“Some of them choose to stay to help,” Nikki said. “Maybe it’s a form of karma. Who knows?”
Jessy sipped her tea, which was both delicious and soothing. Then she yawned again and gave in to exhaustion. It was hard to believe she could sleep after the events of the day—and night—but she was quite certain she could. She rose and said, “Thank you both for everything, but I think I have to get some sleep now. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate not having to be afraid when I do.”
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing pretty damn good learning to deal with the whole ghost thing,” Nikki said, smiling.
“Because now I know it’s the living I need to fear,” Jessy told her, then headed for the hallway and the comfort of a soft mattress.
It felt wonderful to take a shower, as if she was washing away the horror of the attack.
Afterward, even though she had her own things, she found one of Dillon’s T-shirts and crawled into it, towel dried her hair and curled up in bed.
It took only seconds for her to fall asleep.
Dillon knew he didn’t need to worry about his house. He didn’t have a high-tech alarm, but he had Clancy. Of course, she was flesh and blood, and she was a dog, dogs had to go out—and he never let himself forget the fact that dogs could be poisoned. He watched her carefully, but he counted on more than just Clancy to provide protection.
His windows were all discreetly rigged in his own adaptation of the old Paiute hunting style. If anyone tried to break in through a window, they would trigger a nylon net, which would fall over him, then tighten if the intruder tried to struggle free. At the same time, a buzzer sounded in the kitchen, loud enough to be heard throughout the entire house. On top of that, he was licensed to carry a firearm, and he did: a small, specially equipped Glock with one extra shot, giving him ten bullets.
Even so, it was good to find Brent and Nikki waiting up for him when he got home. He immediately told them about the latest body and his theories.
“So because this guy was in the system, and his boss was afraid he’d left blood at the scene and we would find him, he took him down before he could talk?” Brent asked.
“That’s the way I see it,” Dillon told him. “We have to move on this. Jessy loves her job. I don’t want it to end her life.”
As soon as Brent and Nikki were gone, Dillon locked the door and secured the dead bolt, then headed to his room, yawning. No one was going to have more than a few hours’ sleep before they started fresh in the morning.
He found Jessy sleeping, and a wealth of emotion swept through him. He wasn’t sure how it was possible to care about someone so much so quickly. Even if this ended well, there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t walk right out of his life.
He turned away and headed toward the bathroom for a shower. He glanced in the mirror as he passed and saw that his hair was in disarray, and there was a smudge on his cheek, and thought that it would have been nice if someone had told him about that.
Then he stripped down and stepped into the shower, closed his eyes and let the water rush down on him.
He heard a noise and instinctively turned off the water, tension filling him, then stepped silently out of the shower, reaching automatically for the first weapon he could find: the towel rack. If he needed to, he could rip it off the wall.
“It’s me!” Jessy said quickly, her hypnotically blue eyes huge.
“You were sleeping,” he told her.
“I know, but I heard you come in,” she said, smiling.
“You must be exhausted.”
“I am—but not that exhausted.”
Heedless of the fact that he was dripping wet, he took her into his arms. The water on his heated skin quickly soaked the T-shirt, which seemed incredibly erotic. He kissed her, tugging off the shirt, which was only an irritating barrier between them. In a matter of seconds her eyes were on his again as her breasts rose and fell, and then she was back in his arms.
They kissed, the steam filling the air around them and adding to the rising heat in their bodies. Then he lifted her until she straddled his hips, and they both laughed as he carried her from the bathroom to the bed, where together they fell to the mattress. Their laughter faded then, and he shifted, moving into her, exhaustion fading away in his urgency to be with her.
They moved swiftly, climaxed violently, then drifted down and made love slowly. Eventually, they fell asleep, tangled in one another’s arms.
To Jessy’s astonishment, Dillon was still asleep when she woke up.
She tried very hard to slip out from beneath him without waking him up. It was early—especially considering that they hadn’t actually gone to sleep until around eight-thirty—but she was a creature of habit, and she had been meeting Timothy for breakfast for so long that she was pretty sure it would be impossible for her to sleep late in the morning anymore, no matter how hard she tried.
She slipped on a simple T-shirt and jeans for the time being, thinking that she could shower and dress in something more presentable once Dillon was awake.
Clancy was waiting for a chance to go outside, so Jessy let her out, and then put on a pot of coffee. While the coffee brewed, she checked in the living room, but Adam was nowhere in sight, either. Feeling hungry, she made herself some whole wheat toast and realized that she hadn’t eaten much the night before. She’d been starving when they got to the buffet, but her appetite had waned once Dillon received the call from the woman in forensics.
She realized that she hadn’t even asked him anything about that when he had come in. She had needed to touch him, to be with him, and nothing else had mattered.
Her toast popped, and she found some butter and jam. With her plate in one hand and coffee cup in the other, she rounded the counter toward the living room, figuring she would watch the news.
But as she came around the counter, she froze.
The living room had been empty. Empty, and as quiet as the dead.
No longer.
Tanner Green was sitting in a comfortably upholstered chair.
Behind him, standing as if he was ready to run at any minute, was Rudy Yorba.
“Don’t leave, please,” Jessy said quietly, reassuringly. “It’s just me. You’ve been trying to reach me for days, and now I’m here—just me, no else—so don’t be afraid.”
She had to admit that she was a little bit afraid herself. Yes, she was, just a little. She had gotten accustomed to Ringo, but now, faced with two of the newly dead, she felt herself begin to tremble.
She tried to remain perfectly calm as she took a seat on the couch.
“Excuse me.” She spoke softly, and carefully set down her breakfast, then reached for her coffee cup, needing a sip, as if it were alcohol and might bolster her courage.
“Mr. Green,” she said politely. “I apologize for being afraid of you at first, but I’m not afraid now. I want to help you. The people who killed you are trying to hurt other people.” Her voice cracked for a minute. “They killed Rudy, and they’re going to kill again if you won’t help me. Please, talk to me.”
Tanner Green’s mouth worked as if he was trying to talk; then he started to fade away.
Suddenly she heard Ringo’s impatient voice.
“Come on, you big coward. Be a man and talk to the lady.”
“I can handle this,” Jessy objected firmly.
But Ringo’s approach had the desired effect.
Tanner Green seemed to stabilize in his chair.
“I’m glad you decided to stay,” Jessy said, at a loss for anything else. “Now, please, tell who ki—who did this to you.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You have to find out.” He seemed surprised that he had actually managed to speak. He almost smiled, then spoke again, his confidence seeming to grow. “I keep trying to remember the day, where I was. I keep trying to retrace my footsteps.”
“That’s a great idea,” Jessy told him encouragingly.
“Mr. Yorba, you could sit down,” she added quietly.
Rudy Yorba seemed startled to be addressed so directly, and Tanner Green stared at him curiously. She reminded herself that they hadn’t known one another in life.
She took a long drink of coffee, set the cup back down and asked, “Rudy, why do you keep hiding from Mr. Green?” she asked.
“I’ve been watching him. I think whoever killed him killed me, too, so I thought if I followed him, I could find out who that was. But I was afraid for him to see me. He’s…huge.”
Jessy nodded. “He is, but I’m sure he doesn’t want to hurt you.”
Tanner look at Rudy quizzically. “Why the hell would I hurt you? I don’t even know you!” His eyes narrowed. “You weren’t part of this, were you?”
“No, no, we think Rudy was killed by the same people who killed you,” Jessy said quickly, then cleared her throat. “We’re pretty sure Rudy was killed because someone knew he had talked to Dillon—Dillon Wolf,” Jessy said. “We’re all looking for the same answers, and we all need to help each other.”
Rudy didn’t speak, but Tanner Green frowned and said, “I remember…having a drink, and then…then it changed. Everything changed. There was so much neon. I saw the playground from when I was a kid in Philly…I saw…I saw lights. I saw you. You…Someone attacked me, and then I fell down and died on you.”
“Yes. You did.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. It’s not like you wanted to.”
“Rudy, what about you? Did you see anything?” Jessy asked him.
“Lights. I saw lights. The bastard came at me like a bat out of hell. He meant to kill me, not just to hit me. It was murder, and I want the bastard who did it,” Rudy said.
“Rudy, how did you run out of gas?”
“I didn’t run out of gas,” he said. “Someone siphoned my tank. They left me enough to get out on the highway, and they knew exactly where I’d have to start walking.”