by Celia Ashley
“Which brings us to what happened in this house. Not upstairs, but the conversation between the two of you.” He waited. Outside, children laughed in the yard across the street. The sound seemed oddly muffled.
Finally, Jamie looked up from the study of his interlaced appendages. He turned to Maris. “You scare the hell out of me, lady, plain and simple.”
“I’ve spent my life doing that to people. I don’t mean to. I’m sorry.”
Dan stirred, squeezing her hand. “Don’t apologize.” Her lips twisted in something less than a smile.
Jamie cleared his throat. “I think the whole psychic thing is bullshit. No offense meant, but I do. But you were dead on with the needle in the neck remark. Dead on.”
Maris tugged her lower lip with her top teeth and released it. “I have to tell you…I heard that thought from you.”
“I know you did. If that was the news I’d come to share with Dan, yeah, I would have followed you up those stairs and hauled you back down and to the station. But it’s not. It was just a thought in my head, totally random because of what we were saying about Ted Bundy. I don’t even know where it came from. But you lied to cover up for what you had said, which troubles me. I pounced on Dan about it the second he walked in. Caught him off guard. I could see he wanted to lie, too, to protect you. Now why, I ask myself, would he want to do that?”
“Don’t blame him for anything—”
Dan shook her hand. “Let him talk.”
“I’m not blaming him. Not right now, anyway. However, there’s been some talk around the station about the crap at the scene yesterday when you were talking about the cards on the table. You were saying things as if it all meant something.” He made a gesture with his hands. “But when you spoke those words on these steps a few minutes ago, it was as if they’d come right out of my head and into your mouth.”
“That’s…that’s not how my aunt died?”
“No.”
Maris nodded. “Does that mean you no longer suspect me of killing her?”
He snorted. “Hell no. Despite having my sense of logic shaken, I do believe in evidence. And once—until—we have evidence pointing to you without any chance of having the case thrown out of court, I’ll keep looking in whatever direction I am taken. As Dan would, if he was still on the case and if he could manage to pull his head out of his ass.”
“I’m sitting right here,” Dan said. “And as you can see, my head is firmly perched on my shoulders.”
“So,” said Maris, “what about in the meantime?”
“In the meantime—” Jamie shot another look at Dan.
Dan narrowed his eyes at him. He’d told Jamie to mind his own business, but Dan had known Jamie would ignore that command.
“In the meantime,” Jamie went on, “I wish you’d stay the hell away from Dan.”
Leaning forward, Maris let go of Dan’s hand, her expression earnest. Dan placed his fingers on her back in defiance of whatever she or Jamie would say next.
“I know what I’m doing to him, Jamie. I worry about him. I see the effect I have on him. But he has one on me, too. Things are not simple. In fact, they’re complicated in the extreme. We are…bound together. I’m not quite sure why.”
“Bound together. Quaint name for fucking his brains ou—”
“Shut up, Rogers.” Dan stood. “Not another word.”
Jamie rose from the couch, facing him. “I’m sorry. I know I’m out of line. It’s just that I feel…”
“Frightened?” Maris supplied.
“Yeah, I suppose I am. And confused. And angry.”
“Understood,” Dan said. “I’ve been feeling that way for the past three years, I think. And as to the rest of what we discussed, you’ll keep me posted? I know you shouldn’t, but I appreciate being kept in the loop.” From the corner of his eye, he saw Maris’s eyes widen at him. “I can’t talk about it with you, Maris.”
She nodded and sat back.
“Actually,” Jamie said, “there’s more. Can we talk in private? Assuming, of course, that would keep things secret.”
Maris struggled out of the deep cushion of the chair. Dan grabbed her elbow and assisted. “I don’t ‘hear’ everything,” she said. “It doesn’t work that way. I would lose my mind if it did. Let me just get my boots on, and I’ll go for a walk. When I come back, though, you and I”—she directed to Dan—“need to discuss what I’m going to do. Staying here with you shouldn’t be an option. It weighs against your integrity as an officer of the law.”
He didn’t argue with her. He couldn’t, because she was right. But he wished with every speck of the man he used to be and wanted to be again that she wasn’t.
* * * *
The day was spot-on lovely, considering how chilly it had been of late. A bit of Indian Summer, as balmy as the temperature ever got this far north. She blamed the weather for the fact she kept on walking, but of course, the weather had nothing to do with it.
She took a right from Church onto Main, making a mental note of the street names. Twenty years was too long to remember every avenue, every lane, and she didn’t want to get lost going back. She had her phone tucked into her pocket, so the fact she could make a call for help was reassuring, but the potential humiliation of that call would be a deterrent and keep her wandering the streets in search of the right one.
Her mom was fond of calling her stubborn. Stubborn and ridiculous often walked hand in hand. So far, her phone conversations with her mother had been brief, of necessity. There wasn’t much Maris could tell her that wouldn’t be upsetting to her parent, so she stuck with her made-up story of a friend in need and hadn’t even mentioned where she’d gone. If her mother knew she was back in Alcina Cove, she’d have a cow. And, Maris mused, with good reason.
Maris walked into the drugstore and bought herself a bottled soda, in the mood for a beverage with a bit more zing than water. Back outside, she continued her stroll, twisting off the cap and drinking a few mouthfuls as she went. She returned to the sailors’ cross where she’d been the day before and spent a few minutes studying the etched names again. So many lives lost at sea. It didn’t seem possible anyone could view the vast amount of names and still opt for a life on the water. Except for the tales her father had told her, she knew very little of a fisherman’s existence. But at least those stories had been colored with enough descriptive detail to be like memories to her now.
Soda bottle in hand, Maris clambered once more out onto the rocks of the jetty. The spume of crashing waves made rainbows in the air. She sat on a flat slab of dark stone with her back to the sun, the bottle cradled in the sling of her skirt between her thighs. Far away, a freighter moved along the horizon, a black speck on the line of infinity. Nearer, a sport boat cruised past, rods secured and upright. Maris closed her eyes.
Dan Stauffer, who are you to me?
She had a suspicion that even if Jamie Rogers had been determined to arrest her, Dan wouldn’t have permitted it, effectively ending his career, maybe even resulting in him being jailed. She couldn’t let that happen. She would tell Jamie if it came to it, he was to let her know and she would meet him at the station. Dan couldn’t be allowed to receive that information. With Dan and Jamie’s friendship and the way Jamie felt about Dan and her, she was pretty sure he’d agree without hesitation. Such a conversation with the younger detective certainly might be construed as one of guilt, but so be it.
Maris opened her eyes to the sight of a man at the far end of the jetty. He raised an arm to cast a line out into the water. A familiarity in his stance, the man’s posture, his carriage, made her think of her father. A sad smile stole to her lips. Even after all these years, she missed him.
Dan liked to fish. Or at least he had enjoyed going out on the water with his socks-and-sandals-wearing father to do so. Such intimate knowledge of a stranger’s flashes of memory was improper, premature, and confusing. She had never in her life experienced the depth of conne
ction she did with Dan. She used to pretend she had it with the imaginary friend of her youth. She’d felt a part of something special. Perhaps that emotion explained her willingness to disregard her former caution. But though she had opened up to warmth and light, she had also exposed herself to the darkness embracing him. She feared that darkness because she feared losing him—a man of two days’ acquaintance.
Silhouetted against the sky, the fisherman at the end of the jetty turned and waved to her. Maris scrambled upright. She choked in a breath. “Daddy?”
No, not possible. This man was solid and real. Nevertheless, she made her way toward him, stumbling over crevices and protrusions of stone. A part of her brain dwelled on the terms of sanity, but the other portion had to know. When she reached him, his back was to her. She touched his arm. He glanced at her over his shoulder through eyes shielded by a pair of dark sunglasses. His facial features were those of a stranger, though.
Maris backed away with a hasty apology. “I thought you were someone else. Sorry.”
As she reached the street, she noticed a woman and young boy standing there. Probably that guy’s family, and the wave a signal to them that he would be done soon. She shouldn’t have come back to Alcina Cove, no matter how much the dream, Aunt Alva, had called out to her. Since her return, she’d displayed the behavior of a woman she didn’t recognize.
Maris marched back in the direction she’d come. She lifted her arm to search for the hotel business card in the zippered wallet hanging from a strap on her wrist. Finding it, she made a call to check for open rooms. Still booked. Crap. There had to be someplace else. As she hung up, the phone rang.
She answered without looking. “Hello?”
“What are you doing?”
“Who is this?” Maris pulled the phone from her ear, checking the number. Blocked, it read anonymous. For some reason, she looked back toward the man on the jetty. Although he was too far away to see clearly, she could tell he continued to fish, casting out his line with a sweep of his arm. He certainly wasn’t on the phone. And why would he be?
Maris, get a grip.
“Who is this?” she asked again.
“You’ve won a free trip to—”
Depressing the button on the phone’s face, she ended the call. “Jerk telemarketer.”
She needed a good night’s sleep and a place to lay her head. She didn’t have the number for the Timeless Inn, but she’d ask Dan for it and give them a call. Unfortunately, if she took a sleeping pill, waking up from a deep sleep in a strange place could be unnerving. She’d have to tough out that effect, though, because she hadn’t any choice.
In town, she walked until she saw the sign for Church Street again and made a left at the corner. Halfway down the block, she crossed to a perpendicular street on the other side. Head bent to her phone in order to find Dan’s number, she didn’t see the car until it was too late.
Chapter 15
“I don’t think I can recall hearing such a creatively verbalized string of invectives before.”
Maris heard the statement as she was being wheeled around the corner to the emergency room cubicle where she’d started out before being sent for x-rays. She didn’t recognize the voice, but she enjoyed the woman’s turn of phrase.
“Ah, here’s the queen of potty mouth now.”
“What? You meant me?”
The nurse nodded with a Cheshire cat grin. “I’m sure you don’t remember. You weren’t fully with us in this world.” Dan stood behind the ER nurse, his face ashen.
“How’d you get here?” Maris asked him.
“I drove.”
“I mean, how did you find out?” Maris winced as the portable bed bumped the wall, jostling her. “Who called you? Oh, wait, you heard on the police scanner?”
Dan said nothing, waiting until the nurse had finished hooking all the wires back up to the nearby machines. Maris tipped her head to look at the nurse beyond the fall of the woman’s curly hair.
“Can I leave soon?”
The nurse laughed. “No.”
As soon as she’d gone, Dan yanked a chair up to the side of the bed. He grabbed her hand. “I didn’t hear on the police scanner. I heard the whole thing live. Seems you were in the process of calling me when you got hit. The bastard didn’t stop. Hit and run. Witnesses are being questioned.”
Maris studied the moisture glistening in his eyes. Not crocodile tears. The real thing. For her. Her throat closed. She cleared it with a small cough. “Are you all right?”
“Me?” he yelled, then lowered his voice. “You’re asking how I’m doing? Don’t. Don’t even worry about me.”
“That had to be terrible, hearing something like that…”
“Oh, for the love of God. Not as terrible as following the sound of sirens until I found you. I didn’t stop to call the station. I had Jamie do that. I just held the phone to my ear, listening to make sure…to make sure—”
“I was alive?”
“Yes.”
Several tears skimmed down Maris’s cheeks as she considered how that must have been for him. She looked down at her body loosely wrapped in a hospital gown, name tag on her wrist, pressure cuff on one arm, intravenous tube in the other. A warmed blanket had been flipped over her by the nurse before she departed. Maris would really like one of those cabinets for home. Nothing like a heated blanket.
“Dan…” She felt slightly disassociated from her surroundings and wondered if the hospital personnel had given her something for pain.
“Yes?”
“You really do care, don’t you?”
“Fuck. Of course I do.”
She pulled her hand free of his grasp and cupped the side of his jaw. He kissed her palm. His skin felt damp.
“You’ve been crying, haven’t you?”
“Maris, would you just shut up?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t mean that.”
“Yes, you do. I’m an idiot and you’re…you’re a nice man.”
He made a face and rolled his shoulders. “I’ve been called worse.”
“I wasn’t even looking…I just stepped out in the street. How bad is the damage? Did somebody tell you, at least? Because they’ve said nothing to me. Not that I remember, anyway.”
Dan removed her hand from his face and held it clasped between both of his. “Somehow I always end up in this hospital.”
“What?”
“Never mind. No one said anything about broken bones after the x-rays?”
Maris shook her head.
“It takes a while, I suppose. You are splinted up on your leg, but that might be precaution. Does it hurt?”
“At this point, everything hurts.”
“Anyway, I think they wouldn’t be quite so blasé if there was a possibility of internal bleeding. I did hear a doctor in the hall mention concussion, though. If that’s all you’ve come out of this with, you’re damned lucky.” He turned her hand in his, pressing his thumb into her palm. “One of the witnesses said the driver pulled out of a parking space without noticing you were there. Luckily the car hadn’t picked up speed yet. Whoever was behind the wheel stopped momentarily and then sped off.”
“Anybody get a tag?”
Dan shook his head. “No. But we’ve got a pretty good description of the vehicle.”
“We? I thought you were…I don’t know. Not suspended, but…” Her head hurt, making thinking difficult.
“I was only taken off your aunt’s case and told to take a couple of days’ vacation. I’m not suspended. I’ve still got a job. It’s still ‘we’ unless they actually fire me.”
Dan put his head down on the back of her hand. He appeared inclined to stop speaking for a while so Maris let him because an urge to seek stillness had come over her, too. She would have closed her eyes, but if she did have a concussion, she thought she might not be allowed to sleep. Having never had a head injury, she wasn’t sure, so she stared at a br
ight orange sign on the wall regarding biohazard and listened to the silence creeping in. Sound fell away, first voices, then machinery, down to the ticking clock on the wall, a noise she hadn’t previously noticed. A sudden fear possessed her that despite Dan’s non-medical assurances to the contrary, death had come to claim her.
A mist materialized in the corner of the room, taking undefined shape as it struggled to manifest. Maris tried to jiggle her hand, to shake Dan to attention, but found she couldn’t move.
Don’t give in.
“What?” Had she said that word aloud? Her lips felt stiff and lifeless.
Hold on, child.
“Aunt Alva?”
The machine to her right burst through the bubble of silence with an ear-piercing clamor.
* * * *
Dan pulled into the hospital parking lot and found a spot a good distance from the main entrance. Naturally everyone wanted the closest spaces in the pouring rain. He hadn’t brought an umbrella. Who was he kidding? He never carried an umbrella. Anywhere. Not the manly thing to do. Getting out of the car, he turned his collar up against the onslaught and ran across the puddled blacktop. The automatic doors opened for him, but not quickly enough. He hit the right one with his elbow and swore. Mouthing an apology at an old lady waiting in a chair at outpatient admissions, he headed for the elevator.
The nurses on the second floor knew him by sight at this point, and he nodded greetings as he passed. At the last room on the left, he paused. He heard voices inside. No, not voices, plural. Only one. Maris was on the phone.
Unabashedly, he listened for a few seconds before entering. Maris’s mom had to be on the other end. Maris didn’t talk to anyone else in that manner, with a note of impatience mixed with devotion. Maris had told her mother a couple of days ago about Alva’s passing, believing her mother wouldn’t really care. But she had.
