Comes the Dark

by Celia Ashley

  “Yes, the body’s been released. I thought I told you that yesterday. There was no one but me to make the decisions, Mom. Give it a little time, and I’ll arrange a service. I…I can’t right now. There are complications.”

  Yes, like Alva’s murder, the fact Maris had been in the hospital after being struck by a car, and the dead-end of a lead in Alva’s case that had pointed to one of the neighbors with a criminal record, leaving only Maris once again. Nothing had yet come of the vehicle that had run Maris down. And Maris didn’t mention any of this to her mother.

  As soon as she was up to it, Maris had placed a small obituary for Alva. Dan had encouraged her, hoping the announcement might bring a call from an attorney somewhere who’d prepared Alva’s Will. A double-edged sword if it proved Maris benefited in any way. Dan hoped it would reveal another beneficiary. Someone hard and cold and not at all like Maris.

  Dan moved to stand on the threshold. Maris, dressed and ready to go, waved him inside from her perch on the edge of the hospital bed.

  “Mom, I’ve got to run. I’ll call soon. Yes, I promise. Work is okay with my being out. Nothing I can do about it, right? Yeah. Okay. Love you.”

  Dan eyed the white gauze wrapped around her head and the fuzz of shaved hair showing on the right side. “I thought that was coming off?”

  “It is. Do you have time to wait a few minutes? Someone’s coming to remove this and give me my release instructions.”

  He walked up to her and pulled a box from his pocket. “I’ve been holding onto this for you. I found it on the ground the day of your accident.” He pulled off the lid.

  She threw her hands over her mouth and gasped in the hollow they made. Then she reached out and snatched her feather earring from the cotton inside. “Oh, Dan, thank you, thank you so, so much. Can you help me put it in?”

  He did, fingers lingering against the side of her throat. Her pulse beat steady and strong. When he ran a fingertip over the line of tendon, her skin warmed, but she eased his hand away and made another adjustment to the position of the earring.

  She dropped her hands into her lap. “I called that hotel outside of town. Now the damned convention is over, they had plenty of empty rooms, so I—”

  “I told you I would take you home with me.”

  Maris avoided his eye, stroking the feather. “Things haven’t changed. With us, perhaps, they have. But not out there in the world where you perform a lawman’s job.”

  Dan threw himself down in the nearest chair, continuing to clutch the empty box in his hand. So much for romantic gestures. Not that he expected her to fall into bed with him again. Not yet. She had some healing to do still.

  “You make me sound like a freaking sheriff out of the Old West, Maris. You need someone to look after you. You’re not allowed to drive yet, you can’t return to work, and it is the preference of the Alcina Cove PD that, if you don’t have to leave the area, you don’t. If you’re going to be that goddamned stubborn, you can have the guestroom.”

  “And if you’re going to be that goddamned stubborn, I’ll take it.” Maris caressed the feather one more time, lifting her gaze to the doorway.

  Two people entered, a floor nurse and the other presumably Maris’s doctor. Dan stood. “I’ll step out.” Before anyone could protest, he darted into the corridor. He strode to the window overlooking the hospital grounds and shoved his hands into his pockets. Rainwater dripped off his hair and down his back beneath his jacket. He shivered. Outside, the day was gray, wet, and miserable. Plumes of water arced behind the tires of a vehicle departing the lot. As he would be required to pull the car to the entrance for pickup, he had no worries about Maris getting wet, though.

  His gaze shifted to the wide, brightly lit corridor reflected behind him, U-shaped stations running down the center all the way to the far end. Hospital personnel and visitors moved in and out of rooms with a drone of quiet conversation. From Maris’s door, the doctor raised a hand to get his attention. Dan started to make his way back, halting at the sight of a figure standing beneath the exit sign halfway down the lengthy hall. Dan narrowed his eyes, bringing the man into sharper focus. Dan had seen him somewhere before. Of course, he came into contact with hundreds of people every year. The guy carried a bouquet of flowers wrapped in cellophane. After reading the sign directing visitors to certain room numbers, he started making his way in Dan’s direction, pausing outside each door to check the numbered plaque.

  Dan turned away. Where he’d seen the guy would come to him, probably in the middle of the night. Right now he didn’t want to get into any conversations. After nearly a week in the hospital, Maris was ready to leave. The first two or three days he’d been mired in worry and senseless guilt, but after that…

  After that, he’d been filled with a sense of liberation like the shift of the atmosphere after a long, hot summer. He felt lighter, somehow. Physically lighter. Made no sense, but he found himself sloughing off long-term anxiety like dead skin.

  Entering the hospital room, he studied the un-bandaged right side of Maris’s head. A growth resembling a week’s worth of soft beard shadowed her scalp around the edges of an oversized band-aid. Beneath it, so he had been told, the scar of a very precise incision would one day shine like a thin silver line. Right now, he suspected it resembled nothing quite so picturesque. A hand span below the new bandage, the plume of Maris’s feather swung in a draft of air.

  “Your girl’s ready to go, Detective.”

  Maris’s gaze jerked toward the doctor at his words. Her shoulders shifted in a dismissive shrug. She rose from the bed, gathering her plastic hospital bag from the mattress. The cream-colored teddy bear Felicia Woodward had given her peered out the top.

  “I’ll go bring the car up. See you in a few minutes, Maris.”

  “I—can’t I walk with you?”

  “No,” said the doctor. “Definitely not. Hospital policy. Sit tight and wait for the wheelchair.”

  Dan left the room, walking quickly in case Maris took it into her head to disobey the doctor’s orders. Glancing aside into one of the rooms, he spotted the fellow with the flowers. The man turned and looked at him with no sign of recognition at all. Dan continued down the hall, figuring he had to be wrong. Still, something seemed familiar. Had he become like Maris, seeking relevance in everything? Oddly, though, she’d said very little along those lines this past week. She had been quite pensive instead. He supposed he would be, too, after a brush with death. But the head injury…could it have altered her perception of things? Life would be a hell of a lot easier if she were normal. That was unfair, though, to judge her on the basis of his own existence. Did he expect her to live without her gift because he’d be more comfortable? Besides, she wouldn’t be Maris then, would she?

  That gave him pause. What if Maris was different now?

  Five minutes later, Dan pulled his car into a space in front of the older entrance, the one where aids brought patients to be released to whoever would be driving them home. The rain had gotten chilly, so he kept the car running, heater on high. After a moment, he snatched a towel from the back seat to dry his hair, glancing in the mirror every few seconds for Maris’s arrival. When she finally wheeled up with an aid at her back, she looked pale and shaken. The aid pulled the chair off the curb and closer to the car. Dan hopped out.

  “Are you all right? Not dizzy or anything?”

  Maris handed him her belongings and pushed up out of the chair. “I’m fine.”

  As he helped Maris into the front passenger seat, Dan glanced back at the aid holding the chair handles.

  “A man got in the elevator with us,” the woman said. “Made small talk, mostly about the weather. And then he asked your wife—”

  “Not his wife,” Maris said, buckling her seat belt.

  “He asked her if he knew her. She said no, but he persisted. That was a little annoying, yes, but something about the exchange”—the aid tipped her head in Maris’s direction—“u
pset her.”

  “I’m fine,” Maris repeated.

  Dan thanked the woman and helped her lift the empty wheelchair up onto the sidewalk. After, he got in the car and swiveled to face Maris. “Warm enough?”

  “Getting there.”

  “Is there a possibility this guy recognized you from before?”

  “I was twelve when I left, Dan. I had buck teeth and braids and was a good five inches shorter than I am now. I was a late bloomer, one of those girls who doesn’t reach full height until her mid-teens.”

  “What about him upset you, then?” Dan put the car in gear and rolled away from the curb.

  “I…I sensed something about him. Something not good.”

  Ah. Maris had returned. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Apprehension. Regret, possibly. Anger. A lot of mixed-up crap going on in that guy’s head. With the exception of you, I don’t usually get that clear a message. And those freaking flowers in his hand. He kept waving them around like he was trying to punctuate his words in the air. He threw them away when he got off the elevator a floor before we did.”

  Dan inhaled, willing himself calm. “Flowers? What kind of flowers?”

  “A variety of daisies, shastas and gerbers, and something purple in there, too, all wrapped up in cellophane with a green ribbon. Does it matter?”

  Yes, he thought. It very well might if it was the same guy he’d noticed. “Think hard. Are you sure you haven’t seen him somewhere?”

  She shook her head.

  “Perhaps behind the wheel of the car that hit you?”

  “What?”

  Dan tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “The accident was in the paper, including your name. Anyone would have figured you’d been brought to this hospital. He might have been driven by guilt to seek you out. That would explain him asking if you knew him, if you recognized him. I should have paid closer attention.”

  “To what?”

  “To that guy. I’m pretty sure I saw him on your floor. He’d gone into a room a few doors down from yours, but now that I think about it, the bed in that room was empty. I think the patient might have been out walking, and he ducked in there when he saw you weren’t alone.”

  Maris’s fingers tightened on the side of her seat. “You don’t think those flowers were for me, do you? That’s creepy as hell.”

  “I don’t know. He could be feeling really bad about what happened. That doesn’t mean he isn’t going to be charged, though. The sketch artist we sometimes work with is a friend of mine. I’d like to ask her to come in while the guy’s face is still fresh in my head. But I’ll see you settled in first.”

  “What would be the purpose of having a sketch? You don’t know it was the driver. I really don’t recall much of that day.”

  “I don’t need to. We can put the likeness in the paper as a person of interest. We don’t need to specify suspect. He could be a witness for all anyone might know. But the sketch could turn up a name.”

  “Okay.” Maris hadn’t quite settled down.

  Dan wondered what she might be hiding from him. He didn’t need to be protected. He needed to be informed. “Maris, remember what you said about the two of us lying to protect others and for self-preservation? Do you remember that?”

  She nodded again.

  “We’ve been through a lot together this past week. Prematurely, yes, but true. I think we need to start being honest, all the time, no matter what.”

  Her head bobbed one more time, a small movement hardly noticeable in the gloom of rain. “Okay.”

  “Okay” was not an agreement. It was not even an answer. Well, it was a Maris-type answer, open-ended and vague. In her head, she probably understood what she meant, but there was no point in seeking clarification. Not right now. When he needed a more definitive answer, he would bring it up again.

  As he’d been doing every day, Dan drove down the street where Maris had been hit. Did he hope to find a blue Chevy with front-end damage and a shattered windshield parked as bold as brass at the curb? Stupid, this daily ritual, and obsessive. He thought about the guy in the hospital, a man familiar to him and not to Maris, but as the hit-and-run had taken place fairly close to Dan’s house, it might be a friend of a neighbor he had seen on occasion. The picture in the paper ought to help. He kept an eye on Maris as he drove along the road in case she got upset, but she didn’t appear to recognize the location when they passed it, staring out the window with a tired, disinterested expression. When he got her back to his place, he’d make sure she was tucked in and comfortable before heading to the station.

  No one but Jamie knew she’d be staying with him, and that was the way he planned on keeping it. Jamie thought he’d gone off the deep end with a decision like that. How much crazier would Jamie view him if he found out Dan had fallen for her? Because despite the certainty of heartache Dan saw in his future—as clearly as Maris picked up on people’s thoughts circling in the air—he couldn’t help himself. His race along the sidewalks, listening to the commotion of the accident through his phone, had pretty much clinched it for him. Sitting at her side during her days of recovery from a hemorrhage in the vessels around her brain had sealed the deal, tied up as neatly as the laces on his boots.

  And if she was guilty of murder, what then? Would his emotions just stop? He doubted it, but he wouldn’t stand in the way of justice. He couldn’t, no matter how slow and painful the death inside of him would be.

  Chapter 16

  Dan tucked the blankets around her shoulders as if she were a child. Maris shook her head at him. “Do you have children?”

  “No. My ex-wife and I…we didn’t want to have any for a while and then, well, we didn’t. I guess that’s a good thing.”

  Maris wriggled her arm free. She reached for the magazine he’d placed on the nightstand. “I’m not really tired.”

  “I don’t care. Last thing I need is you stumbling down the stairs or something while I’m gone. I’d appreciate it if you’d stay put.” He removed the magazine from her hand. “Even though I gave you that, you shouldn’t be reading it. I think the term is ‘brain rest.’ Close your eyes.”

  She snorted. “Yes, sir.” A second later, she cracked one lid apart and discovered he hadn’t moved. Dan, don’t look at me like that. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I’ll be back in an hour or so. I’ll bring some soup.”

  “I don’t have a cold.”

  “Will you just let me be kind in my own way? Please? Besides, there are no groceries in the house.”

  She grabbed his hand and folded her fingers over digits still chilled from the cold rain. “Thank you. I appreciate that you came to the hospital and sat with me every day, too. The nurses told me,” she added, before he assumed otherwise. She’d lost her psychic connection with him until the fourth day of her hospital stay when she’d opened her eyes and heard footsteps in the hallway, followed by his voice in her head. You’ll be awake today, Maris Granger. Today is the day. She’d been moved from ICU that afternoon to a regular room.

  Dan pulled his hand back. “I’ve got to go.”

  He shut the guestroom door as he departed, and several minutes later she heard the front door close. The rain pounded harder on the roof.

  He’d been puzzled by her insistence of taking the spare room but hadn’t argued. She didn’t belong in his bed. Not in that way. Theirs was a relationship rushing backward. She visualized it as a time-lapse video in reverse, the flower starting in full bloom and minimizing in growth until the green sprout disappeared into the earth, a seed closed and awaiting sunlight and warmth that would never come.

  There was no hope for them. The aura like a dark second skin, flaring and shrinking around Dan’s body, was still there, and she had no idea what to do about it.

  * * * *

  Dan handed Jamie Rogers the sketch. “So, you think you could get that in the paper?”

  “What really mak
es you think this might be the guy?”

  “Nothing stronger than a hunch.” Dan ground a knuckle into the base of his skull. “Got any aspirin?”

  “A hunch, huh?” Jamie pulled a bottle out of his drawer and tossed it in Dan’s direction.

  Dan popped the cap and took one without water, grimacing at the taste, but the pill went down. “One of my own. Not hers.”

  “How’s Maris doing?”

  “Good.” Dan recapped the aspirin and handed the bottle back.

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  “I’m not. I don’t mean health-wise. The doctor said she’s recovered, rather amazingly, but she can’t, you know, drive or anything.”

  Jamie arched a brow at him. “Anything?”

  “Shut it, Rogers. I’m not an animal. That’s fine.”

  “Then what’s up?”

  “She…she’s different somehow. I can’t quite explain, but she doesn’t seem herself.”

  Jamie opened the drawer and returned the pain reliever to its place. He slipped the sketch into a folder. “No offense, but how well do you know her that you can tell she’s changed at all?”

  Dan said nothing.

  “Plus she’s been through some nastiness. Give her time.”

  With a snort, Dan crossed his arms over his chest. “Listen to you. I thought you condemned my thing with Maris.”

  “What makes you think I still don’t? But it’s your life, and you and I have been friends for a long time. I’m just trying to be there for you, buddy.”

  “Don’t call me buddy.”

  “It’s better than what I’d like to call you for the risks you’re taking. What am I supposed to do with this sketch, anyway, since it’s only a hunch?”

  “Person of interest. Word it so it looks like we think he’s a witness. People might be more inclined to come forward with information about him then.”