Samantha Moon: First Eight Novels, Plus One Novella

by J. R. Rain

  “Detective, if I didn’t know better, I would say you’ve been sneaking in some of the hard stuff during your lunch breaks.”

  He mostly ignored me, although he might have cracked a smile. “They’re keeping it out of the press. They have to. Something like this can’t get out. Besides, what do they report?”

  “So Ira is really dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this story of yours is real?”

  “So far, it’s not much of a story. The warden and his men have no clue what happened.”

  “And there were no witnesses?”

  “Oh, there was a witness.”

  “What did he see?”

  “A guard working the tower heard the explosion. Everyone did. He started looking for the source and found the gaping hole in the Death Row wing. A moment later, he sees what he claims is a naked woman jump from the opening.” I burst out laughing, but Sherbet ignored me and continued on. “The guard had been in the process of reporting the hole to the warden when the woman jumped out of Ira’s cell. The guard was a fraction of a second too late getting back to his light. The woman disappeared and the last he reports is something quite large and black flew directly over the tower. The woman was never found.”

  “Was she seen on video?”

  “The video they have shows the wall caving in from an unknown impact. An invisible impact. Nothing else can be seen. Nothing inside, since the angle was wrong. And not the woman or whatever the guard had seen flying overhead.”

  “Did he say what the woman looked like?” I asked.

  “He did. Slender. Long black hair. Pale skin. Did a swan dive out of the hole in the wall.”

  “Any DNA evidence left behind at the scene?”

  “None so far, but they’re working on it.”

  I nodded. “And how do you know all of this?”

  “Warden is a friend of mine. Ira was my business. And I’m an acquaintance of yours, a woman who had physically assaulted Ira just a week and a half earlier.”

  “I’m just an acquaintance? I’m hurt.”

  Sherbet had been watching me closely during this whole exchange. I had been watching two women sparring in the center ring. Both women looked like they would have trouble punching through a wet paper towel. One of them actually turned and ran, squealing.

  “There was something else on the video.”

  Uh, oh. “Please tell me you didn’t bring another portable DVD player,” I said.

  Sherbet chuckled. “No. I learned my lesson with that damned thing. I’ll summarize for you. Just after the explosion, the video captured something else. Granted, the camera was only partially facing the wall—and at this time, the spotlight wasn’t yet on the hole in the wall—but we can see what appears to be broken bricks and rocks rising in the air and falling on their own.”

  “Maybe the prison is haunted,” I said.

  “If I had to guess, I would say it looked like someone—or something—was getting up from the floor. And the chunks of wall were falling away from the body.”

  “An invisible body,” I reminded.

  That stopped him. He ducked his head and rubbed his face and groaned a little. He turned and looked at me a moment later, and the poor guy looked truly tortured. The confident detective was gone, replaced by a man who was truly searching for answers.

  “What do you make of all that, Sam?” he asked.

  “I think someone invisible might have killed Ira,” I said.

  “Maybe. Is there anything else you would like to add?”

  “It’s a wild story, Detective,” I said, standing. “You boys might want to keep it to yourselves. You wouldn’t want the rest of the world thinking that invisible assassins are killing prisoners at Chino State Prison.”

  I hated lying to the detective, but I had been lying for so long now about my condition it truly came as second nature for me. Still, I hated to see the confused anguish on his face.

  Sherbet nodded and looked at his empty hands. I think he was wishing a big fat donut was in one of those hands. Or both hands. The detective nodded some more, this time to himself, I think, and then stood. As he stood, his knees popped so loudly that a girl walking by snapped her head around and looked at us.

  The detective looked down at me and said, “I still have questions for you, Sam.”

  “And I’m still here, Detective.”

  He nodded and left, limping slightly.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Monica and I were in my hotel room, sitting crossed-legged in the center of the bed, holding hands. I had just told her that her husband of thirteen years, a husband who had twice tried to kill her and who, in fact, succeeded in killing her father, was dead. I left out the facts of his death. I told her only that her ex-husband had died suddenly.

  Very suddenly, I thought.

  Amazingly, Monica broke down. She cried hard for a long, long time. Sometimes I wondered if she even knew why she was crying. I suspected that emotions—many different emotions—were sweeping through her, purging her, one set of emotions blending into another, causing more and more tears, until at last she had cried herself out, and now we sat holding hands in the center of the bed.

  “So there’s no one trying to hurt me anymore?” she finally asked.

  “No one’s trying to hurt you,” I promised. In fact, Detective Sherbet had just sent me a very choppy and error-filled text message (I could just see his thick sausage fingers hunting and pecking over his cell’s tiny keyboard) that he had had a heart-to-heart with the accused hitman. The hitman, currently awaiting arraignment for conspiracy to attempt murder, understood that his employer—in this case Ira Lang—was dead.

  The hotel was oddly quiet, even to my ears. No elevator sounds. No creaking. No laughing. And no squeaking bed springs.

  After a moment, Monica said, “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  I remembered the way Ira’s head had dropped to the side, held in place by only the skin of his neck. I had no problem believing he was dead.

  “So I guess you’re done protecting me?” she added.

  “Yes,” I said. “But I’m not done being your friend. If you ever need anything, call me. If you’re ever afraid, call me. If you ever need help in any way, call me. If you ever want to go dancing, call me.”

  She laughed, but mostly she cried some more and now she leaned into me and hugged me, and when she pulled away, she looked at me closely.

  “Your hands are always cold,” she said, her tiny voice barely above a whisper.

  “Yes. I’m always cold.”

  “Always?”

  I thought about that. Yeah, I was usually cold, except when I was flush with blood, especially fresh blood. I kept that part to myself.

  “Is that part of your sickness?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m so sorry you’re sick, Samantha.”

  “So am I.”

  She held my hands even tighter in a show of solidarity. And like a small child who’s always looking to make things better, she swung my hands out a little. “Did you really mean the part about dancing?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I haven’t been dancing in a long time.”

  “I’m a good dancer,” she said.

  “I bet you are.”

  There was a knock on the door, and I got up and checked the peephole and let Chad in. He came bearing flowers and wearing nice cologne. I mentioned something about the flowers being for me and he said in my dreams. My ex-partner was in love, but certainly not with me. I looked over at Monica who brightened immediately at the sight of Chad, or perhaps the flowers. Whether or not she was in love, I didn’t know, but, I think, she was in a better place to explore such feelings. In the least, she was now free to love.

  Chad pulled me aside and we briefly discussed Ira’s crazy death. He wanted to know if I had any additional information and I told him I didn’t. We both agreed Ira’s death was crazy as hell and both wondered what had happened. We concluded that we may neve
r know, and it was doubtful the prison was coming clean with all the facts. We both concluded that there was some sort of cover-up going on. The cover-up idea was mine, admittedly.

  Chad looked at me, but I could tell he was itching to get back to Monica, who was currently inhaling every flower in the bouquet. Chad said, “She’ll be safe with me. Always.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I won’t let anyone ever hurt her.”

  “You are a good man.”

  “I love her.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “Do you think she loves me?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I think the two of you are off to a great start.”

  He nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, I do too.”

  The two of them left, together, arm-in-arm, and I suddenly found myself alone in my hotel room for the first time in a few weeks. I went out to my balcony and lit a cigarette and stared silently up at the pale, nearly full moon.

  My thoughts were all over the place. I was hungry. Starving, in fact. I hadn’t eaten in days. I thought of the chilled packets of blood in my hotel refrigerator and made a face, nearly gagging at the thought.

  My scattered thoughts eventually settled on Stuart, my bald client. And I kept thinking about him even as my forgotten cigarette finally burned itself out.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  I was taking a hot shower.

  No doubt it was too hot for most people, but it was just right for me. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would say that I could almost smell my own cooking flesh. Anyway, such hot showers were some of the few times that I could actually feel real heat radiating from my body. The heat would last all of twenty minutes after stepping out of the shower, granted, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  I did my best thinking in the shower, and I was thinking my ass off now. Danny had two things on me: First, he had a vial of blood he had supposedly drawn while I was sleeping (the piece of shit), and, second, he had pictures of me not showing up in a mirror, or on the film itself.

  Allegedly.

  Both items were currently with an attorney friend of his—allegedly—who kept them God-knows-where. How much his attorney friend knew about me and my condition, I didn’t know, but I doubted Danny told him very much, if anything. Danny was good at keeping secrets. Anyway, according to my ex-husband, his attorney friend had been given strict instructions to make public the files should Danny meet an unfortunate end.

  Briefly distracted by picturing Danny’s unfortunate end, I allowed the image to play out for exactly six seconds before I forced myself back to reality. However much I hated my ex, he was still the father of my children.

  For that, he has been given asylum.

  For now.

  Anyway, Danny had also threatened to go public with his evidence should I fight him on anything. And so I didn’t fight him on anything. And so I accepted his harsh terms, his mental anguish.

  I took it, and I took it, and took it.

  I was sick of taking it.

  So what could I do about it? I thought about that, turning my body in the shower, letting the spray hit me between my shoulder blades. Danny’s evidence was centered around my blood. Danny assumed, wrongly or not, that my blood would be different, and that I could be proven to be a monster. He also had the pictures. I wasn’t worried about those. Hell, anyone could manipulate such pictures nowadays, and I doubted anyone would take them seriously. Danny would look like a complete idiot waving those pictures around and would be laughed out of a job.

  So I could dismiss the pictures.

  But could I dismiss the blood? I didn’t think so. At least, not yet. The blood worried me. I needed more information. And as the superheated spray worked its way over me, I thought about what I had to do.

  A few minutes later, dried and dressed, I grabbed my car keys and headed for the elevator.

  It was time for a Wal-Mart run.

  * * *

  Two hours later, I was back in my bathroom, this time pouring the contents of a plastic bottle of organic juice down the toilet. Wasteful, I know, but what the hell was I going to do with it? Anyway, I flushed the whole shebang down the pooper, as Anthony would call it, and spent the next few minutes thoroughly cleaning out the container in the bathroom sink. I used my hair dryer to carefully dry the plastic without melting it.

  Once done, I carefully cleaned my right index fingernail, running hot water over it and using some hand soap. I next swabbed some rubbing alcohol on my forearm, blew the spot dry, and then carefully pressed my right fingernail into the skin of my arm. I didn’t bother to look for a vein. A phlebotomist would have been horrified. Which, by the way, would be a good job for a vampire.

  Except you would probably be fired for drinking on the job.

  I laughed nervously at my own lame joke while I continued to work my nail deeper into my flesh. A knife would have been good, except I didn’t have one handy. Besides, my nail worked just fine.

  The first thick drop of blood appeared around my naturally sharpened nail. I kept pushing and slicing, and soon I opened up what I thought was a sizable incision.

  Blood flowed. Languidly, granted, but flowed nonetheless. I positioned the empty juice bottle beneath the cut and caught the first drop of blood as it dripped free. The red stuff flowed free for precisely ten seconds before the wound completely healed. No scar, nothing. Just a dried trail of vampire blood.

  I repeated the cutting process, caught the fresh flow of blood, and did this eight more times before I was certain I had enough hemoglobin. Eight cuts, no marks. My arm completely healed.

  Yeah, I’m a freak.

  I swirled the contents of my blood in the container. A smoothie fit for Satan himself, minus the wheat grass and bee pollen, of course. As I swirled the contents, I thought hard about what I was doing. I even paced the small area in the bathroom and rubbed my neck and debated internally, and in the end, I packed the sealed juice bottle full of my dark plasma into a small Styrofoam container.

  I had a friend at the FBI crime lab in D.C. A good friend. I was going to have to trust him, especially if my blood came back...irregular. And if it didn’t come back irregular? Well, I had nothing to worry about, then, did I?

  I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

  Most important, I needed answers, and this was the best way I knew of to get them.

  I next checked on the packets of Blue Ice that I had stashed in my mini-fridge’s mini-freezer an hour or so earlier. The packets were hard as a rock. Good. I placed one under the bottle of blood, one each on either side, and finally one on top. I closed the Styrofoam container, taped it shut, and placed the whole thing in a small cardboard box. I next went online and found the lab’s address in D.C. Once done, I placed an order for UPS to swing by the hotel tomorrow morning for a same-day delivery. The same-day delivery was going to cost me $114. I shot off an email to my friend in D.C., telling him to expect a super-sensitive package from yours truly. I ended my email with a smiley face, because I like smiley faces.

  When that was taken care of, I switched outfits. I stepped out of my sweats and tee shirt and into something decidedly more slutty. Interestingly, the slutty outfit was something I had borrowed from my sister and never worn.

  Anyway, I was now showing more cleavage and shoulder and back, and when I was certain I looked like a skank whore, I grabbed my freshly packed box of blood and my car keys and headed out.

  No Wal-Mart run his time.

  At the front desk, I dropped off my package and filled in the front desk clerk—whose eyes had bugged out of his head and onto my boobs—to expect UPS tomorrow morning. He nodded distractedly. I wonder what he was distracted about? I made him repeat what I said twice before I headed out.

  It was kind of fun being slutty. I think every woman should dress like a slut once in a while. It was very liberating.

  Now, acting like a slut was something else entirely.

  Maybe that would be liberating, too.


  Giggling, I gunned my minivan and headed off to Colton. I had a stripper job to apply for, after all.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  I parked in the far corner of the dirt parking lot, near where a van was currently a-rocking. I considered a-knocking, just because I hate being told what to do, but ultimately I decided against it, since I really didn’t want to know what was going on in there.

  And besides, I had a job interview.

  Of sorts.

  Feeling ridiculous and self-conscious, I strode across the parking lot and up to the front entrance. I didn’t see Danny’s car, which was a damn good thing.

  The bouncer was big and black and scary as hell, even to me. Suddenly insanely self-conscious, I reminded myself that my body still looked like a twenty-eight-year old.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  “Yeah?” He barely looked at me.

  “I hear you’re hiring.”

  He jerked a thumb behind him, toward the inside of the club. “Talk to Rick.”

  I winked and stepped past him and as I did so, his hand dropped down and grabbed my ass. I convulsed slightly and continued on into the dark club. I entered a small hallway, with an opening at the far end. I passed through the opening and was met by thumping music, losers, and boobs. To my left was the raised stage, which was brightly lit with hundreds of little white light bulbs. The stage was made of dark wood and was heavily scuffed. A single brass pole rose up from the center of the stage, and a single white stripper was currently cavorting around said brass pole. At the moment, just her breasts were out. Her breasts were nothing to write home about, if you ask me. They were fake and probably three or four years past their expiration date. Don’t be catty. Glitter sparkled between her breasts and over the upper half of her chest. I wondered if any of the men cared about the sparkles. I wondered if any of the men even saw the sparkles.