Then there was a smile. Relief from the pain in her heart. And she held a small, precious little baby. This was an angel, her angel, and she’d treat this precious little gift the way an angel should be treated. Nobody would hurt her baby. Nobody. Even though it meant begging another for help, because she couldn’t go home. Couldn’t risk having her sweet little baby near Daddy. That baby who had her daddy’s eyes. Even though pain and shame twisted through her, because she knew it was wrong, knew it wasn’t right. Nobody had to know, nobody—
Daddy found her. More than two months after she’d left the hospital, after she’d run from him, he found her, knocking on the door of the small apartment she rented. The house belonged to the lady she cleaned for, a sweet lady who needed some company around the house, who needed a friend.
Daddy came inside like he owned the place, and he smiled when he saw her. Smiled at her like he owned her. Then he saw the baby, sleeping in her crib. She wanted to cry, wanted to scream. But he couldn’t make her come back, couldn’t force her to do anything.
She wouldn’t let him. He couldn’t force it on her. She would talk to him, show him that he couldn’t make her do those things anymore, show him that he didn’t control her.
And he didn’t. But she paid the price. When the phone rang, her neighbor calling to invite her for dinner, she slipped out of the room, not wanting her father to hear that conversation—she had a friend, for the first time ever. A friend. Her father couldn’t know…
Because she needed to keep that precious secret, she lost something more precious. She returned to the room only a minute or so later. And saw her father standing over the crib holding one of the pillows from the couch in his hand. He lifted his head to look at her, a smile on his face. He dropped the pillow on the floor. Your baby isn’t breathing, angel. After you deal with this, you’ll come home. You belong with me. Only me…
* * *
DEZ finally managed to tear herself away, sobs strangling her.
Jacqueline sank to the ground, whimpering like a caged, trapped animal. “No, Daddy…no…no…”
The door to the hospital room opened. As Mayor Joshua Moore stepped out and found his wife huddling on the floor, another person joined them on the hospital floor, his arrival announced by the pinging of the elevator.
Dez, her heart lurching in her chest, turned her head and looked.
His face had changed a lot—some of the images she’d gotten from Jacqueline reached back from her early childhood. But the cruelty, the possessiveness, and the malice, that was all still the same. Older, shoulders stooped, but nothing about him looked frail.
He glanced from Jacqueline to Dez, and his face twisted into an ugly, cold mask of rage. “You…you fucking bitch, get away from my girl.” He started toward them, moving faster than he should have been able to, Dez thought.
Taylor came in between them, but he wasn’t the only one. He wasn’t even the one who got to the old man first. That was Joshua, his face lacking that smiling politician’s glow, his eyes all but blazing with fury.
“You…old man, I told you, and I meant it. You won’t get near her again, you hear me?” Joshua grabbed the lapels of the older man’s jacket and whirled him around, slamming him into the wall.
Next to Dez, Jacqueline gasped, her eyes glazed.
* * *
EVEN a blind man would have been able to sense the fear coming off the woman huddled on the floor. The fear. And the hatred. Taylor looked down at Jacqueline, his heart torn in two. He wanted justice—but Anna needed peace.
A few feet away, Joshua snarled at his father-in-law.
“You can’t fucking stop me from seeing my girl,” Beard sneered. “She’s my girl, my angel. I got a right to see her, and my grandson.”
“My angel…” Jacqueline whispered. Her voice was ragged. Broken. She shook her head, the motion jerky, disjointed. “No. I’m not. Not his angel,” she muttered. Her voice was thick and when she looked up, her pupils were mere pinpricks.
Dez knelt by her side, careful not to touch her. “No, you’re not. You’re a grown woman, a wife. If you don’t want to see him, you don’t have to. He can’t make you do anything, Jacqueline.”
“Shut up, bitch!” Beard snarled. “I’ll damn well see her.”
“Watch your mouth.” Taylor moved between them, cutting off the man’s view of his daughter. From the corner of his eye, he could see how she relaxed, even if it was just a little. “You won’t talk to her like that. And no. If Mrs. Moore doesn’t want to see you, you can’t force her.”
The old man jerked his chin. “You think you can keep me away?”
Taylor smiled.
But Moore was the one who leaned in. In a low voice, he said, “I’ll fucking stop you, you fucking pervert.”
“And ruin your reputation, Mr. Mayor?” Beard started to laugh, a nasty, low little chuckle. “Come on. You go ahead and do it. Coward. Can’t protect your wife or your son. Look at you—the people who did this are standing right there.”
“You don’t worry about him.” Moore shook him so hard the man’s head smacked into the wall. Harsh flags of color rode high on his cheeks and there was a look of livid, complete hatred in Moore’s eyes. “You worry about me.”
Taylor heard the familiar sound of feet on the tile floor. Cop shoes. One didn’t tend to forget that sound after hearing it a few hundred times. “Moore, you’re about to have company,” he warned. He glanced down at Jacqueline’s heartbroken, terrified face, the fear that turned her eyes black. Small shudders wracked her body every few minutes.
Worst of all, she kept whispering, “I’m not his angel. I’m not his angel. I’m not…”
Shit. He could try to find justice for Anna. But if Anna had glimpsed any of the hell he saw in this woman’s eyes…peace or justice…Although how in the hell he could help this woman find peace without finding her justice, he didn’t know.
He gripped Moore’s shoulder and tugged. “Let him go now, before the cops decide to hassle you. He’s the bastard here. Not you.”
Joshua shrugged his hand off, although he did let go. Slowly he backed away, unable to tear his gaze away from his father-in-
law. “You have no idea what he did.”
“Yeah, I think I do.” He focused his eyes on Beard. “And if this slimy fuck has a lick of sense in his brain, he’ll run. Fast and far. Although he can’t find a rock to hide under, not from me.”
“It’s too late.” Joshua shook his head. “It’s too fucking late.”
Taylor continued to stare at the man. “Is it ever too late to ruin a man?”
“You can’t fucking ruin me.” Beard sneered at him. He shot a hateful glare at Moore, then looked back at Taylor. “Stupid, fucking idiots. If I want to see my daughter, I will, and you can’t stop me.”
“I can.”
Her voice was a shaking, quiet sound. And when they turned to look at her, Jacqueline Moore stood on legs that were wobbling and none too steady. “I can stop you…Daddy. You fucking bastard.”
As the cops drew near, she furiously dashed away tears. She wouldn’t look at Taylor as she edged around him until she could lean against her husband. She took her hand in his and, in that moment, Taylor realized she was tiny. Frail, even. Almost as delicate as a child.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, choking the words out as she stared up at him. “I’m so sorry.”
Joshua brushed her hair back. “You don’t apologize to me,” he whispered. “Not for what he did to you, not for any of it.”
She shook her head. “I can’t stay quiet, though. I’m sorry.”
Then she looked at the police officers who were now gathered around them, frowning like they weren’t sure why they had even been called up there. “This man—my father—killed my baby when she was just three months old. He held a pillow over her face until she suffocated. The doctors said it was sudden infant death. But it wasn’t.” Her voice shattered and she whispered, �
��It was him.”
As Beard lunged for her, the cops caught him and wrestled him back.
In the chaos, only three people heard what she said next.
“And it was his baby. He raped me. For years. And he got me pregnant.”
Joshua stumbled back, falling into a wall as he stared at her in dumbfounded shock. “Jacqui?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again. “I’m so, so sorry.”
CHAPTER TWENTY–TWO
“IS she here?” Taylor lingered by the car while Dez stood halfway between him and the cemetery.
She glanced back at him, her face unsmiling, her eyes sad. “I don’t know.” She sighed and rubbed the heel of her hand over her heart. “For the first time, I really don’t know what to tell her, either. She wanted me to help Jacqueline and I don’t know that I can.”
“You tell her that you did what you could,” Taylor said, his voice stark. Then he looked down. “And you tell her that I love her. Can you do that?”
Tears clogged her throat. “Yeah. I can do that.”
“I wish…” He blew out a sigh, shaking his head. “I’ve never really wanted to carry any of the burdens the rest of you carry, you know. I don’t want any of those gifts. But right now, I wish I had something, just enough to see her once.”
Unable to stand the distance between them, even though it was just physical, Dez went to him. “I think you do have a gift, Taylor. It’s quieter. It’s what lets you see others. And I think you help us focus—keep us calmer. That’s a gift. Maybe you can’t see the ghosts or hear the voices. But you do something that lets us see them. That’s a gift.”
He turned his face to her hand, rubbed his grizzled cheek against it. “Yeah, I notice you sleep when I’m around. Is that why you think you love me?”
“Think?” She lifted a brow at him. “Jones, there’s no think to it. I might have thought I loved Will Smith when I was in high school. He’s cute, he’s funny…and I didn’t know him. You, however…you might be nice to look at, but you’re not exactly funny. You’re not always easy to be around.”
She leaned against him and kissed him. Against his lips, she murmured, “And I still love you. That I can sleep better around you, focus better, that’s just a nice benefit. But I’d love you even if there were ten thousand more screaming ghosts in my head whenever you were near. You’re it for me, Jones. I like it that way.”
Then she sighed and looked back at the cemetery. “I have to go in there, at least try to see if I can talk to her now.”
“You don’t think you will?”
“I just don’t know.” She stroked a hand down his uninjured arm and twined their fingers, bringing his clasped hand to her lips. “I guess I go find out.”
She let go of his hand and made her way into the cemetery. The wind, cold and biting, blew through her hair. But it was a regular wind, carrying nothing but the cold of the fall. She lowered her shields and although there were whispers of the departed skittering along her senses, none of them belonged to Anna.
Dejected, she shoved her hands into her pockets and began to wander around through the silent graveyard. The sun played peekaboo with the clouds, coming out every so often to cast slivers of light on the headstones. Every once in a while, a whisper would grow louder, but never real. Never complete. Nothing got loud enough to really call to her. None of these ghosts needed her. They were just echoes of themselves.
She hadn’t arrived in time to see them move on, and now she never would.
She’d hoped she hadn’t been too late for Anna—it didn’t seem that could be the case. Anna had been so real, so complete and solid, just hours earlier. But now…
There was nothing.
Turning, she stared back at Taylor. And she knew she wouldn’t even have to tell him. He could tell, just by looking at her.
* * *
SHE sat in the car, staring up at the cottage. But Dez couldn’t climb out. Their job here, as far as it went, was done. Ivy was safe. Mark was safe. Tristan had justice—everything that Brendan had done was likely to come out now and Tristan’s family would know he hadn’t killed himself. Although Dez didn’t know if that knowledge would really make things any easier.
Anna—she, too, had whatever peace Dez could give her. Dez wanted to see the girl off to a real and lasting peace, but she wasn’t so sure that would happen. And Jacqueline, damn it, was there anything more she could do there? Dez didn’t know.
But as she sat out there in Taylor’s car, she couldn’t go into the warm, quiet little cottage. She just couldn’t. Swallowing, she looked over at him. “Take me to your house—the manor. I need to go there.”
He stiffened.
“That’s…not a good idea.” His hand tightened on the steering wheel, gripping it with a force that turned his knuckles white.
“Why not?”
“Bad memories, Dez. Too many ghosts. My mom killed herself there, my dad died there. And let’s not forget Anna.” He shook his head. “No. We’re not doing that. It was risky enough taking you there once.”
“Risky?” Dez closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of the seat. “You forget I’m comfortable talking to ghosts. I’d rather talk to ghosts than deal with what’s been going on here the past few days. It’s driving me nuts. I’d rather get back to what I know, what I can handle.”
“You need a break.”
“I can’t take a break.” With a heavy sigh, she looked over at him and shook her head. “You know that. At least not until I try to reach Anna. She’s not all that strong, Taylor. She’s not tied to her grave. She reached me where her body was left, but she wasn’t completely there, either. Maybe that’s part of the problem. She’s had to waste too much strength trying to reach out and find me. Maybe I need to go to her. And my gut tells me if I find her anywhere, it will be at your house, where she was happiest.”
His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “Happy? Shows what you know about our life. We weren’t ever happy.” But he started the car.
* * *
HIS hands were shaking, Taylor realized.
This was something he didn’t want to do. Not just because of Anna, though. Anna, his father…his mother. Fuck, his mother. Even after all this time, he was still pissed off at her. She’d spent plenty of her time quietly whoring around, damn near all of her life in the bottle. And after Anna died, instead of trying to be there for the family she had left, she fell completely into that bottle, and ended up taking her own life.
If ever he was likely to force Dez to meet a ghost, it was when he took her into his house. And he didn’t want her to bear the brunt of his mother’s misery, damn it.
The ten-minute drive seemed to pass in seconds. If he could have figured out a way to change her mind, he would have. But no words would come. Usually, arguing with people, talking them around into doing what he wanted, came easy—and when that didn’t work, he just bullied them into it.
Of course, he’d never had that luck with Desiree Lincoln.
Why would it change now?
As he pulled in front of the graceful old manor, his gut was in knots. “I don’t want you here,” he bit off, still gripping the steering wheel. If he thought it would do any good, he would have just driven off.
He knew better, though. She’d just find a way to come back. Even if she didn’t get inside. If she was going to make contact with anybody here, he didn’t want her doing it alone.
She was quiet, sitting next to him and just waiting. He looked over at her and said again, “I don’t want you here. I don’t want you in there.”
“I was in there before.” She stroked a finger across his mouth. “Nothing happened. Besides, it’s not like I don’t deal with ghosts. It’s what I do.”
“But these are my ghosts.”
“All the more reason you should want me there…so we can put them to rest.” She rolled to her knees and leaned over, kissed him gently. “Come on, Jones. It’s not like doing
this is going to make things any worse.”
He caught her neck when she would have pulled away. With a hard, quick kiss, he muttered, “Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.”
“Hmm. You’re probably right.”
Dez stroked his cheek, a habit she’d developed that somehow managed to make his heart stutter. Then again, what about her didn’t do that?
“Okay.” He pulled away and stared through the windshield toward the manor, dread curdling through him. “Let’s get this done.”
* * *
THE silence of the huge house was almost suffocating. Dez could hear the soft thuds of her booted heels on the floor, the softer sound of Taylor’s footsteps, their breathing…nothing else.
She couldn’t even hear the sound of a heater kicking on, water in the pipes. Nothing.
Just silence.
And emptiness. It was a complete emptiness, too. She hadn’t lowered her shields completely but they were down enough to let her get a good, solid feel of things. And there was nothing here to feel. Nothing.
After he’d led her through the house in silence, she looked at him. “Where was Anna’s room?”
He didn’t look at her. His right arm hung at his side, the cast a stark white. His left hand was jammed into his pocket and, judging by the way his veins were popped out on his arm, he had it clenched into a rigid fist. When he spoke, his lips barely moved. “You want to see her room.”
She moved to stand in front of him. Staring at him, she wished she could just tell him, Okay, let’s go. We’ll just leave…
But she couldn’t. Whether he wanted this or not, he deserved better. Anna deserved better. She had to try. If she didn’t succeed, then she didn’t succeed, but she had to try.
“Want to?” She shrugged. Did she want to spend time inside the room of a child who’d died so terribly young? No. But she knew she probably needed to. “No. I don’t want to. But I think I should.”
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