, "the boys don't mind the two of you at all. I remember how Hugh Wayne pranced around here for hours after Dawn and that midget friend showed him some attention."

They'd interviewed the big, burly Hugh when Dawn had first started her hunt for Frank. It hadn't helped much.

"Haven't seen Hugh since then," Dawn said.

"Me, either." Maury tapped his hands on the bar. "He's probably doing another stint in the slammer."

"Yup, Frank's buddies. Gotta love them."

In the meantime, Dawn caught Stanton's face sliding down the wall an inch, then two. She sucked in a breath, antic.i.p.ating the splinters the guy would be wearing.

Jeez. She hopped off of her stool, went over, and carefully faced him forward so as not to awaken him. Not that she could ever hope to. He was out. After looking him over for facial splinters-he didn't have any, thank G.o.d-she nodded to Breisi, indicating that there was nothing left here to do.

Before getting off her stool, Breisi ran a slow gaze around the bar. It was one final sip of Frank that would have to tide her over.

Then, shoulders slumped, she stood, holding her hand out to Maury for a shake. "Thanks again."

"Yeah, Maury, thanks. And good luck with your daughter's wedding this weekend." "Ah." The bartender flapped a towel in flippant dismissal. "They're eloping to Vegas to a tiny chapel that has scrub brush for decoration, I'll bet. Only the best for my kid."

Dawn grinned, walking with Breisi out the door, but not before she spent a glance on Stanton. He now had drool coating his chin and, since it wasn't going to hurt him, Dawn let it go.

Outside, the moon paled the sidewalk, turning it ghostly as they headed in the direction of Breisi's tricked-up 4Runner. She'd modified it herself, jacked up its speed and put in extra storage compartments that held an a.r.s.enal of monster-fighting equipment-everything from spirit-hunting temperature gauges to pump-action shotguns for more solid attackers, like ghouls. Not that they'd ever run into any. Yet.

"You okay?" Dawn asked.

"Why?" A gust of warm night wind stirred the sharp edges of Breisi's bob.

"I don't know." Dawn didn't want to get all mushy, but..."You looked a little sad in there. More than usual."

A pause languished between them. Breisi shrugged. "Some nights it's worse than others. Sometimes I can feel Frank walking next to me, not in a preternatural way, but because..." Her voice got tight. "Because I want to feel him there."

Dawn didn't know what to say. She'd never loved a man like that. Sure, she'd slept with more than a few, but she wasn't stupid enough to confuse s.e.x with something more.

She stole a peek at Breisi, just to see if she'd maybe started crying, hoping she hadn't.

But her coworker's jaw was tensed, like she was warding off the vulnerability. Dawn could relate to that, too.

The wind tossed Breisi's hair again and, absently, Dawn thought about how different this woman was from Frank's first love, Eva.

Where Breisi was pet.i.te and dark, Eva had been elegant and light. Where Breisi was feminine yet tough, Eva seemed absolutely unguarded.

As Dawn kept staring, Jacqueline Ashley, Eva's starlet look-alike, superimposed herself over Breisi. Dawn's chest sucked into itself in utter fear and darkness.

Jac's resemblance brought all Dawn's compet.i.tive neuroses, her inferiority complexes, to the surface. Growing up, she'd done her best to avoid comparisons with Eva, rebelling against being her daughter in any way possible, even becoming a rough stuntwoman as a big "screw you" to the Claremont glamour. Now, with Jac, Dawn didn't know how to feel, how to react to a woman who seemed to have Eva's magnetism within her.

A woman who might not be human at all....

Stop it, Dawn chided herself. Jac wasn't a vamp. The Voice would've said something if it was even a possibility.

Wouldn't he?

The night had gone quiet as they approached the curb-parked SUV. As another car pa.s.sed on the street, its moaning roar lingered, mingling with the wail of a soft wind.

The skin on the back of Dawn's neck tingled.

But when she saw someone step away from the front of the vehicle, where he'd clearly been waiting, she knew her heightened senses had nothing to do with the atmosphere.

Her blood pistoned through her veins. "Matt?" Breisi positioned herself in front of Dawn, stiffening.

"Whoa, whoa." Matt Lonigan held up his hands and took a couple of steps to the side, into a pool of light from a streetlamp. He was holding something-flowers? "I know you don't believe it yet, but I'm one of the good guys."

His low voice abraded Dawn, and she enjoyed the gentle torture, the memory of how good his mouth felt against hers.

Hands still raised, he waited for Breisi to relax, his pale blue eyes running over Dawn with the usual hunger. He had short brown hair and a face of bruised beauty that intrigued her as much as it disturbed her.

Once again, Dawn couldn't help thinking that if life were a movie, he'd be cast as a street thug who carried a baseball bat and wore his s.h.i.+rts rolled over his forearms. But Matt being Matt, he wore no such thing. He liked his just-about-new jeans, boots, leisure s.h.i.+rts over a T, and in spite of the weather, the oversized coat he wore now-a coat that hid what Dawn suspected to be a machete in a back holster.

A PI or fellow vamp hunter? Dawn had no idea, but whatever his job, he was real good at planting doubts about The Voice in her head.

Demand answers, he'd said, encouraging her to investigate The Voice and his motives. And she'd tried during this past month.

Yet she'd also researched Matt Lonigan at the same time. He'd changed his name after his parents' murders, from Destry to Lonigan, and she'd used that information to discover that he really hadn't been lying when he'd told her about his parents. She'd accused him of using the Batman mythos to concoct a fake history and, now, seeing him face-to-face after finding evidence to the contrary, she felt like an idiot who'd jumped to conclusions-something she was trying to avoid with Jac, too.

After all, the man was holding flowers instead of a gun.

Daisies. The kind of petals Eva Claremont had worn in her hair during the most famous film scene of her career. One day at lunch, Matt's eyes had gone woozy when she'd mentioned Eva's name. On the surface, they'd been talking about Frank, since Matt had been hired to find him. By who? Dawn still didn't know since client privilege barred him from revealing that information. But, truthfully, she and the team had been testing him to see if Matt was the enemy or a friend.

After his reaction to Eva's name, she'd gotten jealous, as she always did when men responded to the suggestion of her stunning mother. Sometimes Dawn even wondered if that was one reason she was attracted to this shy guy who wasn't her normal type.

To win him over fully from Eva.

She nodded to the flowers, finally catching her breath, her balance. "Those for your sweet old grandma or what?"

He grinned, held them out to her, and took a step forward. Breisi stiffened even more.

Dawn put a hand on her coworker's shoulder. "Everything's copasetic."

"I can't believe you're so sure about that."

Matt laughed, a white flag of truce. "Keep friends like her around, Dawn."

She'd never introduced Breisi to Matt and didn't see the need to do it now. "Breez, can I...?"

The other woman kept her eyes on the rival PI. "I don't like leaving you on a dark street by yourself."

"I'm not by myself. I'm with him."

She went dead serious. "I know."

"Breez..." "All right." She backed away, shot Matt another glare. "I'm going to be in the car and I'll be on the phone to the office at the same time. Just in case."

"Yes, Mom."

It'd been meant as a jest, but as Breisi widened her eyes, Dawn realized just how uncomfortable the comment was. If it wasn't for Frank's disappearance, Breisi might've been her stepmom one day.

Her coworker went to the other side of the SUV, the slam of the vehicle's door reverberating. Matt s.h.i.+fted position, automatically drawing Dawn's gaze to him.

Unable to resist, she walked closer, feeling the heavy vibration that always filled the s.p.a.ce between their bodies. He grinned a little, offering the daisies again.

"Long time no see," he said softly.

Dawn just about sighed. His voice. Graveled. Hot.

Taking the flowers, she awkwardly held them. Sad fact: she'd never gotten a gift like this from a guy before, so she didn't know exactly what to do with them.

"I guess," she said, "our jobs aren't the best for scheduling leisure time, huh?"

He'd asked her out before, and they'd decided to do an actual date once Frank had been discovered. That way, there'd be no conflicts. Hopefully. But it'd happened before she'd found Matt skulking around Klara Monaghan's murder scene. Before she'd felt the machete at his back. Before she thought she'd seen that machete fly through the air from an unknown a.s.sailant and whack off Robby Pennybaker's arm.

Had he been hunting vamps that night, too?

She couldn't even ask him. He wouldn't tell her anyway, just like she couldn't reveal the specifics about what she did with Limpet and a.s.sociates.

"How'd you know I'd be here?" she asked.

"Pure chance." He risked a glance at the car, where Breisi was staring daggers while talking on the phone. "I was driving home when I saw your one-of-a-kind vehicle parked here. I ran into that grocery for the flowers"-he pointed across the street to an all-night shop whose windows lit the darkness-"and...voila."

"These are nice. Thank you." She smelled them. Fresh and simple. The stems were wet, making them as slick as the excuse he'd just given her. She didn't know if she believed it, but she didn't want to think he'd been following her, either.

Yet what had he said the last time she'd seen him, before he'd disappeared into the night again?

I know you better than you can ever imagine. I've had access to files, Dawn. I've done surveillance on you, watched your films, talked to people you've known. And bit by bit, I...I liked what I found.

A s.h.i.+ver traveled from her toes up to her neck. Along the way, the cold, white heat seared through her belly, making her wonder if she was turned on or afraid.

Either way, she liked it. Freak.

During one of the phone calls they'd engaged in lately-who had time to meet face-to-face?-he'd briefly apologized for springing the confession on her and causing the situation to sound creepy. But he'd likened his interest to a guy who had a crush on a girl whose locker was just two feet away from his own in high school. Maybe they never talked to each other, he'd explained, but he'd seen how she smiled, knew about her accomplishments from hall gossip. He'd told her that, once he'd seen her reaction to his confession, he'd been so mortified that he'd left her when a phone call had diverted Dawn's attention.

She could buy that. Matt had a bashful streak, and she found that sweet. And, even if he wouldn't admit it, she suspected he'd decided to court her on the phone, taking off the pressure to see him, giving himself a chance to test her out with the screen of a cell phone instead of getting rejected in person. The "I'm busy" excuses were a smoke screen, she guessed, and she liked that he thought enough of her to actually care.

Now, he reached out to touch her, skimming her ear, where she used to wear a blood-moon pendant before laying it to rest in a suitcase underneath a pile of clothing.

He paused, as if asking where it was. He'd liked to run his fingers along it, to see the fake silver-and-ruby strands stir.

"It's lost," she lied, not wanting to explain how she didn't feel right wearing it anymore. It belonged to the old Dawn who'd never hacked at a vamp in cold, vengeful fury.

The sound of the 4Runner's horn blaring made both of them startle. In the car, Breisi made an "oops" face and pointed to the wheel as if it'd been the horn's fault. Matt backed away from Dawn, hands up, respecting Breisi's rules.

"You know," Dawn said, grateful for the reprieve, "I really do need to go."

"Okay." Slowly, he tilted his head, like he was reading whether or not he'd scared her off again by showing up randomly in the dead of night. "I suppose I'll see you in some alley or during some kind of emergency again."

It was a tease, but it fell flat, underlining all the reasons she really couldn't feel comfortable around him. Until he was honest with her, there was no way she would ever come clean with him, either.

A hesitation tore the air in half. She realized the cadence of her breathing was pacing his own. Heartbeats from the last time she'd seen him echoed over from the past, reminding her of uncontrolled kisses, caresses that'd grown rougher and more needful by the second.

"Alleys and emergencies," she said. "You need to step out of the house more. Get some variety in your life. It'll give you some better ideas about where we could be meeting."

"You're right-I don't get out much." He glanced at her from beneath lowered brows. "But you just might like where I at least imagine meeting you...and how."

The innuendo made her melt just a touch. Boy, what she'd give to make him back up that comment right now- The start-up of the SUV's engine headed off any emerging fantasies. Breisi revved the gas, somehow making the car into a strange version of the chast.i.ty belt Dawn so sorely needed.