by J. E. Taylor
Steve took a deep breath. What to hit her with first, the fact they were filthy rich or the fact he was heading to Atlanta after the funeral. Opting for the good news first, he picked up the letter and check, holding them out to her.
Jennifer crossed the room and took the papers. She read the letter and raised her eyes to Steve. “He knew he was going to die?”
Steve nodded. “Look at the check.” He pointed and she sank into the chair on the other side of the desk, her jaw drooped and her eyes bulged.
Steve chuckled.
Jennifer ripped her eyes from the check, meeting Steve’s gaze. “For real?”
“Yep.” He picked up the deed to the apartment in New York. “And he left us this.”
Jennifer’s hands shook as she took the second document, scanning it before she looked back at him. “We’re millionaires with a penthouse in the city?”
“Ayup.” Steve leaned back in the chair. “And there’s another serial killer on the loose in Atlanta.”
Jennifer’s hands dropped to her lap and her mouth closed, the reminder of his job obviously not welcomed.
His eyes drifted to the computer screen and back to her hard features. Unhappiness radiated from her and he stood, walking into the empty living room, crossing to the bay window.
Hunting and chopping up adults was one thing, but what this guy was doing to kids was beyond unacceptable. It was downright infuriating. He chewed the inside of his cheek, staring at the lake, refusing to look at the stud walls of the kitchen where his daughter died.
Steve glanced over his shoulder toward the office. Jennifer hadn’t followed him. She was still staring at the check trying to figure out why Chris Ryan would do such a thing and on the heels of that thought came the conviction that he should quit his job before someone else got hurt.
Turning, he sat on the window bench and waited. When she appeared in the doorway, he spoke. “What do you want me to do?” He already knew, but he wanted her to say it aloud.
“I want you to quit.”
Steve inhaled and pursed his lips. If he hadn’t taken the call from his boss, if he hadn’t opened the file, if he hadn’t seen the photos he might have considered quitting, but not now. Those kids deserved justice and he was more than ready to deliver it with an archangel’s vengeance.
“But you already knew that.” Jennifer crossed her arms.
He dipped his head, looking at the floor and nodding. “I can’t walk away from this case, Jen.” He raised his eyes. “And I need to get that check in the bank.” He stood and crossed the room, stopping at her side and meeting her gaze, reaching and running the back of his fingers on her arm. “You know I love you.”
“But?”
The right side of his lips curled for an instant, revealing a crooked smile. “But this guy is killing kids. Kids, Jen. I can stop him.”
“What? Like you stopped Kyle?”
The barb stung and he stiffened, pulling his hand away from her. “This time I can stop the killer. I’ve got a distinct advantage now.”
“What exactly does that mean? That you can read minds and put yourself between the blade of a knife and a victim? What good will that do against another madman like Kyle?”
In the few days since the warehouse incident, Steve hadn’t disclosed the extent of what Chris left him, and with a tilt of his head, the picture window disintegrated, shattering into a thousand pieces.
“And if that’s not enough.” He closed his eyes willing the window right again. The screech and creak of glass shifting, scraping, and reassembling filled the otherwise silent room. When he opened his eyes, the same slack-jawed look of shock she’d had in his office graced her face.
“Chris gave me more than just money and a penthouse, babe,” Steve said, his voice clipped tight. He didn’t like her train of thought, her doubts in him, in his ability, in their marriage and he stepped away without looking.
When he returned to the living room with the check in his hand, he asked, “You coming?”
Jennifer tore her eyes away from the window. “What did he do to you?”
Steve shrugged. “Gave me a little more juice than I bargained for,” he said, quoting Chris’s note. “You coming?”
Jennifer looked at the window and back to her husband. Her mouth slightly parted as if to speak. Who the hell is this man? She locked eyes with him again and slowly shook her head. “I think I’ll hang back.” Her voice shook.
Steve nodded and turned, walking out of the house and slamming the door behind him. Anger throbbed in his veins, making his skin tingle and itch for something to take aim at, something to release the coiled weapon inside him.
Chapter 3
Jessica Ryan sat at the end of the dock on a lake not that far from Brooksfield, her hand slowly gliding along the soft fur of the shepherd’s head in her lap. The kids argued over their video games inside the house and she tuned them out, staring at the sun glinted water.
The lake house had been her grandfather’s decades ago and Chris bought it from the subsequent owners as a gift. Despite the last ten years of summer vacations on the lake, it still reminded her less of Chris than their Maine home, where every turn was a painful memory. Even so, the sunset on the water was like a shard of glass embedded in her heart and the dog let a huff of a breath escape that matched her sigh.
Empty, like a shriveled cornhusk at a fall festival, she shut the valve off and her tear tracks dried. Sam whined and she looked down. “I know. I miss him too.”
The door banged on its hinges and Sam’s head shot up, looking in the direction of the house. Jessica tilted her head at the soft patter of feet. When Tommy sat next to her she offered him her best reassuring It’s going to be okay smile.
Tommy laced his fingers through his mother’s hand and looked out at the sunset.
She knew he didn’t need to be psychic to understand her pain, he felt the devastation too. Like a lamb that wandered into wolf territory, he was lost and terrified. The loss of his father had done more than just injure his heart; it put a wedge between him and CJ. The older twin ranted at how unfair it was that Tommy could see the ghost of their father and he couldn’t.
He looked down at the beloved shepherd with its massive head in his mother’s lap, her hand stroking in methodical, repetitive strokes.
Tommy still didn’t understand why his father had to die. And for it to happen in that godforsaken warehouse where they all almost died five years before was just too much of a coincidence.
“It wasn’t a coincidence,” Jessica said, her voice hollow with grief as she met her son’s gaze.
Tommy’s chin quivered.
“None of us should have walked out of the warehouse that day.” Horrific memories swirled and she inhaled, turning away from Tommy’s wide blue eyes—eyes reminiscent of his biological father and not Chris.
Honest, honorable eyes—eyes that saw between the folds of the universe.
“Your dad made a deal, Tommy. It was time to pay up.” She squeezed his hand.
Tears cascaded in slow motion down his cheeks and his sobs were quiet enough to produce only a whisper of an echo on the lake. She reached her arm around his shoulders and her heart cried for her innocent nine-year-old boy.
Her boy who could see ghosts.
Chapter 4
Steve pulled into the strip mall housing his bank and the phone buzzed. He pulled into a front parking lot and dug the cell phone out of his pocket, noting the New York exchange and flipped it open, accepting the call. “Hey.”
“Steve?” Her tentative voice came over the speaker.
“Hi, Sarah,” he replied and bit back on responding to her jumbled and confused train of thought, letting silence fill the space instead of slapping her with sarcasm.
She sighed. “I rehearsed this a million times.”
Steve leaned back in the seat, filtering through her private thoughts, all of which pointed to the fact he’d aided and abetted a known felon.
“I’m still tryin
g to sort it all out.”
“Which part? Me, or Chris Ryan?”
Another sigh.
“Are you coming up for the funeral?” Steve asked. The conversation she wanted to have was not one he wanted to broach on his cell. Phone calls could be recorded and he didn’t want an admission of guilt captured on tape.
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you take a ride up here today? You can stay with us and we’ll go over in the morning together.”
“That’s fucking presumptuous of you.”
Steve huffed. “Fine.” He snapped the phone closed and got out of the car. Oil and water, he thought and crossed the parking lot.
Steve walked into the bank and stood in line, ignoring the phone vibrating in his pocket. He didn’t want to talk to Sarah any more than he wanted to discuss staying with the FBI with his wife. He hadn’t even broached the condition of keeping the cottage with Jennifer. That was going to catapult her over the edge.
When one of the tellers freed, he stepped to the counter, reading the woman’s nameplate before he spoke. “Hello, Karen, I need to make a deposit.” He pulled out the check, signed the back, and dropped it on the counter along with his checking deposit slip. His lips twitched into an amused smile at her reaction.
Her jaw dropped. “Fifty million?”
Her gaze shot to his face and he nodded. “Yes. Fifty million dollars.”
“Um, I need to speak with the manager.”
Steve watched her trot away and huddle with the bank manager in the corner. Moments later, the manager approached him with the check in hand.
“Please, come with me,” he said, leading Steve into the corner office and closing the door, motioning for him to sit in the seat across from his desk. “I just wanted to make you aware of our policy in depositing checks of such substantial size,” he began. “You won’t be able to draw from the balance until the check clears.”
Steve nodded. “I naturally assumed that,” he said. “How long does it usually take for a check to clear?”
“Usually five business days.” The manager’s eyes still hadn’t deviated from the check in his hand.
Steve cleared his throat.
The manager offered a nervous laugh. “It’s just that I’ve never seen a check this large.” The bank manager’s voice cracked and he punched in the account number on the deposit slip. “Can you verify your social security number for me?”
“Yes, it’s 623 54 7745,” Steve rattled the numbers off.
“Your address?”
“My current address is 1658 Lake View Drive here in Brooksfield,” he said when the manager raised his eyes from the computer screen.
The manager nodded and typed the amount into the computer, waiting for the deposit slip to print out. “Is there anything else I can help you with today? Perhaps a look at our investment options?” He smiled, thinking of all the ways he could siphon money out of Steve’s account.
Steve let his lips curl into a smile and waited until the deposit slip was in his hand, he glanced at it, verifying the account numbers and the balance were as they should be. He leaned over and spoke very softly. “While there are at least a hundred ways to siphon money out of my account, I wouldn’t try if I were you.” He stood. “I will know and you really don’t want to fuck with me.”
“I... I... I wouldn’t dream of doing something like that.” The manager stuttered, his eyes blinking rapidly as his face flushed and hands trembled.
Steve turned to leave.
“Thank you for doing business with Brooksfield Savings Bank,” the manager said in a weak, small voice, like that of a child whose hand was caught in the cookie jar.
Steve sent a quick glance over his shoulder and raised his hand for a moment acknowledging the manager’s salutation. He gave a shudder at the sudden need to take a shower to wash off the feeling of dealing with a slime ball.
Steve slipped into his car and the cell phone rang again. He glanced at the number and sighed, flipping it open. “Are you done being a bitch?”
Sarah was silent. “I’m sorry.”
“So are you heading up this way or not?” Steve turned on the car and let it idle in neutral while he waited for her to answer. The flurry of activity in her head assaulted him. “I’ll answer every last one of your questions, but only if we’re face to face,” Steve said.
Sarah let out a short laugh. “Yeah, so you can stonewall me again?”
“No. I’ll answer your questions.” Doubt clouded her mind. “Honest,” he added. After what Sarah went through at the hands of that madman, she deserved to know how she got out alive.
“All right Steve, I’ll be up there tonight.”
He closed the phone and leaned his head against the seat, exhaling and rubbing his face before dialing the cottage. Jennifer answered on the third ring. “Looks like we’re having company tonight.”
“Excuse me?” Jennifer said.
Steve closed his eyes, wishing he’d waited until he was home to have this conversation. When he opened his eyes, he gasped, his eyes widening and glancing at his barren living room and Jennifer’s equally wide eyes.
The phone dropped from her hand and she gawked at him.
Steve’s eyes darted around the room and landed on Jennifer again. Shit! This is freaky as Hell. He took a step toward her with his heart pounding in his throat - the floor under his boot as solid as if he was actually there in person.
“What the fuck?” she whispered.
A shrill laugh escaped Steve, echoing his shot nerves. He crossed to her, curious as to his limitations in this transitional state. When he reached out and pulled her to him, feeling her warm body against his, his lips crushing hers and the taste of her cherry lip-gloss, he knew.
He was physically in both places—another gift courtesy of Chris Ryan. He pulled away, perplexed.
Jennifer stared at him, her eyelids fluttering in a confused blink. Her fingers ran over her own lips before she found her voice. “Are you really here?”
This time his laugh was more natural. “I think so, but I’m also sitting in my car at the bank, probably just staring into space in a state of suspended animation.”
The space between her eyes creased. This is impossible.
“There’s a lot of shit that seems impossible, babe.” He gazed into her shimmering emerald eyes.
“What the hell are you?” She pushed away from him.
Steve shrugged and felt the transition begin again, the pull of it dragging him through a tunnel, an elongated black wormhole back into his car. He drew in his breath and opened his eyes to the hot asphalt of the bank parking lot. “God damn,” he whispered into the phone.
The phone shuffled and her breathless voice came through the line. “Steve?”
“I’ll be home in a few.” He disconnected the call, slipped the phone into his pocket, and put the car in gear. He had a ghost to confront.
Chapter 5
Steve pulled into the driveway and slipped out of the car, crossing the lawn and trampling over the wet leaves covering the path to Paradise Cove. When he stepped into the clearing onto the soft moss, he closed his eyes and hung his head, wondering if Jennifer would ever accept what he’d become.
The chuckle startled him.
Steve spun around. There, leaning against a tree, was the ghost of Chris Ryan—the edges of his pristine white wings peeking out from behind his shoulders. The bright sunlight behind him gave off an eerie glow and before he could stop it, the thought popped into his head.
Angel of death, Jesus.
“Angel of death. That always cracks me up,” he said, straightening up.
“That’s what you are, right?”
The sigh that followed caused the water to ripple. “I guess.”
Steve raised his eyebrows. “Am I dead?”
Chris’s musical laughter filled the clearing. “No, Steve, you’re not dead.” He approached, stopping parallel to his friend, staring out at the water, his brow furrowing. “It
isn’t your time.” He sent a sideways glance.
Steve’s muscles relaxed. “Fifty million?” He returned Chris’s glance and then gazed out at the water. “What the hell am I supposed to do with fifty million dollars?”
“Anything you want.” Chris allowed his lips to curve into a sly smile. “And you need to divvy up the remaining sixty million to the other survivors.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
Chris faced Steve shaking his head. His expression turned serious. “No. I’m here because I was told to look after you. That’s my penance.” He rolled his eyes and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“You’re my guardian angel?” The thought of it raised goose bumps on his exposed skin. Ty Aris as my guardian angel? What the hell did I do to deserve that?
Chris shrugged.
“Jesus. I am so screwed,” Steve said and chuckled.
Chris smirked. “Have you figured out how to control the power yet?”
“I had the unsettling pleasure of astral projecting myself today. That is truly freaky.”
“Surreal.”
“Yeah, like this conversation.” He glanced at Chris. “Are you going to pop up on me everywhere I go?”
“No. Well, at least not like this. This is the only place you can see me.” He waved at the lush cove. “However, you’ll be able to hear me any time I feel like intruding on your life.”
Steve stared at the angel grinning at him. “What the hell does that mean?”
Chris just laughed and sent a wink in his direction.
Steve raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t like he and Jennifer had been intimate in the past few days, any time he got near her, she flinched, her mind jumping back to Kyle and what he’d made her do. That alone was enough of a turn off, and it enraged him, but the thought of Chris Ryan having an unlimited view of his private life burned him even more.
“So help me God, Ty,” Steve said between clenched teeth. “I swear, if you eavesdrop on me and Jennifer, I’ll…” He bit down on the rest of the sentence. Any threat to him was long since over, but there was one thing he could use to control Chris. “I’ll drag your wife into custody.”