A Whisper in the Dark (40 page)

“He’s still getting used to the idea.”

“Might take some time.”

“A couple of centuries.”

John smiled.

Julia cleared her throat. “Any news on the civil suit?”

He sobered, looked away. “My lawyer believes the widow will settle out of court.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. It’s good. She’s . . . a good person. She called me. At the hospital.”

“So you’re no longer only the man who killed her husband, but a real person who’s suffered more than his share.”

“Something like that.” He looked sheepish for a moment. “The department is going to help pay.”

“And you?”

“I’ll pay some, but it won’t financially devastate me. I can live with that.”

“I’m glad it worked out.”

He looked around the shop. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

She’d spent the morning rearranging everything from bookshelves, to knickknacks, to the coffee service. It was either that or go insane . . .

“The place needed some sprucing up,” she said quickly. “I’ve got new shelving units on order—”

“Julia,” he said abruptly.

She cut the sentence off mid-word and looked at him. “What?”

“Cut it out.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“We’re not strangers, damn it. Let’s stop acting like it.”

She blinked at him, wondering why the hell he didn’t just say what he’d come here to say and get it over with. She could handle it. She’d spent the last days preparing. But she didn’t think there was any way a woman could prepare for having her heart ripped out.

“Why don’t you just say what you’ve come here to say?” she snapped. “I’m tired of waiting.”

He arched a brow. “Well, I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d just stop beating around the bush. I’ve got things to do.”

The brow went higher. For the first time realization entered his eyes. A smile that was a little amused, a little uncertain touched the corner of his mouth. “What is it you think I came here to say?”

“John, please. It’s obvious, okay? I haven’t seen you for a week. You refused to see me when you were in the hospital. You didn’t bother to return my calls. You didn’t even call to let me know you were out of the hospital. Damn it, you didn’t even call to see how I was doing.”

“I kept tabs on you through Mitch.”

But now that the door was open, Julia couldn’t seem to stop talking. So many words and emotions had built up inside her during the last week she couldn’t stanch the flow. “I know you have some issues to deal with. I can accept that. What I can’t accept is your shutting me out, avoiding this.”

“Whoa.” He raised his good hand. “I’m not avoiding anything.”

“It’s been six days.”

“I was in the hospital for five.”

“You could have picked up a phone.” A breath shuddered out of her. “At the very least you owed me the respect of letting me know where I stand.”

A tense silence fell over the shop. Julia was only vaguely aware of Sinatra’s voice in the background. The tick of the grandfather clock against the far wall.

John was looking at her oddly. Like a man who’d just realized he’d flubbed something he’d thought he had sewn up. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you.”

“Don’t be. I got the message loud and clear.”

“I didn’t want you at the hospital because I didn’t want you to see me like that. I get prickly when I’m in pain.” When she didn’t smile, he sighed. “I needed some time to think.”

Julia closed the cash drawer with a snap. “Is there a point to dragging this out?”

Before she even realized he was going to move, he rounded the counter and was moving toward her. “There’s a point,” he said.

Stepping back to keep a safe distance between them, Julia blinked. She’d thought she had this all figured out. But the way he was looking at her, now she wasn’t so sure.

She jolted when he raised his left hand and set it against her face. “Wh-what are you doing?”

“Making my point.” Bending slightly, he brushed his mouth across hers.

Every pleasure center in her brain lit up like a Christmas tree. She marveled in the firmness of his lips. The warmth of his breath against her cheek. The scratch of his whiskers against her chin.

When he pulled away, his eyes were dark and serious. “My point,” he said, “is that I love you. I didn’t want to tell you that while I was lying in a hospital bed feeling like death warmed over. I didn’t want to tell you over the phone. I wanted to tell you in person. So, here I am.”

The floor shifted beneath her feet. She stared at John, her heart jigging in her chest. And in that moment, everything else in the shop faded to babble. Her every sense tunneled on the man standing before her, looking at her as if she were the only woman in the world.

“I’ve waited six hellish days to tell you that,” he said. “The least you can do is say something back.”

But Julia couldn’t find her voice. She could feel the emotions expanding and tangling in her chest. “I thought . . .” Her voice broke.

“You thought what?”

Taking a fortifying breath, she looked at him. “I’ve been expecting you to waltz in here and tell me it’s over because your life is too screwed up to let me get involved with you.”

“I won’t tell you I didn’t consider it.” His hand trembled when he caressed the side of her face. “But I’m not that selfless.” One side of his mouth curved. “I’m greedy when it comes to you, Julia. My life may be screwed up, but I want you in it.” His jaw flexed. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

She closed her eyes against the tears building behind her lids. The surge of happiness in her chest took her breath away. “In that case, maybe we ought to try to work on this communication thing.”

“Not my strong suit, but I’ll give it my all.” Using his left arm, he pulled her to him and looked into her eyes. “I know I’m not an easy man.”

“You’re a quick study, though.”

He grinned. “Trainable.”

“Yeah.” Blinking back tears, Julia smiled at him. “I love you.”

“I know that now.” Taking her face between his hands, he looked into her eyes. “I love you, too,” he said and lowered his mouth to hers.

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HARD EVIDENCE

BY PAMELA CLARE

 
Available in hardcover from Sensation in October.

Tessa walked through the main entrance to the hospital,
feeling uneasy, her conversation with Chief Irving still playing through her mind.

“If I were you, Ms. Novak, I’d take a long vacation,” he’d said. “Failing that, I’d buy a gun and learn how to use it.”

“I already own one—a twenty-two.”

“Good. Pack it. I’ve already ordered extra patrols for your street.”

Tessa told herself Chief Irving was just being cautious. There was no evidence to suggest her life was in danger. Kara had been getting death threats for a while before they came after her. Tessa hadn’t gotten so much as an impolite e-mail. She had nothing to worry about.

Like Chief Irving, she was just being cautious.

Tom had all but gone apoplectic when Chief Irving promised to give her an exclusive when the killers were caught, provided she dropped the story now. He’d launched into the thousandth rendition of his “Watchdogs of Freedom” speech, bringing a look of bored resignation to Chief Irving’s face. Obviously, Irving had heard this speech before, too.

“This is outrageous! No journalist at this paper has ever caved to pressure from the city, and I can assure you Novak won’t be the first!”

Chief Irving hadn’t been pleased. “We’ll be as helpful as we can be, Ms. Novak, but we’re playing this one close to the vest. And don’t go on a charm offensive against my men with that sweet Southern accent of yours, because I’ve warned them all not to discuss this case with you. If you want information, you come to me.”

Tessa had agreed to that much.

She stopped at the hospital’s front desk and asked one of the volunteers for Bruce Simms’s room number. She’d spent the morning working on a routine story about the recent ketamine robberies and had planned to start researching Denver’s gang history, as most drive-bys in Denver were gang-related. But when she’d learned the gas station attendant had been moved out of Intensive Care, she’d known she had to speak with him.

“Room three-thirty-two, miss.”

“Thanks.”

Tessa found Mr. Simms sitting up in bed in a blue-and-white hospital gown watching a soap opera. He was pale but alert, an oxygen tube beneath his nose, deep reddish bruises on the backs of his hands from multiple IVs. He glanced over and saw her, and his eyes widened.

Clearly he recognized her.

“Mr. Simms? I’m Tessa Novak. I hope you don’t mind my stopping by.”

“You like
Days of Our Lives
?”

“I don’t watch much television.” She took that as an invitation and sat in the chair next to his bed. “I work during the day.”

“It’s all crap anyway.” He clicked off the television. “You’re that reporter. You came in for coffee. I read your piece. You come here to interview me? I got nothing to say.”

“I’m here for personal reasons, Mr. Simms. You and I watched someone die. I thought—”

“I didn’t see nothing.” His mouth was clamped shut, but his eyes—hazel eyes more gray than green—told a different story.

“Oh, well, I imagine you were fighting your own battle for survival, weren’t you?” She gave his arm a sympathetic squeeze. “I’m terribly sorry that you became ill as a result of the shooting. I must say the whole thing nearly frightened me to death.”

Even though Mr. Simms had read the article, Tessa went through the story again, told him what she’d seen. The car. The rims. The blood. The man in the leather jacket.

“She was so young, Mr. Simms. We were the last two people to see her alive. That matters to me.”

For a moment there was no sound but hospital noises from out in the hallway.

“She used to come by most every Sunday afternoon with the others.” Mr. Simms looked up at the dark television screen. “There were four of them, girls about the same age. They’d come in, buy gum, candy, maybe shampoo or lip gloss, then they’d go again. Never smiled. Never said a word till that night.”

It was the first real information Tessa had gotten about the girl. “Did you know her name? Do you think she lived nearby?”

“I told you they never said a word, didn’t I?” He glanced sharply at Tessa. “No, I didn’t know her name. But, yeah, I think she must have lived nearby. They always walked to the store together. Never saw her by herself. It was always the four of them, and they were always dressed kind of shabby.”

Curious, Tessa couldn’t resist asking, “Did you ever see her with anyone else—a man, someone who looked like a gang member? A man in a black leather jacket perhaps?”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re fishing for an article. I don’t want to be in no newspaper.”

She met his gaze, held it. “No, sir. I’m trying to find some peace of mind. Besides, I would never quote you without making it clear you were being interviewed.”

He seemed to measure her.

“There was an older woman who sometimes came with them, but she never entered the store. I always figured her for one of their mothers. But . . .” He paused for a moment. “I always thought it was strange the way she watched them—like a hawk. I figured maybe she wanted to make sure they didn’t steal nothing.”

“Did they ever try to steal anything?”

“Nope.”

“How about the black car? Did you see it or its driver before?”

“Can’t recall. The place is a damned gas station—cars coming and going all goddamned day and night.” He picked up the remote, clicked the television back on.

Tessa stood, took a business card out of her purse, and scribbled her home phone number on the back, knowing her time with Mr. Simms had ended. “I hope you’re feeling better soon, Mr. Simms. If you think of anything else, or even if you just want to talk, you can reach me at this number.”

He took the card, glanced at it, then looked up at her face. “I’m leaving town as soon as I get out of here. Going to stay with my brother in Omaha, maybe move there.”

And Tessa knew he was being cautious, too. “Good luck. And thank you.”

She walked out of his room and down the hallway, running what he’d told her through her mind. Four girls about the same age, always together, most of the time under the watchful eye of an older woman. Never spoke. Never smiled. Walked to the store dressed in shabby clothes to buy candy.

Perhaps they were sisters or best friends, and the older woman was someone’s mother. It wasn’t surprising that they didn’t talk to anyone else, given that they probably spoke little or no English, but it was a little odd that they didn’t chatter with each other. Teenage girls were not exactly known for being quiet. It was strange, too, that they never smiled. Whoever heard of teenagers on a somber candy binge?

The shabby clothes pointed to a life of poverty. Perhaps the girls were wearing hand-me-downs or Salvation Army cast-offs, cobbling together a wardrobe out of bits and pieces no one else wanted, seeing scorn and pity in other people’s eyes, feeling ashamed just to be seen. Maybe that’s why they kept to themselves.

Tessa knew only too well what that felt like.

The girl hadn’t been wearing shoes—a dangerous thing on city streets. That tended to support Mr. Simms’s belief that she lived nearby. So perhaps that’s where Tessa should start.

She glanced at her watch, saw that it was nearly three. That gave her a good hour and half before dark to walk the streets, knock on doors, look around for signs of gang activity. The victim was a teenager and poor, both of which fit a gang theory.