New Moon Rising Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Reading Sample

  Other Books by J.R. Rain

  Other Books by Matthew S. Cox

  About J.R. Rain

  About Matthew S. Cox

  Return to the Table of Contents

  NEW MOON RISING

  by

  J.R. RAIN &

  MATTHEW S. COX

  Samantha Moon Origins #1

  New Moon Rising

  Published by J.R. Rain

  Copyright © 2009 by J.R. Rain & Matthew S. Cox

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  J.R. Rain:

  To the wonderful fans. Love you all.

  Matthew S. Cox:

  Thank you for reading New Moon Rising! I'd also like to thank J.R. Rain for giving me the opportunity to work with him in the Samantha Moon world. This was an amazingly fun project and I am honored to have the opportunity to work with such a beloved character.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Reading Sample

  Other Books by J.R. Rain

  Other Books by Matthew S. Cox

  About J.R. Rain

  About Matthew S. Cox

  New Moon Rising

  Chapter One

  Three Seconds

  July 2004

  Optimistic that I’m going to finally enjoy a nice relaxing day, I settle into my folding beach chair and stretch my weary legs.

  It’s been almost a year of barely-controlled chaos with us closing on the house, moving, Danny and his buddy Jeff Rodriguez starting their own law firm, registering Tammy for preschool, childproofing our new home so Anthony doesn’t get into anything dangerous… ugh. When I first started working as an agent for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, I never imagined I’d think of going to work as a break.

  But not today.

  It’s Saturday and for once, Danny’s caseload is balanced enough that he can slip away. Over the past fifty some odd weekends, he’s been away from the law firm maybe ten of them. Of course, that left me working on the house by myself while wrangling toddlers. I’m amazed he hasn’t complained about such long hours, but he’s got a much better chance of making the big bucks being the boss. Or one of the bosses. It is, however, a lot more work. With my relatively short tenure as a federal agent and his unpredictable income, taking on a mortgage has been… nail biting, to put it mildly.

  Anyway, enough of that. We’re here to unwind, at least for half a day. The sun’s perched high in the cloudless sky, making the beach around us glow with heat blur. It’s nice to finally be able to enjoy the warmth of catching a few rays. Back when I was attending Cal State Fullerton, I’d slip away to soak up the sun any chance I could get. Sadly, being able to do nothing on a Saturday hasn’t happened in a while, and this body of mine isn’t quite bikini ready. Oh, I mean I’m fit enough… the problem is, I think I’m blinding anyone who looks directly at me. Sorry, people.

  Tammy’s perched in a hole she’s dug to my right, between our folding chairs, playing in the sand while Danny uses one hand to shield Anthony’s eyes while spraying him with sunblock. Whoever invented aerosol sunscreen deserves the Nobel Prize. They were divinely inspired―or they, too, had tried to use cream-based sunblock on a two-year-old. Anthony fidgets and grunts in annoyance, but soon distracts himself by jabbing his little toy shovel at the sand.

  “You’re even prettier than the day we met.” Danny leans over and kisses me. It’s quick, since we are in public after all. Between his dark hair and deep, blue eyes, I could stare at him for hours. And kiss him for hours too. He sits on his beach chair and swings his legs up before lacing his fingers behind his head. “Coming out here today was the best idea you’ve had in weeks, babe. My eyes are vibrating from staring at documents.”

  I chuckle, watching Tammy work feverishly to expand her little den. “Don’t even get me started with documents,” I say. “Feels like all I do is stare at a computer.”

  He rolls his head to the right and smiles at me. “I sleep much better at night, you know that. If you’d gone FBI, I’d be a nervous wreck.”

  Anthony notices Tammy excavating, and decides the sand she’s pushing up the sides of her hole ought to go back in the hole. He babbles urgently while shoveling it on top of her head.

  “No! Anf-nee!” yells Tammy, whipping sand into the air as fast as she can move, spraying both Danny and me.

  My son babbles at her while flicking dirt into her excavation. He thinks the beach is trying to ‘eat’ her and wants to help her. Judging by my husband’s adoring grin, he’s also learned to interpret two-year-old.

  I stifle a laugh and hold up a finger to show Danny. “I got a paper cut Tuesday. Might have to pull desk duty until it heals.” My implication is clear: work as a HUD agent isn’t that exciting, although, in rare times, it can be.

  As Tammy begins to reach critical meltdown mode, Danny grins and tugs Anthony back. Seconds before the explosion of screaming and tears starts, she sniffles at me as if to say, ‘look what he did!’ and resumes her quest to reach China.

  Danny winks. “They should issue you protective gloves or something.”

  I lean back and close my eyes, basking in the warmth of the sun. It’s wonderful to finally have a moment to relax where I don’t have to do anything. Moments like this might be more common if I could ask my parents to watch the kids now and then, but they’re still not really talking to me. Also, their little village might not be the best place for kids. Unless I’m trying to raise a pair of hippies. The locals up there might randomly walk around with lit bongs, or with nothing on. And that’s not exactly a sight to appreciate. Their settlement is mostly old people who never quite got done with the sixties, weed, and free love. And, well, my taking a job for the government didn’t sit well with my parents. They don’t want my ‘mind cont
rol vibes’ around their sanctuary. I tried to explain what I really do, but Mom and Dad are both convinced I’ve ‘turned evil’ or been brainwashed by The Man.

  Oh well. Their loss. Not like they ever really got involved in my life beyond creating me. My older sister Mary Lou basically looked out for me when we were kids. She’s six years older with a strong nurturing instinct. Between my brothers and me, she never needed dolls.

  Right. Beach. Sun. Day off. Not time to dwell on my crazy parents.

  Tammy lets out a shriek like a miniature Xena. I open my eyes and start to sit upright as she springs at Anthony and whacks him upside the head with her little fist. He reacts by staring in total confusion. Tammy stomps her foot, points at the hole she’s been trying to dig, and yells, “No!”

  Anthony looks at her, blinks, and prattles. “No eee bee Tammy.”

  I think he’s saying he doesn’t want the beach to eat her. She draws her fist back to pop him again, but Danny grabs the boy and whisks him up into his arms.

  “Be right back.” He nods toward a distant Italian ice vendor. “Time for my old standby negotiating tactic.”

  “Bribery?” I wink.

  He rolls his eyes. “Peace offerings aren’t bribery. A gift with hope of something happening is not the same as a gift with the requirement of something happening.”

  “Right.” I grin at my attorney hubby before giving Tammy the stern face and tugging her close. “We’ve talked about hitting, haven’t we?”

  She flails her arms. “But Mom! I asked him’a stop ‘frowing sand on me, but he keep ‘frowing sand on my hair. He wouldn’t listen!”

  “I know, sweetie.” I brush sand out of her hair. “But hitting is the wrong way to handle a problem. What should you have done?”

  “Sued him?” Tammy tilts her head.

  It’s difficult to stay upset when exposed to that much cute. I can’t help but laugh. The child grins, knowing she got me.

  “Where did you hear that from?” I ask.

  “Daaaadddy.” Tammy digs her toes into the sand.

  Of course. Oh, please don’t let her grow up to be an ambulance chaser. “Well, sweetie. Suing people is―”

  Her gaze shifts to the left, looking past me the exact moment the sudden feeling of being watched falls on my shoulders like ice water. My heart slams in my chest. For an instant, I feel like I’m the girl in the horror movie with the monster behind her she doesn’t see. But hey, I’m a brunette. The dark-haired one usually survives.

  I whip around, one hand going for my purse (and duty weapon), but freeze at finding empty sand. The most menacing thing anywhere near me is a borderline-obese seagull with its head stuck in an empty French fry carton. Still, the sensation like I’m about to be sliced open by a serial killer hasn’t weakened. Despite my staring into open air, my skin crawls like I’ve come eye-to-eye with true evil.

  Beachgoers fade into the periphery of my awareness; the rush of my breathing roars as loud as Niagara Falls. In the middle of a sweltering beach, I shiver, my arms prickling with goosebumps. Any second now, I know I’m going to die.

  What the hell is happening?

  Heaviness presses in on my chest, robbing the breath from my lungs and making each heartbeat painful. I reach to my right and back, searching for Tammy, trying to put myself between whatever this is and my child. The instant my fingers make contact with her shoulder, all the dread vanishes.

  “The woman’s gone, Mommy,” says Tammy in an eerie calm tone.

  I blink, gazing mesmerized at the empty beach for a second more before whipping my head around to stare at her. “What? What woman?”

  “The one who was watching you.” Tammy points at a spot of open sand about ten feet away. “She’s not there anymore.”

  I stare at the conspicuous lack of footprints, but can’t argue that the foreboding evil had seemed to be coming from that exact place. After snagging my purse, I stand, stuffing my hand inside to grab my sidearm, but not drawing it. Out of the corner of my eye, I note Danny and Anthony about two hundred yards off at the ice vendor, in line. No one nearby is acting odd… well, no one except for me.

  After creeping a few steps forward, I crouch to examine the ground, but the undisturbed sand proves no one had been there. Ugh. Maybe the stress really is getting to me? How messed up is it that taking a day to escape stress winds up causing it? But, my kid saw someone. I twist back to face her. “What did this wom―?”

  Tammy’s gone.

  Alarm bells go off in my head. I spin about in a circle, searching, but don’t see any purple. She’s in a purple swimsuit with a little skirt frill and pink flip-flops. At the realization my brain is framing up her description for a police report, my panic turns everything around me to a blur of color and meaningless sound.

  “Tammy?” I call, not quite screaming, on my way back to the hole she dug. Her flops are still beside it, like someone grabbed her and plucked her straight out of them. “Tammy!” I shout, turning.

  A few people look at me.

  No! This isn’t happening.

  “Holy shit!” yells a man.

  I stare at him and he dives to the beach from his chair. Oh, crap. My gun’s out. “Calm down. I’m a federal agent.” Back in the purse it goes. “Have you seen my daughter? She’s four? Purple bathing suit, black hair?”

  He (and the woman sitting beside him) shake their heads, still staring at me like I’m a psycho.

  “Tammy?” I call again, spinning in place.

  Anthony and Danny are still at the ice vendor, not having noticed me shouting. Really? All it takes is looking away for three seconds and a child can vanish. I know this, but seriously?! Not Tammy! Not my daughter! Come on, Sam, think! I force fear and panic into a box and slam the lid down on their arms. Shaking with nerves, I try to assess my surroundings. Nothing in our ‘campsite’ is disturbed, nor are any adult-sized footprints obvious, other than the trail Danny left.

  I don’t see anyone hurrying off with a small child in tow, no signs of a disturbance in the crowd, and most alarmingly, no screaming Tammy calling for her mother. A line of small depressions in the sand could be her footprints leading off. I follow the trail up the beach for about sixty feet, heading away from the water, but it’s soon indistinguishable when the tracks merge with an area of heavy foot traffic.

  People jostle around me on both sides, their arms laden with folding chairs, umbrellas, coolers, and portable stereos. What’s wrong with them all? They don’t care that my child is missing? Why are they going on about their business like the Earth hasn’t just stopped rotating? One guy bumps me a little hard with his giant blue Coleman cooler, then has the nerve to glare at me.

  With a snarl, I give him a shove that knocks him over sideways, and trot a few steps farther in the same direction the footprints led me. I spin, searching in a circle, but there are no four-year-olds in purple swimsuits anywhere in sight.

  “Tammy!” I scream, getting a few looks.

  Shit!

  I yank my cell phone from my purse and open the contacts list, hunting for Denise Pagano, an FBI agent who I wound up assisting my second month on the job. We became fast friends, and I’m not above calling in a favor for something like this.

  My head swims with lectures about the first forty-eight hours being the most critical when children are abducted. Stranger abductions are rarer than people think―but they’re also the most dangerous for the child. Tears stream down my cheeks. I know all the stats and timelines, but it’s not supposed to happen to my daughter!

  Two seconds after I press the cell phone against my ear, my undirected gaze lands on a skinny little girl in a purple swimsuit, thirty feet away by a row of booths and stands near the parking area. It’s Tammy! She sways side to side, grinning up at an older gray-haired man with a large belly, white T-shirt, and blue Bermuda shorts. He’s smiling, but looking around more than at her. My stomach starts to clench, but I get the sense he’s wondering where her parents are, not hoping to evade being seen. />
  I sprint across the parking area, heading straight for them. The old man looks at me and points at Tammy as if to ask, ‘is she yours?’ My nerves calm ever so slightly when he reacts to my nod with a relieved slouch.

  Tammy’s in the midst of telling this man about her favorite show, Barney & Friends. I heard a rumor that the CIA was considering using long-term exposure to it as an interrogation technique, but I’d gladly have it on 24/7 in exchange for never being this worried ever again. After vaulting a row of plain, backless benches between the storefronts and the lot, I swoop in on my kid.

  She squeals with delight when I haul her into the air and squeeze her close. “Tammy! You scared me to death!”

  “It’s all right, miss,” says the old man. “Your little sister’s fine.”

  I lift my face from the crook of Tammy’s neck to peer quizzically at the guy. Either his eyes are shot or he’s giving me a compliment. “Little sister? Oh, thanks. She’s my daughter.”

  He raises two bushy white eyebrows. “Pardon me. You look young.” He chuckles. “Guess everyone looks young when you’re my age.”

  “Sorry, Mommy. Mr. Feagans looked lonely.”

  The man waves to Tammy before tipping his fisherman’s cap at me. “Beautiful daughter you’ve got there. Speaking of beautiful, I’d best get on back to my wife.”

  I nod at him, unable to decide if I should thank him for watching her or be upset that his evident loneliness attracted her.

  “Sam?” Danny jogs up to me, masterfully balancing Anthony in one arm and three Italian ices in the other hand. “What’s up? Why are you all the way over here?”

  I lean against him, still clinging to Tammy. She gets squirmy with the treats in sight, so I shift enough to let her grab one, and she goes right for the blue ice. “Looked away for a couple seconds, and she disappeared.”

  Danny’s expression darkens. Before he can ask me how I can ‘just lose her like that,’ I explain that weird feeling I got, like someone was sneaking up behind me with a knife.