She thought of Ty, whose murderer was now where he belonged, six feet under the ground. As was the murderer’s cousin, who’d destroyed lives out of greed yet tried to do the right thing in the end.
She thought of John Zachary, who was finally at peace.
She thought of poor little Tucker Smith, whose parents had come to town as soon as they’d gotten word their boy was alive. He’d probably need years of therapy, but maybe, just maybe someday he’d be all right. He certainly seemed to have the love of good people—a family that sick monster had told him was dead.
She thought of Brooke, who’d broken her engagement this morning, and cried at the funeral this afternoon, mourning something she’d caught just a glimpse of that was now forever beyond her reach.
She thought of her parents, who’d listened to every word she’d said, realized how badly they’d been manipulated, and had then clasped hands, saying nothing but still somehow communicating more than they had in at least a decade. She knew they both blamed themselves—her mom for bringing Sunni into their lives, her dad for keeping her there. They might never be together again, but for now, they were united in sheer regret.
Then she did something she rarely did: Olivia thought of herself.
She considered her future, what she wanted, what she longed for, how she intended to fill her thoughts and her days.
And none of those things included death, hers or anybody else’s.
She wanted life. She wanted it desperately. Wanted to be filled with laughter every minute of the day rather than sorrow. Wanted to go to sleep and dream happy dreams about the people she loved, not strangers living their agonizing final moments. She wanted to feel alive, rather than like she had one foot in the grave at any given moment. Wanted that light, giddy feeling of being young and free and in love . . . the one she felt when she was with Gabe.
Gabe. He was the one she wanted all those things with. The man who was, at this very minute, walking up the sidewalk, having stayed behind in the car to finish a phone call while she came to the porch and dropped onto the swing.
Gabe said nothing. He simply sat down beside her and draped an arm across her shoulders, letting his fingertips brush her arm. She pushed her toes against the floor again, setting them swinging, and they swayed together, the silence broken by the creak of the old hooks anchored into the ceiling.
“Are you all right?” she asked him, knowing today had been beyond awful. Burying a fellow officer was hard for any cop. Burying a friend and a partner was something few ever had to experience. She wished to God he hadn’t been one of them.
“I’m okay. Ty’s parents called to say they were getting ready to head to the airport.”
“I’m glad I got the chance to meet them.”
He continued to caress her arm, sighing deeply, so much more on his mind.
She knew one thing that wasn’t worrying him—his job. She guessed that having a U.S. senator call your boss, the mayor, the chief, the media and everyone else to thank a young police officer for saving his cousin’s life and bringing a cop killer to justice was enough to keep anybody employed. Gabe would probably end up getting a commendation.
Ty already had. Posthumously.
“What are you thinking?” she finally asked.
“I’m thinking about you. About us,” he admitted.
She shifted so she could look up at him. “Funny, I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Liv . . .”
She lifted a hand, putting her fingers over his lips. “Please, let me say something.”
He nodded.
Swallowing hard, she admitted, “I gave Julia my letter of resignation.”
His eyes widened in shock. “You did?”
“Not because you wanted me to,” she was quick to point out, “even though I know you did.”
“I didn’t necessarily want you to quit your job. Hell, I’m no caveman.”
“I know. You just wanted me to stop doing the most important part of it.”
He didn’t deny it.
“And that’s what I decided to do.” She shrugged helplessly, having to admit the truth, even to herself. “You were right. It was breaking me. I kept telling myself I was helping, doing what needed to be done. That the ends did justify the means. But they don’t. Not if what I’m doing ends up destroying me, which it would.”
She could never have a normal life unless she stopped. Her sanity would slip away, along with her security and her peace of mind. It might not happen right away, but it would happen. In the meantime, being so sure of that bleak inevitability, she would never allow herself to have a normal life. She’d never trust herself to give her heart completely or to accept his.
And she would never—ever—inflict her inner darkness on a child.
Olivia wanted children—she always had. She just hadn’t allowed herself to think about the choices she faced, the decisions she would have to make, before she could even dream of having them.
“I’m finally ready to put down all this baggage I’ve been carrying around,” she told him, knowing no other way to put it. “It’s too much to haul. From now on, I’m only going to lift what I’ve bought and paid for myself.”
He understood and smiled at her, bending to kiss her temple. “You’re sure?”
“I’m absolutely certain,” she said, meaning it. “Whether you and I have a future together or not—and please don’t be terrified by me saying this, but I hope we do—I’ve realized I want one for myself. Even if I spend my days alone, I need to spend them in my own head, with my own problems, my own fears, my own dreams. Good and bad.”
He moved his mouth down to her cheek, kissing her again. Then farther, to her mouth. Right before he brushed his lips against hers, he murmured, “We have a future, Liv.”
A bright one, she hoped.
A bright, beautiful shiny one filled with love.
And life. So much life.
Epilogue
Three months later
Arriving home after the first day at her new job, Olivia walked into the kitchen to start dinner, already anticipating making a nice roast, perfect for a fall evening. Okay, so it was Georgia, and it was still seventy-five degrees outside, but she’d take what she could get when it came to autumn, her favorite season.
She was tired, and her feet hurt—who knew showing people works of art in a gallery would involve standing every single minute of the day?—but that was okay. Maybe it wasn’t as challenging or exciting as the job she’d given up, maybe she wasn’t making a huge difference in the lives of other people, and maybe she kind of hated modern art, but a job was a job.
The difference in her private life made it completely worthwhile.
She couldn’t remember a time when she’d been happier. Gabe had moved in with her a month ago, finally acknowledging that living in a house that she owned didn’t mean he was sponging off her. Considering she’d been unemployed and he’d been footing the bills, the opposite had been true.
It had been wonderful. She slept beside him every night, drank coffee with him in the morning, made crazywild love so often she was never entirely sure when the next orgasm was going to strike.
She was madly in love with him, and he felt the same way toward her. And life, oh, life was so very good.
There had been dark days, certainly, and sometimes when she looked at him, she knew he was thinking of his lost friend. His new partner seemed like a good guy, but she knew Gabe wouldn’t let his guard down, wouldn’t let him get too close. It had hurt too damn much the last time.
She sighed. “He misses you, Ty.”
“Hey, you can’t miss what won’t leave.”
Olivia dropped the roast she’d just pulled out of the refrigerator. It landed on the floor with a wet splat, but she didn’t even notice as she spun around, her heart beating crazily as she realized someone was in her house.
Then she saw who it was. “Would you stop doing that?” she said, letting out a shaky laugh. “Damn it, Ty. I
thought we agreed you wouldn’t just pop up like Casper and say stuff to scare me.”
Tyler Wallace, who’d appeared to her for the first time two weeks ago, when he had simply showed up in her car as she’d been driving to a job interview, gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry, I haven’t got the hang of this myself yet.” He looked at the floor. “You gonna pick that up before the cat eats himself into a case of food poisoning?”
Dex, as if hearing himself being talked about, hissed toward the empty corner where Ty stood. She sometimes wondered if Dex could see Ty, too. If so, they were the only two creatures on the face of the earth who could. Bending down, she scratched the cat’s head, then picked up the unfortunate hunk of lumpy raw meat.
Glancing at the clock, she said, “Gabe’s going to be home soon.”
Ty smiled, looking a little winsome, sad that he could see his friend, reach out and touch him, but that Gabe never knew he was there.
Well, he knew, he just couldn’t see or hear him. Not keeping secrets had been one of the first promises they’d made to each other. So she’d told Gabe that very first night after Ty had come back into her life.
At first a little freaked out about it, he’d come to accept it, knowing that Ty’s decision to stay here hadn’t had anything to do with revenge or anger about his murder and that he wasn’t trying to draw Olivia back into a world of pain, vengeance and brutal, ugly death.
Ty had just been lonely. He’d told her that the only member of his family who’d died before him was his grandfather, who had been a cranky, boring miser when he was alive and was equally as cranky, boring and miserly now that he was dead. “Granny was right,” he’d said. “That man makes Scrooge McDuck look like the patron saint of charity.”
He wasn’t here all the time, but Ty came often enough to keep her on her toes.
Huh. To think three months ago she’d lived here alone, spent her days and nights by herself, with only her cat to talk to. Now she had two men around: one, her love and future husband and, hopefully, someday the father of her children; the other, his dead best friend.
It was weird, but somehow they were making it work.
“So how was your first day on the job?”
Olivia rolled her eyes.
“You know, Liv,” Ty said, moving past her to sniff the wine she’d just poured, “you do have another option.”
“I don’t do that anymore. Remember?” And she couldn’t be happier about it.
“I mean, if one ghost was enough to get Julia Harrington started in the psychic detective business, wouldn’t two make it even better?”
She gaped. “Two? Meaning you? You want to go work for Julia?”
He shook his head. “Nah, she can’t see me. You’re the only one who can.” He wagged his eyebrows up and down, looking so cute and flirtatious, like he always had when he was alive.
“Come on, you know you want to.”
Go back to work for eXtreme Investigations? Yes, some days she did want to. She missed her friends, missed working with them to solve a cold case that had baffled people for years.
She didn’t miss what had once been the hardest part of her job, but she definitely missed the rest.
Could it work? Could she really go to Julia and say, “Me and my ghost want to come hang out with you guys?”
“It’s crazy.”
“Aww, don’t even start arguing with me about this,” he told her. “I’ve been told I’m so stubborn, I could argue with a wall . . . and win.”
She had to hand it to him. Ty had gotten better at the Southern speak since he’d died. She wondered if there were a lot of dead Georgians hanging around on whom he’d been practicing.
“Let’s do it, whaddya say? It’ll be fun.”
Her pulse picked up a little, excitement making her thoughts churn.
Maybe it really was possible to have the best of both worlds: some semblance of her old job and her new life free from the personal darkness she’d had to endure to do that job.
“What would Gabe think?” she said.
“What would Gabe think about what?”
This time she dropped the head of lettuce she’d been about to wash for salad, not even having realized that Gabe had come home much less that he’d walked into the kitchen. “Damn it, I’m going to make the two of you start wearing bells on your collars.”
“Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings,” Ty said, solemnly. Then he snorted. “Just kiddin’. What the heck would I know about angels?”
She rolled her eyes. “Your friend is a dork,” she told Gabe.
Smiling faintly, Gabe murmured, “Hi, partner.”
Ty lifted a hand, reached out and placed it on Gabe’s shoulder, whispering, “It’s good to see you.”
Gabe stayed very still, his head cocked, as if he’d caught a faint whisper on the air, though she knew he would say he’d imagined it.
But who knew? Who could possibly say what strange things could happen at any time. Maybe Ty would appear to Gabe someday, or maybe he’d decide to head to that station she’d heard about, hop on a train and see what came next.
No one really knew, did they?
“So, what would I think about what?” Gabe asked as he came around the island to kiss her lightly on the lips.
She turned into his arms, cupping his face in her hands, looking up at him with every ounce of emotion she felt for this sexy, warm, tender, amazing man. The well of it ran deep, overflowing, filling her completely. And it was the same for him, she knew beyond any doubt.
One more thing she knew: Gabe was going to hate the idea of her going back to work for Julia Harrington. At least at first.
But he’d come around.
She was never going back to that awful, dark place where she’d lived for twelve years. Would never use her deadly ability again. Would never break her promise to him that she was finished with that part of her life.
Once she reminded him of that, she’d make him realize that he and their life together meant more to her than anything, and she wouldn’t risk it if he truly didn’t want her to.
Then she’d remind him that both his girlfriend and his late partner were ganging up against him.
Oh, yeah. He’d definitely come around.
Did you miss the first book in the thrilling Extrasensory Agents series?
Read on for an excerpt from
COLD SIGHT
by Leslie Parrish
Available now from Signet Eclipse.
Thursday, 5:45 a.m.
Until last night, nobody had ever read Vonnie Jackson a bedtime story.
Though she’d lived for seventeen years, she couldn’t remember a single fairy tale, one whispered nightienight or a soft kiss on the cheek before being tucked in. Her mother had always been well into her first bottle, her second joint, or her third john of the evening long before Vonnie fell asleep. Bedtime usually meant hiding under the bed or burrowing beneath a pile of dirty clothes in the closet, praying Mama didn’t pass out, leaving one of her customers to go prowling around in their tiny apartment.
They definitely hadn’t wanted to read to her. Nobody had.
So to finally hear innocent childhood tales from a psychotic monster who intended to kill her was almost as unfair as her ending up in this nightmare to begin with.
“Are you listening to me?” His pitch rose, her captor’s voice growing almost mischievous as he added, “Did you fall asleep, little Yvonne?” But that mischief was laced with so much evil that it almost seemed to be a living, breathing thing, as real as the stained, scratchy mattress on which she lay or the metal chains holding her down upon it.
Most times, such as now, the man who’d kidnapped her spoke in a thick, falsetto whisper, his tone happily wicked, like a jolly elf who’d taken up slaughter for the sheer pleasure of it. Every once in a while, though, he got angry and dropped the act. Once or twice, when he’d said a word or two in his normal thick, deep voice, she’d felt a hint of familiarity flit across her mind, as if
she’d heard him before, recently. She could never focus on it, though; never place the memory.
Maybe she was crazy. Maybe she just recognized the twisted, full-of-rage quality that made men such as him tick. She’d seen that kind all her life. She’d just never landed in the hands of a homicidal one. Until now.
“Sweet little girl. So weary, aren’t you? I suppose you fell asleep, hmm?”
She shook her head. Even that slight movement sent knives of pain stabbing through her skull and into her brain. Whether that was from the drugs he’d been shoving down her throat or from the punches to the face, she couldn’t say. Probably both. The pills he’d given her hadn’t made the pain go away. Instead they’d intensified it, brought her senses higher until every word was a thundering cry, every hint of light in her eyes as blinding as the sun. And every cruel touch agonizing.
The first beating had hurt. The subsequent ones had nearly sent her out of her mind. Only the solid, steel core of determination deep inside her—which had kept her going despite so many obstacles throughout her life—had kept her from giving in to the urge to beg him to just kill her and put her out of her misery.
“You must want to go to sleep, though.”
“No,” she whispered. “Go on. Don’t stop. I like it.”
Oh, no, she didn’t want to fall asleep, as welcome as it might have been. Because it was while she slept, helpless against sheer exhaustion, lulled by his singsong bedtime stories or unable to fight the effects of the drugs, that he came in and did things to her. She’d awakened once to find him taking pictures of her, naked and posed on the cot. Though his face had been masked—one of those creepy, maniacally smiling “king” masks from the fast-food commercials—he’d rechained her and scurried out as soon as he realized she was fully conscious. As if he didn’t have the balls to risk letting her get a good look at him.
Cold Touch Page 32
