by Mary Blayney
Chapter Four
Early the next day, Erin knocked again and waited, the folders heavy in her arms, because Martin was right. Damn him. She was used to having a partner and he was the closest thing she could find.
Yeah. That was why she was here…
The door swung open and he stood, as he had that first time, blinking down at her. This time in black sweatpants and a gray t–shirt with the words "Ghandi Says Relax" in a bold white font. "What took you so long?"
She laughed, in spite of herself, and edged past him through the door. "I know you're not on the case, but someone from the station brought these over last night. I went through them but…"
He took the stack of folders out of her hands and tossed them onto the coffee table. "Fuck the files," he said, taking hold of her shoulders and turning her, closing the door with her back against it. "I hate that you don't believe me. I hate that you can't even entertain the possibility of believing me."
He covered her mouth with his and kissed her, swallowing the nonsensical half thoughts that bubbled out until she gave up thinking again and surrendered to the rising, spreading heat that she'd discovered in his lips.
He kissed the edge of her mouth, and then her neck, sucking her pulse into a runaway rhythm that left her gasping and pulling at his t–shirt, pulling it up, seeking the smooth expanse of his skin.
He leaned away, catching the back collar of his shirt and pulling it off, over his head. "I don't have to prove myself," he said, his wild hair settling back into its usual dishevelment as he wadded the shirt in his hands. "I don't have to convince you or anyone that I'm telling the truth." He pitched the shirt into the other room. "Believe, don't believe, what the fuck do I care?"
She looked up, the heat of his chest burning through her palms, into her bloodstream. "I don't believe in ghosts," she said, her words coming out in a whisper. She didn't. She never would. But she believed in this.
She pressed her lips to his and he went still. His lips at first closed firm against her. Then, with a groan, he captured her head in his hands and covered her mouth with his and everything slowed down. Just like before.
And just like before, it all went away—the fire, the photos, the dead people she couldn't explain—as every little piece of her came alive. Every nerve stretched and woke up. His hand at the back of her head was as warm as the sun, while his other hand slid up under her shirt, trailing fire over her skin. His fingers closed around her breast and she arched into it, lost in the swirling heat. Their arms and legs tangled as they moved, as he kissed her again and again, as if he couldn't stand to be away from her lips. Each kiss hotter than the one before. Each kiss deeper, as he guided them up the stairs.
They stumbled into a stark white room, the momentum carrying them across the floor until they hit the wall where he turned her, shoving her up against it, his hands around her wrists, pinning her arms as he kissed her and kissed her and she struggled to get closer—needing all that heat, all that hardness against her.
"You think I'm a fraud?" he asked, the words a growl against her lips. "You think I'm a liar? A con?" He pulled back, his eyes burning into hers.
"No," she gasped, but the word was a protest against the cool air rushing in to fill the space between them, not an answer. She didn't think he was a fraud. She couldn't think he was a fraud. She couldn't think, period.
His lips curved into something almost like a smile. "Who's the liar now?"
He pulled her away from the wall and swung her at the bed, covering her with his body as they fell on top of the rumpled white duvet. She couldn't remember taking off her shirt, let alone her bra, but suddenly his mouth closed over her nipple and she arched off the bed so sharply that he laughed, a low dirty rumble that vibrated straight to the place where she needed him the most.
She shifted beneath him. Seeking. Twisting. Burning with wanting. And when he finally lifted his hips, freeing her legs so that he could settle between them she thought, Now, sighing with gratitude.
Now.
His mouth opened over hers and that rough, unmistakably male sound, vibrated in his throat. He rose above her. Their eyes met and his gaze held hers—wouldn't let her look away—as he pushed slowly into her. She arched up, needing him inside of her, all of him inside of her, until with a low rumble, his chest came down on hers and she was lost.
#
Afterward, Martin couldn't move. Couldn't think. He could barely breathe. So when the dead kid walked through his bedroom like it was something he did every day … like it was on his fucking route …
"Where are you going?" Erin asked.
He had his sweatpants on and was at the door, but he turned at the sound of her voice. The sight of her, as she sat up—the slight sway of her breasts—stopped him. Made him forget where he was. What he was doing.
I haven't got all day here, Alba's voice came up the stairs.
Now he remembered. He had a dead drug dealer to throttle.
He shook his head to clear it. "I'm just—I need something to drink. Can I get you anything?"
She shrugged. "Water?"
But as he walked down the stairs he heard, "You might not be psychic but you're definitely ADD…"
He smiled.
Alba was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, arms crossed over his abdomen. "Way to go, man. You hit that?" He raised his hand for a high five slap but Martin ignored him.
"You come up with anything?"
The kid glanced down at his own crotch with a leer.
"About the fire, asshole? Or the bust?"
Alba looked away. "Nah…"
This is Alba? Rose asked, with a judgmental sniff.
Finally. He'd been wondering if he was ever going to see her again.
She circled the dead kid like he was on exhibit, but Alba didn't so much as glance in her direction. They couldn't always see her, the dead. It took even more energy for her to manifest to them, than it did for her to effect anything on the physical plane. That display of temper the other day when she charged the kid in the yard had probably knocked out the power grid in their section—possibly the whole zip code—for a good long time. He could never tell, the clocks in his house blinked permanently. He had to check his phone to see the time.
Martin was done with both of them. "Why are you here?"
Rose shrugged, a negligent roll of one eloquent shoulder, but Alba pushed off the counter and paced to the other side of the room—where he proceeded to pick at the utensils stuck like a bouquet in a ceramic jar.
Not that he could touch them.
He could, however, kick out the cold like a champion air conditioning unit.
Between him and Rose, Martin was covered in goosebumps and starting to shiver. "I talked to Mitra," he said. "She's behind on the bills."
Alba looked back, over his shoulder, cheeks and eyes squeezed in a vice of anguish.
"I told her you were working on it."
The kid turned away from the utensils then, toward Martin and—though he didn't realize it—Rose. He nodded. "I can't remember, though. It's like there's this brick wall all around everything I need to know." He thunked himself on the side of his head. "It's locked in here. I can walk all around it but I can't get to it."
Martin looked pointedly at Rose, but Rose just calmly returned the gaze with another of those eloquent shrugs. Which pissed him off. When did she stop wanting to help people?
"So why are you here? If you can't remember anything—"
"You tell me, man." Alba's arms stretched out wide and he pointed at the hole in his chest. "It's not like I chose this. Y'know?"
I can send him away, Rose said. Want me to send him away?
She could, of course. She'd done it before when one of the dead couldn't keep their shit together. But that wasn't the case with Alba.
Martin refused to look at her. He held up a hand to stop her and when he did, Alba looked over at where she was, even though he couldn't see her.
Martin was pretty sure
he couldn't see her.
Still, the dead kid tipped his head the way a dog might when tuning in to frequencies out of human range, and he kept stealing glances in Rose's direction. Like maybe he caught something out of the corner of his eye.
Maybe ghosts could be haunted, too.
Rose certainly was. But then Rose was the dead version of Martin.
They were—both of them—stuck between the living and the dead.
"What exactly is it that you do?" the kid asked.
Really? He might have to explain it to Erin, but this guy? "What's it to you? As long as I pass on your messages, what the fuck do you care?"
"You're a waste of life."
"That hurts. Coming from a dead third–string drug–dealing snitch like you."
Listen to him, Martin.
"I get the message through," Martin said, his jaw tight, answering them both. "That's what I do. I help people."
"Right. But the question is," Alba said, "are you helping people? Or are you hurting them?"
Rose nodded at that and he wanted to tell her to make up her damned mind. One or the other. She couldn't decide to banish the kid one minute and agree with him the next.
Instead he said, "How could I be hurting anyone?"
Because there was nothing threatening about what Alba said, or the way he'd said it, but the threat was there, just the same. And if it had something to do with Erin …
Martin moved closer. "Say what you mean, dog shit. Say what the fuck it is you mean and say it straight."
Alba shook his head. "Think about it. What you do is try to help the living by getting information they want from the dead. Right?"
Martin nodded.
"Did you ever stop to ask yourself why?"
Only every day of his stupid weird life. Martin rolled his eyes.
"I just keep thinking," the kid said. "I mean, what else am I going to do, right? But I just keep thinking, there's a reason the living don't have to deal with the dead. There's a reason we're separated."
"Oh, that's rich, coming from your ass."
Alba laughed. "I'm just saying," he said, "that not every message needs to get through."
Are you listening? Rose asked, her voice soft.
"Or should get through," Alba said.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean? Look, you're here for Erin. I don't know how else to say this to get it through your thick head, dickweed, but you didn't stick around for Mitra. You'd be with her if you did. You're here for Erin. You know something she needs to know and if you don't come up with it soon the wasted life will be yours."
Alba shook his head like a dog shaking off a bee sting and leaned in, bringing the cold washing over Martin in a wave.
"I don't have any messages from the other side for Detective Healy," Alba said. "But I can tell you this. That Connors dude—that old detective—he isn't dead."
"What?"
"He's not dead, man. I've been sniffing around, trying to figure out what happened to the money I was putting aside for Mitra and the baby, and that's when I always run into that block." He thunked the side of his head again. "But the one thing I have figured out, the one thing I know for sure, is that Detective Connors isn't dead. You ask that crazy broad, the one that ran me off the other day. We may not be able to do a lot of things but we can tell the difference between the living and the dead. And here's something else for you to think about. The cops aren't the only ones trying to figure out what happened that night. They're not the only ones who lost people. They're not the only ones who lost a lot of money, either. Think about it, dickweed. Healy might be better off if she never figures it out. You all might be."
Martin reached for the kid's shoulders—as if he could grab hold of him and shake him, hard, the way he wanted to. But of course, as soon as he "touched" Alba, the cold shot into him like tiny icicles rammed into his veins and the last thing he saw was the glimmer of satisfaction in those dead wolf eyes.
#
When Erin got to the kitchen, Martin was out cold. In fact the whole room was cold—so freezing cold that it stopped her in her tracks as soon as her bare feet hit the tile. Her breath billowed out in front of her like a hologram. It crackled as she sucked it back into her lungs, and she thought about what he'd said before. About the change in temperature when Rose was supposedly in the car.
She knelt down next to him. He was breathing fine and when she found the pulse in his neck it was strong and steady.
She took a deep breath and it chilled her to the bone. "Rose?" she asked, feeling ridiculous but looking all around just the same. "Rose? Are you here?"
She thought about those picture frames in the hall and stroked the unruly hair off his forehead. She didn't understand what was going on here, but there was definitely something going on. He wasn't faking this.
She looked up again at the ceiling. "You don't have to help me," she said, addressing the cold, empty air around her. "I realize that means nothing, coming from me, since I don't believe you exist. But whatever. Don't help, if you don't want to. I don't need it. I'm fine without you. But you didn't have to hurt him…"
All the lights came on in the kitchen, flaring bright, brighter, brighter—until she thought the bulbs would burst; and then, abruptly, the arctic chill snapped and drained out of the room.
Chapter Five
When he opened his eyes Erin was leaning over him, stroking his cheek. "Martin? Can you hear me?"
He caught hold of her wrist. "I can hear you," he said, though his voice sounded hoarse. Her hand was warm. So warm and so human. He turned toward it, holding it against his face. "I'm okay."
"Welcome back." She smiled that half smile but her eyes were clouded. Gray storms brewing. "Where'd you go?"
She slid one arm under his shoulders to help him up but as soon as he was sitting the shivers overtook him. It was bad enough when Rose went through him. But it was a hundred times worse when the other dead did it. All he could do was wrap his arms around his knees and hold on.
He heard her leave but he didn't look up until she came back into the kitchen with the blue fleece blanket off the back of the couch.
"Was that—did you have a seizure or something?"
Or something. But he couldn't answer. The shivering was in his bones. Then warmth settled over him as she tucked the blanket in around him and the scent of sunshine and laundry soap rose around him—mixing with something else. Something even lighter, slightly citrus.
She turned her head and the citrus scent grew stronger. "You okay there?" she asked.
"Y–yes. Th–thanks."
She lifted an eyebrow but didn't argue. "Coffee?"
Oh God. He nodded, hoping she could tell the difference between that and the shaking.
Apparently she could because she got up.
The next thing he knew, she was wrapping his hands around a steaming hot mug of coffee and the heat erupted through his palms, burning into his bloodstream.
For a moment all Martin could think about was the coffee and getting it to his mouth without spilling it all over himself.
She watched for a few seconds, then set her cup aside and scooted closer, wrapping her hands around his to guide the cup.
The first sip burned and a horrible sound—a ragged sigh of relief—escaped his mouth.
She smiled and slid back against the cupboard—watching him, her gaze steady. "You know, I thought you were strung out."
He took another sip.
"The other day, when Amber knocked and you answered the door. I thought you were jonesing. You know? Needing to get high? But you weren't, were you. You were—" She waved at him. "Doing this."
"Yeah."
"Well? What did you find out? On your psychic friends network. Was the call for me or…?"
He shook his head. "Wrong number."
She passed a different look over him then, a head–to–toe police sweep. "Liar."
"Maybe. But there wasn't any message for you."
She accepted th
at with a nod and a steady gaze, and for a moment it almost felt like she believed. Not just believed him, but believed in him. In what he did.
He set the cup aside and opened the throw, dragging her up against his side and wrapping her in.
She settled against him, her cheek on his shoulder, and it felt so familiar, so right, that he closed his eyes and breathed her in.
She started to raise her head but he squeezed tighter and she settled back, her hand splayed warm over his chest. "Mitra believed you," she said. Her voice quiet, semi–accusatory. "You told her you talked to Alba in the men’s room at McDonald's and she believed you."
"Many people do."
He expected her to laugh but she didn't.
She sighed. "That must be nice."
He pulled back at that, looking down into her incredible eyes. "What do you mean?"
"To have that kind of faith," she said. "To be so convinced—so sure—of anything. It must be nice."
Hah. "I know what you mean."
She laughed at that and he clapped himself on the chest. "What, you think I do? You think I have that kind of faith?"
"Don't you?" she asked, her gaze searching. "I mean, you of all people…"
Right. Him, of all people. "Look. I'm thirty years old. I've been seeing the dead since before I can even remember seeing the dead. Thirty–fucking–years. And I'm still not sure it's not just some kind of visual schizophrenia. What if, instead of hearing voices, I'm seeing them?"
They were apart again, no surprise. Him here, blanket over his shoulders. Her there.
She folded her arms over her chest. "I wish I could believe. The way people like Mitra do. And Amber. It seems so simple for them. A choice. Just decide to believe and that somehow makes it possible. Makes it all true."
He wasn't sure what she was asking. What she wanted. "Aren't you making a choice, too? Choosing not to believe?"
She blinked, then frowned. "Visual schizophrenia?"
He let his head fall back against the cupboard. "It's one theory."
He heard her moving, felt her slide back up next to him. "What do you think?"
"I think there are a lot of lost and confused people in the world, babe. And I'm one of them."