Love Me to Death

by Maggie Shayne

  And while they no longer lived in close proximity, they still kept in close touch, and got together on all the important occasions. Weddings. Kids being born. Summer holidays. Mark was the only one who’d stayed in Port Lucinda—he’d taken over his father’s little grocery store there.

  So when Janet said, “All of you,” she could only have meant Randy, Kevin, Brad and him. The reformed arsonists who would never wash the blood of a sixteen-year-old girl off their hands.

  His phone was ringing again. He glanced at the screen, and saw his assumption confirmed. It was Randy. He answered with the words, “Janet called you, too?”

  “Yeah. Did she tell you what happened?” Randy asked.

  “Accident, she said.”

  “He was hit by a truck, Dave.”

  “What?”

  “Right outside the store. I got the feeling his prognosis isn’t good.”

  “Yeah, I got that, too,” David admitted, though even saying the words brought a lump to his throat. “So when are you coming?”

  “I’m flying out tonight, overnight flight. Changing planes in Detroit, and I’ll land early tomorrow morning. Kevin and Brad have early flights tomorrow, so I’m just going to rent a car and wait for them at the airport, and we’ll all drive into Port Lucinda together.”

  “You going to room together or—”

  “My dad still has the cottage there,” Randy said. “He said we could use it. There’s plenty of room for all four of us. And it’s only twenty minutes from the hospital.”

  He nodded, recalling the “cottage” of which Randy spoke. It was a two-story house perched on the cliffs, overlooking the rocky Atlantic shore. Breathtaking place. Randy’s parents had lived in an ordinary house in town, and rented the cottage out to summer visitors to make extra money. David had never understood how anyone could own a home like that one and not want to live in it.

  “Thanks, Randy. I’d actually love to stay in the cottage with you guys. I can’t think of a better place, in fact. Listen, I’ve got an overnight shift to finish, then I’m going to pack up a few things and hit the road. I’ll drive in—it’s only a few hours from here. I should be there by nine, nine-thirty tomorrow.”

  “You’re not going to sleep?”

  “I don’t think I could if I wanted to—not knowing, you know?” David had to swallow again; his throat kept clenching up.

  “Yeah,” Randy replied. “Listen, just be careful. I don’t want to have two friends to visit in the hospital tomorrow, okay?”

  “You, too. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  David ended the call, lowered his head, thought about Mark and Janet. They had twin sons, both seniors in high school. And while Janet was not the girl Mark had been pining over the night they’d been such idiots, she was the love of his life. Hell, none of the guys had ended up with the girls they’d been so wrought up over back then. Brad had met his wife Cindy in college. She was a nurse in his booming chiropractic practice in Philly. Kevin had been married and divorced three times now, and was currently into dating bone-thin fashion models. He lived in New York, made a living doling out financial advice to the wealthy and powerful. Randy had a successful career writing commercial jingles, though he really wanted to be a rock star. At thirty-eight, he still couldn’t admit that wasn’t going to happen. He’d come out of the closet a year after they all got out of detention. He lived with his partner, Albert, in San Francisco.

  David had never married. He’d become a firefighter, and he didn’t need a shrink to tell him that he did it as some kind of self-imposed penance for his past mistakes. Maybe that was why he stayed single, too. He didn’t feel he deserved to fall in love, get married, have kids—all those things Sierra Terrence would never have the chance to do. So he devoted himself to work, engaged in one-night stands now and then, and aside from his four best friends, never let himself get close to anyone. And he was fine with that. He’d chosen it, and it was fine.

  Now, though, one of them was facing mortality. And dammit, David knew what Mark must be feeling right now. That he didn’t want to die without having made up for what he’d done—he didn’t want to face judgment with that girl’s death on his side of the scale.

  David knew it. Because he felt the same thing every time he walked into a burning building. Every single time. Dying didn’t scare him. But the thought of seeing Sierra again—of looking into those dark, deep eyes of hers and having to explain why he killed her—that thought terrified him. Kept him awake nights.

  Haunted him—especially lately. He’d been dreaming—

  For just an instant, the recurring dream flooded his mind, pulling him into its depths. Sierra, all draped in flowing white, floating toward him, more beautiful than ever. And as he reached out for her, she said, “I’m coming back, David. I’m coming back.”

  He snapped out of the fantasy with a gasp, just as he had for the last five consecutive mornings. Why? God, why now?

  Maybe because of Mark.

  Poor Mark. If he was dying, and knew it, he must be suffering the fires of a thousand hells right now. And there wasn’t a damned thing that David or any of the other guys were going to be able to do to ease that. They could only know that they would all face exactly the same thing, in the end.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DAVID DROVE HIS JEEP Wrangler past the big wooden “Welcome to Port Lucinda, The Town Where Time Stands Still” sign, and shook his head at how appropriate the nickname was. Hell, he’d never realized just how stuck in time his hometown was, until he’d grown up and done some traveling.

  The storefronts hadn’t changed. The green-and-white striped awnings, the old-fashioned lettering, the fact that the drugstore still served fountain sodas and root beer floats. A lot of the buildings had expanded backward rather than sideways, not wanting to mess up the quaint look of the storefronts. Hell, the salon that today offered hot stone massages, manicures, pedicures, facials and anything and everything related to hair still had an antique barber pole guarding the front door. During tourist season, a quartet of moustached locals showed up to sing in harmony beside that pole every Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

  Not so in February.

  He passed Potter’s Grocery. Mark’s father had handed it down to him, just as his grandfather had passed it on to his dad, and he was pretty sure his granddad had taken over from his own family. It had been Potter’s for as long as anyone could remember. But Mark’s boys weren’t even out of high school yet. God, it wasn’t time for them to have to take over.

  Within a couple of minutes, David was driving out of the village and passing by the last place officially a part of it.

  The old Muller House. Of course, now it was called Sierra House, in honor of the girl who’d died there so long ago. It served as a community center, for the most part. A place to hold dances, talent shows, host everything from local bands to bake sales. But it was also a resource for troubled teens. Twice a month, there were crisis counselors on duty there. Kids with problems could come and talk confidentially, and they’d be steered to the resources they needed. They’d be listened to and helped.

  The fire hadn’t burned the old Muller place to the ground. It had only gutted it, and spurred the townsfolk to stop fighting over it and agree it was worth saving. The restoration had begun that very spring.

  David pulled the Jeep onto the snowy shoulder of the road and sat there for a moment. There was a picket fence surrounding the house now. There hadn’t been before. The sidewalk had been buckled and cracked—he remembered tripping on it as they ran from the blossoming flames that night. In fact, it was almost impossible for him to look at the place—all freshly painted with new shutters and curtains in the windows—and see anything other than the sagging, peeling menace it had been back then. He hated the Muller House. He hated the town for not tearing it down to begin with.

  He hated himself for blaming the house, or the town, or anyone for what happened. It was no one’s fault but his own.

  God,
he could almost see her face in the upstairs window, staring out at him, flames leaping up around her as she cried and pounded on the window glass.

  He hadn’t seen that, not then, not now. It wasn’t a memory, it was his mind torturing him. And he couldn’t stop thinking about the life he’d taken away.

  Or the woman she would have become.

  He’d been with that woman again the other night, in dreams so vivid they left him shaken and more exhausted than before he’d slept at all. Sierra. A little older, a little more beautiful. Sierra. God, how she haunted him.

  He shook himself, dragged his attention away from the girl whose soul seemed to live inside his own and shifted the Jeep into gear, glancing into the mirror. And then he froze, because for just the barest instant, he saw her in his rearview mirror—Sierra Terrence, standing on the opposite side of the road, slightly behind where he was parked, and staring at that house just the way he’d been doing. It was a glimpse, no more. She stood there in faded jeans, enveloped in a big heavy parka, but its hood was down and her long dark hair was moving with the winter wind.

  There, and then not there.

  He slammed the Jeep into Park and twisted around in his seat to look again. But there was no one there.

  He took a couple of open-mouthed breaths, scanning the sidewalks up one side of the street and down the other. Looking for her. Because that hadn’t been his mind, or his imagination. Maybe the resemblance had—but there had been somebody there.

  Or else he was hallucinating.

  Damn, he had been without sleep for close to twenty hours. That was probably all it had been. But it had sure as hell felt real. Real enough that his heart was still racing. Sierra. God, would he ever get over her?

  So he drove on, up the winding road that led to The Heights, which was what the locals had unofficially named the seaside portion of Port Lucinda. Not creative, but certainly accurate.

  As Randy’s father’s cottage came into view, David noticed a green SUV in the wide driveway and knew his friends had already arrived. Moments later he was pulling in next to it.

  Randy, Kevin and Brad came out the front door before he was even out of the Jeep, and then they were all around him, clapping him on the shoulders, pumping his hand. Brad had gained weight and lost hair. Kevin still looked like a male model. And Randy, who’d barely changed at all, hugged him hard. David wasn’t ashamed to hug back. These were more than friends to him. More than brothers, even.

  “My bag’s in the back,” he began.

  “Why don’t you leave it, for now?” Randy said.

  David frowned, and Kevin added, “We just got a call from Janet. She said we should hurry.”

  “Aw, hell. Is he—?”

  “She wouldn’t say. Just said he was asking for us. To get there, fast. So we’re going.”

  “Okay. So we’re going.”

  As one, they trooped to the SUV and piled in.

  * * *

  “OH, THANK GOD. THANK GOD you’re all here.” Janet rose from the chair beside her husband’s bed and met the four men halfway across the hospital room. And David wanted to look at her, to acknowledge her, but for the life of him, he couldn’t take his eyes from Mark. Because he didn’t look like Mark at all.

  His face was red, swollen, bruised to hell and gone. His head was swathed in bandages that went under his chin and encircled his entire skull like a nun’s wimple. His left leg was casted all the way to his groin, and suspended from a rack over the bed. There were IV lines running into one arm, an oxygen tube taped to his nose and other electronics wired to his chest and his head.

  Janet had been hugging each of them, and finally it was his turn. He returned her embrace and as she stepped away, he looked at her and thought she’d aged ten years since he’d seen the two of them last summer—Independence Day. How long ago was that? Seven months? No one aged ten years in seven months. He suspected the weariness and stress he saw in her now had occurred in the last forty-eight hours.

  He cupped the side of her face. “What can we do for you, Jan? What do you need?”

  She shook her head. “You came. That’s all he’s wanted—insisted on. Maybe he’ll relax a little bit now that you’re here.”

  “How is he, Janet?” Randy asked. “Really?”

  She met Randy’s eyes, and then just shook her head, very slightly. As if to say they didn’t expect Mark to live. And David knew she wouldn’t want to say that out loud, not in the same room with him.

  “Is he asleep?” David asked.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “His eyes are too swollen to open. Come on.”

  She gripped his arm and tugged him closer to the bed. Behind him, he heard the door open again, heard a nurse insisting that only two visitors were allowed at a time and heard Brad telling her she’d need more help if she wanted to remove any of them. Then Randy said, “We won’t stay long, we promise.”

  There was a sigh, then the door swinging closed. The nurse must have withdrawn. And then Kevin was standing at his side, Randy and Brad on the opposite side of the bed, all of them staring down at Mark.

  “What the hell happened?” Brad asked. “Randy said he was hit by a truck?”

  Janet’s voice was so lifeless it was nearly a monotone. “The driver says he just came sprinting out of nowhere, and right into his path. Everyone’s been asking him why, but he said he couldn’t talk to anyone but the four of you.”

  “Don’t let that hurt you, hon,” Randy said, sending Janet a fond look. “We really bonded in the detention center. It was hell there, you know. We needed each other.”

  “I know,” she said. “I know what you all went through together. And I know he’s never gotten over it. I’m just so glad you came.” Leaning over the bed, cupping her husband’s face, she said, “Hey, baby. The guys are here, just like you asked. Can you hear me? Dave, Brad, Kevin and Randy. They’re all here. They came just as fast as they could.”

  His head moved very slightly. His mouth seemed to tense, then his lips parted and he spoke with effort. “Guys?”

  “Right here, Mark,” David said softly, and he laid a hand over one of Mark’s, so he could feel him there. Only then did he realize Mark’s eyes actually were open, mere slits between his swollen lids.

  Mark nodded very slightly, and shifted what there was of his gaze toward Janet. “I need you…to wait…”

  “You want privacy. I understand.” There was hurt in her tone, but she didn’t argue. She leaned down and kissed an exposed part of his face, then hurried from the room and closed the door.

  “Okay, we’re alone, pal,” Brad said. “What’s going on?”

  “Sierra.”

  David and Brad shot each other a look, and David said, “What about Sierra?”

  “I saw her.”

  And David felt icy cold right to his core. He almost shivered.

  Randy frowned at Mark. “You mean you sort of crossed over for a few seconds, when all this happened? You saw her on the other side.”

  “No. Here. She’s here. She’s…coming for us.”

  Kevin’s brows went up and he actually took a step away from the bed. “Mark, come on—”

  “She’s come back…for revenge.”

  The other three had been leaning closer and closer to better hear him, but now Brad straightened with a grunt. “You probably dreamed about her while you were unconscious, Mark. That’s all. You’re hurt pretty badly, you know.”

  “I know that,” Mark said. “But it’s not…a dream. I saw her—before…the accident. Waiting for me…outside the store. Just standing there in the snow, waiting. She came…for my soul…and she got it, guys. She got it.”

  Brad shot David a quick glance, then said, “Wait, wait, you’re telling me this delusion started before you got hit by that truck?”

  “No delusion!” He tried to sit up in the bed, but fell backward. The steady beeping of the machines increased in pace. A nurse came into the room, alarmed.

  “She reached out…f
or me—might as well have…pushed me in front of…that truck.” His brows crunched together. “Maybe—maybe she did push me. Without actually touching. ’Cause she’s not…alive. She’s a ghost…or something.”

  “He’s too agitated, gentlemen,” the nurse said. “You really have to leave.” She shouldered her way in between them to the bedside. “Really—”

  “No!” Mark shouted.

  “Come on,” Brad said. “This is ridiculous, Mark. You’re hurt, your head’s all messed up. Sierra’s dead. We made a terrible mistake, but we told the truth, and we did the time.” The nurse looked slightly alarmed at that. “It’s over,” Brad insisted.

  “Really, sirs, you have to leave.” The nurse was moving them bodily away from the bedside now.

  And then Mark’s hand flashed out suddenly, and closed around David’s with a surprisingly strong grip. “I stayed alive…this long…so I could warn you…dammit. Listen to me. She’s come back. She already had…her vengeance on me…but I’m telling you…you’re next.” His voice got suddenly louder, a final burst of strength empowering it. “She’s come back! The girl we killed has come…and she’s not going to rest until we’re all dead just like she is.”

  And then his hand went slack, and his head sank heavily onto his pillows.

  “I think he passed out,” David said, leaning closer in alarm.

  “I think it might be a bit more than that,” the nurse said. “Get out. Stay with the wife until we call for you.” Then she pushed a button on the wall and said, “I need Dr. Pollock, stat.”

  Brad was already heading for the door, and the others followed, just barely getting through it before three white-coated individuals came running down the hall and pushed past them to get inside.

  “Man, Mark’s messed up, isn’t he?” Brad asked.

  David nodded, knowing Brad needed some kind of reassurance, because Mark’s words had probably sent the same icy chills running up and down his spine as had brushed David’s own. And with his physique, and the way he got out of breath just crossing a room, David didn’t think Brad could handle too many shocks.