No Less Days

by Amanda G. Stevens

  His voice failed. Moira turned a page of the dessert menu before registering the silence, though Zac was already watching him.

  She looked up and nudged aside her iced tea to touch David’s arm. “Sorry, I guess I’m prying now.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not accustomed to it, that’s all.”

  “Being interrogated?” She smiled.

  “Speaking freely.”

  “I can’t imagine living the way you have.”

  The words stung, though she clearly hadn’t meant them to. “There’s a bakery four doors down, if you’d like to try some Michigan cherries. They put them in everything, even ice cream.”

  Her slow blink acknowledged the boundary he’d just set up. Good. He wouldn’t deny the group texts were a comfortable addition to his days, and Zac and Moira’s unexpected presence in his shop had felt like a gift. But he had to maintain boundaries, or … well, he had to, that’s all.

  They ambled down the wooden walk in peeking sunshine that glistened on puddles collected during yesterday’s rain. A brisk wind would help dry things out, but the stillness today meant more warmth. At the dessert shop, Moira tried one of the cherry-laden ice cream flavors, and Zac tried everything in sight.

  “If you get high on sugar, I’m leaving you at the bookstore,” Moira said. “And the resident fangirl will never fawn over you again once she’s heard you talking at the speed of light.”

  “Whatever, woman.”

  “David, what else is there to see in your town?”

  Hours passed as he gave them a tour with stops at almost every store, Zac munching a cherry-almond-white-chocolate-chip cookie as they walked. They stayed longest among local artisan shops, and Moira gazed at the wares with an eye both enthusiastic and expert.

  “You’re an artist,” David finally said.

  She grinned. “I paint.”

  “For how long?”

  “Oh …” She shrugged. “I sold my first work in 1904.”

  “And how do you manage that?”

  “Well, my name changes, of course. My body of work is attributed to six different women, each of whom was reclusive and didn’t allow photographs taken. Other than that first one, Mary Whitefield. She’s known to a very select group of connoisseurs.”

  A grin pushed onto his face. “You have fans.”

  Her giggle was that of a twenty-year-old girl, pleased at the recognition. Maybe the dichotomy lingered in all of them—the dual ages, informing who they were inside and out.

  “Zac’s fans are teens and twentysomethings. Mine are elderly museum patrons. I feel my legacy is preferable, but he refuses to agree with that.”

  From the other end of the aisle, Zac looked up from a framed photograph of the Mackinac Bridge. “Pretty sure your patrons don’t bring you cookies.”

  “Pretty sure your fangirls don’t analyze your work in guided tours.”

  “I’m not a relic.”

  Moira choked down a laugh. Triumph formed his smirk as he turned to walk down a neighboring aisle.

  “Do you always let him have the last word?” David asked, a smile tugging at him too.

  “Well, he’s so fond of it.” She was still grinning.

  By the time they drove back to the store, the sun had set. David parked beside the rental car, and they all got out, Moira’s arms weighted with packages—carefully wrapped and bagged glasswork, hand-beaded earrings, some six-inch copper sculpture of a seagull that all but choked her up. David had lost count of her purchases halfway through the day.

  “Let me.” He took a few of them as Zac jingled the car keys and walked around to the driver’s side.

  And jolted to a stop. Zac’s right arm came up, a blocking motion, and something else moved on that side of the car—a man. Springing upward, head just clearing the car windows. A red hoodie, pulled low to hide his face. David dropped the bags, and something shattered at his feet. He surged around the car as Zac made a sound that was both gasp and groan, then blocked again. Metal glinted in the streetlight. The man crashed into Zac, thrust the knife center mass, yanked it back, said, “Zachary Wilson.”

  And stood there, staring, while Zac doubled over with one hand braced on the car roof. Blood fell, shiny on the ground under the floodlight.

  David charged. The man startled and ran, and David sprinted after him.

  ELEVEN

  What he’d do with the man—he shoved that thought aside as he drew deep breaths, legs pumping. David ran down dark sidewalks along the empty streets. The man dashed without discretion, under streetlights and past shoppers who wandered toward their cars as the last restaurants closed. He must have hidden the knife in the hoodie’s front pocket. David watched as he ran. In front of an abandoned house with a browning untrimmed yard, the man pitched the knife into a patch of weeds, a flash of white hand and silver blade. He didn’t miss a step.

  David didn’t either, until the man crossed the road at a Do NOT WALK. Headlights slashed across his form, a full-size van that would have killed him if the speed limit had been faster. A horn beeped, then another as the van skidded and swerved, but the man kept going. David took a few strides off the curb and tried to weave around the cars, but the timing wasn’t on his side. One vehicle nearly hit another trying to avoid him. He backed up, looked to the other side of the street.

  The man was gone.

  David punched one hand into the other then gripped the back of his neck with both as his gaze scoured up and down. Only a few seconds he’d looked away. He crossed when the sign turned. He searched for ten minutes, but the man could have ducked behind any building, any bush. Could be watching David now from inside a car parallel parked at the curb; stupidly, people left them unlocked all the time in a town this small. He glanced into each windshield as he backtracked to the light where he’d crossed. No sign of anyone.

  Go back. He had no trail to follow. The pounding in his pulse slowed as he processed events past the adrenaline rush of Mission and Go go go and Target, take him down, whatever it takes. The man had spoken Zac’s name. A personal hit. And he’d thrown away his weapon. He wasn’t out in the dark now, ranging for his next victim. Or probably wasn’t.

  On his way back to the store, David retrieved the knife. Crouched to hide his actions in case someone should pass by, then wiped Zac’s blood on the grass and hid the blade along the inside of his coat, keeping one hand tucked there as if he were cold.

  The rental car still sat in the back lot beside his Jeep, Moira’s packages abandoned beside it. She and Zac had moved to the grass island that separated the bookstore’s parking from the massage therapist next door. Zac crouched on elbows and knees in the grass, curled small, head bent. Moira sat on the cement curb, talking quietly to him, her hand on his shoulder.

  David stopped in front of them. “I got the knife.”

  “Good,” Zac said without lifting his head, but Moira’s words covered his.

  “It’s bad, David; two wounds and he’s bleeding everywhere.”

  Before she finished the sentence, Zac pushed to his feet, shrugging off help. He took two steps, and then his legs buckled. David scooped him up, made his arms a cradle rather than hoisting Zac over his shoulder with those wounds. Zac stiffened. He tried to shove David away, but his arm flopped out from his body, uncoordinated. Shock setting in.

  “Relax, man,” David said.

  He did. “Tables turned, huh. Didn’t take long.”

  Moira followed as David carried Zac across the lot, leaving all her bags, including whatever David had dropped and broken. He showed her which key would unlock the door and pointed out light switches along their path to the break room.

  “We need plastic,” she said. “Garbage bags or something.”

  “In the cubby behind the front counter, under the cash register.”

  She hurried back the way they’d come, then joined him in time to flip the break room’s light switch.

  Tiana had left a copy of The Giver on the little break room table. A half-ful
l bag of blue corn tortilla chips sat on the counter, and he’d find hummus in the refrigerator if he looked. Across from the fridge, a low tweed sofa stood against one wall. Moira spread the garbage bags over every square inch of the plaid cushions, arms, and back, and then David eased Zac down.

  “This had better be mortal.” Zac groaned. “Moira?”

  She grasped the hand that hung off the couch. “Right here.”

  David removed the attempted-murder weapon from inside his coat and wrapped it in a garbage bag. Then he unzipped and opened Zac’s jacket. His mouth dried. Blood was soaking Zac’s T-shirt, the jacket liner, even the waistband of his jeans. The shirt was sliced in two places, one just below the left ribs and one lower, the right side of his gut. The bloodstains were spreading every second, had already merged into one.

  David fetched the first-aid kit from the bathroom while Moira retrieved her shopping bags from the parking lot. She deposited everything on the floor in the entryway, not bothering even to set them on the counter. David turned out lights in the entryway and front room, and they retraced their path to the back. Zac lay motionless other than the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

  “Zachary,” Moira whispered, and he opened his eyes. “I’m here. I’ll be with you the whole time.”

  “I know. It’s okay.” Zac coughed, and blood frothed in his mouth.

  Then he was choking. His eyes sought Moira’s, wide and pleading. Fear, the only response to an inability to breathe, regardless of one’s age or experiences. Moira leaned over him and fit her arm under his back, holding him half upright. David reached to the other end of the couch for a pillow and propped it behind him.

  After a few moments he drew a breath. “Better get me something to vomit in.”

  David reached for the lined wastebasket and set it beside the couch. He knelt and opened the first-aid case.

  He used the small scissors to cut away Zac’s shirt. A full-color tattoo spread over the top half of his left pectoral, below the collarbone—a ship, sails unfurled, buoyed on cresting blue waves. The two stab wounds were deep, made with a blade the width of a butcher knife. Blood flowed, slicking and warming David’s hands. His mouth remained too dry to swallow, as if only he stood in the gap between Zac and death.

  “He got an upward angle here,” he said as he pressed gauze over the higher wound.

  “Yeah.” Zac shut his eyes. “Lung, breathing’s not … right.”

  David covered both wounds as best he could, exhausting the supply of gauze in the little case. Zac maintained such silence, David looked up several times to see if he’d passed out. He remained conscious, staring at the ceiling. Moira gripped his left hand between both of hers and kept her eyes shut the whole time.

  “Done,” David said at last, and Moira opened her eyes. “Anything else you need besides hard liquor?”

  “You could knock me out,” Zac said.

  Yes, he could. Wouldn’t harm Zac further. But he had no way to do it other than brute force, his fist cracking into Zac’s temple or snapping his head back hard enough to sever him from consciousness. A man already weak and in pain. A man willing to let David render him defenseless. The idea of physically attacking him caved David’s chest in.

  Zac’s eyes were closed again, but Moira was watching.

  David looked away. “I’d prefer not to do that.”

  “Change your mind, I start rambling in Swedish.” He was starting to slur.

  “Whatever you say, I’ll be none the wiser.”

  “No English till my teens. Worked hard for a real American accent.” His smirk at David seemed to use all his energy. “Unlike that brogue of yours.”

  Tears stood in Moira’s eyes. She was watching David, not Zac, a plea behind the tears. Keep him talking? David could do that.

  He tilted his head at Zac. “The brogue emerges only in extremis.”

  “Aye, that it does.” The attempt at a Scottish burr was atrocious. Zac grinned, blood on his teeth, then shut his eyes and kept a groan behind tight lips.

  “Enough,” David said. “Shut up and lie there. Pass out if you can.”

  Zac hunched forward, away from the pillow, and began to choke. David grabbed the wastebasket, and Moira held Zac up for a long minute as he vomited blood. When he finished, she eased him back against the cushions, and he reached out to grip her hand. A single tear slipped down her cheek.

  Zac tugged her hand. “Memories, eh?”

  At his smile, Moira gave a quiet sob. She ducked her head, and Zac met David’s eyes. The mask was crumbling; pain pinched around his eyes and mouth, and he’d begun to shiver. David shuddered at the memory of going into shock—weakness, nausea, feeling so cold.

  Maybe he should drive them all to his place. At least Zac could recover in a bed. But moving him probably wouldn’t be worth it.

  “I’ll be gone only a few minutes,” David said. “Be back with whiskey. And the pharmacy might have suture thread—”

  “No need.”

  “Won’t it hasten recovery to seal the wound properly?”

  “Not enough to let you poke and tug and …” Zac’s struggle for air was becoming audible. The lung filling with blood.

  David glanced at Moira, and she shook her head. Well, fine then. Zac’s call.

  “In the meantime,” Moira said, “where’s your computer? I need to set up an anonymous call to the police.”

  David cocked an eyebrow at her. “The longevites involve police?”

  “I’ll simply say I witnessed a stabbing and can’t identify anyone,” she said. “I’ll give a basic description of the man. They’re on their own after that, but they have to be alerted.”

  She was right, and no risk was involved if she knew what she was doing. “You’ve done this before?”

  “I have.”

  Zac’s eyes opened, and his head turned to catch her gaze, but she didn’t notice.

  “And you got a look at him?”

  She shrugged. “Height between you and Zac. Average build. White, though that won’t help them. It seems to be the default in this town.”

  “Quite so,” he said, his mind straying to Tiana’s words to him while standing on his porch. “I’ll bring my laptop in a minute.”

  In the bathroom he scrubbed Zac’s blood from his hands, gritting his teeth against the whole situation. Could Zac bleed out enough to negate the serum? No, if that were possible, the wounds David suffered in 1916 would have killed him. He had to remember to compare all things to that. And to Zac’s fall. This was nothing.

  Someone had to find the man who’d done this. If not the police, then David would do it himself. Zac’s inability to be murdered didn’t erase the crime. He wished the others were here to help him create a perimeter, Simon especially. David was a soldier, not a detective, but if he had to be—

  A doorknob jiggled.

  He stiffened. Listened. The back door. Only one person other than David had a key.

  “David?” Moira called.

  “Stay there.”

  He dried his hands and headed for the door, reached it as Tiana opened it and stepped inside, eyes bright.

  “I saw your cars in the back. I won’t stay, but if they’re heading somewhere else tomorrow, I’d like to say goodbye.”

  David tried not to frown at her and probably failed.

  Hurt flashed in her eyes then was shielded behind the arching of one eyebrow. “Don’t worry. I’m resolved not to say anything stupid in front of him.”

  “It’s not that, it’s—”

  “Wait, why are the lights off?”

  From the break room came the noise of coughing, then choking, then vomiting, and then a groan that tried and failed to mute itself. Tiana stood frozen, staring toward the sound.

  “David?” Her voice tiptoed.

  “Tiana.” He set his damp hands on her shoulders and waited for her to meet his eyes. “You need to go.”

  “That’s Zac. He’s sick? What did you guys do, get drunk or something?”


  “I need you to go.”

  “But you’re not drunk at all.” She pulled away from him. “What’s going on?”

  If only she hadn’t heard that sound. She eased back from his hold on her shoulders and marched toward the break room.

  David cursed necessity and blocked her way.

  She stared at him. Eyes wide. Mouth parting.

  She tried to see past him, and he braced his arm against the doorframe, his elbow a right angle, obscuring her line of sight. But she’d seen something, because she ducked his arm and burst into the room. She went still when she saw Zac lying half propped on the couch. Both his wounds had bled through the gauze already, bright red on white. What had soaked into the waist of his jeans was still wet, obvious.

  “Oh,” Tiana said.

  Zac struggled to sit up but fell back, one hand pressing the gauze below his ribs. “David, take her out of here.”

  Tiana approached, firm strides, a tightness to her mouth. Moira stepped up to block her way, several inches shorter, and Tiana ignored her, kept staring at Zac over Moira’s head.

  “Did anybody call an ambulance?”

  “No,” David said, his voice overlaid with the same word from Zac and from Moira.

  She was a different woman than the one who’d blushed and stammered in front of Zac eight hours ago. This was the Tiana David knew. The Tiana who was already pulling out her phone and pressing the nine.

  “No!” Moira slapped her hand, and the phone flew halfway across the room to skitter over the counter against the fridge and fall into the sink.

  Tiana lunged for the phone, and Moira lunged for Tiana, and David placed his body between them in time to catch Moira’s nails across his throat. Adrenaline kicked in. He blocked her hand but restrained himself from further defensive reflexes. He stepped around both of them and scooped up the phone.

  Moira was all but baring her teeth. “Is something wrong with you, girl?”

  “He’s dying, that’s what’s wrong with me, you stupid—”

  “Okay.” David shoved the phone into his jeans pocket and nudged Tiana toward the door. “Come on.”