Twilight Hunger

Chapter 18

Maxine paced Morgan De Silva's large kitchen, taking in every detail, from the tiny square marble tiles that lined the walls to the larger marble slab in the exact same pink and gray swirls that formed the surface of the island in the center. The oblong island had four flat burners and a sink on one end. The other end was bare, with stools arranged around it. Lydia occupied one of them, but Max couldn't sit. Not with Lou out there in the night, chasing after God knew who-or what.
"Did you see what I saw?" she asked. Really just to fill the silence. There was no doubt in her mind that Lydia had spotted it.
"What?" the older woman asked.
"On that white robe she was wearing? The collar?"
Lydia looked at her blankly, then shook her head.
"Blood, Lydia. Just a little, a drop or two. But it was there. And so was the way she clutched that collar around her neck."
"I assumed she was cold, or shaken. Maybe both."
Max shook her head firmly. "She was hiding something. Did you see how fast she hurried out of here?"
"She was upset, Maxine."
"Ten to one she comes back here wearing something that covers her neck." She paced toward the back door again, parted the curtain to peer out. "God, I wish he'd get back here." Max sighed in frustration, gripped the knob. "To hell with this. I'm going after him." As she jerked the door open, Lou came puffing tiredly up the steps.
Max managed to keep herself from flinging her arms around him, but she did give him a good look. No damage that showed. "You catch him?"
"He's long gone. I didn't even get within sight of him."
"Damn."
Lou sank onto a stool, only to rise again when the woman they had inadvertently rescued reappeared in the kitchen. Max's gaze went straight to her neck, and when she saw the black turtleneck, she sent a smug look at Lydia. But Lydia wasn't looking back at her. She and Lou were both staring at the woman as if seeing a ghost.
Frowning, Max looked back at her. Then she blinked and stared. "My God... "
"Who are you? What is this?" the woman asked, gaping at Max.
Max knew the feeling, because the same questions were spinning in her mind.
"You two are almost identical!" Lou said it as if he thought no one else had noticed.
No, they weren't, Max thought. Morgan De Silva was pale as a ghost, so thin she was bony, and her hair was long, endlessly long, and perfectly smooth, shiny. Maxine was no stick figure. Her hair was shorter and tended to curl if she let it grow at all. And she had color. At least enough to distinguish her from a corpse. But aside from those differences... this woman could have been her twin.
Max sank onto a stool, and that word, "twin," played and replayed in her mind. God, was it possible?
"You're Morgan De Silva," Lou said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes. But I don't understand what this is all about. Why... what... ?"
"Ms. De Silva, please, this is as much a shock to us as it is to you," Lou said slowly. He was still standing. Morgan De Silva was, too, though it didn't look as if she would be much longer. Hell, Max had to wonder how those skinny legs carried anything at all, much less an entire human being. Even one as scrawny as her.
Right on cue, she wobbled. Lou took her arms in that way of his. Non-threatening, easy. "Come on, sit down," he said. She did.
He glanced at Max. She wasn't sure if he was nudging her to speak or checking to see if she was okay. Maybe a little of both. She looked back at him, not knowing what the hell to say.
Nodding almost imperceptibly, Lou took the lead. "I'm Lou Malone," he told Morgan De Silva. "I'm a cop from White Plains, New York. This is Maxine Stuart, and over there is Lydia Jordan. They're friends of mine."
Looking at Max unblinkingly, Morgan said, "Are you a cop, too?"
"P.I.," Max said.
Licking her lips, Morgan turned her gaze inward. "You were adopted?"
"Yeah. You?"
Morgan nodded. "Your birthday?"
"May 4th, nineteen-"
"Seventy-seven." Morgan lifted her head slowly.
Lydia was getting up, Max noticed with the part of her brain that was still capable of noticing anything beyond the woman sitting in front of her.
"Lydia?" Lou asked.
"This is private, Lou. They ought to be alone."
Nodding, Lou pressed a hand to Max's shoulder. "We'll take a walk by the water. Yell if you need us."
She nodded, not really even processing what he was saying. When the door closed, she was alone with a strangely pale, frail woman who could have been her twin. Who-maybe-was her twin. "This is really tough to wrap my mind around. I mean, I always knew I was adopted. But no one bothered to tell me I had a twin sister running around somewhere."
Morgan stared at her. "You mean this little surprise visit isn't the culmination of some kind of search?"
Hell, she sounded a little hostile. "No, it's not the culmination of anything. Until I saw your face, I had no idea."
"You hadn't seen my face before?"
"I've never even been to Maine before."
"I meant in the press. On TV."
The light dawned. "That's right. You must be kind of famous now, with the nomination and all."
"Kind of," she said. She seemed to be striving for some sort of authoritative posture, head up, spine straight, eyes focused. But Max could see the struggle, and it ruined the entire effect. "So if you didn't know about me, what are you doing here?"
"Jesus, does it matter?" Max got to her feet and moved just a little closer. Lifting a hand, she touched Morgan's face with her fingertips. "We're sisters. I can't even believe this, it's... "
Morgan lowered her eyes. "We shared a womb for nine months. It's not that big a deal."
Max let her hand fall to her side again. "Is that all this means to you?"
"Our mother obviously didn't think it was all that important. Why the hell would she have given us up-much less split us up-if it meant anything to her? It's a biological coincidence."
"You're one cold bitch, aren't you?"
Morgan's eyes snapped to Marine's. "Why don't you just tell me what you want from me so we can get to the point here."
"What I want from you?"
The pale woman lifted her brows and waited.
Max rolled her eyes. "Oh, I get it. You've got money. Success. You think that's why I'm here, that I'm after a cut."
"I was just nominated for a major award. I've had a lot of press. Are you telling me that has nothing to do with your sudden interest in me?"
"I told you, I didn't know you existed until I saw your face." Max said the words as firmly as she knew how without shouting them. "The reason I came here has nothing whatsoever to do with your money or your damned award nomination. God, who the hell raised you, anyway?"
"A pair of glittering Hollywood cocaine addicts, not that it's any of your business." She closed her eyes, and her head fell forward. She didn't try to fight it this time. Just let her long red locks hang in her eyes. "Once more, why are you here?"
"I'm here because my best friend is lying in a hospital bed with a bullet in her brain, in a coma from which she probably won't recover. And I want the son of a bitch who put her there."
Morgan blinked. It seemed to Max she had perhaps finally penetrated the shell around the woman's soul "I'm sorry. But I still don't see what that has to do with me."
"It has to do with vampires, Morgan."
She flinched. Max saw it clearly. She tried to cover it, but it was too late. "That's ridiculous. Vampires don't exist."
"Oh, I'm not talking about the fictional ones. I'm talking about the real ones. You know. Like in your film."
"I've had a very difficult day," Morgan said softly. "I hate to be rude, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
The woman honestly didn't look well. "I'll leave right after I tell you a very short story. All right?"
Meeting Max's eyes only briefly, Morgan nodded. "So long as it's very short."
"So short it has no ending. Not yet, anyway. There was a compound in my hometown. Supposedly a government-run research center. It had been there for as long as I could remember, but five years ago it burned to the ground. I sneaked past the firefighters, hoping to finally get a clue what had really been going on there all those years."
Morgan interrupted with a short burst of air. "What made you think anything was going on there, besides research?"
"Armed guards. Surveillance cameras. Vehicles with government plates in and out all the time. Electrified fence. Dogs. You name it. I found two things when I got inside: an ID badge and a CD filled with information on vampires. Years worth of information. One of the vampires was called Dante, and the information about him recorded on the CD is very similar to the background of the Dante in your films."
Morgan stared attentively at her now. She no longer looked as if she were suffering the tale just to be rid of the teller. She was rapt. "And the ID badge?"
"It belonged to Frank W. Stiles, an agent of the Division of Paranormal Investigations, which I suspect is a secret division within the CIA."
"Frank W. Stiles." Morgan whispered the name.
"The reason I found those things is because they were dropped by a badly burned man as he dragged himself out of the rubble. The next thing I knew, the place was surrounded by military. I managed to slip away, but what I didn't know was that the man had seen me. And the next day he let me know that if I breathed a word about having seen him, or about anything else I might have seen that night, he would kill my best friends and my mother. My adoptive mother."
"Is this the same best friend you said was shot?"
"Yeah."
"And you think it's connected? You said yourself this incident was five years ago."
"There's more. Just recently there was a murder in our town. A woman who was very close to Lydia Jordan. It looked like the work of a vampire, and I realized I couldn't keep the information I had to myself any longer. Not if people were dying. So I told Lou what I knew, showed him the CD. The next thing I know, my Mend is found in Lou's apartment. She'd been shot in the head with Lou's gun. I know Lou didn't do it, but it was pretty clear someone was setting him up. I know it was Frank Stiles. I know it."
"When did this happen?"
Max wondered why it mattered. "Last night between nine and ten p.m. Why?"
"And how long did it take you to drive here? You did drive, didn't you?"
"Yeah, we drove. About six hours, give or take."
Morgan nodded slowly, no longer in a big hurry to get rid of her newfound sister, it seemed. "So who is it you're after? The vampire who killed Lydia's friend or the scarred man who shot yours?"
Max blinked. "I didn't say he was scarred."
Morgan lowered her head, shaking it quickly. "You said he was badly burned. Same thing."
"No, it's not. Not really."
"I just assumed-"
"You've seen him. Hell, of course you have. He probably made the same connection I did when he saw the film."
"You're putting words in my mouth. I never said-"
"All I want is the truth," Max said.
"I don't know the truth!" Morgan's knees seemed to give, and she clutched the countertop to hold herself upright.
"You look really ill, Morgan. Have you been sick?"
"It's a... condition. A certain blood antigen. Belladonna. Although, if we're twins, I would have expected you to have it, too."
"Plain old A-positive."
"Is that even possible?"
"I don't know," Max said. "I suppose we'd have to ask a doctor or... something." She lowered her head, then raised it again. "Who was that, attacking you out there tonight? Was it Dante?"
Morgan shook her head slowly, pacing away from Max, her gait unsteady, feet almost dragging. "It was the scarred man-Stiles. Like you, he thinks Dante is real and that I can lead the way to him. But you're both wrong. There is no Dante. And even if there were-"
Her legs dissolved, and as she slumped toward the floor, Max grabbed her and held on, eased her down rather than letting her fall.
"You knew, didn't you, Lou?"
He looked at Lydia's face as they walked along the cliffs outside. Her hair had been pure honey gold once, but now a few strands of gray had appeared in its waves. Her face was sharper now, harsher, having lost the plump-cheeked look of youth. And yet she was still beautiful.
The grass fell away just beyond where they walked, vanishing into the face of a steep rocky cliff that plunged to the shore below. He liked the ocean up here. It smelled good. Salty and fresh, and the sea breeze wasn't as cold as he would have expected it to be. It seemed to roll in with the waves.
"I suspected," he admitted at length. "About Maxie, anyway. That's why I introduced you two. I honestly didn't expect her to take off with this vampire theory the way she has. It was just an excuse to put the two of you together and give you a chance to see what was obvious to me."
"And Morgan?" she asked.
"I had no clue whatsoever, Lydia. I swear."
She licked her lips. "You should have told me. About Max, I mean."
"I thought it was something you two ought to put together on your own." He put an arm around her shoulders. "I'm sorry if I did it wrong, hon. You know I want the best for you."
"I know you do."
"You gonna tell them?"
She sighed. "I don't know. I need to think."
They both turned as Max's voice shouted for Lou from the house. Lydia gripped Lou's arm. "Could he have come back?"
"Come on," Lou said, taking her arm as they ran across the wide expanse of back lawn toward the house. "We haven't been out of sight of the house," he muttered. "He could have come in another door, I suppose, but-"
They reached the house, rushing inside to find Morgan unconscious on the floor and Max kneeling beside her, cradling her head and looking scared to death.
"Jesus, what happened?"
"She just collapsed!"
Lydia ran forward, knelt beside Max and touched Morgan's face. "She's so cold."
"I think she's sick," Max said. "Lou, can you get her into her bed? I'm gonna see if I can find a phone number for a doctor or something."
Nodding, Lou bent to scoop the woman up. She didn't weigh more than a minute. Then he carried her up the stairs and started hunting for the right bedroom.
Max sat by the strange woman's bed and stared at her. It was 2:00 a.m. Lou was long asleep in one of the guest rooms, Lydia in another. This place had a half-dozen spare bedrooms, all made up, that apparently got very little use. Thin films of dust in the spare bedrooms told Max that her odd little twin didn't have much company.
She had been unable to sleep a wink herself. So she'd come in here, and now she sat and watched the woman sleeping like the dead. The bed was a huge four-poster, with white lace coverlets over mounds of blankets and thick pillows all around her. Four people could sleep in that bed with room to spare.
This place was gorgeous. Huge and gorgeous. The adjoining bathroom was bigger than Max's bedroom. Hell, so was the walk-in closet. And the clothes!
She rubbed her arms against a chill. When she had come in here, the French doors with the creamy sheer curtains had been open, the chill autumn night breeze wafting in. Max had closed them. But it was still too damned cold in here.
But of course all those thoughts were just trying to distract her from the real reason she was here. Oh, she told herself a thousand lies. That she just wanted to try to get used to looking at a face so like her own. That she wanted to be nearby in case Morgan awoke, to explain why they were all still here, invading her home. That she was worried the obviously ill woman would take a turn for the worse before morning.
But none of those were the real reason.
She wanted to see underneath that turtleneck collar.
Licking her lips nervously, Max leaned forward. Morgan lay on her back, just as still as stone, her face startlingly white in the darkness, her hair spread on the pillows around her. Sleeping Beauty. Max reached closer with her hand, and it hovered just above Morgan's neck. Then she moved it closer, very slowly. Her fingertips touched the black fabric.
Careful, she told herself. Don't touch her skin, or she'll wake. Careful...
She pinched the edge of the stretchy fabric between her thumb and forefinger, and pulled very gently out and downward. She leaned closer over Morgan, trying to see behind the collar.
They were there. Just as she had thought they would be. Two tiny marks, deep maroon in color.
"Dante, nooo," Morgan moaned in her sleep.
Max jumped so suddenly she let the collar snap back against the other woman's neck as she jerked backward.
"Stay away!" Morgan rasped. Her head began to turn to one side and the other on the pillows. "No, Dante, don't come here." There were tears squeezing out from beneath her closed eyelids now.
Max couldn't help but feel a twist of pain in her gut. This was her sister. And she had been attacked by a vampire. Max didn't know why the hell Morgan insisted on denying it, but the evidence was there, from the marks on her neck to the words of her nightmares, begging the monster not to come back.
"No, no!"
Max leaned in again, clasping Morgan's shoulders this time. "Easy. It's all right. You're safe."
The woman stopped straggling. She went still, her breath rushing in and out a bit more slowly than before.
"It's all right," Max whispered.
Morgan blinked her eyes open. It seemed to take her a moment to remember who Max was. That brief instant of shock was followed by one of dawning realization. "You're still here?" she asked softly.
"You passed out downstairs. Lou carried you up here."
She nodded, her eyes falling closed. "I'm fine. You can leave now."
"That's not what your friend David said."
Her eyes flew wide again. "D-David? You've spoken to-but how?"
"I was trying to find a phone number for your doctor or a family member or someone, and not having much luck, when the phone rang. It was a man named David Sumner, who seemed very worried about you. I explained what had happened-"
"There was no reason to do that," Morgan whispered.
"He'll be here in the morning. He asked me to stay until he could arrive. So I did."
"I don't need watching over."
"I know about Dante," Max said flatly.
Morgan's gaze shot to hers. "So do I. He's a fictional character in some films I wrote."
"I meant the real Dante. The one who left those marks on your neck."
Morgan's hand flew to the spot on her neck, but when she felt the collar there, she frowned. "There are no-"
"Save it, sister. I peeked."
Sighing with everything in her, Morgan said, "You don't understand."
"Why don't you explain it to me?"
Morgan sat up then, slowly. Max automatically leaned in to plump the pillows behind her, and when their eyes met that time, she felt a connection, the first one. "You don't have to deal with this alone anymore," she told Morgan. "You've got family here now. That means something to me, even if it doesn't to you. You're my sister. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you."
Leaning back on the pillows Max had arranged for her, Morgan lowered her eyes. "It means something to me, too." She said it as if with great reluctance. "I just... I was shocked. I didn't mean to be... cold."
"You'd had a rough evening."
"But it wasn't Dante. He wouldn't hurt me."
"No?" She tried not to show her jubilation that Morgan had finally admitted-or all but admitted-mat Dante was real.
"No. It's the scarred man. He's the enemy. He's the one who attacked me. He had... " She had to pause there, battle down a sob. "He had a crossbow."
"That must have been terrifying."
"It was. God, I was so afraid. And I still don't know if he's... " She stopped there, bit her lip.
"You don't know if he's what? Coming back? You don't need to worry about that, Morgan. You've got a cop, a P.I., and a counselor for runaway teens in the house. Between us, we can handle just about anything that comes up. He's not going to get near you again."
Morgan looked at Max for a long moment, almost as if she intended to argue, but then she simply nodded. "You really aren't after anything from me, are you?"
"No. I'm really not." Max closed a hand around one of Morgan's thin, cool ones.
Morgan returned the squeeze. "Rest now. You'll feel better in the morning." Nodding, Morgan closed her eyes and sank into sleep.