Текст книги "The Last Victim"

Автор книги: Karen Robards

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

CHAPTER NINE

Fortunately, Garland had no clue what she had in store for him.

“I remember, all right,” he said. “Piss poor job you did saving my life, by the way.”

“You bled out. There was nothing I could do.”

He still stood inches away from the entrance to the hallway. If she wanted to get to the bedroom and her suitcase, she had to walk right by him. If he’d been alive, she wouldn’t have done it in a million years: it would have offered him way too good an opportunity to grab her. But in his current state he couldn’t grab anyone—she didn’t think. Remembering his failed attempt with her robe partly steadied her frazzled nerves. Keeping careful watch out of the corner of her eye for any sudden moves he might make, she marched past him with what she considered commendable aplomb, even managing not to speed it up when he turned and followed her.

“About that. You sure there’s no way you could, like, hook me up to life support or something and bring me back?”

The skin between her shoulder blades prickled, and she guessed it was because his eyes were boring into her back. Then the sensation disappeared. Either he’d quit looking, or, more likely, was staring at a body part that was lower down—like her butt.

Charlie’s brows snapped together.

“I’m sure. There’s no way. Sorry to break it to you, but even aside from the injury you sustained, your body is by now past being able to support life.”

“What does that mean?”

Sometimes, Charlie thought, you just had to spell things out. “You ever hear of decomposition?”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.” There was a certain grim satisfaction in her tone. “You’re going to have to move on, because your life as you knew it is over.”

“Fuck,” Garland said. “That SOB Nash. I hope he rots in the hole.”

Nash, Charlie remembered, was the name of the inmate who had killed him. Allegedly.

“I’m sure he will.”

“Nah, they’ll probably give him a medal. I was a real pain in the ass.”

“Yes,” Charlie agreed before she could stop herself. “You were.”

“I never did one bad thing to you, Doc. You can’t say I did.”

Garland stopped in the bedroom doorway to watch as Charlie grabbed her suitcase and heaved it up onto the bed. In the process she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the dresser. Appalled at what met her gaze, she took instant stock: barefoot, clad only in her white terry robe, she was still damp from the shower. Scrubbed free of every last trace of makeup, her face looked tired and pale. To add insult to injury, the shower cap was still on her head.

Verdict: not hot.

In quick, instinctive reaction, she pulled the shower cap off. Her hair spilled down to her shoulders, its rich chestnut color and heat-and-moisture-induced waves immediately upping her sexy quotient by, she saw with relief, a considerable degree. She was just lifting a hand to brush some wayward strands off her forehead when she met Garland’s eyes in the mirror.

The carnal glint was back. His eyes were very blue now, and his mouth had taken on a sensual curve. He was watching her with what she could only describe as lust. Charlie’s breath suspended. Her pulse quickened. Answering heat flamed through her veins. Then she caught herself. The guy was gorgeous, no doubt about it. Even with everything she knew about him, including the absolutely-should-have-been-chemistry-killing twin facts that he was a psychopath and dead, the sad truth was that she had snatched off her shower cap because she had been concerned with how she looked to him.

That’s some serious sick, girl.

She would have plopped the shower cap back on her head again if doing so wouldn’t have been absolutely ridiculous. Also, a total giveaway.

Not only would letting him know she found him attractive be embarrassing, it might also be dangerous.

She didn’t know exactly what it took to trigger his urge to kill, but she did know she didn’t want to find out.

Whether he still possessed the capacity to follow through or not.

“You lied about what you saw in the inkblots,” she accused to distract him, and dug down deep in her suitcase, feeling around beneath her underwear and workout gear and running shoes, hunting for the only weapons she had.

“Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. You’re the expert. You figure it out.” He glanced around. “Where the hell are we anyway? Is this your place?”

“This is an apartment in a beach house just outside of Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.”

“So how did we get here?”

“I flew. In an airplane. I have no idea how you got here.” Having located what she needed, she scooped the items up in one hand, then with the other picked up and dropped the bottle of Tums on the floor.

“Oops,” she said as it hit. Okay, that had sounded fake even to her. Well, nothing she could do about it, and he didn’t appear to notice. Crouching to pick up the bottle, she used the cover provided by the bed to slip the items she needed into her robe pockets without Garland seeing what she was doing. Then she grabbed the bottle of Tums and straightened to her full height again. Ostentatiously she opened the bottle and shook two tablets into her palm. So far seeing him hadn’t made her feel sick to her stomach—too much commotion surrounding the visitation, probably—but there was no point in taking any chances. Besides, she needed an excuse to go to the kitchen.

“What’s that?”

“Medicine. If you’ll get out of my way, I’m going to go to the kitchen to get a glass of water to wash it down.” The tablets were actually chewable, but she was absolutely willing to lie about needing water to take them if it got her into the kitchen.

“Why do you need medicine?”

“Ghosts make me nauseous.” Closing her fist around the Tums, she walked determinedly toward him as she spoke. She had no way of knowing for sure, but she was gambling on the supposition that the best way to manage a predator like Garland hadn’t changed just because he was no longer alive. Rule one, show no fear.

“Are you telling me I make you want to puke?” He grinned as he moved out of her path, and with a silent sigh of relief Charlie made it past him. “You probably want to work on getting over that.”

“What I want to work on is not seeing ghosts,” she flung over her shoulder. “Present company not excepted.”

He was following her again. This time, though, it was what she had hoped for. Even if the mere thought of how he was likely to react to what she was about to do kinda/sorta scared her to death.

“Believe me, it’s better to see one than be one,” he said.

“Funny.”

“You see all ghosts? Or am I special?”

“I can see the spirits of people who’ve suffered recent, violent deaths. Sometimes.”

“I got to say, you’re a woman of unexpected talents, Doc. Who woulda thought the Ridge’s uptight, no-nonsense, my-way-or-the-highway shrink was some kind of closet psychic?” His tone turned reflective. “Or that you looked that good naked, for that matter.”

“You know what, Garland? I’d drop that line of conversation right now if I were you.”

Charlie walked into the kitchen. The stove, sink, and refrigerator were all lined up against the back wall. Popping the Tums in her mouth, she chewed as she opened a cabinet, pulled out a glass, and turned on the tap.

“You don’t like being told you look hot in your birthday suit, Doc? Now, me, I would’ve thought you’d have been pissed if I hadn’t noticed.”

Filling the glass partway up with water, she took a sip, swallowing like she needed it to at least kill the taste. What she wanted was to keep him off guard until she got everything in place. All she needed now was an open flame and a little resolution, and the thing was done.

“Then you would have thought wrong,” she replied with bite, setting the glass down.

“Come on, Doc, tell the truth. You like having a killer bod. You like me thinking you have a killer bod.”

He had been staring hard at the running water, Charlie saw as she shut off the tap and turned around. As his focus switched back to her, she felt the full impact of his presence. Close enough that she could reach out and touch him if she wanted to, he stood just inside the opening between the kitchen and sitting room, blocking the only way out. With his chiseled face and sculpted body, he oozed sex appeal—and, since she knew what he was, menace. He looked intimidatingly tall and powerful and as solid as the wall. If he were alive, he could have grabbed her in a heartbeat and almost certainly overpowered her despite any resistance she might put up.

He wasn’t, but anxiety still quickened her pulse and set her stomach a-flutter.

“For your information, popping up on unsuspecting women when they’re in the bathroom is just creepy,” she threw at him. Gathering her courage, thankful for the heavy terry and capacious pockets of her robe that allowed for the concealment of something so substantial, she pulled out the thick white candle and set it down on the counter beside the glass. It stood sturdily upright, its wick pristine.

“You think I came looking for you deliberately? Get over yourself, Doc. Your bathroom just happened to be where I came out.” He squinted at the candle.

“Came out from where?” She turned on the stove. The hiss of gas made what she was doing impossible to overlook. Not that the sound actually mattered, because he was watching her closely anyway.

“Hell if I know. That other place. And if you think I’m going back in there, you’re crazy.” He folded his arms over his chest as his gathering frown solidified. “What are you doing?”

“Lighting a candle. The scent helps with the nausea.” In a roundabout way, that actually had the advantage of being true. The scent would help with the nausea, because it would help get rid of him. As flame raced out of the pilot light and ran around the burner, igniting the gas, she took a deep breath. Her palms were damp, and her pulse raced. What she was feeling was acute anxiety, but there was more to it than that. Unbelievable to realize that she actually felt guilty about what she was getting ready to do. Picking up the candle, she felt a little bit like the ruthless murderer that she needed to keep reminding herself he was. “Anyway, you have to go back there. It’s where you’ll find the way to …” she hesitated “… the hereafter.”

His eyebrows went up. “The hereafter?”

Okay, heaven she wasn’t promising him. “You know, the afterlife. Eternity. Or … whatever.”

“Whatever. Yeah, that sounds about right.” His voice was dry.

Tilting the candle into the flame, she watched the wick catch fire. “There should be a white light—”

“We’ve been over this already. Take it from me, there is no fucking white light.”

“You just haven’t found it yet.” Holding the candle, she turned to face him. The faintest scent of jasmine wafted upward.

“Too bad. I’m sure as hell not going looking for it.”

“Why not?”

“Because it damned well isn’t there. And I wouldn’t trust it if it was.”

As the scent of jasmine grew stronger, Charlie had to work hard to corral her guilty conscience. “So what is there?”

“Mist. Fog. A constant, purple twilight.” He gave her a long look. “There’s things in it. People—I can’t see ’em, but I can hear ’em screaming. It’s like they’re being hunted down or something. Whatever’s hunting them—I think it’s hunting me.”

A flash of fear darkened his eyes. Whatever could make a man as big and bad as Garland look scared, Charlie didn’t want to meet.

Then she remembered: he wasn’t a man anymore. Where he’d found himself, big and bad probably didn’t matter.

She had no idea what did. But none of it was her problem. The universe had been rolling along just fine for many millennia before she’d come along, and the whole Great Beyond deal had to have been fine-tuned by now. It was up to a higher power to sort things out vis-à-vis Garland. She just had to trust in the process.

“You have to go back. There’s no other choice.” Mentally squaring her shoulders, holding the candle carefully so that the flame wouldn’t go out, she moved toward him.

He didn’t budge. “Sure there is. And I just made it.”

Eyes narrowing, Charlie was forced to stop because he was in her path. Theoretically, she probably could have walked right through him. Unless she had to, though, she wasn’t about to make the attempt. “What do you mean?”

“I’m staying here.”

“You can’t.”

“Sure I can.”

“No, you can’t. Even spirits who linger almost always move on within about a week. Uh, you want to get out of my way, please?” There was no point in arguing with him. The discussion would be moot in a couple of minutes anyway. All she had to do was position the candle behind him, and then herd him toward it. She felt a little bad about resorting to what amounted to psychic force, but in the end she had no doubt that it would be the best thing for both of them. She would be rid of a phantom serial killer, and he would be where he was supposed to be in the eternal scheme of things. “I need to set the candle down on the table. It’s dripping wax.”

“This helps you to not throw up?” His tone was skeptical, but he stepped aside.

“It does.” Moving past him, Charlie set the candle down on the glass-topped dining table, made sure the flame was burning strongly, then headed back into the kitchen.

“You left the burner on.”

“I know.” She was back at the stove. No longer blocking the door, he was all the way inside the kitchen now, watching her curiously. Not a hint of suspicion in his face. Get thee behind me, guilt. Pulling a slender wand of sage incense from her pocket, she held the tip of it to the flame. It caught with a crackle and a flurry of sparks.

“What the hell is that?”

“Incense,” she told him over her shoulder.

Inhaling the earthy scent, Charlie waited a second to make sure that the incense was burning strongly enough to be effective before shutting off the burner and turning to face him. His eyes fastened on the smoldering stick in her hand.

“You’re starting to weird me out here, Doc.” Then, as the smell of sage grew stronger, and slender white tendrils of smoke rose from the tip of the stick to waft in the air, his gaze shifted to her face. “That crap stinks worse than three-day-old roadkill. Are you seriously telling me that stops you from throwing up?”

Waving his hand in front of his face, he tried to ward off the aroma. It was clearly bothering him, but he just as clearly had not yet figured out that anything was majorly amiss. Charlie wet her lips. Her heart thumped. What she felt was a kind of dreadful anticipation. The sage would drive him not only from the apartment, but from this earthly plane entirely, while the jasmine candle would open a portal to the other side. At least, that was how it had been explained to her by her gurus in ghostbusting, and she knew from experience that at least the sage worked. The key was to refuse to think about what eternity might be like for Garland.

This is the way it’s supposed to be, she told herself defensively. But she couldn’t help feeling bad for him nonetheless.

“I’m sorry, but you need to go now,” she said firmly. Careful not to get too close too soon, Charlie inched toward him, taking tiny baby steps, waving the burning sage so that the smoke formed a barrier between them. “Your time here on earth is over. You have to move on.”

“What the fuck?” As the smoke reached him, Garland’s eyes widened. Then his face contorted. From his expression, by waving the sage at him she was assaulting him with the ghostly equivalent of mustard gas. Throwing up an arm, he started backing away from her and it. “Goddamn it, Doc, put that stuff out. You hear me? I’m not kidding.”

The budding threat in his voice was clear.

It took every bit of resolution she had, but Charlie kept going. “The light is there, waiting for you. That’s the purpose of the candle, to draw it near. You should be able to find it if you look.”

“Jesus Christ, this is some kind of voodoo shit you’re pulling on me, isn’t it?” His mouth twisted as if he were in pain even as he continued to back away. His heel caught on the threshold between the kitchen and the eating area, where tile floor turned to carpet. “Oh, God. Don’t do this, Doc.”

Her stomach clenched. “I’m really sorry, Garland, but it’s for the best, I promise you.”

“For you, maybe.” Panic flared in his eyes as she kept coming, waving the incense, backing him inexorably through the kitchen doorway toward the table. The candle was close enough now to start pulling him in. Charlie could see the ends of his hair starting to move toward it, could almost feel the gentle suction herself. “Ah.” He made another pained sound, and it was all she could do to close her heart to it. “Damn it to hell, that hurts. Put that thing out!”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, meaning it, hating that he seemed to be suffering. Garland’s pained resistance was something she hadn’t anticipated. But she couldn’t stop now. The thought of having a ghostly serial killer, whom she had just seriously pissed off, left behind in the land of the living to wreak terrible vengeance on her was enough to keep her advancing, waving her wand even though she felt like she was running over Bambi with an eighteen-wheeler. “Look for the light.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Doc,” he warned, flexing his wide shoulders menacingly, baring his teeth at her. The powerful muscles in his arms bunched as his hands shot out as if to grab her. Charlie jumped and almost dropped the incense as he batted thin air just inches away. When he realized he couldn’t get to her, his eyes blazed with fear and fury combined. Thank God the power of the smoke was strong enough to hold him at bay! He was maybe a yard away, but he might as well have been on the wrong side of steel bars. “Don’t make me do something I don’t want to do.”

“Are you threatening me?” she shot back, summoning every last scrap of bravado she could. Getting a glimpse of his violent side should have made her feel better about what she was doing, but it didn’t. As she continued to drive him backward, she felt like a murderess. A scared murderess. Her heart thundered. Her stomach twisted. Her hand shook. Barely managing to hang on to the incense, she waved it at him; at this point there was simply nothing else she could do. Smoke swirled past him. It was being drawn toward the candle just like he was. His hair flowed backward now, as though being sucked by a vacuum. The skin on his face seemed to have tightened, so that his high cheekbones looked like blades. He looked huge, terrifying, insane. Probably because, she reminded herself grimly, he was all of those things.

Forget Bambi. Think Voldemort on steroids.

“Hell, yeah. Whatever you’re doing’s not going to work, and I’ll … Ah.”

“Just go,” she almost wailed as, wincing in pain, he broke off in mid-threat. Gritting his teeth, bracing as if in resistance to the force pulling him backward, he seemed to be doing his best to battle a strong wind she couldn’t feel.

“I can’t believe you’d do this to … Ah. Put it out. Ah.”

Charlie’s throat tightened with pity at the same time her heart lurched with fright. By this time she was so agitated she was practically jumping out of her skin. Fear, pity, regret, determination—she had no clue which emotion was strongest.

“For God’s sake, stop fighting it. You’re only making it worse.”

He opened his mouth as if to say something, then looked sharply around behind him. Following his gaze, Charlie saw that the candle flame was almost perpendicular to the table now, blowing backward in the vortex that had been created.

“Jesus, do you hear that? Do you hear the screaming?”

“Garland, please.” She felt tears starting in her eyes. “Go toward the light.”

“Fuck the fucking light.”

He was moving again, inch by inch, clearly against his will, being pulled backward by a force too powerful to resist. Shaking, breathing hard, sick to the core at what she was doing but knowing she had no choice, she had him backed up all the way to the edge of the table—when suddenly he lunged at her, breaking through the barrier of the smoke, eyes wild, mouth twisting violently. Squeaking, Charlie jumped like a scalded cat, but retained enough presence of mind not to drop the incense, not to back off, and not to scream. He slammed into her, grabbed her, smashed her against him, which given his degree of muscularity should have felt something like being smacked hard into a stone wall. She saw him coming, saw herself being enveloped by him, knew the attack was happening as it happened. But besides a single microsecond in which she seemed to experience an uncannily real sensation of physical contact and an accompanying quick, instinctive burst of terror, all she actually for sure felt was a kind of electric tingle, a surge of energy, a blast of air.

“Think you’re going to—” he snarled in her ear before breaking off abruptly. Letting go, whirling around, he jerked and screamed like his heart was being ripped from his body.

Even as Charlie clapped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming, too, he was gone.

Just like that.

Left with nothing to see but the now perfectly ordinary-behaving candle, Charlie let her shaking hand drop and took a deep, hopefully calming breath.

It’s over.

Then without warning her knees gave out, and she sank in a boneless puddle to the floor.