The Last Time I Saw Her

by Karen Robards

  Charlie consciously stopped herself from sucking in air. If her fingers tightened on his, well, that was just reflexive. “You followed orders. You did what you were told to do.”

  His mouth twisted. He slanted a glance at her. “That excuse won’t get you off in a court here on earth, much less the court I’m facing.”

  “Whoever’s in charge of these things in the universe can’t decide to hold you accountable because of something the military ordered you to do!”

  “I guess whoever’s in charge can decide any damned thing they want.”

  “It’s not fair! You never had a chance! Your childhood—you were abused—your mother”—she gave a snort of scornful laughter—“what mother? That woman was not a mother! You—”

  “Babe, I’m a grown-ass man, and have been for a while now. You can’t go blaming all the shit I’ve done on a crappy childhood and a bad mother.” He brought their joined hands up to rest on his chest. “Truth is, I didn’t do anything I wasn’t perfectly willing to do. And anyway, that’s not the worst of it.”

  She pressed her lips tightly together as their eyes met. “Tell me,” she said.

  “Hoop and Cap were with another unit, and that unit—the survivors of that unit, because there was a hell of a firefight first—got captured. There was a lot of noise about what the enemy was going to do to them, that they were planning to make a big spectacle out of beheading them or maybe burning them alive. So a group went in to get them out. It was all volunteer, because it was pretty much a suicide mission, deep in the mountains, deep in enemy territory. Getting in was doable because nobody knew we were coming, but getting out—” He broke off, shook his head, and looked at the ceiling again. “Eight of us went in there, three of us came out. We brought five prisoners out with us. The survivors. They were in rough shape, we were mostly carrying them on our backs. Cap made it out. Hoop didn’t. He was dead when we got there. So there’s eight of us hustling through these mountains that make our mountains around here look like a park in Kansas, with half the Afghan army on our tail. We’re skirting around the villages, trying to get to a point where some choppers or AMTRACs can get in there and get us, when we walk right into this group of villagers having some kind of meeting in the woods. There’s like six of them. Men, most of them old, a couple not. They see us, we see them. Nothing to do. So we round them up, and we have this quick little debate. If we let them go, they’ll run straight to their village and we’re fucked. If we tie them up, the minute they get loose or are found they’ll tell everything they know about us, and we’re fucked again. I knew from the beginning that the only thing to do was kill them, but we took a vote and the vote was that we were going to leave them tied to a tree. So we leave them tied to a tree. Every single one of us knows it’s a bad decision, that it’s going to come back and bite us in the ass big-time. So I make the call, just to myself, don’t say a word to the others, and I go back and shoot them. I shot unarmed civilians. The youngest looked like he was maybe fourteen. After that, we made it out, all of us, alive. I looked at it the way it was, us or them.”

  Listening, Charlie’s heart seized up. Her insides quivered. Her throat tightened, all with horror for the fate of those men—and for him. His voice was totally devoid of inflection. His face was as expressionless as a wall.

  He continued, “Cap got killed about a month later. IED. I finished my tour three months after that.” He must have felt the emotions she was trying hard to keep contained because he looked at her then. “I told you from the get-go I’ve done some bad things. I’m a killer. I just don’t happen to be a serial killer who slices up women.”

  But despite his denials, he’d been haunted by what he’d done, by those whose lives he had taken, by the villagers, by the thought that he’d killed a teenager. She knew it by the expressionlessness of his face, the lack of intonation in his voice, by his body language. She knew it by the way he reacted to kids who were in danger now. He might say he felt no remorse. He might even believe he felt no remorse. But it was there, buried deep under a ton of denial, eating him alive. He’d never forgiven himself for the things he had done, and her heart turned over at the knowledge.

  He was looking at her, watching her, waiting for her verdict, for her judgment, although she knew he would die before he’d admit it. His face was completely unreadable. His hand gripped hers hard.

  All kinds of things that she wanted to say to him crowded into her head. Things like: deeds done in the fog of war don’t count; surviving at all costs is the oldest human instinct there is; you almost certainly saved the lives of the men you were with that day.

  But this wasn’t the moment for any of that.

  “I love you,” she said again, softly. And then she leaned over and kissed him, and crawled on top of him, and proceeded to show him how much.

  —

  His stomach growling was what finally got them up and out of the hotel room. He pulled on a pair of black pants and a gray button-down from Hughes’s closet, and they went down to the Pioneer Inn’s restaurant, which was a small but pleasant combination dining room/bar. They talked, by silent but mutual agreement staying away from anything heavy or distressing, and Charlie watched Michael devour what was possibly the largest steak she’d ever seen, plus sides and two beers. Then they walked outside and down the block to the closed-off streets and town square full of booths and vendors that was the Big Stone Gap Fall Festival. By this time it was full dark, and white Christmas lights had been strung up everywhere. It was beautiful. There were jugglers and fortune-tellers and foam rubber animals on sticks and lots of carnival games and food and music. They laughed and talked and Michael ate two hot dogs and a caramel apple while Charlie picked at some cotton candy, and then he tried to win her a stuffed animal by throwing a baseball at some stacked bottles and failed miserably.

  Which made her giggle. Like she was seventeen.

  Casting her a glinting look, he shelled out another five dollars (from Hughes’s wallet) and tried again.

  Watching him hurl the baseball at the bottles, which still stubbornly resisted going down in sufficient quantities, Charlie thought, I’m happy.

  The thought scared her because she knew happy couldn’t last.

  “Damned game’s fixed,” he growled as he gave up finally, turning away from the booth and sheepishly presenting her with the six-inch-long neon green stuffed worm that was the losers’ consolation prize.

  Charlie couldn’t help it: she accepted the worm and snickered.

  His eyes narrowed dangerously at her. “Are you laughing at me?”

  “No.” She clasped the worm to her heart, looked at him soulfully and said, “My hero.” And snickered again.

  “That’s going to cost you,” he threatened, and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, right there in the middle of the fall festival.

  The ringing of her phone broke them apart.

  It was Tam.

  “Hey,” Charlie said.

  “I couldn’t find her,” Tam said. Her anguish was obvious even through the phone. Charlie knew instantly that Tam was talking about Bree. Michael was looking down at her, and she mouthed Tam and he nodded. “They brought me her sweater, and a bracelet, and I picked her up. I felt her. But I couldn’t find her. All I got was cold. Cold and dark.”

  “Maybe that means she’s dead.” Even saying it was upsetting.

  “I didn’t get the afterlife. I got the kind of cold and dark that’s of this plane. It’s like I’m inside her body, but I can’t see anything because it’s pitch black where she is. And she’s so cold. Deathly cold.”

  “Tam—”

  Tam broke in before Charlie could say anything more. “I think she’s here, but I think she’s dying. And I can’t get a read on where.”

  Charlie clutched the phone. Her whole body went tight with distress. Then the merest glimmer of a possibility occurred to her.

  “I have an idea,” Charlie told her. “I’ll be right there.”

  CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

  With Michael riding shotgun, Charlie drove the short distance from the Pioneer Inn in her car and then had to park a street over and sneak through backyards in order to avoid the media that were still camped out on the street in front of the Powells’ house. Letting herself in through the kitchen door, she was slightly taken aback to find that her home appeared to be packed with people. Not only Tam, but Tony, Lena, Buzz, a woman from Child Protective Services, and a pair of uniformed state troopers were in her kitchen.

  Behind her, Michael seemed to pause for a moment on the threshold to survey the group. Then he followed her inside.

  In the chorus of greetings that ensued, Charlie was introduced to Sarah Combs, the woman from Child Protective Services, and the state troopers. Apparently Bree was a ward of the state and Ms. Combs had been charged with finding items that belonged to her and bringing them to Tony (actually Tam, but the whole psychic thing hadn’t been divulged to Ms. Combs). The cops—Officers Huddleston and Rink—were there to drive Ms. Combs back home again.

  “I couldn’t help,” Tam whispered, clutching Charlie’s hands with fingers that were cold as ice. Her face was pale and pinched with anxiety. “I can feel her, but I can’t find her.”

  “Tam said you have an idea?” Tony stepped up beside Tam to ask in a lowered voice. He was carefully ignoring Michael, who was right behind Charlie. Lena and Buzz joined the group, focusing on Charlie after giving Michael almost identical hostile looks. Since they thought Michael was Hughes, and Hughes had been cleared of suspicion in the Southern Slasher case, Charlie could only suppose their hostility was because she was apparently dating Hughes rather than Tony, whom they both tended to look out for in the same way that he looked out for them. She took quick note of the fact that Lena and Buzz were standing reasonably close together, and Lena was no longer crackling with anger every time she glanced in Buzz’s direction. Charlie could only suppose they’d talked.

  At the moment, though, Charlie didn’t have the time or the energy to deal with all the undercurrents in the room.

  “Yes,” she said. “I just need to run upstairs for a minute.” She looked at Michael. “You okay with hanging out down here?”

  Michael nodded. Charlie looked meaningfully at Tam, who moved to stand protectively at Michael’s side. Michael slanted a quizzical look down at Tam. Tam smiled at Charlie. Silent message: Don’t worry, I’ve got him.

  Charlie ran upstairs, offloaded Squirmy (her name for the neon worm) onto her dresser, grabbed the supplies she needed, and stuffed them in a tote bag. Then she returned to the kitchen.

  Ms. Combs and the troopers were gone. Michael leaned against the breakfast bar while Tam perched on one of the stools. Tony, Lena, and Buzz sat around the kitchen table.

  “Tam was just telling us about the award you won,” Tony said as Charlie entered the room. “Congratulations.”

  Lena and Buzz chimed in with congratulations, too.

  “Thanks.” Charlie smiled at them. Her eyes met Tony’s. “I’m going next door. You can come with me. The rest of you stay here.”

  “I’m not staying here,” Michael said, straightening away from the bar. Everyone looked at him.

  “I didn’t mean you,” Charlie told him. Remembering how her last trip inside the Powells’ house had ended, she was absolutely in favor of having all the protection she could get. She would have let Buzz and Lena come, except the last thing she needed for what she intended to do was an audience of skeptics. And to take Tam would only add to Tam’s distress while serving no purpose. Tam got debilitated by the dark side of the spirit world. Tam was a creature of the light.

  With Michael and Tony in tow, Charlie headed out the door.

  “Why are we going next door?” Michael asked as they crossed the yard. He and Tony loomed on either side of her.

  “I’m going to try to summon a spirit,” Charlie replied. “And also feed the cat.” Then, before Michael could say anything more, because she figured he would object to her plan if he knew exactly what it entailed, she turned to Tony and asked, “So did Lena and Buzz make up? They seem to be being relatively civil to each other.”

  He snorted. “I told them they were both fired as soon as this case is over. They’ve been on their best behavior ever since.”

  Charlie looked at him. “You don’t mean it.”

  “They don’t know that.”

  Sure they do, Charlie thought, but they had reached the Powells’ house by that time and her attention turned to the task at hand.

  “You stay outside,” Charlie said to Michael as she inserted the key Melissa had given her into the back door lock. The porch was dark and shadowy. Given her recent experience in the house, the thought of walking back inside it creeped her out, but it had to be done.

  “What?” From Michael’s tone he might as well have said Like hell.

  “I’m going to open a portal,” she explained. “I don’t know what that will do to you, but I don’t think either one of us wants to find out. So you stay out here. Believe me, I’ll scream if I need you.”

  “You’re taking Dudley?” He sounded affronted.

  “In case there’s another bad guy in the house, I need someone to shoot him,” Charlie said, exasperated. “Think I didn’t get the memo about going alone into dark, scary houses? I did.” The lock clicked. Pushing the door open, she looked over her shoulder at him. “Will you just stay here?”

  Michael made a sound that she didn’t stick around to try to decipher. She went on into the house, then closed the door after Tony, who followed her.

  “ ‘Dudley’?” Tony asked when they were inside. Charlie could see the silhouette of Michael’s big body through the glass in the top of the door. He was sticking close, but doing as she’d said and staying outside. As a spirit, he’d had experience with portals and was wary.

  “He’s bad with names,” Charlie lied, then added, as Tony reached for the switch beside the door, “Don’t turn on the light.”

  God, she hated having to say that, she thought as his hand dropped. The house was dark and silent and cold in an otherworldly way that told her that she was on the right track. Already the back of her neck was prickling, which, depending on how you looked at it, could be either a good or a bad sign. She’d already ascertained that the Powell family, too traumatized to reenter their house so soon, had gone to Melissa’s mother’s to spend the night.

  “Jesus Christ, that’s the cat,” Tony said, sounding startled, as Pumpkin greeted Charlie with a yowl and a rush to rub against her legs. Patting him absently, she remembered the instructions Melissa had given her and said to Tony, who was only a few feet behind her, “His bowl’s over there, and his food’s on the shelf above it. Would you mind feeding him while I get set up, please?”

  Gesturing in the direction she meant, she watched Tony move to do as she’d asked.

  “Set up?” Tony asked as he poured kibble in a bowl.

  The homely sound of the cat food hitting the dish was soothing as Charlie pulled the jasmine candle that she’d taken from her dresser drawer from the tote bag and placed it on the end of the kitchen table that was farthest from the basement door. The candle was part of her Miracle-Go kit, a collection of objects she’d accumulated over the years for dealing with spirits. Setting the heavy glass she might need to put over the candle beside it, she fished out the lighter that was her last piece of equipment and looked at Tony.

  “I’m going to light this candle,” she said, “which will open a portal to the Other Side. If Abell is still in the house, he will be drawn to it. When he shows up, if he shows up, I’m going to ask him where Bree is.”

  It was hard to see Tony’s expression in the dark, but she could feel him staring at her.

  “Okay.” He sounded only slightly taken aback.

  “You’re not going to be able to see him. It’s going to look to you like I’m talking to thin air,” she warned. “All you have to do is be quiet and stay out of the way.”

  “I ca
n do that.”

  See, that was why she liked him so much. The man took everything she threw at him in stride. She smiled at him, then picked up the lighter and lit the candle. The tiny flame caught and flickered, growing stronger. The smell of jasmine wafted through the air.

  “He can’t hurt me, by the way,” Charlie said as an afterthought. “Or you, either.”

  Then she quit talking as Abell’s spirit stepped through the closed basement door. Her heart beat faster at the sight of him. The living world dropped away as she focused on him.

  Abell looked exactly as he had in life, a big, apelike man in the blue prison guard uniform in which he’d died, his dark hair shaved close to his scalp, his skin waxy pale. A shiny dark streak running down the side of his throat caught the moonlight coming in through the window. Charlie had no doubt that it was blood, from the knife wound in the back of his neck.

  For a moment after he entered the kitchen he looked disoriented. He glanced around, fists clenching as he frowned. Then he spotted the candle and his gaze riveted on it. He took a step toward it as if compelled, then another one. Then he seemed to struggle against the invisible force that had caught him and was tugging him forward.

  “That suction you feel is going to take you to hell,” Charlie told him. At the sound of her voice, Abell’s head swiveled toward her. She was standing beside the table within easy reach of the candle, and he was obviously seeing her for the first time.

  His face contorted with rage and hate.

  “You bitch,” he snarled. “This is all your fault. I’m going to kill you.” Roaring, he leaped toward her, his body barreling right through the table as if the sturdy wood wasn’t even there. Stomach churning, assailed by a sudden blast of cold, Charlie stood her ground, expecting him to make a grab for her and in the process surge right through her. But the suction generated by the opening portal caught him up, throwing him off balance before he could reach her, pulling him toward it. Listing sideways, struggling to resist, he looked toward the candle with sudden fear.