Nearly Departed (Spring Cleaning Mysteries)

by J. B. Lynn

  I thought of my parents as I made my escape. About how awful it would be for them to lose me like this of all ways. Imagining my mother's horror at the idea of my drowning to death, I decided that it would be better to be shot dead than to allow the current to take me, so I stepped away from the water's edge.

  A blur of shimmering light charged at me. It hit me so hard I was knocked into the river. Fortunately it wasn't deep, so my head stayed above water.

  I tried in vain to free myself from the grip of my attacker, but Lacey wasn't deterred.

  "You're my unfinished business," she told me as she slowly and inexorably dragged me into deeper water despite my attempts to fight back.

  "Cusak would never have killed me if you hadn't poked your nose into the case. I tipped my hand trying to warn Smoke off, and I died for it. Now you'll die for it too."

  Suddenly Lacey's grip was ripped away from me, and I was alone in the swirling water. Terrified, I tried to find the riverbed with my feet, but couldn't. I flailed wildly, trying to keep my head above water.

  "I've got her!" Felipe called. He had both arms wrapped around Lacey's waist and seemed to be holding her easily despite her struggle to free herself.

  I sank, and when I resurfaced a moment later, sputtering, they were gone.

  I thrashed about, desperately trying to stay above the surface, but the current pulled at me relentlessly. I didn't want to drown again. "Help!" I cried, but I knew no one would hear.

  I was too cold and tired and weak to win my battle with the river. I made one last, half-hearted attempt to save myself, and then I let myself sink. I let the current drag me away. I gave up.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I'd been dead before.

  I drowned once when I was a little kid.

  I hadn't remembered it being so painful.

  Or so noisy.

  My lungs felt like they were on fire. I wondered if that meant I was in hell. I was kinda disappointed by that thought. I'd tried to be a good person. Sure, I'd failed on occasion, but most of the time I'd been pretty decent.

  People were calling my name. I wondered if spending eternity without a single moment of solitude was some kind of hellish torture.

  The last time I'd died, I'd slipped into a peaceful oblivion, but now it felt as though I was being tugged at.

  "You have to fight, Vicky," a muffled voice commanded.

  I struggled to find the voice through the swirling mist that surrounded me. Finally I focused on Martin's face. His whole face. He was a good looking kid when a bullet hole hadn't blown away his chin.

  "You have to fight," he said again. "He's coming for you."

  "Who?" I wanted to ask, but I couldn't form the word. Jerry?

  Then Martin was gone, and it was blessedly silent. My lungs didn't hurt any more either. I was just floating.

  And I was okay with that.

  Until he showed up.

  Suddenly my ribs were being crushed and I was being dragged upward, out of the peaceful mist and back into dark, cold water. The current pulled at me, but it was no match for the insistent force of nature fighting it.

  I sensed pressure against my mouth. The first bit of warmth I'd felt in what felt like forever. And then it was gone.

  "Breathe, dammit. Breathe."

  I forced my heavy eyelids open and saw blue eyes staring back at me.

  "Don't you dare die on me, Tori," Smoke pleaded.

  I didn't understand. I'd seen him die. Heard the shots. Seen his body slumped on the ground. Trying to figure it out was too much exertion. My lashes fluttered closed.

  "Stay with me, Tori."

  Everything went black.

  * * *

  The bright light hurt my eyes.

  When I tried to cover them with my hand, a stabbing white-hot pain shot through my body. I groaned.

  "Easy, kiddo. You've been through a lot."

  I squinted against the light and focused on Mike. His head floated above me like a giant, helium balloon.

  "You have a big head," I told him.

  He chuckled. "And you are on some heavy duty drugs."

  Martin wandered into my line of vision. Once again he was missing the lower part of his face.

  "Am I dead?"

  Both Martin and Mike shook their heads.

  "Are you sure?"

  "You came close, and you gave everyone a hell of a scare," Mike said, "but I swear to you that you're here in the land of the living."

  "My mom and dad know?"

  He nodded.

  I winced. "Are they okay?"

  "They just left a little while ago. Venus drove them home so they could get some rest. They'd been here for days."

  "Days?"

  Martin held up three fingers.

  "Three days." Mike confirmed. "The doctors kept saying you'd wake up when you were ready, but, to be honest, I'm not sure anyone believed them."

  A male nurse bustled in. "Well hello there, Sleeping Beauty. Nice of you to rejoin us. The doctor is on her way." He looked at Mike. "Are you family?"

  "Friend of."

  "Then you'll have to leave."

  "I'll call your folks and tell them you're awake," Mike called as he was ushered from the room.

  "Smoke?" I called after him.

  "No cigarettes for you, young lady," the nurse ordered.

  I struggled into a sitting position, groaning as the incredible pain wracked my body. "I need to know what happened…" I said weakly before slumping back onto the bed.

  The nurse leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. "Just between us?"

  I nodded.

  "You died."

  * * *

  After enduring three straight days of medical examinations and tests, and Martin's constant companionship, the doctors decided I was well enough to go home. Or at least home to my parents' house, since they had a bedroom and bathroom on the first floor. I wasn't up to climbing stairs.

  While I'd pretty much recovered from drowning, my gunshot wound, along with all the other bumps and bruises I'd collected during my ordeal, made getting around difficult. Mike and Venus, who appeared rather chummy for a former couple, drove me from the hospital to Mom and Dad's. Once there, everyone fussed over me for an hour, making sure I got settled comfortably.

  When the doorbell rang, they all shared a nervous look.

  "If you're not up for visitors, your father can tell them to go away," Mom offered.

  "No, no, it's fine," I assured her. I hoped it was Smoke at the door. A three pound bag of black jelly beans had been delivered to my hospital room with his name signed to the card, but besides that, I hadn't heard from him.

  "Okay, then." She and Dad left the room.

  "We're going to head out too," Venus said. She pressed a kiss to my cheek.

  "But if you need anything, anything at all, just call." Mike pressed a cell phone into my hand. "Even if it's just because you need an escape."

  I thanked them both and watched them leave. I fidgeted nervously, waiting for my visitor to make his entrance.

  I gasped when he did.

  I'd been shielded from any and all news coverage about what had happened to me. When I was told someone was heading over to fill me in and to ask me questions, I'd anticipated seeing Smoke. Especially since he hadn't come to visit me…or even called.

  I hadn't expected to see the man who walked into my room with a distinct limp.

  "Hello, Vicky."

  I blinked at him, my mind trying to process what my eyes were seeing.

  "Do you mind if I sit?" Without waiting for a reply, he pulled a chair up beside the bed, and carefully lowered himself onto it. "You look good," he said with an easy smile.

  "So do you." Considering I'd thought Detective Alan Reed had died on the riverbank, he looked damn good. "The last time I saw you, you were shooting at me."

  Alan shook his head. "Not at you, at Marcus Fontaine. I tried to tell you to duck, but I guess you couldn't hear me over the rushing water. I was tryin
g to protect you."

  "So you shot Felipe? Because you thought he was trying to hurt me?"

  "No, Cusak did that. I should have noticed him tailing me, but I'd been in such a rush to get out there…" He trailed off, his sense of guilt hanging in the air like an unpleasant aroma.

  "Cusak shot you?" I asked.

  He nodded.

  "What happened to them? Cusak and Fontaine?"

  "They're in custody. They confessed to killing the college kids and to kidnapping you. They'll be locked up for a long, long time." He reached out and patted my hand reassuringly. "They can't hurt you, Vicky."

  "How did you find us?"

  "They were covering their tracks. The memory card was stolen from evidence. Or at least that's what they thought. Fortunately the technician who had been working on it had put it in the wrong envelope, so they got the wrong one." He dragged his hand down his face. "That guy's mistake made all the difference. Martin Nottoway not only witnessed the murder outside of O'Hara's bar, but he took pictures. It took a while, but when the geek finally put the pieces together, we had the evidence that Fontaine and Cusak had murdered Pablo Parma, a known drug dealer. Once I figured that out, I ran a trace on the GPS of Fontaine's cell phone and hustled out there." Alan hung his head. "I should have brought back up, but honestly, I didn't know who I could trust."

  "And did you find out who Fontaine and Cusak work for?"

  He shook his head. "To be honest, everyone's hoping Felipe Montoya told you before he died."

  "He didn't know."

  Alan tried to hide his disappointment by squeezing my hand. "That's okay." It was evident he'd hoped I had a vital clue he'd needed.

  "Lacey Halperin was in on it too," I said quickly, wanting to provide some useful tidbit of information.

  "Figured that. It took me a while to get a look at the files, and they tried to hide her identity, but she was the sole witness against Barclay when he lost his badge.

  "He didn't know?" I asked, wondering if he'd figured it out and how he felt about that kind of betrayal.

  Al shook his head. "Plus, the anonymous call saying Barclay had been spotted in the neighborhood the night the boys were murdered was placed from the spa she liked to frequent."

  "The Oasis," I murmured, remembering Lacey talking about their seaweed wraps.

  "That's the one."

  "What about Smoke?" I asked.

  He withdrew his hand and sat back in the chair. "He's fine. He took a blow to the head, but he's recovered now."

  "But how is he? Why hasn't he come to see me?"

  "That's not for me to say."

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "It means I have a theory, but I'm not going to presume to speak for the man," Reed said.

  "But he's alive?"

  Reed tilted his head to the side. "Of course…he's the one who saved you. How the hell he knew exactly where to find you is a mystery."

  Why the hell he hadn't come to see me was even more of one.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Even though I was staying with my parents to rest and recover, I didn't get much of that done. For one thing, I was never alone.

  Angel popped in a couple of times. She never said anything, just looked me over and smiled and then disappeared again. On the other hand, Martin never left my side. At least he was quiet. My steady stream of living visitors were not.

  Along with whatever bit of medical advice (everything from preventing bed sores to practicing safe sex) she'd gleaned off of WebMd, Mom brought me three homemade meals and two snacks per day. I was eating even more calories than when I subsisted on a diet of pure pizza. Only this was worse because all I did was lay around all day, not burning any of them off.

  Dad checked in on me multiple times per day. Sometimes it was to share an interesting story he'd read in the newspaper. Sometimes it was to ask me who had starred in a sitcom we'd watched together back when I was ten. Sometimes it was to ask how I was doing and if I needed anything.

  Grandma spent a lot of time with me too. We played a lot of checkers, but mostly she told me stories. One day she recounted…fourteen times…about how her cat Edith got stuck in the fireplace. By the fourth telling I was ready to pull my hair out. By the tenth I'd actually started doing it.

  Every day Venus and Mike came to see me. They usually arrived separately, but I noticed they rarely left that way.

  Father Acevedo, having read about my "heroics" in the paper, came to visit me. His arrival stumped Mom and Dad, until I explained that I volunteered at the Center. Mom was hurt that she hadn't known about my work there, and for a brief moment I considered telling her about the time my ex-fiancee had hit me because he'd misfiled one of his briefs, but I decided she wasn't up to that kind of revelation.

  During our visit, the priest updated me about how things were going at the Center and told me that Eva was doing well, getting settled into her new life, far away.

  And then there were my unexpected visitors.

  Detective Alan Reed came by three times in that week, ostensibly to ask me questions about what had happened with Fontaine and Cusak, but really I got the impression he was checking up on me. I got the distinct feeling whenever I spoke to him that he was being eaten alive by a guilty conscience.

  At the end of his third visit, I tried to let him off the hook. "I'm going to be okay. It's not your fault, you know."

  "You may be the only one who thinks that. My dad is threatening to have me demoted down to traffic cop."

  "Because you didn't call for back-up?"

  He shrugged. "I think he's more pissed that I didn't call him."

  I sighed, glancing toward the door to be sure neither Mom or Dad were eavesdropping. "The things we have to do to keep our parents happy."

  A dark expression I couldn't read flit over Alan's usually sunny face, but it was quickly replaced with his usual charming smile. "Sometimes those things are in conflict with what we want to do."

  I nodded, thinking of the past due Yellow Pages bill for Spring Cleaning that Mike had brought over from my house.

  Right after Alan left, my father knocked on my door, his expression grim.

  "What's wrong?" Alarm deepened my voice.

  "There's someone else here to see you."

  "Who?" By that point I'd already given up on the possibility of Smoke coming to see me. I couldn't imagine who else would bother.

  "A U.S. Marshall," Dad said.

  "A U.S. Marshall?" I dimly remembered someone yelling U.S. Marshall when the ghosts attacked Fontaine and Cusak. "What does he want?"

  "He says he needs to talk to you. Do you want me to tell him to go away?"

  "No, it's fine. Send him in."

  I sat up straight, well as straight as I could, considering I was propped up by half a dozen bed pillows, and waited. I'd never met a U.S. Marshall before…just one more experience to add to the list of firsts I'd amassed in the past couple of weeks.

  But the moment he walked in, I realized I had.

  "Hello, Vicky." His smile was hesitant, as though he wasn't sure how I'd greet him.

  I waved my father out of the room, "Thanks, Dad. I've got this…and close the door behind you?"

  Dad grudgingly left.

  I gestured at the chair Alan had left by my bedside. "Have a seat."

  My visitor settled into it.

  We stared at one another for a long moment. I didn't know what he was looking for as he searched my face. All I knew was that I had no idea what to say to him. I pulled a pillow out from behind me in a vain attempt to at least be more comfortable physically. I held it on my lap and smoothed its case.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked.

  "The doctors say I'll take some time to heal." It was the same canned answer I handed out to anyone who asked. Something made me add, "To be honest, I'm going a bit stir crazy."

  "Understandable. I was shot once. In order to fill the hours of recovery time I watched much too much of the Home Shopping Network. I still
have a kitchen full of cooking gadgets that were supposed to make meal-making a snap." He chuckled at the memory. "Pathetic, but true."

  "I don't know what to call you," I blurted out nervously.

  He smiled kindly. "Bernie…or Uncle Bernie if you prefer." He was being a lot nicer to me than the times we'd encountered one another at Smoke's place.

  "But you told my father you're a U.S. Marshall."

  "I am. Would you like to see my badge?"

  I did, but I decided that would be uncool, so I shook my head.

  "He hasn't come to see you?"

  "Who?" I asked as though we could be discussing someone else other than Smoke.

  Bernie leaned back in his chair and squinted at me assessingly. "You're angry at him."

  I didn't say anything. He was right. I was angry at Smoke for not visiting me. And disappointed. And more hurt than I should have been.

  "He said you didn't tell Fontaine about me. Why not?"

  I shrugged. "He asked me not to."

  Bernie nodded slowly. "Gotta say you don't strike me as the kind of woman who just does what a man asks. Did he tell you why he didn't want you mentioning me?"

  "No. I figured he had a good reason."

  "So you just lied to the police?"

  I tossed the pillow on my lap to the foot of the bed. "I didn't lie…I just omitted a fact."

  "You chose to omit a fact."

  "I did."

  "Because you figured he had a good reason?"

  I nodded.

  "But he didn't tell you what that was?"

  "Are you going to?" I countered, not liking his merry-go-round style of questioning one bit.

  Chuckling, he took off his eyeglasses and polished the lenses with the end of his shirt. "I can't."

  "So why are you here?" It came out sounding bitchier than I'd intended, but just thinking about Smoke irritated me. I'd thought we'd meant something to each other…at the very least we were friends, but it appeared I'd been wrong…and that hurt.

  Bernie put his glasses back on. "I wanted to know what he'd told you."

  "Why didn't you just ask him?"