“How’s your father?” Ben finally asked. It took me a moment to realize who he was talking about. I’d already stopped thinking of Xavier as my father.
“He’s fine,” I said, mentally adding: ignorant, arrogant, despicable, and blind to the fate I had in mind for him. “He’s just fine.”
We were silent again.
“I was just thinking,” Ben finally said, “of the time when Joanna chased that boy from the school bus. Do you remember that?”
I nodded. It wasn’t as if I could forget. He had pulled my sister’s hair and made her cry. He had called Olivia a tease and a slut. She had only been ten.
“I got mad at Jo for that. I told her I was the one who was supposed to fight the guys. I was the one who was supposed to protect my girlfriends. I told her I would keep you both safe.”
And the boy who’d felt that responsibility was now the man who carried that guilt solely on his shoulders. I lowered my head, and as I did, glanced at his hand on the ground next to me. I remembered how that hand felt caressing my body, and desperately wanted to take it in my own, not caring if we crushed the stems of still-living things between us, if we could only reestablish that link. I wanted to give him comfort, and peace, and take a measure more of it for myself.
Instead, I sniffed. Scented brimstone on the air—faint, but briny with heat and ill will—and left my hand where it was. Then I spotted the token Ben had brought along with him. Not flowers.
“That’s Joanna’s, isn’t it?” I pointed at the silver chain glinting in the sunlight as it hung from one side of the tombstone.
He nodded, swallowing hard.
“I…haven’t seen that in a long time.” How did he get it? The last time I’d seen it, it’d been in this graveyard, circling Ajax’s neck as he tortured the man beside me.
“Well, it was lost for a while.”
Oh, come on. I needed more than that. “So you found it?”
“It was mailed to me. Last week.”
Last week. But Ajax couldn’t have mailed it then. I’d already killed him days before. “Odd,” I commented, hoping my suspicion came out sounding airy. Very odd.
Ben didn’t answer, and I decided it wouldn’t hurt to play up to Olivia’s airheaded reputation a little bit more.
“Oh, hey,” I said, as if I’d only just remembered. “You ever find that guy you were looking for? That one in the jailhouse photo?”
“Mug shot,” he corrected with a sigh. “No. I think he’s…disappeared.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, glancing over at him.
“That’s okay,” he said, too reasonably. “There are others.”
Something flashed behind his eyes, and I had to look away. It wasn’t exactly the look Ajax had pulled on me in the restaurant…for one, his skull didn’t leap out at me. And it wasn’t the glint of pure sadistic glee that Butch had worn in the moments before Olivia’s death. But I couldn’t kid myself. It was close enough to being the look of a killer that it made my belly flip-flop within me. And it looked all wrong on Ben Traina’s face.
And you’re partly responsible for putting it there.
I was. And I had no idea how to fix that.
Ben finally stood. “Well, I’ve been here for a while. I’m going to go.”
“Okay.” I nodded, afraid if I looked up he’d see how desperately I wanted him to stay.
“You wouldn’t want…to go get a bit to eat or anything, would you?”
I steeled myself to the vulnerability in his voice and shook my head. I also frowned at the question. “I can’t. I came with Cher.” And then, so there’d be no mistake, added, “And I have a date later.”
“Of course you do,” he said, but there was no bitterness in his words.
“Maybe another time?” I said, knowing it’d never happen.
“Maybe,” he said, knowing the same.
He left, and after a moment, when I was sure he wouldn’t see me, I turned to watch him walk away. I wasn’t going to give up on him. My second death had wrought changes in him that’d been lying dormant since my first. But as uncomfortable as his sudden fierceness and vigilance made me, I wouldn’t give up. Because God, I thought, watching him, could that man love.
“‘There is always some madness in love,’” I quoted as he paused to say a few words to Cher, the two of them huddled close in the late winter wind. They were braced like they’d survived the worst of the season and were now merely waiting for it to end. My mortals, I thought, protectively. I’d defend them both to my death.
I turned back to the grave.
The headstone was made of rose marble, black veins running through the surface in defiant streaks. It wasn’t what I’d have chosen, but it fit Olivia perfectly. “I’m sorry it took so long for me to visit,” I told her. “I’ve been…busy.”
It was three months to the day since she’d died. Three months since I’d assumed her identity. And this really was the first chance I’d had to catch my breath. It made me wonder what I’d be doing if none of this had happened, and Olivia was still alive, and I was still Joanna Archer.
Probably still lingering in the shadows. Snapping pictures of every man who looked my way.
I sighed, not sure I’d want that back. I’d want Olivia alive again, of course, but walking around in her skin had forced me to do two things: put down my camera, which I had been using as a shield, and take off the mask of the woman I once thought I was. Underneath I’d been surprised to find I wasn’t so unlike Olivia. She wasn’t the opposite of me in every way that counted. She wasn’t as weak and vulnerable as I’d once believed. By accepting that, I discovered myself in her. Still me, I thought, but more so.
I told her. “I’m more like you than I ever would have believed.”
And what a strange world it was when a woman had to lose herself in order to find herself. But these last months had taught me that I was more than the culmination of past experiences, and much more than could be evidenced in my physical body and strength alone.
And so who was I now?
It seemed to be the question everybody wanted answered. But, as I’d told Greta, it really did depend on who was looking. And if someone were looking now, they’d see a beautiful young woman bent over the grave of her sister, her feelings evident in the way her hands shook as she released her battered floral offering, the way her shoulders hunched against the constant press of the wind. She looked, I knew, like a woman with no dreams.
But.
If they sucked in a deep breath of the same wind, fresh from her flesh, they might—if they used their sixth sense—perceive another emotion. One belied by that delicate body. A sentiment as strong as any elemental fury. And one that cast all shadows into light.
I do dream, the scent would tell them. I dream in fierce color. And the hue is always red.
Acknowledgments
Props go out to Ellen Daniel for being my first, and for a long time, sole reader. Also to Kris Reekie and Linda Grimes for trusted help, and the membership at large in what was my virtual classroom for many years, CompuServe’s Books and Writers Forum. Suzanne Frank fielded every newbie question I could throw her way, but more importantly, joined me in search of the perfect mojito. I have to thank my Folies girls for allowing me to read between numbers, putting up with me on a bad writing day, and providing inspiration. That means you, Kris Perchetti. Finally, heartfelt thanks go out to Miriam Kriss for saving me from the slush pile, and to Diana Gill, who pushed me harder, and made me better, than I thought possible. Oh, and to Gary Sassenberg, who started it all.