Deja Who (Insighter #1)(70)

“Oh, Leah. That’s . . . so TV.”

“I can’t help it, I spent my formative years mouthing clichés and fake-crying. Or fake-laughing.” She shoved his shoulder, gently. “Less criticism, more hugging.”

“Oh, absolutely. For the next several decades. Yes?” He leaned in and kissed her carefully on the mouth.

“Yes.” She could not seem to stop looking at the body. She remembered Tom’s clumsy kindness as a child. She remembered him pleading with Nellie when Leah brought them to court. She remembered him crying as he tried to kill her. Whatever she was feeling, it wasn’t shock.

“He tried to break his pattern, too. He didn’t want to kill me right away. He wanted to be around me for a while; years and years. He told me. And I—” Leah pulled away from Archer, bent at the waist, and barfed in the stairwell. Coughing, she stood, wiped her mouth, and glared. “Not in shock.”

“Fine, you’re not in shock. But the CSI guys aren’t gonna like that. Your neighbors won’t, either.” He took her back into his arms and resumed rubbing slow, soothing circles on her back.

“Please tell me you don’t find that attractive, too,” she groaned.

“Congratulations. You’ve found my one turnoff. I temped as a janitor at the high school last year, part-time job number twelve, and you wouldn’t believe how often teenagers throw up.”

“Change of subject.” Then, “Part-time job number twelve?”

“It’s a long story. Which, thank God, I now have all the time in the world to tell you.”

Thank God, yes. That’s exactly right. Thank you, God.

Leah leaned forward while remaining in the comforting circle of Archer’s arms. “Good-bye, Jack. Good-bye, Buck. Good-bye, Fritz. Good-bye, Béla. Good-bye, Elias. Good-bye, George. Good-bye, Peter. Good-bye, Gilles. Good-bye, Delphine. Good-bye, Tom. Good-bye.”





FORTY-FOUR


“And they lived happily ever after. Except I don’t think so.”

They were on Archer’s porch, swaying back and forth on the porch swing. Leah had been unaware such things existed in the twenty-first century. It was nightfall of a long day.

“You promised to forgive me for being horrible to you in order to save you,” she scolded. “You can’t tell me you knew I didn’t mean it and then decide perhaps I did mean it.”

He had been bringing her hand to his mouth to nibble on her knuckles, but snorted against them instead. “That’s not what I’m talking about, okay? I was talking to Cat about what you said—”

Leah groaned. The mayor had had choice words for them both. Some of the words had been “idiots” and “dumbasses” and “thank God, you’re all right” and “cripes, the shit I put up with” and “you swear you’re both okay” and then a lot more in the “idiots” vein followed by “they don’t have any carrots here!”.

Cat had, in fact, called the police, careful to have them take her statement at the hotel as Catherine Carey. The three agreed that the cops taking her statement in the park might cause unnecessary complications. (“Wait, ma’am, what did you say your old job was?”)

The police had plenty of questions for Archer and Leah, mostly because the two of them were involved, once again, in a violent death. The second that week, in fact. So . . . yeah.

Fortunately, the police seemed satisfied with the answers. It helped that they had Nellie Nazir’s killer, complete with the de rigueur creepy killer motive. And Tom’s shrine to Leah had been found almost immediately, which made sense because it was basically his entire house.

When asked how she’d known him most of her life but never saw his house, Leah’s reply was particularly Leah-ish: “I made it clear to the late Tom Winn of Winner’s TalentTM (ugh) that I would rather be hooked up to an IV of my own vomit than ever set foot in his home. And my mother would never deign to visit; she made him come to her. Always. So, yes: I knew that man my entire life and never saw his home.”

Archer’s cab driver was found and questioned, and confirmed Archer was the hysterical young man who kept begging him to call the cops “before he kills her again oh my God when will this horrible wonderful month be over?” Leah’s cab driver also came forward, but more to explain to the police (who already knew) what a help she had been to those in need and if she killed anyone she had a damned good reason and why don’t the cops leave Leah alone and go after actual criminals. Huh? Huh?

“Anyway, Cat knew what you’d done—that you’d pulled a Harry and the Hendersons—”

Leah groaned again.

“—but you have to admit, you made a couple of good points. We might be too different. I’m not sure I’m the right guy for you.”

“Don’t break up with me for my own good, Archer,” she warned. “It’s annoying and condescending.”

“Can’t break up with you,” he said, not looking at her. He was still nibbling on her knuckles, so she stayed where she was, content to have any part of him touch any part of her. “We haven’t been going out.”

“Well, we are now. We are now officially going out. This is our official first date.”

“On the porch? We didn’t have dinner. We didn’t even have ice cream. And we both smell like a police station.”