Red Light (42 page)

Nothing, absolutely nothing lasted forever—not love, not family, certainly not people. Even the bloody evidence of life and death was washed away with soap and water, run over by cars, flushed sans regard down toilets every day, burned and boiled away, recycled, either by humans or nature.

Tomorrow, I’d go back to work, and as rough and even downright terrifying as it could be sometimes, I never had to worry about anything except whether or not I remembered everything I had to, if the results of my actions would prolong life, promote health, or not. If I forgot something, someone died; if I didn’t, they might anyway, but at least I’d try, I’d give it my best and hope it was good enough, hope it wasn’t me or my partner that got hurt.

If I remembered the schedule correctly, I’d be working with Izzy for the first three days, Diaz for the second two before my three-day break. That would give me a few days to find a place, three days to help Jean move her stuff if she wanted my help, and move my own wherever I was going. I’d apologize to my mom about not being able to help out for the next week or so, but then again, she’d started doing some consulting work, so maybe she wouldn’t need it quite so much for that little bit of time.

I kicked at the crumbling concrete of the pier as I stood at its edge. The tide was out, so the rocks that formed the jetty showed clearly, rising about eight feet above and for another fifty feet out, a long, dark finger into the bay. For the first time in years, I scrambled off the edge and walked along the rocks and broken slabs of concrete, picking my way carefully to the end. I sat on the ledge of the one closest to the water and picked at the loose stones with no conscious thought in my mind as I threw them, one at a time, slowly, deliberately, with intense precision as I aimed for certain waves.

Dig, pick, throw. Dig, pick, throw. I hit a rhythm that worked for me until the sun had fallen low enough in the sky to blind as it blazed back at me from its reflection in the water, the bay now lava gold with black shadowed waves.

I should have never gone to Trace’s. Throw.

I should have never fucking even mentioned living together to Jean, never mind everything else. Throw. That one hurt; the thought of not knowing her parents as Mom Megs and Da, of not being teased by Pat…thinking I had to give up Jean’s smile, the warmth of her arms, the feel of her heart beating next to mine as we breathed the same air. To lose the almost achingly sweet taste of her mouth, the honey and copper of her eyes when they shone on me, hurt even more.

Why did I think I could do anything useful in the medical field? Throw.

I’d thought maybe I’d be something like a knight in a tin can riding around, helping out, and maybe even saving the day every now and again. Throw.

What a fucking joke—I couldn’t even fucking save myself. That was my last rock, and I dug my fingers into the crevice between the boulder and the slab for more.

“I owe you an apology.”

Samantha’s voice was low and carried over the splash of fire that smashed itself into molten globs and white foam on the rocks and the occasional keen of the gulls. I ignored her. Dig, pick, throw.

After Samantha settled on the ledge next to me, I placed a few rocks between us and kept going. Dig, pick, throw.

My peripheral vision caught the edge of her arm as she picked up one of the missiles I’d set aside for her and tossed it right after mine. “You were right,” she said finally. “You saved their lives, you and Jean, and you saved mine, twice.”

I shrugged. “Part of the job.” I tossed another rock.

“It was an almost complete abruption, Tori. She could have, she probably would have bled to death before we even knew what was going on, and the kids…” I could hear her swallow, hard, before she continued, “our kids, they would have died with her. If you hadn’t been right there, knowing what to do—”

“Glad everyone’s okay.” Throw.

“You were a very big part in that,” she said quietly.

Silence reigned as I let my fingers scrabble around for more things to throw.

“I lost my mom when I was two,” Samantha said with a sigh. “I barely remember her, and when my dad…I was a teenager. For a long time I thought the one person besides him who meant more to me than anyone else was dead too, and when that wasn’t true—Tori, I never want to lose anyone again.”

I understood that. My father was worse than dead. He had disowned me, my mother, my sister, and we’d had nothing to do with him for years, while my Nana? She’d been my world, the living rock of my faith until the morning I’d heard a faint cry from the hallway and run out of my room only to trip over her as she lay there, facedown on the floor.

I’d called 911, told them my grandmother wouldn’t wake up from the floor, and recited my address as every schoolchild is taught to do while my mother stared in horrified shock, unable to dial, unable to speak, and I opened the door to let the paramedics in. And then I was gently pushed aside to watch, helpless, powerless, while a terrified seven-year-old Elena huddled in my lap as the crew worked on my grandmother right there in the hallway, unable to stop the process that had already started. She’d never wake up again.

When they pronounced her dead, the medics were kind enough to move her mortal remains carefully, respectfully, back to her bed, and they called the police department before they left. I don’t remember what they said to me as they walked out, but as soon as they had gone, I went to Nana’s room.

Her hands had still been warm, her face still soft, like always, and except for the dark bruise on her forehead where she’d hit the floor, she seemed to be sleeping. I leaned over and kissed the bruise, then crawled onto the bed and put my arm over her. I snuggled my Nana the way I always did, and I told her I loved her, that I would miss her, the last time I could ever remember crying so freely, crying on my Nana, until someone, I don’t remember who, either my aunt or Nina, found and removed me so Nana’s body could be taken to the funeral home.

I didn’t cry again until after the funeral. It had snowed, and I wondered if Nana was unhappy, buried in the cold ground, under the snow, so very far from the warmth of the land she loved and never forgot.

My mother had never been the same.

“I know a little bit about loss, Sam.”

“I know you do, Tori, I know you do. I didn’t realize how much it was going to
hurt
, the first time Nina miscarried, not her, not me, and this whole thing—” Samantha sighed. “I thought if they had no names, if something happened, if we lost them…” Samantha tossed her final rock, wiped her hands, then stood.

“Your niece and your nephew have names, Tori, names of heroes, real flesh-and-blood heroes. Victoria. Victoria Jean Cray, and we’re gonna call her TJ just because we can, and your—”

“What?” I twisted my head over my shoulder to look at her, and Samantha’s smile gleamed at me, a flash of white in the setting sun. That seemed so…so…unreal.
Did she and Nina really name their daughter that?

“Well, I’m pretty sure everyone will simply call them the baby and the babies for the next two years, but eventually…” Her smile grew even wider for a second, then her face turned somber again.

“Your nephew is Kitt Logan, Kitt Logan Cray. Come home, Tori,” Sam said and extended her hand. “That was a shitty thing for me to say and I’m so very sorry. I was angry because I knew you were right. I wasn’t being fair to those little lives you saved or to Nina, and I took it out on you.”

“Wasn’t any of my business.”

“It sure was,” she said firmly. “You saw something, you did something. It’s what you do—and we’re family. Who else would care that much about us?”

She held her other hand out as well. “Nina needs you, the little ones need you,
I
need you, little sister, and Jean’s pretending she’s not worried sick. Come home.”

I took the hands. Samantha pulled me to my feet, then wrapped me in a fierce hug. “I’m sorry. I was an ass, a complete ass.”

“How’d you know where I’d be?” I asked finally. I could feel my heart pound as I returned the embrace.

She chuckled in my shoulder, then let me go. “Where else does anyone on this Island go when they want to think? That and”—she flashed me another grin—“Nina told me.”

I shook my head. Of course Nina knew. She’d been the first one to bring me here when I was a kid; in fact, she’d brought me here the spring following Nana’s funeral.

“Are we okay?” she asked softly.

“Yeah, we’re okay.”

“Oh, this is for you.” Samantha reached down for the small gift bag that she’d set down when she arrived and handed it to me.

“I know…you know a few things about loss,” she said as I reached through the paper and found the smooth plastic contours of a bottle. “I know a few things about scars.”

It was scented almond oil from the Body Shop. When I gave Samantha a puzzled glance, to my surprise, she dropped her eyes and shifted uncomfortably.

“I, uh, I know you’ve… Look. That cut thing, if it’s bothering you, this stuff works great. The marks get softer like, after the first time, and if you use it for a while, well, see?” She showed me her forearm.

Curious, I looked closely. Even with the glare of the falling sun on her skin, I noticed just one faint line that disappeared into the crease of her skin. “I don’t really see anything,” I told her as she took her arm back.

“Yeah, well, that’s the point. They’re gone now, and I’d had them for years before that. So, you know, you might—”

I understood, I got it. “Thanks, Sam.”

“Least I could do,” she said, “least I could do,” and we walked in silence back to the parking lot.

*

Jean waited in our apartment for me and embraced me with all her strength before I could even say hello.

“Tori, don’t ever fucking do that again, please,” she said, her voice thick and raspy. “You scared the shit out of me.” She burrowed her face against my neck and I realized she was crying.

“I’m so sorry, Jean,” I told her and held her just as close, “I’m so sorry for everything.” We stayed in that embrace a little longer, and Jean rubbed my back through my shirt. When her fingers traveled down across my hips, just above my ass, she froze. I grabbed her hand and held it in place before she could move away.

“I am
so
sorry.” She tried to shift her hand. “I didn’t mean—”

“Jean, we have to talk about this,” I told her, still holding her in place. “This is not us.” I deliberately reached for her hip with my free hand and pulled her closer to me. “This,” I whispered against her neck before I pressed my lips against the pulse that suddenly flared, “this is us.”

I heard her inhale sharply. “Tori, I don’t, I mean, you shouldn’t…”

I leaned away to look at her. “Tell me you don’t want me, and baby, I promise we’ll make this easy. You don’t owe me anything, you don’t…” I tried to find the right words. Everyone had the right to pursue happiness. If Jean wasn’t happy, I loved her enough to let her go seek it, whatever or whoever would take her there, no questions, no regrets. I wanted her to know that. “You’re not obligated.”

“Jesus Christ, Tori—no!” She freed her hand and caught my face. Her eyes sparked, turned the color of tea. A single drop shone in the corner of her eye like a diamond, her birthstone, a diamond like the one that was the heart of her ring, the ring I’d asked her to marry me with, the ring she wore as a wedding band. “Tori, I love you. I want you, but it just didn’t seem right, you know?”

“See, that’s why we need to talk.” I smiled and carefully wiped the tear from her eye.

“What didn’t seem right?” I asked as we faced each other on the sofa.

Jean took my hand in hers. “It didn’t seem right for me to want to…to want to touch you, to feel that need, after…everything,” she said earnestly, “especially when I knew what you did remember of…you know.”

I listened. I could understand that. “I’ve felt a little bad over that too,” I admitted, “like maybe I shouldn’t want to, that you might think…I don’t know.” I shook my head.

“Do you think it’s wrong?” I asked. I wanted to know what she really thought, how she really felt. I touched the angle of her cheek. “Does it bother you…that I want to touch you, want to make love with you?”

Jean kissed my palm before she spoke again. “But what if…what if I do something that reminds you of—”

“Trace?” I said, using her name deliberately. I could no longer allow that name to have power over either of us. “Trace Cayden? There is nothing, absolutely nothing, you could do, I promise you,” I told her and cradled her face in my hands, “that could ever,
ever
, remind me of her.” I scooted closer to her on the sofa. “Nothing, angel. Nothing.”

I kissed Jean softly before I teased her lips with my tongue. When she granted me entrance and met me more than halfway, her hands gripping at my waist, I knew, with the same bone-deep certainty I’d known when we made love, how much we belonged to each other, just how much Jean wanted me. I tried to show her exactly how mutual that desire was as she surged against me and pressed me beneath her.

“I miss you,” I said into her ear as we stretched out along the couch. Her leg eased between mine. “I miss your hands, the taste of your skin. I miss the feel of your cunt around me, your dick inside me.” I smoothed my hands along her back until I held her ass, pulling her solidly against me before I reached for her waistband and unsnapped the top button.