Hold Me Close

by Rosalind James

  Empty.

  He came back out into the bedroom, sank to his knees, and looked under the beds, then got up again and flung the closet door open. And it was empty again. Of course it was.

  “You’re good,” he said as they all moved out into the living room again. “Nobody here.”

  “Thanks,” she managed to say.

  “A light out, that’s all,” Luke said again. “I’ll haul the ladder down tomorrow and replace the bulb out there.”

  She saw the moment he spotted the saddle sitting against the wall under the window. “Somebody ride?”

  Eli looked up at her, and she said, “It was my husband’s. Kurt’s. It’s our . . . I guess you could say it’s our good luck charm.” She had to force herself to concentrate. Eli had felt her fear, and she hated that.

  Luke went over to the window, crouched down, and took another look at the saddle. “Looks like a good one. I’d guess he was quite a rider.”

  “He was.” Eli had found his voice at last. “He rode broncs in the rodeo.”

  “Really,” Luke said. “That’s something, all right. Well, I guess that explains why you could handle those carnival rides, if you’ve got your dad in you.”

  “I don’t, though. I get—” Eli began, then stopped. “I get scared,” he said in a low voice. “Sometimes.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you a secret,” Luke said. “So do I. And I’ll bet your dad did, too.”

  “No.” Eli wasn’t looking at Luke anymore. He was staring at the floor. “He was really brave.”

  “I’ll bet he was. That’s how I know he was scared.” Eli’s head came up as Luke continued. “Where’s the thrill, where’s the brave, if you’re not scared? The thrill is the scared, and the go-ahead, and the feeling you get when it’s over, when you know you did it. That’s when you realize you were brave, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Eli said. “I guess.”

  “I didn’t know your dad, of course. But I’d be willing to bet that that’s what he’d have told you.”

  Eli nodded once, jerkily, and Kayla said, “I think Luke’s right. I think that’s what your dad would’ve told you. He never told me he was scared, because I think he knew that I couldn’t have stood hearing it, not as scared as I was myself. But he understood me too well not to know what it felt like. I don’t think you can understand things you’ve never felt. So I think Luke’s right.” She put her arm around her son’s shoulders again and gave him a squeeze. “Go on and get ready for bed, OK?”

  “It’s not even eight thirty,” he objected.

  “You can read, then. Please, sweetie. I want to talk to Luke a minute.”

  “Good night,” Luke told him. “I’ll get the ninja stuff together for you.”

  Eli nodded, then turned and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. She should talk to him. She would talk to him. Later. But right now, just for a few minutes, she wanted to be with Luke.

  “Sorry about all that,” she told him once they were alone. “Sorry about the—the checking, and everything. But thanks for doing it.”

  “No problem. Sounds like you’ve got a reason to be scared. And like it’s the kind where there’s no thrill about it at all. Sometimes it’s not the fun kind of scared. Sometimes it’s just plain fear. Depends what you’re afraid of.”

  “Yeah.” It was a sigh. She sat down at one end of the ugly, flowered couch, and Luke sat with her, but not too close. It was the first time he’d sat down in her apartment, but that was all right. It felt good to have him there.

  “I think that, too, sometimes,” she went on. “I mean, about what Eli said. That there’s something wrong with being scared, something weak. Because I’ve always been scared. I’m not brave, not like Kurt was. I know I’m not.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Luke picked up her hand, and his bracelet slid down her arm. Kayla B & B. “I think Kurt would’ve said that you’d been straight-up brave quite a bit here. Just like I did. You got yourself and Eli out of something scary as hell, and I’ll bet that took more guts than most men will ever have to show. And now you’re here getting through every day, and that’s taking guts, too. If there’s anything scarier than facing the world alone, it’s got to be knowing that you’re facing it with somebody else counting on you. Somebody who matters more than anything in the world to you, and you’re all he’s got? A woman who can stand up to all that, and keep going—I’d call that pretty damn brave.”

  “It doesn’t feel that way.” She smoothed a hand over the leg of her jeans, again and again. “I mean, part of me would say that’s true. But the fear—sometimes it’s so strong, it wants to sweep me away, and it’s all I can do just to hang on. And when I see that in Eli, too—it kills me. It kills me that he has to be that afraid. But we’re not afraid for no reason.” She was able to look at him at last. “It’s not a monster in the closet. It’s not a bogeyman under the bed. He’s real. Sometimes, now, I can forget. But when I saw that light—” A shudder passed straight through her body. “I knew he was real.”

  His hand was warm and firm around hers. “I get it. And anytime you need me—anytime at all—I’m there. You call me, and I’m there. I’ll come by and fix your light tomorrow, so you’re not in the dark anymore. And as far as Halloween—you’ll be alone, and you’re scared to be alone. So don’t be alone. Come be with me. It’s on a Saturday, so we’ll both have time. Come make dinner with me and get Eli set. Help me hand out candy to my trick-or-treaters.”

  She sat there a minute, then finally spoke. “As long as you’re not asking me because Eli will be gone all night. I can’t—I don’t think I can do that. Not yet. Last night, I felt like I could. When you kissed me good night, I wanted to . . . I wanted to keep going. If I hadn’t had Eli, I’d have asked you—” She looked straight at him and said it. “To put me on your horse and take me home.”

  He made a move toward her, but she put up a hand, and he stopped. “And then today,” she said sadly, “it’s gone, because one thing happens, and I’m right back being that scared again. I can’t feel anything else when I’m feeling that. I can’t do anything else, and it makes me so mad. I want to feel the rest of it. I do. But I just—I can’t.”

  “I know. I get it. I’m all good with that.”

  She looked at him doubtfully. “Really?”

  A smile at that. “No. But I’ll deal with it. So, please. Come do Halloween with me. Sit on my couch with me and drive me crazy. Let me know that you’re not scared, because you’re with me.”

  A JOB DONE RIGHT

  Alan sat in the silver Taurus and waited. He was facing a different direction and on the opposite side of the street from where he’d been the day before, just to be safe. Not that there was anybody around to see him, not here at the edge of town where the houses were far apart and everyone drove to work. Of course, none of Kervic’s neighbors would have paid the car any attention if they had seen it, because people were sheep who couldn’t see things unless their noses were rubbed in them.

  At seven twenty, exactly like the two days before, the minivan headed down the driveway with a dark-haired woman, John’s wife, presumably, behind the wheel, and the kids in the back.

  Alan waited until the van had disappeared in the distance, then got out of the car. He wasn’t wearing a suit today. He had on jeans, tennis shoes, a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead, and a bulky old army jacket from the surplus store that concealed his shape. Just in case Kervic’s “precautions” extended to security cameras, although Alan doubted it. He’d been bluffing, Alan was almost certain. But “almost” wasn’t “fully,” and a careful man was a safe man.

  Up the winding drive, then, and into position. Fifteen more patient minutes in the cold before the garage door ground open and the Blazer backed out.

  As it emerged, Alan stepped forward from where he’d been standing flat against the wall. He was already lifting
the gun. Holding it in two hands, in his shooter’s stance. Ready.

  Kervic didn’t freeze. He’d been a cop too long for that. Instead, he did the opposite. He threw himself sideways, but was caught by his shoulder harness before he could get all the way down. Meanwhile, he floored it and spun the wheel, and the tires squealed as the car lurched backwards and began to swing around.

  Too late, because Alan was already emptying the magazine into the windshield. The crack of glass, then eight muffled thuds, and the Blazer was still rolling backwards.

  Alan was running, just in case, diving for the shrubs at the side of the house. The SUV kept rolling all the way across the driveway, finally coming to rest with a crunch against the pole holding the basketball hoop. And then . . . nothing.

  Alan waited a moment longer, but there was no sound but the SUV’s engine. Finally, he ran forward and looked into the shattered window.

  Oh, yeah. Kervic wasn’t going to work this morning. He wasn’t going anywhere but a body bag. Alan’s gloved hands patted his pockets down. A phone in the front pocket, a wallet in the back one, and he was done.

  A robbery, or an execution. Or both. A police detective had plenty of enemies, and Alan Yeomans, prosecutor, wasn’t one of them. He shoved the phone and wallet into two of the jacket’s oversized pockets, pulled his cap down low one more time, and walked down the drive. Not running. Nothing to run from. Just a guy climbing into a Taurus. And nobody to see him, because it was a block before he even met another car.

  Forty-five minutes to the Arrowrock Dam. Barren brown hills all around, as dead as the cooling body in the Blazer.

  I’ve got kids. Not anymore, you don’t.

  He drove all the way around the reservoir to the North Fork road just to be on the safe side. Deserted, of course, at eight thirty Wednesday morning, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He didn’t get out of the car, just steered into a pullout, unscrewed the silencer, and flung it out of the window, watching it hit the water with a satisfying splash.

  Another hundred yards, and the handgun followed. Even if they found it, it didn’t matter. He’d picked it up at a gun show years before, and he hadn’t exactly bothered to register it. The silencer, he’d bought under-the-counter at a store in Vegas, because he’d liked the idea of it. You never knew when something like that would come in handy. He hated to lose it now, but better safe than sorry. The phone went next, along with the wallet. Nothing destroyed evidence like water, and the Lucky Peak Reservoir held enough of it to hide a multitude of sins.

  Another forty-five minutes back to Boise with his hands not shaking, his mind cool and satisfied. He’d never killed anything bigger than a deer, and had wondered how it would feel. In truth, it had been surprisingly easy. No tougher than if you’d shot a wild animal that had been threatening you. You saw a threat, you eliminated it. The way of the world.

  A quick stop along the way at Hobo Hangout, under the Americana Boulevard bridge. Again, he didn’t leave the car, just pulled to a stop at a corner and flung the coat onto the sidewalk, the gloves tucked inside, the hat following it. Half an hour, and some wino would be wearing them, unable to believe his luck. Look at that. He’d helped the homeless today.

  The car went back to the rental lot, and he walked the few blocks to his own car and drove quickly—but not too quickly—back home. A shower, a change of clothes, and he was ready for the office. He’d dump the rest of his clothes tonight, just in case.

  That was it. Done. Without much more trouble than squashing a bug.

  Now, all that remained was to visit Kayla’s in-laws. He’d have to give up a weekend to do it, but it was true what they said. If you wanted a job done right, you had to do it yourself.

  THE DRIVER’S SEAT

  Kayla did spend Halloween with Luke. And it was good.

  She helped him fix an early dinner of hamburgers that Eli was nearly too excited to eat. The minute dinner was over, he was bouncing up out of his chair.

  “Third and goal,” Luke said absently.

  “I know,” Eli said, “but it’s Halloween! And I have to get to Cody’s.”

  “Not for . . .” Luke glanced at his watch. “More than half an hour. Take us five minutes to drive there.”

  Eli didn’t hear him, because he was already dashing into the bathroom to put on his ninja costume.

  “Wow,” Luke said when he came out again. “Looks awesome.”

  “Is it six fifteen?” Eli demanded through the black mesh that was his mask.

  “Not even close. Hang on. I bet your mom wants a picture of that. Oh, and there’s somebody else who might need to get involved. Come on, girl.”

  Eli let out a surprised peal of laughter as the dog came out from under the coffee table and shook herself furiously. “Daisy!”

  “Yep.” Luke sighed. “I told her. Firefighter! Cowboy! Devil! She wasn’t listening, though. As usual. She ended up torn between the bumblebee and this, and what did she do in the end? Chose the most embarrassing possible costume, that’s what she did.”

  Daisy trotted over to Eli wearing her white net tutu and her crown, and Eli said, “What is she?”

  “I’m afraid,” Luke said with another sigh, “that she’s a ballerina.”

  Eli was laughing hard now, and Kayla was laughing, too. She grabbed her phone out of her purse and posed Eli near the bookcase. “All right. Action shot!”

  Eli lunged, sword upheld, and shouted, “Ha!” and Daisy leaped up in her tutu, but Kayla was laughing too hard herself to get the shot, so Luke had to take over. He got one with Kayla posed on her knees between Eli and Daisy, too, and he was smiling pretty hard himself by that time.

  Finally, though, Eli said, “Can we go now? Please? I’ll be late!”

  “You won’t, actually,” Luke said. “And I don’t think anybody’s going to run out of candy before six thirty. But—sure.” He looked at Kayla. “If you’re not all right opening the door while I’m gone, you don’t have to. Wait till I get back if you want.”

  “Of course not. I don’t have to be scared here. Not with the Attack Ballerina on hand.” Even though Luke was right. Opening the door when she wasn’t expecting anyone was one of her hardest things.

  “Bye, Mom!” Eli said, snatching up his coat and backpack. “See you tomorrow!”

  “Bye.” She kissed him through his mask. “Wait. I think that was an ear I got there.” But he was already out the door.

  Luke’s TV viewing got interrupted quite a bit, it turned out, even after he came back from dropping Eli off. The game was a good one, though, so Kayla took over the candy duties after a while. Daisy came to the door with her, and the reaction the dog got from the trick-or-treaters made Kayla smile every time.

  As the evening wore on, the breaks between groups got longer and longer. She’d almost decided they were done for the night when the doorbell rang again.

  “Don’t get up,” Kayla said. It was third and three in overtime, and Notre Dame was almost in field-goal range. She grabbed the bowl of candy, went to the door, and pulled it open.

  It was a man. Black pants and a denim jacket, but no face. No face. Nothing but blankness, because his head was completely wrapped in an elastic bandage. A figure from a horror movie.

  The holes that were his eyes stared back at her through the narrow slit of beige, and she stood there, paralyzed. She forgot Daisy beside her. She forgot everything, because she couldn’t move.

  Finally, the slit over the man’s mouth opened.

  “Trick or treat.”

  It started out low, then cracked. Not a man. A teenager, dressed as a mummy. She registered it, and still, she shook.

  The announcers were talking on the TV behind her, their voices excited, but all the same, she sensed Luke’s presence. She wanted to turn and run, but instead, she forced herself to breathe and held out the candy bowl with trembling hands. The boy’s
own hand hovered deliberately, selected a peanut butter cup, and dropped it into a bulging pillowcase.

  “Happy . . . Happy Halloween,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he said, turning to go. “Happy Halloween.”

  “Time for you to go home.” That was Luke, who had moved forward to stand beside her. The bandaged, blank face looked back over his shoulder at him, and the feet in their tennis shoes stopped in the act of stepping off the porch.

  “Uh . . . Mr. Jackson,” the boy said.

  “Yeah. Who are you?”

  “Ryan Wilson.”

  “Well, Ryan, it’s eight thirty. Getting too late to trick-or-treat, and I’d say this is your last time, wouldn’t you? When you can’t be bothered with any more costume than that, you’re done. Take your little sister next year.”

  “Then she gets all the candy,” the mummy complained.

  “Yeah. Tough luck. It’s called adulthood. See you at school.”

  Luke shut the door on the boy. “Halloween’s over for us.” He snapped the porch light off. “You OK?” he added gently.

  She rubbed her upper arms with her hands and tried not to shiver. “Yeah. I’m fine. It was just . . . a second there.”

  “Hey.” He never grabbed her, and he didn’t grab her now. He just put his hands on her shoulders, and, when she leaned into him, pulled her a little closer.

  She took the step, rested her cheek against his chest, and unwrapped her arms. It would feel so much better to hold him instead, and to let him hold her. And she was right. It did.

  His lips brushed the edge of her hairline, the gentlest touch, and she sighed and nestled closer.

  “I’m right here,” he said, his voice settling somewhere deep inside her. “Right here with you.”

  His arms were strong, and his chest was broad and solid and firm, and her heart was fluttering, her breath coming fast for a different reason now as she stood and inhaled the warm scent of him, all clean cotton, soap, and man. So different, somehow, with no Eli on the other side of the door. So different, all alone with Luke.