Page 42 of Missing Moon

Now I’m really angry. The same vampire who attacked my mother and vastly changed the course of my childhood is the one responsible for Mack’s death, too—and all the other deaths happening around here. I already wanted to stop him, but now I’m going to take pleasure in it.

Hmm... if Gwen usually opens the Monarch, she’d be asleep right now.

I decide to wait until morning. As on edge as everyone is around here, someone showing up unannounced at this hour isn’t going to go over well at all.

So… I keep walking around like live bait.

One down. Some unknown number to go.

Alas, I do not run into any other undead before 2:00 a.m. rolls around and I decide it’s time to call it a night.

Chapter Seventeen

Closure

Everyone except Anthony is asleep when I get back to the house.

He stood sentinel in the living room, keeping watch over everyone. We kind of have that in common these days, both of us can function on very minimal sleep. I fill him in on everything, as well as my plan to visit Gwen in the morning. Tammy’s asleep in my old bed. She doesn’t move when I climb in and lay next to her. Sleep hits me surprisingly fast. Maybe I’m exhausted from the emotional workout I got dealing with not only Dad, but seeing Mack and having to put him down. Ugh.

I dream of being seventeen again and waiting tables at the diner. Mack’s there, asking me if I got my homework done and hinting he’d make me something to eat for free if I was hungry.

Dammit. The world is worse off for him not being in it.

Sunrise wakes me up. As a kid, I hated mornings. Though, I probably didn’t hate mornings themselves as much as I dreaded going to school and getting teased by everyone for being the ‘dirty poor kid.’ The teasing petered off in high school since our money situation had improved by then. Those four years Iblended in with the kids who didn’t fall into any identifiable subgroup. Not a jock, a preppie, a cheerleader, a nerd, or a weirdo goth kid… just sort of a background extra in my own life no one paid much attention to.

I slip out of bed without disturbing Tammy, then close my eyes and summon the dancing flame.

Yes, I slept in my clothes.

I’d been to Mack’s place a few times while working for him. No, nothing creepy. We weren’t alone. A few of us from the diner went out there to earn some extra money helping him clean out the garage once. Another time he hired us to help paint. Normal stuff. Completely innocent. Honestly, I think he was just looking for an excuse to help me out financially. He didn’t reallyneedto hire help for those things.

Anyway, point is, I’ve been to his house… and can picture it.

The flame expands into a doorway sized opening that I step through and out into the real world—in fact, onto a swath of gravel serving as his driveway. A smallish, elevated wooden deck serves as a front porch. His house is kind of embedded in a steep hill. Trees surround the property, which is about two miles outside of downtown. He’s less remote than my parents’ place but it still counts as the middle of nowhere. The white siding is a little dirty in spots. A red Bronco—the same one Mack drove when I was a kid—sits on the gravel a little to my right. That thing’s gotta be thirty years old or more.

Need to get this done before my family wakes up so I can go with them back to the hospital. Not sure there is a ‘proper’ way to deal with a dying parent. Are we all going to stay at the house for up to a month, visiting him every day until he’s gone? Or is it good enough to visit him for a week or so and then go home and wait for the bad phone call?

I don’t have anything pressing going on, really. If I want to shutter the PI biz until this is over with, I have the freedom todo it. Yeah, pretty sure I’m going to be staying here until Dad is gone…. Even if he outlasts the doctor’s prediction. I have a lot of lost time to make up for—or try to. Mary Lou and hers might head out at the end of the week. Dusk plans to permanently stay at the house. None of my other siblings nor I mind the idea. Someone needs to take care of Mom and he’s the only one of us who has absolutely no ties anywhere else in the world.

But before I leave, I think I’m going to make sure the house at least has satellite internet so that Dusk can email us all. I’d like to stay in touch if I can.

Anyway, the sounds of activity inside the house tell me Gwen is awake already. Not surprising if she’s the one who opens the diner up soon. Probably wakes up before sunrise.

I go up the wooden stairs and knock.

The woman who answers the door is simultaneously familiar and strange. This is definitely Gwen, but she looks more like Gwen’s mom. The last time I saw her, I was eighteen and she was in her thirties. Time has been relatively kind to her, though. She’s sixty-something now. Still has the same shoulder-length hair, though it’s silvery blonde now.

“Gwen?” I ask.

“Yeah. Do I know you?”

“It’s been a while, but yeah.” I smile. “Samantha Sundance?”

“Holy crap.” Gwen blinks. “Are you serious?”

“Yep.”

She steps out from the door and hugs me. “How you doing, kiddo?”

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