Bad Moonlight (8 page)

No one had mentioned putting Danielle's new song into the show, not after what happened in the van. No one talked about what happened, either.

But Danielle couldn't forget the feeling of Dee's fingers on her neck. Squeezing tighter and tighter.

Trying to kill her.

And I didn't just fight back, Danielle thought with a shudder. I wanted to kill
her!

Violent thoughts, because of what had happened to her parents. Dr. Moore said she wouldn't act on those thoughts.

Danielle was terrified that she would.

After the fight with Dee, Danielle remembered, she had run like a crazy person. She drank from a puddle of dirty rainwater. Lapped up the water like a thirsty dog.

What's wrong with me? Danielle wondered. Something
is happening to me, and I don't know how to stop it.

“Danielle, you ready?” Billy asked, breaking into her troubled thoughts.

Danielle jumped. “Sure, Billy. Sorry.” She picked up her guitar and jogged toward the front of the stage.

“You okay?” Kit murmured as she passed him, his blue eyes full of concern. “You look worried about something.”

Danielle shook her head. She couldn't tell him. How could she tell the guy she liked that she might be going crazy?

“I'm all right,” she reassured him. “Just a little tired, I guess.”

“Okay!” Billy called out, when Danielle took her place. “Start with ‘Bad Moonlight.' Make this place jump!”

For a while Danielle lost herself in the music. It cleared her mind and made her feel safe.

Too bad she ever had to stop.

♦ ♦ ♦

“Wear the red dress again,” Caroline advised Danielle later in their hotel room. “You wore it in Midland and we were a hit.”

“I think she ought to wear black,” Mary Beth argued. “Those tight black pants and that cropped T-shirt with the silver things on it. They look like half-moons—it'll go with our name.”

“I hate those pants,” Danielle declared. “I have to lie down to get them on. And I'm always afraid they're going to split up the back.”

“That'd make it a full moon!” Caroline joked.

Mary Beth laughed and tossed a pair of rolled-up socks at her. Caroline tossed them back, but Danielle grabbed them in mid-air and threw them at Caroline.

They were still heaving the socks at each other when somebody banged on the door. “Hey, it's me. Open up!” Billy called in.

Caroline opened the door. “What's the matter?”

“I can't find Kit,” Billy told them, pushing back a tangle of dark blond hair. “He needs to set up for the show. We're on in an hour and a half. Anybody seen him?”

“I saw him around three, after we finished rehearsing,” Mary Beth volunteered. “He was leaving the club with Dee.”

“With Dee?” Danielle asked, feeling a twinge of jealousy.

Mary Beth nodded. “They were having some kind of argument. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but it was pretty intense.”

Danielle frowned, thinking hard. What could Dee and Kit be arguing about?

Billy glanced at his watch. “We've got to find them. Let's spread out and look. Hastings is small. It shouldn't take us long. Mary Beth, you come with me,” he ordered. “We'll look north, up by the river, then west. Danielle, you and Caroline take the south side, then go east.”

Danielle pulled on her sneakers and followed the others out of the hotel. “Where could they have gone?” she asked, shoving her hands into the pockets
of her cut-offs. “Kit wouldn't take off—an hour and a half before a show.”

“I know,” Caroline agreed. “It's not like him. It's not like him to argue with anyone, either. Kit's always so calm and cool. I only saw him get mad once, when Joey blew out an amplifier.”

They turned a corner and hurried down a side street lined with old brick buildings. Weeds poked through the cracks in the sidewalk.

“Dee's been so totally weird since Joey died,” Caroline said thoughtfully. “I mean, she's never exactly the life of the party, but she's been so much moodier and angrier.”

“Yeah.” Danielle reached up and touched her throat. It still felt sore from Dee's angry attack.

Danielle's heart speeded up. She suddenly had a powerful feeling of dread.

What could Dee and Kit be arguing about? What?

“Hey, Danielle, wait up!” Caroline called. “Why are you walking so fast? This isn't a race!”

“I want to find him!” Danielle called back. “Something's wrong. Something's happened!”

She ran to the end of the block. An abandoned building sat on the right, its windows boarded up.

Danielle glanced across the street. An empty lot. Broken glass littered the ground. The wind blew fast-food wrappers and yellowing newspapers against the rusty fence surrounding it.

Danielle glimpsed a flash of color in the waist-high weeds. Leaping off the sidewalk, she ran across the street—and stared in horror into the empty lot.

Behind the fence, Kit lay on his back on the ground. His face pale. His eyes wide with fear. His shirt ripped at the shoulder.

Her arms crossed over her chest, Dee stood over him.

Kit struggled to his feet and faced her. “Dee,” he begged hoarsely. “Please—don't!”

Dee didn't seem to hear him. Her eyes narrowed, she advanced a step. She crouched over, her legs bent at the knees. Her hands flexed, the fingers curved like claws.

Dee's lips drew back in a hideous grin. Her breath came faster. Her golden eyes glinted with savage glee.

“No!” Danielle screamed through the wire fence. “Kit! Dee! No!”

Too late.

Roaring like an animal, Dee dived at Kit, raised both hands, and began slashing him to pieces.

Chapter 12

A SURPRISE IN THE CLOSET

“N
ooo!” Danielle screamed again, rattling the fence with both hands.

“Danielle—what's wrong?” Caroline cried. She came running up behind her. “What is it?”

“Kit! Kit!” Danielle continued to shake the rusty fence. “Dee, stop!” she shrieked. “Caroline—she's going to kill him!”

Caroline yanked Danielle's arm hard and turned her around. “What are you talking about? Kit and Dee aren't in there, Danielle! It's just two kids. Look!'

Danielle blinked hard and squinted through the fence.

Two dark-haired boys, about nine or ten, stared back at her. “Hey—we were just wrestling,” one of them called to Danielle.

“We weren't doing anything wrong!” the other boy called in a trembling, tiny voice.

“Uh . . . sorry,” Danielle murmured.

But the boys didn't wait for her apology. They raced to the other side of the lot, ducked under the fence, and ran out of sight.

Two kids, Danielle thought.

Not Kit and Dee.

Two boys.

She uttered a low moan as she realized she'd had another violent fantasy. So powerful. So real.

“What happened?” Caroline demanded, snapping Danielle from her frightening thoughts. “You screamed about Kit and Dee. You saw something, didn't you?”

Danielle nodded.

“What was it?”

“That doesn't matter!” Danielle cried. “What matters is these fantasies aren't stopping!”

“Come on,” Caroline urged, putting an arm around Danielle's shoulders. “Let's get back to the hotel. You told me you met with Dr. Moore. What did he say?”

“He says I have violent thoughts because my parents died violently.”

“Well, that makes sense, I guess,” Caroline said. She guided Danielle gently back toward the hotel.

As they walked, a picture suddenly flashed into Danielle's mind. Not a fantasy. Something much more frightening.

Once again Danielle saw her parents' accident. Their car soaring off the cliff. Their bodies torn on the jagged rocks below.

She hadn't seen her parents' bodies, not even at the funeral. And no one had told her they'd been torn up on the rocks. But that's what she kept picturing.

Why? she wondered, her hands clenched into fists. Why do I keep thinking about it? Why can't I put it behind me?

She sucked in a long breath.

“Are you going to be okay?” Caroline asked, her blue eyes studying Danielle. “Do you want me to ask Billy—”

“No!” Danielle interrupted. “Don't tell Billy I freaked out again. He probably already wishes I'd never joined the band.”

“No way,” Caroline declared. “He thinks you're great. But, Danielle, Billy really cares about everybody in the band. He'd want to know if something's wrong.”

“I still don't want you to tell him,” Danielle insisted. “I'll be okay for the show. Please, Caroline. Promise me you won't say anything to him about this.”

“Okay, I won't tell,” Caroline promised.

A few minutes later they arrived at the hotel. Danielle saw everyone in the small lobby. To her great relief, Kit and Dee were there, too.

“I can't believe you two would just take off like that!” she heard Billy scolding Kit and Dee. He
checked his watch. “We've got a performance in less than an hour, in case you forgot!”

“We didn't take off,” Dee snapped. “We're here, aren't we?”

“Hey, I'm sorry, man,” Kit told Billy. “I ran into some friends and didn't notice the time. I'll go set up the equipment. Right now. No problem.”

Kit squeezed Danielle's shoulder as he hurried past her.

“What about you, Dee?” Mary Beth asked. “Where were you?”

Dee shrugged. “I took a walk.”

Mary Beth frowned. “Where?”

“Hey—you're not my mother!” Dee snapped.

“Never mind,” Billy said impatiently. “We've got a show to put on. Everybody move it!”

♦ ♦ ♦

Danielle wore her sparkling red dress for the performance. Maybe it's my lucky dress, she thought as the audience stomped and clapped for an encore of “Bad Moonlight.”

“Hey, isn't there a curfew in this town?” she called out, teasing the crowd. “If we sing again, anybody under twenty-one will get picked up.”

“We don't care!” a girl shouted. The crowd cheered.

Laughing, Danielle turned to the band. “What do you say? Shall we get them in trouble?”

For an answer Mary Beth tossed her short red hair and did a riff on the drums. Caroline and Dee played the opening bar of the song, and Danielle turned back
to the audience. “You want it? You got it!” she shouted.

The crowd cheered.

“Bad Moonlight” killed them again.

♦ ♦ ♦

“A hit in Hastings!” Billy kept chanting when the show was over. “We're a hit in Hastings!”

“You're not thinking of making that a song, I hope,” Caroline said dryly. “If you are, I have to warn you—the lyrics really bite.”

Billy laughed. “Don't worry, I'll leave the songwriting to Danielle. I'm just so pumped!” he added as he hurried to help Kit break down the equipment.

“So was the audience,” Mary Beth commented. “What an awesome night!”

“Hey, why don't we take a walk or something?” Billy suggested, doing a couple of dance steps as he coiled up a cable. “Let's see what kind of trouble we can get into. I'm not ready to settle down yet.”

“Count me in,” Kit replied, picking up one of the extra floor mikes. “Let's get this stuff stowed in the van and go down to the river.”

They all worked quickly, and in another twenty minutes the equipment was packed.

As Danielle hopped out of the van, she glanced up at the sky. A thin layer of clouds had covered it all evening. Now the clouds had drifted away, revealing a pale moon. Nearly full.

“Hey, it feels great to walk. I mean, after being cooped up in that tiny club,” Kit said. He slid an arm
around Danielle's shoulder. “Wow. Check out the moon.”

Danielle leaned into the circle of his arm. “It's . . . beautiful,” she said softly.

Beautiful—and bad, she thought.

Danielle shivered. I can't walk under that moonlight, she told herself.

No more bad moonlight.

The words forced their way through her mind.

Her body began to tremble.

I'm afraid of the moonlight, she realized. Afraid of the bad moonlight.

Afraid of what it will make me do.

“Is everybody ready?” Billy asked, slamming the van doors.

Danielle straightened up and stepped away from Kit. “I think I'll skip the walk,” she said, trying to sound casual.

“Huh? How come?” Mary Beth asked. “It's a perfect night to hang out by the river.”

“Yeah, come on, Danielle,” Caroline urged. “What's your problem? I thought you were as pumped as the rest of us.”

“I am,” Danielle agreed. She struggled to think of a good excuse not to go.

“Then come with us!” Billy insisted.

“We're wasting time standing around talking,” Dee said impatiently. “I'm going on ahead. See you at the river.”