The Good Die Twice (30 page)

Grabbing Simon’s arm, Eunie said, “We best be
going.”

After saying their goodnights, Dagger locked
the door behind them, set the alarm, and turned off the lights.

Once in his bedroom, he peeled out of his
clothes and stepped into the shower. The water stung as he braced
his hands against the shower wall. As the hot water soothed his
sore muscles, he wished it could also wash away the events of the
day. All his mind kept returning to was the scene of Sara barely
conscious lying under Joey, whose hands were tearing at her
clothes. The rest was a blur. The adrenaline took over, rumbling
through his body like a freight train, unable to control, unable to
stop. It had been a long time since that had happened.

After disposing of Joey’s body into the
creek, Dagger had wanted to be alone, to regain some part of his
sanity he had lost on that cliff. So he called Simon and asked if
he and his wife could stay with Sara. Then Dagger spent two hours
walking the shoreline. He sat for a while on a secluded part of the
beach watching Sara’s clothes burn. He couldn’t leave them on the
hill and he didn’t think she would ever want to put them on again.
It wasn’t so much the way he had killed Joey that bothered him. It
was the fact that something inside him enjoyed it.

He toweled off and stared at his reflection
in the mirror. The cuts and bruises were starting to swell and
there was discoloration forming under the skin on his arms,
shoulders, and chest. Somehow he hadn’t felt the blows.

His fingers combed through his wet hair and
he felt the fatigue in his arms. Slowly and painfully, he tugged on
a pair of jeans. But they were too unyielding against his sore
muscles so he stripped out of those and put on his white cotton
drawstring pants. Barefoot and barechested, he walked to the bar
and flipped on a dim, overhead light. He poured himself a glass of
bourbon, grimaced against the bitter taste, and added ice.

He climbed the stairs to the second floor and
peered into Sara’s room. She was asleep, lying on her side, the
sheet pulled up to her waist. He fought the urge to climb into bed
just to hold her, tell her he’d always keep her safe. It amazed him
she was able to sleep after her ordeal.

Quietly, he returned to the living room and
lowered himself onto the cool leather couch, setting the glass on
the coffee table. He answered the phone on the first ring so it
wouldn’t wake either Einstein or Sara.

“It’s about time,” Padre said. “I’ve been
trying your cellular for the past two hours.”

“I turned it off.”

“I know.” After a moment of silence, Padre
asked, “How’s Sara?”

“Sleeping.”

“Good, that’s good. Listen, I thought you
might want to know how this whole deal worked out.”

So Dagger let him ramble while he studied the
contents of his glass. J.C. had demanded to see the Australian
ambassador, but he was busy instructing the Australian police to
check J.C.’s apartment.

Nick had been an unfortunate accessory. They
can only assume Edie had led him to believe he killed Rachel. Pete,
the crew member, wasn’t a suspect but was being given a chance to
amend his story and identify Edie as the woman on the boat five
years ago.

Dagger took another long swallow then said,
“Listen, can I possibly read the shortened version in the
papers?”

“That reminds me,” Padre rambled on, “that
young guy got the exclusive you wanted. My office told all the
other papers to stop by tomorrow for a press conference, but Mr.
Wormley will have his story in the morning edition.”

“Good, that will make Sara happy.”

“She knew Nick was connected to this whole
scenario somehow, didn’t she?”

“She felt he was drowning some bad memories
in a bottle.” Dagger looked at his empty glass and walked to the
bar to refill it.

“How did she know where the necklace
was?”

Dagger smiled for the first time since the
morning. “That was Einstein. Whenever we mentioned the word
kangaroo, Einstein always spit out the words Kangaroo Paw. Sara
looked it up on the Internet. Then she remembered seeing an
identical plant on the balcony.”

Padre laughed. “You have got two partners any
cop would kill for.”

“You’ve got that right.” Dagger thought back
to that blur of time from when he had pulled Joey away from Sara to
when he had tossed his limp body over the cliff.

“Oh, and that guy, Mince? One of our beat
cops stopped him earlier for driving your stolen truck. Now he’s
singing like a canary.”

“How is Robert Tyler taking it?”

“As well as can be expected. I think the
Tyler men will do just fine by themselves with Lily to mother
them.” After a pause, Padre said, “Okay, I’ll let you get some
sleep.”

Dagger hung up the phone and held out his
hand. It quivered as if tiny rivers of adrenaline were still
pulsing through his body. He pressed the cold glass to his
forehead, realizing that the bourbon was adding to his headache. He
left the half-empty glass on the bar and saw a movement out of the
corner of his eye. Sara was standing at the bottom of the stairs, a
floral cotton robe buttoned up to her neck as though any amount of
skin would be too enticing.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she whispered as
she stepped out of the shadows.

Dagger wanted to wrap his arms around her,
hold her close. But the same fear he had seen in the hawk’s eyes
was still there. Sara had watched him kill a man, and not just by
accident. It had been ruthless, without hesitation,
professional.

Dagger slowly walked back to the couch and
sat on the coffee table. Sara followed, taking a seat on the couch
facing him. The dim glow from the bar light fell across his face
and she couldn’t help but notice the cuts and bruises.

She reached out and touched his face. Dagger
winced.

“It looks painful.”

Dagger just stared into her perfect face
marred only by that one small bruise, the result of Joey’s punch.
He resisted the urge to touch her hair, her face. A part of him was
afraid she would recoil, revert back to being fearful of any
movement he would make.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come home right away. I
drove around a bit, went by the lake.” His voice trailed off.

“I wanted to come home, make sure you were
okay.”

Sara nodded. “Simon’s wife is nice.” Her gaze
dropped down to his battered knuckles and she stared at his hands
as if they were ruthless weapons. But she touched them just the
same.

Dagger sandwiched her hands between his and
gathered his thoughts. After a few moments he said, “Listen, Sara.
There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, about the people
I used to work for, the things I have done in my past.” She pressed
her hand to his mouth to silence him but he moved it away. “I’ve
done a good job of forgetting that part of my life, of controlling
the anger. But when someone hurts someone close to me…”

“It’s okay.” Her heart pounded in her chest
and tears welled. “Grandmother told you, didn’t she?”

Dagger stared. “Told me what?”

“That’s why you killed him. Grandmother told
you there can be no witnesses. The wolf will kill. And Joey was a
witness to my shifting. You killed Joey so I wouldn’t have to.”

Dagger cupped her face in his hands and
stared intently. Yes, Ada Kills Bull had told him Sara couldn’t
control the wolf when it wanted to kill witnesses. Instead, she and
her grandmother would flee, get as far away as possible so the wolf
wouldn’t be tempted. Dagger often wondered if it was the necklace
with the wolf’s head he wore that protected him. But he reminded
himself that he had saved the wolf’s life.

On the first case Sara had helped him on, he
had found the wolf in the woods, its leg shot off. He had wanted to
shoot the wolf to put it out of its misery, but then it
shape-shifted to Sara. He had been unaware of her special talents.
She had pleaded with him to take her to her grandmother, not the
hospital. And he will always remember his shock when he watched
through a crack in the partially closed door to Ada’s bedroom.
Sara’s leg had grown back! She had regenerative powers.

But the fact that the wolf would hunt down
Joey wasn’t the reason Dagger killed him. So innocent, so trusting.
Dagger knew Sara didn’t believe, couldn’t believe that he was
capable of cold-blooded murder. How could he tell her about his
past? That Dagger had his own demons he couldn’t control? That
Chase Dagger wasn’t even his real name?

Her fingers touched his swollen lip and
traveled to the cut above his eye. “You and I are a lot alike,” she
whispered. “We both have parts of our lives we have to keep secret.
We have only each other to trust.”

And with that she rose. Dagger watched her
climb the open staircase, the dim light filtering up from the bar,
outlining her body, accentuating the curve of her calves. When she
had spoken, it was as if they were her grandmother’s words, wise
and intuitive. She seemed older somehow. And she understood, at
least enough to know some things needed no explanation. She had
matured before his eyes, no longer the child.

He walked back to the bar, finished his
drink, and cursed Simon for being right.

# # #

Author’s Note:

For more information on
books, essays, and short stories written by S.D. Tooley/Lee Driver,
visit her at
www.sdtooley.com