The Last Kiss Goodbye: A Charlotte Stone Novel

by Karen Robards

“How about we let nature take its course here?”

  “Are you really willing to simply abandon her?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  Charlie made an exasperated sound. “Michael—”

  Tony came up behind her. “Everything’s all set. Come on, I’ll walk you to the truck.”

  Trying not to appear as ruffled as she was feeling, swallowing the rest of what she had been going to say to Michael with an effort, Charlie managed a slightly strained, “You don’t have to do that,” for Tony. He smiled at her, a quick, intimate smile that probably would have made her feel all toasty inside if she hadn’t been so aggravated at the blue-eyed devil on her other side, said, “I want to,” and slid his hand around her elbow, where it rested, warm and strong and unmistakably possessive. Seeing that, Michael shot Charlie a hard-eyed look. An instant later, over Tony’s shoulder, Charlie encountered Kaminsky’s frosty stare.

  Okay, well, there are clearly no fans of Tony and me as a couple in the vicinity.

  “Really glad to be working with you again, Dr. Stone,” Kaminsky said as they all started walking toward the far side of the clearing. Having no trouble recognizing sarcasm when she heard it, Charlie made a face.

  “The pleasure’s all mine,” she replied with false cordiality. Then, because Kaminsky was looking so miffed, Charlie’s smile turned genuine. It lasted until she glanced toward where Laura’s spirit had been, only to find that the girl was on her feet and moving now, forlornly following the body bag that held her corpse as it was carried to the waiting stretcher.

  Charlie’s gaze flew to Michael. Face tight, he was watching the same thing. He must have felt the weight of Charlie’s eyes on him, because he looked at her then.

  Please, Charlie begged him silently. He knew what she was asking him: the knowledge was there in the tightening of his lips and the narrowing of his eyes. There was only a small window of time in which he could act. Since he had to stay in Charlie’s close proximity, he just had until she—they—reached the edge of the clearing. Of course, she could delay things—by, say, throwing up, which she absolutely felt like doing—but not for long. Once they were gone, it might be days before she could get back to the clearing. And she hated the idea of leaving Laura’s poor confused spirit up here all alone.

  “It’s not like something’s going to happen to her. She’s already dead,” Michael groused. Then in response to whatever it was he could read in Charlie’s face, his mouth twisted. “You want me to try that bad? Fine. I’ll try.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “So why is this serial killer such a threat to you?” Kaminsky asked Charlie. Having been occupied with watching Michael as he approached Laura, Charlie jerked her gaze to Kaminsky. Taking a second to process what she had just been asked, she frowned at the other woman even as Tony ordered, “Play nice, Kaminsky.” If Charlie hadn’t known how much Kaminsky hated being pulled off an active investigation to babysit, as she called it, as well as how much she disapproved of Charlie and Tony’s developing relationship, she might have been taken aback by the other woman’s attitude. But she did know both those things, and so she chalked it up to Kaminsky being Kaminsky.

  “He’s not a threat to me,” Charlie answered, slowing her step as her gaze slid back toward Michael. Where he was standing, the night was dark and shadowy, but she could see that Laura, whose awareness of her situation was obviously expanding because she had been able to see enough of what was going on in the real world to identify and follow her corpse, had her face buried in his chest again. He was patting her back a little awkwardly, and his tawny head was bent as he talked to her. Charlie could only surmise that as soon as the spirit had seen him she had thrown herself into his arms. Charlie was too far away to overhear any of their conversation, but she could hear the sounds of Laura’s steady weeping.

  Seeing Michael with the girl wrapped around him bothered her again, Charlie realized. And she realized something else, too—the unpleasant niggle she was experiencing had nothing to do with the fact that seeing Michael with a woman in his arms was new. It had everything to do with seeing Michael with a woman in his arms, period.

  Not good.

  “I’d say that having the Gingerbread Man break into your house and send you a personal message means he’s a threat to you,” Tony said dryly, pulling Charlie’s attention back to the conversation.

  Forcing herself to focus, Charlie replied, “The last person he sent his You can’t catch me message to is still alive, I know for certain, and so are the other three, I’m pretty sure. Now that I’ve had a chance to think about it, I don’t feel I’m in any physical danger from him.”

  “I’m not prepared to chance it.” Tony’s voice held a note of finality. Kaminsky grimaced, but didn’t argue. Charlie didn’t, either. Still watching Michael and Laura out of the corner of her eye, Charlie saw Laura lift her head sharply and look into the darkness on the opposite side of the clearing, as if she heard or saw something there. When Michael appeared to follow her gaze, Charlie was positive that those two were seeing something that she could not.

  The white light?

  Then the thought occurred: if Michael was with Laura when Laura saw the white light, would he be able to see it, too? If so, could he notwalk into it along with Laura? Would hewalk into it along with Laura?

  Charlie’s heart beat faster. She wanted to call out to him—to suggest that, if he saw the light, he should grab the opportunity to go into it, too? or to beg him not to go into it even if he got the chance? she wasn’t sure, and really didn’t want to know—but she could not say a word, of course.

  All she could do was watch, and wait.

  Kaminsky said to her, “What, do you have, like, this photographic memory of how all the serial killers at large right now operate? Because knowing how many others were sent the same message you got tonight, and whether or not those recipients are still alive, seems pretty specific.”

  Michael’s arms dropped away from Laura. The spirit looked up at him once, then started walking slowly away.

  Toward what? On pins and needles now, Charlie had no way of knowing.

  “Dr. Stone?” Kaminsky’s voice pulled Charlie back into the conversation. It took her a beat to recall what she had been asked.

  “No, of course not.” She took a breath. Whatever was happening with Laura, Michael was simply standing there watching. He was not going with her, and Charlie was a little bit ashamed to find herself fiercely glad about that. “I know a lot about this particular serial killer because last year I was asked to consult on an investigation involving him. I turned them down.”

  Charlie’s step faltered as Laura disappeared: the spirit was there one minute and gone the next. Tony’s hand tightened on her arm as if to steady her, and she immediately got a grip and resumed walking.

  Michael’s still here.

  “Who asked you to consult?” Tony wanted to know. Michael was heading back toward them, his long stride eating up the distance.

  “Dr. David Myers. After the Gingerbread Man attacked a previous group of victims, he was sent one of the You can’t catch me notes,” Charlie answered. Michael reached her side, said, “Happy now?” to her in a way that told her he was not. Since the truthful answer was yes—both because Laura was gone and, in all honesty, equally because he was still there—it was, she reflected, just as well that she couldn’t reply. Without answering Michael by anything more than a quick flicker of her eyelashes in his direction, Charlie continued, “He’s a professor at the University of South Carolina. He wrote the definitive textbook on criminal psychology. He’s one of the most widely respected experts in the field.”

  A hooded look—because it was filled with guilty knowledge?—from Tony reminded her that he undoubtedly knew the rest of the story. And he knew the rest of the story because he had done a thorough background check on her before he’d approached her for help in the beginning. She hadn’t liked it then, didn’t like it now, but there it was.

  “And, yes, Dr. Myers
and I were once in a relationship,” Charlie added tartly. The look she gave Tony was cold with rebuke. “Which is why he contacted me to consult when he was pulled into the Gingerbread Man case. He went over the facts with me, asked for my input. I gave him what insight I could, but beyond that I declined to get involved.”

  “Didn’t want to work with an old boyfriend, hmm?” Kaminsky sent a snarky glance her way.

  “Didn’t want to work on an investigation with an active serial killer slaughtering real-time victims,” Charlie retorted. “What I do is strictly research based. Or at least, it was until your team came along.”

  “We appreciate your help,” Tony broke in smoothly before Kaminsky could reply. “We got the Boardwalk Killer off the streets, and we’ll get this guy, too, believe me.”

  The sound of metal clanking loudly ahead of them caused Charlie to jump a little: despite her brave words, and the indisputable fact that the other recipients of the Gingerbread Man’s message hadn’t been harmed, she was still scared. It was, she decided, something visceral inside her that had been awakened by the Boardwalk Killer years ago and would probably stick with her for as long as she lived. Not that anyone was ever going to know it. Glancing through the woods, she saw the truck, which looked like a modified ambulance. Pointing the opposite direction, its headlights cut through the darkness, revealing a stockade’s worth of sturdy tree trunks and a rutted gravel road that disappeared into the night. Two blue-garbed assistants had just loaded the last of the bodies inside and appeared to be getting ready to close the back doors.

  “Hold up,” Tony called to them, urging Charlie to a faster pace. “You’ve got passengers.”

  “We weren’t leaving without your agents,” a cheery voice answered, and the ME walked into view from behind the other side of the truck. Apparently having seen so much death had not affected a naturally sunny disposition, because Frank Cramer—short, stout, white-haired, a former pediatrician who’d been coroner for the past twenty years—was positively jolly as he assisted Charlie and Kaminsky onto the front bench seat, beside the driver, while he and one of his assistants got into the back with the corpses. Jolting down the muddy mountain road to the accompaniment of the running series of jokes with which Dr. Cramer chose to entertain the company, Charlie forced her lips into a smile when appropriate and kept a wary eye on the back, in case Laura, who seemed to have a strong affinity for her corporeal body, should reappear. But she didn’t, and except for Michael, who sat silently in the back with Dr. Cramer et al, the journey was thankfully spirit-free.

  “So did she go to the light?” Charlie hissed impatiently at Michael the first chance she got. Along with Kaminsky, they had just walked through the front door of her house, having been dropped off curbside by the ME’s truck. Since everything that needed to be processed in her house had been processed and it was not officially designated a crime scene, all the law enforcement types had gone. Likewise, there was no sign of Raylene Witt. But there were plenty of reminders of what had happened. Starting with only what Charlie could see, the floors were streaked with dried mud and there were dirty footprints on the stairs. As she had been leaving with Tony’s team to go up the mountain, she had heard Sheriff Peel order a couple of his deputies to fix the back door so that it would close and lock. Hopefully that had been done, although for the moment Charlie had no way of knowing for sure; she was confined to the front hall. With a peremptory, “Wait here,” Kaminsky had gone off, gun in hand, to do a quick search of the premises. Since Michael had stayed with Charlie, that meant the two of them were briefly alone in the hall

  Michael said, “Nope.”

  “What?” Charlie was aghast. “What happened?”

  “Remember those two little girls I told you about? They came back, only this time they looked like they were wearing their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. No blood on ’em anywhere. They called to Laura, told her to come with them. She went.”

  That was so unexpected that Charlie was nonplussed. “But—what about the white light?”

  “Like I keep telling you, buttercup: there is no white light.”

  “There is!” An instant reflection that she had never seen it tempered Charlie’s indignation. “There has to be. Oh, my God, where do you suppose Laura went?”

  He shrugged.

  She glared at him.

  “You got me to do what you wanted, it turned out wrong, and now you’re blaming me,” Michael said with disgust. “Women.”

  “No sign of the boogeyman, Dr. Stone.” Kaminsky’s voice dripped sarcasm as, holstering her gun, she rejoined them. Without her customary high heels, she was surprisingly small: the top of her head reached the middle of Charlie’s nose. Napoleon Complex, Charlie knew, was a real issue for some height-challenged men. Kaminsky, she decided, must suffer from the female version.

  Whatever, Charlie was not in the mood. “Can you give the snark a rest, please? You’re stuck with me, I’m stuck with you, and the only thing to do is make the best of it.” She walked past Kaminsky toward the stairs.

  “I’m fine with that,” Kaminsky said. “Just so long as we’re clear that I am a highly trained federal agent and not your personal bodyguard.”

  With one hand on the newel post, Charlie stopped to skewer Kaminsky with a look. “And I am a highly educated expert who already helped your team catch one serial killer, and may very well help you catch a second. Which is why I’m worth protecting.” For a moment they stared measuringly at each other, while Michael, clearly having found a fresh source of enjoyment, added his two cents with, “Catfight! You know I’ve got your back, babe, but I gotta warn you that nowadays that don’t count for much.”

  Ignoring him except for a slight contraction of her eyebrows, Charlie said, “I’m going to bed,” to Kaminsky, who had already been given the room across the hall from Charlie’s and, search completed, was free to go to bed herself at any time. “If you need towels or anything, you know where the linen closet is.”

  Then she turned and walked on up the stairs.

  By the time Charlie reached her bedroom, it was a quarter to five in the morning. Exhaustion was blunting the horrors of the night and even tempering the aggravation that she was feeling toward every other being (both dead and living) in her house. The fact that she was drooping with fatigue wasn’t even her most pressing problem. As soon as she (and her shadow) was inside with the door closed, she made a beeline for the bathroom.

  “You. The bathroom is off-limits,” she told Michael over her shoulder. Then, shutting the door firmly behind her—locking it was a waste of time, considering that the creature she most wanted to keep out could walk right through it if he wanted to—she hurried to the medicine cabinet, shook two Pepto-Bismol tablets into her hand, and chewed desperately, hoping they would quell the nausea that the ride down the mountain had done little to ease. While she waited for the medicine to (hopefully) work she managed to brush her teeth and, after a single regretful glance at the waiting tub, take a quick shower that was steamy hot enough to chase away the terrible chill that still afflicted her. After that, she was so tired she felt boneless, but she was warmer and the nausea was better. Michael hadn’t put in an appearance—actually, she had trusted him not to—and she felt comfortable enough that he wouldn’t to drop her towel and rub lotion into her skin before pulling on her nightgown. Then she covered the flimsy, mid-thigh-length thing with her blue terry bathrobe, which she tied firmly at the waist, shook her hair out of the knot she’d twisted it into for the shower and even ran a brush through it (vanity, thy name is woman) before heading back out into the bedroom.

  Where she knew Michael would be waiting.

  Having taken his watch off before she showered, she was carefully carrying it.

  “So, you upchuck in there?” was how he greeted her.

  “No, I did not,” she answered, nettled that he knew so much about her, before she regrouped enough to remember the watch and hold it up for him to see. “Is there somebody I can send this to for yo
u? Someone you’d like to give it to?”

  Because after all the watch was no good to him now: he couldn’t wear it, would never wear it again, and there might be someone he’d like to leave a memento to. The matter could have waited for morning, but she was addressing it now as a way of sliding past any awkwardness that might result from him hanging out in her bedroom while she went (alone) to bed. She’d known that having him tethered to her would come with its share of drawbacks, but the reality of it was proving downright unnerving: if she didn’t find some way to change the terms of his continued earthly existence, he might very well be dogging every step she took for as long as she lived. Then she realized that he was shirtless, and that the soft glow of the bedside lamp was playing over a magnificent display of rippling muscles and tanned skin, and she forgot what she’d been thinking. Despite being so weary that her legs felt shaky, as her eyes slid over his powerful shoulders and wide, sculpted chest and as much of his sinewy abdomen as she could see above the low-slung waistband of his jeans, her heart sped up and she felt an electric tingle that started deep inside and shivered across every nerve ending she possessed. He was standing sideways to her, on the far side of the bed, holding his T-shirt out at arm’s length in front of him as if he’d been examining it. The tattoo on his bulging biceps caught her eye: like the rest of him, it looked totally badass and she was embarrassed to realize that the sight of it excited her. With a quick, comprehensive glance, she took in the smooth planes of his shoulder blades and his long, strong back, his brawny arms and square-palmed, long-fingered hands and felt a rush of heat. The instant quickening of her body was immediately followed by a sense of profound helplessness. Like practically everything else where he was concerned, she had no control over her body’s instinctive reaction to him. The one saving grace in the face of what she could only consider her really stupid weakness for him was that there wasn’t any way she could act on it. He might look as solid and substantial as any living, breathing man, but he was not. She could fantasize about running her hands over all that hard-bodied splendor, about kissing that chiseled mouth, about falling into bed and having mind-blowing sex with him all she wanted to, and it still wasn’t going to happen.