Look into My Eyes

by Glenda Sanders

  “When he—” She paused and started over. This was even harder than she’d thought it would be. “When he was...hit, how did he—did he know it? Did he realize what had happened? Did he say anything, or do anything?” She looked Josh fully in the face. “You were there, Josh. Please tell me. The smallest details. It’s important.”

  Josh’s shoulders slumped. The memory of the day his partner was killed weighted his features. Words did not come easily. Finally, he said, “We heard the shot, and then Craig looked down at his chest and saw blood. He seemed...surprised.”

  Josh swallowed. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

  Holly studied her hands. “Yes.”

  “It’s not going to serve any purpose.”

  “I need to know.”

  Josh nodded. “He made a sound. It wasn’t really a word, just a sound, like a wounded animal. And he put his hands over the wound, as though he could stop the blood from coming out, and he looked at me, as if to say, ‘I can’t make it stop.’”

  “I looked down and saw that I was bleeding. I put my hands over the wound and tried to stop the blood, but I couldn’t.”

  “The creep went to shoot again, but his gun misfired, and that’s when I rushed him and wrestled him to the ground. By the time I had him cuffed, our backup had arrived and they were calling for an ambulance. I went over to Craig, and he looked up at me. I swear to God, Holly, I’ll never forget what he said. He said, ‘I’m dying.’ Just like that. Just like he’d have said that his nose itched.”

  “And I thought, ‘I’m dying.’”

  “I tried to reassure him, but by the time the ambulance got there, he’d lost consciousness.”

  Holly felt the damp heat of tears running down her cheeks. “Thank you for telling me.”

  “What’s this really about, Holly?”

  “I just—”

  Josh lifted a book from the coffee table and held it up. “Does it have anything to do with this?”

  The title of the book stood out in raised gold letters on a red background to mock her: The Mystery of Reincarnation. “You had no right to spy on me,” she said.

  “It’s hardly spying,” Josh replied. “The book was on the table in plain sight.”

  “Facedown.”

  “Why?”

  Holly’s lips compressed in irritation.

  “Why are you asking about Craig now, why are you reading about reincarnation and why would you deliberately lay the book on the table facedown so I wouldn’t see what you were reading about?”

  “Because—” She sighed as if she’d been saddled with the cares of the entire world. “If I told you, you’d think I’ve come unhinged.”

  “Try me,” he said.

  She remained steadfastly silent.

  “Look, Holly, I know you think I’m a jerk sometimes, but Craig was my best friend, and he loved you, and that makes me feel just a little responsible for you. You called me for help when you wanted your boyfriend checked out, and you called me today to ask me about Craig. Why don’t you try confiding in me? I might surprise you with my sensitivity.”

  “Right!” she said with a grudging grin.

  “If you could confide in that boyfriend of yours, you would.”

  “You’ve got to promise to hear me out. No matter how crazy it sounds,” she said.

  “I’m a cop, Holly. You’re not going to shock me.”

  She exhaled heavily. “Last week, when I was putting pepper on the shrimp and Craig said that he liked his food spicy, just like his women—it sounded like—”

  “Craig,” Josh said. “The real Craig. I don’t mind telling you, Holly, it gives me the creeps when you call this guy Craig. It seems blasphemous.”

  “They don’t retire names like team jerseys,” Holly said. “Craig doesn’t have a monopoly on the name just because he died.”

  “If this guy had been named after his grandfather and had a mother who still called him Craiggy-Pooh, it wouldn’t bother me. It’s knowing that he just picked it out of the air that bothers me. But we’re off the subject.”

  “That comment wasn’t the first...coincidence,” Holly said.

  “What kind of coincidences are we talking about here?”

  “It wasn’t the first time he’s used one of Craig’s phrases. And—this is—sort of personal, but Craig—the original Craig—always craved ice cream after—you know, we were together.”

  “Smokers want a cigarette, but Craig wanted chocolate chip with mint.”

  Her eyes registered surprise. “You knew about the ice cream?”

  “Craig was no virgin when he met you, Holly. There had been other women. The guys knew about his ice-cream fetish. They used to tease him when he’d start dating a new woman, asking if he was going to have ice cream for dessert.”

  “Everyone knew?” The idea appalled her.

  “Hell, Holly. That’s how we knew he was serious about you. When he said he was going to be dipping from the same carton for the rest of his life, we knew he was a goner.”

  Fresh tears burned Holly’s eyes. It was so quintessentially Craig, so romantic in a tough guy-cop kind of way.

  “Don’t you think it’s odd that Craig—the new Craig—would like ice cream, too?”

  “This is why you’re reading books on reincarnation?” Josh asked incredulously. “Ice cream after sex?”

  “It’s more than that,” Holly said. “It’s phrases that he uses, and he dipped me after we danced—”

  “Another coincidence. A lot of people do that.”

  “Buttercup plays with him the same way she played with Craig. She growls and swats his finger with her paws.”

  “That cat of yours would play with anyone who’d play back.”

  “She doesn’t play with you,” Holly said. “She doesn’t come near you.”

  “She knows I can’t stand cats,” Josh said.

  Holly leveled her gaze on his. “He dreamed Craig’s memories.”

  “Whoa!” Josh said. “Back up. He dreams Craig’s memories?”

  “I told you it was going to sound crazy.”

  Josh wiped his hand over his face. “You’re damned right. But go on.”

  “Two nights ago, he woke up in the middle of a nightmare. He thought he was remembering when he was hurt. He has a scar—”

  “On his chest, extending to his shoulder. That’s on the MP reports.”

  “He thought he was remembering when he got hurt. But it—it just didn’t click. When he was telling me about it— But I still didn’t believe—” She sighed. “And then he told me about another dream, a dream he’d had about me. He called it an adolescent fantasy.”

  “So?”

  “It was the beach party, Josh. The one Craig took me to when we first met. Remember, when I jumped for the ball and my swimsuit—”

  “Remember?” Josh said, with a chortle. “Holly, you’re a legend down at the station.”

  Holly buried her face in her hands, and a shudder wracked her shoulders. “He dreamed it as though he’d been there. He described the way I had my hair, the swimsuit I wore, and the...what happened at the volleyball game. He said things that Craig said to me afterward.”

  “It was so hot I couldn’t keep my eyes off you.”

  She went on, “He used words that Craig—”

  “The real Craig,” Josh interjected.

  “Your friend Craig,” Holly corrected. “Josh, he called my breasts creamy.”

  “And all I could think about was how much I wanted to touch you there.”

  Josh hooted. “That’s it? Hell, Holly, there’s nothing mysterious about that. Every man there thought your breasts were creamy.”

  “But he wasn’t there!” Holly said. “Craig—the man you knew—was there, but not the man who was in my bed two nights ago telling me about his dream.” Her composure cracked, and a desperate sob tore from her throat. “How could he dream someone else’s memories, Josh?”

  “He couldn’t,” Josh said.

 
; “But he did!” Holly said, near hysteria. “And he—” She swallowed a sob. “He thought he was remembering when he was hurt, when he got the scar on his chest, but it was more like when Craig was shot. He described it bit by bit exactly the way you did—looking down at the blood, trying to stop it, realizing he was dying.”

  “What are you suggesting, Holly? That Craig has come back from the dead, taller and prettier, but just as horny?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, desperate, almost shouting. “At first, I thought it was just coincidence. The name, a random word, a turn of phrase—ice cream after sex. I tried to explain them away one by one. But suddenly there were too many, and I realized that there had been something about him all along, something that attracted me to him.”

  “It’s called chemistry. Also known as raging hormones.”

  “It was more than that. Craig felt it, too. He was sure we’d met and I wasn’t telling him. He said he knew all about me, what it would be like to—”

  Josh sprang from the couch. “He’s not Craig!” he said, driving his hand through his hair. “Craig’s dead. He’s gone, and he’s not coming back.”

  He paced the narrow room like a caged animal until, finally, he stopped and glared at her. “For God’s sake—or for Craig’s memory’s sake—would you use that pretty little head on your shoulders for something besides a hat rack? This man isn’t Craig, conveniently reincarnated into James Bond minus the English accent. From what you’ve just told me, he sounds like a very clever con man.”

  Holly’s chin quivered. “He’s not a con man. He can’t be.” I love him.

  Josh knelt next to her chair and lifted her hands. “Honey, I know there’s nothing you’d like more than for Craig to come back. I wish he could come back, too. But he’s gone, and someone is playing a cruel trick on you, playing with your emotions.”

  “How? Why? Josh, what would he have to gain?”

  “To start with, he’s in your bed.”

  “We’ve had this conversation before,” Holly said. “A man like Craig wouldn’t have to go to much trouble to get a woman into his bed. I’m not beautiful, and I’m certainly not wealthy. Why would he target me?”

  “Maybe you don’t see it so much in the kiddy section of the public library, but the world is full of weirdos,” Josh said. “He could be someone Craig busted, or the brother of someone Craig busted, or the brother of some girl who thinks Craig broke her heart and sees you as the reason.”

  “Get real!” Holly said.

  “It makes a hell of a lot more sense than your cockamamy reincarnation theory! Don’t you go to the movies? Didn’t you see Fatal Attraction or Play Misty For Me? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. We arrested a woman last week who broke into her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend’s house and left a snake in her underwear drawer.”

  “I might have believed it when Craig—the first Craig—and I first started dating, or when we became engaged, but Craig’s been dead a year. How sick would someone have to be to want to punish me after I lost him?”

  “Someone who blames you for his death.”

  “Blames me? I didn’t have anything to do with his getting killed.”

  “Anyone with a lick of sense knows that,” Josh said. “But no one with a lick of sense would plan something this twisted in the first place.”

  Holly tried to imagine the scenario he proposed. She tried to envision Craig practicing lines and memorizing details. She tried to open her mind to the possibility that he was deliberately deceiving her. But she could not. She saw instead a sensitive man with haunted eyes, a gentle, thoughtful man with an endearing sense of humor and a beautiful smile. Deliberately hurt her? He was incapable of it.

  “He’s not a con man,” she said.

  “You’re sure?”

  She nodded. Josh rolled his eyes. “Deliver me from women’s intuition!”

  Long seconds passed before Holly said softly, “I’m in love with him.”

  “I figured as much.”

  “Must be that cop’s intuition of yours.”

  “I didn’t need intuition. All I had to do was open my eyes. You two look at each other like lovesick spaniels.”

  “That’s what I’ve always loved about you, Josh. Your poetic soul.”

  “Give me a break! I haven’t had a date in six months, and that one was a dud. Do you think it’s easy watching my best friend’s girl play goo-goo, patty-cake with a con artist?”

  “Alleged con artist. If you’re going to put everything into cop terminology, at least get it right.”

  Josh harrumphed skeptically.

  “He is innocent until proven guilty, you know,” she said.

  Josh sighed. “I have given this guy the benefit of every doubt possible, Holly, reasonable and otherwise. I have tried to take his story at face value. I’ve tried to be nice to him. Hell, I even like him. But being likable is the stock and trade of con men. And after what you’ve told me tonight, I can’t ignore the coincidences.”

  Holly glared at him.

  “Don’t look at me like that!” he said. “You can’t afford to ignore them, either. At least be prepared for the possibility that he’s playing you in a cruel and vicious way.”

  Holly was still glaring at him. Finally, he exhaled wearily. “For your sake,” he said, “I hope this guy’s on the level. But I’m going to be on him like a duck on a june bug. If he’s running a scam, he’s going to wish he could lose the memory of what happens next. And Holly—”

  She looked at him expectantly.

  “Get rid of the book and forget this reincarnation nonsense. Either he’s scamming you, and you’re convinced he’s not, or he just likes ice cream.”

  “And the dreams?”

  He shrugged. “You tell me. Maybe he was on the beach that day and saw the whole thing. Or maybe it was just a fantasy. There’s never been a man alive who could look at a woman in a swimsuit and not wish something would either pop out or fall down.”

  “Josh! I never realized what a romantic you are!”

  “I’ll tell you how romantic I am,” he said. “If I find out your boy is perpetrating a scam, I’m going to hang him from a flagpole and mail you his ears.”

  “And if you find out who he really is, and he turns out to be a perfectly respectable insurance salesman from Ohio...?”

  “Then I’ll deejay at your wedding reception for free,” he said. He chortled and shook his head in incredulity. “Maybe I really am a bit of a romantic. Believe it or not, for your sake, I sorta hope it works out that way.”

  10

  CRAIG LEANED across the seat to give Holly a brief hello kiss. “How was your day?”

  “Nice and lazy,” she replied, deciding that the innocuous lie was harmless enough. She could hardly tell him that she’d spent her day off assuring Josh that Craig wasn’t a con artist and reading about reincarnation because he’d dreamed a beach party she’d gone to years earlier with another man.

  She’d spent the hours following Josh’s visit pondering how complicated her life had become. She was a small-town librarian. Small-town librarians weren’t supposed to fall in love with men shrouded in unknowns. Nor were they supposed to spend their days off reading books on reincarnation, fruitlessly searching for answers to riddles that had perplexed philosophers and theologians for centuries.

  She’d dropped the book in the library’s night depository on her way into the building to meet Craig. Now she was left with the dilemma of whether or not to tell him about Josh’s suspicions—or her own.

  “I was thinking that a walk along the beach might be nice,” she suggested impulsively. “If you’re not too tired.”

  “I’m never too tired for a walk on the beach with you,” he said.

  The night mimicked Holly’s mood. Cloud-shrouded stars and a quarter moon cast only a faint light, and a brisk wind whipped at their hair and clothing. Hand in hand, they followed the tide line for several hundred yards before turning around to retrace their steps. Holly stop
ped and turned to face the ocean. The churning seawater appeared murky and endless and disappeared into a blue-black void in the distance.

  “On nights like this, it’s easy to see why people used to think they’d fall off the edge of the earth if they went too far offshore,” she said.

  “Sometimes I feel just that way about my past,” he said, staring into the distance. “Like it’s a great, dark emptiness just waiting to swallow me up.”

  “What scares you most?” she asked softly.

  Turning to her, he raised his hands to cradle her face. In the faint light, she could see only the shadow of the smile lifting the corners of his mouth, and the warm glow of adoration in his eyes. “The possibility of losing you.”

  She stepped closer to him and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. Sighing, she rested her cheek against his chest. “I’m not that easy to lose,” she said. “The last man I loved died and I didn’t stop loving him.”

  “I may not be the person you love, the person I like to believe I am. I could be so...evil, or immoral that my mind chose to blot out the person I am rather than live with the truth.”

  “Didn’t the doctors say that your memory loss was consistent with the head injury you had, that it was physical, rather than psychological?”

  “I just can’t shake the fear that I’ll finally remember, and that what I remember will be something horrible.” A shudder wracked his shoulders. “If I ran in front of that car deliberately—”

  His arms tightened around her convulsively. “No one anywhere seems to care enough about me to look for me, and this wound on my shoulder could be anything—a gunshot, a stabbing. I could be a criminal. A hit man for the mob. I could have been a spy, what they call an operative. I could have been given a drug of some kind to eradicate my memory.”

  Holly snuggled her cheek over his heart. “Whoever you are, you’ve seen too many movies, and you have a fertile imagination.”

  And maybe she did, too. Books on reincarnation, indeed!

  They held each other for a very long time before Craig said, “Every time I hold you, I’m afraid that if I let you go, I might never hold you again.”

  Then hold me, she thought fiercely. Hold me and never let me go. “We have now,” she said. “We’ll make the most of it.”