Undying

by V. K. Forrest

  “That’s all I have,” Macy said finally.

  “I doubt that. But it’s a good start.” Fia stood. “Tell me you’re going to stick around a few more days, Macy Smith. Give me some time to look over all the cases again. I think we could be on to something with this moon thing.”

  “I’m in no hurry to leave Clare Point. I like your hometown. It’s a little weird.” She managed a shy smile. “But I like it. And, as I’m sure you heard through the grapevine, I may be writing a piece about some of the seaside cottages. Could mean a couple of weeks’ worth of work.”

  “If you decide to move on, I just hope you’ll let me know.” Fia watched her carefully, through the dark lenses of her sunglasses. “You have a way of slipping through my fingers, Macy Smith.”

  Macy gave her a half smile. “I’m not moving into your mother’s B and B. I like the hotel. But if I decide to go, you’ll be the first to know. I do have to go back to Virginia to finish a photo shoot, but that’ll just be a day trip.”

  “I think I’ll head back. Stop by and see my parents. I guess you’ve heard that my brother seems to have gotten himself into a little trouble. We’re not entirely sure where he is. You going back?” Fia hooked a thumb north.

  “Nah. I think I’ll sit here a while longer.” Macy settled on the bench again. “Maybe get some pizza. I hear Grottos is pretty famous for their pizza pie.”

  “More popcorn?” Fia offered the box.

  “No thanks. It was good, but I’m not much for sweets.”

  “Well, thanks again for your help. I would ask for your new phone number but I suppose it’ll be different by the end of the week.”

  “You can leave a message for me at the hotel.”

  “Right. Well, give me some time to look over all the case files, any witnesses, and I’ll see if I can dig up Moon Boy. I’ll get back to you. Midweek probably.”

  “Thanks for listening.” As Macy watched Fia walk away, she felt the strangest sensation. It had been so long since she felt it—since she was a kid probably—that she almost couldn’t identify it. And then she realized with a smile what that was.

  Hope.

  Chapter 15

  At the sound of the front door opening, Arlan turned from his perch on the step ladder. Seeing Fia walk in the door, he returned his attention to his phone call. “You’re sure you don’t need me to come?”

  It’s Fin on the phone. Regan called him, too, Arlan telepathed to Fia. He wants him to meet him in Florence.

  Inside the door, she set a box of caramel popcorn on a chair stacked with newspapers, bundled for recycling.

  “Is Regan all right?” Fia crossed the living room.

  Fin thinks so. He’s in some kind of trouble, but he was able to call. Apparently he thinks he can get out of Greece and into Italy.

  “You don’t need to come. I think this is another one of my brother’s adventures,” Fin said to Arlan. “A highly exaggerated event meant to impress the ladies later.”

  “You’re sure?” Arlan climbed down the ladder, leaving his putty knife behind. He’d been trying to patch some cracks in the ceiling in preparation for painting it. “Because I can be there by morning. Afternoon at the latest.”

  “He tell Fin what was wrong? What kind of trouble he was in? He’s sure he’s okay?” Fia fired.

  “Fin thinks he’s fine,” Arlan said to Fia; then to Fin, “Your sister’s here. You want to talk to her?”

  “Can’t. Boarding a plane. Give her a kiss for me. Tell her I’ll bring our pain-in-the-ass brother home. Tell her to tell Ma to stop worrying.”

  Arlan heard voices in the background. A flight attendant welcoming passengers in German, then English, then Italian.

  “Coach,” Fin groaned. “I’m going to kill my brother. This short notice, I couldn’t find a first-class seat. He knows I hate flying coach. Gotta go. Stay safe.”

  “You, too, buddy.” Arlan ended the call and tossed the phone on his leather recliner. “He says for you and your mom not to worry. He says he’s going to kill Regan when he catches up with him for forcing him to fly coach to Italy.”

  “He’s going to kill him and take that pleasure from me?” Her tone was thick with sarcasm, but relief as well. “So Fin really thinks he’s all right?” she repeated.

  Arlan shrugged. “Sounds just like what we thought—another one of Regan’s merry jaunts.”

  “So why haven’t we been able to get hold of Fin, either?”

  “Sept business. He was in Prague. Had cell phone issues.” Arlan headed for the kitchen. “Beer?”

  She frowned. “No, thanks.”

  She leaned against the doorjamb between the eat-in kitchen and living room. She looked pretty tonight in an FBI bad-ass kind of way. Her dress slacks hugged her firm buttocks and they made her already long legs appear as if they went on forever. The pale blue silk top was clingy, but not hoochie. She had a nice rack for a woman a couple of centuries old.

  Arlan grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. Dogfish Head, brewed locally. He twisted the cap, wondering vaguely why Fia had stopped by out of the blue like this. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy to see her; before the boyfriend she’d come by regularly. Sometimes for sex. Sometimes to talk. Other times just to share each other’s silent companionship. He sensed she was here for a reason, but she had a solid wall up blocking her thoughts. Arlan attempted psychically to knock, but she refused to open the door.

  Sometimes he had to just rely on good old-fashioned human methods of communication. “So…how did the interview with Macy go?”

  “Good. Um…she might actually have something that can help us find this monster.”

  “Really? You want to go sit on the deck? Mosquitoes aren’t bad yet.”

  “Sure.”

  He started for the door. “Sure I can’t get you something? Water? Blood?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “How about a wedding band?” He pushed open the screen door and stepped out onto the deck. Summer darkness, which never seemed as dark to him as winter darkness, was settling over the town. He took one of the Adirondack chairs that faced the fenced-in backyard. She sat in the chair beside him.

  “Will you never let that go?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “You know what. The marriage thing. The…the you and me thing.”

  “Eventually.” He glanced at her, giving her his best lady-killer smile. “Another century or two.” He took a sip of beer and then gestured with the bottle. “But I sense some weakness in you. Maybe a little jealousy?”

  “Of Macy?” She laughed, breaking eye contact with him. “Since when have I ever been jealous of any of your women?”

  “There was Lizzy.”

  She leaned back in the wooden plank chair he had built with his own hands and painted a whimsical teal color. He was sitting in the mauve one. “Okay, maybe I was a little jealous of Lizzy, but she was a possessive wench. And she was crazy,” she added.

  He smiled sadly. Fia had been jealous of Lizzy because he had loved Lizzy. Not the same way he loved Fia, but still, he had loved her. Which led him to the question, was he falling in love with Macy and did Fia sense that?

  “Okay, so we’re discussing old haunts. How’s that ex of yours, the one you couldn’t quite shake? What was his name? Jasper? Joshua? Dickhead?”

  “You’re not all that funny, Arlan. His name was Joseph and I believe he’s settled in Las Vegas.”

  “I am funny. Can be, at least, and you know it. You think I’m funny.”

  She exhaled. “I should go.”

  “No, no, don’t go.” He tapped the arm of her chair. “Tell me about Macy. About the investigation.”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “Of course you shouldn’t, but who else do you have to talk to? And you know I can keep secrets. I’m a good secret keeper.” He glanced meaningfully at her.

  She looked at him and then away. “He’s been contacting her for years, since the first murders.”

  “You
’re kidding. She…she would have been just a kid.”

  “Eighteen.”

  He sipped his beer. “And she has no idea why he picked her?”

  “She says not.”

  “Did she have any connection to the first family murdered?”

  “I don’t know. I’m going to try to find out. What I really need is some info on Macy. Now that I have a last name, which I hope is her real name, maybe I can look into her background.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want you to do that,” he said. “Maybe that’s why she didn’t give her real name to begin with.”

  “Too bad.”

  He frowned. “That’s harsh.”

  “It’s reality. I don’t have time to screw around here. This guy is going to kill again and he’s going to keep killing until we catch him.” She turned in the chair to face him. “She did have one interesting tidbit to offer. She thinks the moon cycles have something to do with the murders. Or at least they did. I’m going to check the records, but Macy says that he always killed on a full moon…until the family in Virginia.”

  “What changed?”

  She shook her head. “Macy says she doesn’t know. She says he wouldn’t say. He contacted her the other night—”

  “Since she came to Clare Point?”

  “He IM’d her. She asked him why he did it, if someone told him to. He told her, and I quote, ‘No one is the boss of me’.”

  “Ah, Mommy issues.”

  “You think so?” Fia asked. “I was considering issues with authority.”

  “Certainly could be.”

  She rose. “I think I’ll go.”

  “To your mom’s?”

  “I’m going to stop by the house and then head north.” She backed up across the deck, still facing him. “I might just go to the office. Pull an all-nighter. I’ve got a lot of case files to look through. I’m going to compare the lists of witnesses, people present at the scene. I want to be sure Moon Boy hasn’t been at any of the crime scenes.”

  “Moon Boy?”

  She shrugged. “Has a better ring to it than Buried Alive Killer.”

  He chuckled. “Does sound like a headline in the tabloids, doesn’t it?” He looked down and then back at her. “You’re going to work all night? What about lover boy?”

  It was her turn to look away. “Um…he had something else going on.”

  “Ah.” Arlan nodded. “I see.”

  “No you don’t. You don’t see because there’s nothing to see. Glen and I have our own lives. We have work, families. We don’t feel like we have to be glued to each other’s sides.” She had stopped at the top of the stairs that led from the deck into the yard.

  He held up both hands, beer still in one. “Hey, your relationship. Who am I to judge?”

  “Exactly. Who are you to judge, Mr. Sleep-With-Anything-With-A-Vagina?”

  “Oh.” He cringed. “That’s ugly, Fee. Definitely below the belt.”

  “Good night,” she said, her voice without animosity.

  She knew what Arlan was. She accepted him. He thought that, on some level, she even understood him. It was just one of the reasons he loved her.

  She backed down the steps. “And thanks for tracking Fin down. He doesn’t always call me back in a timely fashion, but I knew he’d get back to you.”

  He waved her away. “Go on, be a workaholic. Let me know if you find anything.”

  “Sure. In the meantime, can you keep an eye on Macy? She says she’ll be here a few days more, at least. I asked her to give me some time.”

  “No problem.”

  At the gate, Fia turned around. “Hey, I left you a box of Dolly’s popcorn. It’s in the living room.”

  “My favorite,” he called after her as she stepped through the gateway and into the dark, disappearing from his view. He could still feel her, though. And even though she was blocking her thoughts, he could feel her pain. Things weren’t good between her and lover boy. He wished she felt like she could talk about it with him. After all, he had it all over her as far as disastrous relationships with humans. He wished she would trust him more.

  “You sure you won’t marry me?” he hollered.

  She closed the gate behind her and the lock clicked. Arlan finished his beer, alone in the dark, and waited for Macy.

  From half a block away, Macy saw Arlan’s silhouette in the darkness of his front porch. What was weird was the way the moonlight and shadows were playing tricks on her tonight. When she first looked up at the dark porch, she could have sworn it was a bear standing there on two legs, rather than a mere mortal man.

  Not that Arlan was a mere man. She smiled to herself. He was definitely a cut above most—as well as she ever got to know any of them, that is.

  She halted on the sidewalk in front of his house and looked up. He was drinking a beer. She could see the beads of condensation on the cold brown bottle. It was hot tonight. Close, as people in this area of the country liked to say when the air was so warm and humid that you felt as if you were walking through hot pudding. Perspiration beaded on her forehead as she looked at the inviting beer.

  “You waiting for me?” she asked.

  He lifted one broad, muscular shoulder and let it fall. He was wearing a gym T-shirt, the sleeves cut off. It showed his physique well.

  She took her time walking up the steps. She was barefoot tonight, wore a T-shirt and gym shorts. No undergarments. No need for them on a hot night like tonight. No need for them in her lover’s arms.

  “I might not have come, you know.” She dragged her fingertips along the sagging rail of the steps. “Could use a little paint, here, Mr. Handyman.”

  He watched her from the porch without moving. His stance was relaxed to the point of lazy, but there was something about his muscle-bound biceps and quads that made her think he could spring over the railing in an instant. Catlike, in a ferocious way.

  She almost chuckled to herself, wondering where the heck her thoughts came from sometimes. There was nothing special about Arlan. He was a hot guy. She’d known a lot of hot guys over the years. And more importantly, she reminded herself, there was nothing about him that could make her feel special.

  At the top of the steps, she leaned against one of the support posts. His gaze searched hers. In his eyes, she saw hunger. A longing for something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  He reached out with his free hand and stroked her cheek.

  Without thinking, she covered his hand with hers. There was such depth there. Such longing…and pain.

  Too personal. She realized it the moment she did it. Too personal was bad. It made it hard to leave. It created regrets. She had to be able to pack up and go without compunction. It was part of the curse she carried. Part of the curse the killer had gifted her. She let her hand fall and crossed the porch, walking into the house. He followed.

  Inside the door, she spotted a box of half-eaten caramel popcorn on a chair. Something inside her turned over. Flopped. A lump rose in her throat. Fia had been here.

  She walked past the box of popcorn, down the hall toward the bedroom. A part of her wanted to ask him about the popcorn. About Fia. Macy knew there was something between them, something beyond friendship, she just wasn’t quite sure what.

  Maybe she didn’t want to know.

  She slipped out of her clothes inside the dark doorway to his bedroom, went to the bed and lay naked on the cool sheets. He had washed them and made the bed. How sweet.

  Arlan stood in the doorway, finishing his beer.

  She stretched out, enjoying the feel of the crisp, soft sheets and the slight stirring of air against her prickly, hot, damp skin.

  “You want to talk about it?” he asked.

  “About what?”

  “You didn’t tell me he’s contacted you since the first murders.”

  She looked up, watching the paddle fan turn. She listened to its tick…tick…tick.

  Arlan stood there for a long time until finally, without looking at him, she
said, “Are you coming or not?”

  His sigh was long and when he spoke, his words were barely a whisper. She heard his shorts and T-shirt hit the floor. “I’m coming.”

  Teddy paced, counting his strides from one side of the hotel room to the other. Eight. Just eight.

  He felt trapped. But lost at the same time.

  He did an about-face when he reached the wall and walked in the other direction. He glanced at the desk where he’d left his laptop open. He’d waited for Marceline all evening, but she hadn’t come. Where was she? With another man? The thought of her in another man’s arms made his stomach twist painfully.

  I told you she didn’t want you.

  Teddy whipped around. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said aloud.

  I’m just telling you the truth. Someone has to be honest with you, Teddy. You’re certainly not honest with yourself.

  At the wall, he turned again. His terrycloth slippers made a soft slap, slap on the carpet as he paced.

  “I have to work tomorrow. I have to go to sleep,” he said. He gritted his teeth. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  Forget about her.

  “I can’t!” he said, closing one hand into a fist.

  You don’t need her. You have me.

  But I do need her, Teddy thought, not saying it aloud. He sat down on the edge of the bed and covered his ears with his hands. “I need her because of you,” he whispered.

  Chapter 16

  Arlan was carrying wood in through the back door of Eva’s house when his cell rang. He could tell by the ring tone that it was Fia. He was glad she had called. He’d waited all weekend to hear from her. He’d wanted to call her, but resisted the temptation. These last few days he’d felt unsettled. Divided. He really cared about Macy. But Fia…she was Fia.

  He leaned the two-by-fours in the corner of the laundry room. “Hey,” he said into the phone.

  “Hey, you talk to Regan or Fin?” she asked. No small talk with Fia. There rarely was.