In Your Dreams (9 page)

“God, I hope
not!”

“Gee, thanks,”
she retorted and bopped his hand with her breadstick.

He offered an
apologetic shrug. “No, what I mean is...where I am? It’s for those of us who
committed suicide. We died before we were supposed to and screwed up our life
lines. If you show up where I am, it means I failed you, and you took your own
life after all.”

“And since that’s
what you’re supposed to prevent, if I kill myself, you’ll get in trouble,” she
summed up. “What would happen to you? Would you get fired? Or sent to hell or
something?”

“There is no
hell.”

No hell? Well,
that sucked. After all the hours she’d spent picturing Carlo roasting in a pit
of flames.

“There’s no
hell, but there
is
karmic justice,” he replied as if he’d heard her
thoughts. “Don’t worry. All those who wronged you in this life will get what
they deserve in the Afterlife. Including your mother, your stepfather, and your
ex-husband.”

She didn’t want
to talk about
any
of them. Certain monsters were better off left locked
up. “Is that how you wound up taking care of me?” she asked. “Some kind of
punishment for somebody you screwed in life?”

She meant the
comment as a joke, but he frowned, and she realized she’d actually come close
to the truth.

“Sort of,” he
admitted, his fingertip tracing invisible circles on the white tablecloth.
“But, my fate doesn’t worry me. I’m a lost cause, Belle.
I
screwed up my
life, and I’ve pretty much screwed up this Afterlife gig, as well. Eventually,
the Elders will say, ‘Enough,’ and finally put an end to me.”

“Put an end...?
How?” Insane visions bounced through her imagination: electricity
short-circuiting in blazes of fireworks, an agonizing spark-by-spark extinguish
that began with that charming smile and ended on one final glimmer before
darkness devoured him, the simple snuff of inner light like a blown-out
birthday candle. No matter what scenario she pictured, the end result was the
destruction of the friendly ghost that was Sean Martino: guardian angel or
guardian spirit. Whatever he was.

He shook his
head. “Don’t worry about me. Like I said, I’m a hopeless case. But, you? You
can still get your life right. One thing I’ve learned on the other side is that
everyone on this side has a purpose, a reason for living. If you haven’t
discovered yours yet, you can’t give up just because you’ve hit a rough patch.”

Her forehead
furrowed. “‘A rough patch?’ I’m
dying
. You know that, right?”

“Yes. And I’m
sorry.” He took her hand again, rubbing comfort into her knuckles. “If I could
make you well, I would.”

Oddly enough,
she believed him. And wished he could perform a miracle for her. “That’s not
your purpose, huh?”

“No. My purpose
is to keep you from ending your life precipitously. But don’t hold on for me.
Hold on for you. And trust that, at the end, you’ll know why your life needed
to follow this path. I know you already promised Tony, but now, I want you to
promise me.”

“No.” Removing
herself from his care, she folded her arms over her chest and leaned back to
put more distance between them. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because. I can
make a promise like that to Tony. He doesn’t know what’s in store for me yet.
You
do. In fact, you probably know more than you’re telling me.”

His cheeks
flushed scarlet. Yeah. She figured as much.

“If the pain
gets brutal or I lose my dignity somewhere down the line,” she continued,
“which I bet will happen faster than I think, I want an open window I can use
to check out early. Tony will understand that. He’d feel the same way. But you?
You want to slam that window shut and lock it because that’s what you were sent
here to do. I can’t allow that.” She grinned and flipped a curl of hair off her
shoulder. “Besides, if I make that promise, your job is done, and I won’t see
you again. I think I’m better off keeping you around until the bitter end.
After all, that’s what
you
promised.
The bitter end
. And I’m
gonna hold you to it.”  

Malik Greg lay
silent in his hospital bed. The ventilator pushed air into and out of his
lungs.
Whoosh, hiss. Whoosh, hiss. Whoosh, hiss
. Another machine beeped
in timed increments, spitting out tape with lines of brain activity, steady
anthills of up and down. Not very high, not very low—barely noticeable blips in
an endless parade.

Meanwhile, his
parents kept vigil, holding his hand, weeping silent tears, begging him to come
back to them.

His little
sister sat in the bedside chair, which dwarfed her dainty stature to
fairy-like. Between rubbing her watery eyes with her fists, she stroked the
soft fur of the teddy bear she’d bought with her allowance and tucked between
his hip and his left arm. “Mom says you can hear me,” she said. “So wake up,
Malik, okay? I miss you.”

From her side of
the clipboard, Xavia watched the drama unfold while speaking in urgent tones to
the comatose boy. “Come on, Malik. Fight back. You’re too strong to give up.
Don’t let the bullies win.”

At sixteen,
Malik had an entire lifetime ahead of him: a lifetime filled with joy, love,
and success—
if
he could survive this suicide attempt. Too many months of
name-calling, bruising punches, and public humiliation from his high school
peers had taken their toll on Malik’s self-esteem. His doctors had done all
they could after his mother found him in the basement, dangling from an
overhead pipe. Now, only Xavia’s persuasive words and Malik’s own determination
could bring him back from the brink.

Days had passed
while Malik lingered in this half-existence, with Xavia trying to find the
right words to propel him back into the life he’d attempted to cut short. This
was Malik’s last chance—and Xavia’s, as well. She couldn’t bear to lose another
child. Especially after hearing of Noah’s failure again.

“Wake up,” she
beseeched. “Please. You have so much to live for: a bright future, the love of
your family…” She assessed his mother and father hovering, their eyes
red-rimmed and shadowed, his little sister weeping. “Don’t throw all that love
away.”

Xavia’s words
were echoed by Malik’s sister, Karisma. “Wake up, Malik. Please. I promise,
I’ll be good every day if you’ll just wake up. I won’t go through your stuff
anymore. I’ll do my chores
and
yours. Without anyone asking. Please,
Malik? Please? Wake up. We need you. We love you.”

Poor Malik. And
his poor family. Xavia knew their pain, how the hurt of a lost child cut
bone-deep, shoveled out the heart, and left a parent hollow. With vivid
clarity, she recalled the sight of Noah’s pallid face against a stark white
hospital pillow, asleep for eternity. Silent screams of grief scalded her
memory, and she squeezed her eyes shut to block out the images.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

“He’s coding!”
someone shouted from the hospital room. “Get the crash cart!”

Xavia snapped
alert. “Malik! No!” She refocused on the boy in the bed, watched the hospital
staff dive into action. The back of a white lab coat filled her screen and...

The clipboard
went blank.

Game over.

She’d lost him.

“Goddamn it!”
She hurled the board against the wall with enough force to leave a dent.

Her emotions
boiled over, and she sank to her knees, wailing in grief and rage. The
unfairness of it all, the crushing disappointment, the pain of watching another
life fade away into nothing...how long would she be forced to relive that
hellacious moment before the Board let her off the hook? She couldn’t do this
anymore, couldn’t face another loss, couldn’t identify with another
grief-stricken mother. If the Elders had assigned her this department as a
method of torture, they’d outdone themselves. At this point, she wished hell
did
exist. Burning in a pit of fire for eternity didn’t seem so horrid when
compared to the eternal torment she dealt with after each loss here.

Maybe she should
take a page from Sean’s playbook and ask for a transfer. She doubted Uriah
would release her, though. The whole idea of this assignment was to teach her a
lesson. Probation—and the cases she worked while in this department—were all
part of her karmic justice.

Who was that guy
in mythology chained to a rock who had his liver pecked out by an eagle every
day, only to have the organ grow back overnight to feed the bird again the next
day? The Elders had chained her in the same vicious cycle. Except, in her case,
the organ she continuously lost and regrew was her heart. Drawing her knees to
her chest, she buried her head behind folded arms and wept.

A quick drumroll
of knuckles from above snapped her gaze up and into Sean Martino’s concerned
face as he leaned against her desk. “You okay?”

Great. Just what
she needed. An audience. She swiped her hands across her teary eyes to hide the
evidence of her pain. “Didn’t I tell you not to disturb me in here?”

He shrugged.
“Actually, no. You didn’t. But, for the record, you already looked pretty disturbed
before I came in.”

“Well, you’re
adding to my distress,” she retorted.

“Uh-huh.” His
tone stayed bland, his expression emotionless. “Wanna take a walk?”

“Don’t you have
work to do?” The last thing she wanted was prolonged exposure to a nosy former
cop. “A certain actress who requires your undivided attention?”

“She’s in good
hands right now, which is more than I can say for you.”

Nerves
shattered, and her reply came out a feral growl. “I fucking hate this place. Do
you know that?”

The shadow of a
smile creased his lips. “Welcome to my world.” He held out his hand. “Come on.
Take a walk. I wanna show you something.”

With a great
deal of reluctance, she took his hand and rose on unsteady legs. Christ, she
trembled like some newborn giraffe. To cover her embarrassment, she hid her
weakness behind a veil of sarcasm. “What is this? A date?”

“A game. Play
along, Xavia. It might help you feel better.”

Nothing would
make her feel better. “I fucking hate games, too.”

Still, she
allowed him to lead her out of the office, past the other employees whose focus
remained concentrated on their clipboards. Which, she considered, she should
order Sean to do as well, but he had managed to pique her curiosity. And hadn’t
Uriah insisted they spend time together? So...okay. She’d see where this led,
but keep her eyes and ears alert at the same time.

“Let me tell you
a story,” he said as they strode down the hall and toward the descending
staircase.

“Uh-huh.” The
farther they walked from their department, the more anxiety skittered along her
neural network. Where was he taking her? Did hell exist after all, and did he
know a shortcut there?

“A while back, I
returned from a hunt that got me all wound up. At first, it wasn’t much
different than a lot of other bounties I wrangled. This was a guy in San
Francisco in the early 1940’s. I don’t remember his name, but for the sake of
the story, let’s call him George. He and his wife were staying in some fancy
hotel. Late one night, they have a few drinks in a local bar, head upstairs to
their room. She goes into the bedroom to ‘slip into something more
comfortable,’ if you catch my drift.”

Sean craned his
neck over his shoulder to waggle his brows at her, and she waved a hand at him
in exasperation. “Yeah, I get it. What’s the point?”

“Be patient. I’m
getting there. So, the wife steps out of the bathroom, but George is gone, and
the French doors leading to the balcony are open. Wind’s blowing the curtains
around. She figures he’s outside, right? She goes outside...no husband. Then
she hears a scream from below. She leans out, sees a body lying on the
flagstone path eight stories down, bent at all impossible angles. But she
recognizes the dead guy’s suit. It’s her husband. She screams and collapses
right there on the balcony. A crowd gathers, and the police are called. The cop
assigned to the case eventually closes it as a suicide. But there’s always this
cloud of suspicion lingering over the widow. Did she push him out the window
and then make it look like a suicide? I mean, obviously, it’s not a suicide, or
I wouldn’t have been sent to retrieve him, right? He would’ve arrived here like
the rest of us and served a sentence in some department.”

“I’m still
waiting...” she grumbled.

He didn’t take
offense, leading her past a series of doors she didn’t recognize to a narrow
staircase, while he continued his tale. “Well, see, here’s the thing. I get the
call from the Board to go after George, who’s been haunting the eighth floor
since his death. When I arrive at the hotel, I’m expecting to hear George
confirm my suspicions that the wife was a murderess. Instead, George tells me
his wife was innocent.
The cop
killed him. The cop’s moonlighting as the
muscle for a local crook, and George owed the crook money. Big time money. The
cop followed them out of the nightclub that night, sneaked into the hotel room,
pushed George off the balcony, then slipped out again, all while the wife’s in
the bathroom. Then he made sure the case landed on his desk. He did a brief and
incomplete investigation and closed it as a suicide. Nice twist, right?”

At the bottom of
the stairs, she folded her arms over her chest and shifted her weight to one
hip. “And your point is...?”

He still offered
no reaction. Not a blink, not a frown, not so much as a huff at her retort. For
such a miserable soul, Sean Martino had the patience of Mother Teresa. She,
however, had as much patience as the Warner Brothers’ cartoon Tasmanian Devil.

“Okay, okay. I’m
getting there. Now, lemme tell you, that scenario did
not
sit well with
me. I mean, I kept thinking about how the Board was intimating something about
my integrity by sending me after the victim of a crooked cop.”

She turned
around, aimed for the staircase again. “Fascinating, but I have work to do.”

Sean grabbed her
arm and yanked her back to face him. “Be patient. It’ll all make sense in a
minute.”

Holding up an
index finger, she proclaimed, “One minute.”

“That’s all I
need.” He released his hold on her and started forward again. “Back in those
days, whenever one of us used to get worked up after a bounty, my buddy, Luc,
and I would come down here to talk it out, you know? You may not realize the
amount of emotional pull a bounty hunter experiences on a job. We have to be
part empath, part sheriff, part amateur shrink. It’s a delicate balance, and it
can take its toll on a weaker hunter.”

“Gee,” she
remarked with acid. “I can’t imagine how difficult that must be for all you
guys.”

“Yeah, yeah.
This isn’t a pissing contest, Xavia. Pay attention. I’m trying to show you
something.” Continuing to ignore her pain, he headed to the lone door in the
corridor, twisted the knob, and ushered her inside. “Come, look at this.”

The room
resembled a storage space after an apartment fire: concrete walls littered with
scorch marks and an open area with painted lines, forming a rectangle about the
size of half a tennis court on the scarred floor. Around them, wooden crates,
branded with odd symbols in black, built towers of varying size and shape. Sean
stopped near the line on the far right and rolled his hands in the air,
creating an orb of vivid purple light.

“When I came
down here with Luc after that bounty, I was enraged. Once I started talking it
out, though, the scenario seemed to lose its insulting effect for me. The
direct opposite happened to Luc. He kept insisting the wife had to be the
villain. Luc was a nice guy, but he hated to admit he was wrong about anything.
And he had this hang-up about women back then—didn’t trust ‘em. I think that
was left over from his last life. Of course, this was before Jodie arrived.
That particular day, I’d never seen him so furious. It was almost like the
betrayal had happened to him, instead of some poor sap in 1940’s San Fran.
Anyway, to distract us both, I pulled together an orb and hurled it like this...”
He demonstrated, flinging the ball of energy toward the far wall, where it hit
with a hiss and ricocheted back, zipping so close to Xavia’s face the heat
warmed her synapses. With his open palm, Sean slapped the orb, and it zinged to
the wall again.

She gasped with
delight. An otherworld handball game!

When it bounced
back to him a second time, he let it drop to the ground with a sizzle before
fading into nothingness. “It felt so damned good to hit something. So we kept
at it. We called it orb ball.” He grinned at her. “Something tells me you were
pretty good on the city handball courts during your days on Earth.”

“What makes you
say that?”

“The gleam in
your eye I noticed when I slapped the orb.”

She hated to
admit he had a point. In that brief flash of time, Xavia forgot about Malik.
Forgot about Uriah. And Noah. Now, she smiled at Sean, a challenge in her eyes.
“You put a helluva spin on it.”

“Think you can
take me?”

“I can
definitely run you around the court,” she admitted.