Page 4 of Fire on the Moon

Chapter Two

Francesca stood paralyzed inside the hidden space at the back of the closet. One of those tough-looking men had shot her uncle. Or was that true? She hadn’t seen anything, only heard the voices and what she thought was gunfire.

The question was settled when one of the invaders spoke.

“We gotta get rid of the body.”

“And we gotta find the girl. We both saw her with him on the patio.”

“You think she’s got any information?”

The second man laughed. “She’s got information that we just offed her uncle. You put him in the trunk. I’ll start looking for her.”

“The old bastard’s heavy. I’m not gonna do it by myself.”

“Okay. Okay. You bring the car around.”

Her heart blocked her windpipe. Could she get out while they were removing her uncle’s body? She wanted to sneak out, but what if one of the guys saw her? If he did, she knew she was a dead woman for sure because they’d already killed one person. They’d wanted something from Uncle Angelo, and she didn’t even know what it was.

She heard their heavy breathing as they came into the hall.

“Wait a minute,” one of them said.

“What for?”

Above the roaring in her ears, she heard the other one answer, “The coat closet. Maybe she hid in there.”

As she stood in complete darkness, clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering, she heard the sound of the coats being swished aside again.

When a hand pounded against the wall, her heart stopped for a moment—then started to thump so loudly that she was sure the man would hear it.

And if she fainted, he’d hear her fall to the floor.

Stiffening her legs, she forced herself to stand rigidly in place, afraid to even lean backwards.

She wasn’t sure how long she waited there, listening to him rummaging around. Each second stretched into minutes as she prayed that he wouldn’t figure out that there was a hidden compartment at the back of the closet.

Finally, she heard footsteps withdraw and dared to slowly let the breath she’d been holding trickle out of her lungs. Still she waited for long moments before daring to move. She hadn’t had a chance to examine this space. Now she took a step back and then another until she softly bumped into a horizontal surface. Maybe the space was four feet deep. And when she walked from one side to the other, she found it was perhaps six feet wide—which meant that she could lie down if she wanted. She also discovered that there was a set of shelves to her right. It held a few bottles of water and a flashlight. Was there a crack where the light might show? Afraid to find out, she held the light in her hand like a club, thinking how ineffective that would be against men with guns.

Letting herself slide down the wall, she pressed her back against the hard surface, and drew her knees up to her chin. When the bad guys didn’t find her, she could get out of here and run.

There were noises coming from other parts of the house—probably from the men searching. Sometime later, she heard them talking.

“No go?”

“She’s got to be in here somewhere.”

“I think she got away somehow.”

“Not likely. With the body gone, we’ve got time to keep searching for her.”

Because her watch lacked a lighted dial, there was no way to judge time. Was it dark out there? All she knew was that she had stepped from a sunny day in Naples, Florida, into hell.

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With the long-legged strides of an athlete, Zane Marshall ran along the beach. As a werewolf, he would have preferred to run in his animal form, but there were too many people in the mansions that lined this exclusive stretch of sand. The wolf would have to wait for a trip to one of the area’s nature preserves or state parks where he could slip in after the gates were closed.

He’d come down to Naples, Florida, on a job. A hysterical homeowner named Chuck Cruise, who had heard about the track record of Decorah Security in the paranormal field, had called Frank Decorah with an urgent plea. Strange things were happening on his property, and he was convinced his home was under attack from a malevolent spook trying to drive him away. He was desperate for Frank to send an agent down right away. Zane had been glad to take the assignment because he’d been feeling restless in his usual routine. When he arrived, he listened to a long recitation about peculiar lights and threatening sounds coming and going in the night. He told Cruise he’d get to the bottom of it and set hidden cameras around the property. The surveillance had paid off. He’d gotten footage proving that the spook was really a vengeful neighbor who was trying to scare the spit out of the Decorah client. The perpetrator was angry about trees that screened both properties from the road. Cruise had paid his garden service to cut then down, and the neighbor had retaliated. Zane figured out what was going on but had almost gotten shot in the process. After that he’d decided he was due a little R and R in the sunshine state, and Frank Decorah had given him a week off.

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