Moon Shadow (Vampire for Hire Book 11) (2 page)

Chapter Two

“Call me Sam, and why do you ask?”

His hesitancy returned. I might have shot him a “Go on” prompt, but I’d never admit to it. Finally, he said, “Well, if you laugh at me, you wouldn’t be the first. Even Sherbet had a chuckle or two. Or five.”

I waited. McDonald’s smelled like McDonald’s: grease and potatoes and frying meat, coffee and recently mopped floors. Two kids were running in circles around their mother. One of the kids stopped and stared at me, then continued running, although flashing me furtive glances. I get that sometimes: kids who just somehow
know
.

“Okay, here goes,” said Roy.

“The anticipation is killing me,” I said.

“Really?”

“No. Spill the beans, unless you want me to wrestle it out of you. Be warned, I give wicked noogies.”

He chuckled. “You’re right. I’m making it bigger than it is, I guess. Weirder than it has to be. Okay, here goes: I’m pretty sure—no, damn sure—that I saw a lake monster. Twice.”

“Now,” I said, “that is pretty big and weird.”

“I knew it!”

“So, to clarify, you did say
lake monster
and not
late mobster
. As in the ghost of Al Capone?”

“Correct,
lake monsters
. As in Loch Ness, I guess.”

“I think I would have preferred you’d seen Al Capone.”

“Honestly? Me, too. This thing has really rocked my world.”

“Okay,” I said. “I guess we’re really doing this. Tell me about the lake monster.”

And so he did, and somehow, kept a straight face while doing so. The first sighting had been two weeks ago, when the first young boy had disappeared. Yes, I’d heard about the missing boys. They had disappeared a week apart—and each was still missing. In fact, a part of me was not very surprised when Sherbet had sent me out to Lake Elsinore. The city had been in the news, and I would have bet good money that the case would have been tied to the missing boys. Not lake monsters.

Moving on. Roy told me that he had just finished giving his cabin guests a tour of the lake—Roy, in fact, ran the only lake tour in town. Roy was busy tying up the boat for the evening... when the hair on the back of his neck stood on end... followed by a feeling of being watched. He turned, and spotted a strange ripple in the water. And there, just beneath the surface, was a dark shape. A shadow, he called it. A very, very long shadow. It circled around the prow of his boat, then went under the dock itself. He didn’t know for sure, but then he watched it turn to starboard. Then the shadow headed out for deeper water... and that was it.

I studied his aura: bluish with splashes of yellow. He was telling the truth. Or, at least, what he believed was the truth.

“How long?”

“Longer than my boat. Maybe thirty feet.”

“What time of day was this?”

“Evening. It was the last tour. It was getting dark, but there was still enough light to see.”

“How long would you say you saw it?”

“Twenty... thirty seconds.”

“And you’ve never seen anything like that before?”

“Hell, no. And I’ve lived in Elsinore all my life. Been boating on it all my life, too. Seen nothing like it.”

I nodded, picked up the McCup and took another McSip of the McCoffee. It tasted McHeavenly. I said, “Is that about when the first boy went missing?”

He nodded, looking scared and foolish and desperate. “Disappeared that night.”

I nodded. “Tell me about the second incident.”

He did. The incident took place about the same time, early evening. This time Roy was out fishing with a longtime customer. The lake had been flat, like smoky glass, as he recalled. His customer had been digging around in the cooler for a beer when the entire boat suddenly lurched, Roy nearly dropping his pole. He leaned forward, looking over the rail, just as the massive shadow rushed underneath. His guess: the thing was going about sixty knots.

“I assume that’s fast?” I said.

“Almost seventy miles an hour.”

And I almost said he could have omitted the ‘almost’ and just said seventy miles an hour, but I kept my mouth shut. “And your friend didn’t see it?” I asked.

“You blink and you miss it.”

“Because it was going seventy knots.”

“Right.”

“Did you tell him about it?”

“I did.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he felt the bump but saw nothing. He figured it was probably floating debris or the shadow of a passing cloud overhead.”

“Were there clouds that evening?”

“There were.”

“And was there debris in the water?”

He hesitated. “There was, actually. A long branch floated nearby.”

I nodded, and decided not to point out the logic of his friend’s theory. Instead, I did what any good investigator would do who could read minds: I dipped into his thoughts. I didn’t have to go very far. Right there, front and center was the shadow moving under his boat. He was right. It was a damn big shadow, and it didn’t look like any tree branch or reflecting cloud formation. It looked, if anything, like a giant worm. He was telling the truth. Then again, how trustworthy was his own memory? We would see.

Roy was saying, “Ms. Moon. This was no cloud shadow or tree branch. This was huge, and it was living, and—”

“And I believe you.”

“I’m not crazy, Ms. Moon. I—I’m sorry, you what?”

“I believe you.”

He took in some air, exhaled, then took in a lot more. “Wow. That’s... that’s refreshing to hear.”

“I imagine so. Have there been any other sightings?”

“A handful of people have told me they’d seen something in the water.”

“How many is a handful?”

“Three or four fishermen.”

“Do you have names?”

“They asked me to keep them out of it.”

“Why?”

“Because of the shit I’ve been taking. Well, from everyone but you. But they come to me, because they feel safe talking to me.”

“And they’ve all seen something similar?”

“All of them.”

“For how long?”

“Off and on for about ten years. The oldest sighting goes back over a hundred years, though.”

As he spoke, I Googled Lake Elsinore lake monsters. And, sure enough, there had been a history of such sightings. The locals called the creature Elsie. Cute.

So I wouldn’t appear rude, I showed him what I was reading, and then added, “It says here the lake has dried up a few times. The sixties was the last time.”

He nodded. “Right. But that didn’t stop the rumors.”

“I would think an empty lake would put a stop to any lake monster rumors...”

“You would think. Keep reading.”

I did, scanning the various articles quickly. And there it was. Sightings of a creature emerging out of the water... and heading for the local mountains, to hide within caves, only to return when the lake was full again.

I wanted to laugh it all off. Except I wasn’t laughing, even when I excused myself to get a McRefill. I’d certainly seen some strange things in my time. Hell,
I
was the strange thing. And there was the long shadow in his memory. When I returned, I said, “This was a week ago?”

“Right.”

“Which is when the second boy disappeared.”

“That night, in fact.”

Two boys missing within a week of each other was big news, and the local police chief was under a lot of pressure to find them. The FBI was here, too, working right alongside them. I’d passed two news vans along the way to this McDonald’s. So far, very few clues had turned up. And, certainly, no boys had turned up.

“Does Lake Elsinore have a history of violent crime?”

He shrugged. “We have our fair share. Elsinore is a rough and tumble town. A mixture of cultures. Our downtown isn’t quaint or charming. Not for tourists. It’s utilitarian. It’s old. It features bars and bikers and gangs and the homeless. None in great amounts. But enough to cross paths. The lake attracts weekend warriors who drink too much, fight too quickly, and keep our police busy. Someone eventually ends up dead. Usually a fight. Usually over a girl. Occasionally, we have a murder. A body shows up dead and no one knows who did it. It happens. Our city is just big enough, hot enough, and isolated enough to attract enough people who may or may not do something stupid, or angry or vengeful. Or murderous.”

“So, what would you like for me to do, Roy?” I asked.

“I-I really don’t know, Ms. Moon.”

“Please call me Sam.”

“I don’t know, Ms. Sam. I mean Sam. I grew up on this lake. I’ve lived here my whole life. This is my home. I love this place, and I’m just so pissed off that something seems to be trying to scare me away from my home. I don’t know what I want from you.”

“You want answers?”

“I guess so, yes.”

Crackling, agitated purple flames now coursed through his aura. He sat forward and locked and unlocked his fingers. His right knee bounced. Try as I might, I couldn’t keep the flood of his agitated thoughts out of my mind. He was feeling very strongly that this was all a mistake, that I couldn’t help him, being a city girl and all. He was feeling that he should have just kept his mouth shut, that his business was going to suffer, that I looked kinda cute, that I sure looked pale for a Southern Californian. He also thought that his wife would be jealous if I came around, that he liked me, that he trusted me, that I seemed competent, that I was too small, that Sherbet had spoken highly of me, that Sherbet needed to lose some weight, that the disappearances had something to do with the shadow. He thought if he could just convince someone, anyone, to help, the disappearances might stop.

I pulled out of his thoughts, and shored up my mental barrier a little longer. Thoughts were living things, strung together to form new sequences, sometimes coherent, often incoherent, especially when someone was upset. And Roy was very, very upset.

I wanted to tell him that, more than likely, the disappearances had nothing to do with the shadow, except I couldn’t. Not yet. Not until I checked out his story.

“What does your wife say?”

Roy shrugged. “Not much. But she believes me, I think.”

His bouncing knee had picked up its pace, and his glancing eyes had turned furtive. He was beginning to look more and more like a cornered rat. Or, more accurately, feeling more and more foolish, and so, I decided to reach out with my mind, which I did now.

Relax. Breathe. Good.

His knees stopped bouncing, and he blinked long and slow. As I reached out to him telepathically, I felt a stirring from deep within. The thing within me loved when I dipped into other people’s thoughts. She especially loved when I manipulated them.

“I believe you,” I said.

He nodded, expelled a long stream of air that reached me from all the way across the McTable.

“You do?” he asked. “You really do?”

“I really do.”

“You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that.”

“I have some idea. Now, show me where you saw this thing.”

Chapter Three

While I drove behind Roy, I sent a text message to Detective Sherbet’s super-secret cop hotline.

Queen of Strange, huh?

Yes, texting and driving is bad. Unless, of course, you are an immortal with reflexes that even a cat would admire.

At the next light, I got his reply. I imagined his fat, sausage-like fingers picking out the words on the keypad, and giggled. He wrote:
I thought you might like that, Laugh Out Loud.

It’s LOL, Detective. You don’t spell it out.
I wrote back, my fingers a blur over the keypad.
And I’ve been called worse.

As the light turned green, I got his next message:
What do you think of his story?

I think he saw something.

I do, too. Roy’s a good guy. Salt-of-the-earth type. Hardworking. Nothing to gain from this.

Except some added tourism?
I suggested.

Mostly he’s received ridicule from friends and family. Not worth the extra coinage. Plus, he does pretty well on his own. Doesn’t need bullshit like this complicating his life.

Do I complicate your life, Detective?

Just help him. And it wouldn’t hurt if you looked into the missing boys.

A two-fer,
I wrote.
Or a three-fer.

Something like that. His story really checks out?

It does, Detective.

You saw it?
he wrote back.
Like in his mind?

I did,
I wrote.
Like in his mind.

So, there’s really something in the lake?

I think so.

Holy sweet Jesus.

Laugh out loud,
I spelled out, still giggling at the detective’s faux pas.
Now get back to work and quit texting. Your fingers are probably tired.

They are,
he wrote.
They really are.

We drove past rundown strip malls nestled between newer strip malls, past old homes nestled between newer housing tracts. A lot of the city of Lake Elsinore is hilly. In fact, one hill is a doozy, and seems to divide the city in half. Upon that hill sits some bigger homes with fantastic views of the lake. The homes don’t exude wealth or abundance. It’s as if they just happened to be big, and just happened to be parked on the hillside.

Many of the homes sat on multiple acres of heated, scrubby, useless land. Only the heartiest of shrubs and twisted, sad trees eked out an existence here. And all within view of this shimmering, blue lake, truly an oasis in this desert outpost.

We followed a main road that curved around the lake. Cars along here drove much too fast, as if eager to get around the big, wet shimmering roadblock. I got the feeling the lake felt unappreciated.

I followed Roy’s old Ford truck with its missing tailgate. I wondered how useful a truck could be with a missing tailgate. As I followed, I stole glances at the glittering surface as often as possible, appreciating the hell out of it. It was just so unlikely in this dusty, forgotten, superheated city. But there the lake was, proud and magnificent and sprawling, and just owning this place. Hard not to love and admire Elsinore’s unlikely hero.

We peeled off onto a side road, then another side road, winding down closer and closer to the lake. The vegetation went from scraggly desert brush, to dense lakeside foliage. Reeds and long grasses slapped at my van. Eucalyptus trees grew in abundance. I think the proximity of the lake had something to do with that.

The road ended in a parking lot of sorts. On one side was a grouping of lakeside cabins, and on the other was a beautiful Victorian home fit for a vampire. The home was nestled among the eucalyptus trees and a smattering of oaks that seemed to have forgotten they were in a desert. I felt as if I had pulled up into another world, far removed from the baking asphalts and tailgating cars and decrepit shopping centers. I could see why Roy loved this spot, and why he never wanted to leave, and why he was seeking help. There was, I suspected, no way in hell anyone was scaring him away from this idyllic, and hidden, piece of lakefront property.

There were eight cabins in total, each painted a different color. And when the primaries ran out, the colors didn’t get much more creative after that. Each sported a chimney. Walkways led from the parking lot to the cabins. The walkways were beautifully manicured, with flowers and drought-resistant shrubs, all pruned neatly. Each cabin would have a beautiful view of the lake. I had a very strong desire to stay in one of the cabins, a desire that wasn’t entirely work-related. And the image of Kingsley and I cuddled in bed, with the blinds open and the water lapping just outside was most certainly not work-related.

Before us was a private dock, upon which was tethered a wood-paneled longish boat that looked antique. It also looked very well-maintained.

“Built in 1947,” said Roy, either picking up on my thoughts or following my line of sight. “My dad worked at the boatyard that built it, right here in Elsinore. You’ll notice it’s long and thin. The design was later used as the model for various ocean liners, back in the day.”

I made appropriate noises that suggested I was suitably impressed. He next pointed out that he and his family lived in the big Victorian. Guests could come and go in the main house, as they pleased, where drinks and snacks were always made available. Breakfast was served up by his wife. Drinks in the evening were served up by him, he said, adding a wink and a smile.

I smiled, too, and inhaled the simmering, algae-scented air. Not a bad spot. Not a bad spot at all.

That is, until I saw the tall man moving between the cabins, pushing a wheelbarrow before him. He looked back over his shoulder, then continued between the cabins.

“That’s Ivan, my groundskeeper,” said Roy. “Doesn’t say much, but does a helluva fine job.”

I nodded, not saying much either. Mostly because I had noticed that Ivan wasn’t giving off an aura.

“Now,” said Roy, rubbing his hands, “would you like a tour of the lake?”

“Boy would I.”