Page 6

Chapter 6

Donovan

T his had to be Levi, Jaime’s son. His voice cracked with fear and his hands shook, but he didn’t lower the gun and his finger hovered dangerously close to the trigger.

“My name is Donovan,” I replied, my hands in front of me. “We didn’t hurt your mom.”

“Then what are you doing here? And don’t try anything stupid. I already called the police.”

He was a terrible liar, which was the only thing keeping me from grabbing Alex and making a run for it. Fuck. This entire night was turning into a massive disaster.

“Levi, it’s Alex Copeland,” Alex said softly, stepping forward just enough to let the light from the window hit his face. “You guys used to come into my bookstore a lot, remember?”

Levi hesitated, the muzzle of the rifle drooping a little when he recognized Alex. “What are you doing here?” he repeated, sounding close to tears.

“It’s going to sound crazy, but I promise we didn’t hurt your mom.” Alex took another step forward and my heart leaped into my throat, every instinct screaming that I needed to protect him, to get him away from the clear danger.

“Is it—” Levi’s voice broke and a stifled sob escaped. “The guys at school said you found that dead body back in December. Is that what you do? Is… is that why you’re here?”

Please, just lie to him, Alex. Come up with something. Please.

Alex nodded and it took everything I had not to groan.

“Is my mom dead?”

“I’m sorry, Levi,” Alex whispered. Levi dropped the rifle, his shoulders curling in, his skinny arms wrapping around himself as though he could hold in the pain.

I couldn’t stand there and do nothing. Pausing only to nudge the gun out of arm’s reach with my foot, I went to Levi and carefully wrapped my arm around his shoulder, leaving him plenty of room to get free if he wanted. Instead, he collapsed into me, his whole body shaking as he cried, desperately trying to hold back his sobs. Belatedly, I remembered his sister still slept in the other room. This teenage boy was trying to contain his cries so it didn’t spill over and wake her.

I held Levi through the storm of his grief, only releasing him when he stepped away. Tears mottled his face, his eyes red-rimmed and raw, but he pulled himself together in a way most people three times his age would envy.

“What do I do now?” he whispered, voice broken and rough, but steady.

“If people know we were here, they’re going to ask questions,” Alex said softly. “No one knows about me. I hate to ask you to do this, but do you think you can wait until we leave, then call 911?”

Levi nodded, his breath shuddering as he fought back tears. “I-I had a feeling,” he admitted, eyes dropping to the ground. “She always acted different when she started using again.” The words were strained, a terrible truth he hated to reveal, but a truth nonetheless. “She’s a good mom,” he added immediately. “She tried so hard…”

“Do you two have somewhere to go? Do you have any family nearby?” I didn’t know the families of Lowery’s Crossing like Alex did, not yet.

“My aunt. I’ll call her after,” he whispered.

“I don’t want to leave you, but we have to go,” Alex said, wincing, but Levi nodded his understanding.

“I just…” He paused, blinking back more tears. “When did you get here? Was she a-alone?”

“We were with her after. She stayed until she was sure you and your sister would be taken care of.” Alex paused, waiting until Levi looked up at him to continue. “Your mom didn’t want to leave you. She didn’t mean for this to happen, but even in the end, she wanted to protect you. She kept telling me how much she loved you two. Don’t ever forget that, okay? She loved you so much.”

His words nearly crushed me, but Levi held himself together, managing a tight nod. Anything more and I knew his facade would shatter, leaving him in broken pieces on the floor.

“Don’t go into her bedroom, Levi,” I said, gently clasping his shoulder. “As soon as that front door closes behind us, call 911 and your aunt. Let them take care of her. You focus on yourself and your sister.”

Leaving Levi Smalls standing alone and grieving in the middle of his living room while his mother’s body lay only feet away went against everything in me, but what choice did I have? I wanted to protect him, but I also needed to protect Alex. Maybe it made me a terrible person, and it certainly felt that way, but I did just that, escorting Alex out the front door. He stopped just long enough to return the extra key, then we were gone, ducking between two neighboring houses.

By unspoken agreement, we lingered around the block until we heard sirens. If I remembered the schedule right, Ginny Lake was on duty tonight, so she’d be arriving alongside the paramedics. Will and I shouldn’t be needed for this one, which meant I could get Alex home.

“We’ll take the side roads,” Alex muttered. He took off walking before I could reply, leaving me jogging to catch up. The sickly yellow glow of the streetlights washed out what little color remained in his face, but I could tell Alex was pale. He kept his eyes straight ahead, a clear indication that he didn’t want to talk. Since I didn’t know what to say, I accepted it and walked in silence. For now. It gave me the time I needed to organize my thoughts, but did nothing to cool my anger.

I could understand where Alex was coming from, to a degree. He knew far more about this than I did, no question, and if I were in his shoes, I’d be pissed at anyone trying to tell me how to do my job. On the other hand… he’d promised me that he’d never go out alone and he’d attempted to break that promise the very first time it happened.

That made me pause, missing a step.

Was this the very first time? I wracked my brain, going through the cases I’d worked since Alex’s run-in at the park. None of them fit and, to the best of my knowledge, nothing similar had come through in the last few months. That should have been a relief, but having to wonder if my boyfriend had lied to me about this just made everything that much worse.

The walk home didn’t take long, but with nothing but quiet to fill the time, my anger simmered, nearly reaching the boiling point by the time we reached Alex’s front door. His hands shook when he unlocked it and where usually I’d step in, now I waited, letting him get the door open. A wave of cold air followed us inside, sending Louis from his perch on the couch to the bedroom with all the righteous indignation of an inconvenienced cat.

“You have to get ready for work soon, right?” Alex didn’t look at me when he spoke, keeping his back turned and shrugging out of his jacket. He couldn’t have made it any clearer that he wanted to avoid the conversation we needed to have. Unfortunately for him, I was nothing if not stubborn. I flipped on the overhead light, breaking up the darkness of the witching hour.

“It’s not even four in the morning. I think I can manage it in five hours.”

“In that case, I’m going back to bed.”

I stepped around him, cutting off his escape route and leaving us face to face. Near enough, at least, considering he refused to look me in the eye.

“Alex, we need to talk.”

“We don’t, though.” He winced and now that I could properly see him, I could see I was right about the blue cast to his lips.

I muttered a curse, rubbing my hands over my face. “Come on, you need to warm up.”

“Do we need to talk or warm up? Make up your mind,” he snipped, but I refused to let him distract me. Taking his hand, I guided him to the couch. I settled in with my back against the arm and drew him into my lap, his body cradled between my thighs. He didn’t fight, but he didn’t help me, either. He kept a throw blanket on the back of the couch, which usually served as a cat bed, but now I wrapped it tight around Alex in a blanket burrito.

“Once you’re warm, we’ll talk.” As badly as I wanted to clear the air between us, Alex’s safety came first. “How are you feeling? Do we need to go to the hospital?”

For a moment, I didn’t think he was going to answer me, but he finally shook his head. “It’s not bad this time. She barely drew anything from me and I kind of had an idea of what we were walking into, so it wasn’t as shocking as…”

Months later, Alex still struggled to talk about what he’d seen the night he found Andre Marcel. Not that I blamed him. Even after years spent working homicides in Chicago, I’d never become desensitized to the violence humans could inflict on each other.

“I guess that’s the best-case scenario, given the circumstances.” I kept my arms around him just in case, though. I’d carry the memory of Alex in that hospital bed, pale as death and freezing cold, for the rest of my life. No matter how tense things were between us, I would never let him get that bad ever again.

“The worst part was the kids.” He said it so quietly I almost didn’t hear him at first. “There’s never been other people there before. He was just a kid, and I left him there with his dead mom so I could protect myself. What kind of person does that make me?”

I tightened my hold on him, my concern rapidly overriding my anger. “One who’s used to having to hide.”

“That doesn’t make it any better. What if it’d been Misty who woke up and not Levi? I’d have left a toddler all alone just to keep myself from getting arrested. You know who does things like that? Monsters.”

“You are not a monster, Alex,” I said sternly. “You wouldn’t have left her if that’d been the case. I know you. And you wouldn’t have been arrested. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He shifted in my arms, pulling away enough to turn and face me. “How many dead bodies do I have to turn up with before Chief Cornell decides it can’t be a coincidence anymore? She knows about Mrs. Kostek and… and Andre.” He took a quick, stuttering breath. “She knows about Nina, too. You were suspicious of me at first and you were already dating me. How much longer can I do this without getting caught? Part of the reason I never went back to Indianapolis after I left was because I’m already on the radar there after finding Nina. I called in three when I was in college, so now I’m scared to ever go near Seattle again. Am I going to have to leave Lowery’s Crossing, too? Is this stupid curse that I never even asked for going to force me to give up everything again?”

Alex was shaking by the time he fell silent, tears in his eyes and genuine fear in his voice. Any lingering anger I held disappeared in the face of his distress.

“You’re not leaving. This place is your home.” I brushed a single tear from his cheek before it could fall, letting my hand linger on his chilled skin.

“I might not have a choice. I can’t ignore them forever, Donovan. Even if I learn to control it, I’ll still eventually get caught again. Every day, part of me is scared that one of your coworkers is going to show up at the bookstore and take me in again. I can’t live like this forever. It’s too hard.” Alex’s voice broke and he blinked back a fresh round of tears.

How could I not have known he was this scared? There were days I wondered when the chief was going to sit me down and ask more questions about Alex, but so far, she’d let it be. How had it never crossed my mind that Alex would be even more worried about that than I was?

“You’re right. It’s hard, and it’s not fair to you,” I agreed softly. The spark of an idea flickered, but I got the feeling Alex wouldn’t like it at first. There were only two ways out of this situation, though, and I’d be damned if he left his home. “Maybe there’s another way.”

He must have heard something in my tone because he extricated himself from my hold and settled on the other end of the couch, facing me. “Like what?”

“Maybe we could talk to Chief Cornell and tell her the truth?”

Silence met my words. Alex blinked once, twice, before he dropped his shoulders and let out a slow sigh.

“So, my options are to leave town or to tell the truth and have everyone in town think I’m insane?”

“We don’t have to tell the whole town,” I said, shaking my head. At least he wasn’t calling me an idiot yet. “Just the chief. She already knows something strange is going on. Why not give her the rest of the information? That way, you can keep doing what you do without worrying about hiding.”

“You say that like she’s going to believe me. Why the hell would she think that me talking to ghosts makes more sense than me being a secret serial killer or something?”

“I believed you,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, because we were dating . You knew me well enough to know the truth.”

“So does she, though. You said you’ve known her since you were a kid, right? No one in this town would think you hurt anyone, Alex. Even when word got out about what happened back in December, no one thought you’d done anything.”

“This is different!” Alex pushed himself to his feet, some of the anger I’d expected earlier finally breaking free. “It’s one thing for them to believe I wouldn’t hurt anyone. It’s something else entirely for someone who’s basically a stranger to believe I’m a fucking psychic!”

I got up, as well, putting us on a more even keel. “Bev Cornell is a smart woman. Give her some credit. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You’re joking, right?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “The worst thing that could happen is I tell her the truth, she decides I’m clearly unwell and a menace to myself and to others, and she has me locked up in a psych ward to make sure I can’t hurt anyone.”

“That’s not going to happen. She wouldn’t do that.” I wouldn’t let her.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought about my mom and look where that got me.” The raw pain in his voice broke me, but Alex stepped away when I reached for him.

“Alex… I won’t let that happen. You’re not going to get locked up anywhere. I’m just trying to help you.”

“By asking me to put my faith in strangers when my own family turned on me for telling the truth? No, thank you,” he scoffed.

“This time is different,” I insisted. “Will and I know the truth. So do Camille and Raina. None of us thought for one second that you were lying. Will and I can tell her what we saw that day, too, and she knows about the people you found that died of natural causes, in ways that you couldn’t possibly have affected. She’ll believe you.”

Alex looked away, his knuckles going white where he gripped the sleeves of his shirt. He was wavering, so I pushed the slight advantage I’d gained.

“Just think of what that would be like. You could do what needed to be done and one of us would be with you the whole time. We’d get there and Will or I can deal with the body without you ever having to see it. No more anonymous 911 calls, no more having to hide and run all the time. If the chief knew the truth, it could even help us get justice for some of them. We could take what they tell you and actually act on it.”

I should have stopped there. Looking back, I wish I had, but now I was caught up in the idea, thinking of the possibilities. “If the truth is out, just think of the ways we could use what you can do. Every detective in the world wishes we could just talk to the victims and get answers. They’d kill to have a tool like that in the arsenal.”

It was exactly the wrong thing to say. The faint light of hope in Alex’s eyes sputtered and went dark. I wanted to call the words back, to shut my brain down before it got carried away and said those damning words, but it was too late.

“So that’s it?” he asked quietly, his voice completely devoid of emotion. He got to his feet and I scrambled to follow, but he took a step away from me. “You want me to tell the truth so you guys can exploit my power to help yourselves. Awesome.”

“That’s not what I meant. Yeah, it’d be nice to be able to help people, but that’s not—”

“No.” Alex cut me off neatly, shaking his head. “No, I really don’t want to hear whatever justification you’re going to try to come up with.”

“Alex, please.” I held out my hand again and again, he stepped away from me.

“I think you need to leave.”

My blood ran cold. “What?”

“I think you need to leave,” he repeated. “Go home, Donovan.”

“Will you at least let me explain?” I wasn’t above pleading, but I’d crossed the line and we both knew it.

“Not right now, no. I need you to leave. We obviously have different priorities, and I’m going to need some time to figure out what that means for us.”

“Alex…”

“Go. Home.”

Before I could say another word, Alex turned on his heel and walked away. A moment later I heard his bedroom door shut, followed by the faint click of the lock engaging, leaving me standing in the middle of the living room, alone.