The Medium (Emily Chambers Spirit Medium Trilogy #1) (25 page)

Hot tears poured
down my face. I couldn't stop them any more than I could stop loving him. I
began sobbing, the sort where you can't breathe or barely make a noise but when
you do your entire body shudders with the effort.

He put his arms
around my waist and drew me to him as gently as if I was made of glass. He
kissed my tears and caressed my hair. At some point he pulled my head against
his chest. I listened for the heartbeat that wasn't there and held him. He
rocked me and I stopped crying but the pain inside was so immense I didn't
think I would ever feel normal again.

"Please,"
he said after a long time. He didn't need to say anything else. I knew it was a
continuation of the same plea without having to hear the words.

"If it's
what you want," I said through my raw throat.

He touched my chin
and tilted my face up. His face, while still handsome, was distorted as if he
were in pain. "It's not what I want. But it's what has to be. Do you
understand the difference?"

I nodded. I
understood. He could not stand to see me grow old. Could not look upon an ugly,
toothless crone.

"Good."
He kissed the top of my head again then held me at arm's length. So that was
how it would be from now on—at arm's length.

I returned to
the bed where I wanted to curl up and go to sleep then wake up from this
nightmare. But it wasn't a nightmare. It was real and Jacob was in earnest now.
I sat on the bed and rested my chin on my drawn up knees. I couldn't bear to
look at him.

"After
we've sent the demon back to the Otherworld," he said, "we'll search
for my body. And my killer."

Body. Killer. Oh
God, it was all so awful, so hopeless, so horrible.

At that moment I
realized with startling clarity that I would do what was best for Jacob, and it
was the best thing for him to cross over. It's what spirits are supposed to do.
No matter how much I wanted to keep Jacob with me, I could not let the
injustice done to him go unpunished. Whoever had taken his life should not be
allowed to get away with it. Right then I set my mind on catching his killer. The
man I loved deserved nothing less.

"Your
sister told me something that might help us," I said.

His fists curled
into balls at his sides and those blue eyes, duller than usual, stared
unblinking at me for an inordinately long time. I could see he wasn't entirely convinced
he wanted to follow through on his new resolution to cross over. We both knew
that this was just the first step on what could be a long road, but it was
still the first step to an end neither of us really wanted.

"You'd
better tell me what it is," he finally said.

"Do you
remember a boy called Frederick?"

I could have
sworn he paled, something that wasn't possible considering he was dead. "Yes."
He recounted the same story that Adelaide had told me about Frederick coming to
their Belgravia home and accusing her and the butler of lying about Jacob's
whereabouts. "It upset her greatly at the time but I'd thought she would
have forgotten about it by now."

"You
clearly haven't. Which means you thought it was important."

He gave me his
crooked smile and I was overjoyed to see the charming Jacob back. No matter how
hurt I was by the fact he didn't want to stay with me forever, I couldn't be
mad at him for long. "You know me so well already." He sat on the
chair near the fireplace and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. His
shirt gaped open and I was rewarded with a rather delicious view of his naked
chest underneath.

Would I ever get
to touch it now?

"Emily, are
you listening?"

"What? Yes,
of course I am. You said I know you so well."

"And
then
I said I told Adelaide I didn't know anyone called Frederick. But that probably
wasn't true."

"Why would
you lie to her?"

"I didn't
lie deliberately. I thought at the time that I didn't know anyone called
Frederick. But now...now I think I must have."

"Why would
you say that?"

"Because I
now think he had something to do with my death."

I hugged my
knees closer to my chest. "Why? No, let's start with who he is. How well
did you know him?"

He turned his
hands out, palms up, without shifting his position. "I didn't. That's the
thing, I don't remember anyone from Oxford named Frederick."

"No one? It's
a common enough name."

He looked down
at his hands. "I know."

"Adelaide
said he was fair haired, slight build, plain features. Can you recall anyone from
school matching that description?"

"Not
really. I suppose it could describe several of my classmates though."

"None of
whom were named Frederick?"

He sighed and slumped
back in the chair. "I can't recall. There might have been one or several
Fredericks in my year. I just..."

"Can't
recall." I sighed too. "It would seem you spent more time with your
head in the clouds
before
you died than after."

He cocked his
head to the side and gave me a withering look. "Very funny."

Adelaide and
George hadn't been exaggerating when they said Jacob never noticed people. I
was only now beginning to believe it.

"If I could
have my life over again," he said, serious, "I would speak to
everyone I ever met. Every single person. I'd stop people in the street and ask
them how their day was."

"You would
get some very strange looks." I tried to make light of the situation but
it was no joke. It was obvious Jacob regretted what he'd been like when he was
alive. It made me think about everything I wanted to change about myself. I
made a mental note to give Celia a hug in the morning.

"Do you
think Frederick killed you because he thought you were avoiding him?" I
shook my head at the absurdity. "Not only is it a big leap but it also
doesn't make sense. If he wanted to be your friend, then why would he kill you?
He could never be your friend then." I drummed my fingers on my knee as
another thought occurred to me. "Or perhaps there was some other reason he
wanted to see you. Could you have owed him a debt?"

"How could
I owe a debt to someone I didn't know? No, my death was certainly related to
the fact he thought I was avoiding him."

I frowned at
him. He looked away. "How do you know?" I hedged.

He shrugged one
shoulder. "I just do."

"Jacob,
what aren't you telling me? What do you know?"

"Nothing. Just
leave it be. Accept that I'm almost certain Frederick the boy from Oxford is somehow
relevant to my death."

"You mean
he killed you."

"No. I
think he had something to do with my death, but didn't commit the act himself."

I put my hands
up, stopping his convoluted riddles. "If you don't know who killed you,
how can you discount Frederick from the list of suspects? He sounds like the
most likely one to me."

Jacob scratched
his head, making his hair stick out at odd angles. "I can't tell you why I
know he didn’t do it, I just do."

"You
can
tell me, you just don't want to."

That cynical
smile again. "Thank you for clarifying."

I climbed off
the bed and crouched in front of him, touching his knees. "Jacob, you have
to tell me everything. I need to know what you know."

"No!" He
gripped my forearms and hoisted me up as he stood too. "There are some
things you should not know, Emily. This is one of them."

Anger flared,
bright and fierce, behind my eyes. Already tonight
he'd
decided we would
not be together and now he was keeping information from me that could help me
solve his murder? It was too much.
I
deserved to decide what was
important and what wasn't too. "Why shouldn't I know?" I jerked out
of his grip. He sat down again, shock rippling across his handsome face. But I
wasn't prepared to let my anger evaporate beneath his sudden change. Sometimes
anger is a benefit, if channeled correctly. "What could it possibly matter
now? You're dead. And I
will
find out who killed you so you might as well
tell me everything you know."

He said nothing
for a long time, just stared at me, and for one breathless moment I was scared
that he found my anger ugly and that he was relieved he'd not committed to
spend the rest of my life with me. But I could not regret it any more than I
could control it. Something was bothering Jacob deeply and I was determined to
get to the bottom of it.

"Very well."
He sucked in his top lip and indicated I should sit. I sat on the bed, my stockinged
toes just touching the fringe of the rug, my hands at my sides on the quilt. "I
suppose it doesn't matter what you think of me now anyway," he said, bleak.

"What I
think of you?" I felt like all the air had been knocked out of me along
with my anger. I shook my head. I didn't understand.

"It might
even be for the best." He rubbed his fists down his trousers and didn't
quite meet my gaze. "Now that we've decided I must cross over, having
you...despise me will make that easier."

"Despise
you?" I got up and went to him but he lifted a single finger, halting me
from curling into his lap and kissing him all over. "I could never despise
you," I said instead.

He pressed the
finger into his eye socket and his thumb into the other. "You haven't
heard my story yet."

I sat back down on
the bed and tucked my hands beneath my thighs. "Go on."

"I know
that boy Frederick didn't kill me because...because I killed him." He
waited for me to say something but I didn't. In truth, I couldn't have spoken
anyway. I was too shocked by his admission to make any sense. "I was
walking home late one night when a boy accosted me. I didn't realize then that
it was the same boy that had come to the house. That only came later. Much
later, after I died. Anyway, the boy began shouting at me, accusing me of
ignoring him and deliberately avoiding him. Of course I had no idea what he was
talking about. I tried to calm him down and make sense of what he was saying
but he just got angrier and angrier." He rubbed his cheek as if trying to
remove a smudge. "He struck me. It wasn't a very strong blow but I hadn't
been ready for it and I must have stumbled back. He came at me again but I'd
recovered enough to defend myself. In the ensuing struggle I punched him. He
fell and...and hit his head on the ground. The pavement was uneven and... The
sound..." He closed his eyes and his nostrils flared. "The sound his
head made as it hit the ground has stayed with me all this time."

I sat on the bed
and waited for him to go on but he didn't. My heart beat hard in my chest and
blood pounded in my ears. Jacob had killed someone. Jacob. My Jacob. A murderer.

I sucked in air
between my teeth and let it out slowly. No wonder he'd avoided telling me about
the circumstances surrounding his own death. I'd suspected outside George's
house that he was withholding something vital from me and now I knew what it
was, and why. He was racked with guilt and he was afraid I would think badly of
him.

"Don't look
at me like that," he said upon opening his eyes.

"Like what?"

"Like...like
you still love me."

"I do."
What a stupid thing for him to say! "Of course I do."

"But...how
can you after what I just told you?"

"Because
you didn't mean it. It was an accident." I got up and crouched before him
again. I took his hands in both of mine. "It was an accident, Jacob, and
you don't deserve to carry this guilt, just as you didn't deserve to die."
Oh God, is that what he thought? That he deserved death because he'd accidentally
killed someone?

He blinked once
then looked down at our linked hands. He lifted them to his mouth and skimmed
his lips across my knuckles. "Do you really believe that?"

"Yes! Jacob."
I caught his face and drew it up so he looked at me. Our gazes met, briefly,
then his flitted away to a point over my shoulder. "You are not to blame. Do
you understand me?"

He smiled but it
was weak and unconvincing. "I am to blame. Just because I didn't mean it,
doesn't mean I didn't do it."

"But he
attacked you first!"

"And I hit
him last. That's what counts."

Men! Why did
they have to think like brutes when it suited them? "Your logic is ridiculous,
Jacob. No court would convict you."

"Emily."
He said my name with great effort, as if he was beyond exhausted. "You
don't understand. I hit him. I
wanted
to hit him. I wanted to stop him annoying
me so I could go home, and to do that...I knew I would have to hurt him."

I frowned and
shook my head. "That doesn't matter. You're a good person and I will not
see you so angry with yourself because of something that wasn't your fault."

He drew my hands
away from his face. His nostrils flared as his gaze met mine and held it. "You're
not afraid of me?"