“She said it made her sad that I hadn’t had anything of my own for four years and she wanted me to have the laptop so I can use it for anything I want and not have to ask. A brand new laptop!”
He was almost laughing as he said it. It came over him again what an incredible thing it was for her to do.
“That woman is amazing,” Oliver said, smiling. “So I guess it’s fair to say your presence isn’t causing her undue worry.”
“Looks like it,” Denny said with a grin.
“So, when do I get an official introduction?”
Denny shrugged. “Whenever you want. Maybe when it’s later and there are less people around. Tonight if you want, if she says it’s okay. She said she’d like to meet you.”
Oliver raised his eyebrows. “You told her about me?”
“I glossed over your obnoxious personality.”
“Ha.”
“This will give me an excuse to text her,” Denny said, delighted.
“You need an excuse?” His friend was obviously trying not to snigger.
“I thought it might seem weird, just texting her for no reason. But I really want to. Would it be weird, just texting her? Is there some rule that says you shouldn’t text a woman who isn’t your girlfriend unless you have something specific to say?”
Oliver shook his head, attempting to look serious and failing badly. “I don’t know, man, it’s a potential social minefield.”
***
Denny stood next to Laila in the lobby, looking out onto the darkened street.
They were holding hands.
Whenever they left the flat together Laila would always find his hand. That simple contact had never felt more intense to him. He loved every second of it.
In her other hand she was holding the pad and pen and a small carrier bag.
“Has Oliver ever had anyone living know he’s there?” she said. “You know, like me and you?”
Denny tapped her wrist twice. He’d told her about Oliver, everything except the details of his death. She knew it was a motorbike accident, that was all. He didn’t want her opinion of him to be tainted. Denny had known him for four years and he knew Oliver wasn’t the man who had got on his bike drunk. If Oliver wanted to tell her, that was up to him, but Denny wasn’t going to do it.
She nodded. “I’m glad you’ve had each other. It must have made it easier, having a friend to talk to.”
He tapped her wrist once. He couldn’t get over how well she understood him. He wished, not for the first time, that he had known her when he was alive, and that she could have known Trish and Jay and John. He and Laila would have been perfect for each other, and not in the way he had often thought he and a girl were perfect for each other when they first got together, in the first flush of infatuation, before things cooled down and he realised that perfect was an overused and highly misunderstood word. With Laila it would have been real, lasting. His protective big sister would have been so pleased.
“Hey,” Oliver said, rounding the side wall of the porch and bounding up the stairs with his usual grin on his face.
Denny squeezed Laila’s hand.
“He’s here?” she said.
He tapped once. She nodded, let go of his hand and walked out the door.
“Hello, Oliver,” she said, holding out her hand.
He glanced at Denny through the glass doors, then back at Laila’s hand. After a moment’s hesitation, he took it and she smiled.
“Wow,” he said, staring at their hands holding on to each other.
Denny knew exactly how he felt. Physical contact with other people was something you took for granted when you were living, and missed most when you were dead.
Suddenly, he turned her hand towards him and lifted it to his lips, kissing the back. Laila laughed.
“Hey,” Denny said, “watch it!”
“You get to have her inside,” he said, “but out here she’s all mine.” He grinned and waggled his eyebrows and Denny smiled and shook his head.
Laila handed the pad and pen to him and he began to write. With them both just beyond the glass next to the door, Denny had no trouble reading what he was writing.
Hello Laila. It’s nice to meet you properly.
“It’s nice to meet you too. Denny told me you’ve been looking out for me when I’m out. I wanted to thank you.”
It was my pleasure.
“Denny told you about the laptop and phone I got him?”
Yes! That was awesome!
She smiled. “Well, I got you something too.” She reached into the bag she was carrying and took out a small box identical to the one she’d given Denny the day before. “I don’t really know how you can carry this around without people seeing it, but I guess you can work something out.” She opened the box and held it out. “I’ve already put my and Denny’s numbers into it, so you can text us whenever you want to. And you have unlimited internet.”
Oliver’s mouth was hanging open. He reached into the box to take out the phone Laila had bought him on her way home from work, looking at it in astonishment. He looked at Denny who was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“I...” he shook his head. “I can’t believe she did this.”
“I know,” Denny said. “Amazing, isn’t she?”
Oliver looked back at Laila. “I’m sorry, dude, but I have got to do this.”
He stepped up to her and wrapped his arms around her.
“Thank you,” he said into her hair.
She laughed as she hugged him back. “Now I’ve been hugged by two ghosts,” she said. “I could get used to this.”
Oliver grinned and scribbled on the pad.
Ghost groupie!
Twenty-Three
It was three days since she’d met Denny and Laila felt a pang of disappointment when he didn’t meet her at the door the way he had the previous two afternoons when she got home from work. She rode up in the lift alone, reflecting on how strange it was that she felt so strongly about someone she’d met so recently and hadn’t even seen.
Getting into the flat, she called his name and waited for a response, for his hand to touch hers, but there was nothing. He had to be somewhere else in the building, she knew.
When he’d told her about how he visited the other residents in the building, taking an interest in their lives, he had seemed nervous about her response, afraid she would think he was invading their privacy. But she had actually been impressed. He had been forced into a terrible situation and had done his best with it. Laila could tell how much he cared about his neighbours. It made her like him even more.
With Denny away from the flat, she decided to do something she’d been wanting to do ever since they’d met. Turning on her laptop, she placed it on the kitchen counter and waited impatiently for it to start up, not knowing how much time she would have before he came back.
When she finally got online after what seemed like forever, but was in reality less than a minute, she typed her request into the search box and scanned the results, clicking on an online newspaper article from almost five years previously.
The first thing she saw was the photo. The words ‘Dennis Carpenter, 33, murdered’ were printed underneath.
It wasn’t a posed portrait; from what she knew of Denny he wasn’t the type to go for those. It had been taken outside, the sun reflecting in his hair, and he was smiling. Laila stared at it in amazement. He was one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen. Gently curling, light brown hair with a touch of red contrasted with a pale complexion, pink cheeks and possibly even a few freckles, although it was difficult to tell with the resolution of the photo. His pale blue, sparkling eyes, full lips and slightly cleft chin gave him a young, sexy, mischievous look. And his smile was stunning.
She thought back to when she had touched his face the morning after they met. She had tried to imagine what he looked like from the feel of his features beneath her fingers, but her imagination hadn’t come close to doing him justice.
; She quickly saved the photo so she could look at it again later. That was the man who had saved her, who was in her flat, his flat, and whose hand she couldn’t get enough of holding. The thought sent a cloud of butterflies into flight in her chest.
Reluctantly, she turned her attention to the article. She could have happily spent another hour gazing at the photo, but she didn’t want Denny to find her looking at this. She didn’t want anything to remind him.
The text gave a brief biography, all of which she knew from their conversations, some statements from the police and a touching one from Denny’s sister Trish, and explained that they were holding a suspect. But it was the description of the murder that broke Laila’s heart. Tears ran unchecked down her face as she read how a friend had found his body, lying in the bedroom, covered in the blood that had also pooled beneath him. It detailed how there were signs of a struggle and that he had been stabbed several times including once through the heart which had killed him instantly.
Nausea penetrated to her core as she sobbed uncontrollably.
A hand on her shoulder startled her.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped, “I didn’t mean for you to see...”
He turned her towards him and caught her in his embrace. Sinking into his arms, she cried against his shoulder.
She clutched his shirt, holding him as tight as she could, unable to escape from the images assailing her mind of Denny fighting for his life, being wounded, in agony, dying. He had saved her, but no-one had been there to save him. At that moment she would have given her own life to have prevented him from that suffering.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, “I’m so sorry.”
When she eventually felt able to let go of him, she wiped at her face.
“I didn’t mean for you to see that,” she said. “I didn’t want to remind you. I just wanted to know what had happened. I had no idea how bad it was. How much you suffered.”
He turned to the laptop and opened a new document, obscuring the article.
[It was quick]
“But you must have been terrified and in so much pain.”
More tears escaped and she raised a hand to wipe them away, but before she could she felt Denny’s fingertips brush against her cheek. Her heart stuttered and she looked down. The touch of his fingers vanished.
[Yes I was. But it was a long time ago. Don’t be sad for me. Being dead hasn’t been all bad. Some really good things have happened]
The words came out before she had a chance to think about them and she was embarrassed as soon as they had. “Such as?”
[I got to know some great people in the building. I met Oliver who is the best friend I’ve ever had. I have learned how to play the piano properly.] There was a pause. [I met you.]
She smiled and looked at the floor. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
There was a long pause when Laila could feel herself blushing. She continued to study the floor, wishing she could see Denny’s reaction, until she heard the tapping of the keyboard.
[Big big smiley face]
This time, her heart did a somersault. She bit her lip and smiled.
“Me too.”
Twenty-Four
“Shouldn’t you be working?” Laila breathed, tilting her head to one side to give him better access.
“Probably,” Denny replied between kisses down her neck.
She stretched her body beneath him and pulled up his shirt, sliding her hands onto his back.
“Oh, baby,” he groaned, moving back to her mouth and crushing his lips onto hers. Her tongue slipped into his mouth immediately and she moaned into him, making his heart almost pound out of his chest. He moved one hand to the front of her jeans, fumbling with the button.
“The pizza will be here soon,” she gasped, her protestations negated by her actions as her fingers unzipped his fly and pushed through the gap.
He groaned as she stroked him.
“I don’t care about the pizza,” he said, capturing her lips again.
The intercom buzzer sounded. To his intense disappointment, she withdrew her hand. He lifted his head to look at her.
“Let’s just ignore it,” he said, his eyes dropping to her kiss-swollen lips.
He lowered his face to hers and she pushed against his chest, smiling.
“I’m hungry,” she said. “Just get the pizza, then we can go back to what we’re doing here, then we can eat.”
He shook his head, smiling. He could never say no to her.
“You’re killing me here,” he said, standing up as she giggled and zipping his fly, pulling the front of his shirt down over his straining crotch. He walked gingerly to the intercom.
“Hello?”
“Pizza delivery,” a man’s voice said.
“Come on up.”
Denny buzzed him in and fetched his wallet, leaning down and lingering to kiss Laila’s sweet lips on his way back to open the door when the knock came.
“Took a while didn’t...” The door crashed open into him, hammering the breath from his body, hitting his head and throwing him against the wall. His wallet flew across the floor.
A huge man with at least three inches on Denny pinned him in place, his massive forearm across his throat while he used his free hand to shove the door shut.
“Denny!” Laila cried out, starting to rise.
“Stay there, bitch,” the man snapped, “or I’ll break his scrawny neck right now.”
He leaned his arm harder against Denny’s throat and he struggled to breathe as the man’s arm constricted his windpipe.
“No, please,” she said, sitting down again quickly.
Denny pushed against his assailant, trying to free himself, but he had no leverage. He looked at her helplessly, seeing the terror in her eyes.
“Thought I wouldn’t find you, didn’t you?” the big man said, his face inches away, garlic soaked breath almost making Denny gag.
“What?” he croaked. He had no idea who the man was.
“You thought you could take her from me,” the man growled, poking a finger into Denny’s ribs for punctuation, “but Chrissy’s mine. She loves me.”
“What? Who’s Chrissy?”
Without warning, the man rammed a fist into Denny’s stomach. He doubled over in pain, dropping to the floor. Gasping for breath, he clutched at his throbbing abdomen.
“Pathetic,” the man sneered. “This is going to be no fun.”
A heavy boot connected with Denny’s side and he cried out as something snapped. He blinked back tears of agony.
“No!” Laila screamed, leaping up.
She started towards Denny as the man reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun. Her eyes widened and she froze.
“No,” Denny gasped, panicked, “I’ll do anything, just please don’t hurt her.”
“I was thinking of having some fun with her, but I think it will be much more fun to see you watch her die.”
Before Denny could react, the man turned back to Laila, lifted the gun and pulled the trigger.
A muffled pop was the only sound to herald the tearing apart of Denny’s world.
Time seemed to slow as he watched an expanding spot of red appear on the front of Laila’s white top. She looked down at it, then back at Denny, her eyes wide with shock. He tried to scream as she crumpled to the floor, landing on her side and looking at him, but no sound would come out.
Her lips parted, whispering, “I love you,” before her eyes closed and she was still.
“Chrissy is mine,” the man growled. “She’d know that if pieces of shit like you didn’t keep lying and tempting her. Now I’m going to have to show her how much I love her. By killing you.”
Denny’s eyes flew open and he gasped in a breath. He stared up at the ceiling from his position on the sofa, his heart pounding in his chest.
“Damn it,” he said, his voice shaking.
He sat up slowly and swivelled his hips, placing his feet onto the floor. After sitting still for a few minu
tes, he stood and walked through into the bedroom, looking down at Laila sleeping peacefully in the bed. Raw images of his dream of her death sprang to the front of his mind and he looked away, wiping at his eyes. Carrying on past the bed, he walked through the curtains and glass doors onto the balcony.
The refreshing cool night air washed over him and he sat down and leaned back against the balcony railing, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.
Four and a half years. He had thought he was over it, but when he’d walked into the flat and seen Laila reading about his death, seen her crying again, this time for him, it had been devastating. The embrace he’d drawn her into had been as much for him as it had been to comfort her. But mixed in with that were the painfully intense feelings the knowledge brought that she cared for him enough to make her cry that way over his murder. Without knowing it, she was reaching into his chest and grabbing his heart.
He hadn’t had the dream of his death in a long time, more than four years, but even back then it had never felt like it did this time. The addition of Laila had taken it to a whole new level of horror. Seeing her die had made him feel like he was being ripped apart. Experiencing his own death felt benign in comparison.
But the beginning of the dream also haunted him, the feel of her hands on his skin, her body beneath him, his lips on hers. It was both exhilarating and torturous. Meeting Laila had felt like the best thing that had ever happened to him, but now he wasn’t so sure. He felt like he was being turned inside out.
But what was the alternative? Leave her? Unthinkable. Any scenario where he couldn’t be with her every day was inconceivable.
He was beginning to fear he would lose his sanity.
Denny remained on the balcony until the sky began to lighten with the approaching dawn then stood and walked back inside. Laila had moved in her sleep and her hair was draped over her eyes. He reached down and gently moved the few strands back from her face.
“I will keep you safe,” he said, looking down at her. “As long as I’m here, I will always protect you. And I will always love you.”
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