Hidden with you, p.13
Hidden With You, page 13
I grab his hand, making him stay. “About people leaving,” I say. “Sometimes they don’t go. Sometimes they’re taken. And that can feel like a door getting shut. But that doesn’t mean you need to close all the windows, too.”
His eyes narrow as he studies me. “What are you talking about?”
“They didn’t want to leave you. Sandra and Bonnie. They didn’t move away. They didn’t become tired of you. You didn’t grow apart. They didn’t want to leave you.”
I squeeze his hand. “They were taken. Neither one of them died a natural death. They didn’t want to go.”
My voice catches, and I wipe a tear from my cheek but continue, my throat thick. “And I’m guessing that Sandra wouldn’t want you to be alone. I’m not saying you have to be with me,” I add, although the thought of having him with me always feels like Christmas morning, “but just think about it what I’m saying. I’m alone because my family walked away, and it messed me up. Yours were taken, and that messed you up too. But at the end of the day,” I say, looking at him through a shimmer of tears, “aren’t we both punishing ourselves?”
Chapter Fifteen
Jasper walked across the gravel-covered turnaround, then sat down at the edge, his feet dangling off into the void. He kicked, and his heels against the rocks sent bits of shale skittering down into the abyss below.
He was looking straight forward, not down. But he knew what was below him. Small trees growing horizontally out of the cliffside. Birds’ nests. Bugs. A raw, vertical surface full of jutting rocks of different colors.
At the bottom, there were tangled trees and vines. Years of untrimmed undergrowth. And one battered blue Toyota, its tires in the air, one door ripped completely off.
He drew a breath, gathering courage, then tilted his head so he could look down into the canyon at the metal undercarriage of the car.
Clouds moved across the sky, blocking then revealing the sun, which reflected off the metal of the car. A message, he thought, and he stared at the flashes, trying to make sense of them.
Dot. Dot. Dot.
Dash. Dash. Dash.
Dot. Dot. Dot.
The signal repeated itself over and over.
Dot. Dot. Dot.
Dash. Dash. Dash.
Dot. Dot. Dot.
A distress call. An emergency. And here he was, safe on solid ground. That wasn’t right. He needed to help. Carefully, he scrambled to his feet, almost slipping once. His chest tightened. Fear engulfed him. Adrenaline threw him back. He exhaled sharply, realizing he could have fallen over the side.
If he had, he would be dead.
He looked down at the car once again.
Dot. Dot. Dot.
Dash. Dash. Dash.
Dot. Dot. Dot.
He had to help, but he didn’t know how. He looked around, for the first time noticing a knotted rope tossed over the side of cliff. He moved to it. It was close by, just one or two steps away. He bent over and tugged on it. He couldn’t see what it was attached to, but it seemed secure. Carefully, he held on just above one of the knots, then—moving hand under hand—he slowly descended into the gorge.
It had seemed so far down when he looked, but he reached the car without even noticing his descent. He was suddenly just there, standing on the undercarriage.
The sun was behind a cloud now, the emergency call no longer crying out to him. Everything was still. There was no wind, no sounds from animals. No noise from cars driving on the road so far above them. It was eerie, and he felt so alone.
Then he heard it. A small sound. A mewl. Like a small cat trapped in a cupboard. He looked around, but he saw nothing.
Then he heard a faint scratching. It seemed to rise up from underneath his feet. From the car’s interior. He tried to listen. Tried to figure out what the sound was. But he had no clue. It was too faint.
“Jasper!”
He froze, his head cocked. But the sound wasn’t coming from the car. It was coming from above him. He looked up and saw her standing at the edge of the cliff. Immediately, fear filled him. He threw up a hand, crying for her to stop, afraid that she would fall.
“Zelda! Zelda, what are you doing?”
“I’m waiting for you. Are you coming back up?”
“I can’t. Not yet.” He wanted to. He wanted to climb back up that rope and hold her in his arms more than anything in the world. But he was here now for a reason. He wished he could remember why. Something about the car and the cliff and a knife.
“I have to do something,” he called up to her.
“I’ll help you. Let me come down to you.”
The fear touched him again. “No,” he shouted. “You have to stay. I can’t protect you if you leave the road.”
“But I want to help. They need my help too. They need me to help you.”
He shook his head, the words not making sense. Who were they? And how were they supposed to help him?
He looked up at her, silently begging for more information, but she just laughed and danced along the edge, kicking small stones over the edge of the cliff. He screamed, telling her to stop, begging her to be careful. But the words never managed to leave his throat.
“Help. Daddy. Daddy, help us.”
Bonnie!
He glanced at Zelda once more. She was there, dancing on that treacherous edge, but for now, she was safe.
He relaxed enough to lie on his stomach and hang his head over the side of the car. He looked in through the gap where the door used to be. Bonnie and Sandra were hanging upside down in their seats, still strapped in.
“Are you going away now?” Sandra asked.
“No. Of course not. I’m going to get you out of here.”
“You don’t need to,” she said, then turned her neck. “It won’t matter.”
He saw the gaping wound, the blood dripping from her.
“No. No. I can save you.”
“Daddy? Daddy, I don’t want to go away.” He reached out his hand, trying to touch hers, but their fingers were too many inches apart.
“I don’t want you to go either. I’m going to save you.”
“This isn’t the way to do it,” Sandra said.
“I can’t abandon you.”
“You’ll never abandon us.”
“Never,” he promised.
“Even if you move on, you’ll still be with us.”
“I’m not moving on,” he said.
“Aren’t you?” She tilted her head, turning her neck so she was looking up, as if through the undercarriage of the car.
“I think you are. I think you should.”
He felt the tears in his eyes, saw them fall from his eyes and past the car to land on the trees below, each tear setting off an explosion of silver sparkles. “I can’t abandon you.”
“You didn’t. You would never. And we will always love you.”
Beneath him, something cracked, and the car shifted violently. “You need to go,” Sandra said. She passed the knotted rope to Bonnie. Bonnie passed it to him. He frowned at it, unsure how it had ended up in the car. He took it from his daughter’s hand, looking into those big brown eyes.
“Hold on tight, Daddy.”
“I can’t. You can’t.”
“It’s time,” Sandra said, flashing him her sweet smile. “But don’t forget. Don’t forget us.”
“Never. I’ll never forget you, and I’ll never stop searching for who did this to you.”
“They hide in plain sight, you know,” Sandra said. “We never saw it coming. You never saw it coming. But Jasper, my love, hindsight is twenty-twenty. All you have to do is look in the right place.”
He shook his head, unable to understand the words. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
“Remember, look in the right place. They hide in plain sight. You would never see it coming. Good is bad and bad is good and we don’t know the difference until we know. And, my love, now it’s time for us to go.”
“No,” he began, but he didn’t get to finish the sentence. Instead the word transformed into a scream as the car fell away from beneath him.
He clung to the rope, his hands tight on the knots, his feet clambering for purchase. It was shaking, the ground beneath him rumbling. He looked down, trying to see where the car had landed. But it was gone.
For a moment, the clouds shifted, revealing the sun. He saw one flash of light below, as quick as a wink, then that was gone too.
For an eternity, he hung in the void alone.
Then he looked up. He saw Zelda.
And Jasper began to climb.
Jasper woke with a start, his cheeks wet with tears. He was groggy. Disoriented.
Then he looked down and saw the woman in his arms, and a sense of calm came over him. He was where he was supposed to be, and he had the blessing of his wife and daughter.
For the first time in a long time, life was good.
He bent over, gently kissing Zelda’s bare shoulder. He knew it was just a dream, but it had soothed him. It had been a push. Hell, it had been an order. His subconscious telling him to forgive himself.
He would never stop trying to find their killer, but it was time to move on. And he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Sandra would not only want him to, but that she would adore Zelda as much as he did.
As if awakened by his thoughts, Zelda turned in his arms and smiled at him. “Hey there,” she whispered, and he answered her with a kiss.
“I could get used to waking up like this.”
He reached downward and gently pushed the hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear. “I’m never going to stop looking for the monster who killed Sandra and Bonnie.”
Her brow furrowed. “I know. Did something happen?”
“I had a dream about them,” he told her. “Are you okay with that? Knowing that I’m not going to stop looking.”
The crease between her eyebrows deepened, and she pushed herself up on an elbow. “Well, yeah. Of course. But I don’t really have a say in that.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“I do?” She bit her lower lip, like a kid working their way through a math test. “Why?”
He took a breath. “Because I’m falling in love with you,” he said, the words feeling perfect because they were real. “I know it’s fast, but it’s true.”
He watched her eyes go wide.
“Oh.”
For a moment, she said nothing, and fear started to prickle at his skin. Then her lips curved up. “Well, that’s pretty convenient,” she said. “Because I’m falling in love with you too.”
For a moment, they simply looked at each other. Then he kissed her. He didn’t intend to start something, but with Zelda, he never seemed to have any self-control. Before he knew it, he was deep inside her, passion growing as they claimed each other, each unable to get enough, until finally they exploded together in a symphony of light and pleasure.
“I think I like waking up like this,” she said, then snuggled closer. Her face was buried in his neck and he could feel her breath along with the movement of her lips as she spoke. “Will you let me do something for you?” she asked.
“Anything.”
She shifted, leaning back so that she was looking at him directly. “I love you. I love you, and because I do, I want you to figure it out. I want you to know who took Bonnie and Sandra away from you. Please let me help you try to figure it out. I told you I thought I could. And I meant it. I know you think it’s silly, but I might see something you don’t.”
He stroked her hair then rubbed the pad of his thumb along her lower lip. “Are you sure? I don’t want their shadows in our relationship.”
“But of course they’re in our life. They were your life. Where else would they be? And you deserve answers. So do they.”
He didn’t think it would do any good. After all, he’d been working the case for a decade. And at the same time, he never wanted to let this woman go. And if walking this path beside him was what she wanted to do, then he would accept that. Because there was no way he was going to give up. He’d meant what he said. Sandra and Bonnie deserved to be free too. And it filled his heart with joy to know that Zelda felt the same way.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll work this together. We’ll figure it out.” He rolled over and started to get out of bed. She tugged him back.
“Hold on there. Where do you think you’re going?”
“I thought I might grab a shower.”
“Slacker. Let’s think about this.”
“We don’t have to right now.”
“Yes we do. You had a dream.” She grabbed her phone. “You need to tell me about it before you forget. And I’m going to record it.”
He did, telling her as much as he could, but it was hard. The bits and pieces kept disappearing the way they do when dreams turn to smoke.
“Run it through for me again. You might remember more.”
And so he told her once again.
“Hiding in plain sight,” Zelda said. “Never seeing it coming and looking in the right place. Does that mean anything to you?”
He shook his head. “No. Nothing.”
“Sounds to me like your subconscious thinks that you already know the answer. I mean, hiding in plain sight seems pretty definitive.”
“Well, then my subconscious is a filthy bastard because it’s not telling me a thing.” He squeezed her hand. “I know you want to help. But we should probably move on. I don’t think interpreting dreams is the kind of thing that happens when you force it. It’ll probably come to me in the shower.”
She wiggled her brows. “Well, showers are something I can definitely be talked into.”
“Something we agree on.”
He slid out of bed and held out his hand to her. She took it but stayed on the mattress as she asked, “What about motive?”
“I’ve thought about that for years. I have no idea. Other than me, I don’t know what it could be.”
“What were you working on at the time?”
“That’s the thing. You’d think it would be related to my work. But I’d taken three months of leave. I’d been injured, and it was summer. Bonnie was going to be starting first grade, and we wanted to spend time. They were killed at the end of the summer. Right before school started. You’d think that anybody who’d been pissed off at me on my last case would’ve attacked a little bit earlier.”
“But maybe not. What was the last case?”
He could tell that she was determined, which meant that he wasn’t getting his sexy, soapy shower any time soon.
“If we’re not showering, we’re eating. I need food to think.” He let go of her hand long enough to grab her robe and toss it to her.
“Fine. You cook. I’ll make notes.”
Moments later, she was in her fluffy robe and settled at the dining table. He was cracking eggs as he rattled off the cases that he’d worked immediately prior to that horrible summer. He’d been over this so many times he could do it from memory. There were a half dozen matters, and not a single one of them seemed like a good probability. Something he’d ruled out years ago, and which, by the end of breakfast, she’d ruled out as well.
“I warned you. You wanted in on this mystery. And it is one.”
“So if it wasn’t related to one of your cases, it had to be personal. You must have enemies. From earlier cases. A longtime vendetta and someone saw an opportunity. Like somebody who held a grudge after you cut them off in a parking lot, assuming that’s a metaphor for something a hell of a lot bigger.”
“I have enemies, yes. It comes with the whole MI6 thing. But you do know that we’re not going to solve the mystery this morning. Right?”
She scowled. “I know. I just...”
“What?” he said.
“I just want this for you.”
His heart melted a little. “I know,” he said. “And for that, I love you desperately.”
Chapter Sixteen
While Jasper spends the rest of the morning on the phone following up various leads relating to the threat against me, I go outside to catch some sun by the pool. My Fun in the Sun Day was his idea, and although I protested at first, saying I wanted to help him, he assured me that he had it covered, and that the sunshine would do me good.
He was right. I haven’t been this relaxed in ages, and I actually lose myself in the book I’m reading. So much so that I don’t even notice when my mother approaches.
“I heard there’s some gala event for you on Friday.” She’s standing behind my head, casting a shadow onto my book. “Something about your book and that movie.”
I grimace, then close the book, my finger marking my place. I don’t look up at her. I’m not pulling a muscle in my neck for this woman. “That’s right.”
She sniffs. “Look at me when you speak to me.”
“Your legs work. You want to see my face, nothing’s stopping you.”
For a brief, glorious moment, I think I’ve won and that she’s going to simply turn around and go away. But luck is not on my side. Instead, she does what I suggested, circling my lounger and then sitting on the edge of the one just a few feet from my side.
“You didn’t invite me or your father.”
“Stepfather. And no. I didn’t.”
“Hmm. Well, I suppose it’s just as well. We wouldn’t be able to come anyway.”
I consider asking her why she brought it up in the first place, but I know the answer: It’s one more thing she can hold up as evidence of what a horrible daughter I am.
I know she’s waiting for me to ask why they wouldn’t be able to come. Instead, I reopen my book.
“Your father’s trip got extended,” she says, the word father making me seethe. Then again, she can call him whatever she wants so long as he doesn’t have to be at the house. The fact that he’s still busy overseas is perfectly fine by me.
“He has some diplomatic conference in Berlin,” she continues, as if I care. “I’m flying over tonight to meet him in Nice, and I’ll be staying on the Cote D’Azur while he goes to the conference. Then we’re going to take some time together in Dubai.”
