Moon Child (Vampire for Hire #4) (11 page)

“Samantha,” he said simply.

“Detective.”

“We have a situation here at the hospital. I
need to see you asap.”

“What’s wrong? Is it my son?” My voice
instantly went from calm to nearly hysterical.

“Your son is fine, Sam. No, this is something
else, and we need to see you asap.”

Chapter Thirty-two

I was sitting with Detective Sherbet in the
hospital break room, or one of its break rooms, after a very tense
ride from Hero’s. My frantic mind had imagined every conceivable,
horrific scenario, each one worse than the other.

But never had I imagined this.

The hospital was in complete anarchy. Police
everywhere. A mother weeping uncontrollably. Nurses frightened.
Doctors frightened. Hell, everyone looked frightened. A very grave
Sherbet had shut the break room door behind him and sat across from
me.

Detective Sherbet and I had become close over
these past few months. Not so close that I had disclosed to him my
super-secret identity, but pretty damn close. Sherbet, no idiot,
was aware that some really freaky shit was going down in his city.
He knew I was connected to it, and in fact, might be the freakiest
of them all. To his credit, he had yet to confront me about who—or
what—I might know. Rather, he’d been approaching this from the
outside, nibbling away at the edges. Perhaps his approach was a
good one: absorbing small details at a time.

Sherbet was a big man, but not as big as
Kingsley or my new detective friend out of Huntington Beach. If
anything, he looked like a panda bear: salt-and-pepper hair, way
too round around the middle, serious yet playful. And, if
necessary, tough as hell.

“We have a child missing,” he said simply. We
were sitting at a round and heavily scarred table. His belly, I
noted, actually rested on the edge of the table.

My own stomach sank. “What do you mean?”

“A patient, a child, was kidnapped not too
long ago by an unknown male.”

My heart froze. “When?”

“Just over thirty minutes ago. Kidnapped
here, from the hospital.”

“Oh my God.”

“The hospital is on lockdown. No one in or
out. Absolute insanity.” As he spoke, Sherbet was watching me
closely. The muscles along his hairy forearms moved just under his
thin skin, as he clenched and unclenched his fists. “The city of
Orange isn’t my beat, but the guys here are good friends of mine.
When a child goes missing all available hands come running. When I
first heard the report, I thought of your son here.”

“But he’s okay.” I knew this because I had
already checked on him.

He nodded. “Sam, the boy was kidnapped from
your son’s old room.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your son, from what I understand, was
recently moved from ICU to immediate care.” I wasn’t following but
he continued on. “Another boy took your son’s room. Within thirty
minutes, he was gone.”

“Oh, my God.”

Through the closed doors, I could hear
someone barking an order. A child was crying somewhere. In fact,
many children were crying.

Sweet Jesus. What was going on?

Sherbet went on, “The parents were down in
the cafeteria getting some coffee and preparing for another
all-nighter when they got the news.”

“Were there any witnesses?” My voice sounded
hollow and distant.

“Oh, yeah. A man comes in claiming to be an
uncle. Charming, smooth as hell, apparently. Says everything right.
Front desk lets the bastard right in. Same with the nurses up here.
Against protocol left and right. Heads will roll. Yet these same
people don’t remember letting the guy in. I don’t understand any of
it.”

“They don’t remember letting him, but they
let him in?”

“Something like that.”

“As in no memory of doing it?”

“Right.” Sherbet frowned at me. The muscles
of his forearm continued to undulate.

“What happened next?”

“You’ll never believe it.”

“Try me,” I said.

“Better I show you.”

He led me out of the break room and over to
the room I was so familiar with, the same room my son had occupied
for the past few days. Except now there was something vastly
different about the room.

The entire window was missing.

Chapter Thirty-three

Sherbet said, “A minute or two after stepping
into the room, the nurses heard what sounded like an explosion.
When they rushed in to investigate, the boy was gone and the window
was broken.”

I was speechless. Beyond speechless. I
couldn’t formulate words. All I wanted to do was run to my son
again and check on him, to hold him close and protect him
forever.

What the hell was happening?

“For the love of God, Sam, what’s going
on?”

“I don’t know, Detective, I swear—” I stopped
when a disturbing image came to mind. “What did the man look
like?”

“Tall. Caucasian. Dressed in slacks and a
blazer. A blue blazer—Sam, what’s wrong?”

“Just go on,” I said. I had braced myself
against the wall. Although I had little use for my lungs, they
suddenly felt constricted, as if an anaconda had curled around my
chest and was squeezing, squeezing. “Was he wearing anything
else?”

Detective Sherbet was watching me
closely.

“A bow tie,” he said.

“Oh, shit.”

“What do you know, Sam? Dammit, what the
hell’s going on here?”

“He was following me today.”

“Who was following you today?”

“The man with the bow tie.”

Sherbet blinked. “If he was following you,
then why in the devil would he kidnap the boy?”

“The man was after Anthony, I think.”

“Sweet Jesus, Sam.”

“And got the wrong boy. He was just a few
minutes too late.”

“Why would he want your son?”

“He’s trying to get to me.”

“Who’s trying to get to you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why does he want you?”

That I did know. Or, at least, I suspected I
knew. “I have something he wants.”

“Who is he, Sam? And dammit, don’t tell me
you don’t know. You know something. I can feel it. You’re holding
back and now is not the time to hold back. There’s a sick little
boy out there who needs immediate medical attention, who’s
terrified and possibly hurt.”

Sherbet had a son of his own, about the same
age as Anthony, in fact. I thought about how Sherbet had been such
a good friend to me. I also thought about how he was so close to
the truth. To my secret. I looked into his eyes now. His desperate
and wild eyes. I thought about the little missing boy—a missing boy
that was supposed to have been Anthony. My heart broke for him and
his family, and I realized that my secret could be a secret no
more. At least not with Detective Sherbet.

“Can we talk somewhere more private?”

“No, Sam. We talk here.”

“Please, Detective.”

He didn’t like it. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll
talk in my squad car.”

Chapter Thirty-four

His squad car was an unmarked Ford Crown
Victoria, and he was parked in a handicapped spot directly in front
of the hospital. The car was immaculate, as I suspected it would
be. Not even a wadded-up bag of donuts, which I half expected to
find.

As he slid in, he clicked the doors locked.
“It’s just me and you, kiddo,” he said. “Now talk.”

“I have an artifact,” I started. “A very
valuable artifact for some people. I suspect that whoever took the
boy wants this artifact. No doubt he thought he was taking my
son.”

“Ransom,” said Sherbet. He hadn’t taken his
eyes off me.

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“And the man in the bow tie?”

“I have no idea who he is.”

“But he was following you?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

Sherbet absorbed these strange details
silently, his fine investigative mind sorting them out mentally,
labeling them and filing them in his mental file folders. “What’s
the artifact, Samantha?”

Sherbet was staring at me. I could hear his
heart beating steadily, strongly. Sherbet smelled of aftershave and
potatoes.

I took a deep breath, held it, and looked my
friend in the eye. Sherbet returned my stare, his eyes wide and
hungry, searching for information.

“Please, Samantha,” he said. “Talk to
me.”

I continued staring at him, and finally came
to a decision. I said, “I’m not what you think I am,
Detective.”

“What the devil does that mean, Sam?”

“When I was attacked six years ago, I was
changed forever.”

“No shit, Sam. An attack like that would
change any—”

“That’s not what I meant, Detective. It
changed me in a physical sense. In an eternal sense, too.”

“Eternal? What the devil are you
talking—wait. Good God, you’re not telling you’re one of those
were-thingies?”

I smiled despite the seriousness of the
situation. “No, Detective. I’m a vampire.”

Chapter Thirty-five

“A vampire?” he said.

“Yes.”

“And you’re serious?”

“As a corpse.”

“I don’t know whether to laugh or be
afraid.”

“You can laugh, if you want. Lord knows I’ve
done it a few times. Of course, my laughter usually turns into
tears. But you certainly don’t need to be afraid, Detective.”

Yet another police car pulled up to the
hospital. A young officer dashed out and headed for the hospital’s
main doors. Through it all, Sherbet hadn’t taken his eyes off me. I
didn’t blame him.

“I have a secret, too,” he said finally.

“Oh no,” I said. “Please don’t tell me you’re
the Werewolf King or something.”

He chuckled lightly. “No, but I would have
loved to see the look on your face.”

“What’s your secret, Detective? Seems like a
good night to spill them.”

“I’ve known you were a vampire for some
time.”

“Really?”

“It’s the only thing that made sense. Your
strange disease, the dead gang banger drained of blood, the punch
through the bulletproof glass, the dead prisoner.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because it was a new theory and I was still
debating whether or not I was going insane.”

“A question I’ve asked myself a thousand
times.”

“I have another secret,” he confessed.

“I don’t think I can handle any more
secrets,” I said.

“I’ve seen Twilight five times.”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “You saw
what five times?”

“Twilight. My boy loves it. He can’t get it
enough of it. We’ve seen the sequels a few times, too. Also, I
watched them for, you know, research.”

Detective Sherbet loved his boy. Of that
there was no doubt. That he had been worried sick that his young
son was showing early signs of homosexuality was almost comical.
With that said, I had been touched by Sherbet’s ability to come to
terms with the concept. If anything, he loved his boy even more.
Still, the thought of the gruff detective sitting through the
various naked torso scenes in Twilight and its sequels for
“research” would normally have had me laughing so hard that I might
have peed. But not tonight.

“Anyway,” he said, clearly embarrassed. “You
could say I’m something of a vampire expert now.”

“I see,” I said, and now I did laugh. “I
hadn’t realized I was sitting next to an expert.”

He laughed, too, but then quickly turned
somber. “But those are just movies. This is real, isn’t it,
Sam?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“You really are a vampire.”

I shrugged, my old defense kicking in. “I
don’t know what I am, Detective.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m the same person I’ve always
been, except sometimes when I’m not. It means that I feel the same
that I’ve always felt, except sometimes when I don’t. It means I
act the same, think the same, and do the same things I’ve always
done.

“Except when you don’t,” said Sherbet.

“Yes, exactly. It means I’m still me. I’m
still a mom. I’m still a woman. I’m still a sister. And I’m still a
friend.”

“But you’re also something else. Something
more.”

I nodded. “And sometimes I’m that, too.”

We were silent for a minute or two. The
detective’s heart rate, I noted, had increased significantly. “It
happened six years ago, didn’t it?”

I nodded.

“It left you...the way you are now.”

“Yes.”

“You never asked for this, did you?”

I shook my head.

“And it’s ripped your life apart, hasn’t
it?”

I nodded and fought the tears. Enough crying.
I was sick of crying, but it felt so damn nice to be understood,
especially by a man I respected and admired so much.

“And now you’re doing all you can to keep it
together.”

Shit. The tears started. Damn Detective
Sherbet.

He reached over and patted my hand. A
grandfatherly gesture. A warm gesture.

“So you believe me?” I asked.

“I believe something. What that is, I don’t
know. Most of me thinks you’re insane, or that I’m insane. Most
people would think, in the least, that you’re a hazard to your
kids.”

“Do you think I’m a hazard to my kids?”

“No. I think you’re a wonderful mother. I
really believe that.”

“Thank you,” I said, moved all over
again.

Sherbet touched the back of my hand again. My
instinct was, of course, to retract my hand, but I didn’t. Not this
time. His fingertips explored my skin, almost like a blind man
would the face of his lover. “Your cold skin always confused me.
And your skin disease never felt right.”

“Because it wasn’t.”

He nodded. “And Ira Lang...sweet Jesus. The
visiting room.”