“Bossy,” she mumbled, not sounding like she minded. He wondered how often Olivia actually let anybody take care of her. While she was so busy throwing herself in front of every ugly, murderous bus her friends and coworkers asked her to, how often had one of them just put a foot down and made sure she took care of herself? Did anyone? Ever?
The whole thing infuriated him more every time he thought about it. He had no claim on Olivia, but if he did, he’d do everything in his power to make sure she stopped hurting herself like this. There were other ways to solve crimes; he’d believed that every day of his life, right up to and including this one, when he’d seen proof of things he’d never known existed.
The world would go on spinning if Olivia Wainwright never touched another dead human being. And that’s the world he wanted this beautiful woman to live in.
After taking a few sips, Olivia put the glass on the table. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, taking a seat beside her. He leaned back on the couch and stretched an arm out behind her. Olivia curved into him, fitting into the crook of his arm like she was meant to be there, and they’d done this every night for a decade. He might not know what color toothbrush she used or whether she drank her coffee with cream—or, hell, if she even drank coffee—but he suspected he knew her more intimately than almost anybody else in the world. He’d been there to catch her after she’d walked through the fire and had seen her in the kind of open, exposed moment that changed people. Changed relationships.
It had definitely changed theirs. He didn’t think he was ever going to get over this need he had to just be there for her. Be a real hand to grab in the dark, a warm body to touch.
Finally, she told him the rest. “Embracing it, facing it, that’s the hard part. I didn’t want to say anything to Brooke, but sometimes it takes a while before I’m up to it. Because in order to move past it, I have to let it back in, all the memories, all the feelings . . .”
“Fuck that,” Gabe said, the reaction instinctive, as was the tightening of every muscle in his body. Then he mumbled, “Sorry.”
“It’s not a great process, I know.”
“It’s a rotten one,” he replied, dropping his arm off the back of the couch to drape it over her shoulders. He ran his fingers up and down her arm, reminding her that she wasn’t alone. He had the feeling he could be content doing that—reminding her she wasn’t alone—for a very long time. If she’d let him.
“It’s all I’ve got,” she said. “It’s not perfect, but it helps keep the nightmares at bay.”
His hand stilled for a moment; then he resumed stroking. He’d been wondering if she would have trouble sleeping tonight, given the way she’d begged him to stay earlier.
Nightmares born of your own dark imaginings were bad enough. But inviting them from the minds of dozens of murder victims? Unfathomable.
“You’ve gotta stop, Liv,” he murmured, not even thinking about whether he had the right to say it, just knowing he had to.
She stiffened.
But he wasn’t backing down. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself. You cannot face an entire lifetime of this, You know that, right?”
“It’s not usually as bad as it was today.”
“Oh, right, sometimes you just get shot, huh?”
“There are worse ways to go.”
“There are a whole lot of better ones, too!”
“I know that,” she admitted. “Have I told you about how I found out about this ability?”
Come to think of it, that had never come up. It wasn’t exactly casual, cup-of-coffee conversation. “No.”
“It was a year after the kidnapping. My grandmother, the one who left me this house, had died. Mom brought Brooke and me back from Tucson for the funeral services.” Sounding half-weary, half-resigned, she admitted, “It was an open casket.”
“Oh, no,” he muttered, envisioning it.
“Oh, yes.”
“You, uh . . .”
“I loved her hair. It was long and white, just beautiful, and she was very vain about it. So when I went up to say goodbye to her, I reached in to smooth it near her cheek . . . and suddenly I was lying in a bed, my head turned to the side, looking at a bunch of pictures on a bedside table.”
He gulped, trying not to think about the fact that she’d been sixteen, just sixteen years old and a year off a nightmare that would have crushed a lot of people.
“I saw my grandfather’s face, a family portrait of me and Brooke with our parents. My late uncle, Richard and Tess . . . a whole little Wainwright family gallery.”
“Did you recognize the place?”
“Of course, it was her bedroom at the assisted living center where she’d moved after her stroke. We’d been back to visit Dad a couple of weeks before, and I had visited her every day.”
She was probably very glad of that, now. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t really do anything. I was just shocked, watching. I saw her try to lift her right hand, but it fell to the bed; she’d lost much of the use of that side. So she reached with her left one, stretching so far. Her fingers were trembling, and I could hear her harsh breaths.”
He closed his eyes, silent, knowing she needed to tell him this, for her own reasons.
“Then she was able to get grandfather’s picture. She brought it close. The vision got blurry, like I was looking through tears, and I saw her trace her finger across his cheek.”
Saying goodbye?
“That was when I became aware of a tightness in my chest. I felt weak, couldn’t breathe well. Grandmother’s left hand was sagging by this point, she had to rest the picture on her chest.”
“She was having a heart attack?”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Nobody came to help?”
“Honestly, Gabe, I don’t think she pushed the button to let anybody know. Because I heard her say something, her voice was soft, but clear in my head. She looked at my grandfather and said, ‘I think I’ll be seeing you soon, my love. Thank God.’”
He pictured it, remembering what she’d told him—that the grandfather had died the year before. It sounded as though his widow had just wanted to join him. He’d seen that kind of love, a lifetime of it, in movies, of course. God knew he’d never had any firsthand experience with it. The whole idea of it, decades of happiness together, so much love you didn’t want to live apart, seemed so impossible. And yet so incredibly beautiful.
“Was there anything else?” he asked, clearing his tight throat.
She laughed softly. “Yes. I heard her say one more thing before her breath stopped. Her voice was louder, almost quarrelsome, like the flamboyant, eccentric old woman I’d known. She said, ‘And I expect you to be waiting there with my two-olive martini!’”
He smiled at the image, understanding so much about the woman from those very last words. “I’d like to have met this grandmother of yours.”
“I wish you could have,” she replied, sounding not sad but merely winsome. “She was one of a kind. Fascinating, difficult. Wonderful.”
So far, every member of her family seemed fascinating, except, of course, her cousin Richard, who was pretty much a blowhard, which seemed about right for his line of work.
“What happened . . . afterward?” he asked.
“The pain ended. Everything went dark for a few seconds. Then I opened my eyes, and I found myself on the floor of the funeral home, flat on my back, having supposedly screamed and fainted.” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “Grandmother would have been appalled at such a spectacle.” Turning a little, she pulled back so she could look up at him, as if wanting to make sure he understood her point. “So, you see, it isn’t always horrible. This ability of mine gave me one of the most perfect memories of my grandmother I could ever have asked for.”
Her green eyes were wide, clear and dry. She spoke from the heart, and, honestly, Gabe could see her point.
In that one instance. That one, single instance.
Her breath caught, and he heard the tiny gasp in her throat. But she didn’t pull away, didn’t glare, didn’t get angry. Instead, she remained silent, thinking about his words. Then, finally, she admitted, “No, I guess it doesn’t, and I suppose she wouldn’t.”
She was seeing sense.
“But knowing I’ve helped solve the murders of so many people, given them justice and peace, and stopped others from being hurt? That goes a long way toward balancing the scales.”
Chapter 9
Olivia arrived downtown a half hour before this morning’s scheduled nine a.m. meeting. She knew Julia well enough to know her boss would be there early and wanted a chance to talk to her before the others showed up. The others being her coworkers and the two Savannah detectives who had suddenly found themselves working with their former enemies.
She wasn’t sure how Gabe and his partner felt about it. They hadn’t even discussed that part of this whole working-together idea, even though she’d spent a couple of hours curled up against him on the couch last night. Talking. Only talking.
At first, they’d talked about ugly things, sad memories. But then, as the night had grown deeper and he’d continued to stay, their conversation had rambled. As if they’d both suddenly realized they’d been all wrapped up in darkness from the minute they’d met, and maybe it was time to stop, take a mental health break and just talk about absolutely nothing that mattered.
They’d talked movies and TV shows, cars and sports teams. She’d told him he was a cretin for preferring country music to jazz, and he called her a snob for insisting it was just wrong to eat a big, sloppy burrito with your hands.
Then they’d laughed. They’d laughed a lot.
By the time he’d left, at around one—without anything more than a soft brush of his lips on her temple—she’d been so relaxed, in such a good mood, she’d gone to bed and hadn’t had a single bad dream. She’d still woken up early, tense for some reason, but there had been no nightmares. Giving it some thought this morning, she realized that was probably exactly what he’d intended.
She’d told him she wasn’t ready to chase away the darkness her usual way, so he’d found another one. She could love him for that, she really could. What a man.
Still, with all their talking, they’d never touched on how he felt about her coworkers and the joint endeavor they were about to undertake. He wasn’t the only one who might be having cold feet; she wasn’t sure how Aidan would react, either, considering he was the one who’d practically had his face printed on Wanted posters by the local police. But it was worth a try. The two detectives had agreed to give it a shot, to pool their resources, off the books, at least for a day or two, just to see what happened.
Just to see what happened . . . Hmm, hadn’t that been what she’d been thinking about when she’d kissed Gabe Cooper yesterday? The problem was, she had not been satisfied with what had happened. It had been incredibly nice, but she’d wanted more. A lot more. Yet last night, when she’d been in his arms, she hadn’t pushed it, knowing she liked him, liked being with him, as much as she wanted him.
She definitely wanted him.
Olivia hadn’t had a no-strings affair in, well, ever. Honestly, she wasn’t sure she wanted one now. Something about Gabe pulled her strings but good. She had the feeling that if she did become more intimately involved with him, those strings would only grow tighter.
It didn’t help to remind herself that she hadn’t known him long. The point was, she knew him in the ways that really counted. Not his history or his background—she already knew his family was a touchy subject.
The important stuff, however, she got. She knew his character. Oh, that she knew exceedingly well. There was also his tenderness, his smarts, his sense of humor, his loyalty, his determination. All the things he possessed in spades, many of them things she hadn’t learned about the other men she’d been involved with, even after a period of months.
When this was over, when she had the answers she’d been seeking, she’d slow down and look at this picture through more rational lenses. Right now, though, she was taking things as they came. If that meant another kiss coming her way, she’d be all right with that. If it meant him coming back to her bed, that’d be even better. Anything beyond that, she couldn’t think about right now, even if she really did like thinking about the bed one.
Pulling into the parking garage attached to her building, Olivia drove down the first ramp, then all the way around to the back of the structure, aiming for her standard reserved spot on the bottom level. When she got there and pulled in, though, she realized she’d been pretty silly, driving past row after row of empty spaces. She’d been on autopilot, oblivious to the fact that the place was practically empty. The eXtreme Investigations offices were located in a slick office building that also housed more traditional companies run by lawyers, accountants and hedge fund–manager types, most of whom didn’t operate on Sundays.
She sometimes wondered what visitors to the high-rise thought when they looked at the building directory and saw that business with the funny name, the funny punctuation, and the really funny reputation. She’d certainly been taken aback by it when she’d first heard about the place. Then she’d met Julia, realized the former cop was about as far from a new age quack as anybody could get and knew she had stumbled into something very serious and very special.
Speaking of Julia . . . “Ha!” she mumbled, spying the woman’s car parked in her regular spot two spaces down. So Olivia hadn’t been the only one who’d been on autopilot this morning.
Despite not having had any bad dreams, she’d still awakened very early this morning, before dawn, and had been unable to get back to sleep. Eventually she’d realized the tension she’d been feeling was due to the strange, discomforting sensation that somebody was watching her. She’d thought about that shadow, that movement in the mirror earlier, and had grown a little worried. She’d even gone downstairs to double-check all the locks, though she knew she was probably being paranoid. But considering she’d realized last night that the man who’d tried to kill her was not rotting in his grave and could still be out there, she probably had reason to be jumpy.
When she’d gone back to bed, she’d forced herself to think about other things, more pleasant ones. Past and present were banished, and she focused on Gabe, on the wonderful hours they’d shared the night before, maybe even on the future.
“Don’t go there,” she reminded herself. She didn’t need to let herself get any more distracted by Gabe Cooper. They had a case to work on, a case that mattered to her, a lot. For the first time that she could remember, members of the SCCPD and agents from eXtreme Investigations were working together, collaborating. She wanted this to go well, for any number of reasons.
Speaking of other members of the team, she noticed that Mick’s car wasn’t in his spot. Not surprising. He was almost always late. Aidan’s wasn’t in his, either. She hadn’t expected it to be, honestly, because he and his girlfriend had gone away for the weekend. She’d specifically asked Julia to not interrupt them by calling Aidan back and hoped her boss had listened.
As for Derek, the other agent at eXtreme Investigations, he rode a big, badass motorcycle, which suited Derek’s big, badass personality pretty well. He was definitely the rebel of the group, and it wasn’t merely because Mick had the playboy role sewn up, while Aidan was the brainiac. Hmm. And Julia was the boss. So what did that make her?
The freak.
She thrust that thought out of her head, angry at herself for even allowing it to surface. Then, reaching for the door handle, she got out and locked the car. Her eyes on the elevator sign, she headed across the dark, shadowy lot so she could ride up to their tenth-floor offices.
Dark and shadowy, indeed. I
t was broad daylight outside, but that light didn’t penetrate far under the cover of five stories of concrete parking deck. She wasn’t exactly underground—Savannah’s elevation didn’t allow for that—but the bottom floor was slightly below street level.
The distance between her spot and the elevator suddenly looked a lot longer than usual. Maybe it was the shadows cast by the pillars and half walls of the deck, or the click of her heels on the cement, or just the fact that it was so utterly empty, but the place that always seemed so normal and commonplace now felt a little creepy.
A low, furtive scrape interrupted her thoughts, like the sound of a shoe dragged on the pavement. She cocked her head, curious more than startled, wondering if she’d missed seeing Derek’s motorcycle in the designated bike area. It was one level up, directly overhead, and he might be walking around right now, too.
If he got here before you, he’s probably already upstairs.
Another sound, a soft rustling, came from behind her. She spun around, not sure what she expected to see . . . but saw nothing. Just her car and Julia’s and a vast expanse of shadowy, empty parking lot, striped with lines, stained with occasional splotches of engine oil and skid marks. Perfectly normal.
You’re hearing things.
But she still didn’t move, listening intently. Olivia hadn’t lived a normal life; she was attuned to certain sights, sounds and sensations, especially those related to danger. This, well, she wasn’t entirely sure what this was. Her pulse had quickened, yes. But whose wouldn’t? Beyond that, she didn’t feel any panic clawing at her, sensed no evil or imminent peril. Only mystery.
She cocked her head, sure that she would hear a car driving on one of the upper levels or the mechanical noise of the elevator in motion. Or even the buzz of an insect.
But all was silent. Not a car horn, not a voice, not a whisper, not even, she suddenly realized, the sound of her own heartbeat. It was as if she were in a sense-deprivation chamber, all sound blacked out.
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