At Twilight

by Maggie Shayne

helpless old man.

  She’d practically caught him in the act.

  Hadn’t she?

  No.

  It isn’t possible.

  I can’t believe.

  won’t believe it.

  “This has to be handled delicately and quickly,” Curt went on,

  apparently unaware of her jumbled thoughts.

  “DPI doesn’t want any local cops poking around.”

  She blinked, searching her brain for rational thought.

  logic.

  “But he was murdered.”

  “It’s going down as a heart attack.”

  She looked back to the bloodstained carpet and shook her head.

  “A heart attack?”

  “Our own fbrensics team will take care of Daniel. He’s being cremated

  this morning… on the premises, right after Rose Sversky has a look at

  him. We’ll have a memorial service this afternoon.”

  Tamara frowned at the mention of DPI’s top forensic pathologist.

  Dr.

  Sversky’s patients were kept in cold storage in a sublevel lab.

  She closed her eyes as she thought of sweet Daniel down there.

  “I hate to leave you on your own, Tami, but there’s a lot to do. We

  want to move fast before anyone has a chance to ask any questions. Word

  of this leaks out, By ram will turn into a circus. Be at St. Bart’s at

  two for the service.”

  The telephone shrilled as Tamara tried to digest what he was telling

  her.

  There would be no burial in a grave she could visit.

  Daniel would be reduced to ashes within the next few hours.

  He’d been ripped from her so suddenly, so violently she felt nothing

  now but shock.

  As if she’d lost a limb.

  Curt turned toward the phone in the living room, ignoring the closer

  one in the library.

  “Stay out of there for now. Tam. A cleanup crew will be here this

  afternoon.”

  Oh, yeah, she thought.

  DPI’s good old “cleanup crew.”

  When they finished you wouldn’t be able to find a blood cell with a

  microscope.

  Cleanup would be more aptly named cover-up, but what the hell?

  Curt’s voice cut through the dark shroud over her heart.

  “No, Mrs. Bryant, I’m afraid Tamara isn’t up to a phone call just now,

  but I will pass along the” — She bolted at the sound of

  “Bryant,” and jerked the phone out of Curt’s hand before he could

  finish the sentence.

  How, even with all that had happened, could she have forgotten about

  Jamey?

  “Kathy? I’m right here. Is there any… There isn’t?”

  She sighed in dismay when she learned Jamey still hadn’t been found.

  She listened as the woman poured out the frustrations of a long,

  sleepless night.

  When she finally began to run out of steam Tamara cut in.

  “I’m going to find him, Kathy. I promise you, I will. I’ll check in

  later, okay?”

  She closed her eyes and stood still for a long moment after she hung

  up.

  A moment ago she’d wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and

  pull the hole in after her.

  She’d wanted to sit in a corner and cry until she died.

  Now she had a purpose to keep her focus.

  For today, she would do her utmost to find Jamey Bryant.

  Tonight she would go to Eric and hear what he had to say.

  She wouldn’t believe he’d killed Daniel until she heard it from his own

  lips.

  She couldn’t believe it.

  nor could she deny what she’d seen with her own eyes.

  So she’d give credence to none of it, for now.

  For now, she’d simply focus on Jamey, and hopefully remain sane long

  enough to sort out the rest.

  Curt was behind her as she moved toward the stairs.

  “So to anyone who asks, it was a heart attack. Don’t forget. The only

  people who know the truth are Hilary Gamer—she came over and helped

  get you into bed last night—and Milt Kromwell, Daniel’s immediate

  superior. And, of course, Dr. Sversky. Are you sure you’ll be all

  right?”

  She nodded, wanting nothing more than to get started doing something

  that would absorb all her concentration.

  She was upstairs and in her room dressing before Curt’s car left the

  driveway.

  She checked her jacket pocket when she pulled it on, and nodded when

  she felt the bit of gauze still there.

  Jamey knew it was morning because he felt the sunlight gradually

  wanning his stiff body.

  Thank God for the sleeping bag.

  He’d have frozen to death for sure if it hadn’t been for that.

  The creep had shown up in the middle of the night with the bag, and

  slipped it up over him.

  He’d brought a ham sandwich, too, and a cup of chicken soup and some

  hot chocolate.

  He’d untied Jamey’s hands so he could eat, but the blindfold had stayed

  put.

  He had ripped the tape off so roughly it had felt to Jamey as if his

  lips were still attached to it.

  Something cold and tubular had been pressed to his temple and a gruff,

  phony voice had rasped close to his ear,

  “One sound and I blow your head off.

  Got that, kid?”

  He’d nodded hard.

  He fully believed Curtis Rogers would do it.

  Any guy who’d slug a woman the way Curds had slugged Tamara wouldn’t

  give a second thought to blowing away a kid.

  And he knew it was Curtis now.

  He hadn’t seen him, or heard him speak without the phony voice, but he

  knew.

  So he’d nodded like a good little hostage and had eaten his soup

  without seeing it.

  He had been allowed to relieve himself in a pail before he was tied

  again, arms behind him just like before, tape back over his mouth.

  Damn, he hated that tape.

  After Curt had left, sometime during the long, cold night, Jamey’s nose

  had started to clog up.

  He’d felt sickening panic grip him.

  How would he breathe if his nose clogged up and he had tape over his

  mouth?

  One thing was sure, Jamey didn’t intend to spend another night here to

  find out.

  Curt had rasped that he’d be back in the morning, so Jamey would

  wait.

  He had a plan.

  It wasn’t much of a plan, he figured, but it was better than nothing.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  Before the sun had been shining very long, Curtis showed up with

  another cup of cocoa and a cheese Danish from a fast-food joint.

  He didn’t say much this time, and Jamey didn’t have the nerve to ask

  questions.

  He ate, did his business and sat calmly while he was retied and

  taped.

  But when Curt left this time, Jamey’s senses were honed like razors.

  He listened carefully, memorizing the sounds of Curt’s steps across the

  floor as he left.

  He waited then, just to be sure Curt wouldn’t come back.

  Then he slid himself across the floor in the direction Curt had gone.

  He humped and slithered on his rear end.

  His feet pointed the way.

  He bent his knees and pulled himself along by digging his heels into

  the floor.


  He made good progress, too, until he hit a wall.

  He sat there, confused for a moment.

  Then he realized there must be a doorway.

  Not a door, since he hadn’t heard one open or close.

  But there must be a doorway.

  He wriggled around until his back was to the wall so he could run his

  hands along it as he humped sideways.

  He figured he’d worn his pants down to the thickness of tissue paper

  and implanted about a hundred slivers in his backside by the time his

  hands slipped off the flat wall and into empty space.

  The doorway!

  He’d found it!

  He was so excited he didn’t even bother turning around again.

  He just pushed off with his feet and went backward through the

  opening.

  and into space.

  Not a doorway, you idiot, a stairway.

  Oh, damn, a stairway.

  Rose Sversky was a tiny sprite of a woman with short white hair in a

  close-to-the-head haircut and Coke-bottle glasses.

  She looked as if she’d be more at home cutting cookies than corpses.

  Tamara sat in a hard chair amid the organized chaos of chrome and steel

  and sheet-draped tables, painfully aware that one of those tables had

  supported Daniel’s body only hours earlier.

  Maybe only minutes earlier.

  Dr.

  Sversky handed the bit of gauze, now safely encased in a plastic zipper

  bag, across the desk to Tamara.

  “You were correct about the chloroform. Unfortunately, gauze is a poor

  receptacle for fingerprints. I couldn’t find a hint of who took

  him.”

  Tamara sighed hard and swore, but Rose wasn’t finished.

  “There was a small trace of blood. Most likely the boy’s though I

  can’t be certain without something to compare it to. Do you know his

  type?”

  Tamara frowned.

  “No. It’s probably in his records, but it’ll be easier just to ask his

  mother. I’ll get back to you.

  It’s funny, though, I didn’t see any blood.

  ” “I don’t think you could have without a microscope. It was just a

  trace.

  Probably bit his tongue when he was grabbed.”

  She sat silent behind her huge desk for a long moment, then reached

  across it to cover Tamara’s hand with her own.

  “I’m sorry you’re going through so much at once, dear. Daniel was a

  good man. I’ll miss him.”

  Tamara blinked.

  She hadn’t wanted to think about Daniel now.

  here.

  Still, she couldn’t keep her gaze from jumping to the nearest table.

  “You’re doing the death certificate, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I’ve fixed them before, and I imagine, as long as I stay with

  DPI, I’ll fix them again.”

  “It doesn’t bother you, changing a cause of death from something as

  violent as this to a simple heart attack?”

  Rose frowned.

  “Actually, unless anyone’s already heard the rumor, it’s going down as

  an accident.”

  Tamara looked up and Rose hurried on.

  “It’s always better to stick as close to the truth as possible. When I

  found that blow to the back of the head, I figured we might as well use

  it as the cause of death.”

  Tamara stared at her.

  “I wasn’t told about any blow to the head.”

  Sversky removed her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “I hope it eases your mind to know this.

  He was hit with a blunt object hard enough to render him unconscious

  before the laceration to the jugular.

  He probably never even felt it.

  ” She shook her head. ” I’ve never autopsied a victim of—of a vampire

  attack before.

  It’s nothing like I thought.

  You always see two neat little puncture marks on victims in the

  movies.

  This was”— She broke off and shook her head. ” But you don’t need to

  hear about that.

  ” No, Tamara thought.

  She didn’t need to hear it because she’d seen it.

  She rose slowly, thanked Rose Sversky and left.

  As she rode up in the elevator her fingers touched the tiny marks on

  her neck.

  They were barely noticeable now.

  She frowned as the doors opened on the ground floor, and she walked out

  to the Cadillac as if in a daze.

  She’d wasted most of the day talking to people who lived along Jamey’s

  route home from school, and more of it waiting while Rose Sversky

  examined the gauze pad.

  Mechanically she drove home, showered and changed into a black skirt

  with a white silk blouse Daniel had bought her one Christmas.

  As she did, her head pounded and her heart ached.

  She wanted so badly to find some answer to Daniel’s death other than

  the obvious one.

  Her mind kept offering hopeful hints as reasons to doubt Eric’s guilt,

  but she had to wonder if she was only seeing what she wanted to see.

  The fact that Curt claimed to have heard Daniel scream, and kicked the

  door in to see Eric biting him, was in conflict with what Rose had said

  about Daniel being unconscious when his jugular was slashed.

  But Curt might be confused, or might have heard Daniel scream just

  before he was knocked out.

  The fact that Eric would not need to cause such a bloody mess could be

  valid, or perhaps he’d just been as cruel as possible in eliminating

  his tormentor.

  Eric?

  Cruel?

  Never.

  She did what she could to repair the ravages of emotional upheaval with

  a coat of makeup, then went to the church in downtown By ram and sat in

  the front pew for a brief, pat sermon.

  It was, she figured, an all-purpose sermon they kept on hand for people

  whose names remained on the rolls but who’d given up attending services

  long ago.

  When it was over she sat with a plastic smile firmly in place, and

  accepted condolences of all in attendance.

  Mostly co-workers, she noted.

  Daniel’s work had been his life.

  It would have been more appropriate to hold the service in his office,

  or his basement lab.

  When it was over.

  Curt came to her, took her hands and drew her to her feet.

  She’d been aware of him sitting a few seats away and watching her

  pensively all through the service.

  “Going home?”

  he asked.

  She nodded.

  “I’m exhausted. I don’t think any of this has sunk in yet.”

  “How’s the hunt for the kid progressing?”

  She sighed.

  “It isn’t. I’m going to ask Kromwell to get the FBI involved. He has

  friends there.”

  “So do I,” Curt said quickly.

  “Why don’t you let me do that for you?”

  Her eyes narrowed briefly.

  His smile seemed false, somehow.

  Then again, hers probably did, too.

  Hers was false.

  “Okay. I’ll take any help I can get.”

  She swallowed as the uneasiness she felt niggled harder.

  “It was sweet of you to stay with me last night.

  Curt.

  But if you don’t mind, I’d kind of like to be a
lone tonight.

  I need.

  to sort things out.

  Do you understand?

  ” He nodded.

  “Call if you need me.”

  He leaned over, pressed a brief kiss on her lips and squeezed her

  shoulders.

  She watched him leave, and pulled on her jacket.

  She was headed for the door herself when a soft hand on her arm stopped

  her.

  She turned, and at the sympathetic look on Hilary’s face she instantly

  burst into tears.

  Hilary hugged her hard and they stood that way until Tamara had cried

  herself out.

  She felt cleansed, and was grateful for a friend she could cry with.

  Hilary dabbed at her own damp eyes.

  “You know if you need anything…”

  “I know.”

  Tamara nodded, and swiped her wet face with an impatient hand.

  “Is there any word on the little boy?

  ” Tamara met Hilary’s doe eyes and felt another good cry coming on.

  She sniffed, and fought the fresh tears.

  “No, nothing yet. I found a piece of gauze with traces of chloroform

  on it near the spot where he was last seen. There was a trace of

  blood, too, and I’ll be able to confirm it was his as soon as I check

  with his mother about his type.”

  “Why would you have to do that?”

  Tamara only frowned.

  “You’re telling me you don’t know James on Bryant’s blood type?”

  “No, I don’t. I suppose it’s in his records, but” — “I guess it’s in

  his record. It was one of the first things put in his records. It’s

  the same as yours, Tamara. That Belladonna thing. I can’t believe you

  didn’t know.”

  “Belladonna?”

  Tamara couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “Hilary, how do you know this?”

  “I was the one who got the order to enter all of his medical records

  into DPI computers under level one. I remember thinking that was

  pretty high for simple medical records, but-”

  ” Who gave the order?

  ” Hilary frowned.

  “I don’t know, it came down through channels. Look, I probably

  shouldn’t be discussing any of this with you. Tam. I mean, it is

  filed under level one, and your security clearance ” “Isn’t high

  enough,” Tamara said slowly.

  Tamara left then, with Hilary frowning after her.

  She got into the car and drove away from the church, barely paying

  attention to traffic.

  “He has the antigen,” she mumbled to herself.

  “Does he have the lineage, too?”

  “Of course he does. That’s why his psychic link with me is stronger