Killing Me Softly

“Dawn,” Beth said, and her tone had changed from pleading to the voice of absolute authority. “I didn’t raise you—didn’t even get to know you until you were practically grown. But I am your mother and I’m speaking to you as a mother right now. There’s a ticket waiting for you at the airport. Your flight leaves at 1:16 p.m., your time. Get up, pack a bag, call your boss and get your ass home. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you.”

Dawn closed her eyes. “I’m a grown-up now, Beth. You can’t tell me what to do.”

“I just did, kiddo. I’ve put up with your hiding and your wallowing and your—well, to be blunt, your cowardice, for five long years, but I’m done with it now. You’re tougher than this. Stronger. Your family needs you, and I hate to say it, Dawn, but if you let me down again, I’m just not going to forgive you. Not this time.”

Dawn blinked and stared at the phone, but Beth was gone. She’d disconnected. So Dawn replaced the receiver on its cradle and peeled back her covers. Her birth mother had just called her a coward. She had never once even hinted that she felt that way. Dawn had thought Beth understood why she had to run away, had to stay away, from that place where so much had happened. Where her murderous maniac of a father had died at long last after a string of murders and assaults. From that instant when he’d spoken his dying words to her, told her his so-called gift was hers from then on.

Gift. Who the hell called insanity a gift?

Oh, there was more to it than just madness. The dead really did talk to Mordecai. But he couldn’t tell the voices of the dead from the voices of his own in sanity, and in the end, he’d nearly destroyed everyone he’d ever loved. Even her.

His “gift” was nothing she wanted. Nothing she would ever want.

She flung back the covers, shuffled into the bathroom and cranked on the shower taps. Shrugging out of her robe and letting it fall to the floor, Dawn stepped into the spray. Then she stood there with her head hanging down, and Bryan’s face front and center in her mind’s eye. He must hate her for walking away without a word five years ago. He must hate her for ignoring every effort he’d made to get her to talk to him, to at least tell him why. He must hate her by now. He ought to hate her. And she couldn’t blame him for it, but God, she didn’t want to see that hatred in his eyes. Not face-to-face, up close and personal. She didn’t think she could take that. It would hurt too much.

They’d been so in love. It had been new and fresh, and fun. She’d met him when his father had fallen for Beth, and it had felt as if they were meant for each other. So young and inexperienced, that when they finally made love for the first and only time, it had barely lasted five minutes.

She smiled softly when she thought of that completely unsatisfying, awkward night when they’d lost their virginity to each other. It was the sexiest memory of her entire life.

Damn, she didn’t want to go home. She really didn’t. But there was no point in arguing about it. She was going. Today. And deep down inside, now that she had no choice in the matter, she couldn’t wait to see Bryan again.

3

“It wasn’t the three hours of questioning that got to me,” Bryan said to his father. He had one hand braced on the mantel and was staring into the Blackberry Inn’s oversize fireplace as if there were dancing flames to contemplate. Which there were not. It was midsummer and still too warm for a fire, even in Vermont. But staring at the dark, empty hearth kept him from letting his eyes get stuck on one of the countless photos of Dawn, or him and Dawn together, that littered every room of this place.

She was on her way. Right now. Beth was picking her up at the airport in Burlington, an hour away. She would be here soon. Any minute now, and he could barely believe he was going to see her again for the first time in five years. He was going to see her again, now, in the middle of the biggest mess he’d ever landed in. He was going to see her. And it was going to rip his guts out.

“So what did?” Josh asked.

“What did what?” Bryan glanced at his father, sitting in the big rocker recliner with a cup of coffee and looking less like the relaxed, content innkeeper than he had since he’d first arrived in this town. Not that he ever really fit the stereotype, with his athletic build and good looks. Bryan took after him, and thanked his lucky stars often for his father’s genes.

But Josh had relaxed a lot since retiring from government work to run the inn alongside his wife. Tonight, though, Bryan could see the lines of tension creasing his brow. He was worried about his only son. This whole thing had his stoic, easygoing father shaken, and that scared him.

“You said it wasn’t the questioning that got to you,” Josh said. “So what did?”

“The lawyer.” Bryan’s glance slid sideways, from his dad’s worried, rugged face to the photo on the end table. Dawn, leaning on a classic Dodge Charger, wearing overalls, a wrench in one hand and a smudge of grease on her cheek. Must have been one she’d sent them from California. He jerked his attention away from it and tried to stay focused on the subject at hand. The lawyer his father and Nick had sent to his rescue.

“I’m a cop. I hate lawyers,” he said, elaborating on his previous statement.

“That’s fine—until you need one.”

“That’s just it, I don’t need one. Or at least, I shouldn’t. I didn’t do anything.”

“You woke up in bed with a murder victim, son.”

Bryan thinned his lips. “The mouthpiece wouldn’t let me say a hell of a lot. Kept interrupting when the chief was questioning me, telling me not to answer. Hell, he made me think I looked guilty.”

“It’s for the best, Bryan. You have to protect yourself.”

“I know that. I just—I know what I think when a suspect lawyers up and won’t talk. I hate like hell to have my colleagues thinking that way about me. Especially Chief Mac. I’d prefer to just tell him everything and ask him to help me sort it all out.”

“I know.”

Headlights slid over the walls as a car pulled into the driveway. Bryan closed his eyes slowly, tried to brace himself for whatever feelings were going to assault him at the sight of Dawn. But he was damned if he knew which ones to expect. It had been so long. Part of him hated her, and part of him ached for her. And all of him resented the fact that she wouldn’t be here at all if his life wasn’t on the line. He wondered if he was supposed to be grateful she would rush home because he was in crisis. He wasn’t. He was angry that it took a crisis to get her here. Hell, he hadn’t blamed her for running off without a word after all that had happened. Having the dead just start talking to you had to be bad enough. Having your dead father leading the crowd of ghosts to your door was too much, especially when your dead father had been a homicidal maniac.

So she panicked. She freaked. She ran away. No goodbye, no warning, nothing. She was just gone. And he could have forgiven that, if she had just called after things calmed down. But she didn’t call, and she didn’t write. She spoke to Beth, her birth mother, and anything Bryan learned about her life came through her. Second hand news of the woman he loved. It was insulting.

There was no excuse for letting it go on for five long years. None.

Still, he turned toward the front door as footsteps crossed the porch. He strained his eyes when he saw the foggy outline of her beyond the frosted-glass panes. And then the door opened and she walked in, Beth close behind her.

Dawn met his eyes, and he just stood there, mute, staring at her and thinking his heart was going to pound a hole in his chest, and wondering if it would fall onto the floor before or after it stopped beating.

Her hair was still long. Still its natural shade of dark honey and amber gold, perhaps with a few lighter high lights, no doubt thanks to the California sun. But her face had changed. Grown thinner. Her cheekbones were more prominent than before, which might be partly because she was older now, but he thought it might also be that she’d lost weight. Hell, she was so damn thin. And the tender skin underneath her eyes seemed pink and puffy. As if she’d been crying.

Over him?

Hell, who was he kidding?

He wondered, briefly, what she was seeing as she stared at him. What changes was she noticing? He imagined he’d changed quite a bit, too, in the course of five years.

Finally she said, “Hey, Bryan. How are you holding up?”

Just like that. As if there wasn’t a week-long conversation that should happen before that casual hello. He shrugged. “Damned if I know. I don’t think it’s all had a chance to sink in yet, to tell you the truth.” He moved toward her, but not too close, just enough to reach out and take the suitcase from her hand. “How about you?” he asked. “You look…tired.”

“Gee, thanks.”

He shrugged, not overly concerned that he’d sort of insulted her just then. Hell, she’d done worse to him, hadn’t she?

“It was a long flight,” Beth said quickly. “Naturally she’s tired.”

Bryan could see the worried looks passing between Beth and Josh from the corner of his eye, though he couldn’t really take his eyes off Dawn. “You’ve lost weight,” he said.

“That doesn’t sound like a compliment, either,” she replied.

“It wasn’t.” He sighed and lowered his head, turning toward the stairs. “You didn’t need to come, you know. There’s not a damn thing you can do.”

“Hey, don’t think I didn’t try that argument, Bry. Beth didn’t buy it, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer. So I’m here. Deal with it.”

He was halfway up the stairs when he replied, “I’ve got enough to deal with already, thanks.” He finished climbing the stairs, avoiding the muttering going on behind him. The three of them discussing his mental state, no doubt. Then he was out of range, at last. He headed down the hall to the room Beth had chosen for Dawn and set her suitcase just inside the door. Then he kept going, to the next room, his room, and once inside, he closed the door, sat on his bed and lowered his head to his hands. Damn, damn, damn. He hadn’t wanted to snap at her. He’d wanted to wrap her up in his arms and hold her, just hold her, for a long, long time. He’d wanted to feel her right there, against him, warm and alive, more than just a memory.

Which made it even more irritating that she, apparently, had no such sentimental notions about him.

“I’m sorry,” Dawn said. “I should have—maybe I—”

Beth hushed her. “You two have a lot to talk about, to work through. It’s high time, Dawn. It’s past time. Adults do not just stop communicating with people they care about. They talk it out.”

Dawn pressed her lips together more tightly to avoid saying anything that might sound rude, since several snotty rejoinders were knocking against her teeth in an effort to escape.