Rare (11 page)

Yeah, but what if….

My imagination took over. I turned on my heel, rushed back into the kitchen, and climbed up on the counter to retrieve the locked box hidden on top of the cabinets. I fumbled for the small key on my chain, my heart pounding, and jammed it into the lock. The box clattered open. I scrutinized its contents and relief swept over me, my body sagging with the weight of it. It was all there. The stashed medication was untouched, as it had been since I picked it up from the pharmacy. I kept it in case my worst nightmares ever came true again.

Ash curled up on the floor, his eyes blank, a blade at his wrists….

Stop it.

I let out a long breath and let my racing heart slow down. Way back when Ash had first broken down, he’d spent weeks fluctuating between sleeping all the time and not sleeping at all. He was prescribed medication to help him rest, but the powerful tranquilizers knocked him out for whole days at a time, trapping him in the terrifying dreams that plagued him. After his first bad experience, it was a running battle to get him to take them, but with his history of self-harm and addiction, they had to be hidden. Joe was the only other person with a key, and with him nowhere to be found either, it was all too easy to let my worst fears take over.

I put the box back and slid down from the counter. My feet hit the wooden floor, the sound echoing in the empty apartment, reverberating in my head. I went back into the living room and spun around in a slow circle. The temptation to run out and search the city was strong. I’d ignored my instincts before and I’d nearly lost him. But this time felt different, like I needed to take a breath and see the obvious. A few long minutes later, my gaze fell on the door to the roof… the only place I hadn’t checked. I laughed aloud at my stupidity. Ash loved the roof. No matter how cold it was, he always went up there if he was home alone. I took the tiny staircase in two strides and pushed open the door. Sure enough, there he was, huddled up with his sketchbook on his knees.

We stared at each other for a long moment. His eyes were red-rimmed and subdued, but they were focused and in the present. A far cry from some occasions I’d rushed back to the old place. Of the two of us, I was willing to bet I looked worse.

Ash put his pencil behind his ear and set his work aside. “Where’s the fire?”

“Joe called me.”

“Oh.” He fingered his sketchbook. Nervous, perhaps? I wasn’t quite sure. “What did he say?”

“Not much.” I took a tentative step forward, chancing a subtle peek at the open book, but I saw nothing I hadn’t seen before. “He cut out when I was driving to a call, but he sounded worried. Something I should know?”

Ash shook his head. “Not really. I didn’t mean to freak him out, I….” He stopped and rubbed his hands over his face. “I do need to tell you something, actually.”

“Okay.” I dropped down beside him and stretched out my legs. I was relieved he seemed to be all right, but the heavy tone to his voice worried me. “Is it bad?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I’m either losing my mind again or there’s been a big fuckup somewhere.”

I frowned, watching him chew on his lip. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either, but you know me.”

I sighed. Ash could be evasive when he didn’t want to talk about something. Left up to him, we could talk all night and I’d still be none the wiser. “Start at the beginning.”

He fiddled with his sketchbook again, marking a page with his finger. “Do you remember the night you met Danni?”

“Yeah.” I’d only seen her once since then, but I’d been working a lot. With Ash busy too, sleeping and fucking had become my priorities. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I lied to you that night.”

“You lied?”

“Sort of… what’s it called, indirectly?”

“Does it matter?”

He flinched, but he didn’t look away. “Anyway, I wasn’t honest with you about what was bugging me.”

I thought back to that night. Remembered his pale face and shaky hands. “You said you were tired.”

“I was, but I think it was more than that, because it happened again tonight.”

I shifted and put a little distance between us. Being up on the terrace was distracting. It was totally Ash’s turf. The only reason I ever ventured up here was to do something rude. I was still hoping he’d fuck me up here, but I figured I’d have to wait for the summer now. “You’re not making any sense. I need you to be clear, okay? What happened?”

Ash opened his mouth and then shut it again, organizing the chaos in his mind. I gave him a moment, watching and waiting, until he exhaled a heavy lungful of air and handed me his sketchbook.

With some trepidation, I took it and glanced at the page. It wasn’t the same sketch he’d been working on when I’d come out onto the roof. “You drew Danni? That’s… uh, nice.”

“Look at the date.”

I duly did, but even as I took in the scribbled digits, I couldn’t grasp what he was trying to tell me. “I don’t understand.”

Ash jabbed the date with his finger. “I drew it the day I came back from Philly.”

“What? How…?”

He blanched. Color seeped from his already pale face and his conviction seemed to falter. “I saw her in Philadelphia. She was the girl Ellie thought was my sister.”

Silence. He wasn’t making any sense. “I don’t get it. When did you lie to me? What’s that got to do with this?”

“The night you met her,” Ash said. “I came home and saw her standing in the kitchen. It freaked me out and I ran off. I didn’t come back until she was gone. I’m sorry, Pete. I didn’t know what to do. I thought I was having a shitty day.”

“Maybe you were.” I turned his words over in my head, trying to make sense of them. With Ash, I often failed, because there’d been times when he
had
seen things that weren’t there. “Did the same thing happen tonight? Is that what you meant?”

Ash nodded and hugged his knees to his chest, hiding his face in his arms.

I nudged him. “Hey, come on. Don’t hide from me. What happened?”

Ash raised his head a fraction, enough for his voice not to be muffled. “The usual,” he said flatly. “Joe let himself in and she was with him. I dropped Maggie’s glass plate, scared the hell out of all of us, and bolted. Joe followed me. I heard him calling me, but I couldn’t go back. I know it was wrong.”

“Ash, it wasn’t wrong. Joe will understand.”

Horror flashed into his eyes. “You can’t tell him.”

I caught him as he began to lean away from me, preparing to make his escape. “I won’t, I promise.”

He was rigid under my touch, but he let me tug him back against me. I put my arm around him and picked up the sketchbook again, staring hard at the sketch. Something crossed my mind. I glanced at Ash, asking permission. He nodded, and with more nerves than I’d probably ever understand, I turned the page.

And there she was—the baby he’d drawn all his life without ever knowing who she was. I compared it with the image of the girl he’d seen in Philadelphia, and though I saw no resemblance, my heart began a tattoo in my chest. Ash claimed he didn’t know the identity of the baby, but after combing through his child services files, I had a good idea. Ash’s sister had been taken from his mother long before he was born, but an old photograph had been listed among his personal affects when he was taken into care, a photograph that
could
, in theory, have been the one keepsake his mom had kept of his sister. It was a big reach, and there was no trace, physical or in Ash’s mind, of the photograph now, but….

“Ash,” I said carefully, “I don’t know who that baby is, but this….” I pointed at the mysterious girl from Philadelphia. “
This
is definitely Danni.”

I
TRIED
over and over to get him to talk about it… to even consider the possibility that by some insane coincidence, it could be true… that Danni
could
be the girl named in his child services file as his sister, but he wouldn’t hear it, wouldn’t let me even begin to explain my reasoning, and after a long night, I began to question my own sanity. Shit like that was the stuff of talk shows. It didn’t happen to real people. There had to be a logical explanation, and Ash thought he had one.

After the first night he’d seen Danni, he’d gone to his psychologist and explained everything. Ash had therapy every week—therapy he rarely talked about, and I didn’t ask—but this time he told me how, with Dr. Gilbert’s help, he’d managed to reason that either his eyes were playing tricks on him or Ellie had made a mistake.

But his logic was flawed, because there was a massive fucking elephant he hadn’t considered. You see, there was no reason Danni couldn’t have been in Philly at the same time he and Ellie were. She went to college in Seattle, but her father still lived in Philadelphia. She’d talked about visiting him when I’d met her, so there was
every
chance she could be the girl Ash had seen on the street.

The name thing bothered me too. Ash’s sister was called Daniela. Joe had never told me Danni’s full name, or even what Danni was short for. In my haze of confusion, I couldn’t come up with another alternative besides Daniela, but did that mean
Danni
was Ash’s long-lost sister? Who the hell knew? Not me, but a massive part of me believed she
was
the girl in Ash’s sketch.

I couldn’t tell Ash that, though. He wasn’t in the right state of mind to listen. Instead, I did everything I could to quiet the weirdo jumping up and down in my head and get a grip on reality. Ash was right; he had to be. Either we were both descending into madness together, or Ellie had simply tracked down the wrong girl. I wondered if Ellie’s search for Ash’s sister had ever taken her to Seattle. Or had she followed a paper trail to her place of birth and simply gotten lucky? I didn’t have a clue, but either way, coincidence had a lot to answer for.

And it was a damned incredible coincidence, of that there was no doubt. Fate, the hand of God… whatever. Something had put Danni in Ash’s sights in Philadelphia that day a few months back, even though she’d spent most of the past few years in Seattle. How fucking freakish would it be if she’d chosen that week to visit her dad?

Too freakish for me. I tried to put it to the back of my mind. With Joe and Danni MIA, it wasn’t too hard. I was on nights and every shift was a killer. A week later, I crawled into bed at dawn. Ash was sound asleep, but he rolled over at the right moment and shared some of his much needed warmth. I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried myself in his chest. He smelled so good, I conked out within moments. I almost cried when an incessant knocking at the front door woke me up an hour later.

Grumbling, I wriggled out of Ash’s arms to go and answer it. He was down for the count and it was his day off—no reason for him to be awake. I shuffled through the apartment, yawning, and flung open the front door. Two sets of wide eyes greeted me. Wide, wild eyes. One set dark green and the other a familiar shade of blue….

“Joe? What’s up?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out, Danni pushed past him and walked straight into the apartment. “Where’s Ash?”

Her tone was harsh and her stance aggressive. I blocked her way, defensive. “Asleep. What do you want him for?”

“
Danni
.” Joe’s voice was low, dangerously low, and seemed to carry a warning. “Don’t do this.”

Danni let out an angry hiss of air, keeping her eyes on me. “I want to talk to him.”

I glanced between her and Joe. Something simmered between them, something huge. He hovered in the doorway, one foot in and one foot out, like he wanted to be anywhere but here.

“I’m sorry, Pete,” he said. “I don’t know what’s got into her.”

“Yes, you do,” Danni snapped. “Don’t pretend you can’t see it. I know you can.”

Joe pushed himself from the doorframe and stood in front of her. Danni wasn’t a petite woman. She was tall and statuesque, but with his strong, muscular frame, he towered over her. “Stop it,” he said roughly. “Stop it now. This isn’t fair.”

“Don’t shout at me, Joe. I’m not some timid little woman who’ll roll over. I’m not your mother.”

Joe growled and ran his hands through his hair. “
Damn
it, Danni.”

I stepped between them, raising my hands in a placating gesture. “Enough, both of you. I don’t care what you want with Ash, you’re not going anywhere near him like this.”

Danni cut her eyes at Joe, but when she looked back at me, all the anger in her face seemed to evaporate. “Pete, I’m sorry. I just want to talk to….”

Her voice faded away. I didn’t have to look to know Ash had joined us.

S
INCE
THE
first morning he’d ever raised his head from my pillow, I’d always loved gazing at Ash when he’d just woken up. He wasn’t a morning person. Getting out of bed was something he did on autopilot, and he often wasn’t fully awake before midday. I used to wonder how he managed to work until he confessed that he only scheduled designs he could do in his sleep before lunch.

I stared at him as he stood in the doorway of the living room. His hair was tousled, his blue eyes sleepy. The light scruff on his chin belied the youth in his face. He was beautiful, and like so many times before, I was under his spell.

Ash broke his unwitting hold over me. He tore his gaze from mine and looked beyond me. He saw Danni and his face hardened. “Why are you here?”

Danni stepped forward before I could stop her. “I know you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

“
No
, you don’t.”

Joe cleared his throat. I looked at him, surprised to find him glaring at Ash. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I think it’s time someone filled me in. Do you two know each other, or what?”

The silence was deafening. Ash glowered at Joe, his eyes hard as steel and colder than I’d ever seen them. Even from a few feet away, I could see his set jaw and too-still chest. He was defensive, feeding off the aggression coming from Joe, and that meant he was volatile. I needed to calm things down, fast.