by Mary Blayney
And then the horror hit Martin, too. "Karl? The medical examiner?"
Chapter Seven
Karl's house was in an old neighborhood, on a street that backed up to Rock Creek Park, giving it the illusion of a suburban setting.
The eight–foot–high fence all around the back gave it the security of privacy.
Karl stepped back from the gate, giving her room to enter. "We were just talking about you, weren't we, Mitra?"
At the girl's name, Erin walked forward. "Mitra? Are you okay?"
Karl yanked Erin into the yard and shut the gate. She pulled her gun, but it was too late. He already had Mitra in front of him. There was duct tape over her mouth and her eyes were wide and scared, but she looked otherwise fine.
"You weren't supposed to be here," Karl said. "You shouldn't have had to see this. Any of this. Rolly was supposed to make sure of that."
"Rolly?"
"You saw what happened to the pension plans." As he talked, he circled slowly toward the back of the yard, dragging Mitra. "The economy tanked and we lost our damn shirts. You're young, so it didn't matter. But we—"
Erin kept pace with him, weapon ready, safety off, looking for the shot. As far as she could tell, he didn't have a gun. But he didn't need one. If he had a knife, or more likely a scalpel, Mitra would bleed out before she could put him down. "We?" she asked.
He laughed, but it was a short, hard sound. More of a bark. "Yes we, little girl. Me and Rolly. All our retirement funds were gone."
She met Mitra's frightened gaze and nodded as if in answer to what Karl was saying, hoping Mitra would get the idea: Get low.
Mitra blinked twice.
"Gone!" Karl continued, and as his voice grew more and more bitter, his arm tightened around Mitra. "Thanks to Goddamn Wall Street. And we didn't have time for the market to recover, like you do. We—"
"We were out of our ever–loving minds."
Erin watched, stunned, as Rolly came out of nowhere and hit Karl on the forehead with the butt of his gun. Karl went down like a sack of flour.
Released, Mitra ran toward Erin. She pulled the girl behind her.
"Rolly?" Part of her was so glad to see him. She wanted to grab him and hug him and not let go. The other part, though… the other part… "But—how—you were dead!"
"Not so much," Martin said.
Erin caught her breath, as he walked up behind Rolly. That thorny vine of disbelief in her chest starting to wither.
"You and Karl?" she asked, shaking her head in denial even before her old partner could answer. "But what made you think it would work?"
Rolly laughed. "We didn't just think it would work. It Goddamn did work. It worked perfect. Except for you." His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. "You were supposed to die that night, too. Only you were supposed to die for real. I was supposed to make sure of it."
Her blood ran cold—and it was so instant, complete, like turning off a tap—that it reminded her of walking into Martin's kitchen. She remembered that moment at Karl's, picturing him next to the scales in the morgue, big stainless steel shears in his hand. But Rolly wasn't like Karl. She couldn't see him shooting her in the back. She tried, but all she could see was him rising from the floor that night of the fire. Picking her up and carrying her out.
How had they come to this? Guns in hand, aimed at each other?
With his free hand, Rolly reached for his back pocket and Erin held her breath until he pulled out his wallet.
"Your father was good police. You know that. And he was the best friend a man could have ever had. But he wasn't the reason I carried you out of that house." He slid a photograph out of his wallet and held it out to her.
She took it.
"I fell in love with your mother the first time I saw her. She came in to bring your father his lunch and she had you in her arms and it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Before or since. I worshipped the ground she walked on. She'd have been proud of you, kid. They both would have. But that's not why I saved you. I saved you because you were Eileen Healy's only child and I couldn't let the last little bit of her in this world burn…this guy, though…" He nudged Karl with the toe of his boot. "He's about to get into a fatal single–car collision."
"Rolly." Erin didn't recognize her own voice. It was rough and raw and filled with regret. "You can't—"
"I've been a cop for thirty years. If anybody knows how to dump a body, it's me. But don't worry. I'm not headed for Easy Street." He reached into a different pocket and pulled out a small box. "This is for you," he said, carrying it over to Mitra.
Erin kept her gun trained on him as the girl took the box off the palm of his hand.
When Mitra eased the box open, Erin wasn't sure if it was a cloud scudding over the moon or if she actually saw a shadow, a man–shaped shadow, standing in front of Mitra. Then the wind shifted and whatever it was, it blew away, leaving her cold and hollow.
Martin was still behind Rolly, keeping the rogue cop between them. But when she shivered, he caught her eye and even though he was six feet away, she felt that warmth she'd come to associate only with him catch hold and bloom inside of her.
"Alba was showing this to me," Rolly said. "When Karl killed him. He was so excited about the baby. About you. He was planning to use his share of the money to take you away, take you some place new, where Bruno's crew would never find you and you could all be safe. My share of the money's in a locker at Union Station." He pressed something else into the girl's hand. "Here's the key. I want you to have it. You and the baby."
Mitra staggered over to the immaculate little bench at the back of Karl's yard and sat down hard.
Erin followed, keeping her eyes on her old partner, surprised at how quickly she'd come to think of Martin—still stationed behind Rolly—as her new partner.
Between the two of them, could they subdue Rolly?
"You're a better shot than I am, kid," Rolly said, meeting her gaze with a grin. "But this is such close range, it doesn't matter."
"That's true. But I have to try. You know I have to try."
"Let’s just say you did."
They all turned at the words, at the sound of Detective Campbell's voice, as he approached casually from the other side of the yard, gun in hand.
The grin on Rolly's face froze. "Nate. I—"
"Chill," Detective Campbell said. Like Rolly had earlier, he nudged Karl's body with the toe of his shoe. No response. "The way I see it, Karl's about to get in an accident and you—" He nodded at Rolly. "You're going to make like a real dead man and disappear. For real, this time."
"That won't help Erin," Martin said. "She can't clear her name if he doesn't come forward."
His words sounded clear in the deepening night, but not as clear as they sounded in her—not nearly as clear as her own next words: "I'm done with police."
Clear and true. She didn't want it anymore. She didn't need it.
Detective Campbell laughed. "You’re Jim Healy's kid. You might be done with police but you'll never be done with the job. Looks like you've got yourself a partner, Sterling."
His words were true, too, and when Martin turned and smiled at her, the remains of the protective vine woven through her chest died and fell away.
Opening up was painful. Like stretching muscles long unused. But the sense of rightness that arrowed through her burned a pure, cleansing path that left her feeling new in its wake. Remade. Refined.
Rolly clapped Martin on the shoulder. "Bet you didn't see that coming, Mr. Sixth Sense."
#
Martin couldn't wait to be alone with Erin. The urge to hold her was increasingly hard to resist. Not for her sake. Considering everything that had happened, up to and including her ex–partner's rising from the dead that night, she looked fine. In fact, she looked better than fine. The weariness and concern that had dragged across her lovely features since the day she and Amber had knocked on his door were gone. That arch in her neck was much less acute. Even more beau
tiful, now, without the painful stretch.
And as soon as they got out of Mitra's little apartment, he was going to—
"Thank you, both of you," Mitra said.
The girl looked amazingly calm now, too, after the whole ordeal. Of course, the duffle bag filled with Rolly's money that they'd picked up along the way probably had something to do with that.
She hugged Erin, then Martin, and as she drew back she looked up at him, her warm brown eyes searching his face. "Is Andreus … Do you—"
Tell her I love her, the dead kid said. His words coming out in a rush. Tell her she was the best thing that ever happened to me. Tell her I'm sorry. Tell her—
Martin held up a hand and for once, the kid went silent. "He's here."
Mitra did what everybody did when he said something like that, she looked all around for some sign, only to return to him. "Is he all right?"
No. Andreus was not all right. But she didn't need to hear that. "Yes," Martin said. "He wants me to tell you that he loves you."
And the baby!
"And the baby. He says you were the best thing that ever happened to him. And he's sorry. He's sorrier than you can imagine."
Andreus nodded, a small, grateful smile on his wolfish face.
"But he wants you to let him go—"
No!
"He wants you to go on with your life," Martin continued, ignoring the dead kid's pained howl. "More than anything, he wants you to be happy. Take good care of his baby, your baby, and be happy so that he can be happy for you."
Andreus dogged him all the way to the bottom of the stairwell and Martin braced himself for the impact. But the dead kid stopped just short of touching him.
You're a bastard, Sterling. You know that?
He steeled himself for the searing the cold and as Erin gave him a puzzled look, Andreus got right up in his face.
But I'm glad you told her that. It's what I should have said. It's what I want for her. The kid backed off, subsiding like a wave from shore. So thanks. You son of a bitch.
Martin laughed. "Andreus," he said, as the form receded. "They're going to be all right. It wasn't wasted."
The dead kid brought his fist to his chest, flashed him the peace sign, and disappeared.
Erin didn't say a word until they exited the stairwell and then that half–smile lifted the corner of her mouth. "Want me to say it again?" she asked.
"Say what?"
"You were right."
He laughed and she leaned in, saying it again. "You were right, Martin. Rolly wasn't dead. He never was. You were right."
But then she frowned. "The only thing I still don't get is why Rose is so against me."
They were almost to the car, but he pointed at the bench by the bus stop and they both sat down.
I'm not against her.
Rose stood behind Erin now, her pale hand stroking the air over Erin's shining blonde hair.
"She says she's not against you," Martin said.
Erin grinned and shook her head. "Don't start lying now, Sterling. Not when I'm just starting to believe you."
Rose heaved a sigh. I'm not against her. I was never against her. I just didn't want her to get her job back. Police work is too dangerous.
It wasn't the first time she'd said that, about Erin needing to find a new job, but it still didn't make any sense to Martin. Regardless, he relayed the message. "She says she was never against you. She just thought you needed to find something safer to do."
That half–smile curved across her lips. "Like hook up with a hot guy who sees dead people and become a private investigator?"
He laughed, while Rose threw her hands in the air and shook her head.
"Hey," he said, after a moment. "What did Rolly give you, at Karl's house?"
Erin reached into the pocket of her blazer. "An old picture of my parents," she said, pulling out a tattered photograph that showed a man with Erin's blond hair and light gray eyes, his arm around his perfectly coiffed, elegantly shouldered wife. Rose.
His Rose.
He looked up and Rose met his eyes, her gaze unflinching.
"What was your mother's name?" he asked.
"Eileen."
Rose's dark eyes filled with tears.
"And, I'm sorry, but how did she die?"
"Giving birth. She went into labor too early. Started hemorrhaging and they couldn't stop the bleeding. They both died, her and my little brother. I was six."
Rose never talked about herself. She'd never told him what her life was like—who she was before she found him that night in the hospital. She'd never even told him her name. He just called her Rose because that was what she smelled like.
He should tell Erin. He had to tell Erin. Her mother was—
Don't, Rose said. Please. Remember what Andreus said? There's a reason we're separated. The living and the dead.
“But—”
I have my reasons.
He used to beg Rose to tell him about herself, but whenever he asked all she would say was, What's past is past.
They both knew better, though. When you were dealing with ghosts, the past was pretty much everything.
"All right."
Erin gave him a questioning look.
"You're hired," he said.
She laughed and when he lifted his arm and she slid in next to him, tucking her head against his shoulder in that achingly familiar way, it all made perfect sense because this was her, after all.
Rose's daughter.
Thank you.
"You're welcome."
"Like you had a choice," Erin said, laughing.
He started to laugh, too, but then Rose said: Of course, working with you won't be much safer than working with the police…that's my daughter there, bright boy…
When he glared at her, Rose winked and disappeared, leaving them alone on the bench in the quiet parking lot.
He pulled Erin closer and with a soft sigh, she shifted, smoothing her palm, warm, so warm, over his chest.
Just like that night in the hospital.
Epilogue
About twenty years ago
He's ten years old, Matthew. He just got six stitches in his scalp and he has to stay here overnight for observation. He could use a father, for Christ's sake."
The way his mother said a father made it sound like any father would do. Any at all.
But Martin didn't want any father, he didn't even want his own.
Especially his own. For Christ's sake.
He definitely didn't want to listen to her beg him to come to the hospital and pretend to care.
Martin yanked at the stiff sheets with his right arm—the pretty nurse with the short red hair had tucked them in tight all around him, as if a well–tucked bed would keep his arm on and his head from throbbing. Well he had news for her: it wasn't working.
He slid out of the bed and landed on the tile floor with a soft, sock–footed plop that reverberated up his battered back and rattled his teeth.
His mother looked up and he pointed toward the bathroom door. She nodded, already turning away.
"Did you hear anything I said, Matt? Six stitches. Two cracked ribs. They pulled his arm out of the socket …"
Martin glanced back, saw her hunched on the hard vinyl chair, her thin fingers wrapped so tight around the black plastic receiver that they looked bloodless. He passed the bathroom, veering out into the hall. His mom would be busy for a while.
She could go for hours.
The pretty nurse was behind the big desk, but she was sitting down, looking at something instead of up, so Martin kept an eye on her and kept on walking. When he rounded the corner he had to stop. His chest was bandaged tight, his arm wrapped against his side, and he had to take shallow breaths. From up ahead he heard the elevator ding, once, like a timer going off. The doors slid open and he walked in. When they opened again, he walked back out.
It was late. Martin wasn't sure what time it was, but it had been dark outside for a long time now. Mo
st of the people roaming the halls now were dead. They looked at him, craning their necks like human–shaped birds, tilting their heads, their eyes bright. Except for the one lady.
She came out of the room at the end of the hall and when she saw him, she smiled. "Hi there," she said, as she came closer. "What's your name?"
Martin didn't answer. So far, none of the other dead people had come near him, and he didn't want them to. In fact, he wanted them all to go away. That was all he ever wanted.
"Don't worry about them," the lady said.
And Martin thought, all of a sudden, that maybe she was the reason they weren't rushing up at him like usual. He took a step toward her and he felt the cold. But it was softer. More like snow. Fluffy. Instead of sharp, like ice knives.
"Would you do me a favor?"
Martin's stomach dropped. She wasn't different. She was exactly like all the other ones. He shook his head. No. Nononononono. He turned around to run, but of course when he opened his eyes she was already there.
And all the dead were behind her. Giving him their curious stares.
"It won't hurt," she said gently, and he almost laughed. Everything hurt.
"There's a little girl," she said, pointing down the hall. "She's all alone right now. Her daddy and mommy are, um, busy. And she's scared. It would be really nice if you would sit with her for a few minutes. Just until somebody else comes."
Martin hesitated. "Is she … you know … Is she—"
"No, sweetie. She's not dead. She's just scared. She needs somebody real to be with her."
Martin took a deep breath. "O–kay," he said.
She led him to a waiting area and watched, looking worried, until he reached for the door. He glanced back over his shoulder, and she nodded encouragingly, but even as he wrapped his hand around the handle, he thought about running away. Back to his room. Back to his mother.
The woman glided closer, her hands knotted together in front of her chest, as if she was praying. "I'll hold them back if you go to her."