by S. E. Harmon
Through the glass wall of the living room, I could just make out a figure relaxing on the deck—a dark form slouched in a worn Adirondack. I headed that way and followed the lighted path the moon created for me.
The daytime mugginess had given way to a little breeze that whistled through the trees like a nighttime symphony. The sounds of crickets and other wildlife rose above the whisper of the wind. After the unrelenting glare of the sun most of the day, it was refreshing.
I paused just short of his chair and found him sleeping—lashes dark against his cheeks, sensitive mouth a little slack. I smiled a bit at the half-empty beer bottle lolling in his hand, about to hit the floorboards. He worked too hard. Maybe it was just carryover from our relationship, but I still liked to see him rest. I reached over, half leaned on his chair, and tugged at the bottle.
His eyes flew open, and suddenly I had my face full of gun. I looked into the dark hole of the weapon and I stood stock-still and tried not to exacerbate the situation. Waited for recognition to dawn in his eyes. When it finally did, we blinked at each other for a few seconds. Then I began to swear. A lot. Loudly.
“Fuck!”
“Sorry, I didn’t—”
“What do you think you’re—”
“I didn’t know it was you.”
“Jesus Christ, McKenna,” I said, and I put one shaky hand to my neck. Nothing to end a night like getting blown away. I glared at him as he continued to blink at me. “What the fuck?”
“I could ask you the same question.” His voice was hoarse with sleep and the shock of what he’d almost done. “What’re you doing sneaking around out here?”
“Sneaking? You were dead asleep. I just didn’t want you to drop the fucking beer.” I held up my palms. “But hey. You want the Heineken, you keep the Heineken.”
He looked down at the bottle in his hand as though seeing it for the first time. “Sorry. I was having a bad….” He shook his head. “Sorry.”
“You wanna put that thing away?”
He tucked the Sig back in the holster. “It’s been a long day.”
I dropped down in the Adirondack next to his. I felt a little shaky myself. “You know, next time someone offers to make me a reservation at a gator farm, I’m going to accept.”
“I said I was sorry, didn’t I?” He rubbed a hand over his face. “How was your visit?”
Considering you were about two seconds from blowing my fucking head off? I tilted my head back against the chair. “Can’t complain.”
“Did you see Rick and the girls?”
“Yeah. All that’s left is my father, and I’ve done my filial duty. You know how it goes.”
“Sure.”
There was a lot unspoken in that sure. A lot. Some of it was tied to whatever he’d been dreaming about that made him pull a gun on me. But I knew that he’d been adopted at a young age, and he’d been remarkably closemouthed about his past. I didn’t need to be a profiler to know there was a reason for that.
“Do you know how it goes?” I asked delicately.
“Let’s just say not everyone’s parents are wonderful half-baked hippies. My parents don’t ride around in an old conversion van, and my mother’s specialty is not making oversized oatmeal cookies.”
I didn’t take offense. I knew he loved my parents. They loved him right back. “What’s your mother’s specialty?”
“Crack, mostly.”
I didn’t know what to say about that. From his relaxed profile, it didn’t seem like he would welcome any comfort. Not from me, anyway. I pointed at his forgotten beer. “You gonna finish that?”
He shook his head and passed the bottle. “Knock yourself out.”
I took a long swig and grimaced. “It’s warm.”
“Want me to get you a fresh one?”
“Nah.” I took another drink, longer that time. “Liquor not being the optimal temperature isn’t a deal breaker for me. I’m enough of a lush to admit it.”
My mouth on the bottle flirted over the same places his had been. Beer mixed with Danny was a little more than intoxicating. I wanted a better taste. A more direct taste, not diluted with pale ale. Only we were friends. Friends and nothing more. Right?
I looked up at the sky. I was almost relaxed enough to believe that bullshit. That all I would ever want from Danny would be friendship. On a night dark as pitch, with stars twinkling sporadically like faceted diamonds, a lot of things seemed possible. I listened as the crickets and cicadas filled the comfortable silence with their night rhythm, joined occasionally by the low belch of a frog. Swampland at its finest.
I cleared my throat. “Can I ask you something?”
He sighed. “I knew you’d ruin it.”
“You can say no.”
“If I were capable of saying no to you, we wouldn’t have had a cream couch, Diet Coke in the fridge, or three annoying wind chimes.” As though to underscore his point, the offending wind chimes tinkled in agreement.
I beamed. “You kept the wind chimes?”
He sounded a bit resigned when he continued. “What is it?”
“Are you ever planning to tell me who Anna is?”
“Who told you about Anna?”
“You say her name sometimes. When you’re dreaming.”
He was silent so long I didn’t know if he’d answer at all. I forced myself to be patient and stared at one of the deck railings. The flaking, peeling paint drew my eye. It really needed to be sealed again. “I didn’t know,” he said finally. “That I said her name that often.”
“Let me guess. Rutabaga?”
He gave me a small smile, but he didn’t say anything. Early on in our relationship, we’d come up with a term to respect each other’s boundaries. Especially since he would follow me clear to another planet to have his say, and I would jetpack to another galaxy to avoid a confrontation. It was a safeword for when things got too intense. It wasn’t saying no. It wasn’t saying yes. It just meant no more for right now.
I didn’t know which of us was more surprised when he spoke again. Maybe because he knew he didn’t have to. “She was my sister.”
“Was?”
“She went missing over fifteen years ago.”
I bit my lip. Leave it to me to bring up the most painful event in his life. I’m smart like that. A member of MENSA. The social outcast division. “I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Because it’s in the past.”
Not so much in the past judging by those dreams. And the way he was acting about Amy’s disappearance. “What happened?”
“When the state took us from our parents, I got lucky with a good home. She didn’t.”
“Have you looked for her?” I almost slapped myself the moment I heard the words. “That was stupid. Of course you have. Why wouldn’t a detective look for his own sister? But it’s been so many years. Do you think she’s even alive?” Another mental slap. “What I meant was—”
“Rain.” When I looked at him, really looked at him, I could tell he was amused at my bumbling, not annoyed. “It’s okay. Yes, I’ve looked for her. Look for her, I guess. But there’s not much of a trail to follow. One night she walked out of her foster home, got in a car with someone who was waiting outside, and disappeared. The one kid who saw her leave didn’t get a make or a model. Hell, he barely got the color. Maybe dark blue or black. That’s it.” He looked a little bleak. “That’s the end of the trail.”
“But you have a theory.”
He half smiled, self-deprecatingly. “I always have a theory. I’ve thought about it fifteen thousand different ways. My sister wasn’t promiscuous, and she didn’t have a boyfriend. She barely had any friends at all, let alone secret friends who would pick her up in the middle of the night.”
“Low-risk lifestyle,” I murmured. “So she probably knew the person.”
“Knew him well, I suspect.” His jaw went tight as he paused. “No matter how many times I go over it in my mind, the only person I can see her goin
g with is my father. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
I sucked in a breath. “You think your father—”
“I don’t know.”
“But you think—”
“I don’t know what I think,” he snapped. He sent me an apologetic look and took a deep breath. “I don’t like what I think.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
“That’s a stupid question.”
“Well, do you have a stupid answer? What did he say?”
“He told me to go to hell. Among other things.” He sighed. “And that he had no idea what happened to Anna. That I was an idiot to even question him. ‘We’re all we have left, Danny boy,’” he mocked. “‘No sense in us turning on one another.’”
It was like a key to the puzzle that was Danny. That was probably why he never talked about his father. Or Anna. And why he had such trouble letting people in. Believing that someone could actually love him. Probably why he went into cold cases. It helped him achieve closure for other families—almost like setting things right for her.
His sharp voice cut into my musing. “Don’t fucking profile me.”
I glanced at him sheepishly. “Sorry. Bad habit.” He knew me well. Profiling was almost second nature. I couldn’t help myself. After a pause I asked, “Do you think he killed her?”
“I don’t know. He says he wasn’t there. And part of me does wonder if maybe I’m just eager to find a way to blame him. If he’d been a better father, maybe….” Danny’s throat worked as he shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t want to believe she ran away. But she’d been unhappy for a very long time.”
“Seems like there’s a lot of that going around.”
“Isn’t everyone a little unhappy in their own way?”
I had no witty riposte to that. Mostly because it was true. Working in my field, seeing the things I saw… I sometimes got to see people on the worst, unimagined day of their lives. The beginning of their own private hell. So hell to the motherfucking yeah, it was just one of those truths of life I couldn’t dispute. Sometimes life sucked, and everyone was a little unhappy in their own way.
“You must hate them. Your parents, I mean.” I certainly did. “You must hate them in a very real ‘I’d put a bullet in you if I thought I’d get away with it’ kind of way.”
He sent me a grim smile. “Not nearly as much as I should.”
I watched as he levered himself out of his chair and stretched, and I enjoyed the sight of that long, lean body. The way his muscles pulled at the threadbare shirt. The brief glimpse of bare stomach as the shirt lifted a little. He caught me watching before I could avert my eyes, but other than a small smile, he didn’t say anything. “You coming in?”
How many times had he asked me that question before? Nostalgia made my throat a little thick, and it was a moment before I could reply. “Not yet. I just want to sit here and enjoy this beer.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then.”
“You don’t have to.” God, what are you saying? “Go, that is.” My mouth couldn’t seem to stop moving in what was, admittedly, a terrible direction.
He stared at me for a moment, his gaze dark and unreadable. He knew exactly what I really meant. My skin was suddenly flush… a little embarrassed, but mostly aroused. I didn’t know what I would do if he rejected me… even less what I would do if he took me up on it.
And then he came toward me with his inherent liquid grace, and I swallowed and wondered if I’d bitten off a little more than I could chew. That wasn’t just desire on his face. There was anger there too. Anger with me for leaving. Anger with me for trouncing all over our unspoken truce. Anger for even wanting me at all.
That was a lot of anger for someone to fuck you with.
And then it was too late to move, and his arms came down on either side of my chair, boxing me in. A sense of the familiar lulled me. The breathless expectation, the anticipation… even the smell of him turned me on—pine, beer, and faint traces of sweat and fresh air. It addled my brain. That’s the only excuse I have. I reached up and knotted a hand in the open vee of his shirt. Using the fabric as leverage, I pulled him down until we were face-to-face. Skin-to-skin. Breathing each other’s air.
I kissed him gently at first and pressed against slack lips. For a moment I was afraid he was going to push me away. That he wouldn’t kiss me back. I sank my teeth into his bottom lip and pulled him in gently but forcefully. And then he groaned—a brief sound of surrender as he gave in. He took over the kiss, and his lips pulled at mine—sucking, biting, demanding entry.
Our tongues slid against each other, hot and hungry as we took turns exploring each other’s mouths. I kissed him without reservation. Kissed him like it was the first time. Kissed him like I’d never left.
Only I had. And from the reserved way he kissed me back, he wasn’t about to forget it anytime soon. Even through my haze, I could tell it wasn’t… Danny. Wasn’t us. It was like kissing a stranger, someone I’d met in a club earlier that night. Hot. Really fucking hot. But impersonal. He wasn’t going to let me get close.
I let his shirt slip from my grasp and watched as he straightened. Our breathing was uneven. Choppy. He looked at me darkly. Quietly. There was no love in his gaze. For the first time, I’m not even sure there was like.
“I’m not a doll,” he finally said. “And I don’t like sitting on a shelf until you’re ready to play.”
My gaze dropped from the contempt in his blue eyes as heat climbed my cheeks. “I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s a fucking first.” He headed toward the house. “Good night.”
Chapter 11
YOU DON’T have to go?
Fuck. One day in, and I was already offering myself up like a hooker. Not even one of those Pretty Woman types. A cheap one who used a “pay by the hour” motel. I winced as Danny disappeared inside the house and the screen door banged shut behind him. Was it too impolite to kill myself on his porch? Even if I did it neatly and quietly?
I really wasn’t in the mood when Ethan drifted up the deck steps. I groaned. Humiliation was never complete without an audience. It was like buying a two-piece chicken dinner without a biscuit. Still edible, but why?
“Tough break.” Ethan leaned against the crosscut railing and folded his arms. “You and Mr. Muscles going at it on the deck? Yeah. I’d pay money to see that. Too bad he wasn’t interested.”
“He was interested,” I snapped before I could stop myself. “It’s just… complicated.”
“Isn’t it always?” He should have looked ridiculous in his leather jacket in that kind of weather, but he managed to pull off skinny-rocker chic. I was being stalked by the lead singer of a ghostly boy band.
He sent me a wink. “Don’t worry about it. You’re still hot. I’d hit it. Still can if you want.”
“I’ll pass on the ghost dick, thanks,” I said dryly as I levered myself out of the chair. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“You know what I want you to do.”
“Something that won’t get me fired or sent to the loony bin? No?” I shook my head and headed toward the house. “Good night, Ethan.”
He appeared in front of me before I could take another step. “I didn’t come here to rehash the same old argument. I figured I could help you out. And maybe if I help you… you’ll be willing to help me.”
I tilted my head. I should walk right into the house and not look back. I should put on my pj’s and fall into bed with a small—maybe medium-sized—tumbler of liquor. I should not go quid pro quo with a ghost. And yet I heard myself asking, “Whatcha got? The treasure of the Knights Templar? The heart necklace the old lady threw off the ship in Titanic? Lotto numbers?”
An exasperated sigh ghosted across the deck. “Not even close.”
“Those weren’t guesses, Eth. They were suggestions.”
I dumped the rest of my beer over the railing, crossed the deck, and set the bottle in the recycling bin.
I hooked an empty, forgotten mug with one finger to take it back to the kitchen and turned on the motion-sensor bulb that Danny only used when we went inside. Otherwise it went off and on all night long.
“Read the directions,” I’d lectured Danny as I thumbed through the small leaflet to find the right language. No matter how I unfolded it, the Japanese set kept popping up. “I don’t need directions,” Danny maintained around a mouthful of wood screws. And voilà. We wound up with a retina-scorching, improperly mounted searchlight that had crossed the line from helpful to lighthouse-level intrusive.
I bit my lip. I had a ton of stories like that about that house. But I didn’t live there anymore. I briefly wondered how long that would continue to surprise me. It took me a moment to realize Ethan was still talking.
“I have something better than that stuff,” Ethan said. “Something you’ve actually been looking for.” He made a beckoning motion with his hand.
I gave him a look. Follow a ghost into the darkness? “No offense, but the Grim Reaper’s going to have to come get me himself.”
Ethan sighed heavily. “Wait here.” He disappeared in the darkness, and before long he reappeared on the porch, towing a figure from the blackness to the light. A nervous-looking girl in her late teens or early twenties. Dark hair hung in her face and down her back, long and thin with razor-cut bangs.
I folded my arms. Even under the dim light of the porch, I could see it was another fucking ghost. “That’s not a lost Picasso I can list on eBay,” I said mildly as I rocked back on my heels.
“This is better,” he insisted.
“Ethan,” I said, tempering the anger in my voice. “Bringing me another ghost does not endear you to me. In fact it kind of makes me want to build one of those machines from Ghostbusters.”
“Just hear me out.” He gave the girl a gentle push forward, into the light. “This is Amy.”
Amy. The mug fell from my suddenly nerveless fingers, landed with a clank, and rolled across the deck. It felt like someone had slammed a fist into my gut, and suddenly I realized how much I’d wanted her to be alive.