Dying For Redemption

by C. A. Freeburn

  "So you want to talk to Willow or make her wait?" He laughed at his unfunny joke.

  The man was hot, but without a comedic bone in his body. Do we still have bones in our bodies? I shook my head to rattle the question out of it. "Please, have her come in."

  "What do you know? Doll face does have some manners." He rested the door in the frame while he went to get Willow.

  I wanted to yell at him about his manners, but knew he'd find my temper a source of entertainment. The man enjoyed getting a rise out of me. I sat in Callous's chair, thumping a pen on the calendar pad on his desk. Why did he have a calendar? Time held no importance here. Or maybe it was good for the soul to remember that times had changed. And from all the drawings, it apparently made a handy place for doodling.

  With a succession of musical note knocks, Denver announced his reemergence with the added presence of Willow. I hoped Uncle Callous gave me an office soon. I wanted my own space, more professional that way. "Come in, please."

  Denver pushed the door open and wiggled his eyebrows at me. The man sure did find himself likable. He thought his confession did his and my soul good. Of course, his attitude raised my suspicions. The man was being too likeable.

  "Where's Callous?" Willow dropped into a seat, her displeasure almost touchable.

  I wasn't sure if it was because she had to deal with me again, or because she was getting really tired of Callous. It had to be hard for a confident woman to realize something in their conscience refused to let them rest in peace.

  "He's finishing up a case," I said, smiling encouragingly.

  She drummed her nails on the chair arm. "He does seem to be a very busy man. He really must learn to balance his time better."

  Denver sat on the edge of the desk. He picked up a pen and tossed it from hand to hand. "Ain't really a need to balance time when you have plenty of it."

  She frowned. "Interesting concept. But there's always a timeframe for items to be completed in. I'd think that would include finding your way into Heaven. Or Hell." She raised one eyebrow and kept a strong gaze on Denver.

  He shrugged. "I agree with you, doll, but it ain't up to us to determine what it is. Time goes quicker for some and slower for others."

  "So you say," she replied.

  "Yep, and you say otherwise." He grinned. "And neither of us is the expert."

  Willow frowned thoughtfully, then formed a smile and nodded in agreement. She had obviously processed the arguments and points, and decided he had made a strong case.

  I wondered if I'd ever feel so confident in my decisions and opinions that I could change them when evidence pointed in the opposite direction. Maybe one day… or a hundred thousand days, because as Denver said … I had all the time in eternity.

  Clearing my throat, I gained their attention. "We're here to discuss the different issues that could be causing you to remain in Limbo, since your death is a resolved matter."

  She settled into the chair, crossing one knee over the other. "That's true. You can't resolve a death much more than by being currently dead. I know Callous still has strong beliefs that my subconscious knows Gannon didn't murder me, hence my remaining here. But it's pretty hard to dispute the fact when I watched him do it."

  "You saw Gannon murder you?"

  "Then, why are you here?" Denver asked.

  She ignored him and answered me. "Technically."

  I allowed my confusion to display on my face. "Technically? How do you technically know someone killed you and not actually know?"

  "That's why I understand your and Callous's skepticism…"

  "I'm skeptical myself," Denver broke in.

  "Imagine that." She shot him a quick look, then focused on a spot above my head. "In your profession, answers must be based on the evidence, the proof that can physically be seen and discovered."

  Denver motioned for her to hurry up and get on with it.

  "While in my business, we don't need to see the act to know the outcome. We take words, actions, and even hesitations to help determine what the right direction is to point our client, or even our employees." She twisted the engagement ring, moving it past her knuckle and then dropping it back down. "Some women are better able to handle certain jobs in the company."

  I straightened, stretching myself as much as possible, desperate to make eye contact. "Willow, part of private investigating is also to take into account the actions, or non-actions, of the people we have to interview."

  "Yes, but you take those actions and use them to further prove or disprove the physical evidence. We're not at all concerned about physical evidence."

  "What about Karen's husband?" I asked. "Didn't you use physical evidence to prove what he was doing?"

  Willow shrugged. "Frankly, it didn't matter if I saw what he was doing to Karen or not. I didn't need to see one little bruise or scratch on her. She was terrified and unhappy. That was all I needed to act. I took her on her word." She emphasized the last sentence.

  The pieces started to jam themselves together, the unsaid hidden in what she said. "Gannon threatened to kill you."

  Willow moved her head back and forth in a motion that was half-agreeing and half-denying my statement. "He said he would kill me."

  "I hate to bring this up, but those words are said to a whole mess of people that are still alive." I felt a slight sense of shame and discomfort. "To be honest, I've said it a few times myself."

  "And she probably had it said to her, and it ain't one of them that killed her." Denver pointed at me with his thumb.

  "But for me, it was," Willow said.

  I held back a sigh. Willow's determination that Gannon had killed her put a hole in our theory of why she had landed in Limbo. There was a reason she had such strong convictions. The proverbial light bulb went off in my head. She was deliberately omitting part of the scenario. Holding onto that last nail in her coffin, so to speak, and I needed to take it from her clenched fist.

  "Willow, you know why you're here," I said.

  She jerked back. "What?"

  I decided to stir the pot faster. "You're just like my Uncle Callous."

  She shot to her feet. "I most certainly am not."

  Denver cleared his throat and shook his head.

  Choosing to ignore his opinion of my tactic, I carried on. "Sure you are. You know the question but have decided you don't want the real answer… like Callous. But unlike him, you don't want to remain in Limbo. You want to move on."

  Moisture built in her eyes.

  Callous materialized in the room. "It was Gannon."

  "I told you that." Willow glowered at Callous.

  He narrowed his gaze and shook his head in a scolding manner. "Now, now, Willow… you didn't tell me everything. Like leaving out the tiny detail that Gannon was in the car with you."

  She sucked in her breath, shoulders drawing up and back, hands clenched into fists. I gasped. Denver grinned.

  Willow relaxed, held up her hand and admired the three-carat diamond on her finger. "I told you Gannon killed me. That was all you needed to know."

  "I don't think so, doll face."

  "I'm done here." Willow spun and took a step toward the door.

  Callous took hold of her wrist. "Isn't that the problem, Willow? You're not done. That day, you were trying to kill Gannon."

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  "Sometimes you have to wallow in your own dirt."

  What went around came around to her first.

  Legs and Brains had been right. Gannon had tampered with the car, just not with the brakes. He had a motive to kill her—Braswell. Once the baby arrived, Gannon knew any chance he'd have with Braswell was gone. There would be a bond between Willow and Braswell that he couldn't insert himself between. Plus, he'd go from being second to a very distant third.

  Willow was desperate for a baby, for Magnolia. The child was no longer just a dream in her heart but had a beautiful smile, rosy cheeks, and a huggable toddler body. And Gannon had threatened to take her baby fr
om her.

  I deduced that Willow was too smart a dame to forget the seatbelt and, more importantly, her dream of having a child was about to come true. Why chance that? Why risk dying in a car accident when your world was about to become complete? The simple answer, she wouldn't.

  But driving into a tree with the man determined to yank your dream from your grasp was a brilliant plan. Slam the passenger side of the vehicle into a massive object, and the world turned brighter; the threat disappeared. I had also started to wonder why Willow had picked that day to drive. According to those who knew her habits, Willow never drove; she was chauffeured. Instead, she turned that particular outing into a battle of survival of the fittest which, strangely enough, Gannon had won.

  Gannon was one of the dumber creatures that God put on Earth, so he forgot to consider the fact that the police could obtain fingerprints from the seatbelt and the button. Nor did he count on them being curious enough to try and figure out why his fingerprint overlaid Willow's.

  Willow remained standing, peering out at me through her beekeeper-bonnet hairstyle as I built up the case in my head. She swallowed a few times and fidgeted. Abby's expression was a cross between believing I was brilliant and thinking I only had fifty-one cards in my deck. Denver looked bored.

  "It came down to you or him, lady, and you were hedging that it would be him," I said gruffly.

  She thought about denying it; I read her just fine. Then, her expression changed to resignation. Time to come clean—and sometimes you have to wallow in your own dirt.

  "It didn't start out that way." Willow swept her hair behind her ears. "I thought I could keep Braswell happy by having Gannon in the house. Braswell was giving up a huge part of his life so I could have my dream come true, and I wanted to return the favor. I thought he loved Gannon. I figured the three of us, along with a baby, could become a quirky and happy family. Later, I learned Braswell didn't love the young man. He just lusted after him."

  "Did Gannon know that?" Abby asked.

  Willow sighed and tucked her hands under her arms. "He started to sense that Braswell's interest was waning. I think he believed it was because of the baby."

  "What did you think?"

  "Braswell had grown bored with Gannon, as he had all the men before." Willow puffed at a few stray hairs lingering in front of her face. "Gannon blamed me and the baby. Without me, Braswell wouldn't be able to adopt Magnolia."

  "Who decided the guy had to leave?" Denver asked, sitting on the desk while he kept one foot on the ground.

  I cleared my throat. The man was getting a little too comfortable for my spirit. Denver removed himself from my desk.

  "Braswell sensed Gannon's unhappiness and decided it wouldn't be good for Baby or Magnolia. He said that he'd break the news to Gannon."

  "Gannon didn't take it well," Abby said.

  Willow shook her head. "Actually, I told him that I'd take care of it. By the time Braswell wanted Gannon gone, the man had threatened to turn over information about his and Braswell's relationship, and the business, to the tabloids."

  "You couldn't let that happen," I said.

  Tears filled her eyes. "I couldn't."

  "He wanted to squash your dream." Denver twirled his hat around his finger. "End a life for a squandered fantasy."

  "No." Willow clenched her hands, fire burned in her eyes. "He tried to ruin my baby's life. If Gannon went to the media, my little girl would be stuck in an orphanage. She didn't deserve that."

  I tapped the side of my head. "But the man was brighter than you figured. That was your downfall."

  "Yes." Her shoulders slumped forward, the earlier anger evaporating. "By the time I deliberately started to lose control of the vehicle, he had already devised a plan to save himself and kill me. I steered the car so the impact would be on the passenger side. But I got distracted when he undid my seatbelt. I went to latch it back up, and Gannon turned the wheel and…" Willow raised her heads in defeat.

  "He lived. You died."

  "Doesn't seem fair," Willow said, without a hint of a whine or pout, just a statement of simple fact.

  "A fair is a carnival, not life."

  Willow snorted. She wasn't impressed with my theology.

  Abby cleared her throat, and we both turned to look at her. "It would be disconcerting when a plan is figured out by a person you didn't think was too bright, especially when it's just in time to try and change the outcome. Makes you wonder if someone tipped them off."

  Tears filled Willow's eyes.

  That was it. Abby had figured out what kept Willow in Limbo. The hurt and pain that her best-friend-forever had turned on her.

  Abby walked over and took Willow's hands in hers. "I looked into Gannon's bank account. Nobody paid him to kill you. He did it of his own free will."

  Willow beamed.

  Abby returned the smile. "Your husband, your best friend, did not betray you."

  "I have it on the word of Tim that Pauline and Braswell intend to honor all of your wishes, doll face."

  Willow chewed on that information for a few minutes. She fixed wide eyes filled with a twinge of hope on me. "Tim said all of my wishes?"

  "Yes." What had I missed? What did Willow need to hear?

  She still appeared doubtful, unable to believe what I had said. There was one way to get the answers.

  I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Come on, doll. We're going to find out for certain."

  * * *

  I stared down at the drooling and snoring Tim. Not a good picture. No wonder that dame Diane didn't stick around.

  "How do we wake him?" Willow floated at the foot of the bed, fingers reaching for the blanket.

  "I wouldn't do that." At least, I knew I wouldn't. Sometimes, it was best not to uncover the covered.

  "And why not?"

  "'Cause he might not be dressed under there."

  "Oh." Willow paused and licked her lips, eyes gleaming wickedly.

  I pulled the pillow from under Tim's head and slammed him with it.

  Startled, Tim cried out and sat up. "What…?"

  Willow pouted.

  Tim stared at Willow and then me. "You could've at least brought Abby."

  I slapped him with the pillow. "That's my grandniece." I swung again.

  Raising his hands, Tim warded off the blows. "Okay. I'm sorry. I was out of line. Stop."

  Willow took the pillow from me. "Enough of that. Listen, we need some answers."

  Tim leaned over and peered at the clock. "At two in the morning?"

  "Yes," I said. "At two in the morning. Do you have a problem with that?"

  Tim yawned. "Actually…"

  I hovered in a sitting position over a bench at the foot of the bed. "Sorry to disturb your sleep, but we just need a few things cleared up."

  "If it's about that Rich guy, he was kept overnight for observation. It doesn't look like he'll get any real time for the threat on the professor's life."

  "Abby will be pleased to know that."

  Tim grinned. "Tell her I told you."

  "Yes. I'll do that." It took all my willpower to refrain from rolling my eyes.

  "It's about my will." Willow settled her form onto the mattress. "You said that Braswell and Pauline intended to follow all of my wishes."

  Tim nodded. "My dad's happy that all business aspects will be legal. The business will have a little adjustment period, though you might lose a few clients…"

  Willow waved off the words. "Great. I'm thrilled, but what I want to know… need to know…"

  Tim patted the space where Willow rested her see-through hand. "Pauline will be adopting Magnolia. Braswell will be her uncle."

  Happiness and peace beamed from Willow's eyes. She looked at the ceiling in slight confusion, but a grand smile graced her face. Willow's time in Limbo was coming to a close. She was on her way home.

  She opened her arms for a hug. I obliged. She squeezed me tightly, and I squeezed back. I pulled back from her and lifted her chin wi
th my finger. "It was a pleasure meeting you."

  She grinned. "Same here."

  I winked. "No lying allowed."

  She giggled. A serene expression filled her face, and she started to fade away.

  "Have a wonderful trip, Willow." I tipped my hat to her.

  "I will," Willow spoke her last words to us. With a queenly wave, her form vanished.

  "Enjoy your afterlife." I took off my hat and raised it toward the heavens.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  "Can we keep her?"

  What was this little twinge of sadness?

  I paused in front of the main door to my office, pressing my hand against the faded black letters on the window, 'Working Shadow, Inc.' One dame headed toward her final destination and I had another young lady to send on the same path. Two successes, two cases completed to satisfactory endings, two beautiful women who would become treasures behind the Pearly Gates. I coughed into my hand and sniffled. There was no way Callous Demar, private dick extraordinaire, would become a softie.

  I strode into the office and flashed Ann and Abby a big, happy grin. "Hello there, chickadees."

  Abby slouched in the seat, hoping this one-way version of hide and seek would make her presence forgotten. There was a forlorn expression on her face mixed with a twinge of hope and pleading. No, I wasn't going to fall for that.

  "Callous?" Ann clutched her hands together as if in prayer, a beseeching look plastered on her face. Ann had been with me long enough to know what she was going to ask. Can we keep her?

  I adjusted my fedora to a nice cocky, professional P.I. angle. "Willow is at rest. Now, it's time for Abby."

  "Maybe you could…" Ann licked her lips and slowly allowed a flirtatious smile to blossom.

  "No."

  She walked up to me and placed her hand on my arm. She drilled the gaze of her baby blues into mine. "She's so young."

  "I know. That's why it would be dangerous for her here. She's too impetuous."

  "I am not!" Abby exploded from the chair. She stomped over to stand beside Ann, and I faced a confrontational wall of a gorgeous blonde and a pretty brunette—any man's undoing.