“I’m blacked out where your dad’s concerned. I tried touching his old clothes, his possessions, to get a read from him, but…nothing we didn’t already know.”
“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got? Nothing?”
“Well, we know this. Frank was on a job for us when he disappeared.”
“What job?”
He shuffled his black combat boots. She hadn’t noticed before now that his feet were too big for his body.
“Do you have an answer?” she asked.
“The boss is gonna tell you.”
“I’m sick of hearing about Mr. Limpet. Can’tyoutell me?”
“We don’t call him Mr. Limpet,” Kiko said softly.
God.
She toned down her temper because she sure as sugar wasn’t getting anywhere by losing it. But just as she was cooling her jets, something creaked behind her, moaning, yawning awake.
On edge, she whipped around, raising her hands in front of herself defensively. Krav Maga—street fighting—at its best. Pure instinct.
But it was only a door opening. When a petite woman dressed in an apron peered around the wood, Dawn lowered her arms, stilled her adrenaline.
The interloper was gorgeous, a Hispanic heartbreaker with dusky skin, huge dark eyes, and bobbed, black, Louise Brooks hair. Her features were strong and wide yet utterly feminine.
A soulless zzzmmm, like the sound of captured electricity, escaped from behind the door and into the large room.
“Kiko?” she asked in heavily accented English. The words rushed out of her, intense and urgent, even kind of ADD-like. “Just send the girl upstairs and get yourself down here.”
“Tell me you got a break.” One minute, there’d been sadness about Frank. The next, Kiko was hopped up on whatever this woman had to tell him. He was kind of a schiz.
“A big break.” The newcomer scoped Dawn out as thoroughly as Dawn had done to her, then busted out with a blunt, “Frank’s daughter?”
Kiko nodded, darting over to the door and reaching up to grasp the fancy iron doorknob. “Breisi, this is Dawn. Dawn, Breisi.” He pronounced her name Breezy, like wind meandering through a meadow on a summer’s day.
Irony didn’t get any better than that.
Dawn gestured a hello to her, but Breisi visually brushed her aside by making some kind of urgent motion to Kiko.
“Just hurry with this business and get down here,” the woman said, then disappeared.
Her tennis shoes slapped on the stone floor, fading downward, as if there were stairs leading to a dungeon. And, truthfully, with this funhouse, Dawn would’ve expected to see skeletons chained to the walls down there.
“We’re on a case,” Kiko said.
“Not my dad’s, I suppose.”
“We’re not really sure.”
Huh?
He glanced at his watch, flicked his gaze toward the foyer where the dark of approaching night was shading the window curtains, then seemed to come to a decision. “Go ahead to the boss’s office. Upstairs and to the left, the door at the end of the hall. Don’t bother knocking because he’ll be expecting you now, but I’ll be up there soon as I can.”
She didn’t ask how “the boss” knew exactly when she was coming. A Kiko vision had no doubt informed him.
With that, the psychic flipped around the door like a puppy tearing around a tree after a rabbit. The oak crashed closed after him, the heavy thunk of a lock jammed into place.
Dawn gazed up the stairway with its wrought-iron railing and endless distance. It faded into the oblivion of the upper floor. Upon closer inspection, she noticed that the railing sported gargoyles in flight, wings spread like open arms.
Hardly comforted, she started climbing. But halfway up, a shiver traveled across her shoulders.
The sensation tingled, undulating like a heat wave down the rest of her body. Dawn grabbed the banister and slashed a gaze down to the foyer, where the painting of the fire woman stared back, her eyes fixed on Dawn.
Wait. Hadn’t she been looking straight ahead before…?
Um. Yeah.
Spending all day on a plane and worrying about Frank had frayed her nerves to a crisp.
Keeping her mind on this meeting with “the boss,” she managed to avoid more Twilight Zone moments and eventually arrive at the door Kiko had mentioned, a monstrosity that loomed from floor to high ceiling in all its dark grandeur. Surprisingly enough, when she opened it, not a sound was made.
Still, unsurprisingly, the room was black and quiet, minted with a different smell—something she couldn’t identify. Not a bad something, either. Old and new mixed together like various colors of paint before they merge. Like…
She tried to identify the scent, but couldn’t.
Then she heard the voice.
“I’ll turn on the lights,” it said.
Without warning, an eye-stinging flood of yellow whooshed over her, forcing Dawn to shut her eyelids against it. But she barely had time to hitch in a breath before a gust of chilled air slammed against her. No—through her.
Thrown off guard, she startled backward, hitting the wall.
Wha—?
The oxygen rushed out of her lungs as she tried to recover, opening her eyes and lurching into a boxer’s stance, swiping one arm upward as if blocking a physical blow. Gasping, heart stuttering, she stood ready to beat off another attack.
Blindside me, you bastard? she thought. Try it again.
But she was stopped by the coldness that had taken root in her chest. It was turning itself inside out, swirling into a warm glow, spreading, sliding down her body, heating and lining her belly with tremors and slick weakness.
Dizzy, she slumped down the wall, her eyes taking in the space around her, seeking a culprit.
But there was no one else in the room.
Three
The Voice
What the hell?
When Dawn realized the greeting—or whatever it was—had ended, she attempted to stand again. Her pulse wrestled with her veins, tangling with that first ebbing flare of surprise. The heat was still buzzing through her tummy, trickling, melting even lower.
Exciting her.
Oh…God…
As she panted, confused and overcome, she felt the vibration lingering like a slow thrum of fingers between her legs, stroking her with the pressure of foreplay, stimulating her with a warm flood of fear.
She wilted even more against the doorframe, giving in to whatever was happening.
What had hit her? It was…
Pressing her lips together to stifle a slight moan, then leaning her head back, Dawn brushed a hand over her belly. The muscles there prickled, jumped, sensitive and awakened.
It was good.
Pulse calming to a cautious thud, she languished until the rush eased away. But even then, she was too lazy, too fuzzy-warm to move.
Almost like great sex, she thought, wanting more.
Almost like a quick erotic fix—the type she depended on to get her through most weeks.
Not trusting herself to stand yet, Dawn warily scanned the room: the book-choked shelves, the sultry paintings of women with bared, smooth backs and heavy-lidded, satiated gazes. Only one of the pictures lacked a female subject: it was red-orange with fire—a burning, lonely landscape. Otherwise, all the windows were blocked by heavy burgundy drapes trimmed with golden fringe; they clashed with a plasma TV that loomed like a Times Square advertisement over the fire painting. A vacant leather chair waited behind a massive desk. The eternal surface of it was clean, as if “the boss” had finished every last case and was biding his time until a new one came his way. Well, he had it.
“Anyone here?” Dawn murmured, wondering if she’d stepped into some kind of demented trap that Frank had fallen prey to, also.
No answer.
Her blood had boiled down to a shivering hunger low in her body. Wet and ready. Swollen with need.
Both intrigued and cautious, she smoothed back a damp strand of
hair from her face. God, her hand was trembling.
Okay, maybe she was actually just dreaming on the plane? Or maybe she was so exhausted that she was hallucinating?
Eventually, Dawn felt strong enough to stand, then took a few steps forward, all too aware of the arousal that had left her with a dull ache. Her legs were like two traveling jellyfish, her breathing choppy.
Then she felt it—another huff of wind. After bracing herself, she immediately relaxed when she found that this one was softer, milder. And it didn’t come with any below-the-belt thrills, either.
Peeking to the left, she saw an air-conditioning vent that was blowing away on high gear, cooling the room.
She flushed in mortification.
Ambushed by a household appliance? You’ve got to be kidding. Surely that hadn’t been air from a freakin’ conditioner running through her.
Finally, her host spoke again. “Sit.”
The voice was coming out of the speakers of the TV, a low, deep tone filling the room with the tinge of an accent she couldn’t identify. Something Latin? At any rate, in spite of the volume, it was still a whisper, a midnight hush.
He could’ve been here in the room with her, for all the sound quality the system possessed.
Dawn couldn’t help rubbing her hands over her arms to chase away the goose bumps. Hot goose bumps, too, like his voice was physically running up and down her skin.
Unable to help it, she nervously laughed at herself.
Even though I’m a sick puppy when it comes to men, she thought, this is ridiculous.
“I’d rather stand,” she said, “just to be prepared for any other shit that might come down. Where the hell are you?”
“Dawn.”
Her belly twisted at the way he’d shaped her name, drawing it out, toying with it. Without thinking, she took a step.
He continued. “Now make yourself comfortable.”
She kept moving, just like she had no mind of her own. Strange.
But…hey, since they were going to have a conversation anyway, she found a nice velvet couch and crashed on it. Then, propping her ankle on her knee and slinking down, she ignored her still-singing nerves. They were electric with an afterglow she’d rather forget. And enjoy.
“So.” She gestured around the office, toward the speakers. “This is real Charlie’s Angels of you.”
He ignored her sarcasm. “It’s good to finally meet you.”
Foreign. Yeah, there was definitely some mystique in his buried accent.
“I’d like to say the same thing, but…” She raised up her hands and allowed them to flop back down to the couch. “You know. My dad missing. Weird-ass things happening. All that.”
“Angry.” The Voice paused. “I don’t blame you.”
“Years in the making.” This small talk made her tired. “Why don’t you start enlightening me now.”
“After a few questions.”
Wait. Who should be asking the que—
“When’s the last time you talked to Frank?”
Shame suffused her, and she glanced away from the TV, The Voice. So they’d talk about her father first. No prob. “A month ago.”
His lack of response said everything.
“We’re…” She combed her fingertips over the couch. “…not the closest.”
This time, she was the one who kept her tongue. The quietude traced the air with tension, the urge for her to explain, to make more excuses for her familial relationships.
But his silence was needling her.
“Don’t goddamn judge me,” she continued. “He worked for you. You must be some real crackerjack PIs to figure out he was missing after only four days.”
“We wanted to be certain he was really gone before we worried you. Against my wishes, Frank had a tendency to disappear during an assignment—he liked working alone—but he was never out of contact for too long. We had quite a time finding you, out there in…” He paused. “…Virginia?”
Frank had been doing PI work? This was a joke. Her dad wasn’t much for brain jobs, even by his own admission.
“A girl’s got to do what she’s got to do to survive,” she said, ducking the Virginia topic.
“You’re not very forthcoming.”
“Quid pro quo, man. When you talk, I’ll talk.”
“Dawn.”
Her eyelids weighed downward.
Jet lag, she thought. It’s really hitting now.
“We expected to find you on location for a film,” he added. “You threw us a curveball by ending up on a contracting job in a beat-up house near Arlington.”
This time, his whisper seeped into her, just as the air had earlier. Burgeoning heat flowed to the same dangerous places, making her feel a little restless, like one of those women in the paintings: stretching like a feline after a long, naked nap in the sun, purring as rays of light throbbed through her veins.
Dawn’s sight went hazy, and she slipped farther down the couch, sliding her ankle off her knee, angling out her leg and allowing her thighs to part.
Mmmm. God. Warm, nice…
She thought she heard soft laughter. Without commanding herself to do it, she coaxed her palm up her hip, rubbed the coarse denim of her jeans, traveled near the juncture of her thighs, where a stiff yearning was starting to burn again.
“Dawn?”
She started. “Virginia…” Her tone was slurred, even though her brain was still full speed ahead. “Took a friend up on an offer to earn a few bucks.”
And to help her hide her face until what she’d done on her last gig had been forgotten.
“‘A friend’?” he asked. “I didn’t know you had many of those. Not of the female sort, at least.”
The compulsion to touch herself overwhelmed her, but she resisted, forcing her hand to the couch, leaving her frustrated, craving relief for the sharp anguish between her legs.
“What’s going on?” she said, her groggy tone taking the snap out of her demand.
“You’re tough to crack, Dawn. I’m glad to see it.” He was acting as if he had horny, impulsive women in his office every day. “Let me clarify my questions. Your ‘friend’ is the wife of one of the carpenters from the last film you worked on, isn’t she? A women’s studies professor who took pity on you after what happened with Darrin Ryder.”
Before she could stop the words, they came out of her mouth—fluid and easy, even as Dawn told herself not to talk.
“She was the first person to congratulate me after I was kicked off the set. There was a lot of satisfaction in the air after I gave Darrin Ryder’s family jewels a proper polish.”
“Remind me never to make an unwarranted pass at you.”
Her sight was veiled by a gray mist, the feel of a man’s hand trailing down her neck.
Oh.
Even though she couldn’t figure out what was wrong with this picture, she smiled under the mental caress.
Fully sedated, she said, “You sound amused with the current state of my life.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
Perhaps, in his book, being a social leper was good?
“Oh, it’s bad enough.” Talking was using up too much energy. And she was doing so much of it. “Darrin Ryder is a whiny little actor who thinks everything belongs to him…including the crew. He pulled me into a closet on location in D.C. Pawed at me during one of those mind-numbingly long breaks between camera shots. He may be the flavor of the month in Hollywood…but I didn’t want a taste of him.”
“So he didn’t appreciate that.”
Again, her answer came unchecked. “Usually the support staff is like wolfsbane to actors. Yeah…we’re there to make them look fabulous. And that’s where most gratitude ends. But Darrin Ryder had some kind of obsession with the Eva-Claremont’s-kid thing. I’m used to it, so I didn’t return all the displaced affection. I suppose that pulled his trigger. When he made his move, I just gave him my own love tap. In the balls.”
“Effective.”
“But Ryder…and the director…and the producer…and his agent…and his manager…weren’t won over.”
Wow, she thought, listening through a fog. She sounded flippant, even though the career she loved so much was suffering. But the industry was forgiving. If she could manage to charm her way back from this whole “loose canon” stigma, she could get back to stunt work—the one fulfilling activity in her life that gave her some actual pride. Hell, it wasn’t like she was in it for the pitiful paycheck and zero glitz; what she got out of it was worth any amount of cuts and bruises.
Dawn tried to pep up. “I have questions for you, too.” She raised a lazy finger to point at him. “Starting with, how do you propose to make an unwarranted pass at me when you don’t even have a body?”
The Voice laughed, and she succumbed to the vocal caress. The couch’s velvet was soft as she brushed over it, picturing something way more intriguing than upholstery under her fingertips.
“No answer?” she asked, satisfied with being the one who was guiding things now.
“I don’t think so,” he said, his whisper even lower. “You’ve got too much of a reputation as a man-eater, and I’m into this notion called self-preservation.”
So sue me for all the bangathons I’ve entered, she thought. No shame in the enjoyment of sex.
“You’re also very good at your job, very physically adept,” he added. “Trained in swordplay and assorted weaponry, fights, high falls, gymnastics, harness work…”
“Say, maybe you could continue the list in person, Mr….?” Limpet? The name just didn’t go with The Voice. It was like imagining Don Knotts playing the Phantom of the Opera.
He shifted back into gear with dizzying agility. “How familiar are you with your mother’s films?”
Back to business, then. She knew she could steer him there at some point.
“I know her stuff well. She made some watchable flicks before she was murdered.”
“Yes, she did. I’m impressed with her work. And I’m sorry her life was cut so short.”
“Hey, she was twenty-three,” Dawn said. “We’ve all got to go some time.”
“You seem cavalier.”
Dawn struggled to sit up straighter, forcing out her words so they matched the flow of her thoughts. Her speech was still pokey, but stronger.
Night Rising Page 2
