by Beth Manz
"Jim..." Blair responded in return, his tone a perfect imitation of Jim's.
Jim licked his lips, his gaze shifting around his darkened room. Maybe Sandburg was right. Maybe if he just talked about it, he would be rid of this nightmare forever. After all, this wasn't the first time he'd dreamed this particular dream. It was just the first time Blair had caught him in the middle of it.
"Grant," he admitted at last. "The dream was about Marcus Grant."
"Grant?" Blair's eyes widened in surprise. "Jim, it's been almost two weeks since Grant died." He frowned and cocked his head to one side. "What's going on here? Why are you dreaming about Marcus Grant?"
Jim snorted and shrugged. "How would I know?"
"C'mon, Jim. You must have some idea. Dreams are our subconscious way of working out our day-to-day anxieties. Have you been worrying about Grant?"
"I didn't think I was. I don't know... maybe the fact that we never found the body..."
"That would make sense," Blair reasoned out loud. "Your subconscious could be manifesting a fear that he could still be out there." He pinned Jim with a serious look. "But I am telling you right now that you can stop worrying about that little scenario. Grant not only knew the entire history on that river but he proceeded to repeat it to me, point by point."
"I know, I know. There's never been a single body dumped there that was ever found again."
"Exactly."
"Yeah?" Jim eyed Sandburg skeptically. "Well, maybe it's that old line, 'There's always a first time,' that's making it hard for me to accept that Grant could actually be gone for good this time."
"Listen to me, man. He's not coming back."
"I hope you're right," Jim muttered. "I never want him to get near you again."
Blair reached out and patted at Jim's leg. "He won't. Even if he is alive--and he's not--no way you'd allow him to get anywhere near the loft, right?" Blair's tone was light and Jim knew his friend was trying to defuse the situation.
Jim looked across at him and met his partner's lopsided grin with one of his own. "Your Blessed Protector, huh?"
Blair laughed out loud. "You remember that?"
"Of course, I remember. I take that role very seriously." There was a hint of teasing in his voice, but he knew that Sandburg could easily pick up on the solemnity beneath the words.
"I know you do," Blair said, his amused grin fading into a warm smile. "And I appreciate it." He scrutinized his friend through narrowed eyes. "So, you going to be okay?"
Jim nodded, not willing to admit to Blair that he was still... unsettled. He swallowed deeply as a vision of Marcus Grant pushing Blair over a gaping hole in a warehouse floor superimposed itself over the vision of Blair reeling, unbalanced, too close to the edge of that bridge at Resurrection Cemetery...
"All right, then," Blair said, standing. He reached out and touched lightly at Jim's arm. "If you need me, man..."
"I know," Jim smiled up at him. "You're right downstairs."
Blair smiled in return, then turned and made his way to the steps leading down to the living area. Jim watched Sandburg until he disappeared from sight, then listened as he padded quietly across the expanse of the loft and into his room. Within moments there was the sound of papers rustling, a deep sigh, then the familiar scratch-scratch-scratch of Blair's pen as he recorded comments onto some student's term paper.
Exhausted, Jim slipped back beneath the covers and nestled his head against his pillow. He hadn't meant to lie to Blair. In reality, he hadn't lied, he supposed. When he had told Blair that everything was okay, he'd wanted to believe it--had hoped that just speaking the words would make them true. But now, as he lay in the darkness and stared out at the oddly contorted shadows in his room, he could no longer hide from the truth--everything was not all right. Jim squeezed his eyes closed, then opened them abruptly when he found muzzy visions of his nightmare still lingering there. He swallowed deeply, fisted his hands in frustration.
He knew what the nightmare was. It was a showcase of the fear that--if he were honest with himself--had been with him since the moment he saw Blair and Grant struggling on that bridge. It was a familiar fear he had carried with him for almost four years, but the scene that had played itself out on that bridge had been a defining moment of sorts. There was no ignoring the truth... I would have never made it to Blair in time...
He closed his eyes and swallowed against the almost overwhelming terror. He'd told Naomi that he would always do what he could to protect Blair. But as the words he had spoken to her came back to him again, he shuddered at what he had come to recognize as arrogant presumptuousness.
Extending his hearing, he focused in on the room beneath his, easily seeking and finding Blair's heartbeat, the one beacon that always served to steady him. The even, relaxed thrumming reached his ears; he held onto the sound, tried to use it to push away the dark realization that had come to haunt him. But the fear remained--not even Blair's anchoring presence was strong enough to push back the gnawing terror that one day Jim would be too late and that the consequences would be horrifyingly irreversible.
That thought swirled through his mind even as sleep reached out to claim him again...
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Jim peered over the precipice, down to where Blair's body lay crumpled in the warehouse debris three stories below. He extended his hearing, searching for that beloved heartbeat... but only silence met his ears. Only silence... until he heard a voice from behind him, low and menacing, with a touch of amusement underscoring the words: "So close, Detective. So very, very close..."
"Nooooo!" Jim screamed. "I'll kill you for this!" Turning, he focused in on the man behind him, the man who had pushed Blair to his death. Hands fisted in anger, he took a step toward the figure, then another.
Nonchalantly, as though he had no fear whatsoever of the detective or of his wrath, Dr. Marcus Grant stepped out of the shadows where he had hidden himself. Jim blinked stinging tears from his eyes and focused in on his prey--focused in on the man he was going to kill... but his heart stopped cold when he looked up into Dr. Grant's face--into the eyes of the man who had murdered the other half of his soul.
Because the sneering face before him didn't belong to Marcus Grant. It belonged to David Lash.
The End
