Drowning in Amber (A Marie Jenner Mystery Book 2) (13 page)

“Come here.”

It was James, in the other room. I pulled the blanket closely around me and skittered in.

“What?”

“You want to stay in here with me?” he asked.

I honestly thought I was going to say, “No, it’s all right, I’ll just keep watch out there, everything’s fine.” What came out of my mouth was a strangled, “Yes.”

“Come on, then.” He pulled the covers open.

“Just a sec.”

I grabbed a wooden chair and stuck the back of it under the doorknob of the front door. I’d seen this done in the movies, and hoped it would work to keep the door jammed shut. Then I skittered over to the cot and crawled in beside James.

Under normal circumstances, I never would have done anything like that. The cot was small, and he is a large man. And there was the whole “this is a business arrangement” thing. Crawling into bed with him did not really send that message. But these were not normal circumstances. I snuggled into his arms and instantly felt safer.

“You’re shivering,” he whispered. His breath touched my ear, and I shivered even harder.

“I’m cold.”

“Want another blanket?”

“No.” Like a cat, I snuggled further into his arms, against his chest, pulling the warmth from him to me. “No, this is good. You’re sure I’m not taking too much space?”

“No,” he murmured, and wrapped his arms around me. “Lots of room.”

So I did the only thing I could do. As I felt him relax and ease into sleep, I followed him, feeling safer than I had in a long time.

Maybe my whole life.

I BOPPED BACK
to the crucifixion tree again, but I wasn’t surprised this time.

I didn’t want to hang around, but didn’t know where to go. It was too late to go to the park and get another hit, because I was certain that even Noreen would have called it a day by that time. Everyone who had a home would have gone to it. The only ones left would have been the truly homeless, and I didn’t need or want their kind of high. Nope, it was time to settle in for the night.

I was wandering around the churchyard looking for a spot when I heard someone call me.

No. That’s not right. That’s not what it was. No one was actually calling my name, even though I looked around and said, “Who is that?” like they had. No, it was more like someone reached into my brain and whispered something only I could hear.

I recognized the voice. A girl who lived by the park. I’d run into her a few times, when I was alive. And she’d talked to me, if you could call, “No I don’t have any spare change” a conversation. But I was certain it was her voice I was hearing. And it sounded like she was looking for me.

I looked around the churchyard, thinking she was there, mourning my loss or something. Yeah. Right. But there was something compelling about her tone. Like she really needed to see me.

Who am I to turn down a woman? Especially a cute one with blonde hair. Those kind of women usually never notice me, so when her voice tickled my brain, I decided to follow it.

The further west I walked, the stronger the connection became. Her voice didn’t get louder or anything. I just felt like I was more connected to her.

I ended up at the park, and I almost stopped, but by that time the compulsion to follow her voice was overwhelming. Like I was jonesing, but in a good way. One more step, my head kept saying, and I’ll find her. Wasn’t quite sure what would happen then, but knew I couldn’t stop.

Walked around the figures sleeping on the grass, to the far sidewalk, and then across the street in front of a three-story building. Bottom floor was commercial, and not the good commercial, either. Between a pawn shop and a payday loanshark place was a scratched-up door with a bank of beat-up buttons beside it. Checked the names—force of habit from life, I guess—but most of them were Smith and Jones, so I closed my eyes, and let her voice pull me through the door and up the stairs to the second floor.

Dark dingy hallway, most of the lights burnt out or knocked out, but it didn’t stop me. Her voice was like a beacon pulling me to the third door on the right.

I hesitated at the front of that door. I didn’t walk in on women, when I was alive. That type of behaviour could bring much unwanted police attention—but her voice in my brain was like an itch that desperately needed to be scratched.

So, I walked through the door of the girl of my dreams.

It wasn’t quite like I’d imagined. I thought it would have been cleaner, and more feminine. There was a big pile of mail—most of it fliers—on her kitchen table. Books everywhere. On the kitchen counter a TV was on, and I could tell by the snow she didn’t have cable. I could barely see the show, and the voices were muffled, as though the two guys on the screen were talking through mouths full of cotton.

“Eddie.”

I looked around, wondering as I did so if I’d heard the name on the television and mistaken it for the blonde calling my name.

“Dead guy.”

No mistake that time. It was the blonde. Wasn’t too taken with her calling me “dead guy,” and I didn’t see her anywhere in the room. She had to be there somewhere though, because what I was hearing was not in my head this time. She was talking out loud. To me.

Two doors leading out of the messy main room. Stuck my head through one, and could tell it was the bathroom, and empty. Backed out and tried the other door.

This one led to the bedroom. This room was as stark and clean as the other was messy. Just two pieces of furniture—a bed and a dresser—and nothing else. By the light of another television—this one sitting on the top of the dresser, tuned to a different, but equally snowy, channel—I could see a form in the bed. It was the blonde.

She was so slight she barely made a mound under the blankets. She muttered something and clutched at the blankets desperately, as though she didn’t quite have the strength to pull them up over her face.

“Eddie,” she moaned. In spite of myself, I smiled. Nice hearing her say my name, even if it did sound like she was having a bad dream.

“Yeah?” I said. Hoped I’d be able to pull her out of the dream. Maybe she’d sit up and see me. Talk to me. That would have been cool. “I’m right here. What do you want?”

“Eddie,” she said again, but her voice didn’t sound like she’d heard me. Still sounded like she was caught in the dream, and whatever was going on in there, it didn’t sound good. “Run.”

I frowned. Not so much because she’d suggested I run from whatever she saw in the dream, but because it looked like she couldn’t hear me. I’d hoped she would have—hoped she was like that Marie chick and would be able to talk to me, even though I was dead.

Maybe I wasn’t talking loud enough. It wasn’t like I could shake her awake or anything.

“Hey, chick!” I called. “Wake up!”

Still nothing, past her frowning and clutching her blanket even more desperately.

“Come on, chick, open your eyes!” I cried. “I’m right here!”

Nothing.

“Come on!” I yelled. “Open your eyes!”

I got more reaction than I ever thought I would.

Her eyes popped open, and she looked around the room like she was looking for me. But there was something about her eyes that let me know that even though they were open, she wasn’t seeing anything in that room, including me. She sat up, clutching the blankets to her chest, as she gasped in air like she was drowning. Then she opened her mouth and started to scream.

That scream drove me to my knees, because she wasn’t just screaming out loud, she was screaming in her head, and then she was screaming in my head, and with the screams came pictures, not pictures but a movie—a silent movie with only her screams punctuating the horror that was being shown on the screen of my mind.

I started screaming too. I couldn’t help it. The jerky, shadowy, snowy images drove it out of me as surely as if I was being beaten to death. Again.

I could see my face. My screaming face. And I screamed, matching the image. Watched me as I begged for my life, among the rain of blows. Then I was being dragged to the tree, and I could see the hammer, and I watched the blood, and it all came back to me, the way I had died came back to me, a rain of blows hitting me so hard I curled into a ball on the floor by her bed.

“Stop it!” I cried. I was yelling it at her, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. Because I knew the images of my death—and that’s what I was watching, a frigging movie of my death—were coming from her. And I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

But she didn’t. Or couldn’t. Just sat upright in her bed, screaming her own ghastly screams at the visions we were both seeing.

I crawled to the door and through to the other room. The visions were not as clear there, but I could still see them, and I could definitely still hear her. So I crawled out of her apartment and into the dark, dank hallway.

Better. Mostly snow, and my eyesight had cleared so I could see where I was going. I pulled myself to my feet, shakily, feeling like I was going to puke. And then, I heard her voice, clear as a bell.

“Trust Marie,” she said in a singsong voice. “She’ll save you. She’ll save us both.”

That’s when I ran to the park and rolled into the first guy I found, taking as much of his high as I could stand. Finally, that voice in my head faded away to grey.

I pulled away from the guy, and stood, shakily, then walked east.

East. Away from the blonde. I was going to get as far away from the blonde as I could. I never wanted to see any of that again. Never wanted to see her again.

Ever.

I THOUGHT I
heard the phone ring, but didn’t want to move. I was warm, lying in James’s arms, and I wanted to stay there forever.

James groaned in his sleep, and pulled me closer. My body tingled, that good tingle, and as I snuggled into him, he murmured something, possibly my name—I hoped it was my name—and wrapped his hand in my hair, gently pulling my face close to his.

The phone rang again. I groaned and disengaged myself from James’s warmth, reaching the desk before the phone had a chance to ring a third time. Way deep inside, I was hoping to get rid of whoever it was and sneak back into bed. With James. To hell with normal. Being with him, lying in that bed with him, felt absolutely right.

“What?” I barked.

“Marie?” It was Honoria. Calling the office phone. What was going on?

“Yes,” I said shortly, “I’ll get James.”

“No. I want to talk to you.”

I glanced at the clock. 4:30 in the morning.

“Do you know what time it is?”

“No.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“No.”

I frowned and looked at James, who was moving restively, as though he was waking up. “Can’t this wait until morning?”

“We need to talk. Now.”

I sighed, and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. My feet were starting to get cold, and I wished I’d grabbed my socks. “All right. Tell me what I need to know.”

“No,” she replied. “Not over the phone. You have to come here.”

“What?”

“Please.”

I looked back at the bed, and the man, once more. “Why?”

“Because I had another dream.” She sniffed, and I almost imagined her crying, distraught.

“Don’t you have sketches or something I could pick up tomorrow?” Please?

“No.” She sniveled, and it was all I could do not to roll my eyes. “This was different. He was here. In my place. I could feel him.”

“Who?” I asked, a jolt of fear running through me. “Who was in your apartment?”

“It was Eddie,” she said.

“The dead guy.”

“Yes. He wanted to talk to me—or something. I tried, but he ran away.” She sobbed. “Please,” she said. “Please come over. By yourself. James wouldn’t understand any of this. You know?”

“I know,” I said. He’d continue to think she was crazy—or worse, he’d think she was trying to make us believe she was crazy, to keep out of jail. “What did Eddie say to you?”

“Please,” she pleaded. “Just come over. I’ll tell you everything. Everything.”

“All right,” I muttered. If this could get me some real information and help me figure out who killed Eddie, I’d do it. “I’ll be there soon.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Hope you weren’t sleeping.”

I looked at the man in the bed, regretfully. So much for my grab at normal.

“No problem,” I whispered, and hung up the phone. “No problem at all.”

I LEFT JAMES
a note telling him where I was and crept out of the office. I almost knocked down the chair I’d set under the door handle and froze as it clattered and banged, but James didn’t move.