Jaxson's Song (19 page)

“
But it’s not okay, Jaxson. Not really. For years, I’ve
dreamed of Mira. I’ve thought of her and dreamed of her, and…and
she’s been there, in the back of my mind. But she’s not some buried
memory, anymore. She’s real and she’s here—somehow.” Jaxson watched
as she cast a nervous glance toward the door. “The broken window…
She’s not just a dream, anymore, Jaxson, is she?” Slowly, he shook
his head and brushed a wayward lock of hair off her
forehead.

“
Yeah. I guess I’d already suspected as much.” She sighed.
“Ever since I came back to Florida, and moved into that house, I’ve
felt like Gollum and I aren’t alone.” She worried her lip again.
“She’s not going to stop, is she?”

Jaxson hesitated, unsure
how to answer her question. He hadn’t spent much time in
Florida—thank God—or in the house next door. But so far the
impressions he got from the late Mira Rathe, were off-the-charts
angry. He didn’t think she was interested in going into the
light.

“
She’s a pretty angry spirit,” he conceded. “But…I don’t think
she’s mad at you.”

Kate shook her head. “Why
wouldn’t she be?”

“
Why would she be?” he countered.

“
I let her die, Jaxson. I had the chance to save her, and I
ran away and hid. I knew better. I knew how to dial 911. I don’t
know why I didn’t. I screwed up,” she said helplessly. “There’s no
other way to put it.”

“
You
screwed up?” Jaxson demanded
incredulously. “What kind of fuck would blame an eight-year-old
girl for something like that?”

“
Well, apparently Mira.”

Jaxson shook his head.
“No, she’s angry, but not at you.”

“
How do you—”

He held up a hand. “Don’t
ask.”

“
Like hell. You can…hear…her?”

He nodded, half expecting
to see the apprehension—fear of him—cloud her eyes, for her to call
him a freak. Or worse, to keep silent, but pull away, and make up
some bullshit excuse because, deep down, she thought he was a
freak. But the wary rejection never came. Kate simply continued to
stare at him expectantly.

“
I can hear her.”

“
Are there others? Like her?”

“
Like her? Dead?” He frowned. “Or in your house?”

Kate broke away and turned
a slow circle, casting a wary glance at the air around them. “Are
there a bunch of them, you know, all around us?”

“
Ah.” Jaxson smiled and shook his head. “No.”

“
Oh, God, is there more than one in my house?”

Again, he hesitated, but
decided to tell her the truth. “Yes.”

“
Oh, Lord.”

“
They aren’t as…vocal, as she is. I haven’t seen them, not
like I’ve seen her.”

Kate took a deep breath.
“You know what? I’m not even going to ask,” she said. “Okay, so,
so…if she’s not out to get me, then why now? Why is she all of a
sudden, here?”

“
Who says she hasn’t been here all along?”

“
I guess. But why is she going all”—Kate waved her arms
around—“exorcist, now?”

The sick, niggling feeling
was back, and Jaxson cupped a hand around the back of his neck
before he straightened and faced Kate’s inquisitive stare. “Well, I
think I might have a theory about that…”

Before he could speak, a
loud, booming crash sounded from outside, and the screech of
shattering glass drifted through the partially open window beside
the door.

“
What the hell?”

Chapter
Eighteen

The Long
Goodnight

T
heir
shoulders bumped as they darted
toward the dining room window that looked out onto the porch and
afforded a clear view of the side of Kate’s house.

“
W-what,” Kate stammered, pressing her arm fully against
Jaxson’s side, “is she doing?” Even after days and hours and years
of dreaming about Mira Rathe, and the brief history they shared,
the one and only time their paths had crossed, it
felt
…
wrong,
somehow, to be speaking out loud about her. Who was she kidding? It
wasn’t only that. It was referring to Mira as if she were a real
person that made the hair on the back of Kate’s neck practically
stand on end. Mira was
dead
. Light shone from a
downstairs window, then winked off, only to appear in another
window. The kitchen, the porch, the second-story room that was
missing a window. Kate shivered. Mira Rathe was dead. Another crash
sounded, and the light flashed rapidly now.

But she was far from
gone.

“
She wants us to come back to the house,” Jaxson answered,
glancing sideways at Kate.

“
Why?”

He shook his head and
returned his attention to the spectacle next door. “I don’t
know.”

“
Oh
…
she
isn’t
…
talking?”

“
No. Only
…
”

“
Only what?” she prompted when he fell silent. “Jaxson, what
is it?”

“
Nothing. Come on,” he said, abruptly turning from the window
and propelling her deeper into the house. His grip delivered an
edge of pain, and Kate wrenched her upper arm free of his grasp,
glaring at him when he rounded on her. He’d snatched his cell phone
off of one of the lace-doilied end tables in the formal living
room.

“
Tell me what she said.”

“
She said
‘
come here,’” he told her after a moment’s
hesitation.

She studied his face, the
way his fingers curled tightly around the sleek, black cell phone.
“You’re lying.”

But Jaxson was already
talking into the phone. “Jake,” he said, turning away from Kate and
lowering his voice a few octaves until she could only make out
every other word or so.

She took a step forward,
but Jaxson retreated a few more paces, closer to the staircase, and
finally she gave up, crossing her arms over her chest in irritation
but otherwise keeping silent. There would be time enough to corner
Jaxson as soon as he was off the phone. A moment later, she dropped
her arms to her sides and stared, open-mouthed, at Jaxson as he
slapped his hand against the eggshell-white wall of the living
room.

“
God damn it, Jake! He saw her with
me
. Don’t you get it? He didn’t
stop the car until he saw her over here, with me. He’s going to
come after her. What do you—Jake, you don’t,” Jaxson exhaled and
curled his hand into a fist as Kate watched, her stomach
tightening. “Because I know. He wants her. I don’t know. Because
she’s blonde, because she with me, who the fuck knows, but he’ll
try and take her. She’s next. I need to get her out of her,” he
snapped. “No, that’s not enough. Fuck!” he growled, abruptly
hanging up and sending his phone sailing across the living
room.

Kate’s gaze followed the
track of the throw, watching with vague interest as the cell phone
slid across an end table. She blinked when it was stopped by the
wall, then she rounded on Jaxson. “Do I even want to know?” she
asked, tapping one foot against the plush carpet beneath her
toes.

One corner of his mouth
quirked up without humor. “Probably not. Come on, we’re getting out
of here,” he said, crossing the room and looping one hand around
her wrist in a firm grip. But Kate dug her heels in and held
firm.

“
No,” she protested. “Not until you tell me what’s going
on.”

“
I will,” he promised, staring down at her with a pained
expression on his face. “But later. Tonight. When we’re far away
from this godforsaken hell hole,” he muttered, turning toward the
door again and propelling her along behind him. Again, she stopped
him in his tracks.

“
Damn it, Jaxson. Stop,” she demanded, ignoring the glare he
leveled on her as he swung around impatiently. “What. Is. Going.
On. You’re telling me now, right here, or else I walk out the door.
Explain.”

“
It’s not good.”

“
Yeah, I gathered that,” she said wryly.

“
It’s really bad, Kate,” he warned.

“
Worse than my house being haunted by a ghost who probably
wants to kill me?” she asked dubiously, her blood chilling in her
veins as she briefly wondered if Mira Rathe could actually kill
her. Considering what she’d done to the window earlier, Kate
figured that was a line of thought she didn’t want to examine
further.

Grimly, he nodded. “Yeah,
it’s worse than that.” He cast a glance behind them, at the door,
before Kate tugged on his arm, and his gaze swung back around to
her.

“
Jaxson.”

“
I screwed up,” he said hoarsely.

“
You screwed up,” she repeated slowly, searching his face.
“Okay.”

“
Not just now, although I’ve managed to fuck this up too,” he
said, ramming his fingers through his hair and cursing when he
knocked his wig askew. “I’m not an exotic dancer at a club—well, I
am, right now, but I’m undercover.”

“
You’re a cop?” Her eyes widened.

Jaxson snorted. “No,
sweetheart. I’m not a cop. I’m an ex-con. Before I came to Florida,
I was an accountant. I did some business with the wrong people, and
I got arrested—”

“
Arrested? What sort of business?” Kate interrupted, taking a
small step closer, curious

“
Financial business,” he said, and she got the sense he was
being deliberately vague. “Racketeering. Gambling,” he finally
explained, hanging his head and exhaling slowly.

“
Oh.” She nodded, hoping her expression was
neutral.

Jaxson’s head came up, and
his gaze was questioning, before it became shuttered again. “One of
the people I handled some financial
…
business
…
for, was a man named Roger
Klein—the man you saw outside earlier. The blue car,” he added when
Kate remained silent.

She took a deep breath.
“What does that have to do with me?” she asked, though she could
more or less connect the dots. The picture that was beginning to
take shape wasn’t pretty.

“
After my arrest, the FBI came to question me. Roger Klein is
more than just some shifty club owner. He’s also the sole suspect
in the murders of at least three women. All young—all
blonde.”

Kate recoiled, even though
she’d seen that coming.
“
So they had you dress as a blonde
woman to try and, what, trap him in some sort of cop show sting
operation?”

Jaxson nodded, looking
almost relieved for some reason. “The other man you saw here, the
one that drives the Buick,
is
a cop, back in New York. He’s
my uncle Jake. At first, I was a suspect in the murders. Once they
determined that I wasn’t Roger Klein’s accomplice in anything
besides money laundering, they started to pump me for information
about him, about his club.”

“
And the other dancers in the club
…
do they dress like you?” she asked,
not even sure why she was curious about such a thing at a time like
this. Maybe she was going into shock again, she mused, still
focusing on Jaxson’s tense face.

He nodded. “Transvestites?
Yes. And no, this isn’t my normal style of dress.”

“
I didn’t think it was,” she murmured, promptly closing her
mouth. “So, your uncle?”

“
Right. He came up with the idea of the sting operation,
starring yours truly. The next thing I knew, I was being offered a
plea bargain. My full and total cooperation in exchange for a
suspended sentence on the racketeering charges. I took it. And now
here we are.”

“
Roger Klein has been baited to come after you,” she said,
breathless and slightly nauseous again. The idea of Jaxson being
dangled in front of a serial killer was enough to make her see red.
She didn’t stop to question when her feelings for her quirky,
screwed-up neighbor had developed into something deeper, something
she was hesitant to name. Then again, the tipping point didn’t
really matter, did it? Her entire acquaintance with Jaxson Green
had been bizarre—and kind of wonderful.

“
Yeah, he’s supposed to come after me. And I think it would
have worked. Until he saw you.” Jaxson shook his head and leaned in
close, pressing his forehead to hers and closing his eyes. “I
should have followed my own advice and stayed away from you after
that first night. Fuck, I practically led him right to
you.”