Her Last Whisper (12 page)

“Yeah, well, if
you’d
had the common sense to stay away from serial killers, you wouldn’t have been messing with a guy on death row the day I got killed, and you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation now.” The tiniest pause. “Anyway, what’s it to you whether or not I keep—kept—my pants zipped?”

“Not a thing in the world, believe me.”

“Don’t worry, babe: you got nothing to be jealous of. I’m all yours.”

Charlie practically sputtered. “Like that’s a good thing?” By the skin of her teeth she managed to swallow the angry addendum
you man-whore
before it left her lips and then did her best to dial the whole thing back by taking a deep breath before continuing. “I’m not going to argue with you. I’ve decided to go to Las Vegas and help Kaminsky find her sister. You can come or not. End of story.”

“You wish.” His tone made it quite clear that as far as he was concerned the conversation was by no means over. “I thought we decided that serial killers are dangerous. Because, see, a couple of them have tried real hard to kill you already and one actually succeeded. Remember that? Remember dying? I was there: you didn’t like it.”

She actually didn’t remember very much about it. And what little she did remember she tried not to: an explosion of emotions all wrapped up in darkness.

“That was one time.”

He hooted. “Well, golly gee, you got me there! The thing is, though, one time’s all most of us get. I vote you cut your losses, and thank your lucky stars you got another chance.”

Maybe he had a point, but there was a bigger picture. As the Camry chugged around one more S-curve in a long series of them, she deliberately let her gaze linger on the spectacular reds and golds of the autumn foliage out the window as mountain after tree-covered mountain fell away into the distance. The beauty of the Blue Ridge at this time of the year was incomparable. Just looking at it soothed her.

“You know, you should be eager to go,” she pointed out reasonably. “I want to help Kaminsky save her sister and bring a monster to justice if I can. I also want to get you as far away from that hunter as it’s possible to get. That’s the part
you
should keep in mind.”

His brows snapped together. “Fuck that. You’re not putting yourself at risk for me.”

“Let’s see: earlier today I threw a horseshoe at a ten-foot-tall scary monster. I think that means I already did.” Her gaze flicked over him. “By the way, I haven’t heard a
thank you
yet.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

They pulled up in front of the traffic light at the base of the mountain. The small mining town of Big Stone Gap sparkled in the golden light of the late afternoon sun. It was a Tuesday, near suppertime. Most folks were either at home or heading there, which meant there were more cars on the roads in town, too. Glancing in her rearview mirror, Charlie saw no sign of Tony in the cars lined up behind her. But he was back there somewhere, and he knew his way to her house. He’d be there soon enough: Tony was as reliable as the sunset. And that, she told herself, was one more very positive attribute to add to his side of the scale.

Not that she was comparing him with anybody or anything.

“Besides,” Michael said as she pulled through the intersection and accelerated. “How do we know the hunter won’t show up in Vegas? Or anywhere?”

That got her attention. She could feel a fresh burst of agitation bubbling through her veins. “Why would it? It’s never come after you before.”

“Maybe I just now got on its radar. Maybe it only just now figured out I escaped Spookville.”

“Oh, God.” Luckily, the way home was imprinted in her brain, because she drove there, past the drugstore and the grocery and the little church on the corner where Michael was buried, without even being aware of any of it while she tried to get her mind around the implications of that. “I don’t think it will. I don’t think it can. Hunters are not rampaging around this plane on a regular basis, or I would have known about them long before I got mixed up with you,” was the conclusion she finally came to. “That one coming through today was an anomaly. It had to be.”

“Calling something a big word don’t make it true.” She could feel his eyes on her profile. “We don’t know shit about what a hunter can do. I’m thinking this one might have killed that scumbag who bit you.”

“Spivey?” Charlie’s breath caught.

He shrugged. “
Something
killed him. He was just fine when he was grabbing you. And if you could see him after he died, then he suffered a violent death.”

She’d registered the violent death thing, too, about the time she’d seen Spivey’s shade rushing at her, and had pushed it into her mental file labeled
stuff to think about later
. “You’re right, he had to have died violently, but I don’t think the hunter did it. It didn’t kill
me
. I never felt like it could. When it flung me away—it felt more like I hit its energy field or something than it actually attacked me.”

“Babe, you’re not its natural prey. In fact, you’re probably about as far from its natural prey as it’s possible to get.”

“So what do you think is its natural prey?”

“Evil. I think it can smell evil like a bloodhound tracking a scent.”

Which, given his history with hunters, meant that he considered himself part of what he called their natural prey: in a word, evil.

“
You’re
not evil.” She hadn’t meant to say it aloud, especially with such conviction. Because she had, she scowled at him.

He smiled at her, a slow-dawning smile that did embarrassing things to places she refused to think about. “You know what? I think that’s just about the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. When I wasn’t driving you out of your mind in bed, that is.”

“You are such a
jackass
,” she snapped, knowing that her face was pinkening from the unwelcome (blistering hot) memories that conjured up, which, infuriatingly, only made his smile widen. To change the subject, she said, “If we stay here, I have to go to work. At the prison. Tomorrow. Because, you know, I have bills to pay if I want to have a house to live in and food and all that. And in my opinion going back to the prison is just too dangerous right now. If the hunter’s lurking around anywhere, that’s where it will be.” She glanced at him, remembered the adage about flies and honey, and in the interests of not having to put up with having him in a pissy mood all the way to Las Vegas, decided to try it. Also, although she hadn’t liked the direction the conversation had subsequently taken, her assertion that she didn’t think he was evil had definitely improved his mood. Conclusion: buttering him up worked.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she said, and had to quell the urge to bat her eyelashes at him.

“I appreciate the thought, buttercup, but in case you missed it, something already did: I’m dead.” His voice was dry.

She looked impatient. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do. And just for the record, you’re not sweet-talking me into going to Vegas.”

She bristled. “I wasn’t trying to
sweet-talk
you.”

“No? Well, then, if what you’re trying to do in some typical roundabout chick way is tell me you’re crazy in love with me, that’s a whole different conversation.” He folded his arms over his chest. “I’m waiting. Go ahead.”

“I am not trying to tell you—” She broke off. So much for honey: this particular aggravating fly deserved to be whacked over the head. “You know damned well that’s not what I meant.”

He smiled. After the first unwary glance made her heart skip a beat, she refused to look, choosing to concentrate on getting them where they were going instead.

Having reached the two-story white clapboard farmhouse on the neat little street that was her home, she pulled the car into the detached garage and parked. She and Michael got out at the same time and headed inside, through the back gate because that way was closer. A pair of the neighbor’s prize hens was in her backyard, rooting around among the sunflowers. She looked for Pumpkin, her other neighbor’s orange tabby, which spent much of his time stalking the hens, but didn’t see him. Which was just as well: she didn’t have time to deal with animal wars at the moment.

They went in through the kitchen.

“You know, you don’t have to go in to work tomorrow. You could take some vacation days, like you should’ve in the first place. Or call in sick,” Michael said as he trailed her into the front hall. Because the day was heading on toward twilight, the house was shadowy inside, but she didn’t bother to turn on any lights as she headed for her second-floor bedroom, where she meant to pack a bag as quickly as she could, and thus hopefully be ready to go before Tony even arrived. “We could still find a beach, and you could still rock that bikini. The one that you’re so repressed, and such a damned workaholic, you don’t even own.”

She narrowed her eyes at him over her shoulder as she climbed the stairs. “I am not repressed”—well, maybe she was, a little—“and I am not a workaholic”—maybe she was a little bit of that, too, not that it was a bad thing—“and we’ve been over this.”

He was right behind her. “So let’s go over it one more time. Why the hell would you even think of putting yourself in danger again, especially when you’re not operating at one hundred percent capacity?”

“Because I’m an expert at what I do. And because Kaminsky needs my expertise enough to have asked for it,” Charlie growled as she reached the landing and marched into her bedroom. “Anyway, I can stay out of the field and concentrate on profiling and analysis and be perfectly safe.” It was a large room, serene, with white walls and a dark hardwood floor and two long windows that looked out over her backyard and the wooded mountain rising into the clouds beyond it. Between the windows was an ornate fireplace with a painting of a waterfall above it. Her big brass bed with its spotless white covers took pride of place in the center of the room: just looking at it made her body quicken. Which reaction was both ridiculous and infuriating: she’d owned that bed for months now, and she’d had steamy, mind-blowing sex in it precisely once. And yes, that sex had been with Michael, when she’d found herself on the same side of the life/death divide as he was one stormy night not long after he’d walked into her life. Probably the sex had been a mistake—no, it definitely had been a mistake—but she couldn’t regret it. Just like she couldn’t regret repeating the error in a hotel room in Charlotte right before she’d wound up in the hospital. Truth was, the sex had been phenomenal. The problem was the source.

As a result of what she could only consider some weird chemical alchemy, Michael could make her burn hotter than any other man she had ever met. The problem lay in what he was: a ghost. In the living world, in her experience, ghosts had short shelf lives.

In other words, no long-term potential there. They were two different species now: the living and the dead. They had as much chance of being together as a dog and a cat.

He stopped to lean a broad shoulder against the door frame and watch as she dropped her purse on the dresser, opened the closet, dragged a suitcase out, plopped it open on that way-too-disturbing bed, then headed back to her dresser to start retrieving clothes.

Michael snorted. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

She shot him an unfriendly look. “Believe whatever you like.”

“Charlie, baby, you ever consider that because your mom’s an alcoholic, and she wasn’t willing or able to be the mother she should have been, and you pretty much had to take care of
her
, you’ve been trying to take care of everybody around you for most of your life?” The fact that his voice was now incredibly gentle should have robbed his words of any sting. It didn’t: each one flicked her on the raw. Her lips parted in shock as they hit. “You’ve even been doing your best to take care of
me
, which is just about as sweet as it is stupid. Maybe you want to start thinking about taking care of yourself.”

Straightening with a neatly folded pile of undergarments in her hands, she slewed around to glare at him as she honed in on the part of that speech that really struck a nerve. A few times, when she’d been feeling particularly vulnerable in the hospital and elsewhere, she’d told him little bits and pieces about her background. She’d definitely mentioned her mother, but she’d never told him
that
about her. That her mother was an alcoholic—she never talked about it to anyone.

Loyalty ran deep. Deeper even than the pain her mother’s drinking had caused.

“I never said my mother was an alcoholic.” Her voice was sharp. Stepping over to the bed, she deposited the underwear in the suitcase and turned back to glare at him all over again.

“I’m good at reading between the lines.” He wasn’t smiling. “You ain’t the first shrink I’ve ever seen, you know. Since I got arrested, they’ve had shrinks coming at me every time I turned around. I heard about adult children of alcoholics until I wanted to put my fist through a wall. That my damned bastard of a stepfather was a drunk was supposed to be a mitigating factor for me being a serial killer. My defense lawyers used it at my sentencing, to try to get me life in prison. Didn’t work out, but I learned a lot.”

“My mother is none of your business!” Shoulders rigid with anger, she returned to the dresser to jerk open another drawer and extract her running gear.

“Maybe not, but I think she’s the reason behind this savior complex you’ve got going on, and that
is
my business. It’s liable to get you killed.”

She turned from depositing her running gear in the suitcase to march toward the closet, glaring at him some more on the way. “You know what? When you get your medical degree, I’ll consider your opinion. Until then, I have to tell you that you’re full of shit.”

“I’m trying to look out for you here.”

Heading back toward the suitcase with her arms full of clothes, she gave an angry snort and shot bullets at him with her eyes. “You’re trying to manipulate me, you mean. To get what you want, which is to not go to Las Vegas.”

“Hey, you tried sweet-talking me.” His voice was still mild. He was looking at her with the barest suggestion of a smile, which she found infuriating. Actually, she found
him
infuriating. Times ten. “I’d say that makes us even.”