Hold my place, p.11
Hold My Place, page 11
The answer, it turned out, was the obvious one. Substantial life insurance payouts from not just Brigitte and Octavia but even Devlin had made Edgar a very wealthy man. How strange, I thought, that the reckless and indomitable Devlin would do something as prosaic and practical as taking out a life insurance policy on herself at age twenty-one. And how much stranger that she’d named Edgar her beneficiary. They weren’t even married.
They were engaged, though, I told myself. Surely a life insurance policy was just one of the many preparations one made for an upcoming wedding.
I then remembered something that should have been impossible to forget.
And even if it hadn’t come to mind, I had the document in hand, with my name typed across the top line in thick black typeset.
I’d signed off on a life insurance policy of my own, naming Edgar the sole beneficiary. I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. He’d showed me the amendment he’d made to his policy, for an equally astoundingly high sum, naming me as his beneficiary. It had been one of many signatures I’d scrawled out, as he’d added me to his health insurance, to the deed on the house, to the title on his car.
I had so little to offer, from a financial viewpoint, I’d felt downright embarrassed by how easily and generously he made me his complete partner in life. I quite literally hadn’t given the life insurance policy a second thought until just now.
I tittered uneasily, but the squeaky sound only intensified my anxiety instead of alleviating it.
What was wrong with me? Surely, I wasn’t suspecting my own husband of plotting the murders of three women—four, my brain interrupted somberly, solely for financial gain. He did enjoy the finer things in life, I couldn’t deny that. He had a great fondness for good food and wine, wore the most dapper of clothes, indulged in soft linens and intoxicating fragrances. But I’d never have described him as a greedy man, driven by the lust for money over all else. There was nothing wrong with indulging himself when he had the funds to do so.
But he’d gotten the funds from the bodies of his lovers, my brain piped up again.
Coincidence, I told myself firmly. The worst sort of luck. It wasn’t as if he could fake breast cancer. And he hadn’t even been in the room when Octavia died from the same virus that had taken tens of thousands of other lives.
Shame filled me. What sort of monster could even suspect him for an instant of such horrible deeds? I knew firsthand the grief he’d suffered when Octavia died. And he’d never shown me anything but the utmost kindness and devotion. He asked absolutely nothing of me in return but my love.
And that signature.
A hefty life insurance policy was only good sense, I argued, especially for someone who intimately knew all the ways death impoverished the bereaved. It wasn’t just the cost of whatever illness had ravaged the dead or the exorbitant charges of funeral homes, with their boxes and urns and dirt and ash. It was all the lost days and weeks afterward when survivors were expected to pull themselves together and go to work and pay the bills as if they weren’t fighting to breathe around a sucking chest wound.
No, I didn’t begrudge Edgar a penny of the money he’d received for each of his losses. He’d used it, as money ought to be used, to make the unbearable survivable, to build a footpath out of the grave and back into the light. And if something ever happened to me, God forbid, I wanted to know Edgar could afford to simply walk away from the world we’d shared, that he could retreat to a safe place to mourn and remember how to live again.
How very adult of me, I thought drily, unsure if even I believed me.
I stuffed the papers back into their folder and closed the file drawer. I glanced around the room, trying to remember what I’d disturbed so I could hide any hint of my presence here. Edgar had never refused to answer any question I’d asked. I was sure he’d have told me about the life insurance policies on the other women if I’d thought to ask. And it wasn’t as if he’d forged my signature on the life insurance policy he’d taken out on me or tried to hide what I was signing. I simply hadn’t been interested at the time, hadn’t assigned it the least importance.
I’d betrayed his trust by sneaking around behind his back, and I couldn’t help compounding it by hiding the sneaking around itself. He deserved better from me, and I didn’t want him to ever think for an instant I’d doubted him.
I’d feared him.
I shook my head. That was nonsense. It had been nothing more than a fleeting doubt, a silly suspicion fueled by too many murder podcasts and romantic suspense novels. Nothing could be more preposterous than me entertaining a moment’s fear of the man who loved me more deeply than I ever could have imagined. The man I adored. Who even now, in all my shame and uneasiness and anxiety, I craved and hungered after.
And I was right. Edgar wasn’t the one I ought to have feared at all.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I didn’t read letters in bed anymore. I reserved that indulgence for the hours Edgar was away. Our early morning hours were spent in slavish adoration of each other’s bodies, murmuring secrets and making love and murmuring secrets again until sleep, at last, dragged us away. Even now, the sound of rain falling on a roof at night summons the taste of Edgar’s skin under my tongue, the tensioned strength of muscles moving against my softness, the heated thrill of his breath whispering over my neck, my bare breasts, my open thighs. I have learned, to my sorrow, what it is to carry love into eternity.
I told myself I was playing dress-up, that these affectations of Devlin’s I adopted more assiduously every day were nothing but a bit of theater. A means of reaching into Edgar’s heart, of understanding all the secret canyons and arroyos of his soul. That somehow I might retrieve all the shredded parts he had lost when she died. If I wore her clothes long enough to learn her gait, he might no longer listen for her footsteps in the hall.
The truth was nothing so deliberate. Day by day, her words sunk further into my mind. I grew more impatient and irritable and impetuous and playful. I, who had never been inclined to walk much farther than to the bookstore or the bakery, began to spend my days on the winding, wooded paths whose trailheads began at the park on the edge of town. I strode along the damp earth with a makeshift walking stick, striking the wood on every stone in my way and singing out greetings to the chipmunks and jays I perturbed. I came home with twigs and leaves in my hair, fully frizzed out by the humid conditions, dirt on my cheeks, and little memory of where I’d been or how far I’d traveled.
The brain fog that had troubled me at its outset now scarcely registered. Plenty of people spent good money on weed and magic brownies to live in the same sort of happy haze. I felt stronger and healthier than I ever had. Alone, I was fearless and powerful; with Edgar, I lived in bliss and perfect security. As for the rest of the world—I hardly thought of it anymore. Even Evan had given up on disturbing me.
Devlin’s letters, if you’d read them, might have seemed increasingly scattered and frenetic to you, but with the benefit of hindsight, her urgency was well-justified. Death stalked her, after all, whispering through her very veins, its bony fingers squeezing her organs tight, its breath mingling fermented-sweet with her own. Every day she warded it off with only a needle and a few precious drops of insulin. I couldn’t blame her for obsessing over her most faithful companion, for panicking at the darkness staining the edges of every hour, for refusing to yield a single second.
She’d known what was coming. The late diagnosis of diabetes had rattled her. Unlike Type II diabetes, which could sometimes be managed with diet and exercise and occasionally a pill, Type I diabetes signaled a serious impact on her general health and her life expectancy. Even patients who followed every instruction lived significantly shorter lives than they otherwise might. Not to mention the constant poking and pricking and measuring and counting that must have weighed on a free spirit like Devlin’s. Though she didn’t mention her illness in her letters, I was sure she resented every restriction it created. And it was, after all, nothing more than a brief rebellion against those restrictions that had cost her life in the end. She’d been unwilling to acquiesce her own weakness, and the stubbornness that might have only resulted in fatigue and a headache for anyone else killed her.
Maybe stubbornness was the wrong word. Maybe it had been an outright revolt. Maybe she’d seen the cliff looming ahead and rather than allow it to spell the end of her road, she’d taken that leap she spoke of.
So, when her letters spoke of what she termed persistence, it didn’t strike me as odd. Someone so recklessly and fully alive would naturally have been unwilling to own the inevitability of death. Unwilling hardly described what had become an obsession to exceed the grave with the force of her will. She knew she couldn’t carry her body with her—no scientist could deny the entropy of the flesh. But she was sure she could remain as conscious energy.
I’d long been a fan of the paranormal, both in my novel-reading and my pop culture indulgences. Nothing made me happier than a good ghost story. So I couldn’t help rooting for her as I followed the trail of crumbs she’d left behind in her letters, hoping against hope she’d find a way to outwit the witch and return to the life she loved so well, stronger than ever. It wasn’t until I got to the last letter that I belatedly realized just who would pay the cost of such a victory.
My dearest treasure,
You’re not going to like this, but hear me out.
Without taking things into our own hands, we don’t know when our bodies are going to give out on us. Some people blink out with just a little tap on the head, others linger for years with horrible diseases.
I’ve already told you I refuse to leave you behind just because a random electrical pulse fails somewhere. And it’s so not my style to hang around like some sad ghost while the rest of the world keeps turning.
So I need you to choose a new host for me. Most people just drift through this life half-alive anyway. It’s not as if we’ll be stealing anything from them. If they’re strong enough to resist us, then they deserve to keep their life as they choose. But you and I both know most people aren’t so strong at all. They eat what they’re told, drink what they’re told, drive where they’re told until they tumble into an open grave when they’re told. If anything, we’ll be doing them a favor. Granting them more life than they’d have ever experienced on their own.
It doesn’t really matter what she looks like, as long as you find her attractive. It might even be fun to try out something completely different. I hope you’ll be able to sense me nearby. I don’t know. Despite all the stories people tell, there doesn’t seem to be any hard data on spirits from the other side breaking through into this physical plane without some kind of catalyst.
The one thing you mustn’t do is maintain some crazy celibacy on my part. You’ll have to go through some sort of grieving period, just to maintain appearances, but don’t waste any time. I think my ability to keep myself tethered here with you will weaken the longer I have to sustain myself without a body.
You pick her out, and I’ll do the rest.
But this is a two-way street! You have to swear to do the same for me. If you tap out first, promise you won’t go anywhere. I’ll find you a body. I’ll hold your place.
Let the sleeping stay asleep. You and me, we’ll keep our eyes on each other.
You are my whole home, Treasure. Hold my place.
Kitten
The pages drifted to the floor beside the chair where I sat. Dazed, I stared at my limbs, my eyes following the black-and-red swirls and loops of ink as if I’d never seen my own tattoos before. Did Edgar believe this?
It was true he had a pattern of swiftly replacing his dead lovers. Did he truly imagine he was wooing a vessel for Devlin’s ghost to possess? Possess. My brain tripped over the word, it was so preposterous, but what else could I call it? Was his devotion to me only vicarious?
Of course not, I tried to argue. Only a madman would believe such nonsense.
Obstinately, my brain dredged up uncomfortable details, like gin martinis and jasmine-scented lotions and a dead woman’s satin-and-lace gown. If he’d been dressing me up like Devlin’s voodoo doll, I’d certainly made it easy for him.
Why hadn’t I protested? Was I truly as weak and vapid as Devlin thought everyone but herself, that I helped my husband indulge his pathetic delusion?
No more, I decided firmly. When Edgar came home tonight, I’d be waiting. And not with port wine and soft kisses.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Before Edgar got home, I made sure that when he came through the door, he’d see the woman with whom he’d first fallen in love, not some distorted reflection of a dead woman. I dug out one of my favorite outfits, a shameless cross between steampunk pirate and tavern wench. I couldn’t do much about the lackluster color of my hair—I’d allowed it to mostly outgrow the black dye job—but I tied a couple of ragged pieces of black lace around two short ponytails on top of my head. I dug out my eyelash glue and carefully painted my lips a black-lined crimson.
I examined myself critically in the mirror. The woman staring back at me was no one’s pale reflection. She was entirely, utterly herself.
She was also too damned hot for her own good. In spite of all my best intentions, when Edgar’s eyes sparked and darkened as he took me in, I did not attempt to smother the answering flame in my belly. It wasn’t until much later, when we both lay splayed and sated on our bed, that I forced myself to break our quiet euphoria.
I pushed myself up on one elbow so I could look into his face, telling myself I’d know if he lied to me. “Edgar, I have to ask you something.”
He didn’t open his eyes, but a little smile flickered untroubled on his lips. “Ask away, Kitten.”
I winced but pushed on. “I finished reading Devlin’s letters.”
“Ah. She was something else, wasn’t she?”
“She was that.” I hardened my tone, determined not to lead up to my question, not to give him time to formulate what he thought I wanted to hear. “I need to know if you shared her delusion, if you chose me as some vessel for her to possess. If our whole marriage is just an extension of your obsession with a dead woman.”
He raised his eyelids enough so his cool gaze could meet my eyes. “There is no just, Kitten. I chose you because I wanted you. And my Devlin couldn’t be happier to breathe through your lips.”
I couldn’t move as he brushed his thumb over my mouth and palmed my bare breast. His words rasped over my flesh. “To feel my touch again, through your delightful skin.”
Icy cold swept over me. His voice was so calm, so matter-of-fact. How could I not have known he was so hopelessly mad? Suddenly mobile again, I shoved myself back, my bare feet slapping on the hardwood floor as I instinctively grabbed the long, filmy silk robe to cover myself from his gaze. As I crushed the delicate fabric in my hand, I shuddered, remembering too late whose skin it had lately warmed. I dropped it on the floor, dug in the back of the closet for my ratty black fleece.
I’d thought I was prepared for this conversation. I thought I’d braced myself to hear the worst from his lips. But now he had blithely acknowledged what I most feared, my mind was spinning, scrambling to make sense of his words. And underneath it all, a terrible pain clutched at my veins, sent its agony rippling through my limbs.
He didn’t love me. Couldn’t love me. It had always only been Devlin for him.
I yanked the belt tightly around my waist and turned back to face him, though my knees trembled so badly I feared I might fall.
“You can’t be serious,” I protested, though I knew better.
Edgar sat up, unabashed by his own nakedness. My eyes couldn’t help clinging to the ebony dusting on his swarthy chest, the wide swath of his muscular thighs. The beautiful body that had never been mine to claim, in the end.
For one crazy moment, my brain begged me to drop it. To place my finger over his lips, to stop the words I’d never be able to forget. To go back to ignorance, to pretend for however long we had to live that the devotion with which he worshipped me was mine after all. What difference did it make what insanity his grieving heart believed if I could retreat into the safe haven of his arms and never leave?
All the difference in the world. Maybe I was as weak and pathetic as Devlin would have thought me, but I was still strong to demand I be loved for my own sake. To insist with all my weirdness and wildness and weakness, I deserved love undiluted by a longing after the dead.
“You know I’m serious,” Edgar’s voice rumbled gently over me as if every word wasn’t a weapon. “You read her letters. You feel her, even now, moving with you. Moving in you. It’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s something beautiful. Something incredibly, impossibly rare.”
Despair settled heavily with me. “I need a drink,” I said abruptly, my voice cracking. “A damn vodka drink.”
Edgar smiled as if he humored me. He followed me downstairs without bothering to dress. I poured icy vodka into a thimbleful of cranberry juice, drank it, and poured again. Even now, more than anything, I wanted to retreat into his embrace, tuck my head against his broad chest and listen to his heartbeat. I gritted my teeth.
“You’ve been gaslighting me,” I said flatly. “It’s not Devlin who’s been haunting me, it’s you. Fixing me her drinks, dressing me in her clothes, burning her damn flowery candles. Making me read her letters like it was some kind of gift when all you wanted to do was brainwash me into believing it could somehow be enough to be loved by a man who wants me to pretend to be a dead woman. What did Octavia think of that? Brigitte?”
Even as I said the words, I feared I already knew the answers. I remembered with sudden clarity the shifts in their personalities, the way they’d adopted Devlin’s nickname as their own.
