Read A Deep and Dark December Online

Authors: Beth Yarnall

Tags: #General Fiction

A Deep and Dark December (8 page)

BOOK: A Deep and Dark December
2.64Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

“Good.” It actually kind of did. She didn’t want to be alone tonight.

Keith kissed her cheek and went down the steps to his car.

Graham grabbed his umbrella from the stand by the door and opened it. “Let’s get you in the car so you can hurry up and do that snuggle movie thing.”

Was that sarcasm in Graham’s tone?

He took her elbow and helped her into his car. She tried to get a read on him, but the cloud-covered moon darkened the night, making it difficult to see his expression. He tossed the umbrella in the back, climbed in, and started the engine with a hard yank of the key. Something was definitely going on here. More than the deaths of Greg and Deidre, and his supposed knowledge about her ability. She didn’t know Graham well enough to know what that something was, but she had a feeling that not all of this controlling the scene business was completely on the up and up.

“That stuff about keeping your eye on me was all bullshit, wasn’t it?” she asked.

He hesitated. “Yes and no. I don’t want any mistakes on this case and I wanted to talk to you alone without tall, dark and grocerly hanging around.” He put the car in reverse and backed out.

More sarcasm directed at her boyfriend.

“What do you have against Keith? He’s a good guy.”

Frowning, he put the car in drive. “I know.”

He hit the gas and their car went ahead of Keith’s. She pretended to focus on the passing scenery, but the storm made that impossible.

“Did you
see
something back there?” he asked after a moment.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I think you do. Come off it. Tell me what you saw.” She didn’t answer right away, so he prodded her again. “Erin. I told you, I
know
. You don’t have to hide who you are from me.”

“That would put you in the minority.”

“Along with Keith?”

“No.”

After a beat he said, “Did you see something about the Lasiters?”

How could he possibly know about her ability? He’d been hinting about knowing her lifetime-long kept secret since she came to on the floor of his office. She bit the inside of her cheek.

“Cerie’s worried about you. She thinks you might be having problems with your your ability, too.”

Her
aunt
told him about her ability? Why? Why would she—?

That’s why Cerie had rushed out of Graham’s office. She must have wanted to get out of there before she had a collapse like Erin’s. What did it mean? Had her father been affected, too?

“You can see the past and future.” Not a question. There was no judgment or censure in his tone. He wasn’t mocking her. Did that mean he believed in psychic abilities?

She’d learned at an early age that the novelty factor of her ability quickly wore off once the reality of what she could do set in. No one liked having the element of surprise taken away from them. No one wanted their past examined. And no one wanted to know how and when a loved one would die. She’d learned that last lesson the hard way.

What would happen if she told Graham about her visions? What would he do with the information? The truth was, she wanted someone besides her family to trust. She was tired of hiding, tired of pretending. She was worn thin from the pretending.

So when he gently said
tell me
again, she fell headfirst into the illusion of intimacy in his darkened car. It was just the two of them, not looking at each other with miles of pitch-black road ahead of them.

Starting out unsteadily, then gradually finding her pace, she told him about her initial vision and how it had differed from what had happened at the house.

“Has that ever happened before?” His question was matter of fact, as though he dealt with people with psychic abilities every day.

“Why aren’t you freaked out by what I just told you?”

“Who says I’m not?”

She shouldn’t have told him. This was a mistake.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe you,” he added. “Or that I’ll betray your trust.”

“Why?”

“That’s not who I am.”

Tension she didn’t realize she’d been holding drained out of her. That’s not who he was. He certainly hadn’t reacted the way her mother had when Erin’s ability had first started to manifest. Not yet anyway.

“No,” she answered his previous question. “My visions have never wavered like that before.”

“So it only started when you first touched the file on the Lasiter property.”

“Yes.”

“Cerie seems to think the storm and the moon and mercury being in retrograde is messing with
her
ability.”

“You’re making fun of her.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. She’s…different, that’s all I meant. She isn’t shy about who she is or using her ability. She trades off of it.”


Different
. Right.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Do you know what it’s like to grow up in my family? Those crazy Decembers. They’re witches, they’re fakes, they think they’re special when all they really want is attention. But mostly, people just think we’re nuts.”

“Cerie doesn’t help your case, I’ll give you that.”

“When I was a kid I hated that she made her living off giving fortunes.”

“And now?”

“It doesn’t matter.” But it did. More than she wanted to admit. She still hated it, but it was a part of who Cerie was and what she was to the community.

She felt him watching her as they sat at a stoplight, sure he wouldn’t let her get away with that answer. She’d confided more in Graham than anyone else, including her family. She’d never told Cerie how she felt about her fortune-telling or any of the rest of it. There was something about Graham that made her want to tell him things. Or maybe it was the exhaustion. Her secret was a heavy and tiresome burden to carry for so long.

“What else did you see about what happened at the Lasiter house?”

Grateful for the subject change, she grabbed at the reprieve he gave her. “In the kitchen with Greg before he… died, I saw Deidre answer the door to her killer.”

He gave her a startled glance. “Male or female?”

“Definitely male.”

“How can you be sure?”

“He liked it when Deidre was on top when they had sex so he could watch her boobs bounce up and down.”

“Who doesn’t?”

She glared at him, her mouth dropping open in disgust.

“What?” he teased. “It’s true. Ask any guy.”

Fighting an answering smile, she rolled her eyes at him. The much-needed moment of levity lingered briefly before Graham had to turn back to the road.

“So Deidre was having an affair with the man who killed her,” he said. “Anything else?”

“Deidre’s killer shot her because she got pregnant. He was annoyed with her for that.”

“Damn. Did you see who he was? Anything about him that you can identify?”

“No, he wore gloves and a dark coat.”

“Can you think of anything else?”

“He really got off on being with her. Deidre was in love with him, but she was nothing more than an ego boost for him. While she was divorcing Greg to be with him, hoping he’d divorce his wife, too—he was plotting to get rid of her to protect his marriage and social standing. I didn’t like him. At all. It’s more than almost being in his skin in my vision when he killed Deidre. He’s…sick. His mind isn’t right.”

“So we’re looking for a married man who wanted to stay married. There aren’t very many of those.” When Erin let the silence stretch, he said, “Sorry. Can’t help it.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“No—”

“You haven’t changed since high school. You’re still the same jerk who made fun of my family and me with your friends.”

“I never—”

“Yes you did. I heard you. I’m such an idiot for telling you all that, for trusting you.” She nearly gagged on her stupidity. This was why she had kept her secret so long, this attitude toward anyone in this town who was different.

“Erin, I swear I never made fun of you.”

“I
heard
you, Graham. You and Greg and Mike Deitz and Chris Worley in the library. Mike found a book on circus people.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Of course you don’t. But I do. You thought one of the freaks in the book looked like my aunt. That set the rest of them off.” Thinking about it now brought back the humiliation as though it was happening all over again. She fought against it. She wasn’t that girl anymore. Or at least she was trying really hard not to be.

“I honestly don’t remember. We were probably just acting like a bunch of assholes.”

“Somebody tore that picture out of the book and glued it to my locker.” She wasn’t letting him off the hook. Was he really that blithe to what he and his friends had done to her? Was it just a harmless, victimless prank to them?

“You don’t think—”

“On the outside. Where everyone saw it.
Everyone.
They wrote ‘Come to the December Freak Show’ on it. The custodian had to take the door off my locker and replace it with a new one that was a different color from the rest.”

“Jesus.”

“That was in February. I had that locker until the end of the year. It made me a target. People shoved nasty notes through the slots almost daily.” She pulled in a shaky breath. “Thanks to you and your friends, I was free game.”

“Erin, I’m sorry. I don’t know which one of my asshole friends did that to you. I’d kick the shit out of him right now if I could.”

“You can’t.” She rubbed her forehead, trying to dislodge the ache that had settled behind her eyes. She sighed. Her anger drained away in the face of their current reality. “It was Greg.”

He stopped the car in front of Greg’s house and stared at it for a moment. She wished she could read his thoughts. Was he really sorry or only saying it because he’d been forced to face his past actions? How did the new Graham compare to the old? Could she trust him as much as she wanted to? As much as she already had? Or had she made a huge, irreversible mistake here?

Putting his arm across the back of the bench seat, he turned to her. The look in his eyes was full of regret. And shame. The shame surprised her.

“I really am sorry. I had no idea. I swear. I hope you can forgive me.” He glanced at the house again, then back at her. “And Greg.”

“I don’t know. I’m going to have to wait and see what you do with what I just told you.”

“Fair enough, but can I make a suggestion? Please don’t repeat what you just said. Someone might think you’d gotten your revenge by killing Greg.”

“But I didn’t.”

He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “I know.
I
know, but someone else might take it differently.”

“You know you’re a prince when you’re not acting like a cop or a smart ass. Unfortunately, that’s almost never.” She reached for the door handle. “Let’s get this over with so I can get away from you.” She opened the door and stepped out into the rain, slamming the door behind her.

~*~

Graham would’ve kicked his own ass if it were possible. Why was he pushing her buttons? Just when he’d finally made some progress with her, he ruined it by being a complete fucking idiot. He honestly didn’t remember that incident from high school. Was he really that much of an ass back then?

He remembered her very well in high school. She was the only girl who wouldn’t give him the time of day. That made her much more interesting than the ones who threw themselves at him. The more he tried to get her attention, the less interested she seemed. Then he graduated and moved away and he had only ever seen her briefly in the years since. She continued to have no regard for him whatsoever. Even now he wasn’t sure what she thought of him, past being a constant annoyance.

He stormed out of the car after her and knocked into Keith coming up the walk. Just what he needed.

“Stay out of the way,” he snarled at Keith.

“I never did like you,” Keith said. “I can see now that my opinion was well founded. Tell Erin I’ll be waiting for her in the car.” He spun on his heel and walked off.

Graham went up the steps to where Erin stood on the porch. He got as close to her as he dared. “What you told me will stay between us. I give you my word.”

“If you say so.” He had a lot to overcome where she was concerned.

The inexplicable need to be near her had him inching closer. “You frustrate the hell out of me, you know that?”

“You aren’t doing much more for me either.”

He could smell his shower gel on her skin and it brought back the images of her he’d had in his office. He leaned in. “I’m on your side.”

“Are you?” She seemed a little out of breath or angry. He couldn’t tell.

“I—” One of the tech guys came out of the house and bumped his shoulder, making him realize where he was. He backed away from her. “Stay here. I’ll go find your cell phone.” He went into the house, concentrating on keeping his steps even and unhurried.

BOOK: A Deep and Dark December
2.64Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Poet's Wife by Rebecca Stonehill
Taming the Wolf by Irma Geddon
The Lawman Meets His Bride by Meagan McKinney
Last Summer by Rebecca A. Rogers
Renegade Wedding (Renegade Sons MC Book 3) by Emily Minton, Dawn Martens
Spellstorm by Ed Greenwood