Black Moon Rising

by Ann Simas

When Libby asked her why she’d gone on a cleaning spree, she said, “I’m blocked on my illustrations for the book.”

  Libby accepted the answer and went off to watch a movie with the kids and Angie.

  In the afternoon, she made a batch of Toll House cookies and two loaves of lemon–blueberry bread.

  While the bread cooled, she made three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which she bagged and tucked into a lunch sack that went into a larger handle bag along with a bag of Fritos, three bananas, some napkins, and a small package of wet wipes. She carried the bag out to the SUV on her way to empty the trash.

  At five, Libby brought the kids inside and cleaned them up for dinner. Pizza, Luca, and Trey were due to arrive at five-thirty.

  They ate outside, consuming every slice. For dessert, Libby had bought ice cream and small waffle cones. To keep from arousing suspicion, Sunny also served a plate of chocolate chip cookies. The remaining cookies and one of the breads were wrapped and stored with her other food supplies in the SUV.

  Trey invited Libby for a movie. Her sister hesitated, but Sunny encouraged her. She didn’t delude herself that Libby wouldn’t be a basket case by this time the next day. Her entire family would, no doubt, be frantic. She considered writing a letter of explanation, but worried that doing so would exacerbate their concerns.

  She wouldn’t leave a note for Luca, either. First and foremost, he was a cop, and he’d cut her no slack for taking off on her own with the kids. He was rigid that way, following protocol, and who could blame him? He’d been a cop for eleven years. It was ingrained in him to go by the book, and the book didn’t have any procedures set forth to abscond with your own children to keep them safe.

  While she bathed Carson and Maisie, and got them dressed in their jammies, Luca helped Angie clean up the remnants of dinner. Afterward, she read them a storybook, then said, “If mommy should ever come get you in the middle of the night to take you on an adventure, I want you to promise that you’ll be as quiet as a mouse, okay?”

  “Adventure to where?” Carson asked.

  “Yeah, wha-ya?” his sister asked.

  “Somewhere up high and far away. It’ll just be the three of us, but it’ll still be a fun adventure.”

  “In the clouds?” Carson wanted to know.

  “Sometimes,” Sunny said. “Do you both promise to keep really quiet if I come get you in the middle of the night?”

  Their eyes round as quarters, they both nodded. “What about Grammy and Pop-Pop?” Carson asked.

  “This will be an adventure just for us. Grammy and Pop-Pop will come another time.”

  “What about Auntie Libs?” Carson persisted.

  “She’ll stay with Grammy and Pop-Pop.”

  Her answers seem to appease them. They tucked in with no further questions, and because they’d played hard all day, seemed to be asleep before she turned out the overhead light.

  Sunny pulled the door closed and leaned against it for a moment, gathering her courage and her bravado to face the next hour or so with Luca, who sometimes seemed able to read her as if he’d known her forever.

  . . .

  Luca waved Trey and Libby off and invited Angie to take advantage of him being there to go home and do whatever things she needed to do that she couldn’t when she was working twenty-four/seven keeping an eye on Sunny and her kids.

  His cousin grinned and teased, “You are so considerate, Luca, offering to hang out with Sunny so I can go check my mail and water my plants.”

  He grinned back and said, “I’ll tell you what I told Trey and Libby. Don’t show your face around here again before ten.”

  Angie grabbed her purse and headed for the door. She turned back and said, “Something’s off right now. Maybe you can get Sunny to tell you what’s going on.”

  Luca frowned. Angie hadn’t mentioned any concerns before. “When did you first notice it?”

  Angie shrugged. “Four or five days ago. It may be nothing…but then again, it may be something.”

  Luca gave her a quick nod. “Thanks for the head’s up.”

  She wiggled her fingers and her eyebrows at him. “Have fun.”

  “Get outta here!”

  Several minutes later, Sunny came back into the living room.

  He moved over to check that the front door was locked, then went to her, sliding his arms around her. “Want to sit inside or out?”

  “Outside sounds nice.”

  He lowered his head and kissed her, holding her tight against him.

  When they came up for air, she whispered against his lips, “Maybe we can star-gaze again.”

  “Nice euphemism.”

  She laughed softly. “I thought so.”

  On their way out to the patio, she grabbed the baby monitor from a cabinet in the kitchen, adjusting it so that she could hear the snuffling of two little bodies deep into sleep.

  Luca’s gut clenched with longing. Sunny was a great mom and an incredibly strong woman. She was funny, intelligent, and capable of accomplishing just about anything. There wasn’t anything he’d like more than to marry her, make babies with her, and grow old with her. This business with Vale Luna had a nasty way of putting everything he wanted to say to her on hold, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t express his feelings in a more physical way.

  “Shall we go back to that nice little corner?”

  Luca got an immediate hard-on, remembering what had happened there last time. “Sounds good to me.”

  She smiled up at him and he knew he couldn’t wait to kiss her again. He took her mouth with such hunger it surprised him. Her ardent response also surprised him. He pressed a hand against her back and discovered her bra was missing beneath her shirt. He couldn’t believe he’d missed noticing before, then realized she’d probably taken it off after putting the kids to bed.

  She circled his neck with her arms, one hand firmly clutching the monitor, and pressed her self hard against him. “Do you happen to have a condom?”

  Luca mentally kicked himself. Long gone were the days when he’d carried an emergency condom in his wallet. And he sure as hell had never dreamed this would be the night Sunny would want to fully consummate their relationship. “I don’t, but I could run to the store and get a box.”

  She chuckled softly. “It’s okay. I’ve got you covered.”

  He wasn’t sure that she meant what he hoped she meant. “Sunny?”

  “What, sweetheart?”

  Her first use of an endearment muffled him into silence. He took her mouth again, grinding himself against her as if he were some kind of animal. Sunny didn’t seem to mind, pressing back with equal fervor.

  “The back corner,” she reminded him, panting.

  “I’ll get the chaise.”

  “No need. Grab the quilt I laid out on the chaise.”

  His excitement grew. The chaise had been confining, the ground would not be. She dashed back inside and returned moments later with an unopened box of condoms.

  They maneuvered their way to the secluded corner by starlight and the vague light filtering from inside the kitchen, generated by the light in the range hood. Sunny set the monitor down about two feet from the quilt, making sure she could still hear her children’s breaths.

  She straightened and walked into his arms, tugging at the loose hem of his polo shirt. “Off,” she said.

  He helped her, since a guy who was over six feet couldn’t expect a woman who was nearly ten inches shorter to be able to clear his head. He tossed it aside and grasped the hem of her sleeveless shirt, tugging it over her head without bothering with the buttons. She was already opening the closure of her shorts, so he unbuttoned his own and slid down the zipper. He pushed hers down, taking her panties with them. When he straightened, she did the same for him.

  “Sometime I want to see you in a lighted room, Sunshine. Every glorious inch of you.”

  “Ditto,” she whispered. She put her hands on his hips and leaned forward to pepper his chest with kisses. Then she
went down on her knees, her lips touching him everywhere along the way, until finally, she was on her back, extending a hand to him.

  Luca dropped down beside her. “My God, Sunny, I can’t believe how hungry I am for you.”

  “Show me,” she said. “Don’t hold back.”

  Luca didn’t need to be told twice.

  Sunny felt a little niggle of guilt for indulging her desire for Luca, but managed to shove it away.

  This was their night. Who knew what tomorrow would bring?

  . . .

  Sunny didn’t know if the choice she’d made to make love with Luca was right or wrong. The act itself was right, but the reason she’d made the decision was purely selfish.

  In just a few hours, she’d pack up her children and skitter off into the night without telling anyone where she was going. Not even Luca. She couldn’t bear to run away without ever having known what it was like to make love with him.

  He’d be hurt, he’d be angry. She could live with that. What she couldn’t live with was causing his death, and the deaths of Libby and Angie, and her parents, and the cop watching her house.

  So, for now, it was just her and Luca, paying homage to each other’s bodies. Taking, giving, pleasuring. Loving.

  She pushed aside her concerns and worries. She had him all to herself for the next two hours and in that time, she planned to tell him, not with words, but with her body, exactly how she felt about him.

  Even though she’d initiated the seduction, Luca took over the moment he leaned over her. His lips grazed every inch of her skin. Using his arms to prop himself over her, his head lowered and he tasted her breasts, laving the tips with his tongue, nipping the buds with his teeth.

  Sunny shifted so that one of her legs was between his. She raised a knee and pressed it against his groin. Luca groaned.

  Still supporting himself with one hand, he slid his other hand down between her legs. Sunny came instantly, she was that ready for him. “Now, Luca, please.”

  He didn’t hesitate. Sunny handed him a condom package and wished she had more light to see by, or even that he’d let her roll on the prophylactic. Maybe next time.

  “I’ll go slow,” he promised.

  “Don’t,” she begged, frantic to have him inside her.

  He lowered his body, finding her instantly. He plunged deep. They both gasped with satisfaction.

  “You are amazing, Sunshine.”

  “So are you, my love.”

  God willing, when he got the call in the morning reporting that she and the kids were gone, he would still be amazing and wouldn’t hold her disappearance against her, or hate her.

  And if she should happen to come out of this mess alive, she prayed that the man she’d come to love had a forgiving heart.

  . . .

  Angie arrived back at five after ten. Libby and Trey came in at ten-ten. Luca left at ten-thirty and Trey followed soon after. Angie was already in bed by then. Sunny gave her sister an extra-long hug and told her how much she loved her and how much she appreciated everything she was doing for her.

  Libby looked at her strangely. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “Nothing. I just don’t tell you often enough, that’s all.”

  Libby narrowed her eyes on Sunny, as if she could read her mind. With any luck, her ability to “hear” didn’t extend to mindreading.

  “How was the movie?”

  “We ended up going to Trey’s place instead.”

  Sunny didn’t query further and Libby offered no additional details. Both sisters knew what the other had spent her time doing. In that moment, Sunny realized she had to push all thoughts of Luca aside until they were safely away. Otherwise, she might be tempted to stay, and her vision had already shown her how badly that would turn out.

  In her bedroom, Sunny withdrew the new collapsible duffels she’d purchased for carrying clothes to their destination. She brushed her teeth and used the toilet, so anyone who listened for plumbing sounds would think she was readying for bed. Instead of climbing into her PJs, she changed into clean clothes before she packed a duffel for herself, choosing carefully what she would take. She’d planned the packing in her head, but she knew that, inevitably, not everything would fit. As it turned out, she had a little room to spare. She held off adding anything else until she had Carson and Maisie’s clothes and stuffed animals packed in their duffel.

  Thirty minutes after she heard Libby’s door close, she crept to her children’s room and went to work gathering their clothing. The stuffed animals wouldn’t fit in their duffel, so she took them to put into hers. As soon as both were zipped up, she tiptoed to the garage and situated them on top of the grocery boxes.

  Back in she went, stopping in the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. While the machine hissed and gurgled, she withdrew two Styrofoam cups with lids from the cupboard. Into one, she dumped two of the sleeping-pill tablets she’d ground up from the prescription the doctor had given her prior to her release from the hospital. She’d never taken one, but she’d researched them on the Internet. They were five milligram tablets, non-addictive, and should put a man of average size to sleep within thirty minutes.

  The coffee finished brewing. Sunny filled the cup with the ground Ambien and stirred it until she was sure every bit of it was dissolved. After than, she took a small amount of coffee in the spoon and tasted it, detecting no medicinal flavor.

  She attached the lid, slipped her robe on over her shorts and tee, and went to the front door, opening it as quietly as she could. She’d made it a point over the last week, when she couldn’t sleep, to bring a cup of coffee out to the officer assigned to watch her house on the graveyard shift. She hated doing this to him, but in her heart, regardless of whether he forgave her later, she knew it was the right thing to do. He had no way of knowing it, but his was one of the lives she’d be saving.

  She approached the driver’s side of the cruiser. “Hi, Davis.”

  “’Evening, Sunny. Sandman passed you by again, did he?”

  “He’s naughty that way,” she said, chuckling.

  “Well, I appreciate the cupp’a, so thanks. Hope you’re not up too late tonight.”

  “We’ll see,” she said. “I certainly have lots to keep me busy if I am.”

  “I hear ya.”

  “No stray cars on the street tonight,” she said, hoping she sounded conversational.

  “Not a one, and no one passing on the side streets.”

  “Good to know. I appreciate you being out here, Davis.”

  “Not a problem, Sunny. See you tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe.”

  She nodded, but didn’t compound her duplicity by responding in kind.

  The walk back to the house seemed to take an hour, though in reality, it took less than a minute.

  When a person had a lot to accomplish in thirty minutes, time became her enemy.

  Sunny closed and locked the front door and went immediately to her bedroom. She would have made the bed, because she never left her house without doing so, but she hadn’t slept in it, so the issue was moot. She withdrew her gun from the gun safe and slipped it loaded into the holster with the safety on. Her concealed-carry permit was in her purse.

  Satisfied that she hadn’t forgotten anything she couldn’t live without for a few weeks, she turned off her light, and slipped through the bedroom door, easing it closed behind her. She stopped in the kitchen and filled the Thermos and her Styrofoam cup and made another trip to the car.

  Back inside, she cleaned out the coffee pot and emptied the grounds, leaving behind no evidence that she’d even brewed it.

  Next, she went to the kids’ bedroom and using only the nightlight to guide her, collected Maisie, her stuffed teddy, and her raggedy blanket in her arms. Her daughter never stirred, not even when Sunny placed her in her carseat and fastened her in. She used the teddy to prop up Maisie’s head and covered her with the blanket, then went back inside.

  She made her daughter’s bed, then scooped up
Carson. She couldn’t carry him as easily as she did Maisie because he weighed considerably more, but she managed, and also got him into his carseat without him waking. On this return trip into the house, she made Carson’s bed, gathered up two stuffed animals he couldn’t be without, and his little blanket that was even more raggedy than Maisie’s. She pulled their door closed behind her and went to deposit her son’s things in the seat beside him. She closed the car door as quietly as possible.

  Next, she went back out the front door to check on the patrol officer. On the off chance that Davis hadn’t finished his coffee or hadn’t fallen asleep after being drugged with two Ambien pills, she had a story concocted to tell him. As it was, he was snoozing over the steering wheel.

  Sunny kept to the shadows and moved to the corner, looking both ways for the outline of a black Suburban or any other vehicle that didn’t belong on the street. None there. She went the other direction, but all was clear at that end of the block, as well. She ran back to the house, entering quietly, locking up behind her.

  Then she entered the garage, closing the door feeding into it from the laundry room. She climbed into her SUV and put the key into the ignition. The headlights came on, startling her. She flicked them off and hit the garage door opener on the overhead console, thankful the garage was at the opposite end of the house from the bedrooms.

  She put the car in reverse and eased out, lowering the door as soon as she cleared the garage. The time was 12:02.

  Sunny drove for four blocks before she put on her headlights.

  After that, she took a circuitous route around town, just in case someone had been lurking in the shadows, hoping to catch her running away in the middle of the night.

  By the time she had meandered back to College Avenue, she hadn’t encountered much in the way of traffic. At that hour, people were either home in bed, or closing up the many bars and breweries around town. She traveled north for a short distance before veering off on a westerly highway.

  She’d never made the drive at night, but she felt confident with a full tank of gas, and two sleeping children in the back seat, that she’d arrive at the cabin long before the kids woke up, which was good, because she had some security work to complete before sunrise.