Cold Touch (27 page)

The blonde frowned, looked at Gabe, then back at her sister. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” Olivia insisted.

Brooke licked her lips nervously, as if unsure she should say anything, then did, anyway. “Have you, you know . . . done it

yet?”

Gabe stiffened, shocked that the sister would ask that with him standing right there.

“No, but I promise, I wil ,” Olivia replied.

He suspected he’d gotten the wrong impression about what Brooke had been asking. The woman confirmed that by turning

her attention toward him. “You make sure she does what she needs to do to let this go. Understand?”

Again, the mouse had become a lion. Funny what family loyalty could do to a person. Then Brooke left, and it was just him

and Olivia, standing in the front hal . There probably should have been some awkwardness, considering that several hours ago

they’d been kissing passionately in her bed. But there was none. Gabe was too focused on Brooke’s comments to even stress about what had happened earlier. “What did she mean by ‘let it go’?”

Olivia cleared her throat. “I have to let go of what happened today.”

He got it at once. “You mean, when you touched the remains?”

“Yes.”

“That means you
can
let it go? Get it out of your head entirely?” he asked, incredibly relieved. One of the things he’d been

dwel ing on while she’d slept earlier was the thought that al these things, these dark, awful deaths, never ful y left her consciousness. Which would be enough to break anyone, sooner or later.

“No,” she replied, “it’s not like that.”

Hel . “So what is it like?”

She tilted her head, visibly considering how to describe it. “It’s . . . I guess it’s like going to therapy. I don’t suppose you’ve

ever been.”

“It’s been recommended by a woman or two over the years,” he said, his voice dry.

The rejoinder got a tiny smile out of her, as he’d intended it to.

“But no,” he added, “I’ve never been on the couch.”

“I have. And what I do now, to get out from under this, is something like what I used to do then. First I accept it, embrace the

fear and horror of it. Then I wash it away, clean it from my mind, and al ow myself to feel triumph over having risen above it.”

He only stared. He’d been hoping for some psychic magic trick, something that would erase this from her memories, and

she was talking about channeling that dumb book
The Secret
? Positive thinking and al that crap?

“I know it sounds . . .”

“Wait. You accept and
embrace
it?” he asked, focusing on that part of her explanation.

Olivia turned away from him, walking slowly back toward the den, not asking if he wanted to stay. As if she just couldn’t

stand up and have the conversation any longer.

He fol owed, of course. This time, when she sat down on the sofa, he was the one who went to the wet bar. He poured her a

glass of cranberry juice, splashed some club soda in it, as he’d seen her do, then brought it over and handed it to her. “Drink.

Breathe. Then we’l talk.”

“Bossy,” she mumbled, not sounding like she minded. He wondered how often Olivia actual y let anybody take care of her.

While she was so busy throwing herself in front of every ugly, murderous bus her friends and coworkers asked her to, how

often had one of them just put a foot down and made sure she took care of herself? Did anyone? Ever?

The whole thing infuriated him more every time he thought about it. He had no claim on Olivia, but if he did, he’d do everything in his power to make sure she stopped hurting herself like this. There were other ways to solve crimes; he’d believed that every day of his life, right up to and including this one, when he’d seen proof of things he’d never known existed.

The world would go on spinning if Olivia Wainwright never touched another dead human being. And that’s the world he

wanted this beautiful woman to live in.

After taking a few sips, Olivia put the glass on the table. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, taking a seat beside her. He leaned back on the couch and stretched an arm out behind her.

Olivia curved into him, fitting into the crook of his arm like she was meant to be there, and they’d done this every night for a

decade. He might not know what color toothbrush she used or whether she drank her coffee with cream—or, hel , if she even

drank coffee—but he suspected he knew her more intimately than almost anybody else in the world. He’d been there to catch

her after she’d walked through the fire and had seen her in the kind of open, exposed moment that changed people. Changed

relationships.

It had definitely changed theirs. He didn’t think he was ever going to get over this need he had to just be there for her. Be a

real hand to grab in the dark, a warm body to touch.

Final y, she told him the rest. “Embracing it, facing it, that’s the hard part. I didn’t want to say anything to Brooke, but sometimes it takes a while before I’m up to it. Because in order to move past it, I have to let it back in, al the memories, al the feelings . . .”

“Fuck that,” Gabe said, the reaction instinctive, as was the tightening of every muscle in his body. Then he mumbled, “Sorry.”

“It’s not a great process, I know.”

“It’s a rotten one,” he replied, dropping his arm off the back of the couch to drape it over her shoulders. He ran his fingers up

and down her arm, reminding her that she wasn’t alone. He had the feeling he could be content doing that—reminding her she

wasn’t alone—for a very long time. If she’d let him.

“It’s al I’ve got,” she said. “It’s not perfect, but it helps keep the nightmares at bay.”

His hand stil ed for a moment; then he resumed stroking. He’d been wondering if she would have trouble sleeping tonight,

given the way she’d begged him to stay earlier.

Nightmares born of your own dark imaginings were bad enough. But inviting them from the minds of dozens of murder

victims? Unfathomable.

“You’ve gotta stop, Liv,” he murmured, not even thinking about whether he had the right to say it, just knowing he had to.

She stiffened.

But he wasn’t backing down. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself. You cannot face an entire lifetime of this, You know that,

right?”

“It’s not usual y as bad as it was today.”

“Oh, right, sometimes you just get shot, huh?”

“There are worse ways to go.”

“There are a whole lot of better ones, too!”

“I know that,” she admitted. “Have I told you about how I found out about this ability?”

Come to think of it, that had never come up. It wasn’t exactly casual, cup-of-coffee conversation. “No.”

“It was a year after the kidnapping. My grandmother, the one who left me this house, had died. Mom brought Brooke and me

back from Tucson for the funeral services.” Sounding half-weary, half-resigned, she admitted, “It was an open casket.”

“Oh, no,” he muttered, envisioning it.

“Oh, yes.”

“You,
uh
. . .”

“I loved her hair. It was long and white, just beautiful, and she was very vain about it. So when I went up to say goodbye to

her, I reached in to smooth it near her cheek . . . and suddenly I was lying in a bed, my head turned to the side, looking at a

bunch of pictures on a bedside table.”

He gulped, trying not to think about the fact that she’d been sixteen, just sixteen years old and a year off a nightmare that

would have crushed a lot of people.

“I saw my grandfather’s face, a family portrait of me and Brooke with our parents. My late uncle, Richard and Tess . . . a

whole little Wainwright family gal ery.”

“Did you recognize the place?”

“Of course, it was her bedroom at the assisted living center where she’d moved after her stroke. We’d been back to visit

Dad a couple of weeks before, and I had visited her every day.”

She was probably very glad of that, now. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t real y do anything. I was just shocked, watching. I saw her try to lift her right hand, but it fel to the bed; she’d lost

much of the use of that side. So she reached with her left one, stretching so far. Her fingers were trembling, and I could hear

her harsh breaths.”

He closed his eyes, silent, knowing she needed to tel him this, for her own reasons.

“Then she was able to get grandfather’s picture. She brought it close. The vision got blurry, like I was looking through tears,

and I saw her trace her finger across his cheek.”

Saying goodbye?

“That was when I became aware of a tightness in my chest. I felt weak, couldn’t breathe wel . Grandmother’s left hand was

sagging by this point, she had to rest the picture on her chest.”

“She was having a heart attack?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“Nobody came to help?”

“Honestly, Gabe, I don’t think she pushed the button to let anybody know. Because I heard her say something, her voice was

soft, but clear in my head. She looked at my grandfather and said, ‘I think I’l be seeing you soon, my love. Thank God.’”

He pictured it, remembering what she’d told him—that the grandfather had died the year before. It sounded as though his

widow had just wanted to join him. He’d seen that kind of love, a lifetime of it, in movies, of course. God knew he’d never had

any firsthand experience with it. The whole idea of it, decades of happiness together, so much love you didn’t want to live

apart, seemed so impossible. And yet so incredibly beautiful.

“Was there anything else?” he asked, clearing his tight throat.

She laughed softly. “Yes. I heard her say one more thing before her breath stopped. Her voice was louder, almost

quarrelsome, like the flamboyant, eccentric old woman I’d known. She said, ‘And I expect you to be waiting there with my two-

olive martini!’”

He smiled at the image, understanding so much about the woman from those very last words. “I’d like to have met this

grandmother of yours.”

“I wish you could have,” she replied, sounding not sad but merely winsome. “She was one of a kind. Fascinating, difficult.

Wonderful.”

So far, every member of her family seemed fascinating, except, of course, her cousin Richard, who was pretty much a blowhard, which seemed about right for his line of work.

“What happened . . . afterward?” he asked.

“The pain ended. Everything went dark for a few seconds. Then I opened my eyes, and I found myself on the floor of the

funeral home, flat on my back, having supposedly screamed and fainted.” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “Grandmother

would have been appal ed at such a spectacle.” Turning a little, she pul ed back so she could look up at him, as if wanting to

make sure he understood her point. “So, you see, it isn’t always horrible. This ability of mine gave me one of the most perfect

memories of my grandmother I could ever have asked for.”

Her green eyes were wide, clear and dry. She spoke from the heart, and, honestly, Gabe could see her point.

In that one instance. That one, single instance.

“I’m glad you have that,” he told her gently, “but, Liv, does that one good memory wipe out al the vicious, horrible ones that

have to be building up inside your head? Do you think your grandmother would want that for you?”

Her breath caught, and he heard the tiny gasp in her throat. But she didn’t pul away, didn’t glare, didn’t get angry. Instead,

she remained silent, thinking about his words. Then, final y, she admitted, “No, I guess it doesn’t, and I suppose she wouldn’t.”

She was seeing sense.

“But knowing I’ve helped solve the murders of so many people, given them justice and peace, and stopped others from

being hurt? That goes a long way toward balancing the scales.”

Olivia arrived downtown a half hour before this morning’s scheduled nine a.m.

meeting. She knew Julia wel enough to know her boss would be there early

and wanted a chance to talk to her before the others showed up. The others

being her coworkers and the two Savannah detectives who had suddenly

found themselves working with their former enemies.

She wasn’t sure how Gabe and his partner felt about it. They hadn’t even

discussed that part of this whole working-together idea, even though she’d

spent a couple of hours curled up against him on the couch last night. Talking.

Only
talking.

At first, they’d talked about ugly things, sad memories. But then, as the night

had grown deeper and he’d continued to stay, their conversation had rambled.

As if they’d both suddenly realized they’d been al wrapped up in darkness

from the minute they’d met, and maybe it was time to stop, take a mental

health break and just talk about absolutely nothing that mattered.

They’d talked movies and TV shows, cars and sports teams. She’d told him

he was a cretin for preferring country music to jazz, and he cal ed her a snob

for insisting it was just wrong to eat a big, sloppy burrito with your hands.

Then they’d laughed. They’d laughed a lot.

By the time he’d left, at around one—without anything more than a soft

brush of his lips on her temple—she’d been so relaxed, in such a good mood,

she’d gone to bed and hadn’t had a single bad dream. She’d stil woken up

early, tense for some reason, but there had been no nightmares. Giving it

some thought this morning, she realized that was probably exactly what he’d

intended.

She’d told him she wasn’t ready to chase away the darkness her usual way,