Books by Maggie Shayne (189 page)

"Know us that well, do you? After all of… what? A few days?"

A nurse came to the desk, and they both fell silent as she shuffled papers, gathered charts. Max turned to her. "Can you have them turn on the phone in my sister's room, in case I need it again?"

"I'm sorry, no phones in ICU. But there's a convenience phone in the Intensive Care waiting area; TV, too. It's just across the hall from your sister's room."

She nodded. "If I get another call, could you put it through to there?"

"Sure."

Max glanced at Lydia, inclined her head and started down the hall to the waiting area. As they passed the Intensive Care unit, she could see into Morgan's room through the large safety-glass window. David was in there with her, holding her hand, speaking to her. "Same scene, different hospital," Max muttered.

"Here it is."

Max looked toward Lydia, who was holding open a door on the other side of the hall. She went inside, looked around. There were three vending machines—snacks, soda and coffee. A television, a radio, a phone—not a pay phone either, but a real phone. Several chairs and a couple of futons completed the room. Max propped the door open, then took a seat that gave her a clear view of her sister across the hall.

Lydia dropped coins into the coffee machine and waited for her cup to fill.

"You said you're not ashamed of what you did for a living all those years ago," Max said slowly. "I'm curious about that."

Taking the cup of creamed coffee from the dispenser, Lydia sipped and grimaced. "Because I had no choice."

Max waited, but Lydia didn't seem inclined to continue. "Come on, Lydia. Don't you think I have a right to know the whole story?"

Walking to a chair, Lydia sat down slowly, took another sip of coffee and then set the cup on a small table beside her chair. "I suppose. It's not pretty."

"The truth rarely is."

Nodding, Lydia seemed to gather herself. "When I was ten years old, my father died. When I was eleven, my mother remarried. My stepfather was abusive."

How cool and clinical she sounded, Max thought. "He beat you?"

"Beat me. Raped me. He hurt me in just about every way he could think of. My mother, too. She didn't have it in her to leave, but I did."

"So you ran away from home? When? How old were you?"

"Fourteen. That's how long it took me to realize that my mother wasn't going to protect me. She couldn't even protect herself. And it was getting worse. I figured if I didn't get out soon, he would end up killing me."

"Where did you go?" Max studied her. Lydia's eyes were stark. Empty.

"Nowhere. There was no place I could go. I lost myself in the city, lived on the streets, made friends there. The drugs helped ease the pain. The people helped me learn how to survive. It seemed horrible at first, the idea of selling my body for money. But when you get hungry enough, it stops seeming so bad. Hell, it was far better than what was happening to me at home. I was in control. I got to say when and how and who—or at least that's what I told myself—and I got paid for it." She shrugged. "I got by for a while—until I got pregnant."

Max's stomach was tied in knots. "You didn't… make them use protection?"

"I didn't
make
them do much of anything, Max. It's dangerous out there. You piss off the wrong John, you end up bearing scars, or worse."

"You're lucky all you got was pregnant."

"You're right."

"So then what happened?"

Lydia lowered her head. "There was this old woman. Mary Agnes Brightman, but everyone just called her Nanna. She had a big house in White Plains. Word was she took in pregnant teens. So I paid her a visit."

"And she took you in?"

"Yeah. She wasn't incorporated, didn't have a license. Just a big house and a big heart. There were six of us staying there full-time while I was there, and countless others in and out. Nanna fed us, clothed us, talked to us like we were intelligent human beings, you know?" She sighed. "Some decided on abortion, and when they did, she paid for it, took them to a good doctor, got it done right, made them go to counseling before and after. Some decided to keep their babies, try to raise them. She helped them find housing, jobs, day care, file for public assistance until they could get on their feet. Some decided to have the babies and give them up for adoption. Nanna had a son who was a lawyer, and he helped them arrange that, no charge."

Nodding slowly, Max said, "That was the choice you made."

Lydia lifted her head. "Nanna and her son, Brian, took me once to see the couple who wanted to adopt my baby. Oh, I didn't get to meet them. Didn't know their names, nothing like that. But I watched them. They were shopping. They'd moved up to the top of Brian's waiting list, so they knew that they'd be likely to get a baby within a year. They were shopping for furniture. Cribs, walkers. And I watched them. She got misty every time she held up some tiny outfit or teddy bear. Got actual tears in her eyes. He would say something funny, joking about baby names or something until she smiled again. They looked… so good. You know? Nice. Normal. And that woman, God, she wanted you so much." Lydia drew a wavering breath.

"That night Brian showed me some photos of their house, though he couldn't tell me where it was I had no idea it was so close—right in White Plains."

She lifted her eyes to Max's. "I knew you'd be happy there."

Max felt a little misty herself. "But they didn't want us both?"

"They didn't have the chance to make that decision. When we learned I was having twins, Brian let me assume both of you were going to that same home. But that wasn't the case. He placed your sister with a different family."

"Why?"

Lydia's voice had turned coarse now. "Oh, he thought he was doing a good thing. Helping out a dear friend on the West Coast who desperately wanted a child. I don't think he meant to harm anyone. But he did. I never knew the truth until after Nanna died some ten years later. She had found out, somehow, and was furious with her son over it. She left me her house, with the explanation that I had been wronged when she had only wanted to help me, and that she owed me reparation."

"And you kept her work going," Max filled in.

"I had been going back there often, helping out with the new girls in between my other jobs. Legitimate jobs. One of Nanna's conditions of helping girls like me was that we promised not to go back to the life. I was one of the few who kept that promise. Kimbra was another. I first met her at Nanna's house." She shrugged. "So when Nanna died and left the place to me, I knew almost as much about running it as she did. Turned out Kimbra had a great head for business. She helped us incorporate as a non-profit organization. Haven House."

Max drew a breath and looked Lydia in the eye. "And you thought Morgan and I would be ashamed of this story?"

Lydia looked away. "Just the beginning."

"Just nothing." Licking her lips, Max impulsively gripped Lydia's hand. "You were right about that couple. I had that idyllic childhood you wanted me to have. And if that lawyer hadn't taken her elsewhere, Morgan would have, too. My adoptive parents were wonderful, Lydia. I never suffered the lack of anything. Most of all love."

Lydia closed her eyes. "God, you don't how much hearing that means to me. Letting you go… it was so hard."

"I can imagine. But I think you did the right thing. And I'm grateful."

"The right thing… for you, maybe. But Morgan… "

"Don't give up on Morgan just yet. She comes from good stock."

They both turned to look across the hall, through the glass to where Morgan lay. Lydia nodded. "I, um, I'm going to go sit with her for a while."

"David looks like he could use a break."

Lydia got to her feet. Max did, too, and then hesitantly, awkwardly, she gave Lydia a brief hug. Lydia squeezed her hard, then let her go.

"I think I'll call Lou back."

"Good idea," Lydia said. She gave an encouraging nod and left the room.

Lou fell asleep in his chair, his head hanging to one side, ear pressed to his own shoulder. Something woke him. Two somethings. One was the sudden shrill ring of a phone. The other came first, though. It was Dante's voice. And it was coming from close to him.
Very
close to him. Like in his face.

Dante said, "I'm very sorry about this, Malone. But I have no choice."

Then the phone rang, and Lou's eyes popped open. Dante was leaning over him, and Lou flung his arms up to push the vampire off, but the chair went over backward and Dante came with it to the floor. He sank his teeth into Lou's throat as Lou fought to pry him off.

Lou swung out an arm, knocking the stand over. The phone fell to the floor. Vaguely, he could hear a tinny voice repeating his name.

"Jesus!" Lou gritted his teeth against the sensation of being drained. "I saved your fucking life!" He intended to shout it, but it came out weaker than that. "I helped you!"

His heart pounded harder than he thought was healthy, and he kept struggling to push the creature off, but his efforts were useless.

Finally Dante lifted his head and let Lou's fall backward to the floor. "You're still helping me," the vampire said, and he looked… different. Stronger. His eyes glowed, and his skin seemed to plump with life.

Yeah, Lou thought.
My
life.

Dante wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then he scooped Lou up off the floor and dropped him on the bed. Turning, he picked the phone up from the floor, set its base on the stand and brought the receiver to his ear. "Your boyfriend needs you, Maxine. He's waiting for you at the hotel. You'd better hurry. I didn't drain him dry, but I was damned thirsty."

He hung up the phone.

Lou moaned, reaching for it, knowing fall well what the vampire was doing. Trying to lure Max away from her sister so he could get to her himself. Dammit.

Dante looked down at him in the bed. "I really am sorry. There was no other way."

Lou tried to sit up as Dante turned and left the room, but he only managed to raise his upper body a couple of inches before falling backward again, into darkness.

"Wait!"

The phone went dead, and for an instant, Max felt panic creeping up her spine and wrapping its cold claw around her brain. But only for an instant. She shook it away, stiffened her spine, depressed the telephone's cutoff, and then dialed star-six-nine.

The mechanical voice recited the digits of the last number to call the line she was on. It was the number of the hotel. The vampire hadn't been lying about that.

Then maybe he'd been telling the truth about Lou, as well.

She slammed the phone down, ran to the door. She had to get to him, help him.

Then she stopped still as she stood facing her sister's room, seeing her lying there in the bed, helpless. Why had Dante told her what he had? Out of the kindness of his heart? No. He wanted her to leave her sister unguarded.

Dammit! How was she supposed to choose between her sister's life and Lou's?

It occurred to her then that she didn't really need to choose.

She went back into the waiting room, picked up the telephone, dialed 9-1-1, then told the dispatcher where Lou was and that he was near death from blood loss.

Then she dug in her jeans' pocket for that other number. The one that sleaze-bag Stiles had given her. As she dialed, she hoped that whatever Lou had done to the bastard to keep him tied up with the local police all night had failed.

It was very dark, like standing outdoors on a still night, in a thick fog. Mists swirled, and Morgan floated, without the will or the strength to move. The girl with the spiky blond hair floated out of the mists, looked at Morgan and said, "Hey. I know you."

Morgan shook her head slowly. "No."

"Yes. You're her. I heard Maxie talking about you."

Her head lifting slowly, Morgan asked, "You know Max?"

"You're the long-lost sister, right?" The blonde smiled. But then her smile slowly died. "Max keeps telling me to come back. And I want to go back. I just can't find the way."

Morgan sighed, every part of her too tired even to nod her head. "I know the way," she said. Her words were slow, expressed more as a sigh than a sentence, and that only with effort. "But I don't have the strength."

Tilting her head to one side, the blonde said, "Gee, do you suppose we could help each other? I mean, work together?"

"I don't think it works that way. I'm supposed to die, I've always known it."

"I don't think so. I mean, have you seen how fast some of them come through this place?"

God, her head was heavy. So tired. "I haven't seen anyone."

"What do you mean? Of course you have. Look! There goes one
now
!"

Morgan saw only a streak of light flash across the deep blue backdrop of the swirling silvery mists. "I thought those were shooting stars."

"Uh-uh. I've been watching them. I think they're just like us. Only they know where they're going. And we're kind of… stuck. Because we don't. That must mean something. Right?"

Morgan shrugged, too tired to care.

"Look, I'll help you. I'm strong, I'm just lost. I'll help you, and you tell me the way. All right?"

"I… can't."

"Sure you can."

The blonde bent down and clasped Morgan's hand. Energy melted into her, a pool of life. The girl tugged gently, and Morgan rose to her feet as if weightless.

"Now," she said. "Which way?"

Morgan surfaced slowly, unsure what was going on, knowing only that she ached for Dante. God, where was he? Why hadn't he come for her?

She couldn't raise her head to look around the hospital room, and her hearing was distant, as if all sound was muffled. She saw through cloudy vision as Maxine, her sister, spoke to Lydia and David.

"They'll be bringing Lou into the ER any minute. Please, go down there and wait for him. And if… if it's really bad… come back for me. Otherwise, though… "

"We understand," David said, his eyes solemn. "Be careful, Max."

Max nodded, and Morgan wondered what was going on. What had happened to Lou Malone? And why did David feel the need to warn Max?

He must be afraid Dante would come for her. Oh, God, Morgan thought desperately, please let him come for me!

After David and Lydia left the room, Maxine opened the closet door, stepped inside it and closed it again.

What in the world… ?

Morgan waited silently, her heart hammering. The lights were all turned out. The glow of the various monitors surrounding her bed painted the skin of her hands with a faint green tint. It seemed to Morgan that she could hear every tick of the clock as she waited, waited, wondering what her sister was up to.

The window slid open. A soft breeze moved the curtains. They danced like ghosts; then a dark form climbed through. Morgan's heart leapt in her chest as Dante landed on the floor easily. He looked at her, met her eyes, and everything in her seemed to sing. She wanted to speak, to cry, to leap up and run into his arms, but she couldn't move, couldn't speak. A tear welled in her eye, rolled onto her cheek. Dante saw it, and it seemed to Morgan that love shone in his eyes as he hurried to her bedside without even looking around first. His long, slender hand stroked Morgan's hair away from her face. And Morgan saw the glimmer of a tear on his cheek, shining in that greenish glow.

"I'm here," he whispered. "It's all right now, my love. I'm here."

He bent to press his lips to hers, and she tasted his kiss only briefly. The door burst open suddenly, and Dante jerked his head away.

Frank Stiles, the scarred man, burst in from the hall, as three other men—his cohorts it seemed—appeared as well, two from the adjoining bathroom, another from behind the bed curtain. Weapons were drawn, aimed at Dante, and Maxine stepped out of the closet. "Back away from her, Dante," she ordered.

Morgan's heartbeat raced. She tried to form words, lifted a hand in weak protest, but she was ignored.

"You don't know what you're doing," Dante said softly, staring at Morgan, his eyes gleaming with emotion. "Please, she's going to die, Maxine. Your sister is going to die unless you let me help her."

"I'm sorry. I don't believe a word you say, Dante. Not after what you did to Lou."

Lou? Morgan wondered. What had Dante done to Lou?

Stay calm, my love. Malone is fine, I promise you
. Dante's thoughts rang in her mind, soothing.
Stay alive. I'll come back for you, I swear it
.

He started to turn for the window.

Stiles fired a weapon, and Morgan caught her breath. It wasn't an explosion but a small pop, as his gun shot a dart into Dante's shoulder. Whatever it was, it worked instantly. Dante buckled, dropped to his knees. One of the other men yelled, "It works!"

Dante looked up at Maxine with pained eyes. "For the love of God, don't let this happen."

Max moved closer to him. "You blew your shot at getting any sympathy from me when you attacked Lou Malone. He was the only one who wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, you know. The only one who wanted to help you. And you turned on him."

"You don't realize what you've done." He turned his gaze from hers to Morgan's, his eyes filled not with sorrow, but with promise. He would come back, he would find a way. He swore it to her without speaking a word.

"Get back, Ms. Stuart. We'll take it from here," Stiles said. He nodded to one of his men, who opened a pack and took out a rope with several pulleys and latches attached. He tied off one end and dropped the other out the window.

Maxine backed off.

"You're just fortunate we weren't detained by the police after all," Stiles went on. "Luckily your boyfriend the cop only had one pair of handcuffs on him. He had to leave one of my men free, who managed to free us before the police showed up."

One of the men bent over Dante, who was completely unconscious now. As Morgan watched in horror, unable to do a thing to help besides move one finger over and over on the call button at her pillow, the man snapped a belt around Dante, then flung him easily over his shoulder. "Ready, sir."

A nurse stepped into the room from the hallway, went still, eyes wide, and said, "Just what the hell is going on in here?"

"We're Ms. De Silva's private security team, ma'am. This man broke in here. We're taking him right back out again." Stiles wiggled his gun like a finger, and the nurse's face drained of color as she looked at his scarred face. "Now you just stay quiet until we're gone, hmm?"

The nurse backed into the hall, turned and ran, shouting for security. The big guy who had Dante over his shoulder sat on the windowsill with his back to the open window, the rope in his gloved hands. He put his feet to the windowsill, pushed off, then rappelled down the side of the building with Dante anchored over his shoulder. The others clambered out just as quickly, bagging their weapons and taking them. They were gone in seconds, as if they had never been there. Almost.

Maxine went to the window, removed the rope and dropped it after them. Then she closed the window and returned to her chair, sinking down tiredly.

Two hospital security men dressed like cops, came crashing through the door, looking ready for all-out war. Maxine looked up at them as if vaguely irritated. "What is this?"

"We were told there were armed men in this room, ma'am." The leader jerked his head, and the other man went through the room, the closet, the adjoining bathroom, checking everywhere and finding nothing and no one. He even looked out the window, but Stiles and his cronies were too fast to be spotted so easily. And well hidden in their black clothes, on a night as dark as this one.

"Armed men?" Max asked. She faked an incredulous laugh. "I suggest you have whoever told you that fairy tale tested for drugs," she said. "There's been no one here for hours."

Frowning, the men muttered among themselves and finally left her alone, but Morgan noticed one of them remained in the hall outside the door, just to keep an eye on things.

Maxine sighed, and she closed her hand around Morgan's, glancing down at Morgan's face and finally realizing that Morgan's eyes were open and staring straight into hers.

Morgan strained to force words, and even then, only the barest whisper emerged. "You get him back," she rasped. "Or I'll die hating you for this, Max. I swear I will."

Dante's captors sat around a table, smoking, talking in low tones. Dante had been rendered temporarily unconscious by the drug, whatever the hell it had been, but already its effects were wearing off. He was still weak. Far from fighting strength, but at least he was awake. Able to listen, smell, try to discern his surroundings. He was on a table, he thought. Flat and hard. His arms and legs were restrained. He smelled only tobacco smoke and the moldy, musty smell of age and disuse. He opened his eyes a mere slit and saw bare lathe and crumbling plaster, spiderwebs and broken boards. Shattered windows with razor shards of glass still in them. An abandoned house?

"The drug works. You did it, Frank. You reproduced the old Rogers formula perfectly!"

"Yeah, and just in time, too. Man, he went down fast," another man said.

Stiles spoke next. His voice was beginning to become familiar to Dante. Familiar… and hated. "It works, but we have no idea how well, or for how long. I only had partial notes on the process. The rest were destroyed in the fire."

"Well, he's out," said one of the others. "That says all I need to know."

"Then you're a fool."

The men went quiet for a moment. Then, "What are we going to do with him, boss? You said we weren't ready to keep prisoners yet."

"We aren't. The cells in our new headquarters aren't even finished. And even when they are, capturing them will never be our goal. I want you to remember that, men. That's where we differ from the old DPI. Our mission is to eliminate them. Wipe them out. The entire race. However, keeping a few for experimentation will help hone our weapons for maximum effectiveness."

Dante suppressed a shudder. This man was single-handedly re-establishing the DPI—and making it more bloodthirsty than ever.

"This one, though, we kill. But we can at least keep him alive long enough to see how the tranquilizer works. He might as well serve our purposes before we slice him open and watch him bleed out."

Gently, Dante gave an experimental tug on the restraints. They felt solid, and he sensed he wasn't yet strong enough to break them. And then he wondered why he even bothered to try. If he couldn't save Morgan, what was the point? God, why had he waited so long to acknowledge the bond between them? She hadn't. She had known it for what it was from the very start. She was his. Meant to be with him. It had taken him centuries to find her. And now she was being taken from him. And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

"Go see if he's still out," Stiles ordered.

Footsteps came closer. Dante relaxed his features, lay perfectly still, limp.

"Still out," the man called.

"Make sure," Stiles said.

The man was quiet for a moment. Dante heard him puffing on his cigarette. Then the puffing stopped, and Dante felt heat near his neck. It got hotter, and then the tip of the cigarette pressed to his skin. He clenched his jaw to keep from crying out as the skin seared. Pain screamed through him. He did not react. He couldn't, or they would kill him. And dammit, then it really would be over. But as long as he drew a breath and she still lived, there was a chance. Slight, but real. Very real. He had to survive, escape and get to Morgan.

The hot brand moved away, but its bum remained, sizzling skin cells. Dante smelled his own burned flesh.

"I'm sure," the man said. "He's really out."

Morgan lay very still in the bed, watching, too weak to do more. Even speaking exhausted her. She wasn't going to live much longer; she knew that with a dire certainty. And she didn't care. Dante. He was all she cared about. God, if she couldn't be with him, then death was a far more desirable prospect than that of life without him. But she could not bear the thought of him in the hands of those evil men. She couldn't bear it.

Tears slid down her face in utter silence as she lay there, unable to howl her anguish. Her longing for him was so deep and so sharp that it cut into her very soul. And the pain was unbearable. She barely heard her so-called sister as the girl sat beside her, telling her all the reasons why she'd had to betray the man Morgan loved. He'd shot her best friend, she said. He had attacked Lou. He was a killer. They were words. Far less convincing, less moving, to her than the words of a madman on the pages of a diary.