Forgotten in Death(55)

Held him there, held them both in that impossible rush of sensations. So the here and now spun out, spun out, spun out to saturate them both in the desperate rush of joining.

Then with a cry of triumph, when pleasure shook and shattered, she whipped them both over.

She slid down to him like water, once again rested her cheek on his heart. Its wild beat made her lips curve.

“Even better than pie,” she murmured, and made him laugh as he shifted her so she could curl against him.

She felt the cat leap back onto the bed, then settle himself against the small of her back.

Sated, sleepy, satisfied, she dropped straight into sleep.

“That’s right, a ghrá.” He brought her hand to his lips to press a kiss to her palm. “Rest that busy brain.”



* * *



The moon was up, a bright white ball in a starless sky. It spread ghost light over the construction rubble, glinted off the dull metal of the security fence.

Alva, her face bruised, her eyes blackened, swollen, walked beside Eve.

“I liked it here,” Alva said. “You can see so far. I wish they hadn’t made a fence so nobody could sleep in the apartments, but I still liked it here. I thought I was safe here.”

“I’m sorry you weren’t.”

“Some people are mean.” Alva brushed her fingers—crooked, broken—over her bruised face. “Some people are mean. They like to hurt you. Even when you try to be good and do what you’re supposed to do, they like to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“He was supposed to love me.” Alva let out a sigh as she looked out at the city, at the lights. “He made a promise to love and cherish me when we got married. He broke his promise. He broke it lots of times. And it broke me.”

“You got away from him.”

“I don’t remember too well because everything hurt, and I was scared, and I couldn’t go home because he’d do terrible things to my brother and sister. I’m the oldest. I have to protect them.”

“You did.” Even in the dream, in the dream she knew was a dream, Eve’s heart hurt. “You protected them.”

“Nobody protected you, so you know it’s important. I ran away, but I had to protect them. Then I was safe, and I learned how to fold paper and make it pretty and sweet.”

She offered Eve an origami cat.

“Thanks. It’s great.”

“I liked giving people presents because they’d mostly smile when I did. He found me again, so I had to run again, and I couldn’t stop being scared. I had to forget, you know, like you did. I had to forget what came before so I wouldn’t be scared all the time. You know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Do you think she was scared?”

Eve looked down and saw they stood at the other site, the other scene. That same moonlight washed over the remains below.

“I don’t know. I’m going to find out.”

“She was going to have a baby, and somebody was mean to her. I’d write it in my book and tell the police, but somebody was mean to me, too.”

Eve looked over, saw the blood sliding down over Alva’s face.

“I’ll find them.”

“They’ve been alone a long time. They should have something.” Alva held out cupped hands full of paper flowers.

As she let them fall, they drifted down like little birds. In that strange moonlight, Eve saw those tiny bones move and shift, heard a kind of mewling echo up.

“Baby’s crying,” Alva said.

With that sound still echoing in her ears, she shot awake.

Roarke sat on the side of the bed, one hand gripping hers while the cat bumped his head against her shoulder.

“I’m okay. I’m okay. Not a nightmare.” Still, she couldn’t quite catch her breath. “Just a really weird dream.”

With her free hand, she stroked Galahad to reassure him. “A little creepy toward the end, I guess. I’m okay.”

When Roarke leaned over to press his lips to her brow, like a test, she sat up. “You’re already dressed. King-of-the-business-world suit. What time is it?”

“It’s half six. I had an early ’link conference.”

“Lithuania.”

His lips curved, but his eyes stayed watchful on her face.

“Not this time, but I’ll be sure to look into it, as you seem to want it. Take a minute, and I’ll get us both coffee. You can tell me about this weird, ending-on-creepy dream.”

He rose to walk over, open the door to the AutoChef.

“It was one of those deals where you know you’re dreaming. You’re asleep, but your mind’s spinning.”

She told him while he again sat on the side of the bed, and she let the coffee jolt her fully awake.

“What does it tell you?”

“Nothing I didn’t know. I don’t need Alva’s books from back then to know what Wicker did, and to follow her from what Allysa Gray told me. I’m working with those elements. And I know—knew—I relate to her on some level because of Richard Troy.

“I think or want to think, or find it’s just the most logical conclusion, that she blocked her past out. Maybe deliberately, maybe not. Doesn’t apply to her murder anyway.”