Possessed

by Stephanie Doyle

  Cass could have called him a chauvinist, but dropped it. She did, however, have to caution him. “The person at the train station might not be Lauren’s murderer.”

  “I think you’re wrong. Put it together. There’s a train ticket in Lauren’s apartment. You first see this monster the night the psychic is killed, and now again at the train station while a train from Baltimore is arriving. I don’t believe in coincidences like that.”

  “You also don’t believe in mediums,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah, well, I’m starting to be persuaded. Whoever I saw either killed Lauren or knows something about who killed Lauren. I would bet this house on it.”

  Cass had to agree that the connection between all three events couldn’t be ignored. “Did you see the person in the sweatshirt get off the train from Baltimore?”

  “No,” he admitted somewhat grudgingly. “There was a lot going on at that moment. The train from New York was arriving, another one to Washington was leaving, and the next thing I knew you were on the ground holding your ears. Why were you doing that?”

  “It was shouting.” It was the only way she knew to describe the terribly loud rumbling in her head.

  “What did it shout?”

  Cass shook her head, dislodging the ice pack from her nose again. She removed it as the cold on her face became more painful than the comfort of numbness. “I don’t know. I couldn’t make out the words. It was like noises strung together. It was saying something. I’m just not sure what.”

  “Is that how it is…you know, when…”

  She didn’t make him finish the sentence. “No. Not usually. Depending on the connection, the voices can be very clear. Considering this thing manages to get inside my head the way it does, I would have thought that anything it said would have been loud and clear. Then again it’s a beast. A monster with a speech impediment and no vocabulary.”

  Cass glanced up in time to see his disbelief. In a way, she couldn’t help but admire him for making the effort. What she spoke of was so much against the grain of reality he based his life on that each word must have hit his ears like a note out of tune. Still, he was trying to understand, and that was more than so many others in her life had done.

  Another long silence passed as he sat on the couch, his hip pressed against hers. When the cloth in her hand became too wet to manage without dripping all over herself, she placed it in the bowl on the floor.

  “I should go,” she said, although not really sure how she was going to make that happen.

  He looked down at her, his eyes studying her as if assessing each feature and its place on her face. Cass had a ridiculous impulse to ask for that mirror again just so she could see what he was seeing. Instead, she simply reached up to brush her cropped bangs over her forehead.

  Malcolm reached for her hand and rested it on her stomach. Then with a finger he traced the bridge of her nose to its point, then gently circled each eye. Finally he tapped her chin and smiled.

  “Definitely not broken. What size are you?”

  All thought fled from her mind, making it impossible to answer. She was still thinking about the feeling of his finger trailing down her nose.

  “Size?”

  “I know small, but how small? Four? Two?”

  “Two. Why?”

  He didn’t answer directly. “Lauren’s clothes are still up in her room. The stuff she didn’t take with her when she moved out. Mostly it’s older stuff, but I should be able to find a pair of sweats and a T-shirt or something for you to sleep in.”

  “I’m not staying.”

  “I don’t want to argue. Tomorrow I need to go to her funeral. Her funeral is tomorrow.” It was as if he forced himself to repeat the words.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Instinctively, she reached out to circle his wrist. A gesture of comfort she hadn’t utilized in so long. Struck by the furred hair on his forearm, its thickness and warmth, she jerked her hand back. Cass tried to make the action more subtle, but failed.

  “It’s all right. I know you don’t like to touch me.”

  “It’s not you. You know that. I just can’t stand the idea of being some kind of conduit.”

  “But you offered to let me touch you before,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “You offered to do something you’re obviously uncomfortable with. Why? Were you trying to test yourself? Or maybe you were testing me?”

  “I thought I owed you. I thought you would accept. People who have lost loved ones want them back. They want to connect and will take any opportunity they’ve got.” Certainly Dougie had.

  Malcolm nodded slowly as he came to a conclusion. “You wanted to see if I would take that opportunity. You wanted me to use you so you could prove I was like everybody else. My guess is you’ve been used before.”

  “It’s happened,” Cass said flatly.

  “Not by me.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Not ever,” he countered.

  “You sure about that? My best friend couldn’t stop himself. You asked about Dougie, if we had a lovers’ quarrel? A year ago we were both in really bad places. He’d lost his wife a few months before in a car accident. He stumbled upon me in a coffeeshop. He was a wreck. Claire, his wife, came through loud and clear. I thought I could help him. I thought I could give him some peace. We became friends. Then this one night, both of us were sick with grief and pain. We didn’t plan it.”

  “It happens,” Malcolm agreed.

  “Anyway, the weird connection thing happened then, too. I didn’t understand it, but he did. He felt her and he didn’t tell me. He knew she was there. Ever since then he’s been trying to talk me back into bed, and now I know why.”

  “You think it’s because he wants to…”

  “Be with her. Feel her through me. Yes, I do.”

  Malcolm nodded slowly. “You never considered he might want you.”

  “He used me,” Cass said bitterly.

  “Sounds like you used him, too. To take away the grief and the pain that you were feeling. How was that different?”

  Cass looked away from him then, trying to reject what was undeniably the truth. “It was different.”

  Malcolm chuckled softly and Cass practically groaned at how immature her response sounded.

  “Okay. But I’m not going to use you to feel Lauren. First, ew. She was my sister. Trust me when I tell you I never wanted to ‘feel’ her in life and I certainly wouldn’t want to in death. And second…”

  Cass looked at him, uncertain about what point he was trying to make.

  He ran a hand over the stubble that was starting to become noticeable on his chin. Then, as if coming to a decision, he leaned over her until he was so close she lost herself in the color of his dark blue eyes. His lips touched hers in the barest hint of a touch. Just so that she could register lips upon lips, a hint of breath and heat. Definitely heat.

  Sitting up, he gazed down at her, seeing what she knew must be a shocked expression.

  “Did you feel Lauren?”

  “No!” she burst.

  “Me, neither. So now you know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That it’s okay to touch. Because sometimes touching simply is what it is.” Abruptly, he stood. “I’m going to get you some clothes. You’ll sleep in the guest room. That way I’m close if anything happens.”

  “Nothing is going to happen. You think the person in the sweatshirt is just going to show up?”

  “No, but I was more concerned with your ribs. If they start to give you problems or you have trouble breathing, I’ll be close and can get you to a hospital faster than an ambulance can get here and back.”

  Once again, channeling her inner child, Cass huffed petulantly. “I don’t have to take orders from you.”

  “No, you don’t. But why don’t you do it just this once? You’re in pain. You don’t want to get back in my car, and I would feel better if you stayed here. If you listen to me, it will make both of
our lives a little easier. For tonight, anyway. I think we could use easy for a while. I know I could.”

  He was hard to argue with when he was right. “Fine,” she grumbled, rolling slowly to her side and off the couch until she was standing-hunched over, but still standing-on her own two feet. “But you’re not carrying me.”

  She caught a flash of a wide smile on his face, and then it was gone. “Okay. You win.”

  Cass walked one step, then two. She shuffled the third. Pressing a hand gently to her right side, she waited, but there was no sharp pain indicating a crack. It seemed that anything that hurt this badly had to be a break, but the reality was she would have been in much worse shape if the ribs were actually cracked. Still, the dull ache of bones and the muscle soreness made movement difficult.

  Another shuffle. Then another.

  In fact it made movement almost impossible.

  “How many stairs in this place?” she asked.

  “Let’s see. There’s three out of this room. About fourteen going upstairs.”

  Cass stopped. In seconds she felt an arm around her back and then another under her knees as he lifted her easily into his arms. “You’re a real hard-ass, you know that?” he told her.

  “I would have made it without the steps,” she grumbled.

  “Like I said, a real hard-ass.”

  He left Cass in the guest bedroom, which was about the size of her entire apartment. There was a canopy bed, a chair and matching ottoman, a dresser and a vanity with a framed mirror above it. So many things, but his house wasn’t any fuller than hers. Not really. In fact, hers had more. She had her animals.

  After a gentle tap, he walked into the room with a pair of mismatched pajamas in his hand and held them out to her. “It’s the best I could do. They’ll be big on you, but they should be comfortable.”

  She took the clothes and thought about what she would miss tonight. “My cats.”

  “Will they be okay overnight?”

  Would he take her home if she said no? Probably not, she decided. More likely he would go to her place, pick them up and bring them back here. “Yes. They have plenty of water and dry food.”

  “Good.” He extracted a bottle from his jeans pocket and set it on the vanity. “It’s aspirin. It will help a little but not much. There’s a glass next to the sink in the adjacent bathroom. Take two before you get into bed.”

  “And call you in the morning,” she finished, trying to lighten what seemed to be a room filled with soft talk and tension. It was his fault. He’d made it tense by kissing her.

  She felt him looking at her but wouldn’t meet his eyes. “You won’t have to. I’ll check in on you.”

  He had turned to leave when she suddenly asked, “Why did you do that? Downstairs. Why did you kiss me?”

  Slowly, he faced her. “I’m not really sure. To prove a point?”

  “You always prove your points by kissing?”

  “No, usually I prove them by being right. This time I was. The only thing you felt was me kissing you. Our lips touching. No ghosts between us.”

  “That’s not true,” Cass reminded him. “She’s there. Whether you admit it or not, you want to hear from her and you know I can help you do that.”

  He moved farther into the room, no more than a foot away from her, and his expression tightened. “You’ve got problems, Cass. You can’t seem to figure out who wants you for what. I guess I can see why, but we’re not all out to use you. Someday you’re going to have to learn to take people at face value. Until then, I feel sorry for you.”

  The words were like a blow to her midsection. “I don’t want your pity.”

  “Tough. You have it.”

  She smiled at him with little humor even as she felt the tingle rise up the back of her neck. This wasn’t a threatening one. This one was normal. The room took shape in her mind and for a moment she stiffened, uncertain of how contact was going to play out now that she knew her talent was shifting. Still, it was her time to prove a point, so she opened herself to it and the control felt good. Almost healing.

  “You were twelve. You climbed up into a tree in the backyard of your house. Lauren wanted to follow, but you told her she was too young, too small. But she was stubborn and she did it anyway. You tried to make your point then, too, and kept climbing higher to show her that she wasn’t up for the challenge and should turn back.”

  “Stop. Don’t do this.”

  “But Lauren kept going until she got so high that she got scared. You had to climb down underneath her to show her the way, to help her down from branch to branch. She says you were so mad at her. So mad that you slipped on the last branch and fell out of the tree. You broke your right arm. She says it was all her fault, for being stubborn, but you took the blame for getting you both into the tree.”

  The room quickly faded and Cass let out a slow breath.

  “That did happen,” he admitted.

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t ask you to tell me that story.”

  No, he didn’t. But eventually he would have. He wouldn’t have been able to stop himself. Just like Dougie. It’s better this way, she thought. Better to understand the score now than to believe for a second that he was acting in her interest alone.

  “You know what’s funny about that story,” he commented as he made his way out the door. “I was right that time, too. Maybe Lauren was trying to tell you something.”

  The door closed behind him with a soft snick, and Cass was left to think about that all night long.

  Chapter 13

  The next morning Cass awoke with a deep sense of comfort. The kind of comfort that dared you to move lest you break the fragile boundary between sleep and alertness. The bed underneath her was soft. The blanket that covered her provided both weight and warmth. The air was dry and toasty around her. Unlike the damp coolness she was used to waking up to in her basement apartment.

  Don’t move, she told herself, although she wasn’t sure why it was so important. Just enjoy it.

  A white fog drifted through her consciousness that she thought was part of the lazy comfort until through the fog she saw her grandfather’s face.

  Cassie, please talk to me. Cassie. I’m so sorry.

  Cass bolted up and quickly regretted the sudden movement. Pain lanced through her middle and her breath hitched as she tried to pant through the agony without taking the deep breaths that would only exacerbate the problem.

  Slowly she lowered herself back into the cushiony deep bed and remembered why moving was a bad thing.

  There was a soft knock at the door, but it opened before she could answer.

  “Are you okay?” Malcolm asked as he popped his head around the door. “I heard a noise.”

  “I’m fine. I just moved too suddenly.”

  “Why?” Pushing the door open fully, he didn’t seem at all hesitant about entering her room. Of course, it was his house, but as a man who had shown an abundance of manners over the past few days, the least he could have done was ask if it was all right to come in.

  “Why what?” she grumbled, using her hands to lift herself into a sitting position against the pillows. She was in an oversize T-shirt so she wasn’t exactly worried about appearances, but she also wasn’t wearing a bra. Glancing down to check to see if her nipples were hard would have been a little obvious, but if she had to guess, she would say they were. It seemed to happen frequently when he was around.

  And then he’d had to go and kiss her. That certainly hadn’t helped.

  “Why did you move so fast? Did something startle you?”

  Yes, but it wasn’t the monster, which was all he wanted to know. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Nothing more than a ghost from her past.

  He shifted his head to the side as if considering it but evidently decided to take her lead and drop it. She noted not for the first time how starkly handsome he was. His dark gray suit was cut to fit, and the fine material showcased his physique. A physique she’d
gotten an up close feel of when he’d held her against his chest. His face was defined by sharp angles around his cheeks and chin and nose. Had the angles been any sharper he might have looked like a smaller version of Frankenstein; instead, he was closer to Brad Pitt. Only with more intensity.

  Again, Cass was pretty sure she wouldn’t have even been cataloging his features if it hadn’t been for that kiss. It wasn’t difficult for her to admit that it had unnerved her. She couldn’t get away from it.

  It had felt good. Sweet, warm, and she’d wanted more. Everything a kiss was supposed to be. Everything she couldn’t have. Certainly not with him.

  Shaking herself out of her reverie, Cass stopped admiring him and thought about what he was doing in her bedroom already dressed. “You’re leaving for work, and you need to take me home. That’s fine. I just need a few minutes to…”

  “I’m not going to work,” he interrupted. “You forgot. No reason you should remember, but today is Lauren’s funeral.”

  He’d told her last night. It’s why he’d asked her to make things easy for him. Cass felt small to have forgotten it. She was so tied up in what was happening to her that she’d neglected to realize that he was still hurting. Still grieving.

  “I’ll call a cab and I’ll go.” Pushing the covers back from the bed, she rolled smoothly until her feet touched the floor. Her sides still ached, but it was easier to stand straight today.

  She watched his eyes fall to her bare feet, her painted toes barely visible below the overly long pajama bottoms. She wasn’t sure if they had captured his attention or if he was merely avoiding looking at her.

  “I want you to come.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Malcolm moved toward her and stopped. Deliberately, he put his hands on her arms and seemed to pause as if waiting for her to shrug him off. Since Cass felt no strange energy, she didn’t see the point.

  “I think it might be a good idea,” he began, his eyes pinned to hers, hoping, she guessed, that she would see his sincerity. “I saw what that…thing…did to you last night. I know what you suffered. And I wouldn’t want you to risk that again. Certainly not for me.”