Never Forgotten (25 page)

“She said that Luke was careful to not to let the abuse show,” Mary said.

“I would have helped you, Peggy,” he said. “I love you. I would have never been disappointed in you. I love you too much.”

“I should have trusted you more,” Peggy said. “I will always love you.”

“She said she should have trusted you more,” Mary said, wiping away a stray tear. “But she loves you.”

“I love you too, sweetheart,” he said, openly crying.
“Forever.”

“Forever,” Peggy whispered, beginning to fade away. “I’ll love you forever.”

“She’s gone,” Mary said. “She said she’ll love you forever too.”

Paul pulled out a large handkerchief and blew his nose. “How do I go on?” he asked. “How do I survive this?”

“You go on because you know she would want you to,” she said. “And because you want to be sure that when your time comes, you’re good enough to be with her forever.”

He nodded, wiping his eyes. “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks.”

A few minutes later Mary let herself out of Paul’s home. He would eventually be fine, but he needed some time to grieve.

She walked to the SUV, the cold ground crunching beneath her feet. She was ready to go home and take a hot bath.

“Mary, wait.”

She turned to see Shirley gliding towards her.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” she said. “They’ve recovered all of my bones and Paul is going to bury me in the family cemetery.”

“I’m so happy for you,” Mary said.

“I can finally rest,” she said with a smile. “Thank you, Mary O’Reilly; you saved me from being forgotten.”

Shirley leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on Mary’s cheek and slowly faded away.

She placed her hand over her cheek and nodded. Sometimes hard days had good endings.

She opened the door to the SUV and climbed inside.

“Straight home?”
Mike said, seated in the passenger’s seat again, “Liar, liar pants on fire.”

Mary pulled the door closed and turned on the ignition. “I had things to do,” she said, pulling out of the drive.

“Yeah, I heard,” he said. “You do important work, Mary. You make a difference in people’s lives.”

“I do what I’m supposed to do,” she said, casually. “It was part of the deal.”

Mike chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sure that part of the deal was to drive twenty miles out of your way with a mild concussion, a collection of bruises and bumps and a headache that feels like your head is going to split in order to comfort a man who just lost his wife, and to be sure that they both had a chance to say good-bye.”

“What else could I do?”

He smiled at her.
“Nothing else, because you are who you are.”

Mary suddenly realized something. “How did you get here?” she asked.

“I just thought of you and poof,” he replied.

“No, I mean, I thought you could only connect with me if the places related to Angela.”

He looked around the farmyard. “I guess I graduated.”

“But, what does this mean?” she asked.

“Maybe I’m your new back-up,” he suggested. “Maybe I’m Watson to your Sherlock.”

“Watson never flirted with Sherlock.”

“Sherlock wasn’t a babe like you,” he replied.

“I work alone,” she said.

“Maybe working with you is my unfinished business,” he argued. “Maybe the only way I can move on is to help you for a while. You wouldn’t deny me, would you Mary?”

Mary sighed.
“Fine.
You can work with me. But there will have to be rules.”

He leaned closer. “Mary, I love rules,” he said. “Do you know why? There are so many wonderful ways you can figure out how to break them.”

He grinned at her. “Bye, Mary.”

And faded away.

The giant crystal ball began its descent and the crowd at Times
Square
went crazy. “Never did understand the point in standing in a crowd in the cold for hours just to watch that dang ball drop to the ground,” Stanley muttered. “You get a better view from your own living room.”

“It’s the excitement of being in the crowd when the New Year is being rung in,” Rosie said. “It’s romantic.”

“Well, you’d know all about romantic,” Stanley said, wiggling his bushy eyebrows.

Rosie giggled and blushed.
“Oh, Stanley.”

Mary and Bradley, cuddling on the couch together, turned to each other with questioning looks.

Rosie jumped up and ran to the kitchen. “We need the sparkling cider,” she called. “Stanley can you help me.”

“Sure enough,” he said, hurrying over to Rosie.

He picked up two of the champagne flutes filled with cider and handed them to Mary and Bradley. He and Rosie each picked up a glass. They counted down the final numbers together.

“Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.”

“Happy New Year.”

They all toasted each other and took a sip.

Bradley turned to Mary. “Happy New Year,” he said and kissed her tenderly.

She placed her glass on the end table and wound her arms around him and kissed him back. “Happy New Year,” she whispered a moment later.

“Well, we should be going,” Rosie said. “It’s getting late.”

“Yeah, I’ll give Rosie a ride home,” Stanley said. “Crazy drivers on a night like this.”

“Yes, we don’t want to be in the way,” Rosie added.

“But, don’t you want to wait for a while?” Mary asked. “We could play some games…”

Stanley yawned widely, stretching out his arms. “Sorry, Mary, I’m pretty tired,” he said.
“How about you Rosie?”

Rosie covered her mouth with her hand and yawned prettily.
“Oh, me, too.
Goodness.
Long day.”

Mary started to get up. “Oh, no, Mary,” Rosie said. “Just sit, we know our way out.”

Within a minute, the two had said their good-byes and were out the door. “Well, that was odd,” Mary said.

“Yeah, they really wanted to leave us alone,” Bradley grinned, slipping his arm around Mary. “Not that I mind.”

She leaned back against Bradley’s arm and sighed. “I guess I don’t mind either.”

“Well, before you two get too cozy, you’ve got to give a man a chance to say good-bye.”

They looked up at Sam Rogers standing in the middle of the room.

“Sam,” Mary said. “Thank you for your help.”

He shook his head. “No, thank you, for solving our murders,” he said. “There’s a whole group of us going home tonight and it wouldn’t have happened without you.”

“Well, I had a little extra interest in this one,” she said, taking hold of Bradley’s hand.

“Lucky for us the new Chief knows how to pick them,” Sam said with a chuckle. “Where would we all be without Mary O’Reilly?”

He started to fade. “Well, I’ve got to go,” he said with a brilliant smile. “My wife’s waiting. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” Mary and Bradley said, as they watched him fade from view.

Bradley put pulled Mary into his arms. “He’s right. I don’t know where I’d be without you in my life,” he said softly, cupping her face in his hands.

He kissed her softly, lightly brushing his lips across hers, once and then once again. He trailed kisses along her jaw, the late-night stubble on his face gently abrading her sensitive skin. She moaned softly. He slid his fingers into her hair, angled her head slightly and then crushed his lips against hers.

Mary wrapped her arms around his neck, sliding her fingers into his soft, thick hair. Pouring all the love she felt for him into her kiss, reveling in his instant response. The world disappeared, there were only the two of them, and no one else mattered.

He lifted his head. “I love you.”

She sighed happily. “I love you too.”

“When I think about what could have…”

She placed her hand gently on his lips. “Let’s just not talk about that,” she replied.

He kissed her fingers. “You’re right,” he said with a wicked smile. “There are much better things we could be doing.”

A little while later with Mary wrapped in his arms and the television announcing the New Year in Chicago, Bradley kissed the top of Mary’s head and sighed contentedly. “You know, I had the weirdest dream when I was drugged and tied up at Angela’s,” he said. “I was walking down this long white tunnel. In front of me it was really bright and behind me there was a lot of activity and I thought I could hear your voice.”

Mary was instantly alert. “What happened?”

“Well, Jeannine was in the dream,” he said. “She looked great. I told her that I wanted to go to the bright place. Then we were talking about you. I told her I had fallen in love with you.”

“What did she say?”

“She said that I needed to go back and not visit the bright place,” he said. “And she promised that someday she would give me a guided tour. I was about to argue with her when I heard your voice.”

“Was I softly calling you?” she asked.

“No, you were yelling at me,” he chuckled. “I remember it so clearly. You said, ‘Dammit, Bradley, get back here.’ How could I refuse?”

Mary reached up and kissed him. “You’re a very smart man to listen when I call,” she said.

“It got me to thinking about Jeannine though,” he said. “What if she is dead? What if Jeannine has been dead all this time?”

He shook his head. “Why am I even worrying about this?” he asked. “You’d tell me if Jeannine were a ghost, wouldn’t you?”

Mary turned and hugged him. “Of course, I would,” she said. “Unless she was a client and I was sworn to secrecy.”

Bradley laughed. “Yeah, what are the odds that would happen?”

Mary turned and saw Jeannine standing at the top of the stairs. “Yeah, what are the odds?”

A note from the author:

The National Coalition
Against
Domestic Violence (NCADV) offers these sobering statistics:

One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.

An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year.

85% of domestic violence victims are women.

Historically, females have been most often victimized by someone they knew.

Females who are 20-24 years of age are at the greatest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence.

Most cases of domestic violence are never reported to the police.

Witnessing violence between one’s parents or caretakers is the strongest risk factor of transmitting violent behavior from one generation to the next.

Boys who witness domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own partners and children when they become adults.

30% to 60% of perpetrators of intimate partner violence also abuse children in the household.

If you are caught in a circumstance of domestic violence or know someone who is being abused, get help. There are many wonderful organizations that can help victims of domestic abuse and their children.

A portion of the sale of this book will be contributed to VOICES (
http://www.voicesdv.org
) the local domestic violence shelter and advocacy group in Freeport, Illinois. If this book has made you think about domestic violence, I would encourage you to seek out your local organization and see how you can help them.

*****

About the author: Terri Reid lives near Freeport, the home of the Mary O’Reilly Mystery Series, and loves a good ghost story. She lives in a hundred year-old farmhouse complete with its own ghost. She loves hearing from her readers at
[email protected]