He closed his eyes. It had been an oddly beautiful day, pure blue sky, soft breeze. He had waited, though, until it was late afternoon to come back. A time when the sun was gentle, when the air was balmy, and he’d sat there until the colors of sunset had washed the sky, as if the pastel shades of the coming evening could somehow make sense of everything that had happened.
Why had he come?
Did he think one of them would talk to him? Maybe, he admitted.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned.
Genevieve O’Brien stood there. She was almost shockingly beautiful, with her eyes the color of the sky, her hair a muted flame color that seemed to promise an inner wildness. She was slim and very pale—hell, she’d spent two months as a terrified prisoner in an underground cell—but other than that, she looked good. Her gaze was steady. But then, she’d been strong from the beginning. Strong enough to survive.
She’d spoken at the funeral. It had been an outstanding tribute to the woman who had died. For her. It had stirred every heart. For a while, at least, Joe had thought skeptically, it might improve man’s behavior to his fellow man. Leslie had been a true heroine.
Earlier that day, Genevieve had been standing at the grave, ready to set her flowers on the casket, when a reporter had come up to her. That had been too much for Joe. He’d interposed himself between the two of them, and he wasn’t exactly sure what he’d said, but the reporter had run, and Genevieve had looked at him with her immense blue eyes filled with tears, and she had said simply, “Thank you.”
Now she joined him on the bench.
“How are you holding up?” she asked.
He stared at her. “I’m good. You…?”
She stared down at the graves. “I’m good. Grateful. More determined than ever to make my life count.”
She was amazing, he thought, then looked back at the graves. “I tried so hard,” he murmured.
She set a hand on his shoulder. “You two saved my life. And you stopped a monster.”
He shook his head. He hadn’t been able to save Leslie.
“I could use a drink,” she said.
“What?”
“Would you please take me somewhere—O’Malley’s, maybe. I could really use a drink.”
“I…yeah. Sure.” What good did it do, sitting in a graveyard?
She stood first and offered him a hand. He accepted it, rising. They started out of the graveyard, down a gentle slope.
She stopped, turning back. “She’s with him now,” Genevieve said softly.
“Pardon?”
“Look.”
He turned.
“Look over there. Right where we were sitting.”
He did, and blinked. It was the fading sunlight. It was the wishful thinking of his numb and tangled mind.
And yet…
There they were. Matt. Tall, broad-shouldered, hair gleaming gold, smiling at the slender beauty standing beside him. Leslie. Leslie, elegant face lifted, eyes sparkling as she looked up at the man she loved. Matt caught her hand, laughed, took a seat on the bench and pulled her against him, cradling her there in the last rays of the setting sun.
Joe blinked. He looked at Genevieve, then back at the little rise. They were gone, of course. A cloud had dulled the brilliance of those last rays.
“Do you ever think that maybe, just maybe, she escaped death the first time because she was meant to do, because she was still needed here?” Genevieve asked softly. She squeezed his hand. “Maybe someday we’ll see them again,” she said pensively.
“What?”
“I’m just being whimsical,” she murmured.
He couldn’t help but look back again. The cloud was gone, but so was the last of the light. Maybe they were there, together, two wonderful beautiful people, impossibly in love with each other.
He looked at Genevieve.
“Did you really see…something?” he asked her. “Do you think it’s possible…?”
Genevieve laughed softly. “Know what I believe is possible now? Anything. Everything. Now come on. Buy me that drink.”
She started toward the road. He followed.
Suddenly, he knew why he had come to the cemetery. To see a ghost. To ask a ghost to forgive him, to assure him everything was just as it was meant to be.
He groaned aloud. It wasn’t going to become a thing now, was it? Was he going to see them all the time now, know where they were, what they wanted?
Hell.
Maybe he was.
He hurried, caught Genevieve’s hand. She looked up at him and squeezed his hand as they walked into the neon light and vivid energy and sheer life of the New York City night.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1261-3
THE DEAD ROOM
Copyright © 2007 by Heather Graham Pozzessere.
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