Her Last Day (Jessie Cole #1)(8)

After the accident he’d had no memory of his sister or his deceased parents. But something beautiful had come from the tragedy. He’d fallen in love with and married the nurse who’d helped put him back together again. At his wife’s insistence, he’d tried to reconnect with his sister over the years, but she and her husband had moved to Florida, and his phone calls went unanswered.

Today was another hot one. The air was thick and dry, sucking the moisture out of every living thing and making it a chore to breathe. It had been a long day, and he was eager to get home. As he approached his 1978 Ford Club Wagon, he heard a distant call for help and stopped to look around and listen.

There it was again. Was somebody in trouble?

He ran to the edge of the parking lot, where pavement merged with soil that sloped downward into a wooded area covered with brittle leaves.

Although he couldn’t see any smoke, he could feel it burning his throat. He heard the crackle and snap of a fire, but he couldn’t see anything unusual. His heart rate accelerated. “Is someone out there?”

No answer.

“Ben! Is there a problem?”

He turned to see his coworker Gavin Whitney rushing to his side. “What’s going on?”

“Do you smell smoke?” Ben asked.

Gavin took a couple of sniffs. “No. I don’t smell anything.” He wiped his brow. “It’s hot as hell out here, though. I bet we could fry an egg on the asphalt about now.” He planted a hand on his hip. “If this heat wave lasts too much longer, people are going to start dropping like flies.”

When Ben didn’t respond, he added, “More people die from a heat wave than lightning, tornadoes, hurricanes, or floods.”

Ben had a difficult time listening to anything but the hiss of the fire as it moved closer.

“I’ve gotta get going,” Gavin said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

He wanted to grab Gavin’s shoulders and shake him. Couldn’t he hear the fire or smell the acrid smoke? When Ben looked back at Gavin, he imagined himself reaching into his briefcase for a hunting knife and plunging the blade into Gavin’s chest.

It seemed real, and it all happened fast.

The look on Gavin’s face when he realized he’d been stabbed made Ben wonder what exactly Gavin was experiencing. What did it feel like to be stabbed in the chest? Was there pain? Or did shock override all else? Definitely the latter, Ben thought as he watched Gavin stumble backward, leaving a trail of blood as he went.

Gavin’s eyes widened as he looked at the knife protruding from his body. There was no sign of pain on his face, only a shuddering shock wave of surprise.

Ben’s pulse rate spiked, and he blinked to clear his vision.

Suddenly Gavin was smiling and waving. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said in a cheerful voice. “Tell the family hello for me, will you? We’ve got to get the boys together again one of these days.”

It took a second for Ben’s foggy brain to clear. Gavin was fine. There was no knife protruding from his coworker’s chest. No blood anywhere.

Ben looked down at the briefcase still clutched within his fingers. He no longer heard screams for help or the crackle of fire.

He sniffed the air. It was smoke-free.

Relief mixed with apprehension consumed him as he made his way to his car. Injuries from long ago made it feel as if his left leg were made of solid steel, heavy and awkward.

The knife in Gavin’s chest, the blood, the screams . . . this wasn’t the first gruesome scene he’d conjured over the past few months, but this one had certainly lasted the longest.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

That was what his therapist would tell him to do if he were still seeing her. Although he didn’t like what had just transpired, he wasn’t too worried. In his line of work, he’d seen it all. It wasn’t the gory thoughts that concerned him, but the disorientation and lack of emotion that accompanied these random imaginings.

He unlocked the van and used the roll handle to pull himself in behind the wheel. Sweat trickled down both sides of his face as the engine roared to life. He drove out of the parking lot and merged onto Capitol Avenue. Forty minutes later, after stopping at the store to pick up a gallon of milk, he walked into the two-story house where he had lived for the past nine years with his wife and two kids. It was a quaint Cape Cod–style home at the end of a cul-de-sac in Citrus Heights. He set the milk on the wooden bench in the entryway and then headed for his bedroom upstairs so he could change his clothes.

“Ben, is that you?”

He made an about-face, grabbed the milk from the bench, and walked into the kitchen instead. His wife stood in front of the stove, making stir-fry. He gave Melony a peck on the cheek. She worked full-time as a trauma nurse at Mercy General, took care of the household and two children, and yet she always had a smile for him.

“Ben,” she said when she noticed his shirt was soaked through, “you need to get rid of that old van and get something with air-conditioning. This is ridiculous.”

“You know we can’t afford a new car right now. Abigail is going to need braces soon, and we need to fix the fence out back.” He sighed. “I’m going to go upstairs and change, and I’ll be as good as new.”

“Is your leg bothering you?” she asked, always perceptive.

“I’m fine.”