Forever, Again

by Victoria Laurie

  HERE LIES BEN SPENCER

  BELOVED SON AND BROTHER

  AUGUST 5TH, 1968–MAY 23RD, 1987

  “Hey,” Cole said, immediately at my side. “Lily, what happened?”

  I shook my head and squeezed my eyes closed, trying to push away the wave of grief that’d come out of nowhere. Taking a deep breath, I let it out as slowly as I could and swallowed hard a few times. When I thought I had a grip, I opened my eyes and tried to smile to reassure Cole that I was okay.

  “Sorry about that,” I said, getting to my feet.

  He helped me up. “Was it a panic attack?”

  “No, nothing like that.” I chanced a glance at the marker again and had to bite my lip to keep myself from crying. “I don’t know what it is. I just saw his grave and I felt so sad.”

  Cole gently squeezed my arm. “It’s Amber,” he said. “It’s gotta be her.”

  “Oh, wow,” I said, realizing he had to be right. “Of course it is. She catches me off guard all the time, and I never think it’s coming from her until after I’m really upset.”

  Cole motioned to his left with his chin. “She’s over there.”

  The sight of her gravestone made me super-nervous. “Wow,” I said. It suddenly became very real. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  Cole walked close to me as we made our way to Amber’s grave. When we got there, I was stunned. The gravestone was chipped, cracked, and pitted, and there were big black splotches on the white stone that looked like paint. Clearly, the headstone had been vandalized over the years.

  “Who would do this?” I asked, bending down to take a closer look.

  “Huh,” Cole said. “It looks worse than the last time I saw it.”

  “Why?” I said, unable to help myself as I reached out to touch the gravestone. I felt another wave of hurt come over me, but not nearly as intense. Then a burning, fierce anger formed in the pit of my stomach, and I wanted to punch the person or persons who’d done this to poor Amber’s grave.

  “Don’t know,” Cole said. “But this isn’t the original gravestone. I think it’s, like, the third one. Maybe the fourth. Her mom keeps replacing it, and some asshole keeps wrecking it. You’d think Mrs. Greeley would buy a brass plaque like my uncle has, but she keeps paying for new white marble headstones.”

  “That’s so sad,” I said, thinking of the lovely woman who’d been so kind to me. “Why would someone do this?” I repeated.

  Cole shrugged slightly, but I knew the answer, and I suspected he did, too. Someone blamed Amber for Spence’s death.

  I put the flowers on her grave and tried to think of what to say. “Amber,” I whispered. “I’m sorry that life didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to. I’m sorry that Ben was killed and that you were blamed for it. I don’t blame you. I know you were innocent. And I don’t know who killed you, but I’m sorry that it happened.”

  Next to me, Cole squatted down and lowered his head, as if in respect for my words.

  I cleared my throat and struggled with what to say next. “The thing of it is, Amber, I’m really, really tired. Your nightmares aren’t letting me get any sleep. And they’re freaking me out. I want you to know that I’m grateful to you for showing up in my life, but you need to let me go, Amber. You need to let me live as Lily Bennett. You need to let me sleep through the night. Okay?”

  I waited then, in silence, not for an answer, but for the feeling that Amber had left me. That what I’d said had convinced her to move on. But I felt no different than I had before I’d come to her gravesite.

  “Did anything happen?” Cole whispered after a long pause.

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “Maybe.” The weariness I’d been struggling against came back with a vengeance, and I suddenly felt dizzy with fatigue. “We should go,” I said softly.

  As I got to my feet, I stumbled and Cole caught me. “Hey,” he said. “You sure you’re okay?”

  I leaned against him. “I’m so tired,” I said. Then I thought of my grandmother this morning and the expectation that I’d come to her when summoned. I groaned at the idea of explaining my absence and spending the afternoon with her. I knew I couldn’t take it.

  “What?” Cole asked me.

  “All I want to do is go back to bed, but I can’t go home. My grandmother’s on the warpath.”

  Cole grinned. “You can come over to my house and sleep.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. That was a line if ever I’d heard one.

  He laughed. “Not like that,” he said. “You can take a nap on the couch. My mom’s at work, and I’ve got a couple of lawns to cut. You can have the house to yourself.”

  I looked gratefully at him. “You’d really let me do that?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Besides, it’s the only way to test if Amber heard you or not, right? If you get a few hours of sleep without having a nightmare, then coming here to talk to her was the right thing to do.”

  We began to walk back toward Cole’s car. “You have no idea how much I appreciate it,” I told him. “Thanks.”

  Cole left me at his place with a blanket, pillow, and Bailey curled up on a rug next to the couch. He told me to text him if I needed him, gave me a quick tour of the house, and offered full run of anything in the pantry or fridge. Again I was struck by his thoughtful kindness. Tanner had never once been so considerate. I wondered if I shouldn’t respond to Sophie’s text with a thank you for helping me dodge a bullet, because the more I thought about my heartbreak over losing Tanner, the less I actually felt it.

  After Cole headed off to cut his lawns, I walked around his house for a bit, not trying to be nosy, but curious about the place he called home.

  His mom had amazing taste. The living room was open and cozy, with light-mint-green walls, white overstuffed furniture, and dark wood accents. There were punches of color from bright pink-and-yellow throw pillows, and a bold fuchsia-colored vase on the mantel, but mostly the tones were cool and soothing.

  Cole’s room, which I only peeked into, was painted a slate blue, with red-and-navy plaid curtains, an azure comforter, and light brown wood accents. His choice of décor didn’t surprise me, because it was pretty typical for a guy’s room, but the place was neat as a pin, and that did surprise me a little.

  It wasn’t long after settling on the couch that my lids got heavy and I drifted off to sleep, hopeful that I wouldn’t be awakened by any more nightmares.

  That hope was short-lived. Cole found me around eleven thirty, bent at the waist, gasping for air. The dream had come again with a vengeance, only this time, there’d been something more. Something that hadn’t been in any of the dreams before.

  Cole brought me some water as I wiped my cheeks and tried to steady my nerves. I fought back against the first hints of a panic attack and managed to keep it together—but just barely.

  “Was it the dream?” he asked, sitting down on an ottoman across from me.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Damn,” he said. “So, I guess the gravesite thing didn’t work, huh?”

  I took an unsteady sip of water. “Not so much.”

  Hanging my head, I tried not to cry, but it was too overwhelming. The nightmare was unrelenting and my nerves were coming undone. How was I going to make it another two weeks to talk to Dr. Van Dean again if I was already this much of a mess?

  “What can I do?” Cole asked gently.

  I shook my head. “There’s nothing more we can do,” I said miserably. “She won’t let go. For whatever reason, Amber wants to torture me with this dream and she won’t let up. This time she combined both nightmares and gave me a whiff of something….”

  “A whiff? What whiff?”

  “I don’t know. There was a smell, like something in the air. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but something smelled off.”

  “Off how?”

  I rubbed my tired eyes. In my mind, I tried to recall it, but the room was filled with the scent of fresh-cut grass, and I realized that Cole’s clothes w
ere spattered with clippings from the lawns he’d mown.

  But then it struck me. The reason that I’d become aware of something off about the scent I’d smelled in the dream. It had been like a scent found only indoors had been outside. I said as much to Cole, and he scratched his head.

  “That’s weird,” he said.

  “Right?”

  “And you’re sure that’s new?”

  “I’m sure. I don’t ever remember smelling anything in the nightmare before.”

  “Huh,” he said, and I could see that he was thinking about the significance.

  “I have no idea what it could mean,” I said. “It was just so weird, and it’s the last thing I remember before that arm came around my chest and the knife went into my heart.”

  Cole winced. “God, Lily,” he said, looking at me with haunted eyes. “Is it really like that every time?”

  “Lately,” I said.

  He shook his head. “That sucks.”

  “It does. But what’s worse is not knowing why Amber is doing this to me.”

  Cole was silent for a moment before he said, “Maybe it’s like Van Dean said. Maybe she’s got a message for you, and you need to figure out what she’s trying to say.”

  I looked up at him. “What could she possibly want to tell me? I mean, we already know she didn’t kill Ben. What more is there to say?”

  Cole’s face became quite serious. “Maybe she wants you to know who did. Maybe she wants you to know who killed both of them.”

  There was a shift in my mind, something nearly indescribable, almost like a release of pressure when I hadn’t even realized there’d been pressure there, and I also suddenly felt less anxious than I had a mere moment before. The relief was incredible.

  “Ohmigod,” I whispered. “Ohmigod, Cole! That’s exactly what she’s been trying to tell me!”

  His eyes widened a little. “It’s just a guess, Lily.”

  I shook my head. “No! It’s true! I mean, I don’t know how I know it’s true, but the second you said that, she…pulled back a little. I can’t describe it other than…It’s like the minute you said that, she eased up on the pressure that’s been making me feel so anxious.”

  Cole bit his lip and turned his head toward the hallway leading to his bedroom. I had a feeling I knew what he was going to say next.

  “I have my uncle’s file,” he said. “We could dig around a little.”

  “You mean, like, you and me investigate the case?”

  He nodded.

  I laughed. Was he serious? “Cole, shouldn’t we leave that to the police? We could go to that detective who gave you the file and tell him that we know Amber didn’t murder Ben and get him to reopen the case.”

  Cole stared down at his feet. “He won’t do it, Lily,” he said. “I already told him my mom and I didn’t think Amber did it, but he said he had enough on his plate without reopening closed cases. I tried to put some pressure on him a few months ago by calling a reporter for the newspaper, and getting him to publish a story about how there were a lot of unanswered questions around my uncle’s murder, but nothing happened. It seems like nobody’s willing to investigate it.”

  My limbs tingled with a shot of adrenaline. The idea of looking into Amber’s and Ben’s deaths was like doing something forbidden: tempting but irrational. And yet, deep down I just knew that it was exactly what Amber wanted.

  “How would we do it?”

  A smile quirked the edges of Cole’s lips. “We look at the file, at the evidence collected and the interviews the police did, and see if something in there points us in a direction. Then, we go talk to some people who knew Amber and Ben, and see if they have any theories or remember something that maybe isn’t in the file.”

  A foreboding chill went up my spine. “Cole?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What if we find out who killed them?”

  “We go to the police,” he said simply. “But, Lily, we probably won’t figure it out. We’re just gonna look through the file and talk to a few people. See if we can dig up some clues big enough to convince Fredericksburg PD it’s worth looking into.”

  I swallowed hard. “What if we end up talking to the killer?”

  Cole blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “We’ll talk to everybody in broad daylight,” he said. “We stick together, and we don’t make any accusations or let on that we might suspect anybody. And if somebody confesses, we get the hell out and get our asses over to the police.”

  “What if they chase us?”

  Cole bounced his eyebrows. “My car’s really, really fast.”

  I looked at him doubtfully. “Is it faster than a bullet? I mean, Cole, what’s to stop the killer from trying to shoot us like he did Ben?”

  Cole was quiet a long time. “Maybe nothing,” he said at last. “But if we never let on that we suspect anybody, then maybe it’ll be okay. Like I said, we’re just asking a few questions. We’re not detectives working the case. But if you don’t want to start poking around, it’s okay. We can leave it alone.”

  I shifted in my seat. Part of me wanted nothing to do with Amber and Ben’s murder file. But part of me was a little thrilled by the prospect of looking into their deaths and discovering something the police didn’t know. I definitely didn’t want to end up like Amber and Ben, though.

  And yet…

  What ultimately made up my mind was that, intuitively, I didn’t think the nightmares were going to stop until Cole and I managed to get the police to reopen the case. I suspected that the reason Amber was showing up so strongly in my life was because Dr. White had made her aware, in that session with him, that she was the one everyone suspected as having murdered Spence.

  Amber wanted her name cleared. I felt it somewhere deep inside me. Truthfully, if the tables had been turned, I’d want my name cleared, too.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “You’re in?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Where do we start?”

  “HEY, DON’T START WITH ME, SPENCE!” I heard Jamie yell from outside. “I came over here to clear the air, not get into it with you.”

  “Dammit, Jamie!” Spence replied, just as loudly. “I told you we were gonna get caught!”

  Nervously, I moved to the front window at Spence’s house to peek through the curtains. Jamie had come over just a few moments before, and Spence hadn’t even let him through the door. Instead he’d put a hand on Jamie’s shoulder and barked, “We need to talk.” He’d then practically shoved Jamie out onto the porch, and followed him outside, shutting the door firmly in his wake.

  As I peered through the curtains, I saw Spence standing threateningly close to his best friend while he jammed him in the chest with a finger. He was as mad as I’d ever seen him.

  “Hey, take it down a notch, dude!” Jamie protested, knocking Spence’s hand away. “Come on, man! I’ve got as much to lose as you do!”

  “Oh, you’ve got as much to lose? You, Jamie? You?!”

  “Hoss, I didn’t say anything. And I didn’t go through your shit! If somebody got into your room and messed around with your stuff, it wasn’t me!”

  “See, I’d believe that, except that you’re the only one who knew where to look!” Spence roared.

  I wrung my hands together. Even though Spence hadn’t told me anything, I knew what’d happened. I’d pieced it together over the past week, and it’d killed me to know what my boyfriend had done—the lies he’d told and the fraud he’d committed. But I hadn’t said anything because I was desperate not to leave him behind. Living in this house any longer than he had to would kill him. The responsibility…the pressure…the constant criticism—it was too much for anyone, even someone as strong as Spence.

  I knew that if I left him here, we wouldn’t survive as a couple. And I knew that the dark places Spence’s mind would sometimes go when he was really stressed-out would become his every day. It’d kill him. I was certain of it.

  So when he refused to call the police
about the break-in at his house, and he hadn’t even told his mom that his room—and only his room—had been burglarized, I knew Spence had something to hide. There’d been something in that strongbox that he didn’t want anyone, even me, to know he had, and whatever it was had been taken.

  In the moments following the discovery of the robbery, after Spence had collected himself, he’d only denied my repeated requests to call the police, and instead he’d hurried through the house looking to see what else had been stolen. But the other rooms were untouched.

  When he came back to his bedroom he’d looked stricken, and perhaps even panicked. He’d then begun to go through the mess, and that’s when we realized that nothing else in Spence’s room had been stolen, either. Not his grandfather’s watch. Not the color TV I’d given him for Christmas, or the expensive gold chain I’d given him for his birthday. Nothing but whatever had been in that strongbox.

  Around nine thirty that night, after we’d put the room back together, and while I was still trying to convince him to call the police, we’d heard Stacey and Mrs. Spencer come through the back door. Spence had put a finger to his lips and walked me over to the window to help me sneak out. “Please, don’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

  “Spence,” I’d said softly. “What was in there? What don’t you want me to know?”

  He’d shaken his head, his lips pressed tight. “Just a few bucks, Amber, nothing else very special.”

  But I’d known better.

  “How much?” I’d asked. If it was money, then we could find a way to replace it.

  Spence had shaken his head, and he’d looked away as if ashamed. “Close to two grand,” he’d whispered. “Everything I had saved for UCLA.”

  “Oh my God,” I’d said.

  Spence had looked back at me then and he’d forced a smile and stroked my hair. “It’ll be okay,” he’d said. “It’s just money. I can always take on more lawns this summer.”

  I’d looked into his eyes and I’d seen the lie there, and it’d broken my heart. I had no doubt that Spence had managed to put away that much money. He saved every tip he got, and the money from any extra lawn he could fit in on his weekly schedule went straight to his college savings, rather than to the household. But he wasn’t telling me what else had been stolen—what had him so anxious and upset.