Drowning in Amber (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 2) (39 page)

“I know,” he said. “But she came here because of me. Jesus, even after I’m dead I’m causing her grief! Nearly got her killed! You tell me why I don’t deserve to go straight to hell for that.”

“Because she decided to do this, Eddie. Not you. Her.”

“Yeah but—”

“But nothing.”

“Who are you talking to?”

I could tell by the look on Eddie’s face that his mother had followed me and was now watching me argue with what looked like nothing.

I was going to turn and give her some song and dance about seeing a cat or some such foolishness, I really was, but then something snapped. I was tired of the lies and the hiding. Just this once, I decided to tell the truth. Screw it.

“I’m talking to your son. To the spirit of your son.”

Eddie’s mother’s face blanked, then tightened, and she took a small step away from me. “I don’t think that’s very funny, young lady,” she snapped.

“See?” I said, turning back to Eddie. “They think I’m a liar or crazy.
That’s
why I never tell.”

“Tell her I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“She doesn’t believe I’m even talking to you.”

“Stop that,” Eddie’s mother said and took another scuffling half step back.

“I’m telling you the truth,” I said hopelessly. She was never going to believe me.

“Prove it,” she snapped.

“How?”

“Oh God, just tell her I’m sorry,” Eddie said, on the verge of tears again. His voice sounded weak, and I glanced back at him, almost ready to see those Godawful black and red sparkling lights around him again, but they weren’t. He just looked immeasurably tired.

“What did I get him for his fourteenth birthday?”

“What?” I turned back to his mother and stared at her. She glared back.

“If I’m supposed to believe you, you should be able to answer that simple question,” she said. Her chin began to quiver. “What did I get him for his fourteenth birthday?”

I looked at Eddie, but he just looked confused, so I turned back to his mother. “Why his fourteenth?”

“That was the last time I bought him a birthday gift that didn’t have anything to do with the streets and drugs,” she said, her voice small. “The very last time.”

“Oh.” I looked back at Eddie, and he had the saddest smile I’d ever seen on a ghost’s face. And that is going some.

“She bought me a hamster,” he whispered.

“A hamster?” I asked, but didn’t need to see his nod to know I had passed his mother’s test. Her half-scream and the crash of breaking china hitting hard-packed earth told me everything.

“Tell her I’m sorry,” Eddie said.

“Please, please tell him I’m sorry,” Eddie’s mother cried. “I’m so sorry! If I’d just been a better mother, maybe none of this would have happened!”

“No,” Eddie said. “That’s not right. I was making my own choices. She was my excuse for doing what I did. She doesn’t need to apologize. I do.”

“Please tell him,” she whispered. “I am so sorry for everything.”

“He can hear you,” I said. “He thinks it was all his fault.”

She laughed, sounding heartbroken. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “If I’d been better, somehow, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“She’s wrong,” Eddie said. “You know that, don’t you?”

We had hit a bizarre impasse. Eddie desperately needed his mother’s forgiveness, or he would push himself to that hell he’d built for himself. And I had this horrible feeling that if Eddie didn’t forgive his mother, the same thing would happen to her. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Not on my watch.

“Just forgive each other—and yourselves. Please?”

I jumped when I saw a couple of vans pull up beside the police car blocking the alley entrance. “They’re going to take us all away,” I said to Eddie’s mother. “Please. Forgive him, so he can move on.”

Her lips quivered, and her eyes filled with tears. “I forgive you. Do you forgive me? Please say you forgive me!”

“I—I forgive you,” Eddie whispered. “I love you, Mom.”

I told her what he’d said, and she threw herself into my arms and sobbed. I felt Eddie’s cold steal over me as he reached through me to touch his mother, and for a moment, before the police hauled us all away, our three hearts beat as one.

But Eddie didn’t move on. He really did need Luke, just as I suspected.

Dammit, anyhow.

THE POLICE GRABBED
everybody to take us down to the police station, and I obediently followed along until I felt someone’s hand on my elbow, pulling me out of the line.

I turned and saw it was James. “You can ride with me,” he said. “If you want.”

For a second, I thought about saying, “No, it’s all right, I’ll ride with the book club ladies,” but I didn’t. I just nodded silently and followed him to the car.

It was time for our talk, whether I wanted it or not.

But here’s the thing. He helped me into the car, ever the gentleman, and pulled away from the old house with the black door without saying a word. When I said, “I suppose you want to talk now,” all he did was shake his head.

“Not now,” he said. “Let’s do what we need to do first. We can talk later.”

So we drove to the cop shop in total silence. He seemed calm. Almost at peace. But I was neither. I felt nearly as scared as I had in the Escalade, moments before Ambrose Welch’s attempted suicide by cop, because I was absolutely certain that when our talk was over, we’d be over, too.

WE WALKED INTO
the front entrance of the cop shop and were immediately buzzed in and herded through to the interview rooms at the back. I saw that the book club had beaten us there, as had Eddie. He was standing with his mother, still looking as clear as glass.

After we collected our cell phones, we stepped into line behind the women. Eddie walked up to me and stood solemnly.

“Thanks, Marie. I know that was hard for you, putting yourself out there like that.”

I wouldn’t answer him, because James was standing beside me, but Eddie didn’t seem to care. Just wandered back to his mother, who I hoped would keep her mouth shut. She’d said she would, but I’d learned the hard way not to trust people when they say they’ll keep a secret.

His mother looked surprisingly good. She was comforting a couple of the other book club members who had decided that since things were now relatively quiet and they were out of danger, they could afford to have small meltdowns. She looked at me over the head of the woman sobbing all over her and smiled as though her biggest burden had been lifted. Maybe it had.

I looked at Eddie. He had the same look on his face. Maybe I’d helped them both. Not a bad day’s work, if I had.

A cop walked past, then stopped and looked at James and me.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said and hooked his finger at us, indicating we needed to follow him, ASAP. But before I could follow, Eddie’s mother reached out and grabbed my sleeve. I turned and tried to plaster a smile on my face.

“I just wanted to thank you for what you did for me,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” I whispered, pointing to the line of women moving away from us. “You have to go.”

“I know.” She smiled. “You gave me something I never thought I’d get.”

“I’m glad.”

She leaned forward. “Did he—move on?” she mouthed.

I glanced over at Eddie, who was still standing beside her. “No. Not yet.”

“I hope he finds what he needs.”

“So do I.”

I turned and scurried after James. We turned a corner and then both the book club and Eddie were out of my sight.

“That was Eddie’s mother, wasn’t it?” James asked. “What did she want?”

“Just wanted to thank me.” I pointed to the impatient police officer waiting to escort us to wherever we were going. “Why aren’t we going with the others, do you think?”

“I imagine Sergeant Worth wants to have words,” James replied. “And then you’ll have to tell me what you did to help her.”

“Yeah,” I said and walked away from him to the cop. “We’re ready to go.”

I didn’t really want to go talk to Sergeant Worth. She was going to be angry, and that was never good for us. But it would be much better than talking to James about Eddie’s mother. Or about Eddie.

I WAS RIGHT
about Sergeant Worth. She was mad. I only felt a teeny bit better when I realized she was more mad at Stewart than she was at us.

“I told you to stay away from that place, James. You could have been killed.” She glared at him over the top of some very old-fashioned looking reading glasses, then ripped them off and slammed them down on the mountain of paper on her desk.

“I know,” James mumbled, doing his best “I’m a bad boy” routine. I didn’t think she was buying it. “But we felt that time was of the essence—”

Worth’s face tightened, and she slammed her hand down on the desk top—and her glasses. I heard one of the arms snap off and stared down at my shoes.

“Time—essence?” she yelled. “And what if one of those women had been killed. How would you have felt then?”

“Not good,” James mumbled, then looked up. “But we went there to stop them, you know. And no one was hurt—”

“Not because of you, but in spite of you!” Worth bellowed. James finally stopped trying to make things better, which, as far as I was concerned, made things better almost immediately.

“Now, which one of you is going to tell me what happened while the arrests were being made?” she asked. She swept the broken glasses into the trash and squinted at the open file in front of her.

James and I glanced at each other. I was the one who had seen everything, and James had burned his bridge. Much as I hated talking to the woman, it would be me. I put up my hand, tentatively, like I was in sixth grade, about to answer a question I wasn’t exactly sure of, to a teacher I didn’t like at all.

“Speak,” Worth said. “Succinctly, if you can.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said and stared back down at my shoes. It was easier to pretend I wasn’t in danger that way. I quickly went through events after Welch’s attempt to break out of his own backyard and Stewart’s brutal impromptu interrogation after that. To give Worth her due, she didn’t stop me once. She even waited for a beat or two after I’d stopped talking.

“Did you see this?” she asked, looking at James. “Can you corroborate what she saw?”

“No. I was with our client. But the rest of the police saw.”

“What was going on there?” she muttered, scribbling down notes and frowning furiously.

“He was trying to get Welch to confess to Brown Eddie’s murder,” I said. “And somebody else’s, I think.” I didn’t know if I was being helpful or stupid, but I did know for sure that someone had to do something about what had happened there.

“Whose?” Worth said.

“No idea. But if I had to guess, I’d bet it had to do with his son, Luke.”

“Hmm.” Worth leaned back and shook her head. “We thought he was all right after Luke died. Thought him wanting to get back to work was a good sign.”

“Looks like it wasn’t,” I muttered, hoping this would all stop soon. I desperately wanted to get out of here, have a three-hour shower, and then a drink or two. Or three. Jeez, maybe James was right. Maybe I was leaning a bit hard on alcohol to get me through.

I only jumped a bit when Eddie oozed through the closed door and sidled up to me. “When can we get outta here? You promised me you’d move me on.” His voice shook. “I really need to do that, soon. Hearing Luke’s old man losing it out there is really taking it out of me, man.”

I tried to look at him without acting like I was really looking at him. Didn’t work out quite as well as I’d hoped.

“You got a problem, Marie?” Worth asked.

“I—I need to use the washroom,” I said. Fast thinker, me, but a quick bathroom run was actually not a bad idea. I could talk to Eddie about Stewart, actually use the washroom, and—

“Hold it,” Worth said shortly. “We’re not done here.”

“He’s not here now,” Eddie said. “He left. Bet he’s gone to the hospital, to find out who else Ambrose killed.”

I didn’t even pretend not to react. “What?”

“I said hold it,” Worth replied.

“I said he’s probably at the hospital losing his mind on Ambrose Welch.” Eddie sighed. “Why?”

I’d finally remembered something Mom had taught me, years before. It was when she’d first realized I had the “gift” and was determined to make me just like her.

She had told me that spirits trapped in our plane of existence can have an effect on the living around them. Usually, the effect wasn’t good.

I realized that Luke was doing that to his father. Making him crazy, just by being around him. Making it so that his father could not move on with his life, just like Luke couldn’t move on with his death.

“Can we go soon?” I asked. Worth rolled her eyes.

“I still have a few more questions for you. Just wait!”

So I suffered through the rest of her questions, letting James take the bulk of them and get back on her good side.