Chapter Eleven

I stared at the two words.

Had I written them? Was I deluding myself into thinking that something beyond me was writing?

At that moment, as those questions formed in my mind, the gentle shocking sensation rippled through my forearm again and the pen began moving. Three words appeared.

Does it matter?

The script was flowing. Easy to read. Big, roundish letters. Completely filling the space between the light-blue lines of the writing paper.

"You can read my mind?" I said aloud.

My hand jerked to life, and words scrawled across the page.

Thoughts are real, Samantha. More real than people realize.

I watched in amazement as the words appeared before me. I had the sense that if I wanted to stop writing, that I could. I wasn't being forced to write. I was allowing something to write through me. If I wanted this to stop it would.

"Who are you?" I asked. My heart, which averaged about five beats a minute, had increased in tempo. It was now thumping away at maybe ten beats a minute.

There was only a slight pause, and then my hand felt compelled to write the words: I am someone very close to you.

"Should I be afraid?"

You should be whatever you want. But let me ask you: Do you feel afraid?

"No."

Then trust how you feel.

I took in some air, and held it for a few minutes, staring down at the pad of paper. I exhaled the air almost as an afterthought.

"This is weird," I said.

It is whatever you want it to be. It could be weird. Or it could be wildly wonderful.

Half the page was now full. My hand also moved down to the next line on its own, prompted by the gentle electrical stimulation of my arm muscles.

A weird, otherworldly sensation, for sure.

"So you are someone close to me," I said, and suddenly felt damn foolish for talking to my hand and a piece of paper. "But that doesn't tell me who you are."

There was a pause, and I had a strong sense that whoever I was talking to was considering how much to tell me.

For now, let's just say I am a friend. A very close friend.

"Most of my friends don't speak to me through a pen and paper," I said. "They use email or text messaging."

Words are words, are they not? Think of this as spiritual instant messaging. A SIM.

Despite myself, I laughed. Now I was certain I was going crazy.

I looked down at the printed words. The fresher ones were still wet and gleaming blue under the overhead light. The printing was not my own. It was big and flowing. My own handwriting style tended to be tight and slanted.

Finally, I said, "I don't understand what's happening here."

Do you have to understand everything, Samantha? Perhaps some things are best taken on faith. Perhaps it's a good thing to have a little mystery in the world. After all, you're a little mysterious yourself, aren't you?

I nodded but said nothing. I was suddenly having a hard time formulating words - or even thinking for that matter. I was also feeling strangely emotional. Something powerful and wonderful was going on here and I was having a hard time grasping it.

Then let's take a break, Samantha. It's okay. We made our introductions, and that's a good start.

"But you didn't tell me your name," I blurted out.

A slight pause, a tingle, and the following words appeared:

Sephora. And I'm always here. Waiting.

Chapter Twelve

At 7:00 p.m., and still a little freaked about the automatic writing, I called my kids.

Danny picked up immediately.

"I heard about the stunt you pulled today, Sam," he said.

In the background, I heard a female voice say quietly, "What a bitch." The female probably didn't know that I could hear her. The female was now on my shit list. And if it was the female I was thinking it was - his home-wrecking secretary - then she was already on my shit list. So this put her name twice on my shit list. I don't know much about much, but being on a vampire's shit list twice probably wasn't a good idea.

Danny didn't bother to shush the woman or even acknowledge she had spoken. Instead, he said, "That was a very stupid thing to do, Sam."

"I just want to see my kids, Danny."

"You do get to see them, every Saturday night," he said, breathing hard. Danny had a temper. A bad temper. He never hit me, which was wise of him, because even back when I wasn't a vampire I could still kick his ass. You don't smack around a highly trained federal agent with a gun in her shoulder holster. And then he added, "But not anymore."

"What do you mean not anymore?" I asked.

"It means you're no longer permitted to see the kids, Sam. How can I trust you anymore after that stunt you pulled today?"

This coming from the man who had been cheating on me for months.

"Stunt? Seeing my kids is a stunt?"

"We had an agreement and you broke it, and now I have an obligation to protect my children."

"And they need protection from me?"

There was no hesitation. "Yes, of course. You're a monster."

I heard little Anthony say something in the background. He asked if he could talk to me on the phone. The female in the room shushed him nastily. Anthony whimpered and I nearly crushed my cell phone in my hand.

"Don't take away my Saturdays, Danny."

"I didn't take them away, Sam. You did."

I forced myself to keep calm. "When can I see them again, Danny?"

"I don't know. I'll think about it."

"I'm seeing them this Saturday."

"If you come here, Sam, then everything goes public. All the evidence. All the proof. The pathetic life that you now have will be over. And then you will never, ever see your kids. So don't fuck with me, Sam."

"I could always kill you, Danny."

"Awe, the true monster comes out. You kill me and you still lose the kids. Besides, I'm not afraid of you."

He had something up his sleeve. I wasn't sure what it was, but I suspected it was a weapon of some sort. A vampire hunting weapon, no doubt. Maybe something similar to what the vampire hunter had used on me last month. The hunter who came to kill me with a crossbow and silver-tipped arrow, and ended up on a one-way cruise ship to Hawaii. Long story.

I looked at my watch. It was well past the ten minutes he allotted me each night. "Can I please speak to my children now?"

"Sorry, Sam. Your time for tonight is up." And he hung up.

Chapter Thirteen

Fresh off my infuriating phone call with Danny, I soon found myself sitting outside Rembrandt's in Brea. I was drinking a glass of white wine. The woman sitting across from me was drinking a lemonade. Yes, a lemonade. Her name was Monica Collins and she was a mess.

We were sitting under a string of white lights next to a sort of makeshift fence that separated us from the heavily trafficked path to the 24-Hour Fitness behind us. While we drank, a steady parade of physical active types, all wearing tight black shorts, tank tops or tee shirts, streamed past our table and looked down at us gluttons with scorn. Most carried a gym bag of some sort, a water bottle, and a towel. Half had white speaker cords hanging from their ears. There was a sameness to their diversity.

This wine was hurting my stomach and so I mostly ignored it. White wine, water and blood were the only items I could safely consume without vomiting within minutes. Wine, however, rarely settled well, but I put up with it, especially when meeting new clients. I doubted a glass of chilled hemoglobin would make them feel very comfortable.

Monica was on her second glass of lemonade. Correction, third. She raised her hand and signaled the waiter over, who promptly responded, filling her glass again with a pitcher of the sweet stuff. She looked relieved.

Monica was a bit of a mystery to me. She was a full grown woman who acted as if she was precisely fourteen years old. She had to be around thirty, certainly, but you would never guess it by the way she popped her gum, swung her legs in her seat, giggled, and drank lemonade as if it was going out of style. Her giggling was a nervous habit, I noticed, not because she actually thought anything was funny. There was also something screwy about her right eye. It didn't track with the left eye, as if it had a sort of minor delay to it. It also seemed to focus somewhere over my shoulder, as if at an imaginary pet parrot.

She had been telling me in graphic detail the many incidents in which her husband of twelve years (now ex-husband) had beaten the unholy shit out of her. I didn't say much as she spoke. Mostly I watched her...and the steady procession of humanity coming and going to the gym.

Monica spoke in a small, child-like voice. She spoke without passion and without inflection. There was no weight to her voice. No strength. Often she spoke with her head and eyes down. She had suffered great abuse, perhaps for most of her life. Women who were abused as children often found themselves in abusive relationships as adults. No surprise there.

She stopped talking when she reached the bottom of the lemonade. She next proceeded to slurp up the remnants loudly. People looked at her, and then at me. I shrugged. Monica didn't seem to care that people were looking at her, and if she didn't care, why the hell should I?

When she was done slurping, she then asked me if she could go to the bathroom.

Yes, asked me.

I told her that, uh, sure, that would be fine. She smiled brightly, popped her gum, and left. A few minutes later she returned...and promptly ordered another lemonade.

She went on. After she had left her husband, he had made it his life's purpose to kill her. She got a restraining order. Apparently he didn't think much of restraining orders. His first attempt to kill her occurred when she was living alone in an apartment in Anaheim.

As she paused to fish out a strawberry, I tried to wrap my brain around the thought of Monica living on her own, doing big girl things, doing adult things, and couldn't. Although thirty-something, she clearly seemed stunted and unprepared for adult life. I reflected on this as she continued her story.

He was waiting for her in her kitchen. After throwing her around a bit, he had proceeded to beat her into a bloody mess with a pipe wrench, cracking her head open, and leaving her for dead.

Except she didn't die. Doctors rebuilt her, using steel plates and pins and screws. Today she still suffered from trauma-induced seizures and had lost the use of her right eye. That explained the eye. It was, in fact, blind.

After the attack, her husband had been caught within hours. But something strange happened on the way to prison. His attorney, who had apparently been damn good, had somehow gotten him out of jail within a few weeks, convincing a judge that her ex was no longer a threat to Monica.

Her ex-husband attacked again that night.

Still recovering from the first attack, Monica had been staying with her parents when her ex-husband broke into their home, this time wielding a hammer. I was beginning to suspect someone had given the man a gift card to Home Depot. I kept my suspicions to myself.

Anyway, her ex went on to kill her father and to permanently cripple her mother. And if not for the family Rottweiler, Monica would have been dead, too. Yes, the dog survived.

Monica grew silent. In the parking lot in front of us, an older white Cadillac drove slowly by. The windows were tinted. The Caddy seemed to slow as it went by. She played with the straw. I told her I was sorry about her father. She nodded and kept playing with the straw. I waited. There was more to the story. There was a reason, after all, why she had called me this evening.

She pushed her glass aside. Apparently, she had reached her lemonade limit.

She said, "He was caught trying to hire someone to kill me."

"Who caught him?"

"The people at the prison."

"Prison officials?"

"Yes, them. But he wasn't, you know, successful." Nervous giggles.

I said, "You're scared."

She nodded; tears welled up in her eyes. "Why does he want to hurt me so much? Hasn't he done enough?"

"I'm sorry," I said.

"He's horrible," she said. "He's so mean."

As she spoke her voice grew tinier and her lower lip shook. Her hands were shaking, too, and my heart went out to this little girl in a woman's body. Why anyone would want to hurt such a harmless person, I had no clue. Maybe there was more to the story, but I doubted it. I think her assessment was right. He was just mean. Damn mean.

She spoke again, "So I talked to Detective Sherbet. He is so nice to me. He always helps me. I love him." She smiled at the thought of the good detective, a man I had grown quite fond of myself. "He told me to see you. That you were tougher than you looked, but I don't understand what he means. He said you would protect me."

I said, "In the state of California, a private investigator's license also doubles as a bodyguard license."

"So you are a bodyguard, too?" I heard awe in her voice. She smiled brightly. Tears still gleamed wetly in her eyes.

"I am," I said, perhaps a little more boastful than I had intended.

She clapped. "Do you carry a gun?"

"When I need to."

She continued smiling, but then grew somber. She looked at me closely with her good eye, not so closely with her bad eye. "I don't have money to pay you. I haven't been able to work at the bakery since he hurt me, but maybe my momma can help pay you. Detective Sherbet said that you know what the right thing to do is, but I don't know what he's talking about."

I smiled and shook my head and reached out and took her hand, feeling its warmth despite its clamminess. She flinched slightly at my own icy touch. I held her gaze, and she held mine as best as she could.

I said, "Don't worry about money, sweetie. I won't let anything happen to you, ever. You're safe now. I promise."

And that's when she started crying.