Killing Me Softly (3 page)

At ten rings total, Dawn peered out from beneath the pillow. She could see, from the Caller ID feature on her television—which had been left on all night long, just as it was every night—that the call was coming from her mother. Her birth mother, not the one who'd raised her. Blackberry Inn, the screen announced.

She reminded herself that she was lucky to have found her birth mother at all, after fifteen years with each of them believing the other to be dead. She adored Beth, and had been raised beautifully by the woman she considered her mother, Julie Jones. But even though she loved Beth dearly, Dawn wasn't ready for another conversation where every other sentence revolved around the life and times of Bryan Kendall.

Bryan, the son of Beth's husband, Josh, had been Dawn's first love. And she'd broken his heart when she'd left him behind in Vermont five years ago.

Hell. It didn't seem as if Beth was going to give up until she answered, and it would be rude to just yank the line out of the jack.

Sighing, she rolled onto her side, grabbed the phone and brought it to her ear. “Hi, Beth.”

“Dawn. God, I thought I'd never get you. Are you all right? You don't sound well.”

Dawn rolled her eyes, and reached for the water glass on the nightstand, but it was empty, and the one half full of diet cola was also half full of vodka. And it was too early in the morning for vodka.

She hadn't needed to resort to vodka in quite a long time. But last night she'd had that feeling—that creeping, pins-and-needles-in-her-spine feeling—that told her something was coming. And that her normal bedtime dose of Ativan wasn't going to be enough to keep it at bay this time.

She'd thought, at the time, she'd been sensing that the dead were going to start talking to her again—asking for her help, pestering her, the way they had before she'd run away from her life and her gift and her family. And Bryan, her first love.

Now she thought maybe all she'd been sensing was the approach of this phone call. Which was, after all, likely to be almost as unpleasant as the “gift” she'd turned her back on. “I'm fine,” she said. “Why so urgent?”

“You've got to come home, Dawnie. You've got to come home right now.”

Dawn blinked and looked at the clock on her cluttered nightstand. It, and the framed photo of her and Bryan, arm in arm, in happy teenage puppy love, were the only two things there that really belonged. Beside those were the empty water glass, the partially ingested vodka diet, a box of tissues, an empty prescription bottle
and another one that wasn't empty, the bowl of Chinese noodles she'd had for dinner and an open package of peanut M&M's.

She had to shove some of the junk aside to see what time it was, and as soon as she did, she felt a lot less guilty for her reluctance to answer the phone. “It's first thing on a Saturday. Is someone dead?”

She was kidding, being sarcastic and snotty, and feeling totally justified in both, until Beth said, “Yes. Someone is dead.”

Dawn sat up straight and blurted his name as everything inside her turned to ice. “Bryan—”

“Bryan's…he's fine. No. He's
not
fine. His dad is with him, and he's physically fine. At least, I think he is.”

“Good God, Beth, will you just tell me who's dead already? I'm having heart failure here!”

“A girl. Her name is Bette—Bettina something or other. She was…she was murdered last night. Apparently in Bryan's house. In his…in his bed.”

“What?”

“He had a party last night. Had too much to drink. Woke up this morning to find this girl dead in his bed.”

“Drugs? God, that's going to mess up Bryan's career big-time. Or was it…?”

“She was murdered.”

Dawn swore in a way she'd never before done in front of either one of her mothers.

“Dawn, they've taken Bryan in for questioning. Josh
just called from the station, and he says it doesn't look good.”

“Doesn't look good?” Dawn frowned at the phone as if it were deliberately being vague. “Doesn't
look
good? As in, they actually think he
did
it?”

“I don't know. I guess…I guess so.”

“Well, they can't! That just doesn't make any sense,” Dawn said. “Bry's a cop, for crying out loud.”

“Yes, a cop who's been suspended for the past month.”

“What, still? All because he shot that guy?”

“He's been cleared of any wrongdoing, but he was required to meet with the department psychiatrist to be sure he wasn't suffering from post-traumatic stress. She just gave him the all clear, and he was scheduled to return to work on Monday. Hence, the party last night.”

“He was celebrating,” Dawn said.

“Apparently.”

Dawn closed her eyes, shook her head, offering a token argument, because she couldn't seem to stop her self. Force of habit, she presumed. “I don't know what good my coming back would do, Beth.”

“Yes, you do,” Beth whispered. “You know you do.”

“Did he…ask for me?”

“He needs you, Dawn. If they don't arrest him—”

“Arrest him?”

“If they don't arrest him, Josh is going to bring him
home. Dawnie, you know you can help. Even without the…the ability you inherited from your father—”

“There is no ability.” She didn't bother reminding Beth that any mention of Dawn's long-dead father was strictly off-limits. The man had been a powerful medium—as well as a murderer. His gift and his mental illness, so twisted up in his mind that he couldn't tell the real voices from the imaginary ones. The ones that told him to kill. With his dying breath, he'd passed his gift on to his teenage daughter, promising to return to her. A promise he'd kept, and one that had sent her running across the continent to escape.

And she
had
escaped.

“The dead don't talk to me anymore, Beth. It's…it's gone.” Thanks to AA—Absolut and Ativan in her case.

“I don't believe that,” Beth said softly. “I know it drove your father insane—and I know that scares you, Dawn. So I hope, for your sake, it's true. But even without that, Dawn, you can help. You and Bryan were like—you were like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.”

“One Hardy Boy.”

“The way you figured out what was going on in Blackberry five years ago when your father found me here—when he thought God was telling him to kill me… If it hadn't been for you and Bryan…”

“That was five years ago, Beth. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then. Bryan's the one who went on to become a cop. I just fix cars—”

“You restore classic cars for collectors. Don't undersell yourself.”

“Yeah, well, it's a far cry from crime solving.”

“He needs you, Dawn. And
I
need you. I'm scared. Josh sounded awful on the phone. Bryan's his son, and this is going to be hell on him, no matter how it comes out. I need to be there for him, Dawn, but
I'm
scared, too. I need you. The family needs to face this together. Please, baby, please. It's time you came home.”

“There are just…so many ghosts.”

“Yeah. Well, now there's one more.”

“Beth—”

“Dawn,” Beth said, and her tone had changed from pleading to the voice of absolute authority. “I didn't raise you—didn't even get to know you until you were practically grown. But I
am
your mother and I'm speaking to you as a mother right now. There's a ticket waiting for you at the airport. Your flight leaves at 1:16 p.m., your time. Get up, pack a bag, call your boss and get your ass home. I'm not asking you. I'm telling you.”

Dawn closed her eyes. “I'm a grown-up now, Beth. You can't tell me what to do.”

“I just did, kiddo. I've put up with your hiding and your wallowing and your—well, to be blunt, your cowardice, for five long years, but I'm done with it now. You're tougher than this. Stronger. Your family needs you, and I hate to say it, Dawn, but if you let me down again, I'm just not going to forgive you. Not this time.”

Dawn blinked and stared at the phone, but Beth was
gone. She'd disconnected. So Dawn replaced the receiver on its cradle and peeled back her covers. Her birth mother had just called her a coward. She had never once even hinted that she felt that way. Dawn had thought Beth understood why she had to run away, had to stay away, from that place where so much had happened. Where her murderous maniac of a father had died at long last after a string of murders and assaults. From that instant when he'd spoken his dying words to her, told her his so-called gift was hers from then on.

Gift. Who the hell called insanity a gift?

Oh, there was more to it than just madness. The dead really did talk to Mordecai. But he couldn't tell the voices of the dead from the voices of his own in sanity, and in the end, he'd nearly destroyed everyone he'd ever loved. Even her.

His “gift” was nothing she wanted. Nothing she would
ever
want.

She flung back the covers, shuffled into the bathroom and cranked on the shower taps. Shrugging out of her robe and letting it fall to the floor, Dawn stepped into the spray. Then she stood there with her head hanging down, and Bryan's face front and center in her mind's eye. He must hate her for walking away without a word five years ago. He must hate her for ignoring every effort he'd made to get her to talk to him, to at least tell him why. He must hate her by now. He
ought
to hate her. And she couldn't blame him for it, but God, she didn't want to see that hatred in his eyes. Not face-to-
face, up close and personal. She didn't think she could take that. It would hurt too much.

They'd been so in love. It had been new and fresh, and fun. She'd met him when his father had fallen for Beth, and it had felt as if they were meant for each other. So young and inexperienced, that when they finally made love for the first and only time, it had barely lasted five minutes.

She smiled softly when she thought of that completely unsatisfying, awkward night when they'd lost their virginity to each other. It was the sexiest memory of her entire life.

Damn, she didn't want to go home. She really didn't. But there was no point in arguing about it. She was going. Today. And deep down inside, now that she had no choice in the matter, she couldn't wait to see Bryan again.

“I
t wasn't the three hours of questioning that got to me,” Bryan said to his father. He had one hand braced on the mantel and was staring into the Blackberry Inn's oversize fireplace as if there were dancing flames to contemplate. Which there were not. It was midsummer and still too warm for a fire, even in Vermont. But staring at the dark, empty hearth kept him from letting his eyes get stuck on one of the countless photos of Dawn, or him and Dawn together, that littered every room of this place.

She was on her way. Right now. Beth was picking her up at the airport in Burlington, an hour away. She would be here soon. Any minute now, and he could barely believe he was going to see her again for the first time in five years. He was going to see her again, now, in the middle of the biggest mess he'd ever landed in. He was going to see her. And it was going to rip his guts out.

“So what did?” Josh asked.

“What did what?” Bryan glanced at his father, sitting
in the big rocker recliner with a cup of coffee and looking less like the relaxed, content innkeeper than he had since he'd first arrived in this town. Not that he ever really fit the stereotype, with his athletic build and good looks. Bryan took after him, and thanked his lucky stars often for his father's genes.

But Josh had relaxed a lot since retiring from government work to run the inn alongside his wife. Tonight, though, Bryan could see the lines of tension creasing his brow. He was worried about his only son. This whole thing had his stoic, easygoing father shaken, and that scared him.

“You said it wasn't the questioning that got to you,” Josh said. “So what did?”

“The lawyer.” Bryan's glance slid sideways, from his dad's worried, rugged face to the photo on the end table. Dawn, leaning on a classic Dodge Charger, wearing overalls, a wrench in one hand and a smudge of grease on her cheek. Must have been one she'd sent them from California. He jerked his attention away from it and tried to stay focused on the subject at hand. The lawyer his father and Nick had sent to his rescue.

“I'm a cop. I hate lawyers,” he said, elaborating on his previous statement.

“That's fine—until you need one.”

“That's just it, I
don't
need one. Or at least, I shouldn't. I didn't
do
anything.”

“You woke up in bed with a murder victim, son.”

Bryan thinned his lips. “The mouthpiece wouldn't let me say a hell of a lot. Kept interrupting when the chief
was questioning me, telling me not to answer. Hell, he made
me
think I looked guilty.”

“It's for the best, Bryan. You have to protect yourself.”

“I know that. I just—I know what I think when a suspect lawyers up and won't talk. I hate like hell to have my colleagues thinking that way about me. Especially Chief Mac. I'd prefer to just tell him everything and ask him to help me sort it all out.”

“I know.”

Headlights slid over the walls as a car pulled into the driveway. Bryan closed his eyes slowly, tried to brace himself for whatever feelings were going to assault him at the sight of Dawn. But he was damned if he knew which ones to expect. It had been so long. Part of him hated her, and part of him ached for her. And all of him resented the fact that she wouldn't be here at all if his life wasn't on the line. He wondered if he was supposed to be grateful she would rush home because he was in crisis. He wasn't. He was angry that it took a crisis to get her here. Hell, he hadn't blamed her for running off without a word after all that had happened. Having the dead just start talking to you had to be bad enough. Having your dead father leading the crowd of ghosts to your door was too much, especially when your dead father had been a homicidal maniac.

So she panicked. She freaked. She ran away. No goodbye, no warning, nothing. She was just gone. And he could have forgiven that, if she had just called after things calmed down. But she didn't call, and she didn't
write. She spoke to Beth, her birth mother, and anything Bryan learned about her life came through her. Second hand news of the woman he loved. It was insulting.

There was no excuse for letting it go on for five long years. None.

Still, he turned toward the front door as footsteps crossed the porch. He strained his eyes when he saw the foggy outline of her beyond the frosted-glass panes. And then the door opened and she walked in, Beth close behind her.

Dawn met his eyes, and he just stood there, mute, staring at her and thinking his heart was going to pound a hole in his chest, and wondering if it would fall onto the floor before or after it stopped beating.

Her hair was still long. Still its natural shade of dark honey and amber gold, perhaps with a few lighter high lights, no doubt thanks to the California sun. But her face had changed. Grown thinner. Her cheekbones were more prominent than before, which might be partly be cause she was older now, but he thought it might also be that she'd lost weight. Hell, she was so damn thin. And the tender skin underneath her eyes seemed pink and puffy. As if she'd been crying.

Over him?

Hell, who was he kidding?

He wondered, briefly, what she was seeing as she stared at him. What changes was she noticing? He imagined he'd changed quite a bit, too, in the course of five years.

Finally she said, “Hey, Bryan. How are you holding up?”

Just like that. As if there wasn't a weeklong conversation that should happen before that casual hello. He shrugged. “Damned if I know. I don't think it's all had a chance to sink in yet, to tell you the truth.” He moved toward her, but not too close, just enough to reach out and take the suitcase from her hand. “How about you?” he asked. “You look…tired.”

“Gee, thanks.”

He shrugged, not overly concerned that he'd sort of insulted her just then. Hell, she'd done worse to him, hadn't she?

“It was a long flight,” Beth said quickly. “Naturally she's tired.”

Bryan could see the worried looks passing between Beth and Josh from the corner of his eye, though he couldn't really take his eyes off Dawn. “You've lost weight,” he said.

“That doesn't sound like a compliment, either,” she replied.

“It wasn't.” He sighed and lowered his head, turning toward the stairs. “You didn't need to come, you know. There's not a damn thing you can do.”

“Hey, don't think I didn't try that argument, Bry. Beth didn't buy it, and she wouldn't take no for an answer. So I'm here. Deal with it.”

He was halfway up the stairs when he replied, “I've got enough to deal with already, thanks.” He finished climbing the stairs, avoiding the muttering going on
behind him. The three of them discussing his mental state, no doubt. Then he was out of range, at last. He headed down the hall to the room Beth had chosen for Dawn and set her suitcase just inside the door. Then he kept going, to the next room, his room, and once inside, he closed the door, sat on his bed and lowered his head to his hands. Damn, damn, damn. He hadn't wanted to snap at her. He'd wanted to wrap her up in his arms and hold her, just hold her, for a long, long time. He'd wanted to feel her right there, against him, warm and alive, more than just a memory.

Which made it even more irritating that she, apparently, had no such sentimental notions about him.

 

“I'm sorry,” Dawn said. “I should have—maybe I—”

Beth hushed her. “You two have a lot to talk about, to work through. It's high time, Dawn. It's past time. Adults do not just stop communicating with people they care about. They talk it out.”

Dawn pressed her lips together more tightly to avoid saying anything that might sound rude, since several snotty rejoinders were knocking against her teeth in an effort to escape.

Josh closed a hand on her shoulder. “He was glad to see you, hon. I realize it didn't seem that way to you, but I know him better than anyone else in the world. He was glad to see you, and more than that, he needs you. He needs you more than he needs anything or anyone
right now. So I'm asking you to swallow your pride and be there for him.”

She nodded, not believing a word of it. It would have been nice to believe it, but it just didn't make any sense. Bryan hated her. And she couldn't blame him, because he had every reason to hate her.
That
made sense. But she didn't argue with Josh. She just said, “I'll try my best.”

“Good.” He smiled. “I think I jumped ahead a little, though.” And then he hugged her. “Welcome home, Dawn.”

“Thanks, Josh.” She relaxed and hugged him back. “Thanks. It's good to be back.”

“It is?” he asked.

She smiled at him and shrugged. “Well, it might be too soon to tell. But it feels good at the moment.”

Beth said, “It does my heart good to hear that.”

Dawn felt bad. Her lack of enthusiasm had probably hurt her mother's feelings, and that wasn't what she'd intended. “I think I'll go on upstairs,” she said. “I'd like to take a shower, freshen up before dinner. It was a long flight.”

“Food'll be on the table in an hour.”

“All right.” Dawn hugged her mother. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“Thanks for coming. Just take it slow, okay? Just take it nice and slow.”

Dawn nodded, unsure what it was her mom wanted her to take so slowly, but not wanting to open the can of worms she thought lay behind that comment. So she
headed up the stairs, but slowly. With every step she took, she half expected to see some shady, vaporous apparition, or to hear some disembodied voice. Most of all, she expected to encounter her long-dead father, demanding that she accept her “gift.” Her “calling,” as he'd referred to it.

She hadn't seen or spoken to a dead person since she'd spent her first night in San Bernadino. Maybe that was due to the Ativan she'd been prescribed by the first doctor she'd trusted with the truth. Or maybe it was something to do with the distance, as little sense as that made. She only knew she didn't want to come back here and face the ghosts again. She didn't want the damn gift that had become so twisted and corrupt it had rotted her father's mind, turning him into a murderer who honestly believed he was doing God's will when he killed.

She didn't want any of it.

She entered her room and stood there, just inside the open door, looking around but seeing nothing. No ghosts. “If I hear even one peep, see even one misty shape in the night, I'm out of here. I hope you're getting that.”

“Loud and clear.”

She nearly jumped right out of her skin as she spun around to see Bryan leaning against the door frame. One hand on her chest, she closed her eyes slowly and willed her heart to slow down.

“Sorry. I didn't mean to give you a heart attack.”

She took a deep breath. “It's okay. Come on in, Bry.”

“You sure?”

She nodded and stepped aside to give him room to pass. He walked in, looked around the bedroom. “You, uh, you alone in here?”

She smiled. “Yeah, I'm alone.” Bryan had been matter-of-fact about her “abilities” ever since she'd first told him about them. He hadn't doubted her. Hadn't thought she was crazy. Hadn't been all weirded out about it. It had barely fazed him, except that he worried about her. And in return, she'd walked out and left him a note that really didn't say a damn thing.

“So, uh, no ghosts in California, huh?”

“Not for me, at least. I haven't…heard from any of them since I first got there.”

“Why do you suppose that is?”

She lowered her head, not meeting his eyes. “I don't know. Distance. Medication. Vodka, when the other two aren't enough.”

When she glanced up again, he was frowning, studying her face and probably getting ready to comment on her methods of ghost-dodging. But he seemed to change his mind. “And now that you're back?” he asked.

“Nothing yet. I hope to God there won't be.”

He nodded, sighed heavily. “You told Beth it wasn't me you were running away from. That it was them. You said you needed time. But I don't think you were being entirely honest.”

“I don't want to talk about that, Bryan. About us.
About what we had. It's history. I know I hurt you, and I'm sorry. But I did what I had to do, and it was five years ago. I'm just not up to rehashing it all. Not now.”

His eyes narrowed. She thought she saw a flash of anger, but he banked it fast. “It's not all that important, anyway,” he said.

Her brain immediately registered it as a lie.

“Look, Bry, can we just skip all that for the moment? Just focus on what's going on here and now instead? 'Cause this is a big thing, you being implicated in a murder. All this ancient history between us, it can wait. Can't it?”

He met her eyes. “It's waited for five years already,” he said. “
I've
waited for five years.”

“You weren't exactly
waiting,
” she said. “I mean, this poor woman—she died in your bed, after all.”

He lifted his brows and took two steps closer to her. “Does that bother you, Dawn?”

“Of course not.” But she averted her eyes when she said it, cursing herself afterward for being so obvious.

“Did you think I was going to be celibate for five years? Did you really think one night losing our virginity to each other was going to sustain either of us for the next half decade? 'Cause that's crazier than talking to dead people.”

“Let it go, Bry. I'm not up to this, not yet.”

He watched her face for a moment, as if waiting for her to give something more away, and when she didn't,
he finally nodded. “Fine. It's waited five years—it can wait a little longer.”

She lifted her head and, gingerly, put a hand on his forearm, where it hung by his side. His biceps were big and hard. They hadn't been before. His shoulders were broader, and his hair, as brown as milk chocolate, was longer than she'd ever seen it. She liked it long. It would be a shame when he had to cut it again to return to his job as a cop.
If
he was able to return to his job as a cop.