The Departed (9 page)

T HIS isn’t happening
.

Gnawing on his thumbnail, Brendan told himself this wasn’t happening. It was just some fucked-up dream and he’d wake up and it would all be okay. Maybe he’d just had a few too many drinks, had let some of that pussy Mark’s death-and-doom premonitions get the better of him. This wasn’t happening—he’d wake up and it would all be okay.

But he didn’t believe it.

Not really. It all felt too real. He knew it. He really was sitting in one of the conference rooms at the hotel, waiting to talk to the damn cops. He had to wait for his dad, and he had to talk to the cops. They all had to give statements.

Fucking statements.

Somebody was going to talk. Mark. Kyle. Beau…no. Not Beau—Beau had his shit together. But somebody. Shit, how had that stupid bitch known?

A door opened and Brendan looked up as his dad came in, followed by one of the detectives from French Lick’s microscopic police force. It had maybe
three
people who counted as detectives, Brendan figured. And this one wasn’t the one he’d been expecting to see.

Brendan didn’t even know this guy’s name.

He’d figured Dad would bring in Ron Langdon, his golf buddy. Not this guy—Brendan didn’t even know him.

Just keep it cool
. That was all he had to do, really.

They didn’t
know
anything. Couldn’t prove anything. And the only people who did know shit were either dead or people who’d be in as much trouble as he was if they talked.

No reason to panic, right?

* * *

“YOU can go on now.”

Tristan looked sad.

“Is she going to live?”

“I don’t know,” Dez said, shaking her head. “But that’s not up to us. We found her, and they got her out, got her to the hospital. That’s all we can do.”

He nodded, his image insubstantial, fading. He sighed and this time, when he flickered, he didn’t come back quite so strong.
“Do you think you can find out what they…what they did to me?”

“Is that what you want?”

He shrugged.
“Not so much for me. It doesn’t matter to me, really. But I think my parents, my sister…they deserve to know
.
”
He hesitated and then added,
“And I don’t want them thinking that I was some fucking coward who decided to off himself for whatever reason. That wasn’t me. It…you were right. It matters. I want them to know.”

“You’re right.” She gave him a gentle smile. “It does matter. And I’ll see what I can find out.”

She swallowed, continued to stare even as he faded more.

This time, when he faded completely, she knew he wouldn’t be back. She didn’t have to ask, didn’t need to linger. There was finality to his fading that just felt…
complete
. Tristan had done the one thing he’d waited around to do—he’d saved a girl’s life. At least, she hoped he had. If nothing else, he’d kept her from dying like
that
.

Arms crossed over her chest, she continued to stare down at his stone, feeling the dance of wind over her chilled flesh.

Dez didn’t know how much time had passed when she heard the engine. It didn’t surprise her, though. After seeing him show up at the hotel, she’d figured nothing could surprise her. Just
why
he was here, she didn’t understand, but she wasn’t at all shocked that he’d tracked her down to the small, privately owned cemetery.

The sound of a car door shutting, the quiet crunch of gravel as he moved to join her, every sound drew her muscles tighter and tighter until she felt ready to snap.

Instead, she forced herself to take a deep, slow breath. He was here because of the job, only the job, and once he got what he needed from her, he’d be gone.

Because he wouldn’t
let
her matter. He wouldn’t let her matter to him, so she wouldn’t let him matter to her. It was a little mantra she told herself, and as long as she kept all of that in mind, she’d be fine.

Hell, it had been a year.

More than, and she was a grown woman, right?

He was here about the job, about the girl, and once she told him she couldn’t help him much, he’d be on his way.

He came to a stop next to her, and for the longest time, neither of them spoke.

The tension in the air ratcheted even higher and she swallowed the urge to whimper as his heat managed to reach across the scant inches separating them, warming her when nothing else had done the trick. She swallowed the spit that had pooled in her mouth. Damn it, if he wasn’t going to say something, she’d do it—do it, get it over with, so she could get out of here. She’d hoped she could leave, but she now owed Tristan more than that. And if she was honest, she knew she wouldn’t have left until she’d at least
tried
to look around.

A quiet sigh drifted through the graveyard and she slid a glance over at Taylor. A sigh. From him? Such a human sound—like he was tired. Like he had such human weaknesses.

She looked away almost as quickly as she’d looked at him, though. He looked…hell. Too good. She’d always thought he looked good in those damn suits, but what in the hell was he doing out on a job in jeans? She opened her mouth, some snide question lurking
right
there.

But he managed to get a question out first. It wasn’t one she was expecting, either.

“Are you okay?”

Dez gaped at him. Then she immediately snapped her mouth shut and looked away. “What?”

“You heard me. Are you okay?”

On unsteady legs, she moved away. “What do you mean,
am I okay
? Hell, why wouldn’t I be? I wasn’t the one who just got pulled out of the waterboarding experiment from hell, was I?” Absently, she bent over and straightened a flower arrangement, brushed a few dead flower petals from a marker. “Speaking of which, how is the girl? Is she going to make it?”

Taylor stared past her, his gaze lingering on something in the distance. “More than likely. They…whoever put her in there didn’t seem to want her dead right away. She wasn’t in any danger of drowning for quite a while. They…well, I don’t have any men here but I talked to the locals. They found some weird wiring, timers—looks like things were set to do something later, but I’m not sure what yet. Somebody will talk, though. Or they’ll figure it out if they aren’t completely incompetent.”

Dez thought of the boy she’d seen in the water fort, but she kept quiet. She needed sleep before she got any more involved in this and she knew how Taylor was.

And she didn’t
need
to talk to anybody to think about what those timers might have been set for—flooding that bucket, maybe. Drowning her completely? Or something more sensational?

Dez felt that rage burn hotter, brighter. “Bastards.” Something cool tickled her neck and she shrugged, stretched her shoulders. Looking back at him, she met his eyes, all but colorless in the dim light. “I can’t help you. There’s nothing for me to tell you. I just knew something was wrong.”

“She’s alive. The living don’t call to you.” His voice was a quiet, steady murmur in the night.

Meeting his gaze, she cocked her head. “No. They don’t.”

“So who is he?” He looked down at the stone and she wasn’t surprised he’d pieced it together. He wasn’t the boss for nothing.

Dez looked at the marker by his feet. “Somebody who’s not here anymore. He’s already moved on…and he can’t help you, either. He was only here long enough to help her.”

* * *

TAYLOR wondered if she was trying to make this harder on him or if it was just natural for her.

Sighing, he crouched on the ground, mindless of his jeans as he studied the marker. It was new, pale gray marble from what he could tell in the dim light, shot through with something that made it shimmer.

He read the date and managed not to flinch when he saw how old the kid was. Just a kid…only seventeen. “What did he have to do with it, Dez?”

Silence was his only answer.

Looking up, he saw her standing on the other side of the small graveyard, her arms crossed over her chest, her face lost in the shadows. Sighing, he scrubbed a hand over his face. “Come on, Desiree, help me out.”

“Why?”

He could just barely see the glitter of her eyes. “How about so I can keep your ass out of jail?”

She snorted. “Nice try. They might
try
to throw me in jail for a few days and, hey, maybe they’ll succeed, but they can’t keep me there. I’ve got too good an alibi…unless they can come up with a way of convincing people I teleported that poor girl in there.”

“They can still make your life hell,” he bit out. “I can make that go away. You going to help me or not?”

“If they try to make my life hell for a few days, so what? I get a lawyer and deal.” She shoved her hands in her pockets and rocked back on her heels. “You can’t ride into small-town America, flash those shiny credentials, and think that makes everything okay, Jones.”

“Or you can help me out and nothing happens. You’re not going to jail here, damn it.” Shoving to his feet, he spun away and stared off into the night. No, not here. He had enough nightmares here to haunt him for the rest of his life. Letting them try to put Dez in a jail that was no doubt full of old ghosts and older memories…no.

She might be able to deal, but he sure as hell couldn’t.

Behind him, Dez laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound, though. “And what are you going to do if they decide they want to lock me up for a while, slick? You can’t exactly
stop
them.”

“I’ll tell them to yank their heads out of their asses, damn it,” he snarled, shooting her a dark look. And they’d listen. They wouldn’t like it. But they’d listen—he’d damn well make sure of it.

Dez just shook her head. “You really still haven’t figured it out, have you, Taylor? You can’t control the universe.” She rocked back on her heels and added, “And you aren’t my boss these days—you sure as hell don’t get to control
me
.”

“I may not be your boss, but that sure as hell doesn’t keep you from calling me when your ass is in trouble.”

Although he couldn’t make out her face, he didn’t need to see her clearly to know she was smirking at him. “Hell, Taylor. You think it’s
my
ass that had me worried? My ass ceased to be your concern some time ago. It’s not
me
who needs you right now. You have another problem you need to worry about. That girl needs you right now—she needs you to help them find who did that to her. Why don’t you get back to her?”

Her words managed to drill into his heart, an icy cold lance. Yeah, he knew she didn’t need him. That was one thing he hadn’t ever questioned. Swallowing past the ache in his throat, he said grimly, “I’m here trying to do my job—you came here for her, so I’m trying to follow up on anything that might help her.”

“And I’m telling you there’s nothing I know that
will
help. At least not right now.”

“Nothing—you want me to believe you got nothing for me.”

DEZ was having the hardest time focusing. There was a whisper, something so faint, even fainter than Tristan’s call had been. But Taylor’s presence, his voice—hell, his
everything
drowned that voice out.

But she needed to focus.

This was important.

It was
almost
like a voice. Almost.

But it was so…faint.

Was somebody speaking—

“…answer me?”

She jerked her head up and realized that at some point, while she’d been distracted by that not-quite voice, Taylor had closed the distance between them. Now he stood just a foot away, close enough that she could see him all too clearly, close enough that she could feel his warmth once again and if she leaned forward enough, she could reach out and pull him against her. Feel that long, lean body once more.

Although the look in his eyes was anything but amorous. She smirked as she looked at him, amused despite herself. Even now, even after he’d been such a fucking
jerk
, even after she’d missed him for the past year, and even after the hell of today, she still wanted him.

Damn it, she wasn’t ever going to
not
want him, she realized. It just wasn’t going to happen.

She wanted this man…plain and simple.

Needed him. Craved him.

He was her drug.

His eyes narrowed on her face. “Are you listening to a damn thing I say?”

“No.” Dez smiled. “I can’t say I am. And you know what’s really wonderful about it? You can’t do much more than snarl and growl about it. After all, you’re not my boss, right?”

Abruptly she laughed. “Damn, no wonder you were always so pissed off when you had to call Taige in on a job. It must really grate on you to have to call in somebody you can’t control. And this is even worse…you didn’t call me in. I’m not even a loose cannon. I’m worse than a loose cannon.”

Taylor opened his mouth, said something.

She never heard it, though. She heard something—it was like the soft sigh of the wind dancing through the branches. Louder than a whisper, but no understandable words.

It was a cry, though. A cry for help—she understood
that
much this time. And once more, that shivery brush touched her spine and she shivered before she could stop it.

He saw, too.
Damn
it.

He glanced around. “I thought you said he was gone.”

“He is.” Dez shrugged. “I’m just cold.”

“You’re not cold. At least not because it’s cold out.” He looked past her, and once more she saw his gaze lock, linger. This time, she followed his eyes, tried to find whatever it was that held his attention.

But all she saw was the garden of stone—monuments to the dead, to the lost. Was it one of them calling her?

Was it a call at all or just her imagination? Cemeteries were full of so much unrest, it could be nothing. It could be just the remnants of their passing. And it could be just her subconscious trying to give her something else to think about
besides
Taylor.

Just then, Dez didn’t know. She couldn’t trust her instincts when it came to him, because when it came to him, her heart was involved and that made things too damn complicated. Sighing, she looked back at him.

That alone was enough to make her ache. Make her hunger. Make her long for things she couldn’t have. It was enough to make her hate him at times. She’d been such a fool, letting herself touch him. That one day hadn’t been enough. All it had done was make her long for more.

“Just leave me alone, Taylor,” she said quietly. That was what she needed. She needed him to leave her alone—desperately. “Go do your job and leave me alone. I’m not your concern.”

“Not my concern?” He caught her arm, his fingers burning hot, even through her jacket. “That’s where you’re wrong. You called for help. That makes you my concern.”

She tried to pull away, but he wasn’t letting go and unless she wanted to get into a wrestling match—and actually, that idea held too much appeal—she wasn’t going to get away until he decided to let go. Because she didn’t like the idea of just jerking against his hold, she settled for glaring at him.

“
Wrong
, Jones. I’m
not
your concern. Haven’t been for over a year. I quit, remember?”

“As if I could forget,” he muttered. “Come on. You don’t need to be here right now. You’re already on edge.”

On edge
. Talk about an understatement.

As he started to walk out of the cemetery, she reluctantly fell into step next to him, steaming mentally and debating on whether or not she wanted to go along with his imperiousness.

“Whether you’re one of my people or not, you brought me here and you need to give me something to go on. You also could probably talk to that girl and help her a hell of a lot more than these people here can.”

She could refuse. She knew that. She didn’t
need
to go anywhere with him. But the cold shivers running down her spine, the echoes of the departed, the strange, disturbing whispers…no, she didn’t need to be here.

And she wanted to be out of here.

Badly.

If there
was
something or somebody here for her, she’d figure it out soon. Preferably after she’d had some rest, a few hot meals. She was so damn tired—too many jobs, too close together. She all but ached with exhaustion. Maybe fate and God would be kind, though, and this would turn out to be nothing.

She could use a break. Really.

Following Taylor out of the cemetery, she resisted the urge to look back. If she had, she might have seen it as the moon came out from behind a heavy bank of clouds at just that moment.

The silvery stream of light fell across one of the monuments along the far border of the cemetery. There was an angel there, her face upturned to the sky, her wings spread.

A sigh drifted through the cemetery, followed by a sound that was almost a sob.