by J N Duncan
“She’s got a lot to deal with right now, Shel. You ever consider that she’s just not ready to be seeing me for anything close to resembling a date?”
“And she never will be! Fuck, Nick. She’s depressed and sad and her esteem is in the dumpster. She needs something or someone to help kick start her in the other direction. Insistence is OK sometimes, babe. Makes us believe you’re really interested.”
“Or I’ll just piss her off and she won’t want to bother.”
“She spends half her time drooling in front of the TV and the other crying into a tequila bottle. I think she might like a little insistence. Talk to her, hon. You can be very persuasive when you want to be, even without the eyes.”
Nick gripped the wheel tightly with both hands and slid around a corner, doubling back a block over behind the crime scene, keeping his senses open to the spirit. “Shouldn’t have to talk her into seeing me,” he grumbled.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, lighten up. Enjoy the game a little. You pursued me once upon a time, and rather enjoyed it as I recall.”
“It was different—”
“Uh-uh,” she said, wagging a finger at him. “Not so different, Sheriff Boy. I was a down-in-the-dumps opium addict at the time, or have you forgotten that?”
No. He had not forgotten. She had been beautiful and broken and angry at the world. Full of fire, and he had been unable to resist her. But one thing had been different. “You weren’t afraid of me though, Shel. What I am . . . it still frightens her.”
Shelby let out an annoyed bark of laughter. “You scared the hell out of me, Nick. I just didn’t give a shit. Jackie cares. She wants to live and she needs someone to be alive with. Be that guy. Act like life is important to you again.”
“That’s hardly a fair thing—”
“The fuck it isn’t!” She turned against the car door and stared at him, her face livid with righteous anger. “You’ve been a guilt-ridden, depressing, morose son-of-a-bitch for the past thirty years. You’ve been given a new lease, babe. I suggest you take advantage of it, and you can start by dragging Jackie’s ass out of her cave and having a little fun together. Christ! Enjoy your life a little. God knows you deserve it.” They drove in silence for a few seconds before she added, “Unless of course you really just aren’t interested in her.”
He was. He had refrained from calling her each and every day for the past two weeks. He knew she was hurting. He wanted to see her and, if he were totally honest, needed to. Her blood still flowed in his veins, and the feeling of her, the touch of her soul upon him called to him. The question was, did she need him? And was pushing the issue going to motivate her toward him or away?
“Maybe I’ll stop by her place and check in,” he said. “See how she’s doing.”
“Maybe?” She huffed at him, shaking her head. “This is not a situation to be wishy-washy, Nick. Take a stand. Tell her you want her. She needs to know.”
And if she didn’t want to know? He said nothing. She was probably right.
Chapter 3
Fifty-seven minutes later, Jackie found herself stepping into a world only minutely less reviled than Deadworld, sitting in the most dreaded of all places, the office of Matilda Erikson, FBI shrink. Few who entered came out alive or with their identity intact. At least, that was how Jackie always felt upon entering the quiet and peaceful domain of Aunt Tillie, who had promised that one day they would have a real talk about things. And now, thanks to blackmail, Jackie sat stiffly in her chair, trying to figure out just how real things should get.
Never had peace and quiet felt so disturbing. Everything about the room, from the soft, overstuffed chairs to the cool, serene green color scheme made Jackie’s gut squirm in abject fear. Seated in the chair opposite the quaint, mahogany coffee table, Tillie sipped at the steaming tea she had just poured for them. Jackie’s cooled untouched on the edge of the table.
Tillie set her cup down and sat back, one hand idly playing at the jeweled butterfly dangling from her neck. “You look tired, Jackie.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “All I do is sleep.”
Tillie nodded, her mouth drawing into a tighter line. Jackie realized that had been the wrong thing to say. Off to a great start already. There had to be a way to convince the mind-reading witch that she was well on her way to normal. Two more weeks of exile was going to kill her or at the very least drive her insane.
“Have you done anything else these past two weeks? Have you gone out at all? Visited with friends? Taken in a movie?
Oh, you mean like be social? “No. I’m just trying to relax and move on with things. I haven’t been in the mood to go out.”
She picked up the tea again and took a quiet sip. “Have you been in the mood to do anything at all?”
“What is this? Twenty questions?”
“It’s my job to ask questions, Jackie,” she said. “We had a deal, remember? And if you want to come back early as John is suggesting, then you need to be willing to share. This isn’t an interrogation.”
“Fine.” Jackie’s fingers dug into the arm of the chair. “I’m still getting over things, but it’s getting better. It’s just a lot to deal with.”
“It is,” she replied. “What’s been the hardest aspect to deal with?”
Jackie’s brain spun in a helpless neutral. She had no gear for emotional sharing. “Um . . . being out of work, I guess.” Tillie just stared at her, tea cup held perfectly still in her hands. “You know, you should be an interrogator, not a shrink. All that tea and silence and that damn look you have would break down alfucking-Qaeda.”
Tillie sighed. “Jackie. You’re making this harder than it needs to be. Inside these walls, you’re safe from everything. I’m not here to judge you. Nothing you say here will ever leave this room. You can be as calm or crazy as you want.”
Jackie picked up the tea cup, focusing her will upon it to keep it from quivering in her hands. The warm liquid was strong but it wasn’t coffee by any stretch. “Not working really has been the hardest part,” she said. “I need it. I’ll be saner here than cooped up in my apartment all the time.”
“An agent isn’t the only thing you are, Jackie.”
“But it’s the only thing I want. OK? Nothing else matters. Everything else in my life is utter shit. When I’m here, I know what the hell I’m doing. Everything makes some kind of sense. Hell, I’d be happy pushing paperwork.”
“I can’t OK you coming back,” she said, a curtain of stillness against Jackie’s rant, “until I’m sure you can go to bed at night without thinking it would be better not to wake up in the morning.”
“That’s bullshit!” Jackie set the cup down, spilling half of it into the saucer. “I’m not suicidal.” God! If she thought that, she would never get her job back.
“But the thought has crossed your mind?”
“Why would I tell you that even if it were true?” Jackie threw up her hands in frustration. “I want my job back, not to be locked up for my own safety.”
Tillie leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees. She folded her hands together beneath her chin. “Because it’s a normal thought to have, Jackie. I understand you better than you may realize. I know what you lost. The anchor in your life is gone and you’ve been cast adrift. The tomorrows look just like today, lacking any meaning. You have no idea what direction to set yourself in now.”
Jackie cast her eyes down to her lap. The words had gripped her stomach and twisted it into knots. She could feel the tears welling up again. She hadn’t cried in three days and she wasn’t about to start. “It really isn’t fair that you can just look at me and see that.”
“It’s what I get paid to do,” she said, a gentle smile upon her face. “I also spoke to Laurel at great length about your relationship.”
“What?” She stared at Tillie in disbelief. “When? Why?”
Tillie laughed softly. “Dear, I saw your friend twice a month for five years. We had a great deal to talk about.”
H
er mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. She made a quick swipe at her eye with the back of her hand. “I never realized, not until just before . . .” Her voice trailed off, unable to say the words.
“Do you still blame yourself for her death?”
Jackie flung herself back in the chair, letting out the breath she had been holding. No point in lying about that, now that she was a blubbering mess. “What do you think?”
She sat up straight, eyes so full of sympathy and pity that Jackie could not look at her. “I think that if you can’t find a way to stop, you’ll never be able to come back. It will ruin you as an agent, Jackie.”
“What! No! That is so not fair, Tillie. You can’t hold me to that.” She stood up, hitting the coffee table so hard that her cup fell over, spilling tea across the surface. “Shit. You want me to just forget about what happened in thirty days? You have some nifty little drug that will wipe my memory?” She spun away, walking across to the opposite end of the room by a bookcase stuffed to the brim with psychology books. Jackie stared blankly at the titles. “I can’t forget.”
“Nor do I expect you to,” she said. “What I do expect is for you to talk to me about it, in whatever way you see fit. It doesn’t have to make sense, but Jackie?” She waited until Jackie turned around, hands thrust defiantly into her jeans pockets. “If you don’t, it will continue to eat at you until there is nothing left.” She reached over and grabbed a handful of Kleenex from her desk and soaked up the spilled tea. “Please, sit back down.”
Jackie shook her head. “I need to stand.” She paced, walking behind her chair to the other side of the room to look out the window at the cloudshrouded downtown skyline. “What’s there to say? You know everything about me already. Why not just tell me what it is I need to do so you can sign off on that dotted line?”
She chuckled. “You think I’d let you off so easily?”
“No, but what’s the point of telling you stuff you already know?”
“Because the point is not for me to know it,” she replied. “The point is to put your issues into your own words, to let someone else hear them, and know that you aren’t so utterly alone and helpless as you feel right now.”
“I’m not helpless.” Jackie couldn’t even convince herself with those words.
“Then do something about it, Jackie,” she said. “Get off your butt, put on clothes, and get out. You need to be around other people. You need to do something to get your mind out of this rut you’re in. You want me to sign that dotted line? Then show me you’re willing to make the effort.”
The words stung. Effort. Now there was a laugh. She walked back over to her chair and sagged back into it. “What if there’s nothing I want to do?”
“I find that hard to believe.”
She let her head rest against her hand, elbow propped on the arm of the chair. “I mean it. Who the fuck do I do anything with? I’m not going to ask any of the guys here. I don’t need their pity. There’s no family dinner I can join. The only person I did anything with is, you know . . . dead. I could go down to the pub, but you already know where that leads.”
“Dear girl, you can drop the sarcasm.” It was the first time Jackie had heard any hint of annoyance out of Tillie.
“I’m serious,” Jackie said, pointing an accusing finger. “Laur is the only person I did anything with, the only one I talked to. She’s the one I told my story to when I was too drunk to realize that my mother wasn’t actually floating in my bathtub. But she probably told you that shit already.” Tears were starting to fall now, but Jackie didn’t care anymore. “She’s . . . she’s the only one who wanted to do anything with me. She loved me in spite of all the stupid shit I did. Why? Why would she love me, of all people? Did she tell you that, Tillie? She tell you why she was in love with someone as fucked up as me?” Damn her! How had they gotten on to this? So much for proving she was doing fine.
Tillie grabbed the tissue box off her desk and handed it to Jackie. “And why do you think you’re so unlovable? I don’t see that at all.”
Jackie grabbed a handful of Kleenex and wiped at her running nose. “Do we really have to talk about this now? I just wanted to come back to work. I need my routine back, Tillie. I can’t handle being at home all the time.”
“What we talk about is up to you, Jackie. I can’t make you talk about anything. But this issue is important. It goes back a long way for you.”
She could not look Tillie in the eye. “I know. I’m just . . . I’m not ready to talk about that yet.”
“Will you when you’re ready?”
Did she have a choice? She had promised to talk about her mother’s death at the hands of her stepfather, but the mere thought of doing so made her squirm in the chair. “I will.”
“And I want your word that you will get out of your apartment and do something social in the next two weeks, anything involving being with other people.”
Jackie sighed. She didn’t want to go out. “Like what?”
Tillie shrugged. “Dinner? A movie? Maybe a museum? You like music. See if the orchestra is doing anything soon.”
“Nobody around here is going to want to go to the orchestra.”
“Nonsense.” Tillie frowned. “You’re assuming. I think you’d be surprised how many people around here might take you up on a night with the Chicago Symphony. Or what about that Nick fellow? He’s a good-looking man.”
Nick. Three times now she had blown off dinner with him.
Tillie saw the uncertain look on her face. “You don’t like him?”
The memory of Nick’s mouth against hers in the darkness of the cadaver freezer burst into Jackie’s mind. Desire and desperation and fear all swirling together before he’d cut her open and drank her blood. “No, he’s fine, I guess. It’s just . . . it’s because . . .”
“Because he’s a vampire?”
“Where did you hear that?” Jackie felt abruptly on the edge of panic. How much did she know?
“John told me, gave me the case file on this Cornelius Drake person you all killed,” she said. “Though to be honest, I’m rather curious what really happened. That report has some serious holes.”
Jackie breathed a sigh of relief. The less Tillie knew the better. She really would think she was crazy if that all came out. “Fine. He’s a vampire. He’s a hundred and seventy-six years old. He has like half a dozen degrees or something. He shoots better than I do. He cooks better. He’s smarter. He’s worth millions of dollars. Only thing I have to offer a guy like that he can get downtown for fifty bucks.”
Tillie’s eyebrows arched with curiosity. “He sounds fascinating. You aren’t the least bit curious about him?”
“No,” Jackie stated.
“You’re afraid of him?”
“Of course not.”
Tillie’s knowing smile had her shifting in her chair. “Jackie, quit selling yourself short. You’d have things to offer any man beyond what fifty bucks will buy.”
“I’ll figure out something else.”
She shook her head at Jackie, a far too motherly effect. “You need to take some risks.”
“I take risks all the damn time.”
“Outside of work, dear. Risks to the heart, not your life.” She placed her hand on her chest. “And I know how much scarier that is than dodging bullets.”
No argument there. This was embarrassing. Jackie felt like a babbling, clueless, thirteen-year-old. She crossed her arms over her chest. “So, will you sign off?”
“No fieldwork.”
Jackie nodded. “No fieldwork.”
Tillie settled back and took another sip of tea. “OK. I’ll sign off. Two weeks, Jackie, then we’ll see how things are. And you need to keep coming to see me.”
“Yeah, yeah. Every week. I know.” She sat up in her chair. Yes! How the hell had that happened?
“Thank you, dear.”
“For what?”
“You opened up a little, and I know how hard this is for you.”
“I’d prefer waterboarding,” Jackie said with a smirk.
Tillie laughed. “Am I really that bad?
In a word? Yes. “No. I just don’t like doing this.”
“It’s good for you. Trust me, you’ll see.”
Jackie got up to leave. It was only going to be good in the same way getting a bad tooth pulled was good: painful but necessary.
Chapter 4
In the stairwell leading up to her apartment, Jackie caught the faint whiff of cigarette smoke. None of her three neighbors smoked, and it was not allowed in the hall, as stated quite clearly by the NO SMOKING sign at the base of the stairs. The culprit made himself visible by leaning over the rail, his face shadowed by the overhead light fixture.
“Agent Jackie Rutledge?” It was a curious voice, not hardened with contempt as one might expect from someone lurking in ambush.
Jackie’s shoulders slumped. What now? “Who wants to know?”
“Philip Margolin, Chicago Tribune,” he said. “I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?”
“No.” She stomped up the stairs, shaking her head. Could the day get any worse? “Whatever it is, I’m not interested in talking. So, go away.”
He met her at the top of the steps, dressed in jeans, loafers, and a black, leather jacket. He had that disarming, journalist’s smile that might lead you to believe they had the best of intentions. He was clean-shaven, blue-eyed, with an unruly wave of dark blond hair.
Jackie didn’t return the smile. “I mean it. I’ve nothing to say.” Her impression that he would ignore her proved accurate.
“I wanted to ask you about the incident at the parking garage downtown a couple weeks ago.”
That froze Jackie mid-step. She frowned, looking up at the journalist with a contemptuous glare. The information on that incident had supposedly been “cleaned” of any suspicious evidence. “Your comprehension skills seem to be lacking, Mr. Margolin. I said no.”