End of the Road (Ghost Stories Trilogy #1) (24 page)

Chapter Fifty-Three

We pulled into my
apartment complex parking lot and I busied myself with getting my few
belongings together. We stopped in front of the two story stucco building where
I lived. O’Reilly opened the door for me and I stepped out. The sun warmed my
skin, which was chilled from the car’s air conditioning. Eric slid across the
seat and got out behind me.

“What are you doing?” I
asked.

“Making sure you’re not
going to hop in your car and go back.”

“I don’t need a
babysitter.”

“Any more unscheduled
news appearances like that and you could get suspended…or fired. I’m doing you
a favor.”

“Fine…whatever,” I said
and started walking up the steps to my apartment on the second floor. Eric bent
over and picked up the newspaper on my welcome mat while I unlocked the three
locks on my door. Being a police officer and being on more crime scenes than I
cared to count, I was all about personal safety. I paid extra to have the locks
installed; the peace of mind was worth it.

We stepped into the quiet
cool sanctuary of my small apartment. I had only been away for one night, but
coming home this time felt different…I was different. Not only did I survive a
wildfire, but the existence of spirits had become a confirmed reality. Were we
ever really alone?

I set my purse and the
plastic bag with my smoky uniform on the coffee table. Eric stayed by the door.

“Are you going to stay
there and guard the door?” I asked him, with my arms crossed over my chest.

“No.”

“Well, make yourself
comfortable,” I gestured towards the sofa. “I’m going to go take a shower.” I
walked across the living room to the entertainment center and picked up the
television remote then tossed it to Eric. “Help yourself to whatever’s in the
fridge.”

Eric sat down and leaned
back. He put his feet up on the coffee table, with his boots on. I didn’t say
anything, just gave him a look before leaving the room. I walked down the
hallway to my bedroom and shut the door. Muffled voices from the television
filtered through the hollow fake wood panels. I exhaled in a whoosh and inhaled
deeply through my nose. I smelled traces of my perfume, a light gardenia, mixed
with other scents like hairspray and the deodorizer I use on the carpets right
before vacuuming.

I quickly slipped off my clothes
and stepped under the stream of hot water. I lathered up my hair with shampoo
then rinsed and did it all over again. After the shower I wrapped up in my
oversized cotton robe, sat on the edge of the bed and combed my hair, taking my
time to work through the tangles, letting the slow methodical movement
practically lull me into a trance. I yawned and stretched out on my side. Wrapping
the floral print comforter around me, I fell asleep. I didn’t hear Eric when he
came into the room and didn’t feel the mattress dip when he joined me in bed.

Chapter Fifty-Four

FRANK

Elena wanted to help us.
I could see it in her face and how she leaned closer to me out of the window.
Unfortunately her friends didn’t like the situation and I was left in a cloud
of dust. I tried to follow, but hit my boundary and couldn’t go any further.

Instead of instantly
traveling back to the others, or “beaming up” as Bob called it, I chose to move
through the crowd at a normal pace. Bystanders had started to leave. I picked
up pieces of conversation where people said it was too hot, too boring or
getting late. Even the news crew who had been filming around Juanita’s tree was
packing up their van. The reporters black skirt was specked with dirt and her
hair had fallen flat. Deflated, much like how the psychic looked. I smiled with
satisfaction seeing both of them like this. The reporter’s behavior was
obnoxious and the psychic lied. Elena had been scared off and I hoped she came
back. If she did and was willing to help us, tracking down Faye would be my
request. This was something a police officer could do more easily than an
ordinary person. Faye could still be alive. She’d be in her seventies and our
child…the very thought unexpectedly sent a surge of energy pulsing through me.
At the very same moment someone gasped. I spun around to see if anybody noticed
my flare. A few people were staring in my direction, but not with any interest.
In fact, I think they were looking past me.

Once again my thoughts
drifted to Faye and our child. Did we have a boy or a girl? If we had a girl, I
wanted her to have Faye’s green eyes. Did she become a doctor like Juanita’s
daughter? If we had a son, I hoped he was successful. If he was tall like me,
did he play basketball in high school and best his old man’s record? Thinking
like this made me feel a mixture of excitement at the possibilities and sadness
from not knowing. I stopped, not even aware I had been moving aimlessly, that’s
how preoccupied I was.

I surveyed the dispersing
crowd one more time before continuing on. Georgia was standing by the
barricades. I said hello, but she ignored me. Then I noticed she was intently
focused, watching a young couple sitting on a rock.

***

GEORGIA

When I first saw them I
did a double take and if I had any breath, I surely would have held it,
remaining breathless for minutes until my head started to spin. The boy, with
his brown hair hanging in his eyes, flicked a cigarette onto the freshly
scorched ground and the girl leaned against him, gazing at his face with total
adoration. He whispered something and she laughed, her cheeks flushing. Her
long blonde hair fluttered in the light breeze, a few strands blew out like
they were influenced by static electricity.

For a moment I thought it
was me and Johnny. Before everything fell apart between us in Las Vegas we spent
hours sitting on a park bench watching tourists on the strip and Fremont
Street. We were almost invisible in the shade cast by palm and cottonwood trees
that we went unnoticed as we shared cigarettes and talked about how the next
day our luck was going to change. Johnny whispered what he wanted to do to me
at night. Dirty things my mother would never approve of, things that would
cause my father to load his shotgun, and things that made me tingle in the most
private of places.

As if in a trance I
watched this couple and the longer I stared, the differences became apparent;
bleeding through and replacing my illusion of the past. This modern day Johnny
had tattoos that emerged from underneath the short sleeves of his white
t-shirt, running the length of both arms and ending at his wrists. The girl had
a hoop in her eyebrow, the silver blinking in the sunlight whenever she flipped
her head back in an attempt to control her blowing hair. I caught a glimpse of
a butterfly tattoo on her neck, something I never would have gotten.

I remembered how being
around Johnny felt like nothing else and the way he looked at me on the bus to
Las Vegas, proud to have me by his side for our adventure. I imagined we were
Romeo and Juliet, taking our forbidden love away to protect it from our
families (well, my family) who seemed determined to keep us apart. If we didn’t
give up so easily on the idea of us, and I didn’t end up alone in Vegas dancing
for dollars, would we have stayed together and gotten married? Had that
happened, I wouldn’t have been raped and murdered on the side of this highway.
Regret seeped in and I had to turn away from the reminder of my past and what
could have been. That’s when I noticed Frank standing next to me.

“You look like you’ve
seen a ghost,” he said and laughed. He and Bob never did grow tired of their
ghost jokes. I rolled my eyes at him, but started to laugh despite the
lingering sadness.

“I thought I did. Having
all of these people here is stirring up more than dust.”

“I know what you mean.”

“How did it go with the
police woman?” I asked.

“Not great. She left
before I could really speak with her. I’m not sure if she will ever return.”

“Oh.” I tried not to
sound disappointed, but I think we were all hoping that with her seeing us,
something would happen.

“Maybe we’re supposed to
be here,” Frank said thoughtfully and started to move away. We went back to the
remains of the mesquite tree where the other were still in defensive positions
around Juanita’s memorial - funny how the dead were more respectful of the dead
than the living.

Chapter Fifty-Five

ELENA

My throat was incredibly
dry. I smacked my chapped lips together and opened my eyes. My bedroom was
dark, but I could see slivers of sunlight through the slats of the blinds. I
groaned and sat up. This is when I became aware that I wasn’t alone in bed.

Eric slept on his side facing
me. He mouth hung open slightly and every time he exhaled it came out as a soft
snore. A very faint layer of blond stubble had sprouted up overnight. I was
tempted to brush my fingers along the coarseness, but held back. His eyelids
fluttered slightly and he mumbled something before settling back into his
snore. It was nice having him asleep and oblivious to my blatant observations.
I noted that he had taken his uniform off and slept in his briefs, but he had left
a tee shirt on, removing the temptation of his bare chest. With a sigh I rolled
and swung my legs over the side of the bed. He didn’t stir when I stood up.
When we were married, he used to mutter in his sleep and reach towards me if I
got out of bed in the middle of the night. I walked down the hallway and into
the kitchen where I pulled a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. This was
gone in seconds and I reached in for another one. After taking a few sips, I
screwed the cap on and put the bottle back in the fridge. I glanced at the
clock on the microwave and couldn’t believe I had slept for over thirteen
hours. It had been a little after seven o’clock when we got home last night and
now it was almost 9:30 in the morning.

Eric’s wallet and cell
phone were on the coffee table. I started to go through his cell to see if he
had any texts from a girlfriend, but I thought I heard him behind me and
quickly snapped the phone closed. If Eric was dating someone, I would have
overhead at least a whisper of it at work. Especially from O’Reilly who
couldn’t keep his mouth shut most of the time.

I peered down the hallway
into my bedroom and could make out the shape of Eric still in bed. I bent over
to pick up his phone again, but stopped myself. Why did I care if he was seeing
somebody? I didn’t have any claim on him and he was single, gorgeous and
employed – a real catch. He deserved happiness because obviously it didn’t last
with me. I stepped away from the temptation and busied myself with finding my
own phone. It was at the bottom of my purse with a dead battery.

After plugging it into
the charger, which was in the kitchen, I made a pot of coffee. As the phone
charged, it started beeping and vibrating with voicemail, email and text
message alerts. So much so, it wasn’t long before Eric joined me in the
kitchen. I nodded at him as I listened to the fifteen voicemails. He went to
the cabinet next to the refrigerator and pulled out two mugs. He poured milk in
one before filling them with coffee. He kept the black and handed me the coffee
with milk.

I finished listening to the
messages, most of which were from concerned friends and family members, before
taking a sip. It was just how I like it. “How did you know where I keep the
mugs?” I asked him, since this was his first time in my apartment.

“That’s where you kept
them before,” he answered, referring to when we were married.

“Am I that predictable?”

He laughed. “Yeah, you
are.”

Despite my impulsive
streak I know I’m a creature of habit, but it did surprise me that he remembered
where I kept the mugs.

Eric grabbed his phone
from the coffee table and I tensed. Is he going to know I picked it up and
almost invaded his privacy? I stood still and watched him with my hands
securely wrapped around the mug.

He frowned and snapped
his phone shut. “Well, this isn’t good. The Sheriff wants to see us a.s.a.p.”

“I know. He left me a
message too. I just wanted to get some coffee in me before I face his wrath.” I
had managed to attract the attention of the big boss. I’d met him only briefly,
once, not long enough to get a read on him except his Marine background was
evident from the stiffness of his posture to his high and tight haircut.

I drained my cup, rinsed
it out and set in the dishwasher. “I’ll go get dressed,” I said and left Eric
to finish his coffee, grabbing my cell phone on the way just in case he got
curious – not that I had anything to hide.

In a matter of minutes we
were ready, Eric wearing the same clothes from yesterday and I in a fresh
uniform. “Are you ready to get your ass chewed?” Eric asked.

“As ready as I can be.” I
said, trying to appear confident on the outside while secretly praying I still
had my job at the end of the day.

Chapter Fifty-Six

ELENA

We entered the county
building and walked to the elevators. I ignored the glances cast in our
direction. Once we were on the administrative floor, the stares were a little more
obvious because there was less activity to disguise the silence which preceded
our walk down the long, carpeted hallway to the Sheriff’s office.

His door was open and he
was behind his desk. A tall woman with short blond hair, who wore a pale blue
business suit, stood when we entered and she stepped aside so we could have the
seats directly in front of the Sheriff’s desk, which aside from him, was the
most imposing thing in his office. It was made of a dark wood and looked like
it weighed close to a ton. With the exception of some framed awards and
diplomas, the gray walls were bare. Whoever designed the office to match Sheriff
Crawley’s austere personality nailed it.

Eric and I sat down and
up until this point, Crawley only stared at us. He continued to do so for what
had to be five minutes. Occasionally his nostrils flared and he’d clench his
jaw. Each time it did, the knot in my stomach tightened.

“How are you feeling?” he
finally asked me in a clipped tone as if being civil took all of his restraint.

“Much better, Sir. Thanks
for asking.”

He nodded, but his stony
expression didn’t change. “This here is Barbara Chamberlain. She’s the Director
of Communications for the county and she is going to attempt to repair any kind
of damage your little scene yesterday caused.” Crawley gestured to the blonde
woman and then leaned back in his chair, with his arms crossed over his chest, letting
her take the floor.

Barbara moved to the side
closest to me and I turned to face her. She didn’t waste any time getting down
to business.

“This is the plan that I
have come up with and you will agree to it,” she looked down at me and I opened
my mouth to protest. I wasn’t agreeing to something I haven’t even heard, but
she continued, “If you want to keep your job.” My mouth snapped shut with a
click and she smiled.

“I can’t explain away the
unusual circumstances of your rescue, but your erratic behavior from yesterday
is to be blamed on medication. I’ve already drafted a press release and will
issue it to the media this afternoon. We’re acknowledging that medicine caused
you to hallucinate. Mr. Wilcox already attributed it to that yesterday, which
was brilliant.” She gave Eric a different smile, more like a flirty
cheerleader’s than the triumphant shark grin I saw moments earlier.

“I wasn’t medicated,” I
grumbled. Irritated at the flare of jealousy her obvious interest in Eric
triggered.

“Either way,” she
dismissed me. “Aside from the statement, I ask you to appear weak and frail when
you’re out in public– for sympathy at least for a few days.”

“I don’t understand what
the big deal is,” I said. “Was what I did that bad?”

“Yes, it was. The public
wants to know their law enforcement is stable and capable of doing their job. The
media doesn’t know whether you’re crazy, on drugs or a medium. We can’t have
them thinking any of these things.”

“So you’re going to tell
them I was on drugs?”

Eric reached over and
squeezed my arm, his signal for me to shut up.

“Hernandez, you will do
as instructed. That is an order!” Crawley slammed his hand down on the desk,
sending a flurry of yellow Post-it Notes into the air.  I jumped and sat up
straighter.

“I understand,” I said
and that was the end of my “being difficult”.  Barbara gave me another
predatory smile and handed me a copy of the press release.

“You won’t field any
questions from the press. That’s my job,” she added.

“Fine with me,” I muttered
and folded the paper, placing it in my shirt pocket.

“Wilcox, that was quick
thinking trying to diffuse the situation yesterday, thank you,” Crawley said.
“Hernandez, I don’t want you pursuing this. No more antics. Got it?”

“Understood,” I said and
then we were dismissed.

We didn’t say anything
until we were on the elevator. “Well that wasn’t so bad,” Eric said.

“Yeah, easy for you. I’m
pretty sure Babs was picturing you naked and I think the Sheriff wanted to give
you a medal.”

“Hey, at least you still
have your job.” He didn’t comment on Barbara and I was relieved. I didn’t want
to continue that conversation. He was right, even though I didn’t have a say in
what was being told to the media, I was still a deputy. Also, what I did off
the clock was my business. I already planned on helping Frank. I just needed to
keep a low profile for a while.