A Deep and Dark December(72)
“And what is the truth, Graham?” Her appeal was small and sad, lacking reproach.
“What do you want from me?”
She didn’t flinch at his anger. She just sat there, watching, waiting. The light from the bedside lamp cast half her face in shadow, but he didn’t need to see her full expression to feel her disappointment. It wrapped around him, lashing him to her like a prisoner.
“What do you want?” he asked again, his voice betraying his inner turmoil.
“I’m sorry. I…” She scrubbed her hands over her face. “I should know better. I’m sorry.”
He pretended he didn’t see the tears she tried to hide, but they took a nick out of him, marring his already damaged soul. He gulped back the rising pain. He’d hurt her. Again. Maybe his father was right. Maybe they were wrong for each other, but he’d gotten the most important part wrong. Erin wasn’t the one lacking, Graham was.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” she was saying. “I knew better, but I couldn’t help it. I’m not like my aunt. Or I wasn’t. I don’t try to look into people’s lives, prying where I don’t belong. That’s not me.”
So she had seen something about him, something she’d purposefully set out to find.
“I want you to know,” she continued, “that I didn’t get to choose where the—”
She pressed the heels of her hands into the sides of her head and squeezed her eyes shut, taking slow, deep breaths. He started toward her, but she waved him off.
“I’ve got this. Give me…” More deep breaths. “…a minute.” After a few moments more, she sighed heavily and opened her eyes. “Okay. It’s gone.” Her sudden smile twisted his gut. “I did it. I did it all by myself.”
He couldn’t help the half smile he gave her in return. “Good job.”
“Thanks.” She grew serious again, twisting the edge of her nightgown. “This thing, this whatever it is that’s happening to me, it’s changed my ability. I used to be able to choose when and who I saw. Now, it’s like if I think about someone, bam, I’m there, past or present. I thought about Keith and saw his death with no decision on my part. None at all.”
The fist-sized knot in his chest loosened. Whatever she’d seen of his past wasn’t her choice then. She hadn’t gone behind his back.
“At least at first,” she said.
“What do you mean at first?”
“This last time I went from vision to vision. The first one I didn’t choose, but the second one… I purposefully changed the vision. I was wrong to do it and I’m sorry.”
The knot was back. “Changed how?”
“I can’t tell you. If I tell you it could alter the future.”
“Between us.”
“Yes.”
“What am I supposed to say? You went into my past… I’m assuming my past?” She nodded, confirming his worst fears. “On purpose. Looking for what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t… Jesus.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well that helps.” He rose from the bed and began to pace, trying to smother the clawing panic. “Do I get to rummage through your drawers now? Go through your things? Know things about you that aren’t any of my goddamned business?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I got that.”
“I shouldn’t have done it.”
“No shit.”
“There’s no way to make it up to you, I know.”
“And I don’t even get to know what part of my life’s been violated?”
“I can’t.”
He stopped and stared at her, the nightmare growing, spreading like a cancer against her. “You can’t is awfully convenient.”
“That’s not fair.”
Un-f*cking-believable. “Fair?” He stalked toward the bed. To her credit, she didn’t flinch or shrink away. “You want fair?” he demanded. “What would be fair here, Erin, is you telling me what the hell is going on. You can tell me all about your visions of the killer and of Keith, but when you pry into my past, all of a sudden you play the I Can’t Change the Future card. Bullshit.”
“That’s not the same.”
“Isn’t it? Your visions have already changed the future. If you hadn’t shared what you’d seen about the killer I would’ve accepted the D.A.’s decision that Greg and Deidre’s deaths were exactly as they appeared—murder/suicide. I wouldn’t have considered Keith a suspect until you told me about your visions. And maybe he wouldn’t have killed himself if you hadn’t confronted him about your vision of him and Deidre.”
Her hands flew to her mouth and she sucked in a breath. That was a cheap shot on his part, but the anger and fear made him not care. She’d done this to him, to them.
“Which is it, Erin? Because you can’t have it both ways.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“Maybe so, but at least I’m honest.”
“Yeah, you’re so honest.” She came up to her knees on the bed, her gaze nearly level with his. “You’re so honest you killed that man and put the gun in Patricia’s hand. You’re so honest you wiped everything down so no one would know you were even in that apartment. So honest that you left her there alone, dead. You loved her and just left her.”