Killing Me Softly

Josh closed a hand on her shoulder. “He was glad to see you, hon. I realize it didn’t seem that way to you, but I know him better than anyone else in the world. He was glad to see you, and more than that, he needs you. He needs you more than he needs anything or anyone right now. So I’m asking you to swallow your pride and be there for him.”

She nodded, not believing a word of it. It would have been nice to believe it, but it just didn’t make any sense. Bryan hated her. And she couldn’t blame him, because he had every reason to hate her. That made sense. But she didn’t argue with Josh. She just said, “I’ll try my best.”

“Good.” He smiled. “I think I jumped ahead a little, though.” And then he hugged her. “Welcome home, Dawn.”

“Thanks, Josh.” She relaxed and hugged him back. “Thanks. It’s good to be back.”

“It is?” he asked.

She smiled at him and shrugged. “Well, it might be too soon to tell. But it feels good at the moment.”

Beth said, “It does my heart good to hear that.”

Dawn felt bad. Her lack of enthusiasm had probably hurt her mother’s feelings, and that wasn’t what she’d intended. “I think I’ll go on upstairs,” she said. “I’d like to take a shower, freshen up before dinner. It was a long flight.”

“Food’ll be on the table in an hour.”

“All right.” Dawn hugged her mother. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“Thanks for coming. Just take it slow, okay? Just take it nice and slow.”

Dawn nodded, unsure what it was her mom wanted her to take so slowly, but not wanting to open the can of worms she thought lay behind that comment. So she headed up the stairs, but slowly. With every step she took, she half expected to see some shady, vaporous apparition, or to hear some disembodied voice. Most of all, she expected to encounter her long-dead father, demanding that she accept her “gift.” Her “calling,” as he’d referred to it.

She hadn’t seen or spoken to a dead person since she’d spent her first night in San Bernadino. Maybe that was due to the Ativan she’d been prescribed by the first doctor she’d trusted with the truth. Or maybe it was something to do with the distance, as little sense as that made. She only knew she didn’t want to come back here and face the ghosts again. She didn’t want the damn gift that had become so twisted and corrupt it had rotted her father’s mind, turning him into a murderer who honestly believed he was doing God’s will when he killed.

She didn’t want any of it.

She entered her room and stood there, just inside the open door, looking around but seeing nothing. No ghosts. “If I hear even one peep, see even one misty shape in the night, I’m out of here. I hope you’re getting that.”

“Loud and clear.”

She nearly jumped right out of her skin as she spun around to see Bryan leaning against the door frame. One hand on her chest, she closed her eyes slowly and willed her heart to slow down.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to give you a heart attack.”

She took a deep breath. “It’s okay. Come on in, Bry.”

“You sure?”

She nodded and stepped aside to give him room to pass. He walked in, looked around the bedroom. “You, uh, you alone in here?”

She smiled. “Yeah, I’m alone.” Bryan had been matter-of-fact about her “abilities” ever since she’d first told him about them. He hadn’t doubted her. Hadn’t thought she was crazy. Hadn’t been all weirded out about it. It had barely fazed him, except that he worried about her. And in return, she’d walked out and left him a note that really didn’t say a damn thing.

“So, uh, no ghosts in California, huh?”

“Not for me, at least. I haven’t…heard from any of them since I first got there.”

“Why do you suppose that is?”

She lowered her head, not meeting his eyes. “I don’t know. Distance. Medication. Vodka, when the other two aren’t enough.”

When she glanced up again, he was frowning, studying her face and probably getting ready to comment on her methods of ghost-dodging. But he seemed to change his mind. “And now that you’re back?” he asked.

“Nothing yet. I hope to God there won’t be.”

He nodded, sighed heavily. “You told Beth it wasn’t me you were running away from. That it was them. You said you needed time. But I don’t think you were being entirely honest.”

“I don’t want to talk about that, Bryan. About us. About what we had. It’s history. I know I hurt you, and I’m sorry. But I did what I had to do, and it was five years ago. I’m just not up to rehashing it all. Not now.”

His eyes narrowed. She thought she saw a flash of anger, but he banked it fast. “It’s not all that important, anyway,” he said.

Her brain immediately registered it as a lie.

“Look, Bry, can we just skip all that for the moment? Just focus on what’s going on here and now instead? ’Cause this is a big thing, you being implicated in a murder. All this ancient history between us, it can wait. Can’t it?”

He met her eyes. “It’s waited for five years already,” he said. “I’ve waited for five years.”

“You weren’t exactly waiting,” she said. “I mean, this poor woman—she died in your bed, after all.”

He lifted his brows and took two steps closer to her. “Does that bother you, Dawn?”

“Of course not.” But she averted her eyes when she said it, cursing herself afterward for being so obvious.

“Did you think I was going to be celibate for five years? Did you really think one night losing our virginity to each other was going to sustain either of us for the next half decade? ’Cause that’s crazier than talking to dead people.”

“Let it go, Bry. I’m not up to this, not yet.”

He watched her face for a moment, as if waiting for her to give something more away, and when she didn’t, he finally nodded. “Fine. It’s waited five years—it can wait a little longer.”

She lifted her head and, gingerly, put a hand on his forearm, where it hung by his side. His biceps were big and hard. They hadn’t been before. His shoulders were broader, and his hair, as brown as milk chocolate, was longer than she’d ever seen it. She liked it long. It would be a shame when he had to cut it again to return to his job as a cop. If he was able to return to his job as a cop.

She thought about saying so, then realized she’d been standing there with her hand on his biceps for a good minute and a half, in silence.

“I want to help you get through this,” she said. “I want to help however I can.”

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“You know better.” She lowered her hand, reluctantly, but her eyes replaced it. Damn, he’d beefed up. “God, don’t you remember what a kick-ass pair of amateur detectives we were?” she asked, forcing her eyes to move upward and lock with his.

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about the past.”

She sighed deeply. “I don’t care how difficult you try to make this, Bryan. I’m staying, and I’m going to try to help.”

“That’s kind of a switch from ‘Beth wouldn’t take no for an answer,’ isn’t it?”

“Oh, come on. I would have come whether she asked me to or not, once I knew what was going on with you. Don’t pretend you don’t know me well enough to know that.”

“I’m not sure I know you at all anymore.”