Broken Illusions: A Midnight Dragonfly Novel (6 page)

Forever.

“And I was so scared,” I admitted. “I thought you were gone—”

He reached for me, dragging me across the game board to straddle his lap. “Let it go,” he said, sliding the hair from my face. “I’m here. I’m okay. It’s over.”

“But it keeps playing. Every time I close my eyes I see you all over again and it’s so real—”

“Then don’t close your eyes.” He put a finger to my mouth. “You can’t torture yourself like that, living in a future that isn’t going to happen.”

I looked at him, and wanted so badly to believe. He always did that, made me want to follow him to a world where the sun always shone and the only dreams that came true were those involving winning football games, going to college, and living happily ever after.

But then, I knew his life had been far from perfect.

He urged me closer, anchoring me against him with arms around my middle. “Think about the future that
will
happen. Think about our trip this summer—about Pensacola.”

The warmth was immediate, radiating like sunshine from his body into mine. I sunk into it, running my hand along the barbed wire tattoo braceleting his arm, and held on so, so tight.

“Sugar white beaches,” he murmured against the side of my neck. “Turquoise water.”

I closed my eyes, wanted to see. Tried to see …

He kissed his way up to my earlobe. “That’s where I go when I need something good.”

I’d never been. I’d never been to the beach, never seen a dolphin play, never felt a wave crash over me. And I wanted it, wanted it so, so badly.

Pulling back, I lifted my hands to his face, skimming my thumb gently along his busted lip. “When do you go there?” I wasn’t sure where the question came from—or why it scraped on the way out. “When do you need something good?”

His eyes flashed, for just a heartbeat, before he glanced away, back toward the plate of brownies.

And I knew. I knew when he went there, when he needed something good. It was when he thought about last fall. When he went back to the house on Prytania, to Big Charity …

He said he didn’t. He said he didn’t go back, didn’t remember, didn’t even think about it.

But I knew that he did. We all did.

“Last night,” he said, returning his eyes to mine. “That’s where I went while in that tube having the CT scan.”

It hurt to swallow.

“Can you see it, too?” he asked. “Can you see this summer?”

I tried. I wanted to. I’d pulled up pictures on Web sites.

“Trinity—”

“It’s strange,” I said, sliding my hand from his face to his hair. “I could never have imagined this a year ago.” The emotion was still there, the emotion I’d chained away before. But it was different now, the edges not quite as sharp, but still capable of slicing. I leaned into him and feathered my mouth against his, something inside me twisting at the faint, coppery residue of blood.

“Being here, with you, like this. It’s like I’m living a—”

Dream.

The word stuck in my throat.

“Fantasy,” I said instead. I had everything I’d ever wanted. “But when I start to look too far forward…” I closed my eyes. Because when I did, when I tried to go to this summer, to the beach, to the moonlit nights he talked about, everything inside me went blank.

“Trinity—”

I opened my eyes and drank him in, the blue, blue of his eyes and the dimple, even the scrapes along his cheekbone. “I want that,” I said, with a force that surprised me. “I want Pensacola. And I want Mardi Gras, and I want—”

My heart to quit twisting.

I looked away, toward the game board, where the wrench waited in the ballroom and the candlestick in the hall, the knife—

“Trinity?”

Something inside me stilled. I blinked, blinked again, turned back to Chase, and smiled.

“And right now,” I said, sliding back from the warmth of his body. “I want right now—because you are so going down.”

A low gleam came into his eyes. “You think so?”

I resumed my place on the other side of the board. “I know so.”

While his brother shouted at the game upstairs, Chase readied ours, picking up a pile of cards and fanning them facedown. “Pick one—but don’t turn it over.”

I did as he instructed, sliding the card into the little brown envelope marked
CONFIDENTIAL
.

Two stacks later, one for location, one for murder weapon, and our crime was set. He said he and his mom had played all morning, with Chase claiming to have schooled her three times out of five. Given her occupation (an attorney who once worked in the D.A.’s office), I suppose it made sense that Clue was her game of choice.

“I’m Miss Scarlet,” I said, fingering the red piece—

“I saw you last night, too.”

I looked up, the way his bangs fell against the raw glow in his eyes making something inside me go all raw and glowy, too.

“You were on a streetcar,” he said, his voice so, so quiet.

That should have warned me.

“And you were wearing this tight catsuit—”

I laughed out loud. “That’s called a concussion, Bonaventure.”

“—and there was this crowd around you, but you were looking at me, with your hands wrapped around a pole, dancing—”

The total and complete shift from serious to … whatever this was, blew me away. “So now you’re getting your jollies on a trolley?”

“Hey!” He play frowned. “You can’t blame a guy for dreaming—”

“So that’s what you want me to do, dance my way up St. Charles—”

“Not with an audience.”

I shifted, bringing up a knee and wrapping my arms around it. “So what else do I do—
in your dreams
?”

The darkening of his eyes was so subtle, I almost missed it. Around us nothing changed—not the video game blasting from upstairs or the dogs barking outside, the game waiting between us.

But I knew. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

He turned and reached for another brownie.

“Chase,
please.
Tell me.”

His hand stilled against the plate. He held himself that way for a long moment, his bicep straining against the barbed wire tattoo.

Sometimes it looked like it was going to bust.

Not touching the brownies, he pulled back. “Everyone has bad dreams, T. That’s just part of it.”

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

“Because I don’t want you to go back.”

And from one breath to the next, I knew what he saw when he closed his eyes.

SIX

“The morgue,” I murmured.

His eyes burned, just like the night we’d stepped into a darkness so deep every emotion I’d ever felt had wrapped around me, and squeezed.

“You see me in the morgue.”

His shoulders tensed. “With that guy and the knife at your throat, and I’m looking at your eyes—”

I looked down—and saw the knife. It lay on the game board, small and plastic and totally benign, but I felt it anyway, felt it all over again, the cold fissure hovering just out of sight.

If I reached for it, tried to destroy it, I knew there would be nothing there.

“Like you said,” I murmured, picking up my own brownie, the one I’d held for over fifteen minutes without bringing it to my mouth. Lifting it, I took a small gooey bite. “Over and done with.”

“I kill him,” he said. “This time
I
do it. It’s all slow motion, I lift the—”

“Chase Bonaventure,” I said, not letting him finish—not
wanting
him to finish. Not wanting to spend one second longer in that dark horrible place. “In the morgue—with the gun.”

The slow press of his lips told me he knew exactly what I was doing. “I thought you didn’t know how to play.”

“Oh, I know how to play.” With another decadent bite, I slid the red game piece—and saw the Ouija board all over again.

Blinking, I placed Miss Scarlet between the Lounge and the Hall. “It’s just been a while.”

His slow smile was pure Chase, the one that I’d known for six months, the one from my first day at Enduring Grace. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Never looking away, I polished off the brownie. “Bring it.”

*   *   *

“Best three out of five wins
.
”

Chase snagged the cards I’d extended and slapped them into separate piles—one for suspects, one for locations, one for weapons. “You’re brutal.”

He so hated losing. “Like a lamb to slaughter,” I purred with devastating innocence. With me taking the first two games, his back was against the wall. “Must be rusty luck.”

His cough was garbled.

“I’d forgotten how fun this is,” I said, twirling Miss Scarlet’s piece in my hand. “You sure you want to be Colonel Mustard again?”

He shot me a glance. “I’m always Colonel Mustard.”

I plucked the last brownie. “Suit yourself.”

Eyes narrow, he watched me pop it in my mouth.

“You want me to pick the crime cards?” I offered.

He fanned out the suspect stack and slipped one from the middle. “Like you did the first two times?” He moved on to the pile of locations. “I’m not sure that was the best idea I ever had.”

Biting back a smile, I watched him draw a weapon, then place all three in the
CONFIDENTIAL
envelope.

He was convinced that by simply touching the cards, my psychic abilities were able to determine what they were.

Savoring the blast of chocolate, I watched him shuffle and deal the cards, then slide one stack toward me. I picked it up and sorted by category, using my score sheet to prepare my strategy.

Trapped inside during long Colorado winters, Gran and I had spent hours with a board game between us.

This time I had five room cards, which meant Chase only had three. That gave me a lot of leverage.

His parents had gotten home from the grocery store before our second game. Already I could smell the sausage and chicken jambalaya they were fixing for dinner.

Rolling the die, I chose the Billiard Room as my first destination.

“I think it happened here,” I bluffed, even though I held that card in my hand, which meant it couldn’t be in the
CONFIDENTIAL
envelope. “I did it,” I said, referring to Miss Scarlet as I reached for the suspected weapon. “With the revolver.”

I held that card, too.

Chase looked up from his cards. “You’re playing me again, aren’t you?” The blue of his eyes practically burned a hole through me. “You’re sitting there all innocent … but I’m betting you have two of those cards in your hand.”

I kept my expression blank, casually shrugging my shoulders. “Would I do that?”

He grumbled under his breath—but did not produce any of the cards I’d asked about, which told
me
Miss Scarlet was the culprit.

He, however, had no way to deduce that.

Rolling the die, he veered into the Library, studying his cards before looking up.

“It happened here.” Deliberately he shifted a weapon into the scene. “With the rope—by your hand.”

Inside I laughed as I was forced to admit I had none of those cards—which meant he, too, had identified me as the killer.

The cat-and-mouse game went on from room to room, scenario to scenario. By the time I landed in the Kitchen, I was pretty sure I had it figured out: Miss Scarlet. In the Kitchen. With the—

My fingers slipped against the knife, and everything flashed.

“No—stay away—you’ll never get
—
”

Silver glints, sharp, glistening—

I snatched my hand back.

“Trinity?”

The walls of the spacious room pushed in on me as I lifted my eyes—and the game board crashed to the floor.

“What?” Chase was across the sofa before my heart could beat. “What happened?”

It all came back, the images from the night before, the scene I’d witnessed play out several times before. “Last night—the dream—the end was
different
.”

I’d been so wrapped up in the realization that I’d foreseen Chase’s accident, the variation hadn’t registered.

“It was like the channel changed, and you weren’t there anymore. It was so dark, and I could hear someone screaming.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know—a girl.” The voice had been … familiar.

“What else?”

I stared at the game piece on the carpet. “A knife.”

“Have you ever seen that before?”

Confused, trying to piece it all together, I tried to go back, to replay it all over again, second by second.

“Did
you
see anything last night?” I asked. “Was there anyone else there? Another car?”

“No.”

“What about earlier—with Jessica?”

“Trinity—”

“What were you even doing?” I asked, my voice stretched so thin I hardly recognized it. I’d been trying to play it cool, but the questions shot out of me. “Why were you even on that road?”

He looked toward the pool beyond the windows. I couldn’t see his eyes, only the tight line of his jaw.

“Chase—”

“Hang on,” he said, and before I could stop him, he rolled from the sofa and vanished upstairs.

I sat there a long moment, trying to understand. He’d looked … upset, distant—the way he always looked when Jessica came up.

Frowning, I reached for another brownie, but remembered they were all gone. Instead I picked up my BlackBerry. I’d put it on silent, not wanting to get distracted by anything while I was with Chase.

Now three texts waited.

Listening for him, I pulled up the first, from my aunt. She wanted to know how Chase was—and to let me know Detective LaSalle wanted to talk to me.

I had no doubt about what.

From upstairs, I could hear Chase harassing his brother as I pulled up the second message, from Deuce.

Your aunt told me what happened—wicked. Told you the crazies were out. Glad you’re okay. Let me know if you need anything.

I smiled. He was a good guy.

The laughter from upstairs continuing, I clicked on Victoria’s name.

How’s Chase?

The text was from an hour before. I quickly replied.

Perfect!

Not more than thirty seconds passed before her reply arrived—Victoria could be counted on to answer fast.