The Five Deaths of Roxanne Love (5 page)

Santo stopped in front of door number 311 and set her on her feet, but he kept his arms around her when she swayed, his hands strong and firm on her waist and as searing as an iron brand. He reached inside the jacket and his knuckles brushed the lower curve of her breast as he pulled out his wallet.

For a charged instant, his gaze tethered hers again, sharp with awareness.

Without a word, he removed his keycard and unlocked the door.

When he stood back, she understood that he was waiting for her to go first. For her consent. Entering implied a hell of a lot of trust and they both knew it. Dressed in her bloody T-shirt and jeans, swimming in his big leather jacket, she felt too vulnerable and scared to make such a big decision. How had she ended up here? How could she rewind the clock and find a different outcome?

He said nothing as she considered her options. It didn’t take long. She could call his bluff and run . . . and probably fall on her face. Or she could believe the actions she’d seen so far. That he would help her.
That he wouldn’t have protected her in the bar only to hurt her now.

A bloated brown grasshopper landed by her feet. She jumped and Santo took the choice away from her. He stepped on the bug, wiped his shoe, and then pulled Roxanne into the room, shutting the door behind them.

Uncertainly, she watched him toss his keycard on the dresser with his wallet. For some reason, the casual discarding of those items spiked her unease. It was such a masculine, everyday thing to do, emptying pockets that way. It clashed with the extraordinary circumstances of her being there at all.

“Why didn’t you take me home or to the station instead of here?” she asked belatedly as her few functioning brain cells woke up.

“You were in no shape to haul into the station.”

He had that right. She still wasn’t. She shuddered, thinking of all the people and questions she’d have had to face if he’d taken her there. Instead of Santo’s eyes watching her come back from the dead, there would have been dozens of others, cameras recording each moment, microphones shoved in her face. Prying questions, prying eyes. She sucked in a shaky breath of gratitude that he’d saved her from having to face that again.

After the last time she and Reece had died, the media furor had transformed the miracle of their survival into something vile. For months reporters had stalked the
entire family until Roxanne felt like the abomination they accused her of being.

“Why didn’t you just take me home?” she asked suddenly.

His eyes glinted with amusement. “You might not have noticed, but you weren’t breathing at the time and I don’t know where you live.”

Oh. Good point.

“Besides,” he said, “you wouldn’t be safe there.”

Safe.

“Safe from what? What was . . . What
happened
tonight?”

“Sit down,” Santo said as he went to look out the window.

A chair sat tucked up under a desk holding a lamp and a phone. Beside it a duffel bag with clothes in it sat on a luggage rack. Other than that, the only furnishings were a king-sized bed with a dated comforter and a nightstand. She eyed the chair, preferring to stay far away from the bed, but Santo took it before she could, spinning it around so he could face her. He sat with his knees spread and his forearms resting on them, watching her every move. Reluctantly, she perched on the edge of the mattress. Santo seemed to find her caution amusing.

“I’m not going to pounce on you.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

She lifted her chin, hiding a wince. She could feel
her body healing, but that didn’t mean it felt good. Every muscle ached, her chest and lungs burned with each breath. Even her skin hurt.

“Are you in pain?”

“I’ll live,” she said, trotting out the tired joke she and her family shared. Santo didn’t smile. She didn’t blame him.

“Are you in pain?” he repeated.

“I was shot, Santo. By someone who looked like he stepped out of a nightmare. Of course I’m in pain.”

A flinty light flared in his eyes at that, as if the idea of her feeling pain upset the imperturbable man.

An uncomfortable silence followed her words, during which Santo subjected her to a scrutiny that made her want to squirm. She leveled her gaze back, trying to gauge his thoughts. But a layer of ice seemed to have formed beneath her skin, making her shiver. Thinking became that much more difficult.

“Why did you say it wasn’t a robbery?” she asked, deciding that was as good a place as any to start.

Santo stood and peeled the covers back from the bed. Blood had soaked her sneakers and the legs of her jeans. In fact, she felt tacky with it and the smell was making her sick. He lifted each foot, removed her shoe and sock, then popped the buttons on her fly and yanked her pants down before she realized what he meant to do.

“Get in,” he ordered, pointing at the bed.

All too aware of him watching her, she crawled beneath the covers. Gently, he tucked the blankets around her legs as she sat with the pillows propped behind her. She still wore his coat, but he didn’t ask for it back and she didn’t want to relinquish it, so she wrapped it tighter around her shaking body.

Instead of returning to his chair, Santo sat beside her on the bed, his hand finding her frozen feet beneath the blankets and covering them. Even through the layers, she felt his heat, felt the shock of his touch.

He hadn’t answered her yet and she was about to ask again when he finally spoke, stunning her with his question.

“When did your brother make the deal with the demons?”

R
oxanne stared at Santo until finally a strangled laugh burst from her lips. “
What?
”

“The black tide? The locusts? The
demons
in the kitchen? You didn’t notice them?”

Her mouth was open. She shut it with a snap. He couldn’t be serious. And yet he certainly looked it.

“Demons,” she repeated.

He nodded, stoic.

“There’s no such thing as demons.”

“There’s no such thing as miracles either. But I watched one tonight. A woman who was clearly dead suddenly took a breath.”

Roxanne felt her face grow hot. “That’s different.”

“Is it? Four times you’ve died, Roxanne. And yet here you are.”

“Last time I checked, that wasn’t against the law.”

“But dallying with demons . . .” He clicked his tongue. “That is.”

“No one was
dallying
with any demons. Especially not my brother.”

Santo said nothing to that. Just watched her with those eloquent eyes.

“There was a
man
,” she said. “A man with a mask and he shot—” Her voice cracked and she took a breath to steady it. “He shot my brother and Manny. He shot Sal. And Jim. He shot them for no reason.”

“And you,” Santo said softly. “He shot you, too.”

She looked up, hurt that he would speak it. “Yes.
He
did. A man with a mask. A sick, violent masked man.”

Santo only continued to stare at her, and she forced herself not to look away. Some part of her braced for the punch line. He’d thrown the word
demon
out there so casually. And now he waited like a patient older sibling while she worked out the logistics of Santa Claus’s run and realized that it had to be mom and dad under the tree.

Only instead of Santa, he was talking about demons. Tonight. In her family-owned restaurant, for God’s sake.

“Roxanne, you have been saved by a higher power four times. How can you not believe in demons?”

“It’s exactly that reason. There’s no heaven or hell.”

He raised his brows. “So billions and billions of people are wrong about that?”

“I just meant that
I’ve
never seen it. There’s only the darkness.”

He looked like he wanted to comment on that, but what she found in death was far too intimate a conversation to have with him, no matter how attractive or compelling he was.

“Do you know what they call me and my brother?” she blurted instead.

“Freaks?” he offered helpfully.

“Yes,” she answered, as if it didn’t wound. “Among other things. Like demon. Devil’s Spawn. Possessed. Being an unexplained mystery isn’t as fun as one might imagine.” She paused, watching his fingers rub her feet. She doubted he even realized he was doing it. But Roxanne was very much aware of each touch. Too aware.

“After the last time,” she went on in an unsteady voice, “we had to file seven restraining orders. Seven, because of the fanatics who followed us trying to exorcise our demons. More than a few of them assumed we’d need to be sacrificed for the good of the cause.”

His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

“It only makes it worse that Reece and I are twins. Did you know that in some cultures, they believe twins are a curse? They think twins share one soul that’s split in two, one half good, the other evil.”

“Are you telling me you think your brother is evil?”

“No,” she said angrily. “I’m saying, when faced with something they can’t understand, people fear it. So when you tell me that you saw demons in my family’s pub tonight, all I can say is, sorry. People see what they want to see.”

“And you think I wanted to see demons?”

“I don’t know what you want, Santo.”

“You saw them coming in the door. You know they weren’t human.”

“I saw people in masks.”

“Do you always lie when you don’t like the truth?”

“Are you always so cruel when you question someone?”

That set him back. For a moment, he looked completely bewildered. “I’m cruel?” he said.

“Even if they did exist, how can you believe
my brother
would be making deals with demons? He was shot tonight. Just like me.”

“He invited them into your kitchen. If you’re going to play pretend, you should learn to be more convincing.”

“Why are you so sure they were demons? They could have been some other monster.”

“So you did see them.”

She sighed. “I don’t know what I saw.”

She could feel his fixed stare, knew her answer hadn’t satisfied him. But at least she’d given one. He’d sidestepped hers like a pro. How did he know any of this?

“Are you really a cop, Santo? Because I don’t know too many police officers who’d be so quick to say demons were running around the college district.”

He stood, picked up his badge, and tossed it to her. It bounced off the mattress and into her lap. She examined it again. The dates, the picture, the name. It all looked official and correct, like the real deal. But a badge didn’t make him her savior.

“Whoa,” she said, noting the embossed text circling the edges. “This says you’re Flagstaff PD. Aren’t you out of your jurisdiction or something?”

“Or something.”

“What kind of something?”

“The kind that has to do with demons.”

She laughed harshly. “Flagstaff PD has a demon department?”

“Don’t get hung up on the label.”

Her mouth had fallen open again. He was serious. He really believed those things she’d seen tonight were demons. Those and . . . what had he called them? The black tides? The locusts?

She peered into her memory, seeing it all clearly, letting it come even when it filled her with terror. What if he was right? What if her brain
wasn’t
playing tricks? What if it had all been real? And if she accepted that, how could she
not
believe that the terrifying creatures that had come through the door were anything less than demons?

She swallowed hard. “What
should
I get hung up on, Santo? Why are you here? Why am I?”

Something unreadable moved behind his eyes. He was sifting his responses again, just as he’d done earlier. Weighing each word before offering it up. Did that mean he was lying? Or only being cautious? He turned his back before she could reach a decision.

“I was sent,” he said in a dark voice. “To protect you.”

“Why am I hearing conflict in your tone?”

He glanced at her and quickly away. “Because you’re afraid of the truth.”

“More like you’re not telling it. There are too many holes in your
truth.
”

“Like?”

“You were sent? From Flagstaff?”

“Yes.”

“They sent you from
Flagstaff
to protect
me
from demons.”

“Does it matter where I’m from?”

No, she supposed it didn’t, but somehow she felt it should. Santo let out a deep breath and took her hands. His were square, strong, and a little rough. Man’s hands. He rubbed her icy fingers and looked into her eyes.

“Regardless of what you think you saw tonight, can we agree that whoever—
whatever—
came through that door . . . They meant you harm?”

She nodded. Yep, they’d made that crystal clear.

He gave her a tight smile. “Can we agree that I don’t?”

“The jury is still out on that.”