Vampire Babylon - Night Rising Part 18

No one in the car had to ask where she wanted to go. Breisi merely headed there, shooting toward Studio City and the modest two-bedroom house that had been waiting for Dawn for so many years now.

"Should we leave her alone in...?" Kiko started to say.

Breisi interrupted him, her voice raw. "It was protected enough for Frank while he lived there." "I know," he continued, "but we've already gone through his place. Dawn, you don't need to go there tonight."

"Yes." In the pocket of her jacket, the corners of Frank's photograph chafed her, ever-present. "I do."

It didn't take long to arrive and, once there, she noted that nothing much had changed. Same cul-de-sac, same magnolia trees and bushes huddling over the whitewashed wood, same carport lending to the sense of false security.

Already in the habit, Dawn grabbed her stake to go along with all her other weapons, then exited the car.

Kiko rolled down his window. "You need us?"

Dawn shook her head, then walked down the short drive, aiming for the front door. The SUV idled behind her. She knew they were watching to see that she got safely inside.

A flood of light-UV? she wondered-consumed the porch, and she noticed an iron cross hovering over the doorway. She got out her anemic set of keys and let herself in. But, as soon as she entered, the past rushed at her, and it was all she could do to lean against the slammed door while it overwhelmed her.

The smell of must and hardwood floors that had been around since the mid-1950s, the stench of whiskey. Home. A place Frank had bought shortly after Eva's death, a hideaway that wasn't supposed to remind him of her.

As shadows floated through the windows, moonlight slanted over his favorite worn easy chair, where Dawn pictured him sitting, ready to welcome her with his weather-beaten cowboy boots propped up on the shabby coffee table and his hands clasped behind his s.h.a.ggy head.

"Welcome to my sanctuary," the nonexistent Frank said, grinning as he disappeared from her imagination.

It was hard for Dawn to swallow past the lump in her throat.

Home. It was the only thing he'd managed to hold on to through the years, maybe because he'd been aware that Dawn had needed a place to be raised near the grandparents who loved her, near the bar that had employed him at the time. Frank had gone back to being a bouncer after Eva's tragedy. He'd never been much for ambition.

The growl of the SUV taking off made Dawn take in a quick breath, reach for the lights. They still worked, which seemed strange, considering her dad was gone. Yet the electric company didn't know he was missing, and he'd obviously managed to keep up on the bills. Miracle. Limpet must really surrender a decent paycheck.

Her gaze touched the same furnishings, the same TV and stereo he'd used for decades. Faint music played on the turntable of her memory: Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, "Sherry." The ghosts of a young Frank Madison and a small girl in cutoff overalls danced across the room with each other.

A twist of sadness wrenched through Dawn, almost made her slouch to the ground. Pushing the images away, she forged toward the television, turned it on. Company. She needed voices, sound, something to keep her from going crazy.

She knew exactly what she should be doing: rifling through paperwork, seeing if Kiko and Breisi had missed any clues, but she couldn't bring herself to deal with that. So she sank down on the overstuffed couch, resting her sore body.

The TV's reception was fuzzy. Frank had probably tapped into the cable service illegally. Shocker.

She laughed, but there was a thrust of hysteria behind it.

Stop, she thought. Stop, calm down, and think rationally. Freaking out isn't going to help. Seeing ghosts isn't going to do anything, either.

She didn't know how long she sat facing the TV.Copswas on. ThenCelebrity Justice. Then a repeat ofAccess Hollywood. Procrastinating, Dawn watched them all, absorbing nothing, seeing the images, hearing the words:red carpet movie premiere. Who are you wearing? Valentino. What's your next project? I'm taking some time off. That's nice for you. Have fun inside. Wait, here comes Chad Robb, the new James Dean. Star of the film. Did you do your own stunts? Of course, I did....

Dawn stood, ambling down the hall to her dad's bedroom. She stared at the bed for what seemed like hours, the murmur of the television haunting the background. She went to his closet, found a stockpile of grenades and heavy-duty rifles behind his clothing.

Turning aside from evidence of his secret life, she touched his shirts, just like Kiko had said he'd done.

But she felt nothing. Nothing at all.

She wandered to a set of drawers, where she shuffled through more clothing, taking out one of his sleeveless undershirts. On a whim, she took off her jacket, her gun holster, her tank top, then slid his shirt over her head. It was too big, but that was fine. It felt like a security blanket that carried his familiar scent.

Breathing it in, she saw another conjured image of him waiting in the corner, arms folded over his wide chest, disapproval in his frown.

"You're wearing too much makeup. Wipe some of that off or you're not going anywhere tonight."

Teenage angst revisited her, mingling with her present bottled rage. She kicked the drawer shut as the mirage fell apart. A scream welled up, seeking release. She fought it, her body tight, building toward an explosion.

d.a.m.n you, Frank, for getting into this. d.a.m.n you, d.a.m.n you...

Escaping, walking it off, she stalked to the kitchen table where she'd caught a glimpse of papers strewn over the surface. Bills, doc.u.ments. The paperwork Breisi and Kiko had sorted through. A quick search told her that they'd missed a lot of his effects though. Missed- Sprinting back into his bedroom, Dawn dove to the floor, pushing at the bed where she knew there were some loose floorboards.

Once they were revealed, she worked them apart, reaching inside without a thought as to what might be in the dark hole besides the bootbox she knew was there. Taking it out, she spilled the contents. Bundles of money-Frank didn't trust banks-mingled with faded pictures and more doc.u.ments.

She needed to tell Kiko about this secret stash. Maybe there'd be a clue, somewhere, anywhere.

Growing more frantic by the second, she scanned the papers. Marriage license. Newspaper clippings about Eva's career as well as Dawn's sports achievements. Frank always had a sentimental side.

Pictures. Frank and Eva beaming in front of a small chapel in Vegas where they'd quietly gotten married, away from her agent and manager-everyone who would've told her she was committing career suicide. Frank and Eva staring at each other during a candid moment at Griffith Park, her mother's stomach swelled with Dawn, their love child.

Fighting tears, she turned them face down, one by one, struggling to hold herself together.

But then, like a plank blindsiding her with a blow to the head, she came to an image that jarred her with such ferocity that she threw it away.

Thepicture landed in the corner of the room, face down.

Her hands shook as they remained poised in the air.

She'd forgotten he'd kept it. G.o.d, she'd forgotten.

Even though it was hidden now, the contents icepicked into her skin, p.r.i.c.kled around her heart until it felt like it was going to squeeze into itself and freeze the life out of her. She felt ten again, reliving the time she'd been poking into places she never should've been looking and finding that nightmares weren't something that just happened in your sleep.

That was the day she'd seen Frank putting the box away, wondered what was in it, then waited for him to leave so she could dig it up and explore what was inside.

She wished she never had, because that's when she'd seen the picture, the image she'd blanked out until this moment.

Why had he kept it? Dawn had never confronted him. It wouldn't have done any good; it would've been just another thing to scream at each other about, to hide from once the initial burst of shock had worn off.

Once she'd blocked it out.

Now, she did the same thing she'd done when she was ten, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth, erasing what a camera had once captured.

She must've been forcing herself to forget for a long time, because when the doorbell rang, Frank's digital bedside clock read 3:00AM.

Even though Dawn wanted to move, she didn't. Her muscles had iced over with the same white she'd used to blank her brain.

She heard someone-Breisi and Kiko from the sound of the voices-enter anyway, their footsteps stopping at the bedroom.

"You okay?" Kiko asked. "You left the door unlocked."

"Sorry."

She found her a.s.sociates standing in the doorway. They had a distance between them, like they'd been arguing. You could always tell, could always catch the snap of tension between two people after they'd had words with each other.

Glancing at Frank's shirt on Dawn, Kiko walked forward first, Breisi trailing behind like she wasn't so sure Dawn would be happy to see her. He sat on the floor, started sifting through some photos then depositing them in the s...o...b..x. He smiled at one, held it out to Dawn.

In its time-preserved colors, she was maybe thirteen, dressed in a leotard and holding out a trophy she'd won during a gymnastics meet. Her pigtails and bright smile clashed with the heavy eye makeup she was already wearing in a fit of rebellion, making sure she distanced herself as far away from the "naturally lovely" Eva as she could. It made life at school-a place where reputations were based on parents-easier. Her vehement denial of her legacy, her pa.s.sion for sports and for keeping her body fit and healthy, had made her an outsider early on. While the other brats had been getting stoned every day, Dawn had been practicing in the gym, hanging out with baseball-playing boys, avoiding the life of a star's kid.

She cradled the picture in her hand. "Good times."

Breisi had crept next to Kiko, staring at a photo, her face ravaged. When she carefully laid the picture in the s...o...b..x, Dawn saw that it was the one of Frank and Eva at their wedding.

"Frank lived here an awful long time," Kiko said, pointing to a photo of him in the backyard in a hammock. "I'm surprised he never moved from L.A."

"He always said that he wanted to raise me somewhere else, but his parents lived here, and he liked to stay near them. They died a few years ago."

But, Dawn added to herself, even though Frank had been good at getting close to some people, he'd managed to put a canyon between Dawn and Eva. He'd raised his daughter to be a tomboy, emphasizing how she was nothing like her mother at all. In return, Dawn had created the same s.p.a.ce between her and the Hollywood kids, knowing she really wasn't a part of their scene because Frank had repeatedly told her so.The positive side? She'd avoided the suicides and drug problems that plagued many stars' kids.

The negative side? Last night at the Cat's Paw when she'd been in heat, competing with the ghost of her mom again.

Just then, Breisi gasped. Dawn stiffened, instinctively starting to reach for her revolver that lay on the bed, but that wasn't necessary.

It was only the picture. The one that Dawn had heaved across the room in the hope that it would somehow go away.

Breisi was holding it in front of her, eyes saucer-wide, hand over her mouth. Kiko took it from her, looked at it, glared up at Dawn.

"Dear Lord," was all he said.

Already on her feet, Breisi stumbled toward the door. Her footsteps faded toward the direction of the kitchen.

Again, Dawn shut it out. She tasted bile in the back of her throat.

"Dear Lord, Dawn," Kiko repeated. "Why'sthisin your dad's d.a.m.ned bedroom?"

"I have no idea."

"Dawn?"

Reluctantly, she met Kiko's gaze. He was looking at her like she was a freak show, probably wondering why she wasn't screaming in sheer terror, even now, years after the picture had been taken.

"I don't want to talk about it." She felt sick. Sick and tired. "Not now, not ever."

"I understand." He sounded like a therapist, not that she'd know.

In the background, they could hear Breisi's voice on the phone, her tone high and wobbly, on the precipice of tears.

"Is she okay?" Dawn asked.

"I doubt it. We're not all troupers like you." Kiko hesitated. "You probably figured out that she and Frank were...close."

Dawn packed up a few more pictures. "Close."

"d.a.m.n it, Dawn, would you stop it! Look at me!"

Don't do it, don't do it, said the glue that had been holding her together for years.

But she did. She met Kiko's big, kind blue eyes and tried not to break down.

"With all that's been going on, she wanted to wait before she told you."

"Were they...?"

"Serious? Uh-huh. They were serious enough to be arguing about how Frank needed to get Eva out of his system if he wanted Breisi to stick around. It got to the point where they broke up the day before Frank disappeared."

The news crashed into her solar plexus, a sucker punch. Why? Was she expecting Frank to always love Eva? And why would Dawn evenwantthat?"Breisi's coming to terms with a lot of things, Dawn. Like having you around. We knew we had to contact you about Frank, but she was making herself ill about meeting you, along with everything else. She was angry because you'd left Frank. Love made her protective of him."

Love. Dawn's temples throbbed, and it wasn't just because of this bombsh.e.l.l. She felt for Breisi, knew exactly what she was going through and wished there wasn't another person on earth who had to suffer through the horror of fearing for Frank.

Kiko wasn't done. "She knows how much you care about him, you've proven that you do. So maybe..."

Dawn allowed her hand to fall away from her head. "What? Maybe we can be best buddies and go shopping for back-to-school items together? Maybe we can have a Jamba Juice at the mall then go slay some vamps afterward?"

Harsh. But she didn't know how else to take this. Any other reaction was an effort, an act.

"Listen, I'm not going to sit here and watch Breisi go through this." Kiko's face reddened. "That woman is like a sister to me, and I'd doanythingto help her get Frank back."

When Dawn met his eyes again, she could see the potential for the same kind of support forher. The desire to grab on to it almost shattered the fragile bones that propped her up.

But habit, year after year of rebelling, preserving, died harder than that. She knew she had to take care of herself without weakening, without glomming on to someone else.

Meeting him halfway, Dawn nodded, her thanks unspoken.

"Why don't I finish cleaning up in here," Kiko said softly.

His request was an encrypted one. He was actually asking her to go to Breisi. And he was right. d.a.m.n it, he was right.

Rising to her feet was like pulling herself out of a tar pit, difficult and slow.

"I'm just going to..." She gestured toward the door.

"Good." Kiko smiled to himself and picked up another photo. "That's good."

Footsteps heavy, Dawn went to the kitchen, where she found Breisi sitting down, her phone laid neatly in front of her clasped hands. She was staring at the family room, her eyes red-rimmed, her face a blank, just like she was seeing the same memories Dawn had encountered in this house. When she spied Dawn, she blinked, jerked upright in her chair, started to say something and then stopped.

But even the forces of nature couldn't keep Breisi from being Breisi.

After wiping her eyes, she started to spin the phone around on the table while launching into a quivering update.

"There's lots to talk about, so listen. First, Marla Pennybaker left a message saying that she doesn't know where Nathan is, either, so she'll contact us when she hears something." She swallowed, but kept on going, h.e.l.l-for-leather. "Second, I got results from that skin sample I took from you last night. There were no traces of acid or burning agents in the vamp spit, so the temperature of it was actuallythathot. And I was thinking I might be able to adjust those locators. I can see if they'll sense that vamp spit, working on a temperature gauge or...something..." She faltered, but her hands kept going, waving around. Her voice followed. "That's only an idea. And the boss-he'd like you to set up a meeting with that Matt Lonigan. And-"