A Deep and Dark December (32 page)

By the time he crawled up her body, sweaty with exertion, she begged him to come, begged him to release the tension he’d strung out between them. And when he finally thrust into her, heard her cry out his name, he knew he was lost. He’d never make love to a woman like he’d loved her. Would never feel the completion he felt with her.

As their bodies cooled and their hearts beat a regular rhythm, he knew he’d never feel the way he felt in that moment. Would never again love a woman the way he loved her.
Her
. He sucked in great lungfuls of air, knowing he was lost and not caring a lick about it.

The grayed light of daybreak filtered through the curtains, illuminating the bed where they lay entwined. They’d remained tethered all night, never breaking contact, an unspoken need to remain bound. If she moved away, he followed. If he rolled, she rolled with him. And now she lay alone in the bed, listening to the water hit the shower tiles. Graham had told her to stay in bed and get some more sleep, but she’d been unable to without him beside her. She snuggled deeper into the bed, feeling connected to Graham in a way she’d never experienced before.

Their discussion, argument, whatever, had shifted something between them. She understood so much more about him now. And had a feeling he’d shared more with her than he’d wanted to, but in the end, not as much as he needed to. That was okay. She could wait. Loving him wasn’t going to be easy, but it would certainly have its rewards. She squirmed, thinking about all the things she’d done with him last night. Dirty, naughty things.

He’d driven her to the edge, then pulled her back over and over to the point where she’d begged him for release. And when he’d finally relented, had finally thrust hard into her, she’d cried out—his name, the lord’s, incoherent nonsense—until she’d gone hoarse and her lips went numb. He’d followed shortly after, hitting deep on a long, low groan. They’d lain like that, joined in the most intimate way possible until he’d shifted, lifting some of his weight off her. He’d gazed down at her with the most endearingly quizzical look, as though he couldn’t quite fathom what they’d done. All she could do was stare back at him, mirroring his expression. If he didn’t have the answer, how could she?

The water shut off and her gaze tracked to the window where the sun was just making its ascent, bringing a new day filled with old problems. A killer was still out there, probably planning his next move. Her father and aunt were still ill and she had only been able to hang on as long as she had because of Graham. The pain hadn’t come again since she’d fought it back the night before, but she could feel it hovering, waiting to swoop down and strike.

There had to be a way to make it all stop. A way to find a killer with an ability similar to hers and her family’s. But how? There were precious few clues as to his identity. It wasn’t like they could put an ad in the paper or stand in the middle of town and ask passersby if they’d committed murder.

But wait.

That’s exactly what they could do.

She rubbed her eyes and yawned as Graham came into the room. Everything was lighter now with full morning, but it took her a moment to realize that something had changed. Blinking his face into focus, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“What did you do?” she asked, sitting up.

He sat on the edge of the bed, his face set and serious. Taking her hand, he placed it on his jaw. “I shaved.”

She wriggled closer and put both hands on his face. “You look so different.”

“You don’t like it.”

“I’m just surprised. It’s been a while since I’ve seen your whole face.” And he was even more handsome than she remembered.

“It’ll make my pop happy.” Resentment bled through words that should’ve held resignation.

“Is that why you did it?”

“No.”

“Good.”

Something fierce and determined burned low and bright in the depths of his eyes. No. He hadn’t done this for his father. He’d done this for himself and maybe her too. He sat up straighter, his shoulders back, chin high, like a warrior preparing for battle. Warmth spread through her, beginning in her chest and radiating out to every point in her body. Pride maybe…or a deeper kind of recognition that went beyond affection and connection. There wasn’t a part of her that didn’t seem to know him.

“Come here.” She pulled him forward and rubbed her cheek against his. “Mmm, nice.” He smelled of soap and toothpaste. She imagined more mornings like this, just the two of them cocooned in their own little world.

He moved back. “Keep that up and I won’t be able to leave.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“So do I, but I have a killer to catch.”

She leaned back against the headboard, his words causing the world to crash back down in flaming chunks around them. Although things had changed between them, nothing had changed around them.

“Any ideas on how to do that?” she asked.

“A few. Yes.” He swelled with new purpose. “I also got a text that some of the lab results are in. So I’ll go over those and see if anything pops.”

She nodded, knowing as well as he did that those results would yield little information. They were dealing with a murderer who could kill without even being in the same room. The only exception was Deidre’s murder. Her murder was the only one in which he was physically present. Maybe they’d get lucky there.

“I have to go.” He leaned in and kissed her goodbye.

Although she knew he didn’t want to leave, she could feel his job pulling at him. A stray thought of taking a quick peek into the future lit across her synapses, stilling her for a moment. She pushed it away with a shake of her head.

“More pain?” he asked.

“No. Just a weird, random thought.”

He grinned, going for light. “Weird and random
would
describe your thought process.”

“Gee, thanks. Great morning after game you got there. You really know how to sweet talk the ladies.”

“Don’t need talk when I’ve got skills.”

“Maybe you should stay here and back up that boast.”

“No.” He kissed her hard and quick, then rose from the bed and backed toward the door. “Stop tempting me.”

“Yeah, bed head and morning breath are oh so tempting.”

“On you they are.” He glanced back as though someone called to him from the other room. “I really do have to go.”

“I know. Be careful.”

“You, too. Call me if you need me, okay?”

“Yeah.”

He left without a backwards glance and the room felt empty and lacking as though he’d stripped it of any purpose.

Just a quick glimpse.

She looked around as though someone had said the words aloud. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. If she focused on the killer, on how they’d catch him, maybe she could
see
him. No. She’d promised herself. Nothing good ever happened when she opened up the future.

When her ability had begun to manifest just after her eighth birthday, no one knew what it would be. Foretelling had come first and her father had thought she might be able to manipulate or alter the future. She’d told her mother about the strange waking dream she’d had about her uncle, her mother’s only sibling. Erin had described the car accident that would take her uncle’s life three days before it happened, right down to the fire that would make his remains difficult to identify.

Although Erin had only described the future, her mother had blamed her for causing it. Erin didn’t understand her mother’s withdrawal, then or now. Her parents’ relationship, fragile on a good day, splintered and cracked. And then came the night her mother had left and her father hadn’t stopped her. Erin began to notice the looks of the townspeople, heard the whispers. So she’d hidden her ability, had seldom used it at all until recently.

Use it. You were given this gift for a reason…to use it.

She gripped the sides of her head, fisting her hair. She didn’t want to use it, didn’t want to admit even to herself that she felt ugly and deformed for having it. It marked her as different. She’d tried so hard to fit in, to hide that part of herself.

The answers are in the future.

She wanted answers. Wanted them more than anything else. She’d been given this ability, this gift for a reason, to use it. The tension in her fingers pulled her hair tighter. The bite of pain punctured her thoughts. Wait. No. This wasn’t her. These weren’t her thoughts. The future never held answers, only pain, pain, and more pain. She pulled harder, the tautness making her scalp lift.

Look at the future.
Her voice echoed words she knew weren’t hers.
The answers are there, waiting to be discovered.

“No!”

She threw up a wall, visualizing as she’d been taught, a mental fortress that would block her aunt or anyone else from sneaking into her thoughts. The killer. He’d found a new way to get into her head. Was this how he’d been able to manipulate Greg and Keith by disguising his thoughts as theirs? They wouldn’t have known how to block him or even be able to distinguish the difference between his words and theirs.

The fortress shook, but held. He kept trying to get at her. She focused all her energy into the force field and soon she could feel him retreating, slithering back to his cave of anonymity. Taking slow, deep breaths, she relaxed her fingers and slid them out of her hair and into her lap. She wasn’t surprised to find strands trapped between her fingers. She took another breath and shivered, flicking off the last slivers of his control.

This had to stop. But how?

The idea she’d had earlier when Graham had come in and distracted her came back full force. What if she played his game? What if she let it be known that she’d seen the killer in a vision? What if
she
drew him out of hiding?

Revealing her secret would bring back all the whispers and stares of the townspeople. Could she do it? Was she ready to expose her secret and give up any hope of being normal, of being accepted? No one in this town would ever look at her the same way again. She’d never fit in.

She had to do it, had to save her dad and aunt. She had to stop this killer before he struck again.

~*~

Graham stood next to Pax on the uneven pavement outside of Betty’s Buds and Blooms on Main Street and watched the tow truck driver hook up Axel Freed’s SUV.

“And he has no idea why he drove his car through the window?” Pax asked.

“Nope,” Graham answered. “The idea just popped into his head.”

“Is there a full moon or something?”

“Not that I know of.”

“So many screwy things happening, like you shaving your beard. Erin make you do it?”

Graham shot Pax an annoyed look. “No.”

“You wouldn’t be the first guy to bend to the will of his woman.” Pax held up his palms. “Just sayin’.”

“You get the ballistics report back on the Hallowell shooting yet?”

“Not yet. Some foul up in the lab.” Pax turned his focus back to the SUV tail up through the display window. “Your dad’ll be glad…about the beard.”

“I’ve got to get back to the station.” Graham gestured toward the hysterical Betty, giving her account of what happened to another officer. “You got this?”

“Yeah. But—” Pax sidled up closer to Graham. “I gotta ask. Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“That Erin has some kind of divining power.”

“What?
Where
did you hear that?”

Pax had the good sense to look ashamed. “My wife.”

“Who did she hear it from?”

“Her sister?”

“And who did her sister get it from?”

Tilting his head back, Pax looked up at the gray sky as if the answer were written there. He bunched up his face. “The lady who cuts her hair maybe?”

Graham spun on his heels and stalked toward the sheriff’s station.

Pax followed. “So it is true.”

“Shut up, Pax.”

“I’ll be damned. I just thought it was a bunch of gossipy women with nothing to do over there.”

“Not another word.”

“I always knew there was something off about her. Her whole family is whacked. I heard—”