CHAPTER 5
They searched for two hours, until the moon had moved across the sky, and the night air was actually getting cold, rather than merely chilly—a rarity for Georgia this late in the spring. But it was still humid, and a soupy fog rose from the ground, reducing visibility.
In that time, they’d explored several rotting shacks, an old junked train car filled with must and mice, two locked storage buildings, a dilapidated dock extending into dry reeds, and what appeared to have once been a padded-walled room in a squat, standalone building made of concrete block. The padding had oozed filthy stuffing, the floors were slick with slimy mold, the walls coated in mildew. Worst of all, there was recent-looking graffiti. Boys who’d been imprisoned in here had left words of support to the next coming down the torture line, a long chain of victims, judging by the amount of writing.
They hadn’t, however, found the overnight punishment building Isaac had mentioned. Building 13, the deepest pit in this flaming hellhole, proved elusive. He’d said it was in a swampy area, with an overgrown trail. There were so many of those, it was hard to spot them all, especially at night. Considering they’d barely made a dent in searching the entire huge parcel of land, it probably wasn’t much wonder they’d missed it.
Derek hadn’t appeared too worried. Tomorrow, he would be a staff member. He might hear about the place. In fact, the administrators might brag about it. Maybe he’d even be offered a sick, twisted tour.
“It’s two a.m. What time do you have to be back here in the morning?” she asked, brushing a slick strand of gunk out of her hair.
“Nine.” He leaned against a tree. Brave man, considering the spiders and bugs that probably infested its mossy bark. “I guess we should head back to the car.”
Considering it would require an hour of picking their way back through the soggy ground, she agreed. She was wet, cold, filthy, and exhausted. “I’m sorry we didn’t find more.”
“We found enough for the first night out. More than enough.”
She didn’t ask what he meant. Although he hadn’t described each experience, she noted the times when he stumbled across another awful scene of death. She mentally ticked off the list of sacrifices he was making by being here. As if compelled by duty—not fascination—he’d stood rigidly, at almost military attention, staring at the empty air six times. As promised, she’d said a quiet prayer with him each time he was finished.
Three of those times, he’d stared deep into the swamp.
The idea that her brother’s body had been tossed here to rot—to disappear into muck—hadn’t left her mind. Realizing they might never find his actual human remains, she’d focused on the thought that Derek might see it happening and at least find answers. She might not be able to bury Isaac—she accepted that. But she still had to try to see justice done for him.
“What about you? Do you have to be at work early in the morning?”
“I’m not on staff at the V.A. hospital, just on a contract basis. So I don’t have set hours.”
“Lucky thing after tonight.”
“Not so lucky. I have a seven-thirty a.m. appointment tomorrow”
“You might as well go straight to work after you drop me off.”
“Ha. I reek. I’ll need a two-hour shower to wash off the eau-de-rot,” she said.
Suddenly, Derek stiffened. She thought for a moment that he’d seen something again—another spirit to kick him in the ass on the way out the door. But he wasn’t looking at anything but the ground. His head was cocked. Lifting a hand, he placed an index finger across his lips.
She suddenly heard it too. A voice—faint and distant.
It was singing.
“Fly’s in the buttermilk, shoo fly shoo,” came the lilting, off-key sound. “Bobby’s in the stew pot, Billy is too.”
The song came out of the swamp, eerie and strange, high-pitched and otherworldly. Notes bounced off trees, creating a stereo effect that seemed to surround them, oozing in like midnight fog.
Kate shivered, a long, rolling sensation that made her shake. A week ago, she would have laughed off the reaction, and the thought that had inspired it. A ghost. Now, though, she believed anything was possible, especially in a place like this, in the blackest of night.
Maybe Derek had been wrong. Perhaps some spirits weren’t content with leaving just a visual memory of their deaths, at least not here, on damned ground. “Do you…”
“Shhhh. Stay here, I want to go check it out.”
Derek barely made a sound as he began to move, creeping through the trees, following the sing-song voice. She did as he asked for about thirty seconds before realizing it was creepier to remain here alone than to pursue the singer. So, moving as quietly as she could, she went after him, feeling like a kid following the tune of the pied piper. Or his ghost.
She shoved that thought away. Maybe Julia Harrington saw—and heard—ghosts. But she certainly never had. Why would she start now?
Far ahead, the singer was moving through the swamp. “Everybody’s gone now, soon me too? Skip to the loo my darlin’!”
She shivered again. The echoes of that high-pitched, childlike, half-crazed voice terrified her like nothing else they’d experienced tonight. The air seemed alive with it. She wanted to turn back, but Derek hadn’t.
Kate could barely make out his movements in the darkness ahead of her. He went deeper and deeper into the heart of the swamp, and she trailed after him. She didn’t try to catch up, not wanting an argument about her following, though he probably suspected she would.
It didn’t take long for her to regret the impulse. With each step, the water rose, from the soles of her boots, to her ankles, now her calves. She breathed through her mouth, trying not to gag on the stench of rot and decay.
Although they were moving toward the music, the singing didn’t grow louder, as if the singer distanced himself a step for every one they took. Sometimes the song stopped, and she’d fear they had lost him. But the silence didn’t last long, and she’d hear a whistle, or a hum, and they would pick up the trail again.
That’s what had just happened—after a minute-long pause, she caught a note off the night wind. She focused on it, certain Derek was doing the same, trying to determine the direction. Before she could figure it out, however, a deep honking croak caught her attention. She froze, recognizing the sound.
A gator. Medium sized. It was mating season and he was probably particularly aggressive right now. Derek had probably passed within a few feet of it but hadn’t even missed a step, from what she could tell.
Hell.
She quickened her pace as much as she could, her stare never leaving the animal as it slunk back in the slimy water. Its body disappeared soundlessly until nothing but its eyes remained, peering at her, reflecting a glint of moonlight.
She kept a lookout for eyes like that, knowing large bodies could be concealed beneath even shallow pools. Her feet were now sinking knee deep into the brackish water. She had to push through it rather than walk. Trying not to splash, she wondered how Derek could move so cat-quiet, glad he was focused only on the singer ahead of him and not the creeping follower behind.
Soon enough, it happened. “Damn,” she whispered, seeing another alligator right in her path. She’d almost bumped into it. Gasping, she jerked to the side, stumbling and splashing.
“Lou, Lou, skim to’m…”
The singing cut off suddenly. She only hoped he hadn’t heard her, that she hadn’t ruined this stealthy pursuit.
Kate cursed herself, but didn’t forget the gator. Nervousness made her heart pound, and her body shiver. Her instincts screamed at her to get away and she instinctively leapt forward, out of the way of the dark shape that felt like a reptilian sentry.
One second too late, she realized she’d leapt past a log. Those hadn’t been eyes but knots in the stump. Worse, the maneuver left her off-balance.
She fell forward into the knee-deep bog.
As she fell, Kate put out her hands to brace herself. She hit the stagnant, reeking surface with a cry. Trying to keep her head up, she groaned as her palms hit bottom, landing in probably decades’ worth of silt. Her fingers sunk deep into the ooze, throwing her further off balance. With one second to slam her mouth closed, she collapsed face-first into the muck, feeling thick algae clog her nose. She scrunched her eyes shut to avoid getting filth into them. When a sharp branch jabbed into her cheek, she almost gasped in pain, but managed to keep her lips together.
Kate struggled, intending to rise to all fours, but before she could, she was hoisted by the waist, into the arms of the dark-haired man she’d been shadowing.
“Jesus, Kate, are you okay?”
Spitting and wiping her dirty hands across her equally dirty face, she nodded. “My pride hurts. And yuck!”
He hugged her close, her whole body shuddering against his strong chest. He gave off a warmth she craved, and after a moment, she was able to draw a steady breath.
“I’m s-sorry I followed you. I was a little creeped out waiting alone.”
“Forget it. I should never have left you by yourself.”
“I saw…thought I was about to bump into a gator.”
“This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have dragged you with me at all.” Holding her protectively, he muttered, “Such an idiot.”
She took no offense, knowing he was talking to himself. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not, and we’re getting the hell out of here.”
She didn’t argue. All the adventure had been muddied out of her. All she wanted was a five-hour long hot shower and ten bars of Irish Spring. “I think that’s a good idea.”
She began to struggle to get down. He didn’t let her, merely gripping tighter and tramping back through the water, eating up the distance between them and dry land. He no longer seemed to care about the mysterious voice they’d been following, or if the singer heard them during their hurried exit. His entire body was hard with tension, and she could tell by the way his jaw clenched that he was furious at himself.
“I’m really fine,” she murmured. “I can walk now.”
“No, you can’t.”
“You can’t carry me all the way to my car.”
“Wanna bet?”
She laughed softly at his masculine confidence, but not for long. Because, honestly, she suspected he could if he wanted to. Which would be kind of embarrassing for her, but a lot hot of him.
Once they were on drier land, he shifted her to grab a water bottle from a pack resting on his hip, but he didn’t put her down. The man was holding her up, bride-style, with a single arm that flexed and rippled, straining against the black sleeve of his T-shirt. Suddenly, she didn’t mind so much that she was coated from head to toe with mud and algae.
“Here, you could probably use this.”
She took the water, trying to shake off her enjoyment at being carried by him. He adjusted her back in both arms and continued walking. Wanting to gulp in sheer appreciation of the man’s strength, but definitely not wanting to swallow any more filth, she twisted the top off the bottle and lifted it to her mouth. As an environmentalist, she made a point to avoid such wasteful packaging. Right now, she was ready to bow down and worship at the altar of Dasani.
First sprinkling water over her fingertips, she smoothed some over her lips to scrape off the dry mud. When she felt somewhat capable of not contaminating every sip, she lifted the bottle, took a mouthful, swished it around, and leaned her head over to spit it out.
“Had your mouth open when you fell, huh?”
“Maybe for a second.”
“I suspect that was enough.”
“More than.”
She took another mouthful, swished, swirled, gargled, and spit again. Finally she felt like her tongue, cheeks and teeth might be clean enough to actually swallow. The water wasn’t cold, but, because it was clean, it tasted better than anything. She didn’t drink it all though, using half to try to clean her face. It was pretty hopeless, but at least she no longer felt like she was in a pricey spa wearing a mud mask.
As soon as they reached the outer tree line, she squirmed. “Okay, put me down.”
“I don’t mind.”
Maybe not, but she did. Embarrassing enough to have fallen face-first into a swamp, spoiling their pursuit. No way did she want to remain glued to him, her head on his shoulder, until she did something stupid like rub her lips against the slick, sweaty skin of his neck.
“Please.”
“Fine,” he said. “I want to get a better look at you anyway.”
He lowered her carefully. Despite the way her legs shook as she scraped her way down his body during the not-long-enough descent, and her toes squished in water and mud inside her boots, she did remain upright when she hit the ground. Since more moonlight shone down on them, and she could see better, she glanced down. Every inch of her was coated with slimy green-and-brown mud. Her wet hair had fallen out of its ponytail and hung in matted clumps against her shoulders. And her hands stung. Lifting them, she saw specks of blood oozing through the dried mud. Judging by the throbbing in her face, she suspected her cheek was worse.
Derek noticed. Grabbing her chin, he tilted her face until moonlight shone on it.
“Fuck. You’re hurt.”
She remembered the stick that came close to her eye. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Reaching into a military-style pack at his hip, he retrieved a first aid packet, and another bottle of water. The man certainly came prepared. He pulled out a clean piece of gauze, poured water on it, and moved close. So close his jean-clad leg shifted between her filthy ones. She swallowed hard, feeling a lot warmer, despite the cold place, the cold air, and the cold mud.
“I’m not sure this will help a lot; I’m almost as filthy as you are.”
“I doubt that,” she said with an eye roll. “You didn’t take a swim in Lake Fish Crap.”
“Every lake on the planet is Lake Fish Crap,” he said.
“Which is why I don’t swim in lakes.”
“What about the ocean?”
She sighed. “I love the ocean.”
“So you swim in lake whale crap,” he said, a teasing note in his voice. She hadn’t realized he was doing it, but he’d relaxed her, and she was no longer trembling.
“Okay?”
“Yeah. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, lifting the gauze to her cheek and gently wiping away whatever he saw there.
She had nowhere to look but up at him, studying the dark eyes, the hard jaw, the hollowed cheeks. God help her. It was like coming out of a cave and looking directly at the sun.
As he continued to wet-and-wipe, a tiny grin appeared on his lips.
“What?”
“Sorry. You look…less than your best.”
“Aren’t we a pair, then? Because you don’t exactly smell like a bouquet of roses.”
That was true. But he also put off a masculine scent of musk and sweat. She was only pretending not to like it. Oh, not the swamp goop, but the man beneath it.
He laughed softly, mindful of where they were and the risk of discovery. “Fair enough.”
She also liked that laugh, liked the little lines it brought to the corners of his eyes. He didn’t smile a lot, and she’d never heard him do much more than chuckle, but, if possible, he was even better-looking when amused than when glowering and fierce.
Although, being totally honest, the fierceness was pretty goddamn sexy.
She cleared her throat. “I don’t suppose you have a suture kit in your magic bag?”
“I don’t think you’re gonna need stitches.”
He finished and retrieved a small tube of antibiotic ointment from his pack. Squeezing a bit out, he gently applied it to her cut. There was no gauze between her cheek and his warm fingertip this time, and Kate felt the light, tender strokes right down to the soles of her feet. The connection was impersonal—medicinal, not sexual—but she was suddenly aroused as if they were standing beside a bed, both of them clean-looking, clean-smelling, and ready.
No man had ever affected her like this. A simple brush of skin on skin had her weak and breathless, despite the setting, and her filthy condition.
She’d been attracted to the leather-jacket-wearing bad boy, so much like the ones she’d gone for in her youth. The man who’d swooped her out of that swamp, carried her to safety, and was now tenderly applying ointment to her cut? Damn. This was a man a woman could lose her head over…and her heart to.
“This won’t be enough,” he warned as he tilted her head again to study his handiwork. “You’ll have to wash it really well and use peroxide on it when you get home. Actually, since you’re a doctor, you might want to get yourself some antibiotics.”
She nodded mutely, wondering how she could be feeling so crazy-dizzy-warm-hungry. This wasn’t the smart, sensible Kate, the one who always had a plan and always stuck to it. This was the insane, mud-covered Kate, who wanted to rise up on her tiptoes, wrap her arms around his neck and pull him down for a kiss.
He dropped his hand, still holding the ointment. But he didn’t back away, remaining close—so close. Staring at her intently, he looked for any more scrapes or injuries. Kate couldn’t help parting her lips, breathing hard over them, watching him with eyes she knew must be swimming with confusion…and more. She moistened her lips, unable to resist, glad they were smooth and moist, free of any last remnants of mud.
“Damn, Doc,” he whispered. “Talk about time and place.”
But it didn’t matter. Time, place, and swamp be damned. Tonight had been high-octane, dark and dangerous. She was wired, adrenaline still shooting through her. And right now, she was more excited than she’d been when they were chasing down that damned singing ghost.
“I’m glad you had that water so I could clean up a little,” she whispered, knowing he would catch her meaning. Especially my mouth.
“Ditto.”
Without another word, she slid her arms around his neck. He hesitated for a second, and then wrapped his around her waist and pulled her hard against him. Their mouths came together in a heated rush. His tongue swept against hers. Derek, who hadn’t been clumsy enough to crash into three feet of water, tasted clean and hot, utterly male. She only hoped she didn’t taste of swamp water and fish guts.
Judging by the way he devoured her, she suspected she didn’t.
It had been such a long time since she’d been kissed. Especially long since she’d been pressed throat to knee against a man so devastatingly attractive he made all rational thought disappear. Smart Kate, wise Kate, Dr. Kate was gone. In her place was a woman who stalked prey through jungles, who could wrestle alligators and sneer at snakes.
Well, maybe not. But she was a woman who could ignore time, place, and smell and just kiss a man because it felt so good.
Their tongues writhed together, hungry and possessive. Anyone spying them from the grounds would think they were a pair of dark woods creatures who’d risen out of the muddy ground to frolic in the moonlight.
No frolicking. No, this kiss was as far as it could go. It wasn’t merely an impossible location, but she also felt wet leaves, earth, and algae drying and hardening against all the places under her clothing they had been able to reach. Yuck.
He ended the kiss a second before she would have. Stepping back, he stared at her, studying her as if to see if she had any regrets. She knew he would find none.
“That was dumb.”
Something inside her deflated. “Maybe.”
“You know somebody could be watching us right now. I completely lost my focus.” He swiped a hand through his hair, visibly angry at himself.
Kate stiffened, not exactly complimented by his reaction to their kiss. But if he could blow it off so easily, so could she. “Calm down. It was a release of tension. We’ve been running on adrenaline, we’re exhausted and needed an outlet. Like a boiling pot letting off steam.”
“That your professional opinion?”
Actually, it wasn’t her opinion. Tension and attraction had danced between them since first meeting. She still let it go. “Yes.”
“Maybe that’s true. But you’re also a client. You’re vulnerable.”
Now she was getting annoyed. “I’m not that vulnerable.” She might be feminine, but nobody had ever accused her of being soft. She’d survived a shitty childhood, had clawed her way through medical school, and had thrived in a war zone.
“I mean regarding your brother.”
Oh. Yes. She was probably more vulnerable when it came to Isaac than anything else. That didn’t mean she had kissed him looking for comfort. “I will mourn my brother for the rest of my life. That doesn’t make me vulnerable, merely human.”
He looked at her searchingly, as if gauging the truth of her words, to see if she was putting on a brave front. She wasn’t. She might have when she’d gotten that last agonized plea from Isaac and realized her only sibling had been murdered. Since then, the need to find out what had happened to him had gradually replaced grief.
He must have believed what he saw, because he finally said, “Well, you’re still a client.”
Right. “And a filthy one,” she admitted, wondering why he’d kissed her back. She certainly wasn’t at her most alluring.
“I think there’s a saying about a pot and a kettle that might work here.”
True. Although not as bad as her, he wasn’t exactly clean and fresh, either. Which made her wonder what might happen the next time the two of them were alone together, without being covered in swamp.
Kate hadn’t been this interested in a man in a long time. Since something inside her was reawakening after a long, dormant period, she had to wonder what he might say once this case was solved and she was no longer his client. For a long time, her focus had been Isaac—his unhappiness, and then his death. She’d had a hard time looking into any future beyond getting the answers she sought and didn’t know what kind of life she was going to have once she had them. She had put off deciding whether to go back to New York, to reconnect with old friends, or to set up a practice and make a life in Georgia. She lived in a furnished apartment, had a part-time, contract-based job. Nothing about her life was permanent.
But maybe she would soon have to make those decisions. Hopefully she would—because the mystery of Isaac’s disappearance would be solved. Part of her was actually looking forward to figuring out what her life might hold next. And whether this man to whom she was so attracted might be in it in some non-professional capacity.
“We should go. It’s late.” He shoved the ointment, gauze, and bottle back into his pack.
“Derek, I…”
“Besides, I think we both need a time out.”
“Like kids being punished for raiding the cookie jar?”
One lip quirked up. “You don’t smell like chocolate chips, Doc.”
No. More like week-old boiled cabbage left in a sealed garbage can.
Without another word, they began to trek through the woods, trying to stay close to the outer line of trees where the ground was dry. They never stepped out onto the moonlit lawn where they might be seen. She doubted anyone would see them out here—but someone could be standing in a dorm window. Considering the buildings themselves felt like they had eyes, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched whenever they were near it.
They moved quickly, so it didn’t take a whole hour to get to the car, but it was a good fifty minutes. They walked in near-silence, stopping only to warn of an obstacle—a fallen tree, a protruding root—or a creature. Fortunately, the alligators didn’t venture this far away from the water. Unfortunately, the insects did. She continually had to wave her hand in front of her face to scare away the no-see-ems, which she most definitely saw.
When they reached the car and got in, she quickly turned on the heat, noting that steam came from both of their mouths with every breath. Hers were harsh, even though she liked to swim and hit the Stairmaster pretty regularly. He, meanwhile, seemed barely affected. The man was definitely in prime physical condition. Derek Monahan was distractingly hot even when filthy and stinking of swamp. Now that she’d kissed him, she didn’t think she was ever going to be able to go back to being unaware of his raw sexiness.
“Good thing you don’t have cloth seats. They’d be stained green forever after tonight.”
“True. And at least it’s almost silent.”
“Yeah,” he said, shifting in the passenger seat, and trying to stretch out his legs. “Silent and tiny. You don’t drive this car, you wear it on your back.”
She couldn’t help smiling. “Okay, I’m an environmentalist.”
“You sure got your fill of the Georgia environment tonight.”
“No kidding. If I never taste another mouthful of swamp water it will be too soon.” She shuddered. “I really thought I was about to step right into the mouth of an alligator.”
“I figured that when you started splashing like a kid doing a belly flop.”
“I’ve never run into alligators, and I’m not deathly afraid of snakes, for the most part.” She shuddered. “Bugs, though…yuck. At least it was too chilly for mosquitos, thank God.”
He snorted. “Think again. You might not have felt ’em, but I guarantee every bare piece of skin on your body got chomped tonight.”
“Oh no.” Her hand moved of its own volition to scratch at her neck. She supposed he had them in the same place since she’d uncovered his skin with that clumsy haircut.
Once they reached the main road, the car moving much more smoothly on the blacktop, she felt her heart kick into a slower rhythm. Tonight had been one of the most frightening and exciting of her life. She’d vacillated between tension, fear, nervousness and awareness, back and forth, back and forth. It hadn’t been merely because of the atmosphere, and the company. They had been trespassing on a property that was, she believed, a murderer’s hunting ground.
“So, how bad did it get for you?” she had to ask, breaking the silence.
“Not bad.” He didn’t look over, but she heard a chuckle in his voice when he added, “At least you rinsed your mouth out before you kissed me.”
She cleared her throat. “I believe that was mutual.”
“Uh huh.”
“Shut up. I meant, how bad was it with your…thing.”
He knew what she meant. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does.”
A brief hesitation, then, “Eleven total.”
Far more than she’d suspected. Her fingers gripped the steering wheel. “Were they all awful? Like the first woman?”
“Use your imagination.”
“That would probably make it worse.”
“I doubt it.”
Jesus. “Was there anything recent? Like boys from the school?” Not Isaac. Having seen her brother’s picture, he would have recognized him and told her. Still, others had gone missing, too. Some might have been runaways; some, she was certain, had never left that blighted property alive.
“No.”
Relief warred with disappointment. She didn’t want to think of students being murdered at the place their parents had left them. Part of her, though, had hoped he was seeing clues every time he froze at attention to, as he’d said, honor the dead.
“The asylum?”
“Three. The second wasn’t murder.”
She didn’t want to envision the causes of brutal, accidental death—or suicide?—on the grounds of a mental hospital. “That leaves…”
“Prison camp.”
“Oh no,” she whispered, casting a quick glance at him. His head was back, his eyes closed. Although his big body was sprawled, not one inch of him looked relaxed. Tension stiffened every muscle. She had to wonder how he let go of it at the end of the night.
“I’d thought—hoped—that since it was so long ago…”
“You and me both. No such luck. Can’t imagine how many there would have been if I saw the ones who quietly starved to death or died of dysentery.”
Kate didn’t want to imagine it. What must Derek’s life have been like living with this? She’d treated enough patients with PTSD to know how memories bit at the mind, tearing away the chunks where peace and calmness lived, until it seemed only darkness remained.
“How did you find out about this, well, I’m not going to call it a gift? It’s a curse, really.”
“I don’t discuss that with anyone. Especially not a doctor who likes to psychoanalyze people when they least expect it.”
Oh. She thought she’d already experienced the firm, taciturn Derek Monahan. But that had been icy, and completely forbidding. He had thrown a wall around himself, she could feel an almost physical chill. The accusation stung—she really hadn’t been trying to peel him apart professionally and had been asking merely out of curiosity. But her question had obviously been enough to bother him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”
He didn’t respond. In fact, he closed his eyes and crossed his massive arms over his chest, not saying another word as she drove back toward town.
Kate mentally kicked herself. She had picked at a scab, dug into a wound, by asking a simple question. That told her all she needed to know about the weight Derek Monahan was carrying in his memory, in his heart. She only wondered if he would ever be ready to put that weight down. And might she be the one who could help him do it? She’d worked with injured soldiers carrying mental scars before. Derek seemed so much like them, though she suspected his scars ran deeper than most.
She wanted to ease his pain, not only because he was helping her, but because she already liked him. She was certainly drawn to him. So maybe, while he was working to help her find out what happened to her brother, she could help him finally let go of some demons.
Even though she suspected the demons Derek Monahan carried in his mind and his heart were ones he hadn’t earned in a typical war…but on the battlefields of crime and murder.
Derek was so used to hiding his past and defending his memories, he often reacted harshly when anybody asked questions he didn’t want to answer. Some moments were so dark, so ugly, he didn’t want to revisit them himself, much less invite anybody else into any let’s-talk-about-the-past scenarios. Still, during the silent ride back to the parking lot where they’d met earlier tonight, he couldn’t help regretting how gruff he’d been with Kate when she’d asked what must have seemed like a relatively simple question.
The fact that it was beyond complicated wasn’t something she could have known. He should have realized she wasn’t being intentionally intrusive, considering what they’d been discussing. Besides, tonight’s excursion had earned her lots of question-asking points. Kate had been in the muck, ignoring snakes and alligators, falling into mud and slime, walking for hours, trudging for miles, and she had done it with determination and grit. He didn’t know many other people who would have stuck it out after they’d sunk into the first six inches of bog.
During all of that, a new, unmistakable trust had arisen between them.
Trust. And more.
He’d been attracted to the doctor at first sight. Once he’d gotten to know her, he’d appreciated her intelligence, and admired her dedication to her brother. Tonight, after the nightmare they’d shared in a realistic impersonation of hell, he also had enormous respect for her strength and her courage.
Attraction. Admiration. Liking. Respect.
All of which had led to that kiss. Oh, Jesus, that wild, dirty, sexy kiss that was completely in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong person, but had felt more right than anything else in his life right now.
He didn’t know what was going on with him—or with them. But he did suspect his anger at himself for kissing a client might have made him a bit more terse than necessary.
“Sorry I bit your head off back there,” he muttered, not opening his eyes.
“It’s okay. I was being nosy.”
“No, you were asking a normal question that went along with the conversation.”
“It’s a question you don’t like to answer.”
“Correct.”
“Okay. Enough said.”
He waited, feeling the car speed up as they hit the highway. That was much better than the dirt one through the woods, or the potholed back road leading to the school. But physical comfort didn’t eradicate the guilt he still felt at acting like such an asshole to an exhausted woman covered in bug bites and mud.
“I shouldn’t have immediately thought you were trying to shrink me again,” he muttered.
“Well, I suppose I sometimes do that instinctually, but I really wasn’t then. I was just walking along in the conversation field without realizing I put my foot on a landmine.”
“Good word for it.”
“Conversation?” she asked, her voice light, almost teasing.
He opened one eye and glanced at her, at first wincing at the visual reminder of what a mess she was, but also noticing the quirk of her lips. She was trying to lighten things up and change the subject.
He should let her. He really should. But they were dancing around it now, coming close to a truth he didn’t talk about. Ever. Frankly, though, given the way he and Kate were connecting, mentally, physically, he suspected it would come up again. It suddenly seemed simpler to throw the truth out there rather than have to revisit it all over in the future.
“The first time it happened was when I was twelve.”
Her long, greenish fingers tightened on the steering wheel. She said nothing.
“It was—” horrific, insanity-inducing, heartbreaking—“bad.”
She didn’t ask the obvious questions, posing no who’s, where’s and why’s. But she did ask a very important one. “Was anyone there to help you deal with it?”
“My Dad’s best friend. He was a rock for me, even after my grandmother brought me to live in Georgia. I’m still close to him and his family.”
“That’s good that he….” Her words were cut off by a quick, shocked gasp as something apparently occurred to her. “It was your parents, wasn’t it?”
He should have known she’d be smart enough to quickly figure that out. “Yes.”
She finally took her eyes off the road and glanced at him. “I’m so sorry, Derek.”
“Me too. They were pretty spectacular people.”
Her hand left the steering wheel and dropped onto his, which rested on his thigh. She squeezed tightly and then let go. The touch was simple and brief, a nonverbal reminder that he wasn’t alone. While he didn’t necessarily need it, having long come to grips with what had happened to his mother and father, he appreciated the thought behind it.
He waited for her to ask for more information, like how they’d died. She asked nothing, obviously waiting to see if he wanted to share any details or not. For some reason, with this woman, in this moment, in the darkness and the silence, he did.
“They were murdered at home when I was at school.”
She flinched. Remained silent.
“My dad was a prosecutor and made a lot of enemies. Somebody he put away got his conviction overturned on a technicality. He, his brother, and a friend came to my parents’ house and staged a murder-suicide. I guess they were stupid enough to think there would be no retrial if Dad wasn’t around. Mom was just a side casualty.”
A tear tracked down her cheek. In the low lights from the car’s dash, he saw it drop unheeded, one silent reaction to what he’d said.
“Abe, my father’s best friend, came with the cops to pick me up and tell me. I wasn’t supposed to go into the house, but I did anyway.”
“That’s the first time it happened? You saw your parents…dying?”
“Yeah.”
“Good God.”
He wondered if she’d ask more questions, like what exactly had happened to them—stabbing and hanging—how he’d reacted—coming as close to insanity as a kid ever could—when it had happened again—in a parking lot of a grocery store in Atlanta a month after he’d moved there with his grandmother and aunt.
Instead, she asked, “Was it like now? A sort of recreation?”
“Yes. Exactly like it’s been every time since.” He drew in a deep breath, and slowly exhaled through gritted teeth. “I knew right away they’d both been murdered. The bastards who did it weren’t very smart and left evidence behind. The cops would have figured it out anyway. At the time, though, I thought that was the reason I started seeing these things—because I had to be the one to clear my father’s name and help catch the people who killed them.”
A slight nod, and then, from the darkness, came her soft whisper. “Maybe it was.”
He glanced at her, wondering what she meant.
“You say the killers left evidence behind. That could be true. But you and I both know strange things happen during police investigations.”
She had a point. He’d seen a lot of weird cases while working with Extrasensory Agents, including the police screw-ups with a murdered kid case Aidan had worked on a few years back. Kate knew that too, given how hard she’d fought to get somebody to give a shit that her teenage brother was missing.
“Plus, there was your father’s position in the community.”
“What about it?”
“The whole thing could have embarrassed people who would want the investigation hurried, kept quiet, and cursorily done. I’m sure his boss, the mayor, and other elected officials, wouldn’t want a lot of light shone on a murder supposedly committed by a D.A.”
Undoubtedly.
“It’s entirely possible they would have brought pressure to rush things, and that nobody would have figured it out. Which means it’s also possible you were given this ability because you were the only one who could be sure the truth was discovered.”
He couldn’t say a word in response to that, merely turning her words over in his mind.
As a twelve year old, he would never have considered such a thing. Now? Well, shit, of course it could have gone down that way. It probably wouldn’t, but it could have. His father might still be branded a killer, his mother a victim of her own husband. Not likely…but any chance of that happening was too much for Derek to even imagine.
Which meant the cross he’d borne for twenty years was one he would not have put down, even if he could. It was entirely worth it, not merely for all the people who had come after them, but especially for his parents.
“Jesus, Kate,” he mumbled.
“What?”
He swept a dirty hand through his hair. “Nobody’s ever said that to me before.”
This woman who he’d known for less than a week was the first to get right to the dark kernel of uncertainty deep inside him where all the twisted shit from that day still lived. The first to realize he might actually need to look at what had happened from a new perspective.
The first to give him real peace about it for as long as he could remember.
The enormity of that was almost too much for him to comprehend right now.
“Maybe it had to come from an outsider,” she said.
And from a psychiatrist?
No, he didn’t think that was it. The key was this woman, whose experiences lined up in so many ways with his own. As a kid, she’d been introduced to a psychic ability she’d never expected. She’d seen war, violence, and death. She’d experienced the deep, personal loss of someone she dearly loved. She fought for justice and was willing to do whatever it took to make sure whoever killed her brother was held accountable.
So yeah. He somehow suspected Kate Lincoln was the only one who could have gotten to the heart of him, the very core, at least as quickly as she had.
Falling silent, she kept driving, knowing either from her profession, or from her own traumatic experiences, that some things didn’t need to be talked about any further. Nobody else he’d told had ever let it go and not dug in for details. Nobody else had ever known that’s what he needed for them to do. Not until Kate.
Derek’s heart—which Julia had once accused of being two sizes too small—thudded in his chest, pumping blood in a frenzied race throughout his body. It took him a few seconds to realize why.
There was something else he had to add to the list of things he felt toward Kate Lincoln. The list began with attraction and had ended with trust. To those, and the liking, and the respect, he had to concede, there was now more.
Gratitude.