by J. A. Dennam
Danny gave a watery laugh. “Oh, yeah?”
Melanie nodded. “Do you remember that time when you, me and Janice attempted to bake a cake from scratch at your house...”
“High school graduation,” Danny remembered fondly. “Mom was at the hair dresser. God, we were so confused.”
“And Janice dumped the eggs in before the recipe said to which started this argument.”
“I threw a potholder at her.”
“And she grabbed a handful of flour…”
“It hit me square in the face, went up my nose…”
“You looked like a marshmallow with eyes.” A genuine bubble of laughter shook Melanie’s delicate shoulders.
“We all did by the time we were through,” Danny brought up good-naturedly. “It was like a blizzard in there and we were laughing like fools until we realized we had to clean it up.”
“And Derek came home in the middle of that, saw us hurling flour at each other.”
Danny sniffed. “That was when he got the hots for you?”
“He said he’d never been so turned on in his life.”
They giggled and Danny sobered appropriately. “That’s gross, Mel.”
“He watched from the doorway of the laundry room and waited for us to start wrestling in vegetable oil.” More laughter. “Of course, I’d already had a raging crush on him by then. I saw him standing there watching and I stuck my finger in my mouth, sucked on it like a porn star.”
“Gross!”
“I can’t tell you how many times I’d tried to corner him alone, but he’d always make an excuse and leave me like I was an opposing magnet.”
“It was because you were under-aged.”
“I figured that out on my eighteenth birthday.” They lifted their heads and locked eyes. Melanie’s sparkled mischievously through the sheen of moisture. “No sooner had I blown out my candles, he shoved me into the ladies room at Ramano’s. Locked the door and took me right there on the vanity like a sex-starved lunatic.”
Danny wrinkled her nose. “On the vanity?”
“He put his coat down first.” Melanie gave a wobbly smile. “It was really romantic.”
“Ramano’s. The Italian joint where you had your party?” Danny asked in horror then paused in thoughtful silence. “I washed my hands in that sink.”
Melanie nodded and her smile disappeared. “It sounds cheap. But it was the most exhilarating sexual experience I’d ever had at the time. I was flying so high that night. He was everything I imagined, but better.”
They settled back into sadness. “He’d want you to be happy, Mel. If you need to talk about Brett or Derek or anything at all, you come to me. We’ll take care of each other.”
“I’m going to need that,” Melanie admitted, relieved by the invitation. Her face relaxed, held a small measure of guilt. “I have a confession to make.”
“Now?”
She sounded like her brother. Melanie laughed slightly. “I haven’t been sleeping around as much as I let on. I was just trying to make Derek jealous, admit how he felt about me.”
Somehow it made sense to Danny, but the woman had been so much of a pain. “I thought you and Randy...”
“No. No way.” Her look said are you kidding? “And, Danny, I’m telling you this so I can apologize for acting the way I have.” She hesitated, drew in a cleansing breath. “I am so, so sorry for subjecting you to those pigs.”
“Shh, it’s okay.” Mel was breaking apart again and Danny hugged her tight. “You’rep; idt still my best girlfriend and I’ll always...always be here for you.”
The mound of colorful petals on the casket moved with the breeze and the girls watched them for a while in mesmerized silence. Finally, Danny gave her friend’s shoulders a squeeze. “Come on. There isn’t anything left to do here short of throwing ourselves over that box in a theatrical display of grief.”
Melanie’s head sagged and she resisted the urge to do that very thing. “Okay,” she complied quietly.
They stood together, locked arms. As they walked to her Jeep, Danny felt a strange, elemental pull that had her looking over her shoulder. Her breath caught at the sight of the white Lincoln Mark LT parked in the narrow lane toward the back of the cemetery. How long had he been there, watching?
She knew Austin and Derek had made peace toward the end. The last moments she had alone with her brother, Derek told her about Austin’s visit, how cleansing it had been for them both. But it held such a deeper meaning now that she knew Austin had gotten behind the wheel of a vehicle – when he was in no condition to do so – and made the drive all the way across the city in order to be here. “Just like old times,” she muttered, and smiled slightly.
“What?” Melanie asked, barely catching the words.
Danny sighed, watched the grass pass beneath her open-toed heels. “Nothing.”
____________
Yellow caution tape, strung tight from one fixed object to another, then another, buzzed in the wind. Some of it had broken, flapped eerily above the ground, signifying abandonment. What once was a giant, rusted grain-mill was now just a few piles of uncollected steel and the jagged remains of the last hopper.
According to Shaw, he’d been ascending the bottom portion of the ladder when Derek fell from the stadium lamps overhead. Something had snapped, groaned, metal against metal. When he looked up, Derek, along with the remaining lamps and half of the platform, was plummeting wildly from five stories to the dirt.
Shaw, who had been struck by some of the debris, suffered a broken arm. Derek, having landed on broken pieces of scaffolding, suffered multiple, fatal injuries.
The investigation had barely begun before it was closed. After all, the place was being demolished. Despite Danny and Shaw’s testimony that the structure had been sound when they’d left it the day before the accident, there was no solid proof of sabotage.
Nobody knew she was at the site. Time alone. Visual confirmation. A fierce need to make sense of things, anything. They were all good reasons that would explain her presence there. In fact it was impossible to leave, her legs unable to move with the weight of her depression.
How long had she been there now? An hour? Two?
A truck pulled up behind her, parked beside her Jeep and quieted. A part of her knew Austin had been right. Someone may be out to purposefully cause them harm. She shouldn’t be out here alone. An easy target. His attempts to call her went ignored, but the messages he left – which she saved and listened to when she needed a good shake – echoed her own suspicions.
Until we can prove Brett Lockton isn’t behind this, you need to be careful, Danny. Don’t let your guard down. Promise me. Call me back and promise me.
At the moment she simply didn’t care if someone drove an ax into her back.
A door slammed. Footsteps, quick at first, then cautious. “Danny.”
Shaw sounded out of breath behind her. Worried. Danny wiped a tear from her cheek, but otherwise made no move.
“We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“We?”
Shaw yanked the ball cap lower to shield his eyes from the blazing sun. Right hand on hip, the other in a cast, he swallowed and looked down at his boots. She was so small, sounded so sad, her own worn ball cap pulled low over her face. “Someone called your house. Your parents thought you were in your room, but apparently...”
“Who called?” Austin. Though he was keeping his distance, she knew the control freak in him was pulling as many strings as he could.
“Dunno.” Shaw snapped, shrugging his shoulders with attitude. “If you’d turn your cell phone on you might find out.” He was overstepping again. He knew it, but it appeared she needed someone to do the thinking for her at the moment.
Her hand came up again, settled back over her elbow. Shaw knew from experience the woman was struggling with tears. Expelling a breath, he squinted at the wreckage before them. “This is the last thing you should be – ”
“Shaw, I�
�d really like to be alone right now.”
But she shouldn’t be alone. Derek’s accident was testament to that. “Now, Danny, you know I can’t just leave you here. You’re Pop would have my ass. Besides, I already called in, told him I found you.”
She said nothing. A protective urge brought him forward to stand at her side. If she wanted to stand he’d stand with her. Fine by him.
“It was meant for me.”
The words, so broken and quiet startled him into looking down at her, but her emotions were hidden beneath the logo of a popular tool manufacturer.
“The fractures were above the platform. And I wasn’t finished taking down the lights yet. You and I both know it waoth="+s sound before we left it.” Suddenly, Danny was glad for Shaw’s company. It was good to talk to someone who didn’t doubt her.
“I do know,” he soothed, hesitantly reached up to touch her back, but never made the connection. “I just can’t understand why anyone would want to hurt you.”
Her short laugh suggested she understood everything. Brett Lockton came to mind. But instead of explaining, she gave into her pain. Just one more time.
Shaw knew she was going to crumple, so he put his uncertainties aside and closed the gap between them. Once she felt his nearness, she turned into his comforting embrace and let him soothe. It surprised him. Danny usually kept an emotional distance from those who worked with her. He’d always understood it as a defense mechanism because she was a woman. The fact he wanted her so bad he fantasized about her during sex... his problem.
The cast was awkward. The circumstances brutal. But despite all that, Shaw soaked in as much of her closeness as he could. Hell, she didn’t even seem to care when he laid his cheek on her cap, ran fingers through the ponytail that protruded from the back of it.
After a while, Danny pulled away, oblivious to the kid’s inner turmoil. Shaw was a good person, a great worker, undeniably gorgeous...but lacked a certain confidence she now preferred in a man. Austin had set quite the bar.
Damn. The hug was over already. “If I don’t get you home, there will be quite a crowd here in a few minutes.”
Danny nodded, sniffed. “I just wanted to see it.”
Shaw had heard she was headed back to Columbia the next day. “Maybe it would do you some good to get out of town for a while.”
That’s what everyone seemed to think lately. However, she couldn’t help but feel there was unfinished business here. Not because of the physical threat. Who’s to say it wouldn’t follow her? No, her nightmares were getting worse, more vivid and confusing. Without the confirmation of an actual, solid memory, there was no sense to be made of them. But something – a sixth sense, maybe – told her she would find her answers soon.
____________
Deafening thunder. Two shades of night. Rushing water. A bleak sense of doom as icy liquid filled her lungs. She was sinking, engulfed in the fierce current. Her head broke the surface and she coughed violently. Her muscles awoke, reminding her she was stronger than this. Pulling strength from deep within, she began to stroke toward the bank. Too cold. Just when she thought she couldn’t last, her hand brushed something hard. She grasped it and hung on with her last bit of might. Too long...her hold was slipping. A hand reached down into the water, grabbed her by the wrist and pulled. Submerged tree limbs and debris tore at her clothing as she was hoisted onto dry land. Spent, she lay among the mixturongf ne of mud and fallen leaves. When she opened her eyes, they widened in amazement.
Derek smiled down at her, his body backed by a bright ethereal light. “Remember?” he said potently. Before she could answer, he was swallowed whole in a wave of luminosity.
Her own scream awoke her. Danny sat up, drenched in sweat, fighting for air. Her pillows and loose sheets were on the floor, the fitted sheet over her mattress half torn from the bed. A tall shadow moved by her open bedroom door and her attention snapped to it. “Who’s there?” she cried out breathlessly. Moving quickly, she reached over and turned on the lamp, squinted in the light. No one. No one was there. Had she just imagined it?
Danny hugged her knees and rocked. “I can’t go on like this,” she deduced aloud and dug into her eyes with her knuckles. She got up and slipped her pajama bottoms on, turned the light back out and moved into the hallway. The hair follicles on the back of her neck tingled and she paused at Derek’s bedroom doorway. She glanced around in the darkness. Concluding that she was indeed alone, she slipped inside and sank to the quilt that still held her brother’s scent. Her body curled within itself and she stared wide-eyed at nothing.
Something nagged at the deep recesses of her brain. Something about her bedroom that wasn’t right when she woke from sleep. That shadow…it moved by her open door.
But her door had been closed when she’d turned in for the night.
Downstairs, a noise awakened Mary. The woman rolled slightly to find her husband sleeping soundly beside her. The decision to rise, to check on whoever was awake at such an ungodly hour, came naturally to a mother of nine. She padded into the hallway, felt her way through the family room and reached out, flipped the kitchen light on. She flinched, squinted at the only movement in the room. Sets of car keys lined the long wooden organizer on the wall by the laundry room door. Two sets jiggled like tiny pendulums beside the vacant peg between them.
Mary jumped when a distant engine roared to life. She flattened a hand to her chest, the familiar guttural growl of her son’s high-performance muscle car evoking a powerful emotion within her heart. Her other hand flew to her mouth and she ran to the window over the kitchen sink, pulled back the lace curtain. Just in time to catch the full-length rear taillights that were a distinctive feature of the 1970 Challenger her boy had lovingly restored since he’d been old enough to drive. She followed them until they disappeared out of sight. “Oh, dear God,” she whispered and turned her face toward the stairs.
Would her only daughter ever sleep through the night again?
Austin put the glass tumbler to his lips and took a liberal sip of the small-batch bourbon inside it. He glanced at the wall clock in his office, noted the time. One o’clock in the morning. Papers were spread out on the desk before him, photos and documents that had been faxed to him earlier that night. Mug shots, re Musband lease papers, a detailed schedule of activity. Someone had paid a hefty sum to bail Brett Lockton out of jail. That information had remained elusive, but the private detective he’d hired the day before worked fast.
Why hadn’t the authorities notified Danny of Brett’s release? She’d been his victim for Christ’s sake. If she’d known the man was free, she could have at least taken out a restraining order…not that a piece of paper would stop an abusive prick like Brett. If he was capable of murder…
A powerful sense of unease washed through him, moved in tandem with the tranquil effects of booze. The bottle of bourbon sat before him and Austin stared at it hard. He shouldn’t be drinking. Not with the medication he’d been prescribed. But he shouldn’t be driving, either, and he’d done plenty of that, too.
Something about that label had him thinking. About what, he wasn’t sure. It was the same label he’d turned to for the last year whenever he’d needed a push to encourage that ever-elusive sleep.
But this time it looked different. It was the same shape, same reflective silver, embossed with the same brand name in the same letters of rich gold and brown. What was it?
The reflection.
Austin leaned forward, looked beyond the label and saw something that spoke to him. Somehow, the clutter on his desk was arranged in a strategic way that reflected with the letters in a mosaic composition of a raging river. He leaned back then forward again. Back, forward. The river flowed like a moving picture.
Was he drunk? Stoned from the combination of alcohol, antibiotics and pain pills? And if he were, would this pestering voice inside him telling him to follow his instincts be howling so loudly?
He put his palms to his eyeballs and rubbed. With a growl,
he rose from the chair and grabbed his keys.
The door vibrated from incessant pounding. Mac reached over, switched on the light. “Jeez! I’m coming!” he barked, and threw off the covers. Fuck. What time was it? He reached out, opened the door without bothering to verify who was on the other side. “Boss?” he observed sleepily, scratching the hair on his barreled chest.
Austin glared under a lowered brow. “Get dressed.”
“Huh?” Mac looked down at his boxers and bare feet. “Why?”
“Because you’re driving.”
Chapter 27
She didn’t remember the drive.¬h=""Ariabsp; Her mind had been so far off, that before she knew it she was braking. The front tires ceased movement just inches from the curb stop. After setting the brake, Danny reached over, cut the headlights, then the engine. In the ensuing silence, she returned her hands to the ten-and-two position on the steering wheel. From the police reports, she knew this same car had been parked in this very spot the night of Rena’s drowning. Where she had left it. The incident had taken place in the evening of Fall, not early morning of Summer. But the sky was just as dark.
The windows were down, letting the cool breeze in and she stared straight ahead through the row of trees silhouetted before her. Beyond those trees was the river. Not so high. Not so raging. But the river just the same.
It was a pure act of desperation. A last ditch effort to reach in and pull out the elusive memories that plagued her sleep. She closed her eyes, inhaled the familiar scent of the Challenger’s interior, and her hands tightened on the wheel.
Remember.
He was with her. She could feel him. Whether it was real or not, she chose to acknowledge his spiritual presence. “Help me, Derek,” she whispered softly. “Help me remember.”
The passenger door opened. Her eyes flew open and she searched the car but no one had entered. The dome light never came on…but it had been burned out almost nine months ago.