“You’re not talking about a hundred and fifty year old battle, are you?” Ashli asked softly. He spoke with such vengeance, Ashli suspected it had something to do with this strange mood he was in, something to do with the wall he had constructed around himself. She glanced up at him questioningly, but his face was closed.
“I’m talking about life,” he snorted, pushing away from the fence that surrounded the mouth of the hole. He turned and headed for the car, leaving her no choice but to follow.
If he thought their ‘date’ was over, Lange soon was to discover differently. Leaving the Battlefield, Ashli drove to the Blandford Church and cemetery. She stopped to show him the beautiful stained glass windows of the church, then drove down the many rows of dirt paths that checkered the cemetery as twilight crowded near.
“Louis Comfort Tiffany created the church windows,” Ashli explained. “Each window was donated by a different Southern state in memory of the sons they had lost. Over 30,000 Confederate soldiers are buried here; this entire side of the cemetery contains graves from the Civil War. There are even some tombstones here dating back to the 1700's, including some of my ancestors.”
“Why are you pulling over? Where are you going?”
“I like to look at this monument that honors each of the Southern states and their losses. Just beyond it is the grave of my great, great grandfather. He was killed during the fall of Petersburg.”
Lange glanced around, uncomfortable being in a cemetery. He followed her reluctantly as she began to read aloud the tribute to the fallen states and the brave soldiers who had died.
“How can you read that? It’s getting too dark to see,” he grumbled.
“Mostly from memory,” she admitted. “I’ve been reading it since I was a little girl.”
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s morbid to play in cemeteries?” he muttered, following her lead to the old tombstone beyond.
Ashli knelt beside the old headstone, ignoring Lange’s overall attitude. She lightly ran her fingers over the inscription as she mused aloud. “He was only 28 years old. That’s so young to die. So young to give up his life simply out of honor.”
Was it really Lange’s voice that spoke in the gathering darkness, so soft and low and reverent? “It was something he believed in, something he was willing to die for.”
Ashli moved from beside the grave to gently perch upon the stone. Her voice was little more than a whisper on the wind as she asked softly, “Who was it, Lange? Who did you lose?”
He was silent for a moment, staring out at the thousands of stones that marked the loss of life. He felt the loss in his own heart, as if each of the graves held a piece of him. The stones glowed an eerie white in the twilight, reflecting in the darkness of his eyes when at last he spoke.
“It might be easier to name who I didn’t lose. My father died when I was just a kid, and God only knows if my mother is still living. To me she’s always been dead. My best friend died when I was nineteen, my Grandmother just six months later. And Lauren... Lauren died five years ago.”
Ashli bit her lip as she listened to the changes in his deep voice. The bitterness when he spoke of his parents turned to sadness at the loss of his grandmother and friend, but when he spoke of his Lauren, there was pure heartache in his voice.
“Who was Lauren?” she whispered softly. A part of her wanted to know about his past, yet something in her heart begged her not to ask, knowing the truth might be too painful to hear.
When he didn’t answer, she guessed, “Your wife?”
“We didn’t have a piece of paper, if that’s what you mean. But yes, we were married, in all the ways that mattered.” He took a deep breath, and then the words just seemed to tumble out as he stared out into the cemetery, no longer seeing. “She didn’t believe in the roles of marriage because she said love should be free and unbinding. I used to tease her that she was just afraid of becoming a housewife. She couldn’t cook to save her soul. We ate out mostly, and we had a maid to come in once a week because she hated to clean house. To say the least, she wasn’t very domestic.” A faded smile appeared on his face, wavering as he drew in a long, unsteady breath.
“She had big brown eyes that snapped with anger whenever I tried to pamper her. She was, to put it lightly, very independent. But for all her unconventional independence, she was one hell of a cop. She put everything into her career.” He paused for a significant moment before adding, “Including her last breath of life.”
“What-What happened?”
“She was a policewoman on the force, and she died in the line of duty. She had just done a brilliant piece of work on organized crime, and the big boys were behind bars. But their payroll still walked the streets, and the minute she let her guard down.... She walked right into their ambush. And I wasn’t there to help her, I wasn’t there to protect her.” If she heard heartache in his voice earlier, it was nothing like the sheer anguish he revealed now.
“Oh Lange, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. She moved toward him, wanting to offer comfort, but the moment her hand touched his arm, he jerked away. The look in his eyes was more chilling than any she had ever seen before.
“Don’t!” he commanded sharply. Just a hint of desperation crept into the bitterness of his words. “Don’t you understand? My heart lies in another cemetery, in another grave. When I buried Lauren, I buried a part of myself. The part that knows how to treat a woman, the part that knows how to care.”
His words were harsh. “I’m dead inside, Ashli. I go through the motions of living, but I don’t have a heart, not anymore. Don’t waste your time trying to mend a heart that doesn’t exist. And don’t forget why I’m here in the first place,” he added brusquely. “That kiss earlier meant nothing. I’m only doing a job.”
Silence surrounded them. Ashli knew no words to say that could comfort him, no words that would comfort herself. She was devastated by his brutal denial of their kiss. There was a long, tense moment when they both struggled to get their emotions under control, but finally she spoke.
“I’m sorry I brought you here,” she said simply.
Neither spoke as they walked to the car and drove back to the farm. But when they reached the house, Lange took her arm in the shadows of the porch and stopped her before she went inside.
“About what I said in the cemetery...” His voice was low and a bit hesitant.
“Forget it, Lange. I understand.”
“I didn’t mean to sound cruel.”
She didn’t quite meet his eyes. “It’s okay. I was prying. I shouldn’t ask so many personal questions. It’s just that... today....”
“Today was make believe. Today we were pretending.” His voice was so low and so deep that it had to scrape past his heart to come out.
“I know.” Her whispered voice held an emptiness he had never heard before. “It’s just that... you know everything about me, and I know nothing about you.”
“You’re my client, Ashli. It’s my job to know all about you.”
“I know.”
“I can’t get personally involved with my clients. I might lose my objectivity.” His voice, still low, had lost its gruff edge.
“I know that, too.” Her voice, still whispered, no longer sounded so empty; now it sounded as if it were filled with pain.
He forced the next words out, husky and deep. “We could never be involved, Ashli.”
“No, never.”
***
The ride home on Sunday was the longest of Ashli’s life; one hour of pure agony as they drove into Richmond, neither speaking. It was easier to pretend she was sleeping, even though her senses were very much awake in the small confines of the truck. It was impossible to ignore the handsome man sitting behind the wheel, impossible not to smell the clean masculine scent of his cologne, impossible not to remember the way it felt to be held within his strong embrace. But with her eyes closed, it was at least possible to keep the tears from blurring her vision when she thought of how he said t
heir kiss yesterday had meant nothing.
Oh, but it had meant something! It meant something magical was happening to them, something beyond either of their control. It meant a new fairy tale was being born, that somewhere a new poem was written, a new song sung, a new masterpiece painted. A new treasure had been discovered, and it was safely tucked into the sacred secrets of their hearts.
Her heart, at least. Ashli spent most of the trip wondering how she could have misunderstood that kiss so completely.
Once back in Richmond, Lange helped her deliver half the berries to the restaurant, half to her apartment. He insisted on going in each place first, and checking out every room in her apartment before letting her past the door.
“It looks like everything is in order here,” he told her as he brought in the last of the buckets. He glanced around again, seeing a perfectly normal setting. Yet there was an awkward silence in the apartment, a silence of their own making. He looked slightly uncomfortable as he took a retreating step toward the door. “So I guess I’ll shove off.”
Ashli’s smile was deceptively bright as she avoided meeting his eyes directly. “Sure, I can manage from here just fine. Thanks for bringing in the berries.”
She turned away and began to rummage through her cabinets for colanders to wash the berries. Lange hesitated, repeating himself unnecessarily. “Then I guess I’ll go.”
When still he lingered, Ashli had little choice but to finally abandon her task and look at him. His eyes, however, dropped the gaze she turned upon him. He seemed to be studying the floor between them, searching for a clue on what to say next. “Be careful,” he finally said, his voice oddly strained.
“I will.”
“Lock the door behind me.”
“Okay.”
He turned away at last, his hand on the door knob, but still he hesitated.
“Lange?” Her whispered soft voice reached across the silence of the room, causing his heart to jump.
“Yeah?” He dared not turn back, for fear of how beautiful she would look.
“Thank you for going with me this weekend. I appreciate all the work you did, picking berries and all.”
“It’s been a long time since I picked berries. I enjoyed it.”
“Well, I - I just wanted to thank you. Especially for not letting on to my family about why you were really there. Thank you for keeping my secret and playing along.”
He opened the door and spoke without turning around. “Problem is, I enjoyed that, too.”
The words, hastily spoken, seemed to choke from his throat. He rushed quickly out, without even saying goodbye.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After a restless night, Ashli’s day started out badly, and continued to get worse.
When she stepped out on the veranda to water her plants that morning, she found a single rhododendron bloom lying near the door. Resisting the urge to call Lange in a panic, she struggled to convince herself it was a hapless accident. Obviously, Mr. Parnell had been trimming the plants and somehow a bloom had inadvertently ended up on her patio. A high wind had blown it there, or someone - probably Jason Madison - had found it and tossed it up toward her window. There was no significance to the flower, she was sure. And she certainly wasn’t going to call Lange first thing this morning, not after all the things he had said.
Still, discovery of the flower worried her as she drove to work. What if it had some significant to her case? What if the stalker had put it there? Did it mean he had been to her apartment over the weekend? Should she call Lange, after all?
She had little time to ponder the questions once she arrived at the Tea Party. Two workers called in sick with stomach flu, and the internet was down, interrupting credit card sales and all on-line business. By the time the long day at the restaurant was finally over and she got to the studio where more troubles ensued, the flower was completely forgotten. Technical difficulties delayed filming and frazzled nerves made for terse, awkward scenes. It was well past ten o’clock when Ashli left the studio and almost eleven when she arrived home.
Looking forward to a long hot bath and a glass of wine, Ashli knew neither was going to happen anytime soon, the moment she opened the door to Daisy House and found Mr. Parnell in the lobby, looking particularly vulnerable. His gray hair was sticking up in all directions and he was pacing the floor with an uneven gate, mumbling to himself. Ashli had seen him like this on only two other occasions, but neither time was as drastic as this.
“Doris? Is that you?” the old man said when he saw her come through the door.
Ashli’s heart went out to him. He was confusing her with his late wife again. “No, Mr. Parnell, it’s me, Ashli.”
“Ashli?” He stared at her with an empty gaze.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Parnell? Can I help you to your apartment?”
“No. I need to water the daisies. I need to mix more fertilizer.”
The old man was clearly confused. Ashli sighed as she set her load down on the stair steps and went to aid her friend. “Why don’t you wait until in the morning to do that, Mr. Parnell?” she suggested gently, though her voice was loud so that he could hear. “It’s too dark outside to get much done tonight. I think you should wait till morning.”
“Dark?” He seemed truly surprised to hear that.
“Yes, sir. Why don’t I help you to your apartment? Have you had supper tonight, Mr. Parnell? I’d be happy to fix you a bite to eat.”
“No, no, Doris will have supper cooking. I saw she had a nice pot roast in the oven.”
“Mr. Parnell, maybe I should call your nurse.”
“Nurse? Why do I need a nurse?” He looked even more confused. When he frowned, wrinkles swallowed his forehead. “Am I sick?”
“You have a nurse to keep you well.” Ashli took his arm and tried to gently tug him toward his apartment door. “Let’s get you settled in, and I’ll call her.”
The old man allowed her to lead him for a few steps, still murmuring about his wife and the dinner she had cooking. Despite his advanced age, he was hardly frail. At over six feet tall, his shoulders were only slightly stooped and his arms were still muscled and strong. Ashli knew that if he balked, there was no way she could guide him into the apartment.
“My fertilizer....” he protested, coming to an abrupt halt.
“Yes sir, your fertilizer is stored away in the shed, safe and sound.” At least, she hoped it was. “You can put it out first thing tomorrow.”
“But I’ve got to mix it up first!”
“You can do that tomorrow, too. Remember, it’s too dark to see tonight.”
“Is it night already?” He looked toward the door in surprise, searching for daylight.
“Yes, sir, and time for bed. Let’s get you inside and all settled in.”
“No! No, you can’t come in!” he said with sudden vehemence. They had reached the door and he stopped in front of it to bar her way.
“Are you sure I can’t come inside and fix you a bite to eat?”
“No. Doris don’t allow no one inside her kitchen but herself.”
“Mr. Parnell, I really think I should call your nurse.”
“Why? Doris don’t allow her in there, neither. Both of you best stay out of Doris’s kitchen, if you know what’s good for you.”
Perplexed by his sudden defiance, Ashli wasn’t sure what to do. She hated to leave him alone when he was so clearly confused, but he was adamant about her not coming into the apartment. It had been a long day and she was in no mood to argue with him. Since she had the number for his home healthcare nurse programmed in her cell phone, she would simply call Veronica and let her handle him.
“Alright, Mr. Parnell. I won’t come in tonight, if you’ll promise me you’ll go on inside and get ready for bed. Can you do that for me?”
He smiled, suddenly looking like his old self. “You know, Miss Ashli, I think that’s a good idea. I am a might tuckered out. Goodnight, now, and you sleep well.”
“Goodnigh
t, Mr. Parnell.”
She waited until he entered the apartment and closed the door, then found her cell phone and scrolled down to Veronica’s name. She made the call to the nurse as she ascended the stairs, trying to keep her voice low so she would not disturb her neighbors. As she neared the top of the steps, she could see that Jasmine’s door was open.
“Thank you, Veronica,” she said into the phone. “I hated to disturb you this late, but he seems terribly confused. If I can help you at all, I’ll be up for a while yet. I’m going to stop in and speak to my neighbor, then I’ll be in my apartment if you need me.... Okay, be careful coming over. Thanks again. Bye.”
She ended the call and readjusted the load she carried, debating on going first to her apartment and unloading, or stopping to visit with Jasmine now. But even as she pondered what to do, a frown settled across her face. Something didn’t look right. The door was open, but the lights were off inside the apartment. Forgetting about the heavy bulk in her arms, Ashli crossed the hallway to approach the front unit.
It was then that she noticed Jasmine’s foot, lying in the doorway, a fashionable heeled sandal strapped on her ankle.
“Jasmine?” she called tentatively, her heart thudding. Gripping her purse and assorted paraphernalia closely to her chest, she ventured closer. She paused near the door, overcome by a fierce sense of foreboding. Chiding herself for being frightened when her friend might need help, Ashli pushed gently on the door.
She began screaming when she saw what lay - or, what didn’t lay - on the other side.
***
“Ms. Wilson, are you ready to speak with me now?” the young policeman asked inside Ashli’s apartment. His name tag identified him as Officer Sullivan.
“It’s Miss,” Lange corrected him tersely. He stood behind Ashli, one hand at the small of her back in moral support. He stood a modest distance away, but close enough so he could catch her if she fell, which was entirely possible given the way she was still trembling. Even a cup of coffee and a blanket around her shoulders did little to ease the violent chills still wracking her body.
He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not Page 11
