The Last Time I Saw Her (15 page)

His tone and expression were both so completely serious that Charlie was surprised into paying attention. She frowned. This was a rehash of the argument they kept having over and over, but to have Michael looking at her this way, asking her this way, was new. It was enough to make her stop and think, at least.

“Is there a reason you're so stuck on this right now?” she asked, frowning at him. He glanced away: he was doing the twisty thing with the handcuffs again, and he looked down at them. She could read absolutely nothing in his face. But there was something—
something…

He said, “You ever think maybe I want to keep you alive?”

“Michael. Talk to me.”

He looked at her again then. “What we've got here—you and me, this thing that's going on with us—is temporary. We both know that. One of these days I'm going to disappear from your life for good. Nothing either of us can do to change it. I'd like to see you safe before it happens.”

The thought of him disappearing forever was like a shard of fear stabbing into her heart. She didn't think she could live through a repeat of the last seventeen days, much less a lifetime of it. As she stared at him, she felt herself going cold all over.

“What is up with you?” she demanded. “Is there something you're not telling me?”

“I'm just facing facts,” he replied, and made a sudden savage movement with his wrists. A metallic snapping sound followed.

Charlie's eyes widened.

“You broke the handcuffs,” she said on a note of mild disbelief as he stretched his arms wide. The bracelets still adorned both wrists, but the chain dangled from his left. “I didn't think people could do that.”

“Like riding a bike.”

“I'm officially impressed.”

“I'd rather you be officially unemployed.”

“Michael—”

She broke off as what sounded like running footsteps and violently rustling foliage from somewhere above was punctuated by a short, shrill, abruptly terminated scream.

Charlie and Michael looked up at the same time, their reaction automatic. There was nothing to see except a craggy, near perpendicular mountainside, a shadowy fringe of trees swaying along the edge of the cliff above them, and a flotilla of nearly black clouds blowing across a higher ceiling of ink black sky. Except for the low moan of the wind and the usual night sounds, there was also now nothing to hear. But the scream—Charlie hadn't been mistaken about the scream. She thought it had come from the road, or rather the wooded verge beside the road, some hundred and twenty feet above their heads. She was about to glance at Michael when a handful of pebbles and dirt rained down on them.

Instantly, she looked up again. Her pulse quickened.

“Could be anything,” Michael said in response to her wordless clutching of his arm. “An animal up there hunting. Another damned ghost reenactment. Anything.”

“It sounded like a woman screamed. A girl.” Charlie's mouth was dry. “You know it did.”

“Could be anything,” Michael repeated. Taking off his jacket, he draped it around her shoulders. “Here. Your teeth are starting to chatter.”

The jacket was still warm from his body, and she accepted it gratefully, sliding her arms into the sleeves, hugging it close.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You're welcome.”

It was far too large, big enough to fit maybe three of her in it, the arms dangling past the tips of her fingers. She got busy rolling up the sleeves, launching straight back into the conversation they'd been having. “You have to go check it out. You said you could climb up. And now you don't even have to worry about the handcuffs.”

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no'? What if it's Paris? Or Bree? Or…or…”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“We've been over this.”

“You are not coldhearted and callous enough to just ignore that scream we heard.”

“Want to bet?”

“You jumped out of the bus after me.”

“Like I think I may have told you before, you're mine, Doc. I protect what's mine.”

That was equal parts infuriating and heartstopping, so chauvinistic on the one hand, so backhandedly romantic on the other, that for a moment Charlie was at a loss for a reply.

Another truncated cry and a shower of debris made them both glance up again.

“You know that's not an animal.” Charlie was so agitated she stood up, wrapped her arms around herself, and started to pace back and forth.

Michael looked up at her. “I do not know that's not an animal. Anyway, I'm here to save
your
damned life, not go running around this whole damned mountain on some probably fruitless bleeding-heart search-and-rescue mission.”

“You wouldn't be running around the whole damned mountain. You'd be climbing right up there.”

“Leaving you alone on this damned ledge.”

“What on earth do you think is going to happen to me on this ledge? Nothing can get to me here. You have to—”

“Help!” The cry was thin and faint and terrified. It was also clearly human, and almost certainly female.

“See,” Charlie hissed.

“Fuck.” Michael stood up. He grabbed her by the upper arms. It was at times like this that she was reminded just how very much bigger and stronger than her he was. “I don't care what happens. I don't care if it sounds like the shoot-out at the OK Corral up there or you see a hundred people falling to their deaths or ten thousand girls start screaming, you keep quiet and stay put, you understand? Do not try to climb the cliff. Do not call out. Do not—”

“Yes,” Charlie interrupted. “Yes, yes, I understand. Would you just
go
?”

“Damn it to hell anyway,” Michael muttered, and kissed her, a brief, hard brush of his mouth against hers. Then he let her go and shoved something—Charlie saw it was the gun as he turned to face the rock wall—more firmly into his waistband at the small of his back, where his untucked shirt hid it from view. Grabbing on to what looked like sheer rock, he proceeded to scale the cliff with the agility of an experienced mountain climber. His white shirt made it easier than it should have been to follow his progress through the darkness and the mist, and it occurred to her that she might not be the only one who could see him. She tensed at the thought, but there was no gunshot, no outcry.

Another abbreviated shower of rocks and dirt brought her heart leaping into her throat. All she could do was look up and hope that there was something Michael could do, that he wouldn't be too late, that whoever was up there would be okay.

Michael hoisted himself onto the ledge where Fleenor had died—she hadn't heard Fleenor's loop for a while, which didn't mean much because it was a random thing, but she was really hoping he'd been swept away to whatever the afterlife had in store for him—and then he was out of sight.

After that, nothing.

Nada. Zip.

Not a rustle of leaves, not a sprinkle of dirt, not a glimpse of anything where something should be happening.

Charlie's heart pounded.

Had Michael disappeared? Had whoever or whatever he'd gone up there after disappeared?

What if a hunter had been lying in wait? Or some other hideous creature had emerged from the depths of the netherworld to drag him back?

What if the whole thing had been a trap and she'd sent him right into the jaws of it?

Charlie strained her eyes trying to see through the darkness. She strained her ears trying to hear anything that wasn't wind or natural forest sounds. Her neck ached from being craned so far back. Despite Hughes's coat, she was shivering, and not only from the cold. Her throat was so tight she could barely swallow.

What if he never came back?

The thought terrified her.

It occurred to her that the downside to having Michael in Hughes's body was that the body could be injured or killed. Presumably Michael would still be able to stay with her in spirit form if that happened. But never having had her own personal spirit before, she knew so little about the parameters of his existence that she couldn't be sure.

She couldn't be sure about anything.

Except that she was growing increasingly afraid that something had gone badly wrong. She was so nervous that she resumed pacing, back and forth, on that tiny ledge.

Finally she sat with her legs tucked up beside her and one shoulder resting against the cold stone wall as she alternated between watching the ledge and scanning the woody fringe at the edge of the cliff high above.

Nothing, nothing…more nothing.

When at last she saw Michael swinging his big body down from the ledge overhead and then descending toward her, she was so relieved she felt light-headed and at the same time so wired with nerves that she leaped to her feet. Or at least she tried. By then she was stiff and cold and achy and her leap was more like an awkward clamber.

She was waiting as he stepped down onto the rock shelf. When he turned to face her she hugged him, the greeting as natural as breathing, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a quick I'm-so-glad-to-see-you kiss. Low-voiced and anxious, she said, “Oh, my God, I was worried! What happened? Are you all right?”

Having hugged her back and returned her kiss with a brief, hard kiss of his own, he stepped back, jerked a thumb upward, and said quietly, “I'm fine. Careful, we've got an audience.”

Looking up, Charlie discovered a quartet of dark-uniformed men standing on the ledge and peering down at them.

“Who are they?” she asked.

“A local search-and-rescue team.” He was untying a rope from around his waist as he spoke. That was the first time Charlie realized that a rope had been snaking down the cliff with him, a rope that had been tied around his waist and which extended all the way back up to the ledge. Michael continued, “I'm Rick Hughes, remember, and you don't know me very well. You probably don't want to be seen kissing on me.”

Oh. Right.

“So what happened?” she demanded impatiently.

“The scream—it was the blond girl. Google Eyes—Sayers—had knocked her out and was on top of her by the time I got there. I was able to get the drop on him, but then I had a nearly naked, unconscious girl on my hands. No way to let you know what was going down without yelling and maybe drawing attention we didn't need. So I got the girl bundled up in what was left of her clothes and carried her down the mountain until I found some help. I handed her over, and then I came back with those guys to get you off this damned ledge.” Rope in hand, he reached beneath the jacket she was wearing to pass it around her waist. “Hold still. I'm going to fasten this around you and then they're going to pull you up.”

“Paris. Is she going to be all right? How badly is she hurt?” Charlie asked, standing obediently still as Michael looped the rope around her to form a kind of makeshift harness. She attributed his familiarity with ropes and rock climbing and handcuff breaking and all the rest of that type of thing to his time in the military, trusted that he knew what he was doing, and dismissed it from her mind.

Michael said, “Her head was bleeding. I think Google Eyes used a rock to knock her out. It wasn't anything life-threatening, and she was awake last I saw of her. They were taking her the rest of the way down to an ambulance.” Having passed the rope over both Charlie's shoulders as well as between her legs and wrapped it around her waist one more time, he tied some kind of intricate knot at her waist. “She was telling a deputy that she'd been hiding in the woods until he found her and she ran. What we heard must have been him catching her. Like I said, Google Eyes had knocked her out by the time I got up there.”

Charlie shuddered. “Her eyes—”

“Didn't touch 'em. He didn't get that far.”

“Poor girl, did he—” She broke off, unable to put the thought into words.

A glance at her face apparently told Michael what she meant. “Rape her?” He shook his head. “No. I got there before he could.” He was double-checking the ropes he'd tied around her. “You saved her life, babe.”

Charlie said, “Are you kidding?
You
saved her life. Did you—is Sayers—”

“Dead.” He didn't elaborate, but then, he didn't have to. Since she hadn't heard a shot, Charlie assumed he'd killed Sayers with his bare hands. If she'd been a better person, she supposed that ability of his would have bothered her, but instead it just made her feel safer. Having finished with his knot, Michael took a step back and looked her over critically. It occurred to her then that he was free of the broken handcuffs.

“What happened to the handcuffs?” she asked.

“Guy had a key,” he said without elaborating. Then he took both of her hands and curled them, one hand above the other, around the rope that was rising in front of her. “Hang on to the rope and they'll pull you up. When you get close to the ledge, watch out that you don't crack your head on the underside of it. Push off from the cliff with your feet if you have to.”

Charlie nodded and tightened her grip on the rope. “What about you?”

“I'll be right behind you.” He looked her over one more time and said, “Ready?” When she answered “Yes,” he made a whirling gesture over his head that was clearly aimed at the men on the ledge above.

The ropes tightened around her without any more warning than that, and she caught her breath as she was lifted off her feet. An unexpected rush of nervousness was countered by having Michael's hands on her, steadying her for that first little bit as she started to rise.

Then she was on her own, dangling in mid-air as she looked out over a vast expanse of night. The rope circling her thighs cut into them as she was hoisted steadily upward. She shifted uncomfortably, which made her sway back and forth like a pendulum, which was alarming, so she quit shifting and tried to stay as still as she could. The harness Michael had devised suddenly did not feel substantial enough to be all that stood between her and what, she determined with an unwary glance down, was an unchecked plummet to certain death, but she trusted him enough to assume that it was. Still, her pulse pounded and her chest felt tight. Heights, she was rapidly discovering, were not her favorite thing. The drop beneath her was terrifying, so after that one quick glance she looked skyward instead. A few more stars were out, but if there was a moon it was hidden by the cloud cover, which was threateningly low. Jagged black peaks towered everywhere around her like waves about to crash. The wind was biting now, and strong enough to rock her into the cliff face even though she was taking care to remain perfectly still. She had to push off with her foot more than once. Mist drifted beside her, eerie and pale, smelling of damp and making the rope feel slippery in her hands. By the time she was close enough to the ledge so that she could reach up and touch it if she'd wanted to—she didn't—her heart was thumping.

“Dr. Stone, I'm Deputy George Trent. If you'll hold up your hands we can get you the rest of the way up, no problem.” The voice belonged to a heavyset, fortyish man who was peering over the edge at her. Charlie held up her hands, one at a time because she was wary of releasing her grip on the rope, and felt warm, thick-fingered hands lock around her wrists. The next thing she knew she was being lifted up onto the ledge and surrounded by four deputies. At least she assumed that's what they were, because Trent had introduced himself as a deputy and because the words
SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT
were emblazoned in white on their black caps.

“How do you know my name?” she asked, as two of them helped her out of her rope harness.

“We have a list of the hostages,” Trent answered. “And Mr. Hughes identified himself and you.”

It took her a second to associate Mr. Hughes with Michael, and that's when she knew for sure how really, really tired she was. She was going to have to take care not to forget.