by Jenn Burke
I wished I’d had the balls to walk away, but I hadn’t. I kept hoping, kept dreaming the happy, joyful man I’d fallen for would dig himself out from under the pressures of his job and reappear with an apologetic smile crinkling the corners of his eyes, but that never happened. One day, when he announced he was going on yet another undercover assignment and had no idea when he’d be back, I couldn’t take it anymore and gave in to a stupid fucking impulse. I gave him an ultimatum—put me down as his next of kin or don’t bother coming back when the work was done.
There wasn’t even an argument, then, only a cold acknowledgment that we’d lost the magic of what we’d once shared.
I hated that he chose his job over me, but I couldn’t fault his integrity. He had values he held in his heart, ideals and beliefs that guided his every move and made up the unshakeable core of who he was. Last night, I was ninety-five percent convinced that Hudson wasn’t Meredith’s killer, but with my adrenaline burned off and the sunlight warming me, that certainty had jumped to one hundred.
He couldn’t have done it. I might not know Hudson anymore, but I knew that.
Lexi’s request to accompany her to a clinic wasn’t a surprise. I held her hand in the waiting room and when she returned from the cubicle where they took samples of her blood, I pulled her close. She trembled in my arms, and nodded when I whispered everything would be okay.
If it wasn’t, Marissa could look forward to a regular haunting from me as payback for the rest of her motherfucking life.
Lexi didn’t want to go home yet and chance running into Marissa as she retrieved her things, so we went to a local coffee shop. It wasn’t busy—we’d missed the lunch rush, and that gave us plenty of quasi-privacy to enjoy our drinks. We cuddled together on a love seat, and I caught the baristas shooting adoring looks in our direction...at least until they noticed me scowling back at them.
“You’re like an angry bunny.”
I turned to regard Lexi, my brows lifted. “I beg your pardon?”
“Fluffy and cuddly—”
“Until I go for the throat?”
“‘The most foul, cruel and bad-tempered rodent you’ve ever set eyes on,’” she said in an awful British accent.
I grinned, recognizing the Monty Python quote. “I love that movie.”
She smiled too, the lightest expression I’d seen on her face since we’d woken up that morning. I’d held her for hours after Marissa had left, until she eventually crashed, and my own exhaustion tugged me into sleep right after her. Lexi nudged my shoulder with her own. “We’re due a rewatch.”
“Name the time and place, baby. We’ll do The Holy Grail and The Life of Brian too.”
“Why were you there last night?”
Crap. I knew that would come up eventually. Actually, I was surprised it hadn’t been the first question out of her mouth this morning. I’d been planning on telling her—telling her everything, like I always did—but now that the opportunity had presented itself, I couldn’t do it. For once in my not-life, I was going to be unselfish. Lexi had enough shit going on—she didn’t need the weight of mine on her shoulders too.
I shrugged. “I had a hunch.”
“A hunch.”
“Yeah. I hoped your talk with Marissa would go well, but just in case...”
“You decided to pay a visit in the middle of the night?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Hours after the talk.”
“Well...yeah. I didn’t—you know.”
She snorted. “You’re such a shitty liar.”
I really was. With a sigh, I said, “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“Now all I’m gonna do is worry.”
“Don’t. Please. Everything’s fine.”
She looked at me, her hazel gaze intense and inescapable. “You swear?”
“Yes.” I looked at her unflinchingly as I lied my ass off, and maybe Lexi was too tired to argue or maybe I’d found some unknown capacity for fibbing, but she accepted my assurance with a nod.
I could figure out what to do about Hudson and his freaky shadow and the thing that had tried to drag me through the otherplane on my own. I could.
Everything would be fine.
Chapter Nine
Everything was not fine.
To start with, Hudson should not have been waiting at the hospital when I dropped Lexi off for her evening shift. Escorting Lexi to work was a bit of overkill, but it had made both of us feel better. Not that we thought Marissa would be violent or anything, but she had a history of forcing confrontations in environments where Lexi couldn’t react as freely as she would like.
Hudson was dressed casually again—jeans, the same leather jacket from last night open over a T-shirt, this one a faded red. The pop of color took me off guard. He’d been a gray, navy blue, black, and brown kind of guy when we’d been dating, and that was one thing I thought hadn’t changed. The sun rose in the east, set in the west, and Hudson Rojas wore dark neutrals.
Except not right now.
I shouldn’t be freaking out so much over a shirt, but I was. Because it reminded me that Hudson had changed. Something had made his shadow form resemble the killer’s, and I had no idea how, or why.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped as he stepped forward to greet me.
Lexi’s brows rose and she gave me a WTF look, which quickly transformed into a giant smile with sparkling eyes as she put two and two together. “Oh my god, are you Hudson?”
“I am.” Hudson gave her his trademark crooked smile. “You must be Lexi Aster.”
Had I mentioned Lexi before? I didn’t think I had. I crossed my arms as he extended his hand to Lexi for a shake. He didn’t pretend to misunderstand why I was scowling, and his lips twitched, threatening to grow into a full smile.
“How’d you find me?” I demanded.
“You might recall I’m a detective.”
“A detective who needs to find a hobby,” I shot back. “Tracking Lexi down and waiting for me here—that’s kind of extreme, don’t you think?”
“Well, if someone had given me his new phone number like he said he was going to...”
Right. Crap.
Lexi’s gaze bounced between us, her grin never dimming. “Man, I would love to stay and watch this, but I’ve got to check in. Nice meeting you, Hudson.”
“Same.”
“Don’t let him pull the airhead thing with you,” she said as she walked away.
“I never do.”
I flipped her the finger, which made her laugh as she turned and raced off to her shift, then I angled the gesture in Hudson’s direction.
His eyes crinkled. “What did I do to deserve that?”
“Stalked me.”
I turned and walked back out the main entrance. Hudson followed, as I suspected he would. His lengthy stride meant he caught up to me easily. “I wouldn’t have to stalk you if you would’ve called to let me know you were all right. Jesus.”
“I’m fine.”
“I can see that now.” Hudson caught my arm and tugged me over to the side, away from the crowd of people going in and out of the front entrance. “What the hell happened?”
I gazed up at his golden-brown eyes, reminded again that the Hudson I’d known was gone. The man in his place had the wrong color eyes and wore the wrong color shirts, and I didn’t know him. Wrapping my arms around my chest, I broke eye contact. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
The harsh word jerked my attention back up. “How about you explain it, Detective? How did you—how did you grab me?”
Hudson opened his mouth, closed it, and his jaw flexed as silence stretched between us. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit,” I tossed back at him with a smile I didn’t feel.
“I reacted. Instinct.”
<
br /> “Oh sure. You randomly discovered the ability to reach into the otherplane because reasons.”
“Wes—”
“Why does your shadow form match the killer’s?”
Hudson froze. “What?”
“For a few seconds after you grabbed me, it was the same as the killer’s. Dark, spiky, and terrible. Why?”
Hudson made the noise—the huffed, strangled breath he always made when he was trying not to react. That, more than anything, told me he knew something. Maybe he didn’t know what he knew, either, but I bet if we put our two pieces together, we’d come up with at least part of the puzzle.
Except Hudson’s expression closed down, like storm shutters descending over vulnerable windows. Right, because sharing information would be asking too much, wouldn’t it?
“I don’t know what you’re—”
I turned away.
He grabbed my arm—not hard, just enough to halt my steps. “You think I did it?”
“I never said that.”
“I didn’t.”
My gut had been screaming at me this whole time that he hadn’t, and maybe that made me naïve, but my gut rarely led me astray. It’s when I didn’t listen that I fucked up. “I know you didn’t.”
That took some of the wind out of Hudson’s sails. The tense set of his shoulders relaxed—a minute fraction, but still—and he let go of my arm. “You still want to help?”
I shuddered, a full-body response to the idea of being anywhere near a dead person again.
Hudson correctly interpreted my reaction. “Stakeout. Following someone. That’s all.”
I eyed his clothes. They were far too casual for him actually being on shift, and this time I didn’t spot his sidearm or his badge. “You have weird hobbies.”
“Me? I’m just driving around town. Now, if you wanted to venture into certain places at certain times, that’s your right. You’re a private citizen who is in no way obligated to justify your excursions.” He put on his best innocent look. It had worked better when he was twenty-five.
But those guileless eyes and that open, hopeful expression were still damned effective—even when I knew it was all an act.
“Fine.”
“Yeah?” Okay, that enthusiasm was not an act, and it was...cute.
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
I squinted at him. “As long as you promise no dead bodies this time.”
“Uh, homicide detective? You know I can’t make that promise.”
Yeah. Shit. That’s what I was afraid of.
* * *
After an hour of sitting outside a lakeside condo apartment building, I was almost ready to concede that finding a dead body might be preferable to this interminable boredom. At first, watching people walk by and waiting for Gemma Pander, Cyril Horacek’s agent, to appear had been exciting. Then as the minutes dragged on, at least the crowds were kind of entertaining.
Now I was just ready for the torture to end.
“What if she never comes out?” I whined.
Hudson shrugged, unflappable. “Then we’ve wasted a few hours.”
“Hours? Ugh.”
My partner in crime—or justice, as the case may be—settled deeper into the leather driver’s seat. “Or days. I once spent four shifts in a row on a stakeout where absolutely nothing happened.”
“In the cop shows, they always catch their guy in the first few minutes. Can’t we just fast-forward to the foot chase?”
“I keep telling you, life isn’t—”
“A cop show. I get it.” I thought about putting my feet on the dash again, but the look Hudson had given me when I’d done so shortly after we parked was still fresh in my head. “What I don’t get is why we’re watching for Cyril’s agent. She found the body.”
“Exactly.”
I frowned. “You think she did it because she found the body?”
“Statistically, the person who reports the murder is often the killer.”
“Huh.”
“And her alibi is shaky. She was driving around—to ‘de-stress,’ she said.”
“In Toronto?” I made a dismissive noise. Yeah, right. Toronto traffic was so not conducive to relaxation, particularly if you ventured onto the 401. Or the Don Valley. Or anywhere, really.
“My thoughts exactly.”
“So how come your partner isn’t here?”
“She’s not my partner—she’s my superior. And she’s at home, with her kid and husband who don’t see her enough. But she’s on days this week so—”
“Oh, days. Can I expect you to request my help at a reasonable time for a change?”
Hudson’s eyes slid toward me, then back to the windshield. “I don’t work days.”
“Isn’t there a shift rotation or something?” Lexi had one, but I could never keep it straight.
“I’m on permanent nights.”
“But you hated the night shift,” I said incredulously. “You whined about it.”
“I didn’t whine.”
“Oh, you so whined. ‘I can’t sleep when it’s light out’ was my favorite. You brought that one out a lot.”
“The curtains in the apartment didn’t make it dark enough.”
“Uh-huh. So why permanent nights? Did you get better curtains?”
Hudson was silent for a moment. “My last undercover assignment—it went bad. It was long-term and—” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “And I had to take things. Stuff.”
“Drugs?”
He pointed at me. Bingo. “The mix fucked with my system and made me super sensitive to the sun. It was a rare and weird reaction.”
A laugh escaped me before I realized Hudson wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t even smiling. “No shit. You’re serious?”
“Anaphylactic shock serious.”
“Jesus. That sucks. I’m sorry.”
“Better than being dead.”
Well...yeah. True, even if it was a weird thing to say. “But they kept you on as a cop anyway?”
“I have to work nights and shorter, more frequent shifts in the summer, but those are things that can be accommodated. I’m never gonna go higher than detective, but I can still do my job, and I’m damned good at it.”
I lifted my hands in surrender at his abrupt tone. “Fair enough.”
“Sorry. It’s a—I’ve had to defend myself more than once.”
“So is the sun thing why you’re single? Or the cop thing?”
That yanked his attention over to me quick. “What?”
“You are single, right?”
“Yeah.” He turned back to watch Gemma’s condo. “We should pay attention to—”
“And kids?”
“We need to—”
“We don’t have to look at each other to talk.” To make my point, I turned my gaze back to the empty front entrance too.
Hudson didn’t respond, and he was quiet for long enough that I thought he really wasn’t going to share anything. But then he said, “We talked about this.”
“Yeah. But it’s been thirty-three years. I figured some things were bound to change.”
He’d been—well, adamant wasn’t too strong of a word. No kids for Hudson. His upbringing hadn’t been the best, with an alcoholic father he hated to talk about, a series of stepmothers who rarely lasted more than a year, and a half brother named Lance who was ten years his junior and lived overseas with his mother—or at least, he had, back in the eighties. Hudson had called him every Christmas we’d been together. He’d shared that there were some good memories of his parents from his childhood, back before his mother had died in a car accident. After that, his family life had descended into something less than tolerable.
So yeah, I got the no-kids thing. Hell if I wanted spawn of my own. I didn’t even know
what they’d be—human? Not-ghost? Something else? It was probably best I never find out, and I couldn’t see that attitude changing. But then, like Hudson had pointed out, I was constant and unevolving. My perspective was set. His could have easily changed as he grew older.
“Not about kids,” Hudson said definitively.
“But a husband?”
“Why?” he demanded. “You fishing? You want to get back together?”
I gave up all pretense of watching what I was supposed to be watching, and turned to look at him. “Don’t you ever think about the good times?”
Off and on throughout the day, the happy moments we’d shared had been on replay in my brain, maybe as a way to try to convince myself that Hudson was still Hudson. I wasn’t sure if they were successful or not, but damn, they were some good memories.
“Of course I do.” His expression softened. “Like going up to Algonquin Park and camping under the stars.”
I smiled. I’d hated the obnoxiousness of Hudson’s El Camino, with its noisy engine and excessively large aftermarket tires, but the truck bed had been pretty sweet. Throw an air mattress back there with a few sleeping bags, and...yeah. “Hearing the wolves was pretty magical.”
Hudson laughed. “You were terrified.”
“I was n—” I scrunched up my nose. “Okay, maybe I was. A little. They sounded really close.”
“They weren’t.”
“But they sounded like they were and that was all that mattered.”
“You were...” He paused before voicing the rest of his thought. “So honest.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were scared and you didn’t try to hide it. You wanted me to comfort you, so you asked for it. You were...you are a lot braver than you give yourself credit for.”
I snorted. “Like that small shit matters.”
“Of course it matters. You’ve always been unapologetically you. It was something—something I aspired to.”
