Midnight Hunter
Bonnie Bernard
Copyright 2011 by Kymberly J. Lewis
ISBN: 0983827249
ISBN-13: 9-780-983-82724-5
I dedicate this book to Gilligan
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank my ever-patient husband, Doug and my best friend, Kristy. From financial backing to emotional life-support, those two make me feel like the luckiest person on earth. They also picked me up and dusted me off when I felt hopeless. Thank you to my nephew Jerry, for the “sick” cover design and for the perfect website. And thank you to my friends who supported me, who read passages and offered feedback.
Grandmother Wisdom
When she was seven years old, Donna McCormick’s grandmother sat her down and explained why she was different from other seven year old girls.
“It’s because of your toes,” Grandma had said. “Toes like yours are proof that a beautiful goddess watches over you and keeps you safe so you can fulfill your special destiny.” Grandma pointed to the second toe on each of Donna’s feet. They were a whole half inch longer than her first toes, a fact that made it hard for Donna’s mom to find shoes that would fit her daughter right. It was a fact that also made Donna feel weird. But back then, grandmother wisdom could explain the weird out of everything. So Donna smiled because she had a goddess watching over her, and a special destiny.
Then, five years later, shortly before That Day wrecked Donna’s family, Grandma explained something else.
“Someday you’ll meet two men,” she said. “One will sweep you off your feet and the other will knock you down. Beware – they are from a dark place where mortals dare not tread.”
“What do you mean, Grandma?” Donna asked.
“Your life is destined to have many surprises, my girl.” Then Grandma got silent, so Donna’s mother leaned over her daughter’s shoulder and whispered.
“Your grandmother is losing her mind to dementia. Pay no attention to her. And you’d best hope for your dad’s sake and your own that it’s not genetic.”
The next day, Grandma had a brain hemorrhage and died.
So much for grandmother wisdom and special destinies, Donna thought. She wiped away a tear, looked down at her weird toes, and swore she’d never fall for nonsense again. Just give me a normal life without any surprises, and I’ll be happy.
CHAPTER ONE
At the intersection where the China Palace and Taco Grando fight for peoples' attention, Donna McCormick was first in line to stop her silver Sentra at a red light, and a distracted driver in a blue Toyota Camry squealed his brakes to avoid slamming against the back of her. He would’ve hit her anyway, if just in the nick of time, Donna hadn’t seen the impact coming and hit the gas pedal ever so slightly - after checking for pedestrians, of course.
“That was too close,” Donna gripped the steering wheel and looked in the rear view mirror. Ever since That Day nine years ago, she had always felt intimidated by cars that got too close. Not that she was afraid of cars, she was just afraid of people being killed by one. It was a lesson Donna had taken home on That Day – always watch out for terrible surprises. It was a philosophy Donna had lived by from That Day forward and now here she was, a week from her twenty-first birthday, and watching out for terrible surprises had just saved her yet again.
The blue Toyota’s driver was a guy in a suit and tie who refused to make eye contact with Donna, and she couldn’t blame him. If the tables were turned, she'd feel mortified, too. Donna's best friend, Mo unclasped her seat belt, whirled around in the passenger seat, leaned out the window and gave the guy a middle finger.
“If we wanted you up our ass, we'd have sent a written invitation!” she hollered. An old lady waiting for the bus looked up from her book and stared. The light turned green and Donna headed south. The Toyota guy followed. In fact, he followed the Sentra with its two college-girl occupants clear across town and west to Sunflower Street. So Donna avoided turning right on it, even though her car was full of moving boxes and that's where she wanted to dump them off.
“Hey,” Mo pointed. “You passed your parents’ street.”
“I know where my parents live,” Donna turned to Mo and glowered. “But it appears you pissed off that guy enough that now he's following us. He's been on our tail ever since you flipped him off."
Mo's cropped, blue hair shuddered when she shook her head in exasperation. “You’re the most over-reactive person on earth.”
Donna threw her a look. “There is nothing wrong with being cautious.”
“But there is something wrong with being paranoid of your own shadow,” Mo grumbled and turned to see the blue Toyota, still following them. “Hmmmm,” she said in a less flippant tone, “If you're worried about it, then why don’t you just drive to the police station and get him off your tail?"
Donna's eyebrow lifted. “That a good idea.” Even though she hated police stations, and even more than that, she hated police officers.
“Of course it’s a good idea,” Mo grinned. “All my ideas are good. Like the idea I had this morning about dyeing your hair green.”
“My hair is okay the way it is,” Donna said defensively.
Mo shrugged. “Yeah, blonde is boring, but I guess it’s also ‘okay’.” Under her breath she added, “For a plain-Jane.” Donna didn’t respond to that, for the simple reason that she knew Mo expected her too. Granted, Donna didn’t do much to stand out. She had never highlighted her hair neon orange or pierced her own nipple just to show it off in gym class – things Mo had done before they’d even graduated high school – but Donna recognized that the town in which they’d grown up was a nice, quiet, conservative place. In order to fit in, to feel normal, one did well to look just like Donna did – blonde, blue-eyed, and wearing crisp, clean blouses paired with basic jeans. It was part of her philosophy – terrible suprises rarely happen to normal people.
Mo wasn’t of that mindset. In fact just last week, she’d attended a wedding dressed in black and slathered in foreboding make up - like something out of a zombie nightmare. In Mo’s world-view, terrible surprises picked on normal people first.