1-800-Psychic Hotline

Chapter Six

Lydia stared into her cereal bowl, hoping to find the answers to her questions among the soggy marshmallows and oat pieces. She ate her breakfast after the cats had been fed. As if sensing her worries, Casanova never left her side. He cuddled up next to her legs and when she laid down on the couch, he made himself comfortable on her stomach. Lydia switched the T.V. on, though her guts said that she would regret doing that.

"Police have found yet another mysterious bloodstain in the subway station this morning as an officer was pursuing a purse snatcher. As with the previous bloodstain, police have yet to determine whether or not the blood is human," one reporter said.

"They've determined that the stains were made by actual blood. Crime scene investigators are working on the scene as we speak. Tom, can you get any closer?" The female co-host asked the on-the-scene reporter.

The small box at the edge of the screen stretched to fit the whole thing. A tall, blue-eyed fellow held a mic to his face as the police behind him fought to keep people like him from getting any closer.

"As you and the folks at home can see, police are working hard to secure the scene. We know for sure that the blood is real, but crime scene investigators have yet to determine whether or not it's human blood. According to police, if the blood is in fact human, this amount of loss would result in death."

"Are we talking about a serial murderer?" The co-host asked. She sounded too eager to find out. The morbid always did bring out the worst in people.

Tom shook his head, "I've been told that until they know for sure whose or what blood it is, police cannot determine if this is the scene of a murder or plain ole vandalism."

The cameraman managed to squeeze in between several others trying to get a good look at the bloodstain. Lydia's stomach churned. Icy chills ran down her back and sent goosebumps crawling over her skin. Her right hand tingled. Lifting it up, she looked at it. Bits of blood stuck to her fingernails not even a few extra washes in the sink could get rid of. Lydia could still feel the sticky blood against the palm of her hand, how it slithered down the brick wall like it had been poured on the wall minutes before they arrived there.

She dared to glance at the television screen. Apparently, morbid curiosity wasn't just the business of media reporters. Lydia saw the cameraman zoom in on the bloodstain. In the flickering lights of busy cameras and fluorescent lights, the blood looked slick splattered against the concrete wall. The red oozed down the wall, glistening in the lights. Shuddering, Lydia watched as the blood dribble down, down, down, seeping to the ground. It looked so much more gruesome against smoother walls than gritty brick.

"Get these cameras outta here! I want 'em gone!" A familiar voice cried over the reporters begging for answers.

A head of dark hair and a cheap, dark suit pushed the cameramen and reporters out of the way. Detective Allan looked like he had more than he could handle. The cameras did a good job at zooming in on the sweat beading down his face while he fought back the press from getting any closer to the possible crime scene. The waves of his hair shadowed his deep blue eyes, but Lydia could recognize them anywhere. Even in this light, he looked rather handsome. You know, if you liked the rugged, city detective type. Guilt wormed its way into her hear. Somehow it felt cruel to say such things about Danny Boy's co-worker. How much of a b***h would she be if she developed a crush on Allan when he and Daniel worked together?

Lydia turned her attention elsewhere, trying to find something else to stare at. Instead of looking at Allan's handsome, chiseled face, Lydia watched the press beat back the police and each other for one good shot at the dripping bloodstain. She gawked at how many people the press sent to investigate. She could almost be impressed by their tenacity. Allan fought them off like hungry vultures picking at a carcass. If they weren't fighting the police for a closer look, they were fighting each other for a better spot. At one point, Tom the reporter said enough, and turned it over to the studio.

Lydia watched the next few segments mindlessly as one does when they're watching T.V. but not really watching. It was something to do and it kept her from thinking. She didn't want to think right now. It hurt too much.

Sleep didn't come easy to her when she finally crawled into bed around five in the morning. Lydia barely managed to remember to lock the door behind her. She had been tempted to blockade all the doors and windows in case whatever monster out there came after her. Between the dull ache ravaging her system and the pounding, splitting headache, Lydia decided against it and made her way to bed. She must have laid in bed for at least another two hours. The sun started coming up by the time the chains of sleep wrapped themselves around her. Behind closed eyes, all she could see were big green monsters, puddles of blood, and silver fangs. Groggily, she woke up late in the afternoon.

Nicholas's business card rested on the coffee table. She hadn't touched it or looked at it since she left it there early this morning. Lydia stretched over and picked up the card in her hand. Turning it over, she read the little message on the back. So subtle, she wondered if Nicholas had it printed especially for her. More than just the fear of the unknown that goes bump in the night, Lydia wanted answers. She didn't broadcast her gifts to people. Outside the family and Daniel, nobody else knew. How did Nicholas know about it? Henry, the kid who abducted her from the street, had been sent to watch where she parked every evening when she arrived at work. Lydia tried not to wonder just how much Nicholas knew about her. He already knew where she parked and where she worked. Lydia didn't want to know if he knew where she lived either. Knowing her luck, he probably did.

Vampires were real. Her brain still reeled from that sudden sucker punch. It left her completely gobsmacked. She always that the world was a strange place, and there were a great deal many things that couldn't easily be explained. She just didn't know that the world was that strange. What did that say about history? About science? If the scientists around the world found out that there was a way to raise the dead, what would happen to them? Did everything they previously believed in become obsolete or would they see this as yet another mystery to uncover? Lydia doubted that the people around the world would just nod their heads in agreement. Nobody would believe her if vampires came out of the, uh, coffin. Thank you, Charlaine Harris.

Around four o'clock, Lydia crawled her way back upstairs, having nothing better to do than try and squeeze something creative onto her computer. Today was her day off; she didn't have to worry about Nicholas hogging up her phone line tonight. She went to her office, founding it be just the same as it ever was, even after the break-in.

The plastered white walls were strewn with pictures of inspiration, post-it notes taped or thumbtacked with scribblings of plots, and a corkboard nailed above her desk. Her mom's desk, a gift from her dad, showed the tell-tall signs of devotion and hard-work. The drawers sometimes stuck. She had to nail the boards together again, more than once, but it was a good desk. Lydia became attached to the desk as soon as her brothers moved it in. Every time she sat down at it, she ran her hands over the flat top. Lydia could always faintly smell her mom's magnolia perfume and the musk of antiquities she picked up from an uptown flea market. The desk itself was an antique made of old yet sturdy pine. Her best ideas were drawn up at this desk.

She sat down in that familiar, cozy leather office chair. It creaked under her as she made herself comfortable. Opening her laptop, she pressed the 'ON' button along the side and waited for the computer to wake up. Her computer was at least a couple years out of date. Much like her mom, Lydia had a hard time letting old things go. Besides, Old Reliable rarely broke down and the word processor still ran pretty well. She had some squabbles with the keyboard—the Q liked to get stuck sometimes.

Like a slow beast, the computer came to life. Once it had properly woken up and she pressed her password into the machine, Lydia immediately pressed the icon for the word processor. She sighed as she glared at the blank page. Her first had been nothing but a smutty dime-store novella. What she really wanted—what she deserved—was a story that could be taken seriously. Erotica had its place, but pure smut wasn't her style. If she wrote a s*x scene, it would have a purpose other than setting the loins of thirty-something year old women on fire. She tried not to look down her nose at erotica authors, but some of them made it so difficult not to snub them. Over time, she realized why some of the academic elite detested the fictional genre.

She intended for this story to be a serious crime story with a romantic twist, the beginning of a series. However, so far the beginning of the series hadn't even gotten back the first two chapters. Lydia looked up at the large corkboard decorated with hand-written notes on colored sticky notes. Blue for dialogue. Yellow for setting. Pink for characters. Reading her notes, Lydia hated every single one of her characters. She would keep the setting. Set in New York City, her own knowledge of the location would help. Little research needed on her part. She found the dialogue to be fair enough, but when she looked at her characters she hated every single one of them. The main character and her romantic interest were so cliché and boring she couldn't stand the idea of putting them to paper. The antagonists honestly sounded more interesting.

In a desperate fit of rage, Lydia highlighted the whole document. With a quick snap of her finger, she pressed the backspace key and deleted the first two chapters. She stole the sticky notes from her cork board, crumbled them up in her fists, and threw them into the waste bin across the room. The paper wad narrowly missed going in. Sighing again, angrily, bitterly, Lydia returned to her desk. The white page looked more infuriatingly unimpressive. She needed something good to fill in all those blank spaces. For a moment, she thought about clicking that 'undo' arrow near the left corner of her screen. But she knew that her original characters were utter s**t. She didn't even want to read about them. They sounded too much like Richard Castle and Detective Beckett from Castle. Can we say boring?

Lydia needed more original characters. Ones that would get people's attention. She grabbed a stack of sticky notes from her draw and from the 'I Heart NY' mug she used to hold for holding them, a pencil. Absentmindedly, she wrote down the first thing that came to mind. Supernatural fiction might not have been her ideal genre, but with what she had been through in the last forty-eight hours, she would take inspiration where she could get it. Lydia's hand worked furiously etching the image of her first character onto the leaflets of paper. Her pencil worked madly to keep up with the outpouring of words flowing from her brain to the pages. When she finished, Lydia read through them, chiding herself.

What she held her hands was nothing more than Nicholas in written format, as she saw him. The devilishly handsome vampire with ancient power seeping through every pore. She made him far less dangerous than most fictional vampires, but at least unlike other author's, she had first-hand experience with their kind. She had the most accurate vampire of them all. Lydia felt like congratulating herself, though she had no idea how this vampire would fit into her work.

She looked at her laptop and saw that the screen had blacked out. Hitting a random key, it flickered to life again. Lydia closed the document, opened a new one, and started a character sheet for her 'discount' Nicholas character. Silently, she asked Athena for help. Somewhere in the heretical corner of her heart, she liked the Greeks gods more than God Himself. The old gods were more….human than they said Jesus could be. Much easier to approach.

Perhaps Athena heard her. Lydia looked at the computer screen for a moment, and in the next her fingers were flying over the keyboard, frantically typing away the thoughts as they came to her. Suddenly what seemed hopeless became effortless. In a matter of a couple hours, Lydia looked at her document. Blinking and rubbing her eyes, she found a basic plot line that sounded good enough to sell. Admittedly, her protagonist had a bit of herself thrown in there, but not enough for someone to claim that Lydia inserted herself into the story. It was evident that recent events inspired the greater portion of her story, even down to the female protagonist getting kidnapped and brought to the vampire's lair. The vampire, Bruno, died during the Roman occupation of Spain. Lydia wanted to separate her character from the source material as far as possible. She had a feeling that Nicholas might not appreciate being the inspiration behind a supernatural romance novel.

Her evening went downhill from there. She worked at her computer never knowing how many passed before she could feel the ache in her thighs from sitting at her desk for x-amount of hours. Around midnight, she stretched in her chair, pushing her legs out as far as they could go and throwing her arms above her head. She heard a faint pop in her joints before deciding that it might be a good idea to get out of the chair for a few minutes.

Saving the document—just in case—Lydia started for the stairs. A knock at the front door startled her before she even reached the base. Heart pounding, she grabbed her bat and opened it.

"Evening."

"Detective," Lydia murmured. Slyly, she tucked the baseball bat back against its spot against the door. "What brings you to my neighborhood?"

Detective Allan's deep blue eyes watched her for a second. The coolness of his gaze could shatter a soul to pieces if he tried. He looked at her for a moment longer than he should before his eyes started to shine. Lydia saw that his pupils dilated.

"May I come in?"

"Oh, god, who died?" Lydia moaned.

Allan's brows furrowed. He c****d to his head to the side, wondering. "I beg your pardon."

"Usually when a detective shows up this late at night and asks to come in, it means somebody died."

Shaking his head, Allan chuckled. "Nothing like that. I'm certain that everyone dear to you is perfectly safe. Now, may I come in?"

Lydia stared at him back. Police detective or no, Allan shouldn't be here. Not unless he had a good reason or somebody was dead. She could say he was handsome—and boy was he!—but she drew the line at letting strangers into her house. The break-in left some nasty trust issues in its wake. Having another human being breaking into the sanctuary of your home and steal your s**t tends to do that victims.

Lydia took a step towards the door, leaned against its frame, and dared for Allan to try to step past her. Quirking his brow, it seemed evident that the detective wasn't used to this behavior. Not getting what he wanted, Lydia saw something flash in his eyes. It didn't appear he was amused by her antics. He pursed and pinched his lips together as if biting back certain profanities a detective should never say to a lady.

"I just wanna talk," he pleaded.

Lydia had yet to allow herself to be convinced. Despite his handsome features, she started to see something ugly beneath his mask. She continued to stand in his way. She refused to budge an inch.

"Tell me how you found out where I lived."

It wasn't a request or even an ultimatum. No matter his answer, she wasn't letting him in. Something about his demanding attitude set her off.

"Danny told me."

Lydia rolled her eyes. "Nice try, but I've known Danny Boy since high school. I know that he wouldn't give out my address to just anybody. Even if to a fellow detective."

"I just wanna talk," Allan insisted.

"And if I don't want to?"

Allan took a step too far. He pressed his body against her, making Lydia shudder. Her skin crawled, and the last person to do that had been a vampire. But even then, Nicholas didn't make her stomach churn getting so close to her. He made her heart to pound against her rib cage. With him at least, Lydia could fall back on her s*x-deprived brain to explain her physiological responses. Allan was different. Light-years different. He stood too close for her to be enamored by his efforts or comforted by his presence. His smile was dangerous, speaking volumes with the smallest angle.

"I think you should leave," Lydia growled.

Allan stood freakishly tall. He might have been a basketball player if he had played his cards right. She glared up at him, still not budging.

"How does it feel to have such an anemic social life that you can't even let a friend come inside your house?" Allan's pearly white teeth might as well have been rows of fangs. He practically snarled at her. Was that supposed to get her to let him in any faster?

Lydia snarled back, "You're not my friend."

"I could be."

She shook her head. "I don't think I need friends like you."

Allan finally took the hint. He turned his back and started descending down her steps. Lydia stood inside her doorway; her hands gripped the decorative panels tightly. She watched him leave her stoop, walking slowly to his car. Just as Allan reached the driver side, he called out to her from the street.

"Maybe some other time?" He winked.

Opening the door, he disappeared inside the dark car. The engine rumbled and drove off into the city streets. Lydia leaned out the door to make sure she saw his tail lights disappear. Once satisfied that the pervert was good and gone, Lydia slammed the door home, grumbling.

"I wouldn't hold your breath if I were you!"

She returned to her office in hopes of resuming her work. Her encounter with Allan zapped most of her creative juices. All she wanted to do now was get into the shower and scrub the memory off her skin. Lydia just down her computer and crawled into bed. Casanova joined her on the bed. He curled up on the empty pillow next to her head, purring. The soft rumblings from Casanova soothed Lydia into a dreamless sleep. It felt nice to sleep and not dream of anything. Every once in a while, that kind of sleep did her tired brain much needed rest. She suffered enough due to an over-active imagination. It was already bad with vampires and monsters creeping into her everyday life and her dreaming. She didn't need to have Allan haunt her dreams too.

What had been an excellent way to end her night, the universe decided to give Lydia a rude awakening. In the most literal sense. Tucked safely and warmly in her bed with her beloved Casanova in bed beside her, Lydia shot up awake with pounding at her door to stir her from the most restful sleep she had in ages. Like the man from that Christmas poem, she sprung from her bed without haste. She didn't care if she wore only her p.j's. Who was going to care if she answered the door in her Tom and Jerry pajama set? They were cute and comfy!

The impatient douche behind her door pounded at it again. Like that was going to make her run any faster? Lydia climbed down the doors as quickly as she could without tripping over herself.

"I'm coming, dammit! Keep your shirt on!" She screamed at the door from the stairs.

Finally reaching it, Lydia pried it open. She sneered and felt the urge to find a nice, quiet place to throw up. Detective Allan stood at her doorstep again. She was about to slam the door in his face, but decided to take a look first. His eyes distant, not cold. They were staring out into space. He stood still with his arms to his sides.

"Lydia," he coughed.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry about last night. I was trying too hard."

"Don't let it happen again," she folded her arms across her chest. "Because that's not how you get my attention."

"Thank you," Allan murmured.

Lydia's brows knotted. She spotted a police cruiser parked not far from Allan's dark sedan. A female officer stepped out of the cruiser.

"What?" She snapped. "Am I getting arrested for something?"

"No, I, uh." Allan rubbed his temple. He forced himself to look at her. "I thought, um, you'd want somebody to…"

"To what? Look, detective, I don't know what's going on so you'd better tell me! I don't like where this is going! Just say it. The tension is killin' me here!"

The corner of Allan's mouth twitched. "It's Danny Boy. There's—"

Before he could finish, Lydia threw her hands in her hair ringing through the dark waves. She pulled her hair between her fingers and tugged until she felt the sharp, stabbing pain seeping through her scalp. Her mouth hung open in a silent scream. All of her joking…this had been the moment she anticipated every time a cop came to her door. She'd watched enough criminal investigation shows to know what Allan had been trying to say before her world started swirling around her. Tears pricked her eyes.

"No, no, no, no." She chanted. "Not Daniel. Not Danny. Not Danny."

"Lopez, can you help her to the coach?" She faintly heard Allan.

Allan stepped out of the way for the officer to enter the house. She guided Lydia to the living room and seated her at the sofa. Casanova must have sensed her grief. He prodded down the stairs and trotted to the living room where he jumped into Lydia's lap. His furry head nuzzled against her chest. The officer asked if she could get her anything. Lydia almost said, 'A shot of coke and rum,' but answered instead with 'coffee.' She doubted that the caffeine would make her feel better. The officer disappeared into the kitchen which Lydia pointed out to her. Allan closed the front door, entered the living room, and stood far from the sofa.

"Do his parents know?" Lydia asked. Mindlessly, she stroked Casanova's head though she felt him stiffen at her touch. He whipped his head around. From his fuzzy chest a deep growl erupted. His golden eyes glared daggers at Allan from across the room.

"We just finished telling them," he answered. "Is something wrong with your cat?" He pointed at Casanova with the pen in his hand.

Lydia continued to scratch behind Casanova's ears. "I'm sorry. I don't think he likes strangers all that much."

"He's very protective of you, isn't he?" Allan tried to smile however it felt like a half-assed effort.

"I mean, I guess," Lydia shrugged.

The officer returned and handed Lydia a mug of steaming coffee. She accepted as graciously as she could, though her mind wandered elsewhere. Manners weren't her priority at the moment. Lydia took a couple small sips before setting the mug down on her coffee table.

"How well did you know Detective Murphy?" Allan took out a pad of paper to go with his pen.

Detective Murphy? Lydia had to think. This felt incredibly alien. She pinched herself to see if she was dreaming. Nope. The tiny stick of pain in her elbow said that she was very much awake and aware. She only knew him as Daniel, Danny, or Danny Boy. Never Detective Murphy. She wanted it to be some other officer. She didn't want it to be Danny. Not him. Not him. Never him.

"Ma'am?" Allan said. His professional tone sounded too foreign for a guy who nearly knocked her over to get inside her house last night.

"Uh?"

"How well did you know Detective Murphy?" He asked again. He held his pen against his notepad, waiting to jot down any useful information.

Lydia shook her head. She rubbed her face with her hands. She couldn't scrub it away. The reality felt like too much weight. Lydia felt like she swallowed heavy rocks and they were sinking into her stomach. It hurt to breathe!

"We were high school sweethearts. Um, we hadn't started talking again until a few days ago. He showed up at my doorstep. Right out of the blue."

"And he brought you along to the first crime scene because…?" Allan gave her this look. The kind of look when an officer of the law played good cop/bad cop. And Allan decided he would play bad cop.

Lydia glanced at the officer beside him, but realized that she wasn't going to be of any use. She looked like a fresh recruit who had been given an easy assignment because they were new blood. The officer wasn't going to offer Lydia any reprieve from Allan's grilling.

"I'm an author. I was looking for new ideas. I've been stuck with my writing project for the past couple of weeks. I needed some new material. Danny…Danny volunteered to help me out." Sighing, Lydia buried her face in her hands. She wanted the world to vanish. When she opened them again, she would be in bed, staring up at the ceiling and Danny Boy would still be alive. If she wished for it hard enough, it might come true.

"Do you know where Detective Murphy was last night? Did you talk to him at all yesterday?"

Lydia removed her hands long enough to answer, "No. We hadn't talked since the day before that." Once more, she lowered her head into her hands.

The scratching of his pen against paper drove her mad. Lydia needed to scream, to cry, to be left alone. Having them here did nothing for her. They didn't assuage her grief. They didn't make her feel better about herself. Out of all the wretches who deserved hell, she knew that she was the most deserving of them all. Lydia felt like someone took a knife, cut her open, and pulled her guts out with an ice creamer scooper. Allan's news left her raw, open, and vulnerable. And she hated being vulnerable. She had only ever let Danny see her like this. If he had been here now, he would be doing his damn best to keep her from falling apart.

"Do you have any idea why he would be snooping around the Upper East Side late at night?"

Lydia only managed to shake her head. She heard Allan scribble down all sorts of notes in his little pad. The officer said nothing. A few minutes later, Allan gave her his condolences. The sound of it gave rise to sour bile in her throat. Lydia reached for a pillow and gripped it fast in her fingers. An idea occurred to her that she could chuck the cushion over at Allan to relieve herself of this twisting knot turning her insides into mush. Then what would that accomplish?

"Would you mind if I left my card in case you think of anything else?"

Again, Lydia shook her head. She heard his footsteps approach. He slipped something unto the coffee table. In her lap, Casanova growled furiously, louder than before, until Allan backed away. Lydia patted his back.

"Oh, hush," she tutted. Lydia raised her head long enough for Allan to say his good-byes and the officer to tip her hat and wish Lydia a good day.

They let themselves out. The door closed shut after them. Lydia sat back and listened for their cars to disappear. She sat there in silence, waiting for the tears to fall. Her eyes watered but she didn't know if she had it in her to cry. She patted Casanova as more of a comforting tool to get her by for now. The hair on Casanova's back relaxed. He went silent and curled up in the corner of the sofa. Slowly, she sat up.

Her place felt as empty as she did. Everything inside of her felt hallowed out. The silence within her brownstone apartment suddenly became deafening. It threatened to eat her alive. Consume her. All that she could think about were the last words she said to him. It was nice seeing you, Danny. Had she known that would be the last thing he would hear from her, she wouldn't have said. She would have told him that she was still in love with him but too much of a coward to go crawling back to him. She pushed him, and pushed him, and pushed him. He never once pushed back. He pressed the edge, but for whatever reason, he never fight for her. Did he want to let her go that badly?

Neither of them would get the chance to find out. Whatever secrets he may held, as cliché as it sounded, Danny took it with him to the grave. Lydia wondered what he had been doing in the Upper East Side. Unless…Oh god no. He couldn't have….No, he couldn't be that stupid. He couldn't have been so damn stupid!

Lydia grabbed for the cushion and buried her face into the soft mohair. She screamed until her voice went hoarse, until she deafened herself. Exhausted, she threw the pillow across the room. Rubbing her face, Lydia couldn't find it in herself to calm down. She laced her fingers together. Her feet thumbed against her floorboards as her legs trembled uncontrollably. Her eyes darted downward. They grazed against the bordered edge of Nicholas's business card. With a shaking hand, she picked it from her coffee table.

See you soon.

Lydia swallowed hard as an idea crept inside her head. A dangerously, wonderfully stupid idea.

Very well, then. If Nicholas wanted her help, it came at a price. Lydia went for her phone in her bedroom and dialed work. She made a weak excuse, but to be fair she just lost someone close to her. Next, she went to her closet. Rifling through her wardrobe, she found nothing appropriate to wear. It was all out of fashion and old and in need of a dusting. Lydia couldn't settle on anything because she couldn't find anything!

Exactly what did one wear when you're about to sell yourself out to a devil?