Chapter Thirteen
“What do you mean, she’s gone missing?” Dawn tried to keep the rising panic out of her voice. She could tell the man on the other end of the phone was already worried enough without her adding to his panic about his missing daughter.
“Her car was found this morning at the base of one of the hiking trails. It’s where we always parked when we went up there to scout around. A search party went out this afternoon to look for her.” Mr. Webster choked back a sob. “We believe she went up to the Superstitions sometime Sunday evening, but I can’t believe she went up there alone at night. She knows how dangerous that could be.” He couldn’t hold back the sob this time and it accompanied his next simple questions, “Why? Why do you think she would she do that?”
For a moment Dawn was too shocked to speak. She felt numb and terrified at the idea of what might have happened to her friend. Even worse, she knew why Chloe had taken off to the Superstitions Sunday night. Guilt was nearly as strong as her panic right now.
But it was only a dream.
“Did she call you be-before she left Sunday?” She finally managed to stutter. “Do-do you think she was searching for the gold mine?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone before Chloe’s father spoke again. He sounded as if he had gained some composure back. “I spoke to her Sunday morning, and she didn’t mention anything about going to the mountain. In fact, she talked about the Open House at school on Monday night—last night. She was looking forward to meeting with the parents of her students.”
He was quiet for a few seconds, and Dawn heard a heavy trembling sigh on the other end. “If something has happened to her, it’s my fault. My stupid obsession with finding that gold mine is to blame. I will never forgive my—” His voice cracked and another loud sob echoed through the receiver.
“Please, Mr. Webster, it’s not your fault,” she attempted to console him. It’s my fault. Should she tell him about the dream? Her chest felt as if a boulder the size of a house had just rolled over it. Another wave of crushing guilt left her unable to breathe for a moment. She wouldn’t mention the dream to Chloe’s father yet, she decided as she finally took a gasping breath.
There could still be a good, if not great, outcome. Maybe Chloe had fallen on one of those narrow steep trails and broken a leg or something even less serious. There were lots of people looking for her and they would find her before it was too late. She just had to be alive. Dawn had to believe that, because she couldn’t bear the alternative.
“I will be in touch,” she said quietly. “I have to go right now. But I-I—” She wished she could tell him she was confident his daughter was okay, but saying it out loud might sound as false as it was beginning to feel. The crushing boulder rolled back over her chest and was now holding her heart prisoner under its monstrous girth. “I’m so sorry,” she said softly as she pushed the end button on her phone.
She sat in her white pickup staring blankly ahead, yet seeing nothing, even though school had just let out for the day and she was surrounded by students and dozens of other people. Parents were picking up their kids; big yellow buses lined the edge of the parking lot filling up with the students who lived too far to walk home from school. Normal life was going on as usual, in spite of the fact a beautiful vibrant woman was missing and her disappearance might have a tragic ending.
An invisible icicle formed along Dawn’s spine as the unforgiving terrain of those jagged mountain peaks crowded into her mind. The stories she read about all the people who vanished somewhere along those spooky trails joined her dreaded thoughts. Chloe had been gone since Sunday night and it was late Tuesday afternoon. That was a long time—far too long—to be in the dangerous conditions that existed in the Superstitions, especially alone, and possibly injured. An entire night among the towering rock walls of Dracula’s evil lair. Don’t even go there.
A nauseated heaviness settled in the pit of her stomach. If something really horrible happened to Chloe, she would never be able to forgive herself.
But it had only been a dream. Had Chloe seriously believed it meant something more? She choked back the bitter tasting lump in her throat; it felt like it had settled on top of the sick mass already filling her stomach. She recalled the way Chloe responded Sunday afternoon when she told her about the dream. Although she tried to act as if she didn’t think it meant anything, Dawn hadn’t missed the way her blue gaze sparkled with unspoken curiosity as she considered the vision about the rock face on the desert floor.
Mateo was coming for dinner later this evening, but she needed him now. The worry over her friend’s fate had driven a stake of foreboding through her heart, and his strength and love was the only thing that could even begin to sooth her pain.
She felt as if the rest of life wasn’t happening outside of the cab of her small pickup truck as she drove out of the school parking lot. She knew she should stay in her classroom for at least another hour or so, grading papers and preparing a new lesson for tomorrow’s classes, but there was no way she could concentrate on anything other than her missing friend and talking to or seeing Mateo as soon as possible.
She had to tell him about the crazy dream she had about the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine. Maybe he knew something more? The Apaches had been living here far longer than anyone else. Perhaps they had some theories about the location of the mine that weren’t mentioned in the history books and could give them a clue as to Chloe’s whereabouts.
But he wasn’t answering his cell. She called him at least a dozen times and texted as many times since she had gotten home. Although she assumed he was probably traveling back from his business trip to Tuscan, she couldn’t imagine he didn’t get cell phone service somewhere along the route. She was leaving him a frantic message every single time. ‘Call me right away. It’s an emergency.’ Why wasn’t he answering?
To pass the endless panic-filled time, she finished putting together the lasagna she planned for dinner, and popped it in the oven to bake. Meanwhile, she tore up lettuce and chopped veggies for a salad, then slathered butter and fresh roasted garlic on a loaf of bread to accompany the main course. This dinner was her specialty and everyone who had ever eaten her lasagna said it was the best. Making this special entrée for the man of her dreams was—an ominous feeling whipped through her body at that thought.
No. Not the man of her dreams. She firmly reminded herself Mateo was not the faceless stranger who ravished her body and bitten her in those weird kinky dreams. He was the real man she loved more than life itself. Although that sounded obsessed and extreme, it was true.
As the tantalizing smells of the baking lasagna filled Dawn’s little apartment, her anxiety grew. She knew she would not be able to force a single bite down over the sickening lump that refused to dissipate from her throat, but hopefully, Mateo would eat.
He still wasn’t responding to her urgent calls and texts. What if something had happened to him, too? An urgent sense of foreboding clutched at her heart. Her hand instinctively covered the spot over her left breast when it felt like her heart ceased to beat for a moment. Stop it…he was fine. Chloe was fine. Soon, everything in her world would be perfect again.
She switched on the ceiling lights and stared out the kitchen window above the sink. Nighttime was closing in. She always loved this time of the evening, just as the last glow of the sun was about to fade from the horizon; the beginning of the end of another day, then the misty shadow of the moon as it began to form a faint outline in the velvet haze of the night—right before the sea of stars began to dot the sky with their sparkling display.
But right now she was only recalling the horror she felt on that night a week and a half ago when she and Chloe had been hiking up the trail on the Superstitions. Twilight on that night had not felt so enchanting. Her eerie feeling had been so consuming that something—or someone—was watching them. Or stalking them? The terror she felt had been so strong she vowed to never go back up there on those scary mountains again.
With her arms wrapped tightly around her midsection, she remained frozen to the spot as the fading landscape outside her window became a blur before her eyes. Her own embrace around her body tightened, but the shivers wouldn’t cease. Her teeth began to chatter as if the temperature had dropped to minus zero, even though it was still sweltering.
Chloe was somewhere up there among those menacing dark shadows and deathly trails, which had led to so much tragedy and loss of lives since the beginning of history. She was helpless and alone—and someone or something—was watching her.
Dawn couldn’t breathe. Her blurred vision began to fade to black and her legs felt too weak to support her.
She could not allow herself to believe there was actually neck and wrist-biting, blood-sucking monsters waiting to attack innocent people along the sinister trails of the Superstitions, or anywhere else in the world.
But she permitted those horrifying thoughts to seep into her mind and now there was no escape. She reached out to grab the edge of the counter, because she felt herself spiraling downward. But before everything went completely black, a pair of strong arms prevented her fall.
****
“Udaya!” Mateo pulled her to him. He could feel the violent shakes rattling through her body. He tightened his hold on her. “I received all your messages once I was in cell range, and I rushed here as fast as I could.”
Her arms wrapped around his neck. She buried her face against his chest as loud gasping sobs shook through her body.
When he first turned her around and gazed down at her, he glimpsed a look of complete and utter horror in her hazel eyes and in her expression. A jagged pain tore through his heart.
For several more minutes, he held her as they leaned against her kitchen counter. Her uncontrollable crying made her entire body convulse and her tears soaked the front of his black western shirt. Remorse washed over him as her inconsolable state of anguish seeped into every pore of his being. Her pain was now his pain, and it was more gut-wrenching than he ever could have imagined.
In his secluded world atop of the Superstitions, they did not have to deal with this sort of sorrow. Now he was wondering if he made a grave mistake by not making Dawn his mate from the first moment she had come to the mountain. She could have been spared all this grief.
“Something terrible has happened,” Dawn managed to say through her sobs.
He kissed the top of her blonde head and tenderly rubbed her back with his hand. “I’m so very sorry about your friend, my love.”
A couple more sniffles escaped from her before her weeping began to subside. “You know a-about Chloe?”
“It’s, well, I heard about her disappearance on the radio—on my way back from Tuscan this evening,” he lied.
Dawn remained in his arms with her face still pressed against his chest, unmoving, except for the continued tremors shooting through her body. Her intense crying jag seemed to be over for now. But his anguish was only increasing by the second. He did not want to continue to lie to her, but in her fragile state of mind, there was no way she could handle the unbelievable truth of what happened to her friend.
“Let’s sit down and talk,” he said quietly. His breath brushed lightly against the loose strands at the top of her head and he noticed her blonde hair flutter slightly. Right now, Mateo felt like a complete contradiction in every way. Part of him was a real, living, breathing man, yet, at this moment he felt like a murderous monster.
If only his father hadn’t sensed Chloe’s presence first? Maybe, if he had been paying attention he could have prevented her tragic fate. He grunted inwardly with disgust. It probably wouldn’t have mattered. A fresh blood source so close to the village and gold mine meant she didn’t stand a chance regardless of who found her first.
Mateo pictured the way she looked at the pizza place just a few nights ago. Her long brown hair tumbled over one shoulder in a teasing style and her brilliant blue eyes looked at him and his brothers with an enticing glint. She was full of life and promise. A sick feeling twisted Mateo’s gut into a knot.
Now, the beautiful young woman named Chloe Webster sat in the back of the big cave with the other real ones who served as human blood sources for the mature vampires of the clan; her blue eyes void of their once shimmering sparkle, unseeing, and staring off into the blackness.
“Tell me what happened?” Mateo asked as he sat down next to Dawn on her beige tweed couch and pulled her into his embrace. Her body caved into his. Occasional shudders from her recent crying bout still shook through her.
“I think Chloe is missing because of me,” she finally said in a shaky voice. “If anything has happened to her,” she sniffed loudly before adding, “It’s my fault.”
“That’s not true,” he retorted in a forceful tone. He drew in a heavy sigh and began to stroke her hair gently. “For whatever reason Chloe went up to the Superstitions, she did it all on her own. You had nothing to do with it.”
Her head shook from side to side in a weak motion. She didn’t move away from his tight hold as she began to speak in a voice barely loud enough for him to hear. “There’s something I need to tell you. You’re probably going to think I’m crazy when I’m done.”
“I would never think that. I love you. You can tell me anything.” There was a heavy feeling pressing against his heart as he held his breath and waited for her to speak again.
“I had a really vivid dream. Like all my dreams, or nightmares, I’ve had lately.” She exhaled a sharp breath.
Mateo rested his cheek against the top of her head. “Another erotic one?” he asked in a confused voice.
“No,” she replied quickly. “It wasn’t quite as realistic as those had been, thank goodness. This one was about the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine.”
A frown drew his brows together. An unknown dread gripped him in its tight rein. “Okay? What does this have to do with Chloe?” He heard Dawn suck in another deep breath.
“Generations of her family have been hunting for the gold mine. They were all certain the clues left by that old miner, Jacob Waltz, would lead them to the location.”
“There have been many people who believed, or still do believe the gold mine exists, but it’s just a legend, nothing more,” he replied as more uneasiness crept through him.
She nodded her head slightly. “But suppose it really did exist and the clues Waltz left had been interpreted wrong all this time?” She pulled away from him and looked up at him. Tears that hadn’t fallen were still cradled in the lower lids of her tortured gaze. Moisture from the ones that had already escaped glistened on the tips of her long brown eye lashes.
“What if someone—like me—had a dream, or call it a vision or whatever, that revealed the correct way to decipher the old man’s clues?”
Mateo shook his head in bewilderment as a creeping sense of building panic inched through him. His carefully planned façade was beginning to crumble around him. If Dawn guessed—or dreamed—about what was really in that hidden gold mine, their time here in her world could be over.
“Sunday afternoon I had a dream about the clues Chloe revealed to me when we were camping and hunting for the gold mine that first weekend. This one was pretty realistic, too. Not in the way the sensual dreams were, but I dreamt I was actually standing on the mountain looking directly into a huge cave that contained rich veins of gold ore. I knew I had found the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine. Well, in my dream, I knew, anyway.”
He cleared his throat nervously. “But, Dawn, it was only a dream.”
“Yes, I know,” she agreed, and glanced off into the distance as if she was remembering every tiny aspect of her dream. “When I told Chloe about it, I think she thought the new details revealed in my dream were really significant. She tried to act all nonchalant, but I know she was dying to go check them out. I figured she would want to go back up there next weekend. I never imagined she would take off alone Sunday night.” Dawn’s eyes filled with new tears that spilled down her cheeks. “I just hope nothing happened to her because my crazy dre—”
“No, don’t even think it,” he cut in. “She is obviously an experienced gold seeker and hiker. She had to know going up to the Superstitions alone to hunt for clues you saw in a dream was foolish.”
“But I—”
“No,” he interrupted her again as he placed his fingertips against her trembling lips. “I’m not going to let you blame yourself for something you had nothing to do with.”
She shook her head and opened her mouth to speak again in spite of the way his fingers were pressed against her lips, but he didn’t give her a chance.
“Believe me. You didn’t have anything to do with this. What happened to Chloe is not your fault.” His hand moved away from her lips and his fingertips brushed lightly against the tears streaming down the side of her face.
She continued to stare into his dark gaze. He lowered his hand away from her cheek and cupped her chin. If only his loving touch could take away her guilt and pain. His bite could make her forget, he thought fleetingly.
The unexpected thought caused a raging thirst to rise in his throat. The yearning for her sweet tasting blood filled his senses. His mouth drew into a tight line as he tried to concentrate on what she was saying. He fought the beast inside him with every fiber of his being even though he was afraid it was going to win out sooner or later.
“We don’t really know wh-what happened to her, yet,” she said quietly. “Maybe, she just slipped and fell and is hurt, but she’ll be okay once they find her.”
He forced himself to nod in agreement. He slowly opened his mouth to speak. The thirsty fiend settled further down the back of his throat for the moment. “That’s possible.” His strength was growing…he was beginning to feel like his human self was gaining control.
A puny smile rested on his lips as he added, “Maybe she found the gold mine and ran off with all her new-found wealth so she wouldn’t have to share it with anyone.” He swallowed the bitter tasting bile in his mouth. Indeed, Chloe had found the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine she had been looking for all her life. She was there now, sitting among all the riches, but she would never be leaving.
A frail smile barely curved Dawn’s lips. “Yeah, maybe she really did find it? She knows those mountains so well, and she would never go unprepared. It could be possible she’s up there somewhere mining all that gold right now, and…” Her voice trailed off and the feeble smile faded. She shrugged her hunched shoulders as if her words were too unrealistic to even say out loud.
He pulled her close against him. He couldn’t bear the look of utter despair in her tear-laden gaze again. “I’m taking you to my place tonight. My condo is close by, and I think it will be good for you to get away from here for a while.”
“But I cooked dinner,” she mumbled.
“And it smells delicious. We’ll take it to my place.” He spent last night pretending to be in Tuscan so he could think about how to handle the Chloe situation when he saw Dawn again. He had also been getting the condo he rented ready, with the hopes she would go there with him tonight. It would be tricky to be at the condo with her only at nighttime, but he was determined to create as many beautiful memories there as was ‘humanly’ possible, because once they made their eternal home at the top of the Superstitions, those would be the last reminiscences they would have of being together here in her world.