Bad Moonlight Read online

  “I know that, but—” Danielle swallowed hard. “The thing is, I don’t remember what happened after I left the others!” she burst out. “My mind’s a blank. A total blank!”

  She grabbed the arms of the chair, then quickly lowered her hands back to her lap.

  “Why can’t I remember anything?” she asked.

  “Probably because there’s nothing to remember.” Dr. Moore jotted down a note. “You finished performing. You felt ‘wired,’ as you put it, and you walked and jogged a long way. Once you finally worked off your excitement, you were exhausted, Danielle. It’s not unusual for people in such a tired state to forget things.”

  Could that be the way it happened? Danielle wondered.

  “You’re not likely to carry out any of these fantasies,” the doctor continued. “You haven’t gotten over the violent way your parents were suddenly taken from you. So your mind is filled with violent thoughts.”

  He leaned forward, his blue eyes intense behind his glasses. “But that does not mean you will commit violent acts.”

  Danielle glanced down at her hands. They seemed to have a life of their own. Twisting, writhing in her lap.

  She couldn’t keep them still.

  “You’re very tense,” Dr. Moore observed. “Let’s clear your mind, shall we? That should help you calm down.”

  He came around and sat on the edge of his desk. “Start counting, Danielle,” he commanded softly. “With each number you’ll feel yourself start to relax.”

  Danielle leaned back in the chair and began counting backward from one hundred.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The wind blew back Danielle’s hair as the van made its way toward another dreary hotel. More greasy food. And another roaring crowd.

  Danielle couldn’t wait. She felt loose and ready to perform. Her session with Dr. Moore had really helped. She glanced up and caught Kit’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He winked at her playfully.

  She grinned, warmed by his attention.

  “I can’t believe we’re just driving to the next club as if nothing happened,” Dee said bitterly. “Joey was killed. Slashed to pieces, in case you’ve forgotten. Doesn’t anybody care?”

  Silence.

  Danielle pictured Joey’s body. Bloody and torn. She shook her head to clear away the image.

  “Sure we care, Dee,” Billy said finally. His voice cracked. “You know we do. We just—”

  “We have to keep living, you know?” Caroline broke in. “I mean, we can’t crawl under a rock or something.”

  “We should cancel this show,” Dee declared.

  “Dee, we can’t,” Kit replied gently. “It would mean breaking our contract. And I think it’s the last thing Joey would have wanted us to do.”

  Dee muttered a reply. Danielle couldn’t hear her.

  She’s really unhappy, Danielle thought. She reached behind her seat and pulled her guitar out of the case.

  “I wrote a song yesterday,” she announced. She strummed a chord.

  “Another one?” Caroline asked. “Danny, you’re really on a roll!”

  “If it’s as good as ‘Bad Moonlight,’ you can do it tomorrow night,” Billy promised. He had booked them at a club called the Roadhouse in Hastings.

  “It’s sort of a second ‘Bad Moonlight,’” Danielle told them. “More upbeat, though. And it’s for Dee to sing,” she added.

  Dee turned around in her seat, her eyebrows arched in surprise.

  Danielle smiled at her. Maybe this’ll make things better between us, she thought.

  “Let’s hear it,” Kit demanded.

  With her fingers, Danielle tapped out a beat on the front of the guitar. Then she strummed a chord and began to sing.

  “Stop me, whoa,

  Bad moonlight, stop me,

  Keep me, stop me,

  Hold me like a friend.

  Caroline swung her head to the beat, her blond hair swaying. Mary Beth tapped on the seat back, using her fingers as drumsticks. Dee listened intently, her amber eyes locked on Danielle’s face.

  “Stop me, whoa,

  Bad moonlight, keep me

  In your cold, cold glow,

  Don’t let me kill again.”

  A long silence greeted the end of the song.

  Danielle felt her face heat up with embarrassment and confusion. Had she really written those words?

  Billy cleared his throat. “Wow,” he murmured.

  He started to say more. But Dee interrupted him. “‘Don’t let me kill again’?” She glared at Danielle, “That’s a song for me to sing? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Danielle shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t understand it. I just started to sing it and—”

  “I didn’t kill Joey! You did!” Dee shrieked.

  With a cry of rage Dee leaped out of her seat and jumped on Danielle.

  Before Danielle could struggle away, Dee wrapped her strong, slender fingers around Danielle’s throat and started to strangle her.

  Chapter 10

  LIKE AN ANIMAL

  “It was you!” Dee wailed. “It was you!”

  Her fingers squeezed tighter.

  Dee is so strong, Danielle thought. I never realized how strong she is.

  She grabbed hold of Dee’s hands with both of her own and tried to pry the viselike fingers from her throat.

  Dee kept shouting. No words now. Just shrieks of rage.

  Despite Danielle’s struggles, Dee’s grip tightened.

  A wave of panic swept over Danielle. Can’t breathe! she thought. She’s going to strangle me!

  She yanked one of Dee’s fingers hard, bending it back as far as she could.

  Dee gasped and jerked the hand off Danielle’s throat.

  The van lurched and slowed to a stop.

  Danielle gripped Dee’s other wrist and pulled. She felt air rush into her lungs. Taking a deep breath, she scrambled to her knees and shoved Dee away from her.

  Dee lunged at her again.

  “Hey!” Billy’s alarmed voice rang out sharply. “Dee, back off! Back off!”

  Danielle flung up her arms, blocking Dee’s charge. “I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it!” The words burst hoarsely from Danielle’s aching throat.

  “Hurry up, Kit. Give me a hand here!” Billy demanded.

  Strong hands grabbed Dee’s shoulders, pulled her away from Danielle.

  Danielle glared at Dee. The other girl struggled in Kit’s grip. He held her in the narrow aisle of the van.

  “A song for me, huh?” Dee cried bitterly.

  “The words just popped into my head!” Danielle told her. “I don’t know why. It didn’t mean anything, Dee. I wasn’t accusing you. It was just a song!”

  “Everybody cool it!” Kit shouted. He shook Dee by the shoulders. “Now!”

  Danielle forced herself to stay still. Billy loosened his grip. He rested his hand on her trembling shoulder.

  Kit glanced around the group. “We’ve got a show tomorrow night,” he reminded them. “I know we’re all still uptight about Joey, but we can’t afford to blow this. Everybody needs to stay cool.”

  Dee breathed hard. Her eyes never left Danielle’s face.

  She really believes I killed Joey, Danielle told herself. She screamed it over and over. But why? Why does she suspect me?

  Danielle rubbed her throat, sore from Dee’s powerful grip.

  With a shudder, Danielle turned away from Dee’s blazing stare.

  Mary Beth gazed solemnly at Danielle. Her green eyes glowed in the dim interior light of the van.

  Glowed with fear.

  Is Mary Beth afraid of Dee? Danielle wondered. Or is Mary Beth frightened of me?

  A shaft of lightning split the sky. Thunder boomed like a canon.

  Everyone jumped.

  “We’re in for rain,” Kit said, letting go of Dee’s arm. “Let’s get moving.”

  No one spoke during the rest of the trip.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The storm foll
owed them the whole ninety-mile drive. Lightning bolts snaked down from the sky. Thunder rattled the windows of the van.

  When Kit pulled up in front of the hotel, the rain shot down like bullets.

  “Billy and I will need some extra hands with the equipment!” Kit shouted over the drumming of the rain. “We’ll unload the top of the van first!”

  He opened the sliding door and jumped down to the street. Billy followed, then Dee, Mary Beth, and Caroline.

  When Danielle hopped down to the wet pavement, the rain plastered her hair to her head. Flinging it back, she raised her face to the sky.

  “Danielle, come on,” Caroline called over her shoulder. “You want to drown?”

  But Danielle felt a sudden urge to move.

  To run through the storm. To feel the wind and water against her skin.

  Squinting against the driving rain, she took off down the street.

  “Danny!” Caroline shouted after her. “Where are you going? We have to unpack!”

  “Let her go,” Danielle heard Kit shout at Caroline. “She’ll be okay.”

  Will I? Danielle wondered. Will I ever be okay?

  Her legs churning, she threw herself into the driving curtains of rain. Splashing through puddles. Stumbling and scrambling up again.

  What am I doing? she asked herself. I can’t stop myself. I can’t stop!

  The sky cleared as she stopped her frantic run.

  Gasping for breath, she slowed to a trot, then a walk. Her side ached. Her legs wobbled like rubber.

  Her mouth felt dry. I’m thirsty, she realized.

  So thirsty.

  I must drink.

  Danielle lowered herself to the street.

  On all fours she bent over a puddle and frantically lapped the rainwater with her tongue.

  Chapter 11

  KIT DIES

  At rehearsal the next morning, they checked out the club. The Roadhouse wasn’t quite as big as the Rocket Club. But the two owners knew each other, and word about Bad Moonlight had spread.

  “It’ll be packed tonight,” the club’s manager told Billy when the band took a break. “I warned my bouncers. We’ll probably have to turn people away.”

  Billy grinned. “You hear that, guys?” he called out. “Tonight we’ve got to really kick!”

  The manager jerked his thumb at Danielle. “We got you to thank for it, honey,” he told her. “Dave from the Rocket said you were dy-no-mite.”

  Danielle smiled at him as she tightened a new string on her guitar.

  Caroline rolled her eyes. “Honey?” she whispered to Danielle.

  “Dy-no-mite!” Danielle whispered back, laughing.

  “Could we get back to work?” Dee demanded impatiently from the other side of the stage. “We’ve been hanging out for twenty minutes.”

  Billy nodded. “Sure, Dee. You want to work? We’ll work.”

  “Good.” Dee picked up her guitar and frowned at Danielle.

  She still thinks I wrote that song to accuse her of killing Joey, Danielle thought. The two of us will never become friends. No way. It’s hopeless now.

  No one had mentioned putting Danielle’s new song into the show, not after what happened in the van. No one talked about what happened, either.

  But Danielle couldn’t forget the feeling of Dee’s fingers on her neck. Squeezing tighter and tighter.

  Trying to kill her.

  And I didn’t just fight back, Danielle thought with a shudder. I wanted to kill her!

  Violent thoughts, because of what had happened to her parents. Dr. Moore said she wouldn’t act on those thoughts.

  Danielle was terrified that she would.

  After the fight with Dee, Danielle remembered, she had run like a crazy person. She drank from a puddle of dirty rainwater. Lapped up the water like a thirsty dog.

  What’s wrong with me? Danielle wondered. Something is happening to me, and I don’t know how to stop it.

  “Danielle, you ready?” Billy asked, breaking into her troubled thoughts.

  Danielle jumped. “Sure, Billy. Sorry.” She picked up her guitar and jogged toward the front of the stage.

  “You okay?” Kit murmured as she passed him, his blue eyes full of concern. “You look worried about something.”

  Danielle shook her head. She couldn’t tell him. How could she tell the guy she liked that she might be going crazy?

  “I’m all right,” she reassured him. “Just a little tired, I guess.”

  “Okay!” Billy called out, when Danielle took her place. “Start with ‘Bad Moonlight.’ Make this place jump!”

  For a while Danielle lost herself in the music. It cleared her mind and made her feel safe.

  Too bad she ever had to stop.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Wear the red dress again,” Caroline advised Danielle later in their hotel room. “You wore it in Midland and we were a hit.”

  “I think she ought to wear black,” Mary Beth argued. “Those tight black pants and that cropped T-shirt with the silver things on it. They look like half-moons—it’ll go with our name.”

  “I hate those pants,” Danielle declared. “I have to lie down to get them on. And I’m always afraid they’re going to split up the back.”

  “That’d make it a full moon!” Caroline joked.

  Mary Beth laughed and tossed a pair of rolled-up socks at her. Caroline tossed them back, but Danielle grabbed them in mid-air and threw them at Caroline.

  They were still heaving the socks at each other when somebody banged on the door. “Hey, it’s me. Open up!” Billy called in.

  Caroline opened the door. “What’s the matter?”

  “I can’t find Kit,” Billy told them, pushing back a tangle of dark blond hair. “He needs to set up for the show. We’re on in an hour and a half. Anybody seen him?”

  “I saw him around three, after we finished rehearsing,” Mary Beth volunteered. “He was leaving the club with Dee.”

  “With Dee?” Danielle asked, feeling a twinge of jealousy.

  Mary Beth nodded. “They were having some kind of argument. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was pretty intense.”

  Danielle frowned, thinking hard. What could Dee and Kit be arguing about?

  Billy glanced at his watch. “We’ve got to find them. Let’s spread out and look. Hastings is small. It shouldn’t take us long. Mary Beth, you come with me,” he ordered. “We’ll look north, up by the river, then west. Danielle, you and Caroline take the south side, then go east.”

  Danielle pulled on her sneakers and followed the others out of the hotel. “Where could they have gone?” she asked, shoving her hands into the pockets of her cut-offs. “Kit wouldn’t take off—an hour and a half before a show.”

  “I know,” Caroline agreed. “It’s not like him. It’s not like him to argue with anyone, either. Kit’s always so calm and cool. I only saw him get mad once, when Joey blew out an amplifier.”

  They turned a corner and hurried down a side street lined with old brick buildings. Weeds poked through the cracks in the sidewalk.

  “Dee’s been so totally weird since Joey died,” Caroline said thoughtfully. “I mean, she’s never exactly the life of the party, but she’s been so much moodier and angrier.”

  “Yeah.” Danielle reached up and touched her throat. It still felt sore from Dee’s angry attack.

  Danielle’s heart speeded up. She suddenly had a powerful feeling of dread.

  What could Dee and Kit be arguing about? What?

  “Hey, Danielle, wait up!” Caroline called. “Why are you walking so fast? This isn’t a race!”

  “I want to find him!” Danielle called back. “Something’s wrong. Something’s happened!”

  She ran to the end of the block. An abandoned building sat on the right, its windows boarded up.

  Danielle glanced across the street. An empty lot. Broken glass littered the ground. The wind blew fast-food wrappers and yellowing newspapers against the rusty fence surro
unding it.

  Danielle glimpsed a flash of color in the waist-high weeds. Leaping off the sidewalk, she ran across the street—and stared in horror into the empty lot.

  Behind the fence, Kit lay on his back on the ground. His face pale. His eyes wide with fear. His shirt ripped at the shoulder.

  Her arms crossed over her chest, Dee stood over him.

  Kit struggled to his feet and faced her. “Dee,” he begged hoarsely. “Please—don’t!”

  Dee didn’t seem to hear him. Her eyes narrowed, she advanced a step. She crouched over, her legs bent at the knees. Her hands flexed, the fingers curved like claws.

  Dee’s lips drew back in a hideous grin. Her breath came faster. Her golden eyes glinted with savage glee.

  “No!” Danielle screamed through the wire fence. “Kit! Dee! No!”

  Too late.

  Roaring like an animal, Dee dived at Kit, raised both hands, and began slashing him to pieces.

  Chapter 12

  A SURPRISE IN THE CLOSET

  “Nooo!” Danielle screamed again, rattling the fence with both hands.

  “Danielle—what’s wrong?” Caroline cried. She came running up behind her. “What is it?”

  “Kit! Kit!” Danielle continued to shake the rusty fence. “Dee, stop!” she shrieked. “Caroline—she’s going to kill him!”

  Caroline yanked Danielle’s arm hard and turned her around. “What are you talking about? Kit and Dee aren’t in there, Danielle! It’s just two kids. Look!’

  Danielle blinked hard and squinted through the fence.

  Two dark-haired boys, about nine or ten, stared back at her. “Hey—we were just wrestling,” one of them called to Danielle.

  “We weren’t doing anything wrong!” the other boy called in a trembling, tiny voice.

  “Uh . . . sorry,” Danielle murmured.

  But the boys didn’t wait for her apology. They raced to the other side of the lot, ducked under the fence, and ran out of sight.

  Two kids, Danielle thought.

  Not Kit and Dee.

  Two boys.

  She uttered a low moan as she realized she’d had another violent fantasy. So powerful. So real.

  “What happened?” Caroline demanded, snapping Danielle from her frightening thoughts. “You screamed about Kit and Dee. You saw something, didn’t you?”