Cold Memory

by Leslie A. Kelly

  Or the ghost of him, anyway.

  That was all she had left—her memories of the short time they’d spent as partners on the beat, and the even shorter time they’d spent as lovers. Two years as cops, nine months as a secret couple. That was all. And then he’d been shot four times in the chest and had died in her arms on a rainy sidewalk outside their favorite Charleston restaurant.

  How those scant months she’d spent with the man could have affected her entire life so much that she still couldn’t get over him eight years after his death might be something for a shrink to interpret. But she didn’t have to wonder why it was so.

  She couldn’t get over him, because he was still here.

  Some people might think that was unhealthy, and that she should ask him to go so she could get on with living what was left of her life. Julia wouldn’t dream of it. The day he’d come back to try to save her from a dangerous suspect waving a gun had been the most shocking of her life…and the most joyful.

  It was as if they’d never been parted. He’d walked back into her world as if he’d never left it. He was every bit as funny, handsome, smart and dazzling as he’d ever been.

  And as insubstantial as a dewy mist lingering in the cool morning air.

  He might make her laugh, he might help her solve crimes, he might drive her insane, he might steal her breath with his incredibly handsome, never-changing, never-aging face. But he couldn’t hold her, couldn’t touch her, couldn’t give her what her body just damn well needed every once in a while.

  He’d tried. Tried to touch her, to kiss her, and when he did, a warm, lovely blanket of sensation, with just the tiniest bit of weight, pressed against her, filling her heart, and her soul.

  But not her body. Never her body.

  She wasn’t a horny maniac, but every once in a while, she just needed sex. Didn’t matter who she had it with, what they said before or after, or what they wanted from her, she just wanted an occasional release.

  He knew that. He understood, or said he did.

  She’d had lovers before, and he’d never gotten this pissy about it. Hell, he’d even managed to stop making snide comments about Derek Monahan, one of her agents, with whom she’d had a brief fling a couple of years ago.

  So why the hell would he have pulled a disappearing act over Paul/Peter/Mary/ whateverhisnamewas? She hadn’t tried to hide the one night stand; he had known it meant nothing. This silent treatment just didn’t make any sense.

  “What on earth is wrong with you? If you’re sulking, you really need to cut it out,” she said, wondering if he was listening but not revealing himself to her.

  He’d done that a few times in the early years, and she’d ordered him to never do it again. They might know each other intimately—better than either of them had ever known anyone before or since—but that didn’t mean she didn’t value her privacy. Before these last two weeks, she’d never known him to deliberately punish her with his absence, but she couldn’t help wondering if that was happening now. Maybe he was mad about the lawyer, and was staying away. He wouldn’t go too far, she knew, yet he could be watching over her, silently protecting her, but not letting her know it.

  Or else he was intentionally avoiding her.

  Maybe he’s pulling away.

  He could be trying to prepare her for the moment when he would get on that train and ride away forever.

  “Don’t you dare,” she whispered, slamming her pen down on her desk. “Don’t you dare do that, Morgan Raines!”

  The faintest whisper of static split the air. The hairs on her arms rose to attention and her skin prickled. Her quiet, empty office gained energy—vibrancy—and she knew she was right.

  He was here. Watching.

  He winked into her vision, one second not there and the next sitting in a chair opposite her desk. Well, not really sitting—did ghosts sit? But he gave the illusion that he was sitting.

  “Where have you been?”

  He shrugged, unrepentant. “Exploring.”

  She swallowed hard. “Exploring that train station that’s going to take you out of here one day?”

  “Nah. St. Petersburg.”

  “Is there some case we need to work on in Florida?”

  “Russia. Never did much travelling while I was…uh, in the old days.”

  While I was alive.

  “I thought I’d make up for it now. Hit France and Ireland as well. Wish I could still taste wine. And beer.”

  “A sightseeing ghost. This is too fucking weird.”

  “I went to Disney World, too. My favorite ride was…”

  “Don’t tell me: The Haunted Mansion.”

  He shook his head. “Space Mountain.”

  She opened her mouth to argue the merits over that ride vs. other roller coasters before realizing he had intentionally distracted her. He’d managed to engage her in ridiculous, inane conversation so she would forget she was mad at him, or that he owed her an explanation. A real one, not some lame excuse about travelling the world in his intangible form.

  “Stop,” she insisted, putting a hand up. She saw the twinkle in those sexy brown eyes, still so young, his unlined face reminding her that she was aging while he ever remained that sexy twenty-something year old who’d died eight years ago.

  “Tell me why you really stayed away.”

  He hesitated, and then, finally, admitted what she’d already known. “I think maybe I cramp your style.”

  She blew out an impatient breath. “No, you don’t.”

  “If the best you can do for sex is pick up a paunchy lawyer for a one-night-stand because you need to get off, then yes, I do. You were way out of his league, which means you were trying to get something you needed without making me jealous. Or without letting yourself actually get involved with someone you might like.”

  That was the longest speech he’d given in years. Especially for one without a single wisecrack. It scared the shit out of her, because she had the feeling she knew where this was all headed.

  “What is it you’re trying to say, Morgan?” she asked, although she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know the answer.

  He hesitated, his expression softening, his brown eyes lingering on her face as if he wanted to memorize every inch of her.

  “I’m saying,” he finally whispered, “that I think it’s time for me to say goodbye for good.”

  Chapter 8

  Nobody had died.

  Her grandfather’s call Tuesday night hadn’t been a dire emergency, merely a rather strange request that she still didn’t understand. Most importantly, though, there had been no more crimes, certainly no murders, and he was just fine. She counted that as a win.

  What had happened as a result of the call, though, had to be considered a loss.

  “A strike out, in fact,” she muttered as she got ready for work the next morning. She’d gotten up at her regular time, in her own room, in her own house, in her own town.

  Last night, for at least a little while, she’d thought she might be waking up in Mick’s room, house, town…and bed.

  A small, sensible part of her brain had been trying to convince her that the mood-killing phone call had been a good thing. Another part—the part that couldn’t stop remembering how good it had felt to kiss Mick, to be touched by him, tasted by him, wanted by him—wished she’d dropped her damned cell phone down a mine shaft before going to his place.

  “Too late now,” she muttered to her reflection as she tucked her hair up into a tight bun. “It’s just water under the bridge, spilled milk, ships passing in the night.” Whatever stupid metaphor she wanted to use, the truth was, they’d come close to doing something stupid last night, but had both come to their senses in the nick of time.

  For a little while, when they’d been sitting on the couch talking, laughing, drinking beer and ignoring all the ugly shit they were dealing with in the outside world, it had been easy to forget who they were. They’d been just like two normal people on a…well, not a date, b
ut sharing an easy evening. It didn’t matter how different they were, how strongly their paths had diverged since that childhood friends-and-enemies relationship.

  They’d clicked as adults, period. Last night they’d given in to that heated connection.

  And then the phone had rung, her grandfather’s call sloshing a bucket of reality into their faces.

  All the reasons they shouldn’t get involved—the case and his connection to it, their jobs, her plans for her future that included only the normal and mundane, vs. his crazy paranormal powers—had come rushing back. Mick had gotten off the couch while she talked on the phone, straightening his clothes, turning up the lights. When she’d finished, they’d looked at each other uncomfortably, talked for a minute about the call, and then she’d left. It was as if the previous hour and a half hadn’t even happened.

  Except in her dreams they’d happened again, and again, all night long.

  “Get your game face back on, Gyp,” she told herself, knowing she had to go back into cop mode. She was picking-up Mick first thing this morning to go meet with this woman her grandfather wanted her to see.

  He’d been cryptic last night, asking her, as a favor to him, to talk to a girl who worked at the carnival, the one who’d discovered Jersey’s body. This meeting was top-secret, with no one allowed to know except her and Mick. It had to take place outside of Ocean Whispers, which was why they were meeting at a fast food place off the interstate, south of town.

  It was so cloak-and-dagger, she wondered if her grandfather’s imagination was acting up.

  “So how are we gonna play this today?” she mused as she headed for the carnival grounds to pick him up. How would Mick behave this morning? Had his night been long and confusing, too? Did he share the strange emptiness she was feeling—a sad swell of disappointment, of regret at the loss of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

  “Or maybe not,” she whispered, allowing herself to think it for the first time.

  Maybe it didn’t have to be just a missed chance. Perhaps they could go back to that moment before the phone rang and see what came next.

  Despite how it had felt at the time, that encounter hadn’t come out of nowhere. Nor had it just been about attraction.

  Something had shifted between them even before they’d kissed. It wasn’t just the way her brain had turned to soup when he’d answered the door in just a pair of jeans, leaving her breathless at the sight of a powerful chest, broad shoulders and thick, flexing arms.

  For her, it had really begun at the carnival the other day, when she’d seen him grow tenser at every touch of a hand on his shirt. She’d stopped picturing the sexy, rich playboy she’d created in her mind, and begun to see how every single day of his life must feel through his hands. Her eyes had been opened further in the lawyer’s office, when she’d realized what his grandfather had done to him as a child. She’d started seeing the complexity of a man whose charming smile hid a lifetime of hurt and secrets. She’d admired him for it.

  As for Mick, he’d gone from being a casual, flirtatious old friend to a colleague over the past few days. She knew he now viewed her not as an old childhood nemesis, but as a woman, and a cop.

  Then, last night, he’d begun to view her as something else entirely. She saw the moment it happened: when he watched her pull on those silly gloves. He hadn’t said anything; he hadn’t had to. She’d seen it in his face.

  He’d been stunned.

  “Really, did nobody ever do that for you?” she mused, shocked that no-one in his life had tried to make his world easier by making their own a tiny bit uncomfortable for a little while.

  There was no more time to consider it, because she’d arrived at the carnival, seeing Mick in the parking lot. His hands were in his pockets, his hip leaning against his car, his eyes concealed behind dark sunglasses. He hadn’t shaved this morning—sleepless night?—and the sexy, scruffy look suited him well, bringing out those juts and lines in his handsome face.

  “Stop it,” she ordered herself, remembering she had to look at him as a colleague and a friend. Not someone on whose lap she’d been grinding twelve hours ago.

  She pulled up beside him, and he opened the door. “Hello, Chief.”

  Easy, smooth, completely natural.

  Okay, that was how they were going to play it. She could do that. No problem. “Hi. Did you see my grandfather today? Did he give you any more information about this woman we’re meeting?”

  “What, no kiss good morning?”

  She almost gasped, almost hit the brakes, but ended up just laughing. Glancing over at him, seeing that wicked grin, she snapped, “You asshole.”

  “Figured it was better to get it in the open than let it ride along in the backseat all day.”

  “Okay, it’s in the open. We kissed. Big deal.”

  “Uh-huh.” He settled back in the seat, stretching his long legs out in front of him.

  “What?” she snapped.

  “It was a little more than a kiss.”

  “Well you could have fooled me, considering the way you practically shoved me out the door once I got off my phone.”

  He pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head and looked at her. “You saying you wanted to get back to what we’d been doing once you hung up?”

  He had her there. She couldn’t lie about it, merely tightening her hands on the steering wheel.

  “As I thought. Nothing like the grandparents catching you on the couch to kill the mood.”

  “I think it was more the fact that as soon as I saw his name on the screen, I thought somebody else was dead.”

  His teasing mood sobered. “Me too.” After a pause, he added, “It’s bad timing, Gypsy. That’s all. Not just the phone call, but this whole situation.”

  Meaning there might be good timing after this investigation was over? She didn’t ask him. She didn’t have to. They were both thinking it.

  Maybe there never would be a good time. Maybe her doubts about hooking up with somebody so off the normal scale would make her pull back the minute this case was solved.

  Or maybe he would go back to looking at her as the bossy girl who’d harassed him years ago and hadn’t really changed much.

  Or maybe they’d have sex once, get it out of their systems and get on with their lives.

  She just didn’t know. She only knew she wasn’t going to find out until she’d caught and arrested whoever had killed Barry and Jersey.

  “Speaking of last night,” he said, “we were talking about so much, including the men on your force, but I never got around to telling you about something that happened Monday.”

  “Something other than an entire family of carnies put out of work, an old man’s body found with a bird stuffed in his throat, and me being shoved out of my own case?”

  “When you put it that way, it does make one of your officers playing private eye and tailing me seem a little anticlimactic.”

  Her jaw fell. “What?”

  “It’s not a big deal, seriously. I handled it. I just wanted you to know about it, in case you have any unrest in the ranks at the precinct.”

  She shook her head, ordering, “Back up. Tell me what happened, and don’t leave anything out.”

  He told her, quickly and succinctly, about the car that had followed him Monday night, and its driver, who he’d confronted at the truck stop. When Gypsy heard how he’d learned it had been one of her own officers, who was apparently moonlighting for the troublesome local millionaire, her temper rose. “What did he look like?”

  “Tall, muscular. Sandy-brown hair, a little shaggy on top. Scar on his neck.”

  “Carl Potter,” she muttered, not entirely surprised. The one officer who gave her the barest amount of respect required in order to keep his job would be the type to go behind her back like that. He was probably spying on her for the senior Tanner, too.

  “Ahh. Carl-not-Billy-Potter. Got it.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” she said. “I’m very sorry th
at happened.”

  He shrugged. “Not a big deal. He was scared out of his wits when he realized I’d pegged him as a local cop. The strain of wondering when you’re going to rain holy hell down on him is probably a pretty good punishment, too.”

  “Maybe. But anticipation isn’t going to be nearly enough.”

  Carl hadn’t broken any departmental regulations if he’d just been doing security. Hell, Sarah Mays, one of her newer hires, worked security at the mall to make ends meet. The Ocean Whispers P.D. operated on a shoestring budget—the perils of small town government. She didn’t begrudge anyone who needed an extra job to supplement their income, as long as it didn’t interfere with their police work. If Carl was following people however, acting in the capacity of private investigator, that was another story.

  It appeared she needed to have a come-to-Jesus moment with one of her officers. The scene wouldn’t be pretty, and she couldn’t predict how it would end. She might have to suspend him. He might quit. Either way would make things more difficult. She had barely enough cops to patrol the town under normal circumstances. Now, with the murder, the timing couldn’t be worse to be short-staffed.

  “We’re here,” she said as she pulled into the parking lot of a burger joint.

  “Yeah, what is all this, anyway? Did your grandfather tell you any more about why this woman wants to see us, or why it had to be out of town?”

  She shook her head. “All I know is, she’s the one who found Jersey’s body.”

  They got out of the car and went inside. Gypsy looked around the small place, spying a young woman sitting alone in a booth in the back corner. She looked familiar—light brown hair, pixie face, pretty blue eyes. Gypsy had definitely seen her at the carnival.

  “There she is.” Walking back to the woman’s table, she asked, “Penny Travers?”

  “Yes. And you’re Chief Bell. Frank’s granddaughter.”

  “I am. My grandfather said you wanted to talk to me.”

  The young woman—maybe in her early to mid-twenties—looked past her at Mick. “To him, too. My brother thinks you two might be the only ones who can help me.” She licked her lips and lowered her head. “Or even believe me.”