Blue Twilight (8 page)

Lou sighed but nodded his acceptance of that edict. Max had no intention of obeying.

“If you don't mind my asking,” she said, “is it true you're the only cop in town?”

He smiled at her, though it, like every other expression, never reached his eyes. Behind the mustache, his teeth were big and yellow. “Have been for twenty years.”

“You're shitting me.”

His grin widened. “How many men do you think are needed to tend to a handful of retirees and a few families? Heck, that's all the more reason for the curfew. I have to sleep sometime.” He got up from behind his desk, walked toward the door. Clearly, he'd had enough of them for one morning. “I'll tell you, I seriously doubt those girls are really missing at all. They're safe and sound someplace, probably out raising hell somewhere.”

Max shot Jason a look, half expecting him to rise to his sister's defense. Instead he only shrugged. “It's possible. Delia's been…a little on the wild side lately.”

Max got to her feet. “Guess we'll head over to that visitor center now. Check out those woods.”

Lou shook the other man's hand, then followed Max out to the waiting car. Glancing her way, he said, “His hand was warm. He's got body heat.”

“He probably had a hot pack tucked in his pocket.”

She got in the front passenger side. Jason got in the back, shaking his head. “Just as suspicious as you always were, aren't you, Maxie?”

“Not as suspicious as
I
am,” Lou said as he got behind the wheel. “What were you thinking in there?”

“Excuse me?” Jason looked confused.

“Why did you agree with that cop that Delia probably just ran off?” He turned in his seat as he spoke.

“Why wouldn't I agree with him? It's possible, isn't it?”

“You aren't going to get any help from him if he thinks she's a runaway. And I don't think you'd be out here looking for her, much less that you would have dragged private detectives down here to look for her, if you really believed that,” Lou said.

“He's upset, that's all, Lou. Go easy on him. His sister's missing.” Max sent Jason a reassuring smile, then faced Lou again. “Shouldn't we insist on an Amber Alert or something?”

Lou shook his head. “Delia and Janie don't meet the requirements. You have to know for sure a child's been
abducted, and you need a description of the perp or at least his vehicle.”

“That's asinine.”

“That keeps kids who are lost or who've run away from clogging up the system—so the ones who really need help get it faster.”

“And what about the ones who slip through the cracks?”

He shrugged. “I didn't say it was perfect. I happen to think it's the best system it can possibly be, flaws and all.” Then he shrugged. “Besides, officially, she's not even missing.”

She could have growled at him but didn't.

Lou looked at her. “Where to, Max? This is your game, your call.”

Hell, he was the one with all the cop-sense, not to mention experience. His giving her the upper hand was a means to placate her, to skirt around her irritation with him for his treatment of Jason, and she knew it. But she would take it all the same.

Sighing, she said, “I want to check around town, like we discussed. The gas stations, diners, convenience stores. But I really want to check on Stormy first. Let's grab some take-out and head back. I don't like this town. I don't like that pimply-faced kid at the Bates Motel back there, either.”

“If we do all that first, that will make it heading for sundown by the time we get to the visitor center,” Lou said.

She nodded. “Yeah. That's another reason. I want to see what goes on around this place after the sun goes down. Just what is it that creepy cop doesn't want us to see?”

“Oh, don't even start with the paranormal theories, Max. You've got no basis—”

“Don't start. We both know you're too skeptical to be objective.” She sighed and changed the subject. “Did we bring flashlights?”

“Just one,” Lou said. “I think I saw a hardware store up here just…right there.” He pointed to it just before pulling the car into the tiny square of parking lot in front of the store. The place was no bigger than a shack, but the sign on the door read Open.

Max got out of the car and hurried into the store at Lou's side.

For a small place, it held a lot of goods. The shelves were set close together, making narrow aisles. Not a shopping cart in sight. Every shelf was stacked with goods clear to the ceiling. Tools everywhere, a row for plumbing supplies, another for electrical, two rows devoted to gardening needs, with everything from soil, fertilizer and seeds, to hoes, rakes and shovels. A silver-haired woman was picking through the mesh sacks of flower bulbs when Max and Lou walked past her. She looked up, met their eyes and held them for an elastic moment, her own utterly blank, before finally returning her attention to the bulbs. Other customers wandered about, everyone placid-faced, calm.

Max fought down an insistent shiver. Something was just
wrong
with this place. With these people.

“Found 'em,” Jason called.

He came around the corner bearing several flash
lights—the big Maglite brand, with their bright colors. He'd grabbed two blues, a red and a black. “One for each of us?”

“Fine,” she said. “We'll need batteries.” She took one of the lights from him. “Sixteen of them. D-size.”

“I've got those up front,” a male voice said.

She damn near dropped the flashlight as she spun to see a tiny, bent-over man who reminded her of something from a Tolkien novel. He smiled up at her. Well, his eyes aimed upward. His head remained bent. The man had the worst case of what her mother had called “bend-over disease” that Maxie had ever seen.

“Uh. Thanks.”

He turned stiffly and walked to the front of the store, leaving the three of them to follow. Max took out her wallet, ready to give her biz-only credit card its second workout.

“I should pay for this stuff,” Jason said.

“Don't worry, you will. It'll all be in your bill.” She sent him a wink. The old Jason would at least have pretended to get the humor in her remark. This one just blinked at her.

Max rolled her eyes and followed the old man to the counter.

“You folks are new in town, eh? Just visiting?” the proprietor asked.

“We're here to search for two missing girls,” Max said. “In fact, maybe you can help. Have you noticed any teenage girls who shouldn't be here? They would have been driving a small red car.” As she spoke, Jason
pulled a photo from his wallet and handed it to her. She showed it to the man.

The man looked at the photo, then at her, meanwhile taking one flashlight from her and slowly punching numbers into his cash register. “Can't say that I have. Though I'm sure they'll turn up. Girls, you say? How old?”

“Seventeen,” Jason answered. “The one in the photo is my sister.”

The man set the first flashlight down, picked up the second, peered at it and again began punching numbers. Good God, couldn't he just ring one of them up and multiply by four? “Well, you'll find her. Chief Fieldner, he's a good man. A good man.”

He rang up the third light and started on the fourth.

“Has he handled this sort of thing before?” Lou asked. “Missing-persons cases, I mean?”

“Oh, sure. It happens now and again. Hasn't lost one yet.” He reached beneath the counter and began setting four packs of D-cell batteries on the counter.

“So this has happened before, then?” Max asked. “When?”

He peered at her, worry in his eyes. “I was speakin' in generalizations, missy. I can't think of a specific case. But you know, there's not much hasn't happened in a town as old as this one at one time or another.” He rang up the batteries with fingers that suddenly moved efficiently—and quickly. Before she knew what happened, the items were bagged and he was swiping her credit card.

“Is there anyone else in charge around here? Besides Chief Fieldner, I mean?” Max asked.

“I don't know who would be.” He drummed his fingers, waiting for the credit machine to work.

“Don't you have a mayor? A town supervisor? Anything like that?”

“No one but the prince.”

“You have a
prince?
”

He grinned. “It's just a nickname.”

The old woman stepped up behind Max with her arms full of bulbs. “Sam!” she snapped. “You mind picking up the pace a bit? I don't have all day.”

Max sent her a frown, but even as she did, she heard the credit-card machine whirring to life as it spat out her receipt. Sam shoved it across the counter with a pen, and Max signed it.

“You have a nice day now. Good luck tracking down those girls.”

“But you didn't answer my—”

“Honestly, some people.” The old woman shouldered Max out of the way to lay her piles of bulbs on the counter. “Now, one of these has a split bulb in it, Sam. I don't expect to be paying full price for that.”

“I'll take care of it, Maddy.”

Lou took Max's arm about a half second before she bit the old lady's head off. She shot him a look. He advised caution with his eyes and pulled gently, so she gave in and let him lead her out of the store.

“Jesus,” Max said as soon as they were outside. “Are they
all
fucking vampires around here?”

“Nope,” Lou said. “Still daylight.”

“But what the hell? And who is this goddamn prince
person, anyway? Was Gollum back there hallucinating or what?”

“His name was Sam. And just be patient. We'll find out.” He popped the trunk at the VW's front end. She dropped the bag inside and got into the car. Jason said nothing, maybe afraid to get between them at that moment.

“I'd have made him talk,” Max said.

“And if that's what you want to do, you can go right back in there and do it.”

Lou sat there, maddening in his patience. A boy rode past on a red bicycle, a sack of newspapers over his shoulder. “Fine,” Max said at length. “I'll bite. What's the ‘but'?”

“But,” Lou said, smiling because he had made her ask, “you'll make enemies of everyone in this town if you do it your way. You're an outsider. You get pushy and unpleasant, it's gonna burn through the Endover grapevine like a brushfire. If you're nice, on the other hand, people start wanting to help you out.”

She pursed her lips. “I hate when you're right.”

“No you don't,” he said. “You hate when you're wrong. Which is why I usually don't point it out.”

“Hey!”

He smiled at her. A real smile. She hadn't been on the receiving end of one of those since their conversation the night before, and seeing one now made her melt. Hell, Lou could correct her all day, and she'd still want him. He could treat her dearest old friend like a murder suspect, and even then, she still wanted him. She had it bad.

S
tormy waited until everyone had left, then walked around to the back of the motel. She followed a strip of blacktop, probably there to grant a garbage truck access to the large Dumpster out back. Beyond it, there was just the weed-and wildflower-strewn field. She walked to the window of Jason's motel room. She'd flipped the lock during an idle moment when they'd all been gathered in his room earlier. No one had noticed a thing. Well, she had trouble believing Max hadn't noticed. Max noticed everything, though she seemed pretty distracted lately. Still, if she
had
noticed, she hadn't mentioned it. And Jay hadn't noticed, or he would certainly have locked it back up.

Stormy was convinced her old friend was hiding something, and she intended to find out what it was, so she slipped into the room through the window. No one was around to see. No one was around, period. This place was deader than a cemetery at midnight.

A shiver raced up her spine, and she shook it off, slid the window back down and faced the bland room that
looked just like her own. Shouldn't take long to toss it. She was so tired, though. Listless—as if she'd been up all night or something. But she ignored the feeling and got on with her mission. She went first to the desk, checked the drawers, found a telephone directory and an out-of-date TV listing guide. Then she tried the dresser. Nothing. No clothes, socks, underwear. Apparently Jay hadn't taken time to pack before charging down here to search for his sister. That, at least, made sense. The closet held a coat, ironing board, extra pillow. The bathroom had the usual motel-provided, eye-dropper-size shampoo, conditioner, bar of soap.

There was just nothing.

Dammit!

She checked the pockets of the coat as a last resort, and then she stopped dead.

There, in the pocket, she felt something. She pulled it out: a Polaroid photo, in which two young girls stared, wide-eyed with fear, at the camera. “Jesus,” she whispered.

She flipped it over and read the words scrawled on the back. “Do as you're told, or they both die.”

Cold chills rippled down her spine. She ran a hand over the scrawled lines—and they hit her like a sledgehammer. Stormy staggered backward, one hand pressed to her head, eyes squeezed tight. Her legs hit something, and she fell to the floor. A man's face hovered in her mind, behind her tightly closed eyelids—the face of a fallen angel. The same dark, haunting face she'd seen beside Jason's when she'd gone off the road on the way to Maine.

She hit the floor and her hand went limp. She dropped the photo and passed out cold.

 

“Stormy? Honey? Come on, wake up, babe.”

Stormy blinked her eyes open. Max was leaning over her, looking worried. Oh hell, they were back. The realization that she'd been caught red-handed in Jay's room hit her like an electric shock, and she sat up fast—too fast. Dizziness washed over her brain, and she held her head, blinked a few times to let it pass. When it did, she tried to get her bearings and then frowned. “How the hell did I get into the bed?”

“I don't know,” Max said. “It's where I found you.”

“Where's Jay? Is he back?” She swung her feet to the floor. “Let's get the hell out of his room before he—”

“Honey, we're in
our
room.”

Stormy went still, her eyes fixing on Max's.
“What?”

“Look, you're disoriented. You came in here to lie down while Lou and Jay and I went to grab some lunch and visit the local cop-shop. Remember?”

“Yes, but—”

“You must have fallen asleep. I got worried when I couldn't wake you.”

Stormy fixed her friend with an earnest stare. “I was in Jay's room. I passed out in Jason's motel room.”

Max frowned.

“I unhooked a window when we were there earlier. I didn't really want to stay behind to rest, I wanted to poke around his room a little while you were gone. And I did.”

“You did?”

“Yes. Jesus, Maxie, don't look like that.”

“I guess I just don't follow. Why are you suspicious of Jason?”

“You telling me you're not?”

“Of course not.” She frowned, shrugged. “Maybe he's acting a little…off-kilter, but hell, given what he's been through… Besides, he's our friend, and he's in trouble. That's all that matters.”

“Some detective you are. You're right, he's in trouble. So might we be.”

“I'm not following.”

“I found—”

Nothing. You found nothing.

Stormy frowned at the deep, oddly familiar voice in her mind. “I found…something.” She pressed her hands to her head, squinted her eyes, but all she conjured up was a deep black hole. “I know I did.”

“Well? What?”

“I…I don't remember.”

“Honey, are you sure you didn't just dream the whole thing?”

“Of course I'm sure! I just—”

That's what it was. A dream, all just a dream.

“I don't know. Maybe.”

Max sat on the bed beside her, reached up to stroke a hand through her hair. “Honey, are you sure you're okay?”

“Of course I am.”

“No you're not. Look, we've been friends too long for this. Something's going on, and I know it. When are
you gonna come clean with me, Stormy? Don't you trust me anymore?”

Stormy lifted her head to stare right into Max's green eyes. “You know me too well, don't you?”

“Yeah. As well as you know me. So what is it, Storm? What's going on?”

Stormy drew a deep breath, held it a moment, then nodded once. “Okay. It's probably nothing, anyway. But…sometimes I get…pain.”

“In your head?”

“Yeah. And there…are these flashes.”

Max's brows came together. “Like, light? Colors? What?”

“Images. Pictures, faces. Voices, sometimes. Stuff that doesn't make any sense.” She sighed. “It all comes at once, and I can hardly…it's just a jumbled mess. Most of the time.”

“Is that what happened on the road, on the way to Maine?”

Stormy nodded. “Yeah.”

“And what did you see?”

She shrugged, shook her head. “Jason. And another man, a man I don't know. But…I do. It's like when the word you want is on the tip of your tongue and you can't quite make it come out, you know?”

“I…guess so.”

“It's like a strobe effect, too many things, too fast to make any sense or even try. But I know there was something about Jay. And it happened again, when we first got here, when he hugged me. And that time I think I
saw him being beaten, kicked. I think that's how he got those bruises. Not from some accidental fall in the woods.”

She chanced a look at Max's eyes, and saw them wide and riveted.

“Don't. Don't look at me like I'm insane.”

“You're not insane, Stormy. Maybe…do you think you might be psychic?”

Stormy rolled her eyes, got to her feet, paced the room. “It could just as easily be imagination running amok. Delusion. Hallucination. I had a whopper of a head injury, right? So who's to say something didn't get knocked off-kilter?” She pressed her lips tight. “I think maybe I have to face the fact that there could be some brain damage after all, pal.”

Max closed her eyes, shook her head firmly. “No. Look, you said you saw Jason in that first flash. On the way to the house. And when we got there, he'd left a message for us. He was in trouble, and you knew it. You picked up on it. It was precognitive.”

“You can't know that.”

“The hell I can't.”

Sighing, Stormy went back to the bed, put a hand on Max's shoulder. “You want to believe it because it's easier to deal with than the other option. I know you pretty well, too, don't forget.”

Again, Max shook her head. “I won't believe it's brain damage. Do you know how many people experience the onset of this kind of ability after a near-death experience or a coma?”

“Yeah. And ten thousand times more people experience permanent brain damage instead.”

Max narrowed her eyes on Stormy. Then she surged to her feet and stomped to the door. Stormy didn't know what she was up to and hurried after her. She marched along the sidewalk to the room next door and pounded on the door.

“Jesus, Maxie, don't tell Lou about this. He'll have me in the nearest hospital for a round of CAT scans—”

“I'm not going to tell him.” She pounded again.

The door was flung open, and Lou stood there with a towel anchored around his hips. Stormy had to fight a grin when she saw the look on Max's face. She wondered if her friend had ever seen Lou Malone's chest before. 'Cuz damn, it was quite the specimen. Apparently Max thought so, too, because her eyes were ravaging it.

“What?” Lou asked.

Max blinked, forcing her eyes to meet his, and said, “Uh—yeah, I…uh…” She caught herself, cleared her throat, seeming to have forgotten why she'd come over, but only briefly. “Tell Storm what you told me about Jason's bruises.”

Frowning, Lou gave a quick glance up and down the sidewalk, then gripped her arm and pulled her inside, jerking his head to tell Stormy to follow. She did, and he closed the door.

“Jesus, Max, why not announce it to the world?”

“Just tell her, Lou.” Her eyes were on his chest again.

He frowned, snatched a plaid flannel bathrobe from where he'd flung it over his duffel bag and pulled it on.
While he tied the sash, he said, “I thought you wanted me to put a lid on my suspicions of your boyfriend, Max?”

“Just freaking tell her.”

He sighed, his eyes probing Max's before he turned to face Stormy. “I've seen a lot of accidents. And a lot of beatings. And I think Jason's bruises came from the latter.”

Stormy stopped watching Max, turned to watch him instead. “You think he was beaten?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

Lou shrugged. “No. Not a hundred percent. But if I were a betting man, I'd put a lot of money on it.”

Max managed to turn her attention back to Stormy. “See?”

Lou looked at her with his brows raised. “What? You got a suspicious feeling about him too, Storm?”

“Just an inkling.”

Lou nodded, then shifted his gaze to Max. “You?”

She pursed her lips, sighing. “Hell, I don't know. I could argue with one of you, but if you both think something's wrong, I guess I have to acknowledge the possibility. But hell, I don't want to. I love Jay, and my natural instinct is to trust him. And besides, even if he did lie about how he got those bruises, that doesn't mean he's up to anything sinister.”

“Bullshit,” Lou muttered.

Stormy cleared her throat, deciding to change the subject before the two of them got too bristly with each other again. “What did you guys find out at the visitor center?” Stormy asked.

“Haven't been yet,” Lou said. “Max wanted to get back here to check on you first. You were sleeping so soundly she wanted to give you a little more time, so we agreed to unpack, catch a shower and meet Jason outside about twenty minutes from now.”

He glanced at Max. “We still on for that?”

“Yeah. I'm ready when you are.”

“I'm coming with you this time.” Stormy added, “I just…I need to run a comb through my hair first.”

“And eat the sandwich I brought you,” Max said. “Turkey with the works, and extra mayo. Just the way you like it.”

“That'll give me time to throw on some clothes,” Lou said.

With a nod, Stormy left the room. She noticed, though, that Max didn't.

 

Max stood there, near the door, watching him.

Lou looked at her, met her eyes. “What?”

She shrugged, lowered her head.

He moved closer, caught her chin and tipped it up so he could see her face. “What's wrong?”

She wanted to lean up and kiss him. She wanted it so much she barely restrained herself. But hell, he'd all but warned her he would be history if she kept pushing. She'd made up her mind to change tactics, but damn, it was tough. “You're a liar, that's what.”

He looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. “I haven't lied to you about anything, Max.”

“No? You go around in those baggy suits of yours,
playing the tired-out, worn-out, burned-out cop to the hilt. But underneath it, you've got…” She let her eyes slide lower, over his chest, his belly, even though he'd hidden them behind that stupid robe. She wanted to rip it off him. She wanted to touch him.

She swallowed the impulse and almost choked on it. “You've been hiding behind an image that's a big fat lie.”

“Why? Because I don't parade around naked?” He held up a hand. “Don't.”

She closed her eyes briefly. “You work out, huh?”

“Have to. It's necessity, not vanity. It was, anyway, and I can't seem to break the habit just because I've retired. You can't be mad at me for that, Max.”

She let herself look at him again, couldn't help licking her lips as she did. “Mad at you? For having a belly I could bounce a quarter off? No, I don't think
mad
is the word I would use. You're a beautiful man, Lou. Inside and out. I'm not mad, I'm…” The word
horny
crossed her mind, but she decided not to say it. She couldn't hide the secret smile, though, that came when she thought of the look that would doubtless appear on his face if she were to say it. “Never mind,” she told him at last. “Get dressed. We'll be ready to go in a few minutes. I'll get Jay.”

He nodded, and Max left the room.

 

“This would have been preferable in the daylight,” Lou muttered as the four of them marched around the visitor center, aiming for the woods behind it. Max was walking beside him, Jason and Stormy behind them.
They all had flashlights, and the moon was full. It could have been worse, Lou figured, but not by much.